Chapter 14 #2
He alternated between spanking my ass and my pussy, each smack stinging and making me wetter and increasingly more desperate.
“Please,” I whispered.
“Come for me,” he growled, his fingers rubbing my clit between smacks.
I did, with a muffled cry, my body shaking as the orgasm crashed through me. He didn’t stop, drawing it out until I was limp over his lap, completely spent.
He helped me up, pulled me in and kissed me softly. “Good girl,” he murmured against my lips. ”Now, fix your skirt and get back to work.”
* * *
I put myself back together in Callum’s private bathroom with hands that were only mostly steady.
The woman in the mirror looked composed if you did not know what to look for.
Her hair was smoothed back into place. Her blouse was buttoned properly.
Her skirt sat neat and professional at her waist. Her lipstick was a little faded, but not disastrously.
Her cheeks were flushed, but offices tended to be warm.
I took one last breath, straightened my shoulders, and went back out.
Callum was at his desk again, looking like the kind of man who had never done anything inappropriate in his life and would be deeply disappointed in anyone who suggested otherwise.
He had his jacket on, his tie straight and he was reading a file that was open in front of him, pen in hand.
He glanced up when I came out, and the heat in his eyes was there for less than a second before it vanished behind all that impossible control.
“Good?” he asked.
My body unhelpfully answered before my mouth did.
“Yes, sir.”
His pen stopped moving. For one dangerous heartbeat, neither of us breathed.
Then he looked back down at the file. “Get to work, Avery.”
I did.
Or I tried to.
For the next hour, I stared at the training module on my laptop and absorbed perhaps six, maybe seven percent of it.
The rest of my mind was still bent over his desk, still trembling, still hearing the low scrape of his voice calling me his good girl like it was both praise and possession.
I typed notes because typing looked productive.
I nodded at the screen because nodding looked engaged.
I shifted in my chair exactly once, winced, and then held very still because there were only so many indignities a woman could survive before three in the afternoon.
Shortly thereafter, Dana appeared in Callum’s doorway. She did not knock so much as arrive with enough authority that the door probably considered opening itself.
“Callum,” she said, holding a marked-up packet, “your statement is too elegant.”
He looked up. “That’s a new complaint.”
“It reads like a man who believes if he arranges the facts beautifully enough, politics will become ashamed of itself.”
From my desk, I made a mistake. I laughed, but not loudly or even on purpose. Dana’s eyes moved to me, as did Callum’s, and I immediately became fascinated by the laptop.
“Something funny, Avery?” Dana asked.
“No.”
“Lying this early in the day shows initiative.”
Callum’s mouth twitched and I stared harder at my screen.
Dana walked farther into the office, handed Callum the packet, and pointed to a paragraph. “Less symphony, more hammer. You’re not asking the public to admire your integrity. You’re reminding them it exists.”
He took the packet. “Noted.”
Dana turned to me. “You. Come with me.”
My head snapped up. “Me?”
“No, the ghost of compliance training past. Yes, you.”
Callum’s expression narrowed for a second, but Dana did not look at him.
“I need her for five minutes,” she said.
“For what?”
“Woman things.”
The silence that followed was so complete that even Callum Rowe had no immediate answer.
Dana looked at him then, one eyebrow lifting. “Unless you’d like to supervise those too?”
His jaw tightened and I stood too quickly, which was a terrible idea for several physical reasons I would never be putting in writing.
“I can go,” I offered.
Dana’s eyes flicked over me once from head to toe and I had a feeling she was looking deep into my soul.
“Excellent,” she drawled.
I followed her out because, as it turns out, that was what I did now. Men told me to sit. Women told me to come. My life had become a series of instructions delivered by terrifyingly competent puppet masters.
Dana led me down the hall and into a small break room tucked behind the operations floor. It had a sink, a coffee machine, two high-top tables, and a view of a neighboring building’s HVAC system. It was perhaps the least romantic room in Rowe Tower, which I appreciated on a spiritual level.
She shut the door, which made me stop breathing. Then she leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms.
“Relax. I’m not HR.”
“That is not as comforting as you may think.”
“No, HR would use more words and accomplish far less.” She studied me for a moment. “Are you sleeping with Callum?”
I made a sound that I would deny for the rest of my life.
Dana nodded. “Terrible answer.”
“I—”
“Before you decide which lie to embarrass both of us with, let me clarify. I am not asking because I want details. I do not. I have a robust imagination and several reasons to resent it.”
My face went hot enough to make the coffee machine redundant.
“It’s—” I started.
“Complicated?” she supplied.
I closed my mouth.
“Of course it’s complicated. He’s Callum. He’s your boss. He knew your father. There’s history, money, grief, a power imbalance, and probably some deeply inconvenient eye contact. If it were simple, I wouldn’t have dragged you into a break room that smells like burnt espresso and printer toner.”
I gripped the edge of the nearest table. “Does everyone know?”
“No.”
“But you do.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Dana looked at me like I had asked whether windows were transparent. “Because I have eyes.”
I swallowed.
“And because Callum spent this morning looking like someone had wired a bomb to his self-control. And you walked in wearing that skirt yesterday morning and he forgot how sentences work.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped me.
Dana pointed at me. “Do not look pleased. That was not praise.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were internally preening.”
“I was not.”
“You were. Briefly. Like a slutty little swan.”
My mouth fell open. “Dana.”
“What? I’m supporting women.”
“That is not what support sounds like.”
“It is when it’s useful.” She pushed off the counter and poured herself coffee from the machine, then grimaced after one sip. “Gah! This building makes billions of dollars and still serves coffee that tastes like ass.”
I stood there, stunned, overheated, and weirdly close to laughing again.