Chapter 15
Ispent my weekend unpacking, settling into my new place, and deep cleaning my old apartment so I could hand the keys back over to my landlord. By the time my alarm goes off Monday morning, an hour and a half earlier than usual to allow for my new commute, I’m so tired that I contemplate calling out sick. I could seriously use an extra day to just relax. But then I remember the massive bill I have coming to get my car fixed and think better of it, instead making a coffee for the road and starting the first of many long commutes.
I’m just settling in at my desk after unlocking the front office door when Adam walks in, handing me a bright yellow envelope.
“What’s this?” I ask, taking it from him with a curious look. It has my name on the front.
He gives me a smile, an honest to god actual smile. “I figured congratulations were in order,” he says, awkwardly stuffing his hands in his front pockets as he looks at me.
I open the envelope, finding a cute little card with ‘Congratulations’ scrolled across the front in a fancy, foiled, cursive text and little pastel balloons all across the bottom. When I open it, a three thousand dollar gift card falls out onto my desk.
I stare at it in stunned disbelief before finally saying, “This is too much.” I put the gift card back inside the card and hand it back to him. “I can’t accept this.”
He shrugs. “I know you have a long commute now, so I’m open to you teleworking a couple times a week if it means you’ll stay on with me. I still expect you to be here whenever we have client meetings in the office, but otherwise, I can be flexible. Use that to get whatever you need to set up a home office.”
I must still have a stunned look on my face, because he laughs. “I may be difficult to work with ninety-nine percent of the time, but I know a good employee when I see one, Riley. I’d rather keep you around than have to try to find someone else again.”
“Thank you, sir,” I finally manage to muster. He gives me a small nod before heading to his office on the second floor.
I stare at the card in my hands. How did we go from Adam barely managing to offer me a ‘good morning’ to him giving me a raise and paying for me to set up a home office? It feels… off.
I don’t disagree with him. I’m a great employee. But the sudden change of his tone has me on alert, Emmett’s warning to me about him running through my mind.
I’m probably overthinking it. I should be grateful he values me and wants to keep me around. And teleworking would be a huge incentive for me to stay. Just from this morning, I know my new commute is going to be a bitch.
Deciding it’s not worth stressing about, I slip his card into my purse with plans to look at computers tonight. I get to work catching up on everything I missed being off most of last week, and before I even know it, it’s lunchtime already.
I elect to have food delivered and work through lunch, trying to clear my backlog of emails. It’s only when my food actually arrives that I pull out my phone to check messages and see a text from Tracy.
Tracy:I’m back, bitch! And all the invites have gone out for your housewarming party. Already have 30 yes RSVPs.
I inwardly groan. So much for small and casual. And what the hell? We were supposed to plan this together.
But my annoyance is fleeting. I’m just glad she’s finally back. I didn’t realize how badly I needed to talk to her about the whole Emmett thing.
My fingers fly over the keyboard with my response.
Me:I don’t even know 30 people here, Trace. Also, I’m glad you’re back. What did you bring me from your travels afar?
Tracy:Something nice. You’ll see on Saturday. Want to get drinks after work tomorrow and catch up?
Me:God, yes, please. So much has happened while you were away.
Tracy:Did you and Emmett hook up?
A laugh escapes me, and I shake my head. Leave it to Tracy not to beat around the bush. Of course, she’d want to know if her latest attempt to set me up was successful.
I go to type out my reply, but my fingers freeze. Where do I even begin explaining what has been going on? I was so desperate to talk to her about two minutes ago, but now that she’s brought it up, I don’t know where to start. Or how much I should even share.
Me:Ummm…it’s a long story. Let’s meet up at 6 tomorrow. Our usual spot?
Tracy:Yes
Tracy:Was he a bad fuck?
I lock my phone and shove it in my desk drawer, not wanting to answer Tracy right now. I don’t know when things with Emmett got so complicated. Or how we got to where we are so quickly. In the barely two weeks I’ve known him, my life has been completely turned upside down. And I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing.
It was the same when I first met Trevor. Life became a whirlwind. He gave me the attention I grew to crave. He gave me the love I had never had before. He made me feel special. Important. Like I was someone worth loving. Worth having.
And it excited me. It sparked a passion in me that I didn’t know I possessed. My life became about pleasing him, about making him happy, about putting him above everything else. And I loved that. I loved having someone else in my life who was so important to me that I was willing to do anything for him. To be anything for him.
For the first time in my life, I was truly happy. I felt worthy and like I had something to live for. I had everything I thought I wanted. We had moved in together, we bought a house, we got a dog, we got engaged. We started building a life and a future, and it was perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Until it wasn’t.
It was shortly after we got engaged that I found out he’d been cheating on me the entire time we’d been together. And not just with one woman, but with many. That’s when my fairytale life turned into a nightmare. One that I still relive in my sleep.
And the fact that Emmett makes me feel excited again terrifies me. Because I’ve been down this road once before, and I don’t want to do it again. To open myself up. To be vulnerable. To have hope. To have someone else that consumes a part of me. Just to have absolutely everything come crashing down around me.
I barely survived it last time, and I know for certain I wouldn’t survive it again.
Wrapping up my half-eaten sandwich, I take it back to the break room to put in the fridge, my appetite completely gone. It’s amazing how even a year and a half later, Trevor still has this control over me. How just the thought of him makes my stomach queasy and nerves jittery. Grabbing a water bottle from the fridge, I go back to my desk and focus on work.
I don’t notice the afternoon slip by, and before I know it, it’s already after six. “Shit,” I mutter, closing out of my email and clocking out so I don’t accumulate overtime.
Adam and the other partners all left long ago. It’s rare that any of them stay past early afternoon if they don’t have clients coming into the office. I make my way to the second floor and make sure all the lights are off, then come back downstairs to gather my things.
But I feel tired, my energy completely zapped. And I really don’t want to fight traffic and make the drive home right now, so I lock up the front door, kick off my heels and head to the break room. Making myself an espresso, I pray to the gods of all things caffeinated that it gives me some semblance of life, then grab my half-eaten sandwich from lunch and go back to my desk.
I nibble on my sandwich and wait for the caffeine to kick in as I start browsing computers and desks. It doesn’t take long before I go down a rabbit hole of color coordinated office supplies and deciding what kind of rug I want under my desk chair. And before I know it, my evening starts slipping away, that three thousand dollar gift card burning a hole in my pocket.
It’s after eight when I get home. I’ve just poured myself a drink and plopped down on the couch when I pull up the live streams to Riley’s apartment.
Today was a bitch. I should have known Giovanni Voletti wouldn’t let me go so easily, and I spent all fucking afternoon running damage control on the sideways deal his new realtor got him into. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had me on a plane to New York tomorrow to fix it. I should have deactivated my New York license.
But I didn’t. And I won’t. Because I always knew my life would remain intertwined with Gio’s. He’s the one who pulled Jax and me off those cheap front steps and offered us our first jobs when we were fifteen. It was grunt work, driving him and his men around at their beck and call, to and from jobs or meetings. But it gave us enough money to pay the rent when both of our worthless mothers were too strung out to pay the bills.
When we turned eighteen, Gio gave us an ultimatum. Either find a way to make ourselves useful to him in a legitimate profession, or he was pulling us into the family. We both knew once you were pulled in, you never got out. It hadn’t taken long after starting to work for him that we learned he was into some illegal shit. But we never asked questions, we never second guessed.
Eventually we learned Gio was running guns. And our job? Just drive the vehicle and wait. I wanted more. I wanted fully into the business, but Jax convinced me that was short-sighted and reckless, and I eventually agreed. We’d go the legitimate route. Or as legitimate as you could be working for an organized crime family.
That was when we both got our real estate licenses. We easily saw the value in land. Not just the monetary value, but the control it offered. We saw the power you could hold over someone when you controlled their shelter, their safety. I saw my mom fuck our landlord enough times to keep us from getting evicted, that I knew the easiest way to control a person was by controlling where they lived.
At first, we struggled. We hadn’t convinced Gio yet that he should use us to put his dirty money into real estate assets. But eventually, we found our niche, working for drug lords and dirty politicians, building their wealth and hiding their blood money.
That was when Gio finally saw our value. And that was when Jax and I really made it. Turns out crime families have a lot of money to hide. And what better place to put it than real estate?
Jax and I spent the next fourteen years building Gio’s real estate portfolio, all the while working on building our own little empire, and it was only then that I finally convinced him to let us leave New York so we could focus on ourselves.
In truth, I just wanted to get away from the city that held so many bad memories for me.
So, when I got the call from Gio this afternoon, irate about a thirteen million dollar deal that was about to fall through, I wasn’t surprised. And I fully expect to be pulled back into the fray more often than not. Because realistically, he won’t find someone to replace Jax and I. We were ruthless, more than willing to do questionable shit to get what we wanted, and the chance of Gio finding someone to fully replace us? Slim to none.
I kick my feet up onto the coffee table in front of me and scroll through the different feeds from Riley’s place, sipping my drink. I’m expecting to find her working on unpacking the last of her things, but instead I find an empty house. Confused, I pull up my tracking app to see the location of her phone and find that it’s still at her office in the city.
It bothers me that she’s still at work. After such a long day, she’ll be exhausted, and I hate the thought of her making that long drive home when she’s tired. I try calling her, but it goes to voicemail. I send a quick text, asking what her plans are for the evening, but ten minutes later, she still hasn’t responded.
Sighing, I head into my closet to change into jeans and a t-shirt, grab my leather jacket, then make my way back down to the parking garage and to my car. If she’s going to stay in the city this late, she can sleep at my place. I’m not letting her drive home this late just to turn around and do it all over again six hours later.
It only takes me fifteen minutes to get to her office, and I find a parking spot right outside the front door. All the lights are off, except for the lobby and hallway leading back to the conference room. As I approach the front door, I see her hunched behind her desk, her attention focused on something in front of her.
The front door doesn’t budge when I grab it. At least she had the sense to lock up if she’s going to be here by herself at night. I rap my knuckles against the glass door, and see her jump at the noise, eyes darting up to look over the raised ledge of her desk.
She gets up quickly, giving me a confused look as she walks over barefoot. Unlocking the front door, she pulls it open a crack but doesn’t let me inside, instead sticking her head and shoulder through the small opening.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, eyes moving up and down the street behind me.
I shove my hands in my pockets. “Was in the area, saw the lights still on.”
She gives me a look like she doesn’t believe me. “Uh huh.” She pulls the door open wider, letting me inside before locking it again behind us. “I find it hard to believe you just happened to be driving by.”
I shrug. “Is it so hard to believe I’d want to see you?” I ask, genuinely curious.
She looks gorgeous today, in a deep purple dress that hugs her body in all the right places. It’s cut just low enough to show a hint of cleavage, but not enough to be considered unprofessional. My hands clench in my pockets, wanting to pull down those straps and cup those perfect tits.
There’s a spark of defiance in Riley’s eye as she turns from me and heads back to her desk. “I don’t know,” she finally replies. “It seems to me like the only time you want to see me is when you want something from me. Are you here for another blow job?” The ice in her voice has me fighting to hold back my smirk.
She’s not wrong, but she’s got it all backwards. I do want to see her, and not just to mess around. But I also can’t help it that as soon as I’m anywhere near her, I become fucking feral in my need for her. And who am I to deny myself what I want?
“You’re still upset about the other night,” I say instead, guessing that’s where her sass is coming from. Her glare is answer enough.
I lean against her desk, and when she sits down in her chair, I have a perfect view down her dress. A smile ghosts my face, and she notices, grabbing the white blazer draped on the back of her chair and pulling it tight around her body.
“Listen,” I tell her, doing my best to hide my amusement at her attitude tonight. “If you’re looking for an apology, you’re not going to get one. I enjoyed every second of your lips wrapped around my cock, and I’m not sorry about any of it.” She scoffs. “But I am here to check on you. The office lights were still on, and you have a long drive home. What are you doing here so late, anyway?”
She goes back to scrolling on her computer, trying her best to seem offended at my lack of apology. “I’m buying supplies to set up a home office,” she finally says. “Adam offered to let me telework part-time.”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle at the news. I don’t trust Adam, and I don’t trust his track record with his previous employees. That fact that he’s trying to get in her good graces has my jaw ticking.
“Awfully generous of him,” I grit out. The only silver lining to this is the more often she teleworks, the less often she’s here with him.
“Yes, it is,” she agrees, flashing me a smile full of contempt. She slips on her black heels and grabs her purse before walking around to stand before me at the front of her desk. She holds out a hand expectantly toward the front door. “Now, if you don’t mind, it is late, so if you could just exit the way you came in, I have a long drive home.”
I don’t move, instead squaring up to face her. “Stay at my place,” I say, taking in how tired she actually does look. “You can crash early and won’t have to make the drive again in the morning.”
Her eyes widen, and I can see the desire in them. It’s there for just a second before she recovers, slipping that cold mask back in place.
But then she steps into me, her chest brushing against mine.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she whispers, her hands coming to rest on my chest. My dick swells at the contact. “Getting me all alone at your place for the night.” One hand runs down my chest, slowly feeling my abs before pausing at my waist. I suck in a breath. She gets on her tiptoes, her face inches from mine. “What would you do with me?” she asks, peering up at me with innocent eyes.
My hands come around her waist, and I lean down, bringing my lips to her ear. “Come over and I’ll show you.”
Her hand at my waist moves lower and every muscle in my body is screaming at me to pick her up and fuck her against the wall, not caring who can see through the windows. Fire races through my veins with the need to touch her, taste her, consume her.
She cups my dick through my pants, feeling the hard length of me before pulling away with a smirk. “So predictable,” she taunts. “Like I said, you only want me to, what? Make me get on my knees again? Fuck me? What is it you want tonight, Emmett?”
She watches me expectantly, that smirk still on her face like she just won. She doesn’t realize this is far from the victory she thinks it is.
I click my tongue at her. “Here’s the thing, Riley.” I advance on her, and she steps back, the smirk falling off her face. I keep going until she’s backed against the wall and brace a hand on either side of her head, trapping her. “I do want something from you. I want every fucking piece of you. And eventually, you’ll give it to me.”
I don’t wait for her response, instead crashing my mouth down on hers. I lick at her lips, impatient, and she parts them for me, our tongues twining in a frenzy, our mouths desperate to consume each other.
She won’t admit it. She’ll never say it out loud. But I know she wants me. I can see it in her body, on her face. Hear it in the way she breathes, the little sounds she makes. And I can feel it, in the way her teeth nip at me, her tongue lashing against my own, a battle of wills between two forces that each want the same thing, but will never relinquish to the other.
My hips press into hers and my hands find her jaw, cupping her face as I devour her mouth. She tastes so sweet, and I grind into her, holding her against the wall.
Her purse falls from her shoulder and clatters to the floor, but she doesn’t pull back, doesn’t stop to look. Instead running her hands down my chest, my stomach, latching her fingers into the waistband of my jeans.
My own move down her shoulders, along her sides, until they rest on her ass, and I pick her up, her legs wrapping around my waist as I walk down the hallway and duck into the first open door I see. My mouth continues its assault on her, kissing her like my life depends on it as I slam her into the wall beside the door we just walked through. Her legs unwrap from around my waist and I set her down, my lips trailing down her jaw, her neck, along her collarbone. I push her blazer off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor in a heap.
“Emmett…” she pleads, her body rolling into my own as her hands reach up to strip off my leather jacket. I let it fall to the floor before coming back to her and nuzzling back into her neck, licking a trail from her shoulder up to her ear.
I use one arm to brace myself against the wall and drop the other to her thigh, reaching under her dress and dragging my knuckles across the damp fabric between her legs. “Fuck, baby. You wet for me already?” A little moan leaves her throat, and I grin, loving how needy she gets for me. “You want me to fuck you this time?” I whisper into her ear, and she shivers.
“Please,” she pants, breathless as she continues rolling her hips against my hand still between her legs.
Pulling back, I fix my eyes on her. “Say it.”
She stops moving, her eyes finding mine. “Please fuck me.”
I remove the hand from between her legs. “You know what I want to hear.”
Her gaze hardens, and I know she’s going to tell me no. “Please,” she begs instead. “Fuck me, Emmett. Please.”
I groan, my dick painfully hard in my pants. Fuck it. She’ll give in to me. Maybe not tonight, but eventually, I’ll get that ‘yes’.
I give her another long kiss before reaching down and sliding my hands up both of her thighs, slipping my fingers into the sides of her panties and pulling them down.
Riley breathes heavily as I move my hand between her legs and run my fingers through her slick folds. She’s so fucking wet already, if I wanted to force my way into her right now I could. I run my fingers down the length of her, before moving back to her clit and making circles over the sensitive bundle of nerves. She bucks against me and it drives me over the edge.
I plunge a finger into her at the same time my mouth finds hers, capturing her moan as I start pumping into her, adding a second finger. I lick into her mouth, tasting her as my thumb starts rubbing over her clit–my fingers diving into her wet pussy and our heavy breathing the only sounds in the room.
When I pull back, she’s panting, her eyes glazed over, and I can feel her pussy starting to clench around me. “Come on my fingers, baby.”
She grinds into my hand, desperate for release. I insert a third finger and she cries out. Fuck, it’s so tight. All I can think about is driving my cock into her, feeling this tight cunt quivering around my dick as I make her scream my name.
She comes, her pussy clamping down around my fingers as I continue to pump them in and out, finger fucking her through her orgasm. Her body shakes as she rides it out, and once I’ve wrung every last second of her orgasm from her, I pull my fingers out, reaching for my belt.
And that’s when I hear a door closing. I hang my head.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
“Riley?” someone calls out, and l immediately know it’s Adam. Fucking prick.
I watch as Riley’s eyes widen and she hurriedly reaches down to pull her panties back up. Running her fingers through her hair, she says, “Stay in here,” before running out and closing the door behind her, essentially hiding me in the break room.
I laugh. Like I give a shit about Adam finding me here with her. Opening the door, I grab our jackets and walk out to find them in the front lobby. Adam does a double take when I walk over to join Riley.
“I didn’t know you had company,” he says, suspicion clear on his face. “This isn’t really appropriate, Riley. Especially considering we’re in the middle of working out a business deal. There’s confidential information in this office he shouldn’t have access to.”
I see the moment it registers with Riley that Adam is more concerned about me having access to their files than he is about me fucking her in the break room. I don’t know if I should be grateful or offended by the relief on her face.
“You’re right,” she says, nodding her agreement. “It was wrong. I was just staying late to pick out office supplies and Emmett was kind enough to bring me dinner. He’s on his way out.” She shoots me a look, silently pleading with me to leave. But I”m not leaving her alone with her creep of a boss.
“We’re both going,” I say, walking over to grab her discarded purse from earlier, and handing it along with her blazer to her. “I’ll walk you to your car,” I add, leaving no room for argument.
She considers me for a second before grabbing her things from me and putting her blazer on. Pulling out her keys, she tells Adam, “Have a good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
We walk down the hallway toward the back exit in silence. But the second we’re out the door and it’s locked behind us, she starts pacing.
“Shit, shit, shit.” Turning to me, she asks, “Do you think he has cameras in there? Why else would he come back? He probably saw everything.”
He doesn”t have cameras. I had my tech guy check. Instead I tell her, “I doubt there are any. He wouldn’t want there to be any evidence of him cheating on his wife.”
“Oh.” She pauses her pacing. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She considers me for a second, as though trying to decide something, before turning and heading toward my Audi.
“So, are you coming to my place?” I ask as she unlocks the car. I knew her coming over was a long shot, but fuck if I don’t want her to. My dick is still straining against my jeans from earlier.
She smiles at me. A big, beautiful grin, as she opens the car door. “Nah, I think I’ll leave you hanging like you did to me Friday night.” And without so much as a goodbye, she gets in, starts the car, and drives off, leaving me standing here like a fucking fool with a hard dick.
Hell, maybe this was her victory to take after all.