my one ni-ght bo-ss ??
Chapter 5
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
He’s looking at me, and his gaze is entirely focused. I wasn’t paying enough attention this afternoon to look at his eyes, but now I see they are a soft green, fading into brown. I feel like I could tell anything to those eyes. “What’s wrong?”
I look away. “Today was…amazing. But it shouldn’t have happened. I’m the one who said I wanted it to be professional, and I know I’m the one who crossed the line writing those stories. I shouldn’t have let it go so far.”
He opens his mouth to respond, but I don’t let him. “I know that I’m not the first one to do this, and I know it’s my fault. If this,” I gesture around us, “is all to make me feel like I’m unique, then I really don’t nee-d it. It was my mistake, and I’ll resign in the morning. I just hope you will give me a good reference.”
Now he’s staring at me like the cheese plate grew legs and crawled on top of my head. Then he looks at his watch. “It’s been about seven hours. What happened? Where is all of this coming from?”
I shake my head, but he holds out a hand. “No. Wait. That’s a very broad question. Okay. I’m going to ask you a couple of questions, and I want you to answer honestly. Then when we’re done, you can decide if this is all for show. Does that sound good?”
I nod, and take a sip of the wine, fighting a shudder. I’ve never liked wine. I wish I did, but I never acquired the taste. Regardless, right now I nee-d alcohol.
Charles leans forward on the elbows. “That night at the pa-rty you said I had a reputation and just now you said you know that you weren’t the first. It seems clear that you think I have se-x with all of my secretaries. Did someone tell you that?”
I roll the question throu-ghmy mind. I don’t want to get Jennifer in trouble, but I also just agreed to answer his questions as best I could. I settle for ambiguity. “Not explicitly. They said you had a reputation with women.”
“Can you tell me who it was?”
I allow myself a small smile. “I plead the fifth.”
“That’s fair,” He chuckles. “Okay, next question. Do you like working at my company?”
I sigh. “Yes I do.”
“Then why are you going to resign?”
I take another sip of wine. Okay fine, I finished the gl@$$. “Because resigning is better than being the girl who fu-cked the boss. You don’t come back from that.”
“Are you two ready to order?”
I startle as a tall waiter interrupts us. I hadn’t even decided. I desperately look at the menu for something I think I’ll like, and end up picking some sort of salad that says it has mandarin oranges in it. Charles orders something with duck. What I wouldn’t give for some French fries and a milkshake right about now.
The waiter leaves and Charles turns his laser focus back to me. “Last question. Why do you think this was your mistake?”
“It is.” I say, “If I hadn’t been writing those stories at work, you would have never happened, and today would never have happened.”
“Okay.” He says, “Thanks for answering. Now will you let me offer some responses?” The waiter left another gl@$$ of wine when he came to take our order, and I take full advantage. “Sure.”
“I’m thirty-two. I got really lucky out of college working for my mentor Peter McLane. I knew I wanted to run some sort of business, but that’s about all I knew. Peter taught me everything I know about hotels, and even though he tried, his company wasn’t doing so well because of some decisions he made early on. When he died, he left the company to me and I had the opportunity to remake it un-der a new name and turn it around.” Charles looks down and fiddles with his napkin. “I’m not telling you this to br@g, I’m telling you that for the past ten years I’ve been so busy with my career that I’ve haven’t had a long-term relationship since college. I also have never had se-x —or anything else—with any of my secretaries, or anyone who works for me. Until now.” His face is steely, daring me to challenge that truth. I feel myself turning red in the face, mortified that I made an @$$umption. However, I’ve never met a man who looks like him that wouldn’t live up to that @$$umption. I feel foolish. I don’t say anything.
“I’m pretty sure I know who warned you about me. She’s been trying to get me to sleep with her for years.”
I nearly choke, “Really?”
“She hit on me after you left the pa-rty.”
I realize I’ve outed Jennifer. “I didn’t want to get her in trouble.”
“She’s not in trouble.” He laughs, “because I already knew, and I’m never going to sleep with her.”
The waiter arrives with our food. “That was fast, though I suppose the portion size makes it easy to prepare.” I say, looking down at my salad-in-a-cu-p. The waiter glares at me as he walks away, and Charles starts laughing so loudly people in the restaurant turn and stare. Then I start laughing too.
It bubbles up from inside me like cool relief, and our laughter is so not dignified enough for this place.
“Alyssa,” he says, getting a hold on his voice. “I don’t want you to resign. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since that pa-rty. I gave you professionalism because that’s what you asked for, but I’ve never been so happy to not be professional. This isn’t your fault at all. We were both there, we both decided. We could have stopped, but we didn’t, and we did that together.” He reaches across the table and takes my hand. The warmth of his fingers seeps into mine as he traces designs across them.
“I didn’t bring you here to buy you off. I brou-ght you here because in the week I’ve known you I’ve seen that you’re sweet, ha-rdworking, and beautiful. I don’t know you very well, and I want to. I want you to keep your job, and I want to keep seeing you.”
My heart is pounding in my che-st. Wow. Words. You should respond with some sort of words. Speak. All I can do is smile.
“Oh,” He says, giving me a grin inspired by the devil, “and there will be more se-x in my office. That I can guarantee.”
“Well,” I say. “I can live with that.”
“Good.”
I look down at my salad again, “But if you really want to get to know me, for the love of god take me somewhere where I can get a burger and fries.”
He laughs again, de-ep and full, the richness of his voice p-ulling at pa-rts of me that are waking up again. He throws his hand up in the air and flags down the waiter. “Check please.”
my one ni-ght bo-ss ???
Chapter 6
Charles
The diner is crowded and loud, and Alyssa is way more comfortable. I can tell from the way her body is relaxed, and the fact that she’s smiling ear to ear while downing a milkshake. If I can see that smile every day, I’ll be a happy man.
All those things she said, there has to be more to them. But now isn’t the time of place to ask. She might not even know how strange it is to take that kind of burden on herself. It’s not like she Se-duced me against my will. It’s definitely something we’ll have to talk about later. Preferably Na-ked.
But now is first date time, so first date questions. “Why New York?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” She’s distracted, chasing a chunk of Oreo at the bott-om of her gl@$$.
“I signed off on your resume, remember? You had a great job in L.A., and I’m pretty sure you were making more than you’re making now. Why did you leave?”
She sighs, pushing away the gl@$$. “I didn’t leave, I was let go.”
I freeze my face so my shock doesn’t show. “I find that difficult to believe.”
“I had a boss that was…difficult.”
“In what way?” I steal a French fry from the left-overs on her plate.
“She’s not a bad person, and she is really good at her job. She just views things a bit differently than I do.”
I cover her hand with mine, making her look up at me. She’d been avoiding it. “I promise you can tell me.”
“Fine.” She huffs out a breath, “She was an unreasonable perfectionist. Even when I learned from my mistakes she never let them go. She never gave me the benefit of the doubt. Every mistake was my fault even if I wasn’t the one who made it.”
A light bulb goes off in my head about where her guilt issues might be coming from, but now still isn’t the time.
“I worked there for three years, and she was still bringing up mistakes from when I was new. Finally, she said she had to let me go because my work wasn’t good enough. On top of that she refused to give me a recommendation. I wanted to get away from L.A., and New York is pretty much the opposite without going to Amish countryside.”
I laugh, “You’d look good in a bonnet.”
“I would, but I could never do the country. Too much country growing up. I’m from Ohio.”
“Wow.”
She shakes her head, putting on a twang of the Midwest. “Yep. The buckeye state.” “Please don’t ever do that again.” I steal another fry, waiting for her to stop me. She doesn’t.
She tosses back the last bits of her milkshake, and some spills on her dress. “Crap.” She says, grabbing the napkin and using her water gl@$$ to help clean it. I should probably help, but all I can think about is how good she’d look soaking we-t…and some interesting potential uses for ice.
She catches me staring at her brea-st s and sm-irks, “Cat got your tongue?”
“My tongue has many uses, all of which I’m willing to demonstrate.” I’m watching her as I say it to see her reaction, and I see the pupils in her eyes dilate, and I see her breath hitch. That’s something she’s definitely interested in. We’re staring at each other now, and I know what I’m imagining—I’m imagining her eyes dilating again as I sink de-ep inside her, and I’m thinking about making her keep her eyes open and on me. What I don’t know, is what’s going on behind her eyes. I’m dying to know. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” she coughs, “I’m not thinking anything.”
“Liar.”
“What about you?” She asks, “Where are you from.”
“That side-step was about a mile wide, but I’ll let it go. I’m from the Southwest. Arizona.”
She’s drawing shapes on the table with the condensation from her gl@$$, “Must be cold for you up here.”
“A little, but I like it. New York is a great city.”
She shrugs, “I don’t think I’ve been here long enough to really love it.”
“Do I nee-d to make a list of things for you to try? Things that aren’t on the typical tourist list?”
“I would actually really love that.” She says, “And maybe you can show me some of them yourself…if we’re going to do this.”
I lean closer to her, “You seem scared.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“Because this doesn’t happen. This kind of thing has ‘cautionary tale’ written all over it.”
I grab both of her hands and twine my fingers throu-ghhers. “If people made decisions based on that, no one would ever do anything.”
She doesn’t say anything, instead she’s staring at our hands.
“Alyssa, I like you. Why not do this?”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
I pull her hands towards me until her body follows and our faces are close together. “Then it doesn’t work. But I think that you’re calling that pla-y a little early.”
I wait for her answer, and I can see her thinking. “Okay.”
I smile. “Good.”
“Do we nee-d rules?”
I pause, running my thumbs across the back of her hand. “For what.”
“For…” She lowers her voice, and a blus-h appears on her face, “For when you’re telling me what to do. I’ve read these books, and whenever those people pla-y they have rules in case one of them has to stop, or there’s an emergency. I just thought it might be a good idea—”
“Alyssa.” She stops, “It’s okay. It is a good idea. You don’t have to be embarr@$$ed.”
“Sorry.”
“And you don’t have to apologize. You want to know the truth? When I said I hadn’t had any long term relationships, it’s true. But I had short ones, and they all fell apa-rt because they didn’t want that. I had given up finding someone that I was attra-cted to who wanted to…”
“Obey you?”
I make a face, “I’m not sure I like the way that sounds, but I love the way it feels.”
“Me too. Like I said, I wasn’t actually expecting that.” She laughs. “So I’m nervous. We can both be nervous.”
I start taking even breaths, because there’s a situation brewing in my pa-nts, and I don’t want to take her across the table. Well, I do, but I don’t think the diner management would appreciate it. “Rules are good. Especially starting when we don’t know each other so well. How about this. Rule 1: We can always revisit the rules.”
She smiles, “I like that.”
“Rule 2: Within the context of se-x , you will follow all of my commands.”
“Rule 2a: Provided that those commands don’t compromise me personally or professionally.”
I nod. “Rule 2b: If you choose not to follow a command, appropriate punishment will be given.”
Her eyes darken, and I see the possibilities spinning around in her eyes. “You would punish me?”
“I would love to punish you.”
She shivers, and she moves her hands up to my forearms, gripping them like she nee-ds an anchor. “Rule 3: If either person nee-ds to stop, they will say the word—”
“Milkshake?” I can’t help myself.
She grins, “Milkshake it is.”
A man approaches our table, “I’m sorry. We’re about to close, can I get you your check?”
I glance up, and notice that the diner is entirely empty except for us. The older man standing in front of us must be the manager. “I’m so sorry. Of course.”
He winks at me as he lays down our receipt, and I have to smile. He knows we were so wrapped up in each other that we didn’t notice the diner empty. I leave a big tip. I think I have a new place to eat, if only because whenever I eat here I’m going to think about se-x with a delicious brunette.
On the sidewalk, I hail a cab for Alyssa.
“I can take the subway.”
“It’s late, and I’d rather you took a cab all the way across town. Besides, taking a cab is much easier.”
“True.”
A yellow cab stops by the curb, but before Alyssa can step into it I pull her to me. I wrap my arms around her so we’re touching from head to toe, and I kizz her. Her li-ps are soft and warm, and still have the faint taste of ice cream. I don’t fight the reaction of my body—I want her to know exactly how ha-rd she makes me. I feel her hands curl around my ne-ck and I love every second of her surrender.
It’s another minute before I for-ce myself to pull away. I press my li-ps against her ear so the words are only for her. “If you don’t leave now I’m taking you to my apa-rtment and I’m going to taste every inch of you.”
Her mouth opens like she’s going to say something but nothing comes out, and I’m staring at her li-ps which are red from my kizz. Another second and I’m going to kizz her again. She’s like a magnet. I pull out her un-derwear and hand them to her. “As promised, your incentive.”
The cab driver honks his horn, and we both jump. She opens the door and gets inside, her eyes never leaving my face. “I’ll see you in the morning.” I say.
And then she’s gone.
I let out a long, slow breath. I’ve never felt like this before. I may be in serious trouble.
TBC