by Amy Brent
Then, after I had grown plenty slick, the man finally slid his fingers into me. The moan that escaped my mouth was downright pornographic, but I didn’t care.
Slowly, reverently, he worked me over, sweat beading on my brow as I felt my end start to roll towards me. Yes! Yes, yes, yes! I needed this. The unfettered release that would send endorphins flowing through my body until I forgot about all of the bad and there was only the good.
He curled his fingers within me and I felt myself rapidly coming undone. My thighs clamped together, and I called out something right before I went over the edge.
And then I woke up.
I sat up with a gasp, confusion and frustration setting in quickly. In less than a second, I had gone from being about to orgasm with possibly the hottest man I had ever seen, to sitting alone on my worn mattress with no one but the mice in the walls for company.
“Dammit!” I cried, slamming my fists down onto my thighs. Of course, I would have a wet dream that faltered out before the big crescendo. I couldn’t think of a better way for life to spit in my face.
Grumbling to myself and mood completely soured, I stomped to my bathroom. To be honest, I was a bit embarrassed that I had a sex dream about a man I had only met once. That seemed pretty desperate, and while I was desperate for a lot of things, I didn’t like to think men were very high on that list.
Hell, I didn’t even know is name, and he could fire me tomorrow. Not exactly the best time to be getting my rocks off.
Oh well. I blamed the wine. I hadn’t gotten tipsy or drunk in months and clearly it had brought up some subconscious needs that I had thought I buried.
I turned on the hot water and stepped in, feeling better once again as the steaming water rushed over me. It was impossible to be mad in a nice shower, right?
But without the frustration to distract me, I was left only with images from my dream. My mind replayed different parts like snapshots in a slideshow. His glistening abs, the way his hair flopped over his strong brow. The perfect little upturn to the corner of his mouth as he told me what he was going to do to me.
Before I knew it, I found my hand at my own center, pushing into myself and finding that nub that felt so good. I played the whole scene over in my head, letting the dream rush over me just like the steaming water.
It didn’t take long for my body to get in gear. Obviously, the dream had done its fair share of finding me up in reality. Soon, I felt my knees start to shake and my end come rolling in like a long-lost lover.
I couldn’t stay silent when my orgasm did hit, and I cried out into my little bathroom. My release rocked me, affirming that was exactly what I had needed, and I slumped against the wall.
Wow. How long had it been since I had taken care of myself? I had been so stressed with the job and money situation that it had to have been at least three months. I definitely needed to work on bottling up my needs; it wasn’t healthy.
The water started to turn lukewarm and I knew that it wouldn’t be long before it was outright cold, so I turned it off and got out.
Wrapping a towel around myself, I just stood in the center of my bedroom/living room and looked around. According to the clock on my microwave, it was somewhere around one am. If this were a normal workday, I would be up on the CEO floor, dancing my heart away. But now, I was too blissed out from my orgasm to do any hardcore moving and shaking.
Sighing, I went back to my bed and laid down. Although I knew I wouldn’t be falling asleep, it wouldn’t hurt to give myself a rest and do nothing for a while.
But as soon as my head hit the pillow, my thoughts went right back to the mysterious man who held my future in his hands. I guess I just had to hope he would be merciful.
Chapter Nine
~Rafael~
I picked at the meal I had made myself. I was hungry, and I loved steak, but my attention kept flitting back to Freddy and wondering if he had found anything yet. As soon as my meeting with McKenna had ended, I had contacted him and told him that she had confessed to using a fake identity, but that it was for her protection. He had asked if I had any info beyond that, but that was it.
So now it was two am in the morning and I was waiting for him to call like a lovestruck date. I had plenty to do, but I couldn’t quite concentrate no matter what I was doing. I needed to know about this woman. She haunted my every thought, clinging to my brain incessantly.
Finally, I heard my phone ding. An email instead of a call, but maybe it was still from Freddy.
I pulled my account up and saw it was indeed from him in less than a second. Clicking on it, I saw he had pasted quite a few image files into the body of the message.
What I expected was instances of corporate sabotage, or shady business dealings. What I hadn’t been anticipating was several retraining orders and police reports.
What exactly had Miss O’Grady been getting into?
I turned up the brightness on my phone and looked closer. As I did, I realized that all of these legal papers weren’t against McKenna, but rather for her.
The restraining orders were against a Jacob Bloom, someone who had apparently broken into her car, tried to break into her apartment and even showed up at her work. The picture they painted was vague, but it was clear that the woman feared this man.
Who was he? An admirer gone violent after rejection? A stalker? A random crazy? I couldn’t say, so I kept on reading until I came to the single police report.
Oh.
Oh.
It was for a domestic violence call. Although it happened six years ago, the writing was still quite legible. There was that name again, Jacob Bloom.
I debated on not going any further, after all, I had enough information to know I was undoubtedly wrong, but I kept going with morbid curiosity.
According to the report, the call to nine-one-one had come in around midnight, with a frantic female voice on the phone. That obviously was McKenna, and my anger lifted at the thought that something, or someone, had been terrifying her enough to call the police.
She had claimed that her boyfriend and her had gotten into a fight when he started throwing punches. She had locked herself in the bathroom, but he was beating at the door, trying to get in.
I couldn’t imagine it. I had never felt terror like that in my life and I doubted that I ever would, but it made me want to find this Jacob fellow and beat him into a fine paste.
I kept reading to see that it had taken the police a full hour to actually respond to the emergency. That was ridiculous! A woman was in peril and they waited sixty full minutes before their asses actually arrived at the scene?
I kept scrolling downward, expecting nothing else but administrative notes, but then suddenly I was treated to several photos, as if McKenna had been intending to press charges and had gathered evidence.
The rage coiled in me turned into an outright inferno, and before I knew it, I was on my feet and pacing.
The photos were of McKenna’s face, bruised, bleeding and swollen. That evil, monster of a man had split her lip and blackened her eye so badly that it couldn’t open. How dare he! And not just because I was attracted to the woman. But because no one deserved to have their partner, the person that they trusted with the most intimate parts of themselves, lay into them like an alley brawl.
I was so angry that I was seeing red, and I found myself wanting to punch something into a million pieces. But it was only when I took a second to look around the room and see what was breakable that a cold realization struck me.
McKenna was a woman on the run from a man who terrified her, and I had just outed her. Hell, I had threatened her.
God, I was an idiot. And absolute idiot. I couldn’t imagine the type of time and recourses that it had taken to get the resources to even get a job at my company, and yet I had sat in front of her, talking about things like corporate sabotage and lying.
I deserved a sharp kick to the ass, and if I was more flexible, I would have done it to myself. If there was one thing I pri
ded myself on, it was that, although many people called me a cold shark in the water and a ruthless businessman, no one could say that I had ever used violence to convince them of anything.
Sure, I’d gotten into my fair share of bar-brawls and one on one fights, but that had been all fairly standard. I’d never come to blows with a rival company, or used my body to intimidate a woman into talking to me longer. Those were tactics of the weak, and they disgusted me more than anything else.
I had to fix this. I had to fix this right now.
This wasn’t something that I could type on mobile, so I rushed to my laptop and turned it on. While I waited for it to boot, I tried to think of all the different ways I could apologize to her that meant a damn considering all the stress I had just put her through.
But what words were there that would express how badly I had screwed up? While I considered myself adept at writing presentations and other business dialogue, I had no clue what to do when it came to such an important apology.
I guessed I was just going to have to see her face to face. That was the only way I could express to her that I knew the gravity of how much I had interfered with her health and wellness.
So, I quickly composed another email telling her to meet me in the same office as a follow up. It was slightly brusque, so I tried to liven it up with some softer language, but it just came across as false, so I deleted it and started again.
It took about an hour to finally draft the damn thing, and when I hit send, I leaned back in my chair and let out a long breath.
I had been so sure that she was bad news. That she was some vile and insipid liar trying to get closer to me. But the truth had turned out to be anything but. She was just a woman trying to get away from an evil man. No ill intensions, no duplicity. Just another human trying to survive.
Maybe this was a lesson from the universe, trying to tell me that always assuming the worst would only hurt the people around me. And interesting thought, but a bit too idealistic. I had a company to run, after all, and I couldn’t take one exception as a reason to throw all my survival rules out the window.
But still… what an exception she was. One thing was for certain, I owed Freddy a very nice bonus for all this.
Chapter Ten
~McKenna~
I woke up somewhere around noon and I realized that I had completely ruined my overnight sleep schedule. I was going to have the worst time tonight and tomorrow -assuming I had a job.
That thought woke me up like a bucket of cold water to the face and I groaned. Could I not just have one happy morning to myself before reality kicked me in the face?
Whatever. I would just have to deal with it. I had been through worse in my life and I would get through this too. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t complain about it as I went.
Rolling over, I grabbed my phone and saw what I had missed. Sure enough, there was another email from work, but this one wasn’t from the generic HR account. Instead, it was from a Rafael Barbos, who just so happened to be the CEO of the entire company.
I gasped as I triple-read the closing signature. But no matter how many times I went over it, it stayed the same. The handsome man that I had a sex dream about was none other than the owner and CEO of the entire enterprise.
Good lord.
I realized that I had been so distracted by the email address and signature that I hadn’t even read the contents of the message. To be honest, I was probably self-consciously avoiding it in a chance to protect myself from the termination that I knew was coming, but I needed to bite the bullet and put my big-girl panties on.
My eyes flicked to the words at the center of the email and I was surprised to see that he wanted to meet with me again. I guessed he wanted to fire me in person or something. Stupid rich person didn’t understand the inconvenience of paying to ride a bus out only to get fired and then have to return right back home.
I could always just…not go, I supposed. I could just pack my bags and leave town before my name got out and everything was ruined. That was I would be safe, and I didn’t have to worry about him finding me.
No.
I was so tired of running. So tired of letting people dictate my life. While I couldn’t stop the mystery-man-turned-CEO from firing me, I could face his decision with my head held high.
That thought bolstered me and I got ready. I dressed in the nicest business dress I had, pairing it with woolen leggings and a matching cardigan. I had intended to save the outfit for a special work event or dinner, but I didn’t see that happening now.
It took me about a half hour to get ready, and once I was about to leave, I sent a polite but short email back telling my ETA. With another deep breath, I marched out into the world to face my fate.
Reality took on a surreal quality as I made my way to work. I suppose that was how it went when a guillotine was hanging over your head, waiting to inevitably swing down and end everything that had been going well for me.
Sure, while I had never intended to be a janitor and it wasn’t what I went to school for, it was so far away from my field that I doubted that he could ever find me. After all, who expected a ASL interpreter to be content with cleaning floors for a living?
And now I wasn’t even going to be able to do that.
Maybe, if I played my cards right, I could get him to spill how he had found me out. If I knew where I went wrong, I could perfect my technique, then I could try this again in a new city and maybe have some peace.
Yeah, that was a great idea. I would just have to be as charming as possible and hope I could get that vital info.
Having a plan made me feel better, and I walked much more confidently to the room that my world had crumbled in just twenty-three hours earlier. Rafael was already there, sitting at the head of the table with an impassive expression.
I wouldn’t let him cow me, however. I hardened myself and sat across from him, plastering a kind expression across my face.
“Miss Grady,” he said, tilting his head. He was using my fake name. Interesting.
“Mr. Barbos,” I said, just as politely.
“You made good timing here.”
“I try. Punctuality is very important to me.” Not that he cared.
“I see. Then let’s get started, shall we?” Crap! I didn’t even have any time to ask questions. How was I supposed to get info now? I guessed that I would just have to play this next part very carefully. “First of all, I owe you an apology.”
Of all the things in the world I had been anticipating, this was not one of them. I stared at him, eyes wide, as I tried to figure out what the hell he was talking about. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Our investigation showed that you have never participated in any sort of corporate spying, and that you have been a loyal employee from day one. You stated that your assumed identity was for your own protection and I should have respected that. I caused you undue stress and for that, I am quite sorry.”
…this couldn’t be happening… could it? Was something good actually happening to me? Was I getting off the hook for lying about who I was? Was I still dreaming?
“T-Thank you,” I sputtered, still so surprised by the turn of events that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.
“No need to thank me. We would not be in this position if I had treated you with the respect you deserve. Please, allow me to make it up to you.” I knew that I was still staring at him like a monster with two heads, but what else could I do? He wanted to make it up to me? Was I hearing him right? “I’d like to give you a week’s paid vacation, as well as a dollar raise. But if you want to leave the company after everything that has happened, I understand, and I have what I hope you’ll find to be a quite generous severance package.”
Holy hell. I had no words, none at all, but I realized I needed to answer him. “I-I’d like to continue working here, i-if that’s okay.” I had to be dreaming. After everything that had happened to me, none of this made any sense.
“We’re happy to h
ave you. I know you ride public transportation here according to your file, please, allow me to pay for-”
Suddenly the door bounced open, nearly giving me a heart attack, and a small figure streaked in.
“Daddy!”
I blinked and suddenly there was a little boy flinging himself at Rafael, arms wrapped tightly around the man’s neck. The similarities between them were so stark that I knew without a doubt that this had to be his son.
It was strange to think of the devastatingly handsome yet intimidating men of having a child, and yet the evidence was right in front of my eyes.
“Sorry,” the man murmured to me. “I’ll be back with you in a moment.”
“No problem,” I answered. I needed the time to catch up with everything that had just happened anyways.
He smiled gratefully and pulled his son away to look him in the eyes. The expression on Rafael’s face was full of kindness and pride, making me wonder just who he was outside of work.
“Hey, my little man, what are you doing here? I’m not supposed to get you until tomorrow morning.”
“I have a flight I have to get to, so I dropped him off early.” With impeccable timing, a woman stepped into the room. Dressed from head to toe in pink, designer clothes, I got the distinct impression that this was not a woman I wanted to mess with.