by P. A. Jones
"How the fuck did you get inside?" I snapped. I hated people who came to my office without advance notice. Only one person could walk in like that, my boss. And that woman wasn't my boss. I was already frustrated with myself; I just wish I could see my secretary so I could fire her on the spot.
"I need your help." Her voice was petite, but sweet, and I didn't recognize it. I knew her eyes, but I couldn't recognize her voice. That means I have seen her somewhere recently. But where?
"Jenna, where are you?" I peered outside to find my secretary.
"I told her that your boss, Justin, called her into the conference room."
"What? Why did you tell her that? And how the hell do you know Justin?"
"Isn't his name there on the wall?" she looked at the elevator corridor.
"Damn, you are smart and I don't like smart people." I hated that she tricked my secretary. I should hire someone smarter than Jenna. "Now get out. I don't have time for your shit." I snapped again.
"No, please don't do this to me." She started sobbing.
"Now you are getting on my nerves."
"Mark, please. You have to listen to me." Her voice rose steeply.
"Oh fuck, stop this drama, please. Contact the cops, I'm not on public duty here." Why the hell was she here, and who was she? Her scarf was still covering her face and I couldn't guess where I had seen those eyes.
"Please, Mark, I came here with high hopes," her hands darted to her scarf, which she dropped down from her face. I had seen that face in today's newspaper. She was being charged with an insider trading case, and she was trending on Twitter all morning. Five billion dollar insider trading, that is huge number.
"You’re Genna, aren't you? The lady who traded five billion dollars? Wow, you have real guts to come here. I know cops are searching for you everywhere. I should just turn you in." She was smart, brave and naive. She had walked into a lawyer's office when she was wanted for such a high profile case.
"Mark, I'm not guilty. Please, listen to me. I need your help." She started sobbing again.
"Take it as a favor, Genna, I'm not calling the cops right away. Go and find some other lawyer who you can trust with your shit. I don't have time for this."
"But Mark, we should at least hear her side of the story." Zoe walked in. "I think she needs our help."
Not her again. Where is my fucking secretary Tina, how could she just let anyone walk in?
"Zoe, not now," My voice raised for a moment.
She looked at the woman for and walked in front of me. "Mark, please. At least let's listen to her story and then make the decision. She was crying on the bus as well." Her eyes narrowed.
I bit my lip. Now Zoe was getting on my nerves. I was already angry at her, my secretary and that woman. And Zoe was still pushing me. "Zoe, I don't care what you think about her, but I can't help her." The usual me spoke. "If I'm not clear, you can record that and listen to it over and over a hundred times."
"Mark, just this once." Zoe pleaded again.
I couldn't control myself any more. I grabbed her arms and pinned her against the nearby wall. "When I said I don't want to help her, I meant it. I don't care what fucking soft spot you have for her." My face was an inch away from hers and her red, bold lips were calling me. I remember the way her lips were pressed on mine a couple nights back, the way they had wrapped around my cock. Her scent was drawing me in. Without any thought, I crashed my lips onto hers.
Chapter 7
Mark
She tasted like a fresh strawberry out of the garden, maybe it was her morning freshness. Damn, she tasted better every time I sucked on those red, bold lips. My gut was aching for more. I sucked them harder, taking her lower lip in between my teeth and biting it lightly. The more I tasted those lips, the more craving I had for them.
My cock jumped against my trousers. Damn, I had fucked her in between, I had bitten those lips, I had tasted those lips until they were red with blood, but not like this. Not like Mark would do. When I sucked those lips as Mr. M, I was different; I was a stranger to her. Hell, she was a stranger to me as well. But kissing her in the office in front of a woman, this was different and a little adventurous.
She can go to HR and file a sexual harassment complaint against me.
Fuck HR, I don't care what she does. I just want to fuck her in this damn office.
Her scent was making me crazy. My hands moved onto her lower back, slowly moving towards her ass.
Walk away Zoe or I will fuck you right here, in front of this woman.
"Mark." She pushed me away. But before that I saw a hint of lust in those beautiful blue eyes. I guess she liked it somewhere inside her. I knew that look; she gave me that look whenever I kissed her as Mr. M.
Fuck, I now realized what I just did. It was insane to kiss her like this. What was I thinking when I kissed her? Well, I wasn't thinking and that was the reason I had kissed her so straight and direct.
"Zoe," I realized what I just did. Wow, how could she smell so beautiful? She was still standing inches away from me. I could bend my head and kiss her again, her lips were calling me to do that. Her chest raised and lowered rapidly. Her heart must have been racing like mine was.
She looked at me with hurt eyes and walked out.
“Zoe, please." A sudden rush of fear grabbed at my heart, I was going to lose her. I wasn't inside the hotel room wearing a mask. I was her boss and she didn't expect that from me. She was not my girlfriend nor had we had any intimate moments before. I was a complete fool to kiss her like that.
But I want to kiss you again, Zoe.
She was making me crazy. I could have her as Mr. M, but I wanted her like this, the real me. Fuck, what am I doing? I can't have a serious relationship with her. No I can't. But what about the way she gets into my head whenever I think about her? What about the quivers she gives to my cock when I think about those perky tits and slender legs? Damn, I could still feel the soft touch of her lips all over my cock.
"That was awkward." Genna spoke.
"Yes, that was indeed." I held onto my chair for a moment, I needed to stabilize. The kiss pushed me over the edge, "I kissed her in the office." I whispered to myself.
"I think she enjoyed it. She must have had that in the back of her mind. Girls are so crazy sometimes."
"What?" my neck jerked up. What was she saying? I was damn sure that Zoe went to the HR to complain about me. Where else would she go?
"The way her hand went behind your neck to suck you in, my guess is that she enjoyed it too."
"Why did she push me away then?"
"You forgot how much time she spent locking her lips with you. Almost a full minute." Genna was smiling now.
"One minute? Was it so long? I felt like it was over in a fraction of a second."
"Trust me; I was standing here, watching you two kiss like you were a couple. Was that your first kiss?”
"Not actually. But—" I was about to speak about my little adventures as Mr. M. "Why are you still here?" She wasn't my friend who needed to know what was going on with my life.
"I told you, Mr. Peterson. I need your help."
"Come on, give me a break. Wasn't I clear that I won't help you? You are a bloody thief. Why would I help you?"
"Because you helped one of my friends: Megan."
"Megan? Jay Scott's wife?" I was surprised to hear her name. I helped out in a big case against her. She was charged for attempted murder, but that was a year ago. "Yes, we know each other from L.A. I moved here six months back. When I got in this trouble, she told me to contact you.”
It was surprising for a moment. But after Jay and Megan moved to Los Angeles., they could have met Genna there. It was possible and I could easily verify that. A call to Jay and everything would be clear.
"Sit down. We need to talk." I pointed to the chair next to mine. “Megan's friend means you are my friend and I will do whatever I can.” "It started from the day I walked into the New York office." She began. She was working fo
r a well known trading firm, Smith and Johnson's. And from my own experience I knew they were good. Too good, actually; especially their Manhattan division which was well known for big trading. But as Genna told me her story, I got to know the reason behind it. The New York office was very competitive. They never hired new people into the New York office, they just chose from other divisions. You had to have cleared hundreds of million dollar trades just to think about getting inside it. On top of that you would need to have the recommendation from fifteen top clients and then your manager had to make a special case for you. Apparently, Genna was a hard worker and had been with Smith and Johnson for the last five years. All those years of struggle put her into the Manhattan office this year.
"How do you trade?" I asked when she filled me with her back story. If I was going to fight for her, I needed to know everything she could tell me.
"We have a chit system. We get red-colored chits every time the market opens. We have to study them and recommend the best option to our clients. That day I had a yellow chit present on my desk. It had some merging information which wasn't out in the market. I blindly followed it for some unknown hunch. It was my gut feeling actually, and the same news hit the market in the evening and the trade I had done was the biggest one in the New York office. I was so happy until the cops came and started asking me all sorts of questions the next day."
"Where is that chit?"
"I don't know. I threw it away once I was done. When the news hit the market for the merger, the stocks started climbing and I got afraid."
"So you knew then it was an insider trading dilemma. You knew that you were in trouble." My voice rose automatically.
"But we get those tips every day."
"Why did you buy so many shares that day, Genna? Did you know about the merger before the day started? And if you knew that, you should have asked your supervisor about it before trading the shares."
"I tried, but he wasn't there. And when I checked, the shares were hanging on a low price, so I thought I should just take the risk."
"So it was your mistake as well, Genna. If you had used your brains, you could have avoided the trade."
"But you don't understand the pressure on me. If you don't perform, you are out and I mean out of the company." She started sobbing hard.
"Listen, Genna..........."
"Mark, why are you making her cry again? If you are not taking her case, you should let her walk away." It was Zoe's voice. My eyes jumped to the direction of the sound. Zoë was standing at the door. Her face was clear of emotions, like nothing between us had happened.
"Who told you we are not taking her case? I need to get everything out of her before I stand in front of the judge."
"Then I think I have something that will help you." She handed me a printout.
My eyes rolled as I read the paper. It was quite an unexpected help.
Chapter 8
Zoe
"Did you find this in the past half-hour?" Mark's eyes were widened with the surprise.
"Yes. Will it be helpful?"
"I bet it will be. But it can't make the whole case out of it. We need to find more evidence to settle this."
"Why do we need to settle this?"
"Because that's the only way we can get some money for Genna."
"What's wrong with winning the case against them and just getting her clean?" I couldn't understand why he now wanted to take on this case and on top of that his lips were moving fast and reminding me of the kiss we had just shared.
"Genna, you are guilty of the trading. And there is no way out of that. You might have got the cheat as a setup, but still the trade was done by you. And no judge would overlook that."
I watched Genna tremble in fear. "I thought you were going to take the case." Her eyes were filled with hope and fear at the same time.
"Yes, I am. And we are going to settle this out of the court, making sure that you get an early retirement benefit out of this and a reduced jail time."
"Jail time," Genna's fingers dug inside the chair hand.
"Yes, you can ask any lawyer in New York, he would not take your case and if he did take it, he would only get you a minimum five years in jail.
"Five years?" Now it was me who shouted out in astonishment.
"Don't worry, we’ll find some way out of this." Mark replied. He was firm. "Genna, you need to go directly to the cops now. We don't want you to be declared as a fugitive. If they ask you where you were, tell them you were here discussing your options with your lawyer." Mark smiled at her. His smile was a godsend. It always made an impact on the person he gave it to. It was like getting assurance from someone in your family that they had your back. And working with him for almost two weeks, I had learned one thing, when Mark says he’s got your back, he meant it.
Genna tried to smile, but she couldn't. She struggled to get up from the chair. I guess the jail thing was pressing on her pretty hard. I would be in the same condition if I were in her place. I walked over to her and helped her get out of the chair. I walked with her to the elevator door.
"Mark will find a way, don't worry." I tried to assure her.
Her eyes darted to me. Fear was dripping from them. But those were not guilty eyes. I can recognize guilt very easily and she was not guilty.
"I hope so." She replied with sadness in her voice. It felt my heart breaking. I don't know why, but I had felt attached to her from the moment I saw her crying in the bus. Some people leave a long lasting effect on you.
"Don't worry. Go straight to the cops and tell them exactly what Mark has said to you."
She nodded and disappeared in the lift.
I turned back. I'd have to face Mark now, after that kiss. It gave me goose bumps when I thought about it, it was passionate and intimidating. Actually, I enjoyed it. But why did I? I should have slapped him and walked away from there, but instead I enjoyed the kiss entirely too long. Yes, I had let him kiss me for almost a minute. I don't know why I did it, but it was done and I am almost equally guilty as he for not pulling away. And instead of going straight to HR I went to the restroom and stood in front of the mirror imagining his kiss and his full lips.
Wow, what did you do to me Mark?
But the question remains, why did I enjoy his kiss? Oh god, what is happening with my life? First, I fucked a stranger twice and let myself get a little too involved with that masked man. He was good in terms of sex, but I wanted more from him. But kissing Mark, when I didn't even like him that much? Or did I? Now, because of that kiss I was thinking about him in a different way.
Oh God, no, I can't like him. I can only concentrate on one thing and that is my career. And I have Mr. M to kiss and have sex with. I decided I wasn’t going to care about what Mark said or thought about me—it was a onetime fluke.
"Zoe," His eyes darted up as soon I entered his office.
"Hi, Mark. About the kiss—" I took a deep breath. I needed to clear things up with him. It was essential.
"Yes, I was going to ask about that…"
I cut off his words. "Yes, it was a fluke, maybe you had so much anger burning inside you that you kissed me. Let's forget it and focus on our work." I said everything in one go, without taking a break. It was burning inside my chest and I had to get it out.
His face darkened for a moment, like he expected something else to come from my mouth. But it was for a moment only, soon, his usual demeanor returned to his face. "Yes, it was something like that. I'm sorry."
A hint of pain bit my heart when he said he was sorry. Why, I didn't know, maybe because I had really enjoyed that kiss. It was soft and passionate at the same time.
"Anyway, we have lots of work ahead as we have two cases now. And you are going to work solely on the merger. I'll take care of Genna's case.”
"Merger case? I thought you would let me work on Genna’s. Can you please?" The thoughts of my dad finding out about me surfaced in my mind again. I couldn't let that happen and a safer way was to work on the Genna'
s case and let Mark handle the merger.
"If I'm not wrong, I'm your boss. And I decide what you get to work on." He had a smirk on his face. The passionate Mark I had seen a few minutes back was gone from the room and my boss was back. "And if you can't work on this one, the door is open." His words hit me like a bullet. Damn, he was back to being mean and rude.
Chapter 9
Mark
"It was a fluke."
Zoe's words pierced my mind like a blade saw cutting me in half. So she thought it was an error. It broke my heart somewhere deep down. Fuck, she is making me crazy again. Being near her was a torture in itself. What should I do to get rid of her? I wish I could just fire her, but that would only break my heart more. I was getting tormented by my own feelings again and again.
The more I saw her, the more attracted to her I got. And the kiss was the final step in that process. Goddamn, I was cursing those lips for being too hard to resist. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could see her lips kissing my lips. And the other times those bold red lips were wrapped around my cock.
But it's not good. I need to get over her. I can't work like this. I wouldn't be able to win a single case with her around me. I'll keep thinking about her irresistible body. God, sex was a need in my life before I met her, but she was quickly making it a necessity.
I cleared my mind of her. I was sure she would be late to the office today, because I asked her to work on the merger case as much as she could. That would have taken her most of the night, because it was complex. Good, I can do some work on Genna’s case till then.
As usual my secretary was not at her desk. I really should fire her for not being a help to me. "I'm going to fire her today.” I whispered as I walked in my office.
Well, well, she was sitting on my chair looking out of the window. I could see her hair scattered on the back of the chair. She was relaxing, watching the morning traffic. She must have thought that I would be late and that she was the boss for the day. The veins on my forehead popped out. I hated someone who took advantage of me. My nostrils flared up, it was her last day in my office for sure.