Foreplay with the Boss: Billionaires of Boston

11. Jameson

Sitting across from Vivienne, I didn’t feel more than a general, mild attraction—certainly not the intoxicating, all-encompassing attraction that pumped through my body whenever Kat was around—and the thought of taking Vivienne home to relieve my sexual frustration no longer appealed to me.

In fact, I was pretty sure that was guilt pressing against my chest, which made no logical sense. Kat made it clear how she felt about crossing lines, and it boiled down to she wasn’t going to. I had a feeling that a few minutes alone, somewhere away from the office, and our off-the-charts chemistry would persuade her otherwise, but that added some messy ethical issues, and I wasn’t one to keep on pushing when a woman said no.

I thought about Kat’s face earlier today in my office when she was giving me a rundown of the weekly reports, the way it’d dropped when she looked at her phone. “Oh, that’s your calendar alert. For your dinner tonight.” Awkwardness crowded the space between us. “Did you, uh, need me to make reservations or anything?” She’d swiped a hand through the air like she wanted to shove that thought away. “I mean, it’s probably too late, and that’s not really what I do. Shit, I just added ‘I mean.’” She stood. “I’m going to go.”

“Kat,” I’d said, even though I didn’t know what I was going to say after that. When she’d looked at me, the only thing I could come up with was: “The way you compiled all the reports together makes it much easier to get a quick snapshot of everything, and the numbers on the ads you switched up are good. Better than good, actually. Best CTRs and STRs I’ve seen in a while. Admittedly, I was struggling to have faith without proof first…” I’d shot her a teasing smile, but she didn’t smile back. “But you certainly proved yourself, and any other changes you want to talk about, I have faith they’ll be good ones.”

“Thank you. Two whole goods—that’s high praise coming from you.” Before I could figure out if that was a slam or a compliment, she’d tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “So I guess if that’s it, I’ll see you on Monday.”

I didn’t want it to be it, and Monday suddenly seemed forever away—evidently I was losing my mind.

“JT?”

I jerked my attention to Vivienne. “Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

She stuck her red lips out in a pout and patted my cheek. “That’s why you’d make a shit boyfriend. You never stop thinking about work.”

A statement I couldn’t usually deny, but as of late, a lot of my after-work hours had been spent on my sexy assistant as opposed to what she and I needed to accomplish at the office. Icanthinkofaboutadozendifferentpositionsweneedtoaccomplishallovertheoffice.

Vivienne pushed away from the table and then came around and stood in front of me. “Good thing you’re amazing in bed, and I’m not silly enough to think of our arrangement as anything more than mutually-beneficial fun.”

I threw a few bills on the table and pushed to my feet. As we walked toward the exit of the restaurant, I put my hand on Vivienne’s back. And felt fucking nothing. No spark of desire, no anticipation, and no soft curves. She was bony and cold, and I wanted curvy and warm.

AmIreallygoingtodothis?

“It was nice catching up,” I said, “but I’m afraid I’m going to have to skip the fun. I’ve got to go back to the office and catch up on a few things.”

Apparently, I really was. Or wasn’t, depending on how you looked at it. I swear my dick tried to make an argument, but he wasn’t even excited enough to make a compelling one.

Vivienne ran her hands down my lapels. “You could’ve just canceled dinner. Or we could’ve skipped to the after.”

I buttoned the top button of my suit coat. “Maybe next time.” I hailed a cab for her and tucked her inside.

“If you get some time this week, just stop by,” she said. “You already dined me, so I won’t be insulted.”

I wanted to tell her it wasn’t going to happen, but just in case I had a desperate time that called for a desperate measure, I didn’t completely shut it down. She and I had been doing this for the past few years, whenever one of us was unattached.

Well, when she was. I was always unattached.

Saystheguywho’sgoingtogohometoanemptyhousesohedoesn’tfeelguiltyaboutquasi-cheatingonagirlfriendhedoesn’thave.

* * *

I’D NEVER SPENT MORE time at the gym than I did this past weekend. My muscles ached every time I shifted.

I told myself not to look toward the train door at Kat’s stop, but I couldn’t help it. But she didn’t get on, so she was ahead of or behind me, which meant that much longer until I could see her.

I deserved some kind of reward for surviving the weekend without giving in to the temptation to call Kat and beg her to come over. At one point, I’d even decided to promise we’d stick to our guidelines, but that I just wanted to see her face and hear her voice.

So fucking pathetic, even if it was also true. I missed her face. Her laugh. And my imagination didn’t do justice to her curves, although at least it recalled enough to get the job done when I had to take the edge off. More times than I cared to count.

While working my way up the corporate ladder, I’d made sure to lock away what few emotions I had left after seeing what happened when you let them control your decisions. Caring left you weak and vulnerable. Hope was even worse, and it was far more effective to take control of the situation and leave hope and feelings out of it.

Even I’d taken advantage of how nice my dad was back when he was still alive and doing well financially. I spent those years seeing how much I could get away with. Fast cars, motorcycles, wild parties at the house or out on the boat, and enough tattoos to have a punch card at the shop. A revolving door of girlfriends who were hot but not very bright, and a pregnancy scare that made me more vigilant about protection, even though I’d always been careful.

My dad didn’t approve of my wild lifestyle, but was too fond of the saying “boys will be boys.” It wasn’t until I was almost to leave for college and waste several years there that I pulled my head out of my ass and realized how much I’d hurt my mom.

Dad’s business crashed the next year, things got ugly fast, and Dad had a heart attack before he could pay off the debt collectors, which left my mom and me to deal with bills we didn’t even know existed. I know stress factored into his heart attack, but not even that tragedy kept people from talking about how he’d taken a successful company and drove it into the ground. There were articles.

Mom cried a lot those days, and it tore me up inside. I felt so helpless, and I decided it was time to get my shit together. What started as more of a vengeful career path to prove I could run a more successful business than everyone who bragged about how they could’ve and would’ve saved Dad’s former company—hind-sight was twenty-twenty, as they say—turned into something I enjoyed, and more, excelled at.

I’d paid off the debt Dad left us with, attacked my student loans after that, and now I used my success to provide for my mom as well as myself. She told me I spoiled her too much, but I felt like she had five years of hell and barely scraping by to make up for.

I made quick work of the walk from the train into the office and ignored a call I’d have to return later as I crossed the lobby. I stepped into the elevator and caught a whiff of familiar perfume that made my cock stir.

She’salreadyhere.

One week. That was how long it’d been since she stormed into my life and threw everything off. One week of being obsessed with the idea of taking her in this elevator or over my desk or— The warning bing reminded me that I should get myself under control—sporting a hard-on as I walked into the office was one of those things BusinessWeekly would most likely advise against.

BusinessWeekly had obviously never met Kat.

The trail of perfume led to the break room and mixed in with the scent of coffee.

She was talking to Debra, one hip leaned against the counter as she poured coffee into a mug. Nope, those suits at BusinessWeekly had clearly never seen her in a fucking fuchsia skirt that hugged her ass and hips in a way that made me jealous of fabric.

“Did you want me to pour you a mug, Mr. Stone?” Debra asked.

Obviously Kat hadn’t registered my entrance, but now she straightened and turned, and fuckme she had on a black top that scooped low, with necklaces that settled on the swell of her breasts and dipped into her cleavage.

Now I was jealous of fabric and jewelry.

“Morning, Mr. Stone.” She dumped cream and sweetener into her coffee, lifted her mug, and started past me.

I wanted to reach out and catch her arm—hell, I wanted to do more than that. I wanted to push that skirt up and settle myself between her thighs. Both of those options weren’t actually options in front of Debra, as well as in the office in general.

But while my brain said letherby, my body said blockherexit, and my brain definitely wasn’t in control today.

She glanced up, her wide eyes and innocent face making me want to defile her in new and inventive ways.

I couldn’t very well tell her that seeing her made me feel happy about something for the first time in days, and confessing that I missed her over the weekend was also out. “I need to talk to you about a few things I noticed in the reports. Let me just get settled in and?—”

“Don’t you have that appointment in fifteen minutes?” Damn. I forgot about that. My alert should’ve gone off.

Her gaze dropped to my shoulder, her expression carefully neutral. “I peeked at your calendar a few minutes ago, and you’re booked back-to-back today. I’ll do what I can to make sure you stay on schedule, and if you get behind, I’ll make small talk with your clients. As long as that’s okay with you.”

It should be. She could charm all of my clients, and then I would want to murder them all for looking at her. Totally cool. “Of course. When’s my last appointment?”

She kept on stubbornly avoiding eye-contact and I fucking hated it. It made me want to cup her chin and tip her face up to mine so I could peer into those hazel eyes until she gave me something more than this robotic version of her. “Five-thirty, I believe.” Debra extended a steaming mug toward me. “Wow. She already knows your schedule as well as I do. She’s right. It is five-thirty.”

“Schedule Katrina for my six-thirty slot, then.”

“Katrina better get out of the break room and get to work, then,” Kat said. Something was up, and it frustrated the hell out of me that I couldn’t pull her aside right now and ask her what it was.

But I got the message loud and clear, and let her by. She took the no-touching guideline to the extreme and practically hugged the other side of the doorway, leaving as much space as possible between us.

Yeah, there was no way I was going to be able to wait until six- thirty to pull her aside and find out what the hell was up with her today.