Accidental Sext (Unintentionally Yours #14)

Chapter 1

April

If sighs were a form of violence, Anthony Voss would be guilty of corporate manslaughter by now.

The latest one drifts through the open door between our offices like it was specifically designed to float into my ears and punch me square across the jaw.

I don’t even need to look up to know he’s walking toward the doorway, backlit by the midday sun over Midtown Manhattan pouring through the window.

He’s probably staring at me with a look of judgment so intense it could curdle milk.

But I do look up, because apparently, I’m an idiot with a propensity for torment.

Six-feet-whatever of cold, silver-haired disapproval in a charcoal suit stalks toward me.

He’s got that polished, almost surgical stillness about him, the kind that screams he’s either intensely pleased and relaxed or so annoyed he could rip my head off, the kind that only comes with being forty-eight and used to being in control.

His grey eyes sweep the room around me, his jaw working, before they land on me with the weight of a gavel, the corners crinkling. I try not to notice that he’s letting his stubble show today, and try even harder not to imagine what it would feel like against my fingertips.

Or between my thighs.

“Is this the final version?” he asks, holding up the press release I spent most of last night sharpening to perfection. I’d been up until three in the morning.

I blink at him. “Unless we’re waiting for divine intervention,” I say, swiveling slightly in my chair to face him, “then yes. That’s the final version.”

He steps inside and leans against the open door, holding the press release in his hand, showing it to me.

I try not to let my gaze wander to his hands — try.

One’s tucked into a pocket, so that makes things easier, but the one he’s drawing my attention to is broad and veined and dexterous-looking in a way that makes me want to forget why the HR policies here at Voss & Bartley exist.

Anthony flicks his eyes over the page, his lip curling in that way I know means he’s annoyed. The silence hangs too long before he finally speaks. “It’s fine.”

Oh no.

I fucking hate that word.

“Fine?” I echo, raising a brow at him as I lean forward onto my desk, resting my chin on my upturned palm. “Like, fine as in, ‘Send it to the press, April, you brilliant wordsmith, let’s get lunch to celebrate’? Or fine as in, ‘Not worth firing you over, but only just’?”

His expression doesn’t change. “Fine, as in, it’s not up to your usual standard,” he says, lowering the paper and staring me down. “The tone lacks authority. The third paragraph reads like…fluff.”

I grin tightly at him, willing my eye not to twitch. “Right. Authority. Can do.”

His jaw tightens. “You don’t think it warrants edits?”

“I just didn’t realize you were writing your own speeches now. Would you like full creative control?” I ask, keeping my tone light, but shooting him a glare.

He scoffs. A full-on scoff.

To most, it would mean nothing—a slightly annoyed boss, the equivalent of an eye roll. But to me, I know better. That’s almost a meltdown for him, a signal I’m pushing too hard.

“You can do better,” he clips.

“I know I can. And usually, I do. But believe it or not, I’m human, and mistakes happen when you’re writing at three in the morning.” I sit back in my chair, twirling my pen around my fingers, and pull up the document on my computer with my free hand.

He gives me a flat, assessing stare I’ve come to loathe. “That’s not an excuse.”

“Of course not,” I mutter. “Heaven forbid anyone in this office admit to being tired or, God forbid, mortal.”

I half expect a lecture about how working that late at night results in shoddy press releases, but instead, I feel his stare burning into the side of my skull.

When I glance at him, he looks like he’s trying to decide whether to fire me or walk away.

“You’ve been distracted lately,” he says, and that gives me pause. It’s not accusing. It’s observing, and that somehow feels worse.

I swallow and play it off with a shrug. “Maybe I’m just bored,” I say. “Rewriting the same words about luxury and legacy for a man allergic to giving praise tends to wear a girl…”

“Watch your mouth, April.”

There it is. The low warning that’s meant to put me in my place.

It never really does.

“‘Kay,” I mutter, my knee bouncing as I set the pen down, turning my chair back toward my desk properly and sitting forward again.

His shoes clack against the marble floor as he steps closer, not away, and I swear the temperature drops.

He stops just beside my desk, and I feel the shift in the air, the warning that he’s done putting up with my backtalk for now.

“Rewrite it,” he says, folding the paper and placing it neatly beside my mouse like he’s bestowing judgment on me. That fucking hand, my God. “And this time, make it believable.”

And then he’s gone.

He’s halfway over the threshold into his office when I look to see his hand wrapped around the door handle before he pulls it closed. I wait until it clicks into place to let myself breathe properly.

“Asshole,” I mutter, grabbing the paper and dropping it into the metal trash can under my desk.

I stare at the draft on my computer, trying not to think about the way his hand looked as his fingers lingered a second too long.

Or the way he’d said my name, but it’s hard.

It’s hard not to think about him at all.

The way he watches me sometimes—not with interest, not exactly, but like he’s trying to pin me down and dissect the parts that don’t make sense to him.

It makes something low in my stomach twist. He’s always composed, always cold.

But I’ve caught him looking before, once, twice, maybe more.

Every time it makes my head spin, makes me struggle to concentrate, and that’s not even what he did this time and I’m still…

God help me.

I blink hard, trying to focus, but my mind’s halfway gone. It’s been a long day with not enough sleep, and frustration does strange things to my head. I try to make the words on the page make sense, but I can’t stop picturing those hands, those goddamn hands.

“Perhaps you need a demonstration of the authority you so carelessly omitted.”

I’m gone. The daydream takes hold. My brain can’t even resist the imagined words.

In my head, I’m bent over the polished mahogany of his desk, the cool wood a shock against my flushed, bare chest. My press release is flattened beneath me, the edges crumbling against my stomach.

He’s close, leaning over me, and his scent washes over me.

Clean linen and spice. It makes my head swim.

One of his hands splays across the small of my back, a brand of heat that pins me in place. The other pulls my skirt up, the fabric sliding easily up my thighs and over my hips, until it’s bunched around my waist.

He doesn’t ask in my mind. He just takes.

“Such a sloppy press release, April,” he murmurs, his fingers hooking on the gusset of my underwear, ghosting across slick, sensitive skin, and pulling it to the side.

The lace is damp, and I know damn well he can feel it on both me and the fabric.

“And to think you were up all night working on that?”

The air hits my bare skin before his fingers dip between my lips, and my breathing stutters, a broken little moan escaping. My back arches instinctively, offering myself to him. His hips press against the side of my rear, and I can feel the thick, rigid line of him, heat blooming in my cheeks.

“Look at you,” he mutters, his voice pleased, almost predatory. “So fucking wet for me. Is this what you were thinking about when you wrote this? When you left out all the important bits?”

My lips part, but words catch in my throat as his fingers dip in, filling me, curling.

“April.”

God, my name sounds like filth coming out of his mouth—

“April.”

Oh, fuck. The voice isn’t in my head this time. It’s him. Real, live, standing-too-close-him.

I startle so badly that my chair knocks into the desk, nearly knocking over my pen jar. “Jesus, do you—do you hover for sport?” I mutter, a furious heat creeping up my neck and cheeks.

He raises a single eyebrow, not amused. “You were staring off into space,” he says. “You’re supposed to be working.”

“Sorry, sorry,” I sigh, rubbing my eyes once before cursing under my breath at the mascara smeared on the side of my finger. “I’m just—I’m just tired. I’ll focus.”

“Probably because you were up until three a.m. writing something that should’ve already been done,” he deadpans. “Run this by me before you finish it so you at least know if I hate it before you print it.”

I fight not to roll my eyes. “You’ll probably still hate it, regardless.”

“True,” he says, turning away from me and stalking back to the door. “But maybe I’ll hate it less.”

He retreats without another word, shutting the door again, and I’m left staring at my screen. My heart is thumping, skin prickling, and my brain absolutely refuses to behave.

It shouldn’t bother me how much he hates my work sometimes.

Usually, it doesn’t. But I’m exhausted and stressed, and it’s like he doesn’t care how his words land, even when I’m clearly not on form.

He’s able to walk away unbothered while I’m left stewing in my bruised pride with questions I don’t dare ask in case he sees it as weak.

Sometimes, not always, but sometimes I wish I could quit, wish I could walk out of this office and never look back.

If I didn’t need my paycheck like oxygen, I would.

At least then I wouldn’t have to work on the other side of a door from him, wouldn’t have to rewrite myself just to survive him.

I hate him, and I hate that I don’t hate him.

If I didn’t need this job, I’d tell him exactly where he could shove his press release. But I do need it. What’s worse, my body wants him. Wants the proximity and his broody, stupid stares and crude words, wants hands I can only imagine on my skin. Which is insane.

He probably doesn’t even know how to want someone like me, not really.

He’s not the kind of man who sees women like me as an option.

I’m mouthy and curvy, with opinions that don’t come sugar-coated.

I can feel it in the way he moves, hear it in the way he talks.

He’s used to sleek, polished, yes women in sky-high Louboutins with mouths primed for compliance.

Women who wouldn’t dream of rolling their eyes at him behind his back, or fantasize about him bending them over a mahogany desk.

Okay, maybe that last one is fair, but he doesn’t want me. Not really. He just wants my work to be in top form.

But, fuck, I want him, and it’s fine.

I’m used to fine.