Chapter 2
Chapter Two
W hite and green stared back at me from my computer screen. They were the brightest lights in an otherwise dim room. The words on the screen might as well have been children’s scribbles for all I could understand of it.
Dammit.
I rubbed my face and leaned back in the too opulent leather chair.
The large walnut desk was empty except for the computer and a heavy wooden placard my grandpa gifted me that read ‘Samuel Pennington CEO’ in shining gold lettering.
I wasn’t the CEO, not yet, and I didn’t think anyone would be here if they didn’t know who they were talking to.
He insisted, though, said it was tradition.
I didn’t have the heart to keep fighting with him—about the name, the job, or the placard.
I wasn’t going to get any work done like this. My new responsibilities pressed down on me, swallowing my time and sanity, and the first date I’d had in months was a bust after seeing Lily drunk at the bar.
My cock twitched as I remembered how she looked in the little purple dress that poured over her, hugging her every curve. Her cherry flavored lips felt like sin, all soft and wanting.
Fuck .
Don’t think about Lily .
Logically, I knew drinking didn’t make you a different person.
It didn’t give someone ideas they didn’t have before .
It didn’t change who you were deep inside.
All it did was let that inside person come out to play, good or bad.
It just opened a door. I had been drunk often enough myself to know that.
Logically.
My brain wasn’t functioning on logic right now.
My lips still tingled and my hands itched to feel Lily again, to run my hands along her curves, cup her full breasts, feel her come apart around me.
Shit.
I knew I should keep this all to myself, pretend like it didn’t happen. Even if drunk Lily is just sober Lily with more open doors, she had to have her reasons for keeping that door closed and I needed to respect that.
I scrubbed my face in frustration. This was too much. Too little. Just?—
What I needed was a bit of stress release. Which is what I had hoped to achieve with… Bea? Brittany? Shit, I can’t even remember her name anymore.
I stared out the windows, the moon high and full, framed by the city beyond. We were so high up in this monstrosity of a building. Tallest in the city—by a lot. Gramps lived the high life, literally. He always had to be above everyone else.
I looked at the clock and then toward the door.
Everyone had gone home hours ago. As it should be.
My first late night, my assistant Ethan, tried to stay late with me, and I realized that if I didn’t ban it, he would try to keep up with my insane hours.
So, I told him to go home and to keep regular hours unless we had a pressing deadline.
No sense in punishing my employees just because I didn’t have reasonable boundaries.
Fuck it .
The chair creaked slightly as I stood, a testament to its age, and I turned off the cameras in here. Didn’t need an accidental audience.
As soon as I realized I would likely spend too many nights here, I replaced the old leather chairs with something soft and comfortable. I wasn’t a young and eager marine anymore, willing to do anything to prove myself. I needed my beauty sleep and wanted somewhere comfortable to lay my head.
I sat on the couch, slouched down low, and spread my legs out in front of me. Sleep wasn’t my current need.
The sound of my zipper echoed through the large room and off the marble floors.
My heart rate picked up at the sound and thrill of the forbidden ringing through me with the sound.
If anyone else took care of themselves at work like I was about to, they’d be fired.
It paid to have your name on the building.
I had been half hard all night, even before— shit, don’t think of her. After months of grueling work and late nights while I trained to take over my grandpa’s company, Pennington Industries, my dick needed attention.
I leaned back, opened the little packet of lube in my pocket, tossing aside the now useless condom, and grabbed a tissue.
I sighed as I relaxed into the feeling of my hand around my dick and searched my memories for something good.
Maybe that night in New York when we were on leave and toured the city.
I’d been there before and was more interested in the women than the sites.
Then again, I think we all were angling for a little company.
Rachel, maybe. Tall, blonde, lithe. Not my usual type, but still beautiful when she kneeled in front of me and took me in her mouth. She had been skilled, enthusiastic, and a bit of a brat, but she submitted to me so beautifully.
I ran through that memory, but still needed more.
I reached full hardness as I flipped through my fantasies, but something felt… off. Electricity rippled down my spine with every stroke and twist, but it wasn’t enough. Despite the pleasure, my orgasm still felt so far away.
“Dammit.”
I stilled and took a few deep breaths.
Relax .
I worked out the kinks in my neck and then kept going, reaching down with my other hand to play with my balls, adding the extra layer of sensation to it. Faces and bodies flitted through my head, looking for that one that would set me off.
Unbidden, an image of Lily, exactly how she looked tonight just after she kissed me, came to mind, all curves, long legs, and drunken determination in that skin tight purple dress made just to tempt me.
My lips tingled again as I remembered her soft lips on mine, and how she fit in my arms, tall enough that she fit perfectly against me, no awkward angles or hunching.
You looked like a fallen angel , she had said with those glossy, cherry stained lips and wild red hair begging for my hand to tangle in it, pull it tight, guide her kiss, push her head down to slip inside that soft mouth.
Pleasure shot through me like a raging bull, pushing me over that edge I had thought was so far away. I could no more stop it than I could stop a coming storm.
I roared as I released all over my stomach and hand, my cum branding me with its heat and recrimination.
“Oh god.”
I dropped my dick as if it burned, shame welling up in me at my actions.
“No. No, no, no, no, no.” I just kept repeating that as if it would erase the last five minutes and reset the boundary I swore to myself I would never cross. At least not after—No. I wasn’t going there.
Maybe sex . Her voice in my head sounded so clear, almost as if she sat next to me, witnessing my shame. My cock gave a valiant twitch, and I knew, given the chance, it would love nothing more than to sink into Lily and feel her warm embrace.
I don’t know how long I sat there, cum cooling on my shirt, breath erratic, panic and desire warring with each other.
I planned on telling Lily no if she asked for a kiss.
Hopefully, she wouldn’t ask, that in the light of day she would feel, not shame, but reticence or anxiety about asking me and I wouldn’t have to deal with it at all.
I knew all too well drunk actions do not equal sober actions and the light of day can change your mind on something you were so sure of in the night.
I’d hoped that would be it.
I did not want Lily.
Long after I’d become sticky, and the cum dried into a crusty mess on my hands and shirt, I stood and took advantage of my private bathroom to clean up. The shirt was… ruined… probably. I certainly didn’t want to give it to my cleaner.
“Oh, sorry, Mr. Wilson, I pounded one out and accidentally thought of my best friend and how perfectly she fit in my arms and how soft her lips were and how—” Nope. Not going there again. Even that much and my dick twitched, valiantly trying to harden again.
I groaned.
This was not going well.
I looked at myself in the opulent gold-ringed mirror.
“Listen here, you degenerate sheep-biting asshat, you will not get hard to thoughts of your best friend. Again. You will not think of her that way. Lily is so far off-fucking-limits that she might as well exist in a different universe. Got it fuckwad? She deserves better than this.”
The truth of that rang in the bathroom around me and lanced through me as surely as a bullet.
She deserved better than a man that ran away and joined the Marines out of fear, a man that threw himself in harm’s way at every turn because he couldn’t face the reality of his life.
She deserved better than the playboy I let myself become.
Maybe… No.
That would be beyond unacceptable. I couldn’t… I just couldn’t.
I pulled out my phone and messaged Frankie.
duke
throw away that stupid note on the fridge
don’t read it just toss it
please for the love of all that is holy
DON’T ASK QUESTIONS
just PLEASE throw it awa y
… no response. Shit .
It was a long shot. I knew that. Frankie hated me. At least she used to, but I like to think she’d thawed to me over the years. I hoped that would be enough for her to do this one thing.
So much for stress relief so I can refocus.
I left the bathroom, throwing my shirt in the trash on the way and grabbed a spare shirt Ethan insisted I keep in here for ‘emergencies,’ though I doubt that word meant the same to him as it did to me. I can’t imagine a single actual emergency that would require a spare $1,100 Gucci shirt.
Though, I guess here I am using it.
My computer screen had gone dark. A tall lamp on a low walnut table on the opposite side of the too damn big room cast a faint golden glow, providing the only light in the otherwise dark room.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply before sitting back down at my desk. Unfortunately, the board meeting wasn’t going to wait, and these reports weren’t going to read themselves.
Somehow, I’d lost control of my life, and I couldn’t figure out how to get it back.