Pretty Daring

by Jenn Hype

  “What are you doing?” I cursed myself inwardly when my voice came out shaky. CJ’s smirk grew.

  “Finding out for myself just how good you are.”

  “Uhhh, no thanks. I happen to like my new job, and I’m pretty sure punching my boss is a good way to get fired.”

  “What makes you think you’d actually be able to get a punch in?”

  His taunt was almost enough to spark the competitiveness in me. Almost. The reality of the situation was too heavy for me to ignore, though. No matter what he said or how he acted, I knew CJ didn’t want me there. I wasn’t going to give him any ammunition. Annoying him was one thing. Punching him? Just plain stupid.

  “I know I could hit you, but that’s beside the point.”

  After rolling his sleeves to his elbows, CJ wrapped his right hand before moving on to the left. He quirked a challenging eyebrow at me. So damn confident. His ability to wordlessly throw down the gauntlet sparked the stubborn side of me back to life. He wanted me to show him how well I could fight? Screw it. He asked for it, so when I made an ass out of him, he couldn’t be pissed.

  I’d gotten in a few hits when I was sparring with Liam. Yes, that was partially because he was holding back, but I had been, too. I hadn’t put all my muscle into it. Neither of us wanted to draw blood. It was playful. A ruse to get under CJ’s skin. The possibility of CJ wanting to take a turn on the mats himself had never even crossed my mind. What was his angle here? To see if he could intimidate me? To see if I could take as much as I dished out?

  Maybe my being in cahoots with his mom in some hair-brained scheme was screwing with my head. I didn’t normally play games. I was a straight shooter, and there were moments when I was going well out of my way to antagonize CJ that I felt like I was being dishonest.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I said when he finished wrapping his hands and made his way over to me. “You can’t fire me for kicking your ass when you asked for it.”

  He didn’t say anything. Just toed off his shoes, slipped off his socks and stepped onto the mat. His bare feet were distracting. Men’s feet should not be sexy. CJ’s were.

  “You afraid?” I teased, proud when my voice came out more confident than I was suddenly feeling.

  CJ gave me a taunting grin. “You stalling?”

  My eyes narrowed. Secretly, though, I was excited. Because I could tell CJ was excited. He was doing his best to hide it, but I knew his hopping lightly on his feet and shaking out his arms and neck wasn’t for show.

  I pulled my fists up to block my face. CJ’s seriousness was making me a little nervous. He was almost twice my size. If he didn’t hold back like Liam had, then I didn’t stand a chance.

  We bumped fists and began circling each other. He might have had a hundred pounds and several inches on me, but I was fast. Like so many men I’d sparred with before him, he assumed every punch I threw would be easily blocked. Or if it did make contact, it wouldn’t hurt.

  Less than a minute later, I proved how wrong that assumption was by landing a punch square in the middle of his torso. I’d held back enough for it to be more of a warning punch than anything. No, I wouldn’t be taking him down or giving him any serious injuries, but if he wasn’t careful, he’d at least be walking away with several bruises.

  He heeded my warning. Pulling himself in tighter, his form improving. The change in his stance was dramatic and made it a lot harder for me to make contact again. I remained on the offensive, sticking to only using my arms as I continued to circle around him on the mat. He’d yet to even try to swing at me. I was getting annoyed. I may as well have been fighting a punching bag if he wasn’t going to fight back. So I brought my legs into the picture. I threw out my left arm, which he blocked easily, but he hadn’t predicted my right leg to connect with his ribs.

  It knocked the wind out of him for a couple seconds, and the glare he aimed at me when he stood upright again made me smile. For the first time since we started the fight, his eyes took on the light of intensity. For some weird as hell reason, that comforted me. When he was all calm and collected, I didn’t know what to do. Something about seeing him losing his tight grip on his control settled my nerves. Kinda messed up that I felt better when CJ was on the brink of losing it, eh?

  The next few times he blocked my punches, he was a little rougher than before. So I started swinging harder. Each time one of us became more aggressive, the other would, too. So when I got a jab into his shoulder and brought my knee up, trying to get his stomach again, he grabbed my leg instead of blocking it. I went down quick, landing flat on my back. But I was already kicking my legs up into the air, about to jump back to my feet when he stepped toward me. He stumbled a little, trying to dodge my foot, so instead of standing up, I swung my leg around and hooked it behind his knee.

  Watching CJ go down was like watching a massive tree falling in the middle of the forest. His eyes went so wide it was comical.

  Before he even had time to recover, I jumped on top of him, straddling his waist and pinning his arms above his head. It was meant to be funny. To show that I’d won. I realized my mistake the second his eyes connected with mine. The heat in them wiped the smile from my face. In case I was confused as to what kind of heat it was, something hard twitched underneath me, pressing into my ass. CJ ripped his hands from my grip and dug his fingertips into the flesh of my thighs. It sent an electric current straight from his fingers to my clit.

  I swear to you, it was not intentional when my hips rolled. It was like the throbbing in my vagina had shut down my brain and my body was just reacting. When the hardness in his pants pressed against the exact right place, my eyes shuttered closed and a low groan rattled CJ’s chest. His hands inched upwards each time I ground myself down. I was afraid to open my eyes. Afraid of what I’d find when I looked at him again.

  Even in my teenage years, dry humping had never been so enjoyable. Within seconds, he had me so close to the edge I was afraid I would explode right there on top of my boss, my third day on the job. That fear, combined with the tips of his fingers reaching the line of my panties was enough to force my eyes to open. I thought it would bring me back to reality. That looking at him would remind me that this wasn’t a dream and give me the strength to jump off of him.

  Instead of moving away, I found myself leaning forward. Slowly, inch by inch, my chest lowered until it was flush with his. I rolled my hips again, shuddering when the first warning of orgasm shot through me. CJ’s hot breath fanned across my face. My lips tingled. I wanted to see if he tasted as minty as his breath smelled. Half an inch was all it took and our lips met with a ghost of a kiss.

  Then a throat cleared.

  I didn’t have to look over to know it was Liam. Or to know he was wearing a shit-eating grin. CJ’s frown spoke volumes. As annoyed as I was to be interrupted when I was seconds away from an orgasm, it still took everything in me not to laugh at being caught grinding my boss.

  CJ pushed me off of him, stood and adjusted himself then stormed past Liam without so much as a word or a backward glance. Once the door to the stairwell closed behind him, Liam and I looked at each other. And we lost it. Our laughs only got louder when we heard CJ yell through the wall.

  “I can still fucking hear you!”

  Wiping away tears, I skipped the shower and jogged up the stairs to CJ. I wanted to make sure we were okay. As funny as I found the situation, I very seriously doubted he felt the same way. His office door was closed. I probably should have knocked, but barging into his personal space was what had gotten me the job in the first place. Why stop now?

  “Don’t,” he ordered as soon as I had one foot in the door. It took me a second to comprehend what he was saying, seeing as how he was mostly shirtless. He was turned away from me, but I still had a good enough angle to be able to see his sculpted chest and very defined abs. I think he said something else to me, but I was too entranced to do anything but drool. Well, I may have smacked my lips and made some slurping sounds. I c
ould practically feel him rolling his eyes at me. Though CJ didn’t seem like the eye-rolling type. It didn’t matter. He could be whatever type of anything he wanted to be so long as he let me stare at his bare chest all day.

  “See something you like?” He asked as he fastened the last button of the offensive fabric covering up the masterpiece that was CJ’s upper body.

  Pouting, I mock glared at him. “Of course I did. Your body is magnificent. I would work a lot harder if you would just forgo the shirt from now on.” He snickered, then raised an eyebrow at me when I tried to walk on Jell-O legs. “What? I’m only human. Boss or not, no woman could be this close to all of that,” I gestured to his chest, “without being affected.”

  I picked up his discarded shirt, which was sweaty and smelled like his cologne. The mix was so masculine, I might have let out a little moan when I blatantly put it to my face and took a big sniff.

  “I’ll take this and get it cleaned for you,” I said, holding the shirt up. I kept the part where I was going to continue sniffing the hell out of it first to myself. “Okay if I take a shower real quick? I brought a change of clothes,” I stopped and asked in the doorway. His eyebrows were furrowed, his lips turning down into an adorable frown.

  “You know nothing can happen between us, right? I mean, it’s not that I don’t find you attractive. Er, not saying that I do find you attractive. I just mean, I’m your boss and-”

  I laughed. Not a ha-ha laugh, but an, oh-my-gosh-please-stop-talking laugh. Something I did when someone was about to say or do something that I knew would wind up with my feelings being hurt. I didn’t like to be sad - who did? Hearing him say that our almost-kiss was a mistake was the last thing I wanted to hear right then. Fighting my attraction to him was hard enough. If he outright rejected me, it would make it so much harder to keep up with the overly-intrusive behavior that was supposed to be bringing back to life a man supposedly living inside a protective shell.

  “No worries, Mr. Jade,” I said quickly with a forced smile, shutting the door a little too roughly behind me so he couldn’t say anything else.

  For the rest of the day, and the following three days, I didn’t see CJ once. Not at work, not at our apartment building, and from what I could tell, he hadn’t even been home. I may or may not have used a cup and pressed my ear against our joint wall and listened for an inexcusably long amount of time. I was well on my way to becoming the next member of Stalkers Anonymous. Other than a couple emails where CJ gave me a few tasks to do in his absence, I hadn’t talked to him at all. Even those communications had been short and to the point, despite my efforts to turn them into a conversation. The one time I tried to text him, he threatened to block my phone number.

  Since he was being such an ass and obviously avoiding me, and since I had it on good authority that he rarely ever stayed out of the office for so long, I took it upon myself to do a few other tasks not assigned to me.

  Like signing CJ up for Facebook and Twitter. Apparently he was adamantly opposed to any and all forms of social media. By the time he figured out what I’d done, it’d be too late. He would be beyond furious, but lessons had to be taught. This lesson? Don’t leave your new assistant unsupervised because you’re too much of a wuss to face your attraction to her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CJ

  “A woman should soften but not weaken a man.”

  - Sigmund Freud

  You know those typical, cliche families who get together every Sunday night for a meal at their mom’s after all the kids are grown and moved out? My family is one of those. I both loved and hated that about them. Loved, because I truly loved my parents and my two nosey, forever meddling sisters. Hated, because they all used that time to try and force me to open up.

  They’d long ago forgone the subtle approach and had long since started flat-out making their intentions known. No matter how intrusive the questions or how sneaky their tactics, it never worked. On some level I felt bad about it. I knew they had good intentions and that they wanted me to be happy. But I also knew their motives were fueled by selfish reasons, too. It made them uncomfortable and sad to see me so closed off. They wanted the laid-back, easy-going version of myself to reassure them and make things easier.

  Life was just more complicated than that. I couldn’t flip a switch and unsee all the horrors I’d lived through. I couldn’t push a button and go back in time to where I could make better decisions. The person I’d become couldn’t just be undone. And I couldn’t fake my own happiness just to ease their conscience. My demons were my own. Mine to hold on to, mine to let go. Mine to decide what to do with. As much as I wished I could pretend I was okay just to provide everyone else with the illusion of happiness, I couldn’t.

  And it wasn’t that I had something dark inside; I’d just become a realist. Fighting overseas wasn’t even the main reason for the changes in myself, though it had definitely been a solid factor. It was an accumulation of everything.

  Watching my sister go through a horrible breakup after finding her fiancé in bed with her best friend. Being witness to the destruction of a good man who became too obsessed with greed and power. Seeing the toll it took on a strong woman when drugs went from recreational to the only thing that mattered. Standing by as my mom gave up her life to care for my dad after he had his stroke.

  Those were only a handful of the types of horrible things that happened on a daily basis to a lot of good people. Most everyone turned a blind eye because it was easier to focus on the good and ignore the bad. I couldn’t do that. I was never an onlooker who just observed instead of getting involved. The military was easier in a way than real life, even when you were being actively shot at in the middle of a desert and had no idea whether or not you’d ever get to see your family again.

  For all its unpredictability, the military also provided structure. You might not know what you were getting yourself into when you stepped onto enemy territory, but you were prepared for whatever outcome awaited. You were given the proper training and tools to be able to handle any situation. I had a purpose, a goal. I knew where I stood and what my job was.

  Soldiers would often fantasize about going home while they were sleeping on a cot in thousand-degree weather where you can’t see past your hand half the time because of all the sand. It brought them comfort, calling to mind what they would be returning to; the familiarity of their own bed, long hot showers in their own private bathrooms. I’d heard my brothers in arms talk about them frequently. They looked longingly at pictures of loved ones waiting for them back home. They talked about all the things they couldn’t wait to do, like barbecue in their backyard. It was the simple things they dreamed of doing again when they had the chance.

  And while I understood it, I’d never felt that way.

  Even the times when I was younger and I would joke around and do stupid shit with my friends, my heart wasn’t in it. There were people out there hurting, starving, suffering. While my buddies were breaking into their parents’ liquor cabinets so they could get drunk for no damn reason, I went along and played my part, but my mind was always somewhere else. I knew there had to be more to life than being irresponsible and selfish. And to me, anything short of living your life to help others was selfish. No, I didn’t fault anyone else for not feeling the same way, but my conscience wouldn’t allow me to ever really be in the moment.

  Until I turned eighteen, I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I volunteered for local organizations and did things for my community, but my reach was small. Crazy as it sounds, not having a choice made things easier for me. Knowing my life wasn’t really my own until I graduated high school made things like participating in sports and parties acceptable choices. But then senior year I had to make my own choice. What was I going to do once I was an adult? Up until that point, I had a clear set of rules I had to follow.

  I had to get good grades, stay out of trouble, do my chores, watch out for my sisters, respect my elders and eat my vegetables. The town viewed
me as their golden boy. I excelled in school and athletics and I never acted out. Because that’s who I was supposed to be. I had no identity once I became old enough to be considered an adult. No one could tell me what college to go to, what career path to choose, what kind of person to be on my own. And it scared the shit out of me.

  So I joined the military. For the first time, my parents weren’t unwaveringly in support of something I did. They worried for my safety and the possibility of my having to go to war. I worried for my sanity, knowing if I didn’t have guidance, I would be lost in the world.

  Of course, I never voiced any of this. Even after I was injured and honorably discharged from the military, I never spoke a word of my fears. What kind of badass soldier just went around talking about being scared shitless? I fought for the freedom of others, yet knew nothing of what to do with my own. I had no safety net. No fallback plan. After surgery on my leg, I went through months of physical therapy to learn how to work my new prosthetic, but after that? I could do whatever I wanted. Most people would kill for that opportunity.

  I wanted to hide like a fucking coward.

  Instead, I found purpose. I put to use my experience from therapy and recovery by working with other wounded soldiers who were much worse off than me. It wound up being my saving grace. They thought I was helping them by being there for support, that volunteering my free time made me some kind of saint. When truthfully, they were the ones helping me. By trying to encourage a positive outlook to them, it rubbed off on me. It grounded me, ,put my priorities back into perspective.

  Jade Securities had turned out to be the best thing to ever happen to me. I was helping citizens stay safe while simultaneously giving jobs to men who wanted that same sense of purpose but were unable to find it otherwise.