Chapter 11
“I’m so excited! I’ve never had an office job before. Do you think everyone’s going to like me? Will there be snacks? What if I get hungry before lunch?” I fire off a list of questions as Leo ignores me, like he’s staring down at me from his high horse.
We’re waiting for the elevator to bring us to the top floor of Kingsley Tower, and my grumpy fiancée turned boss has barely spoken two words to me. He’s cold and detached and acting like last night he didn’t finger-fuck me at family dinner … and then threaten to punish me further if I touched myself.
Holy fuck, I’m getting turned on again, just thinking about it.
Where on earth did that come from, and how do I trigger it again? I’m not exactly sure what we’re doing here. All I know is that no one has ever made me feel anything remotely close to what I felt from this man’s fingers. If he’s that skilled with his hands, I can’t imagine what he can do with his cock.
I fan myself as a rush of heat burns my cheeks, feeling more and more frustrated that he doesn’t appear the least bit affected. If anything, he’s more closed off and rigid than usual.
After Leo left my bedroom last night, I was in such a flustered tizzy. I couldn’t get the memory of his hands out of my mind, and I lay there, fighting the urge to bring myself the relief I was so desperately craving.
I didn’t want to listen to his stupid commands, trust me. But every time I tried to find my own relief, I kept getting distracted by how much better it’d felt when Leo touched me. After several failed attempts and a charley horse in my hand, I finally gave it up and succumbed to my fate.
Who knew all it took to get me to listen was some pent-up sexual frustration and a firm tone from an older man? If I could harness this kind of willpower, there’s no telling what I’d be capable of achieving. It’s a dangerous power in the wrong hands, which makes sense that the responsible, controlled Leo Kingsley would be the only man known to wield it.
He can never know; his ego’s much too big already.
That was the hottest thing anyone had ever said to me, so it was torture, not being able to give myself a release, but in the back of my mind, I just kept thinking that if I listened to him, then maybe he’d burst through my door and put me out of my misery.
So, despite my efforts to disobey him again … I begrudgingly followed his orders, and I think that is deserving of some kind of acknowledgment, a special treat, something.
I just need to find the right opportunity to bring it up.
The elevator chimes, and we step inside. I turn to watch the gorgeous views as the elevator lifts us all the way to the top floor. Ashford Falls is breathtakingly beautiful, and Kingsley Tower has a prime location overlooking the waterfalls on one side and the old railroad station on the other. I’m sure this location was intentional.
“How many waterfalls are in this town?” I ask, trying to make small talk.
“Seven, but that’s the largest one, and if you look to the east, you can see another one from this vantage point.”
The elevator doors open, and I follow close at his heel.
“Oh, so you can speak. I was beginning to wonder if you’d lost your voice when you were moaning my name in the shower last night?—”
He stops abruptly, and I run smack into his back. “Have you not learned your lesson about trying to embarrass me?”
I give him a shrug. “I don’t remember it being so bad, having you finger-fu?—”
He slaps a palm over my mouth and pins me with a glare. “Listen very closely. I might have lost control last night, but I promise you I have no intentions of doing so again, and you’ll be wise to not push me.”
I stare up at him in forced silence for only a moment before he pulls his hand away, probably realizing he’s making a scene.
He straightens his tie and lowers his voice to a hushed whisper. “We’re at work now, and I expect you to at least pretend to be a professional while we’re inside these walls.”
I shove my hands in my pockets and rock back on my heels. “So, you don’t deny it?”
“What?”
“Does that mean you were moaning my name? Because I was just fucking with you but?—”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why the fuck did I agree to bring you here?”
“Your dad didn’t exactly give you a choice if I remember correctly, but I was still glitching from having my orgasm withheld from me, so I might not have the best memory.”
His jaw clenches, and he looks at me like I’ve exhausted him. “Please just try to keep quiet and don’t make a scene. People are working, and I don’t need you causing a distraction.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why not? We’re at work. You’re paying me to be fake engaged to you. It’s either boss or Daddy, and you told me to stop calling you Daddy so?—”
“For Christ’s sake, do you ever shut up?”
“Only when my mouth’s full,” I say with a shrug.
“You’re making me question how much I really want this promotion with every minute that passes,” he mumbles under his breath as we step into the open office space, where a handful of staff members are already setting up for the day.
“Good morning, Leo.”
“Good morning.” He waves, then places his hand on the small of my back, as if he’s afraid I’ll run away and embarrass him if he doesn’t have a hand on me.
It’s not completely untrue …
“We heard about your hospital scare over the weekend. I can’t believe you came in today—wait, is this her?” the woman sitting at the desk in the center says, causing everyone to turn around and stare.
I smile wide and give them a little wave, but before I can introduce myself, Leo speaks for me. “This is Ivy, my fiancée. You’ll see her around here, as she’s helping me plan the festival this year. Please try to keep things professional. I know this seems unexpected and exciting, but we are all here to work?—”
“I can’t wait to get to know all of you!” I interrupt. “We’re going to have so much fun together?—”
He tightens his grip on my arm. “She means at the festival, of course. Well, I’ll be in my office, showing Ivy the ropes. If you need anything, just shoot me an email …” He opens his office door, practically shoving me inside, and hits a button, making the office-facing windows go black for privacy.
“Whoa. Now, isn’t this fancy?”
I look around the moody office, painted in a dark green or blue—I can’t really tell because it’s so dim. There’s a large mahogany bookshelf built into the wall across from his desk, and a huge floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the falls. With the privacy shades, the window gives just enough light to have a cozy, calming feeling.
I plop down in his leather desk chair and spin around several times, lifting my feet when I build up enough speed to propel the chair on its own.
He grips the chair, causing it to stop abruptly, and the sudden force makes me fly into the armrest.
“Ouch. Hey, why’d you do that?”
“Get out of my chair.”
I cross my arms over my chest and sink down further. “Make me.”
He moves closer and props his hip against his desk as he glares at me. He smells amazing, like aftershave and a touch of something woodsy, and I do my best to keep from shoving my nose into his chest. That would be weird, and by the looks of it, he isn’t in the mood to be sniffed. Maybe I can get a good sniff in when he isn’t looking …
“You’re insufferable—do you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
Just when I expect him to yank me up out of his seat, he walks to the corner of the room and lifts an armchair like it weighs nothing and sets it beside me.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m improvising.”
He slides his keyboard and mouse in the space in front of him and scoots the monitor over so he can see. He begins going through his emails. Like I’m not even sitting here.
Fine, I’ll just figure out a way to entertain myself.
I take the opportunity to walk around and survey his bookshelves.
There’s not much personality in this office, mostly just your standard classics—probably all first editions, if I had to guess. I drum my finger along the old spines until I come across a title that surprises me. I pull it from the shelf, and just as I suspected, it’s a signed first edition copy of The Hobbit in pristine condition.
He clears his throat, and I spin around, still holding the book.
“I wouldn’t have guessed you were a Tolkien fan. And a collector at that.”
I wave the book, and he grabs it out of my hand, smoothing the cover before placing it back on the shelf.
“You’re so uptight—you know that, don’t you? I wasn’t going to break it, you know?—”
“Maybe not intentionally, but considering you still have a little bit of jelly on your lip from your doughnut this morning, I’d rather not tempt fate.”
I suck in a breath when he swipes his thumb across my bottom lip and down my chin. But to my disappointment, he pulls a napkin from his pocket and wipes his thumb clean rather than sucking it off.
Shame.
“Okay, well, if I’m not allowed to touch your stuff, can you at least give me something to work on for the festival? I’m so bored. There must be something productive I can do …”
Leo moves back to his seat, and I follow him.
“I don’t have time right now. Maybe after my next meeting, I can find a list of vendors?—”
“Your dad said the festival should be your top priority. And I’m here to make sure you stay on the right task and to keep you from stressing yourself out with all this work?—”
“The only thing stressing me out is your mouth. Now, can you please figure out a way to entertain yourself—quietly and without destroying priceless antiques—for ten minutes? I promise we’ll talk about the festival soon enough.”
“Can I leave this office?”
“No.”
“But it’s so dark and cozy in here, and the shades are pulled down, and it’s making me really horny …”
“That’s enough, Ivy,” he growls in warning, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge.
I love the way my name sounds, rolling off his tongue. Really, this man should narrate audiobooks with that deep, panty-melting growl.
I fan myself as I watch him work. He might look like Superman, but this office is definitely giving Batman vibes.
“What superhero do you think you’re more like—Superman or Batman?”
He glances up, with a look of confusion. “Seriously?”
“My guess is, you like Superman more because he’s more wholesome and polished …”
He lets out a long sigh, but doesn’t say anything.
“Oh, come on. You’re just going to sit there and ignore me like I’m not even here?”
“I don’t think I could pretend you weren’t here if I tried. Between your fidgeting legs shaking the desk and your interruptions every thirty seconds, even a goldfish wouldn’t be able to forget your presence.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Can you please stop talking? I’m concentrating.”
I rock back in the fancy leather desk chair and fold my legs under me.
“You can sit there and look pretty while I catch up on these emails,” he answers without looking my way.
“So, you do think I’m pretty? You know I can’t really tell with this whole Jekyll and Hyde thing you’ve got going on. One minute, you’re completely ignoring me, and the next, you’re confiscating my vibrator and threatening to punish me if I touch myself. Make up your mind, Boss Daddy. What’s it going to be?”
He hits Send on his email and turns to face me, wearing a look of exhaustion.
“I don’t have time for this. As I’m sure you’ve gathered, I’m a busy man, and now, thanks to your little suggestion last night, you’ve just tripled my workload. So, even if I wanted to be your Boss Daddy, I wouldn’t have anywhere near the time or energy it would require of me to take on that role.”
My mouth falls open, and for once, I’m literally too stunned to speak.
“Now, please, do me a favor and be quiet for five minutes so I can think about how I’m going to bend space and time to get everything done.” He rubs his temples and sighs before going back to his computer screen.
Several moments pass as I try to hold in my question, but eventually, my curiosity wins out, and I break the silence. “Now, when you say you don’t have the time and energy to take on that role, does that mean that you’ve done this before?”
“It means, drop it. This is not the time or the place to have this conversation.”
I start to argue, but the phone rings, slicing through the tension-filled air like a knife. And just like that, Leo switches back to his business professional persona as he discusses eco-friendly packaging substrates and pricing.
But that one little comment is all the encouragement I need.
“I can’t imagine Leo saying that, much less right before bungee jumping with you,” Janice, one of the ladies on Leo’s floor, says.
“I thought he was scared of heights. Wasn’t that one of his fun facts during last year’s holiday party?” Ricky, the only other man on the twentieth floor, asks.
“No, it wasn’t heights. I’m pretty sure he said claustrophobic,” Janice adds.
“Really, Janice? Now, you’re the expert, are you?” Ricky snaps back, crossing his arms over his chest in annoyance.
Clearly, there’s some unresolved tension between these two, as they haven’t stopped arguing since we sat down for lunch. We’re in the cafeteria, and I’ve drawn quite the crowd around me, as everyone wants to get to know Leo Kingsley’s mystery lover.
I’m a good time. What can I say?
“Oh, well, he put on a brave face before we jumped, but one of the workers ended up having to push us over the edge because he tried to back out. He clung to me and screamed like a little girl the whole way down,” I say with a laugh, trying to lighten the mood.
In the twenty minutes since Leo left me unattended for lunch—he’s taking a working lunch that’s too important for my distractions—I’ve managed to meet all the staff members working on his floor and some of the people in HR. I’ve told them how we met. I even stuck to Leo’s boring script, but I took some creative liberty with some of the other stories, like the first time he’d told me he loved me—while we made love in his car on the way back from the airport. It was so romantic; he couldn’t wait to get me to the hotel, just swooped into a Walmart parking lot, and I rode him to high heaven.
Sometimes, my imagination terrifies me with how quickly I come up with these things.
“He’s got quite the wild side to him when he lets himself detach from work,” I say with a shrug.
“Wow, I wish we could see fun Leo every now and then. Maybe then he’d actually be able to keep an assistant,” Fran, from HR, says.
“What do you mean? His assistants quit a lot?”
Fran continues, “Oh, yeah. He’s got about a three-month limit before he either overworks them, or pisses them off bad enough for them to either transfer to another department or outright quit.”
My eyebrows knit together in confusion. It’s not that I can’t see Leo being hard to work for; his expectations must be through the roof, as he demands perfection from everyone around him, especially himself. But I’m surprised because this place seems so good to its employees. I see the way Frank’s personality and gigantic heart for this company and the community shine through everything. How is Leo still missing the mark? I know he cares; it’s why he pushes himself so hard … but isn’t he smart enough to see he’s making his staff miserable, that they have to walk on eggshells around their boss?
No wonder his dad decided he wasn’t ready to be promoted.
“Hey, you know what? We should do something after work on Friday! Like a team-bonding activity. What do you think?” I blurt out the idea as soon as it pops in my head.
Everyone’s so tense around here; maybe if we shake things up with some after-work drinks and games, they’ll be able to see Leo’s not so bad.
“We stopped having happy hours after work when Leo moved over to our floor two years ago. He said he didn’t want to be liable for someone getting hurt or something like that,” another woman says.
“That’s ridiculous. It’s after work, and everyone is responsible, right? Leo might have decided that two years ago, but I’m here now, and the man doesn’t tell me no about anything. What do you think we should do? Does anyone have any ideas?”
“Ooh!” Janice raises her hand excitedly, so I nod for her to share. “We could play trivia at Restaurant. Leo’s brother Jett owns it, you know. I bet he’d make sure we had a table and enough space for everyone to join!”
“Yeah?” I look around as everyone nods in agreement, chattering among themselves, and dare I say, for the first time since I stepped in this building, there’s a buzz of excitement in the air. “Let’s do it then. I’ll call later today and ask Jett to reserve a space.”
“Reserve the space for what?” Leo’s husky voice asks from behind me, and suddenly, everyone falls quiet.
The room feels ten degrees colder as he stands over me with one eyebrow cocked up. It’s like he’s a real-life fun sucker, a Dementor for joy.
I flash him a big smile as I try to boost the energy back to its previous level. “There you are. We were just planning a trivia night after work on Friday. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
I bat my eyes and nudge my head toward his staff, but his scowl only deepens.
“Absolutely not.” He shakes his head, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“But I haven’t even told you the theme?—”
“It’s a liability, and my decision is fin?—”
I don’t wait for him to finish before jumping up and wrapping my arms around him. I grip his tie and pull his head down so I can whisper in his ear as his heart beats violently in his chest. “You want to prove to your dad that you’re ready, then just go with it. Or I can entertain them with more scandalous stories about us … let them know your favorite pet name …”
“I swear to God, if you even mutter a single syllable about that …” His voice trails off in a growl underneath his breath.
“See, you keep saying that, but here’s the thing …” I trace my fingers over his rough stubble before grabbing the knot of his tie in my fist. “I don’t think it’s having the desired effect you think it is.” I quirk a brow, tightening my grip on his tie.
He coughs, then shakes his head, looking irritated. “Fine, but keep it work-appropriate. And everyone will need to sign a waiver before drinking any alcohol.”
I loosen my grip and tap him on the cheek, his afternoon scruff scratching against my palm. “Good boy,” I say with a wink.
Everyone breaks out in cheers, and it’s only then that I remember we’re not alone. His hard chest moves under my palm as he breathes small, quick breaths, and judging by the way he’s looking at me, I’m not sure if he wants to spank me or kiss me …
Lucky for me, I’d be happy with either.