Chapter 5 #2
Jenna sat trying not to eavesdrop on his conversation but failing miserably. She couldn’t help it. Whoever D was speaking to, he was definitely the boss, not that that was surprising. Hearing his air of authority just did something for her.
In every aspect of her life, all her life, she’d always been in charge.
She learned how to forge her mom’s signature so she could start kindergarten.
Her mom had been going through a particularly rough patch and it was that or not go to school.
Thankfully, or not—she wasn’t sure which side she fell on—she had a very high IQ.
Jenna’s teachers tested and recommended her for gifted programs, but her mom refused to let her participate in them because she felt it would stunt her in social areas, or in her words, she didn’t want her hanging out with nerds.
She was seven. And by that age she was making sure bills were paid on time, so the electricity didn’t get shut off and they didn’t get evicted.
Hanging out with nerds sounded amazing to her.
Having someone take charge had always been a turn-on to her, which was why it was so frustrating when James wanted things so vanilla in the bedroom.
She wanted him to tell her what to do. Asked him to.
Repeatedly. But he said it was demeaning and he respected her too much.
How? If that’s what she wanted. And she’d told Bree.
She’d confided in her about their issues.
She wondered if they’d laughed behind her back.
No. She was not going to think about them tonight. Not when she was in this insane penthouse with the hottest man alive and the best food, with Kardashian-style clothes and lingerie. In fact, the jeans were Khloe’s brand.
Why would she think about her cheating ex and backstabbing bestie when she could listen to a man who she just knew had no issues taking charge in the bedroom, making it very clear why a deal was not going to happen?
Apparently, D didn’t appreciate whoever the other party was going back on their word about some small detail in the amended contract.
She could only hear his side of the conversation.
“I don’t care if it’s pennies on a billion dollar deal. If they’ll lie about that, what else will they lie about? We’re walking away. I don’t tie myself in contracts with liars.”
Fuck, why was that such a turn on? As a business owner herself, integrity in business was something she knew was much rarer than you would think and something she placed high value on.
She heard him laugh, and the sound filled the space like a warm hug. It was comforting and enveloping.
“Well, then if it’s just us in this business, I hope you won’t get sick of me.”
Aw, that actually sounded sweet. He was a nice boss, too. Was this guy actually rich and kind and a hot, single dad? No, that’s impossible. There had to be something seriously wrong with him. She’d met his friend, that guy seemed okay. But that was for two seconds.
Why did it even matter? This is what she always did. She always got ahead of herself. Case in point: she’d only had sex with two men, both of whom she married.
“Sorry about that.” D’s deep voice sounded beside her, and she jumped up about an inch off of her seat and screamed a little in start.
“Oh fuck.” He started to reach out for her but then pulled his hands back, clearly unsure if he was permitted to touch her. “I’m so sorry, I did not mean to scare you.”
She felt so silly that she’d had such a strong reaction. “No, you didn’t. I mean, you did, but it was my fault. I was just in my head and didn’t hear you. It happens a lot. It just…I can’t shut it off. It’s so loud in there.”
“Oh.” He grinned and returned to his seat. “Okay, so what is so loud in there?”
Jenna stared at him for a second, blinking.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She shook her head.
She’d told people that her head was loud for years, that she couldn’t turn off the noise.
Asher, Bree, Blake, and all the people she worked with at her shops—no one, not one soul, had ever asked her what was so loud up there.
Maybe they just all assumed they knew, because they knew her and D didn’t.
But the way he looked at her, it was like he really wanted to know.
He picked up his glass of wine. “So?”
“You don’t want to know.” She chuckled, letting him off the hook. “Believe me.”
“I do.” He set his glass down and rested his forearms on the table. “Believe me.”
Well, he asked for it.
“Um, what’s not going on in my head would probably be easier to answer, it’s a shitshow up there,” she relayed honestly.
“So there’s the logistical and practical side of things, the never-ending to-do list for my house, my business, and my daughter.
Everything from groceries, which is not just shopping but also meal prepping for the weeks’ lunches and then also dinners, which no one likes, barely eats, and complains about.
“There’s laundry, finances and budgeting, which always come with unexpected expenses like new tires or a new water heater, or a parent you haven’t spoken to in seventeen years’ health issues.
“Then there are the rolling questions: did I remember to sew the tear in Blake’s cheer uniform?
Did I take the car in for the oil change, did I remember to get it smogged before the registration is due?
Blake’s constantly changing school supply needs, which she always tells me about last minute, and fucking online teacher portals are going to be the death of me.
Just a million balls in the air and constantly feeling like if one falls, you’re fucked. ”
“You were married, right?”
She smiled and nodded. “Yep.”
He looked at her blankly as if he didn’t understand. He might be confused, but she was seeing things a lot more clearly now that she was speaking them out loud.
“So none of those things were his responsibility?”
“Apparently not.” She sighed. “But that’s just the constant ticker tape of admin.
The really loud noises are the emotional, invisible checklists.
Am I doing enough? Was it the right thing to let her stay out till midnight?
Should I have given her a phone at ten or made her wait until twelve?
Is it good that she’s with her dad, or should I have kept her here?
All I do is think about every decision I make and how it is affecting her, affecting me, affecting us, and trying to do my best, be my best, so I can be an example, so I can make the best life for her, for us.
” She laughed. “I know it may not seem like it.”
“Of course it does,” he stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“How could you say that? You don’t know.”
“Your thirteen-year-old daughter is in California with her dad, and she called you to catch you up on her life, and I heard you say, ‘I love you more,’ which meant she said, I love you first. You’re doing something right.”
Well, fuck. Was Jenna gonna have to marry this man? If there was one way straight to her heart, it was Blake.
No. That was exactly how James got her, too. He went about it differently. He bought Blake gifts and pretended to be interested in being her dad. That’s not what this man was doing. This man was—
Stop! That’s not what this was. This wasn’t anything.
If it was something, she wouldn’t be spilling her guts to him like she was on Oprah’s couch.
She was only doing that because this was one night of her life where she was giving herself permission not to be…
well, not herself while more herself than she’d ever been.
Jenna had always considered herself a cautious woman, her pleasures measured, her appetites managed, her risks contained.
But tonight she felt like someone had exchanged out her bones for coiled springs, her skin too small to contain the thrumming energy inside her.
It was as if the years of single motherhood, of relentless practicality and silent, late-night longing, had condensed themselves into one glittering, precarious bead of possibility, nestled right here, in the dimmed light, across from a man who looked at her like they were the last two people alive on earth and the only reasonable thing left to do was ruin each other in the most delicious ways.
“Soooo,” she said, setting down her fork and drinking the last of her wine. “I don’t know about you, but I’m way too full for dessert. And I am still very interested in knowing exactly what those dirty, dirty things you’d like to do to me are.”
He stared at her, grinned, then reached for the bottle and refilled her glass. His hands were steady, but his eyes were flickering, as if he were calculating exactly how much truth to give her at once. “You’re sure you want to know?”
She was so turned on already, if she squeezed her thighs together, she might come just from him talking, so yeah, she was pretty sure. “Yes.”
The gentle hush of the suite seemed to collapse around them, compressing their tiny corner of the world.
He drew in a slow, deliberate breath and pinned Jenna across the small table with the intensity in his stare as he leaned forward, forearms leaning on the table, voice low and intimate.
"I want you on your knees for me," he said, his eyes locked onto hers.
"I want to see you unzip my pants and take my cock out.
I want to watch your lips part, your tongue slip out, and you take me in your mouth.
I want to see those pretty blue eyes look up at me, desperate, needing it, not asking for it, but waiting for me to tell you when you can have it.
"Then, I want you on the bed, legs spread wide," he continued, his voice a rough caress, painting vivid images in her mind.
"I want to see your fingers trace your pussy lips, slide between them, but only when and how I tell you. I want to see your hips arch off the bed when you slip inside. I want to see that sweet clit swell and throb for me. I want to watch you get right to the edge and then stay there. Shaking, begging for me to let you come but you can’t. Not until I say you can."
He let the words hang there, raw and explicit, so she could feel the weight of them, the promise in them.
This was what she'd been craving, for someone to tell her exactly what to do, to take control. Still, she could tell that he was holding back. That he had things he wanted to say, dirtier things, that this was the PG version of what he was actually thinking. But she understood him not expressing it. She knew why, he didn’t want to scare her off, he couldn’t read her mind.
He had no idea what she’d been craving and needing for years.
“And then?” she prompted.
"And then," he said, leaning even closer as if he were whispering directly into her ear even though he was still seated across from her. "I want you on all fours because I am going to fuck you from behind.” He waited. “More?”
“More.”
“I want you to feel every inch of my cock sliding deep in and out of you." Again, he paused. “More?”
“More.”
"I want to hear how good my cock feels inside of you.” He waited. “More?”
“More,” she stated breathlessly.
His hand flexed ever so slightly, like he was imagining his hand gripping her hips, and she imagined it. She imagined his fingertips digging into her flesh. “I want you to beg me to let you come.”
This whole asking-telling-permission thing was really doing it for Jenna. Someone else in charge for once in her life was all she’d ever wanted. Talk about a fantasy come true. Where this man had come from, she had no clue, but he was about to make her come sitting in this dining room chair.
Jenna swallowed hard as her mouth watered and everything else below grew increasingly wetter and hotter as lust and adrenaline coursed through her.
Her heart pounded so loud against her chest it almost drowned out the sound of his voice as he spoke.
Even though she wasn't physically touching herself, she could feel her sex quivering with need, throbbing in time with her heartbeat.
"Is that it?" she managed to ask since he didn’t say more.
His eyes traveled over her face as if he were drinking in every little detail of how she reacted and smiled deeply when he saw how unfocused and glassy they had become. He grinned wickedly, sending a fresh wave of hot desire down through Jenna's stomach, landing squarely between her swollen sex.
"Oh no," he murmured slowly as if measuring out each word for emphasis, "that’s just the beginning."
She picked up her wine and finished it, wiped her mouth with the napkin, and stood and said exactly what she wanted. Why be shy at this point? “I would like to go to bed now.”
His brow lifted slightly in challenge. “Would you?”
Oh shit. He was telling her to ask him. Why couldn’t sex always be this fun? Her heart was racing. Every cell in her body was tingling with awareness.
“Yes, please.” She bit her bottom lip and watched as his already dark eyes darkened further. His jaw twitched and his nostrils flared.
“Go to the bedroom. Take off your clothes. Put on one of my dress shirts and wait at the end of the bed.”
Each command caused Jenna’s clit to throb with need.
She grabbed her phone, turned and walked down the hall.
Her knees were shaking, her hands were shaking, her entire body was shaking.
As she took in her surroundings, she couldn’t believe them.
The day felt so surreal. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her.
It was crazy. Insane really. If she thought about it, she’d probably talk herself out of it.
Which is why for once in her life, she wasn’t going to think.
Tonight, her plan was to be reckless, irresponsible, and give in to her base, primal desires. For one night, only her desires mattered. She wasn’t going to think about the past or the future, just the moment.
Her head had always overridden her heart and hormones in life.
Always. Tonight, her hormones were in charge.
Whatever felt good, she was going to do.
It didn’t matter if it made sense, was logical, or was crazy.
If she wanted to do something, if it felt good, she was doing it.
And right now, going into the bedroom, stripping off her clothes, putting on a man’s white button-down, and standing at the end of the bed to await further instructions was exactly what she wanted to do.