by Demi Donovan
“Because of that fancy Benz that drove you off and the slick motherfucker who drove it. So, who is he, an uncle or something? Are you polishing his cock for a chance to wear pretty things?”
My mouth gapes open as he says that. I can’t believe the shit he’s spewing, even though on some level, he has my number. I sort of wish Parker and I were more than we are and I’ve barely spent a couple of days with him.
“It’s none of your business, Mark,” I tell him finally, shaking my head and wrapping my arm around myself. It’s cold out here. “Look, I think this has been a long time coming and now it’s time. I won’t be home for a while and I think we’re over. I’m really thankful for all the time we got to spend together and I’m glad you were in my life, but I think we’re heading down different paths now.”
I don’t add that I think he symbolizes a lot of things about myself that I’d like to change. It’s not his fault, I should have realized that there was no real chemistry between us ages ago, but I clung to him like a lifeline.
There’s a long silence over the line.
“Mark? Did you hear me?” I ask.
“Are you… are you fucking dumping me?”
His voice is full of outrage and I stand up straighter at the sound. For a moment, I think he sounds hurt.
“Mark… Don’t say it like that. We were never really together, remember? That’s what you said, that you wanted your freedom. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“Shut the fuck up,” he hisses. “You don’t dump me, sweetie, I dump you. And I’m not done with you. I think you have a lot more to offer me and I’m not through with you until I get what’s coming to me, you hear me?”
He doesn’t give me a chance to answer before he finishes the call. I stand there, stunned, staring at the aged smartphone in my palm. It still has notifications for fifteen missed calls on the screen, all from Mark. I take a breath and it seems to barely fill my lungs.
I’m fucking everything up and that’s the last thing I want to do. I don’t want to hurt anyone, not Mark, not Parker, not Sawyer… though Sawyer doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to get hurt by anything someone like me could do. Still, the images of him having his way with my in the copy room fill my brain far too eagerly. It’s a memory I won’t soon forget.
“Okay, you can do this,” I tell myself, a part of me relieved that I had this conversation with Mark.
I head back into the restaurant, assuring myself that Mark will calm down and all of this will blow over. When I slide into my seat, my dessert looks just as good and Parker looks even better somehow. I don’t deserve him.
“Good talk?”
“Difficult one,” I shrug. “But I’m glad I had it.”
“Life’s not supposed to be easy,” Parker says sagely, taking a sip of his coffee.
“Is that a motto to live by?” I ask with a laugh.
“A morose one, sure.”
I don’t know, life sort of seems easier to deal with when I’m around Parker. Maybe he has it wrong.
Nine
Parker
I meant to send Cassie home hours ago, but it’s 8:00 p.m. and she’s still sitting at her desk as Sawyer and I get out of our last meeting of the night. I’m not done with work, not by a long shot, but at least I don’t have anything else on my agenda and now I can focus on getting something actually done.
Though I’m not certain how that’s supposed to happen when Cassie is right in the middle of the view from my office. I’m beginning to question my decision on having her so close. It was supposed to be so I could keep an eye on her and putting her right in Sawyer’s path was meant to be something of a move to make him pay less attention to her.
Now that we’re both walking toward my office and Sawyer’s attention is squarely on Cassie, I feel like I’ve made a grave mistake on both counts.
“So, Parker, she’s been sitting here for three days now and you’re yet to properly introduce us,” Sawyer says, his hands smugly shoved into his pockets as we both come to a stop before her desk.
The time has crept by painfully slowly despite the fact that we’ve been busy as all hell. It’s just that time seems to sort of stand still when I can’t do what I want, it’s always been like that. I get really fucking antsy when life gets out of my control and I feel like with Cassie, that control has never been there the way I’ve wanted it to be.
Having her so close, at the office every day and sleeping in the room right next to mine, but being unable to touch her has been driving me insane.
Cassie stands up and maybe I’m reading this wrong but I think both Sawyer and I take a moment to suck in our breaths at the sight of her. She’s a small little thing but with all the right curves and the right mix of attitude and innocence that makes her heart-shaped face really come to life. She’s been bringing her A-game with the clothes I bought her, wearing a tight, black wrap dress today that looks like a modernized version of her usual dark style.
“I apologize, Sawyer. I heard the two of you had met,” I say, catching a whiff of tension between them.
There’s definitely something there that neither one is telling me, but I doubt Sawyer knows about Cassie’s identity. He’d be far less relaxed if that were the case.
“We did,” Cassie confirms. “Mr. Layton needed my help with some copying.”
There’s a twinkle in her eye when she says that and I swear the smirk Sawyer is wearing means there’s trouble. That’s not something we need right now.
“Mr. Layton?” I ask with honest surprise. “I thought Mr. Layton was your father, Sawyer, or are you finally embracing your old age?”
I get a humorless sneer in response.
“Glass houses, my friend, glass houses.”
I hear him on that.
“I think we have a couple more things to discuss, don’t we, Sawyer?”
I nudge him toward my office, eager to break this staring match he has with Cassie. I don’t like the way he looks at her. I know that look of his far too well to trust it around Cassie.
“I guess we do,” he says solemnly.
“I won’t be long, Cassie,” I promise her as she slides back into her seat, sending us off with a puppy-dog look I hope is reserved just for me.
What the fuck am I thinking? She doesn’t want either of us. We’re as old as her dad is, for fuck’s sake. My fortieth birthday was not a damn affair to remember.
“So, what is it that we need to urgently discuss?” Sawyer asks with a yawn as my office door falls shut behind us.
I lean against my desk, looking past Sawyer and finding myself staring at Cassie’s profile. It’s been happening a lot. I never used to be the daydreaming type.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on with you and Cassie?” I ask him, choosing to drop the façade of good-natured build-up.
Sawyer Layton has never neglected to take what he wants so I better make sure Cassie isn’t something he wants. For her safety. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on with you and Cassie?” he fires back in a mocking tone.
That smirk only gets wider on his face and my arms are now crossed over my chest. I fucking knew there was something going on.
“I don’t think it’s any of your business, Sawyer, but since her business is my business, then whatever the fuck you have stewing, I suggest you drop it.”
“Are you laying claim?” he laughs.
We haven’t fought over a woman for years. It was something we dabbled in back in college and during the earlier years when SCP didn’t consume our very beings, but I can’t remember a single case in the last ten years when we’ve so much as found the same woman attractive, let alone chased her.
Not that this is what I’m doing. No way. I’m Cassie’s protector, and that’s that.
A protector who jerks off to the thought of her. Not once, like I promised. It’s once a day at least now. So far I’ve excused it as a lesser of two evils. If it gets any worse, I’ll send her back ho
me and find another way to help her through college in a way acceptable to her family. It’s the only thing I can do.
“If I need to,” I counter, standing up.
Sawyer measures me with a thoughtful look and then glances at Cassie. I mirror the move and she almost catches us staring. We’re like teenage boys, vying for the attention of the girl we like and at the same time being terrified of what might happen if she finds out that we’re interested.
“If you want me to pull back, and I’m not saying that there’s anything to pull back from,” he starts, but I don’t buy his expression when he says that, “then you’re going to have to tell me what the fuck’s going on with you two. She’s too young to be a girlfriend and you wouldn’t hire someone you’re fucking, but you’ve been driving her to and from work?
“Is she the woman you had at the house when I came by the other night? Are you fucking your executive assistant, Mr. Echelon of Good Manners? I thought shit like that was beneath you. If you’re going to be breaking all the rules, then what’s my job going to be here? I won’t pick up your schtick.”
He’s taunting me on purpose now, I know it.
Sawyer and I are nothing alike and that’s why we’re so good at working together. He’s brash, impulsive, and fucking brilliant. He looks at math and he sees music, or that’s how I’ve always thought it is with him. He sees connections I never did, but he’s also impatient. His work is sloppy.
That’s where I’ve come in. I’ve cleaned up his edges, made sure everything runs properly. He has the social skills of a wrecking ball and I get along with people. It’s a partnership of necessity as much as it is for profit. We both know we couldn’t do it without the other and that’s why we’re friends and partners.
Though if you were to listen to us sometimes, you’d expect us to go for the switchblades soon and settle the argument in blood.
This might be the first time that I actually consider it as an option.
“Look, Sawyer, this is none of your business. I am asking you nicely to stay the fuck away from her and I hope you’ll do that for me,” I say, frustration resonating in me.
His expression drops and I feel like a chump for doing this. The honest thing would be to come clean. Tell him who Cassie really is and why she’s here. But that’s as good as buying her a ticket back on the bus home. Then again, maybe she’d be better off?
“If it affects our business together and the way we communicate, then it sure as fuck is my business, Parker. And I don’t remember you having any say over who I fuck or don’t fuck.” He holds up his hands the moment he sees me ready to snap at him. “I’m not saying I am going to fuck her, but you’re sure as hell making it a tantalizing option.”
“All because I don’t want you to do it?” I sneer.
“What can I say, I’m a petty man,” he says with a shrug.
He isn’t, that much I know. My eyes narrow and I want to ask him what he really means, but I don’t. If I keep prying, he’ll keep prying and neither one of us needs that shit. Not right now.
“This won’t affect the work, or the project, all right? I know your type and I’m telling you, Cassie isn’t it. Now I’m asking you nicely to stay away from her so we won’t have any problems, you hear me?”
“Oh, I hear you all right,” Sawyer growls, crossing the office and going for my stocked bar in the corner.
He pours himself a couple of fingers of whiskey and it seems like the best idea that’s been offered to me all day. I don’t have to ask him, he pours me a glass as well and shoves it in my hand as he returns.
There’s an unspoken understanding that we’re dropping the subject, but I’m sure as fuck that this axe isn’t buried yet.
“You want to tell me about Cameron now?” he asks, falling into one of the big leather chairs I have in front of the desk.
I occupy the other and we have our back to Cassie now, which is probably for the best.
“What’s with the sudden interest?”
“Keep your friends closer and how the rest of the saying goes,” Sawyer shrugs, running a hand through his black hair.
Age hasn’t left him untouched. There’s a smattering of salt in that hair now and more lines in his face than I remembered. We probably know each other better than any wife could know us and that is an unsettling thought.
“He’s never been your enemy,” I remind him, to which he shrugs. “He’s… he’s the same as he’s been. Nothing new.”
“Guess some things don’t change, then,” Sawyer comments, before launching into some actual work talk. We have a brief due for Tesla in two days. Tomorrow’s going to be a long night.
His comment echoes with me, though. You’d think by now I’d know myself well enough to be aware of what changes and what remains the same. Yet it only took one look at Cassie to have me throwing out ideals and rules that I’d had for life. It also has me being a shit of a friend, but I’m not nearly as apologetic about it as I should be.
If anything, it strengthens my resolve. Cassie needs to be protected. From as much as I can… whether that includes me, well, that’s a topic I’m not ready for yet.
Ten
Sawyer
I’ve never been good with being told what I can’t do. If someone tells me I can’t have something, I want it that much more. I need it. I crave it.
I try to tell myself that that’s what’s going on with little Cassie, but I’m not entirely convinced. Since having my fingers in her, I haven’t made another ‘date’ with anyone but my own right hand. She’s imprinted on my brain and my cock’s a fucking compass for her, I know immediately when she’s close.
It’s infuriating. Aggravating. Irritating. Worst of all, it’s hot as fuck.
I’ve stared at her for days, my brain agonizing over images of her bent over my desk time and time again, with us finishing what we started. Feeding her my cock, letting her taste a real man for the first time… It’s too fucking much. I think she knew what it was going to do to me the moment she told me she was a virgin.
Not that that’s the only thing going on here. I know I shouldn’t fuck an employee. Worse yet, someone as young as she is. It’s only compounded by the fact that Parker is very adamant about me keeping my distance, but all of those things are an unintelligible buzz in the background the moment I see her, the moment she’s close.
Her sweet smile, mixed with the sultry, knowing glances I get from her sometimes make me just want to fucking teach her a lesson about teasing men who shouldn’t be teased. I want to fuck her and break her and then put her back together again.
And then I want to keep her.
It’s the last part that’s the scariest. I keep things. I want possessions. I’ve never wanted to stay with a woman for more than a night or two, but she has me feeling like I could want her forever and not get enough of her.
It’s late in the evening when Parker peels away to grab us a late dinner. Half of the auxiliary unit’s team stayed late, but now it’s just down to me, Parker and Cassie. We’ve been occupying the same meeting room, only the three of us, for the last couple of hours and you can cut the tension with a knife.
I’m pretty damn certain at this point that Cassie was the woman Parker didn’t want me to see that night. But I also know that she’s a virgin, or she was a couple of days ago, so he’s not fucking her. So what the fuck is going on?
It’s a weird triangle to be part of, but as badly as I am drawn to her snide style of innocence, Parker seems to be just as hooked. For once, I can’t really find it in me to give a shit what my friend and colleague wants. My cock has been hard for this woman for days now and I have an astronomical case of blue balls that needs taking care of.
By her.
“I think we’ll be done soon,” Cassie says with a soft yawn, going over one of the addendums.
I grunt something in response, feeling the enormous room close in on me. With Parker gone as the buffer, I don’t think I can take it much longer. I get up and march out of the
re, heading for one of the bathrooms to splash cold water on my face.
“Get it the fuck together,” I tell myself, but I don’t sound too convincing.
The man who stares back at me in the mirror is a man possessed and I know how I get when that shit happens. Little Cassie isn’t safe and Parker is right to worry about her.
When I go back to the conference room, I find Cassie texting on her phone. I see the name Mark flash across the screen as she turns the screen off and scrambles to put away the phone when she realizes I’m standing right behind her. The word ‘boyfriend’ jumped out at me from one of the texts. They all seemed to be coming from him.
Jealousy rears itself like a dragon within me. Is she playing both Parker and I for fools?
“Begging for cock in all the wrong places?” I growl at her, my mouth running far ahead of my brain.
“Excuse me?” she asks, making those big, innocent doe eyes at me that I was right to not believe the first time. She’s all gasps and blushes when we’re in public, but I remember well enough how she was grinding her cunt against my fingers in the copy room.
“I said, are you begging for cock in all the wrong places?” I repeat myself, deadpanning the words.
Her mouth gapes open, those pink lips oh so fucking inviting.
“Don’t look so fucking surprised, kitten,” I grunt, turning her chair all the way to face me as I tower over her. “I see the way you’ve been looking at me in the office. Don’t fucking tell me you haven’t been thinking about what happened the other day. About my fat fingers in your pussy and what my dick would feel like stretching you for the first time.”
She sneaks a glance at my growing bulge and flushes scarlet when she looks up again. All I can do is grin wide. I fucking knew it. She’s been playing coy in the office, trailing behind Parker like a lost puppy and avoiding being alone with me, but I fucking know what she wants.
She wants the same thing I do. I can recognize another filthy mind when I meet it and she’s right up there with me, she just doesn’t know it yet.