Chapter 29
Damian
“Funny what sleeping with the boss will get you.”
I’m on my way into the kitchen when the words stop me dead.
My blood burns with white-hot rage, not because an employee is calling out Brielle’s and my relationship, but because of his tone.
It’s nasty and degrading. And God knows, he wouldn’t talk like that to me, so what makes him think he can speak to Brielle that way?
“Excuse me? What did you say?” Brielle counters. I haven’t even peeked my head into the kitchen to see what’s going on, but I can tell that she’s pissed.
I desperately want to storm in there, stand by her side, defend her, but I know that would only make things worse. She can handle this on her own, but I don’t like that she has to.
I turn and stalk back to my office. Louisa catches my eye and rears back.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
“Fine,” I snap.
An unsettled feeling pulsates through me. It’s only been a couple of weeks with Brielle in my bed, and we’re already making a mess of things. It won’t stay quiet for long, and what happens when it comes out? The CEO and the newly promoted media creator having an affair.
I know what the optics look like. But they don’t tell the true story.
Brielle is damn good at the marketing side of the business.
She’s creative and smart, collaborative and driven.
Some of it comes naturally to her, like she showed during our very first dinner together, and other things she’s picked up in the past month or so that she’s been working in that role. She’s the right person for the job.
And the fact that she wants to grow her skill set in that field, that she wants to show off her creativity, and doesn’t want to stare at numbers all day, it’s a win-win.
But to anyone else, it will look like nepotism. Like my private relationship with Brielle is influencing my business decisions. And in the end, neither of us will come out of this unscathed.
It isn’t fair to put Brielle through this. I like her too much to let her relationship with me affect her future. Maybe even more than like.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I pick up my cell and shoot a text off to her.
Me: Something came up. I can’t see you tonight.
My hands feel tense and stiff. I have to flex my fingers to get the blood flowing again. I’ve barely woken up my computer from sleep mode when my phone chimes with a text.
Brielle: Okay. No problem.
I reread her message a dozen times, trying to determine her tone.
It doesn’t matter. We do need to spend some time apart. It isn’t healthy, the hold she has on me. So I don’t send back a reply. It’s better that way.
Brielle: Check out this recipe card! It sounds so good. We should try it :)
Me: I can’t tonight. I have plans.
Brielle: Oh, I didn’t realize. You hadn’t mentioned it before. What are you up to?
Me: I don’t need to give you a breakdown of my schedule. I have somewhere I have to be tonight.
It’s a bold-faced lie, and I hope she doesn’t call me out on it. One night apart wasn’t enough to free my heart from her clutches. All it did was make me think of her, miss her.
I hate this already. I don’t want to distance myself from her. I want her.
Brielle: That was rude.
Brielle: That’s two days in a row.
Yes, because seeing you in my bed, having you in my arms, is too tempting to walk away from. I’m only strong enough to do it when I’m not looking into your ocean eyes.
Me: It isn’t rude, Brielle. It’s the truth. Let’s not pretend this is something more than it is.
I run my hand down my face. Christ, if I keep this up, I won’t have to worry about putting distance between us. Brielle is going to cut and run from my asshole behavior—just like she should.
A few minutes tick by without a response. My chest feels too tight as I wait for whatever she has to say to that.
Finally, the text comes through. I force myself to wait a beat before I read it. I’m not going to flail around, hanging on her every word like a lovesick idiot.
Brielle: Noted.
I got that tone loud and clear.
My stomach twists uncomfortably, and nausea creeps up my throat. I think I’m going to be sick.
“Are you doing alright, Mr. Edgerton? You don’t look good.”
I stop and turn my head to face her. “Thank you for that, Louisa.”
“I’m just saying. You’ve got some dark circles under those black-as-night eyes of yours.”
“Again,” I all but growl, “thank you for sharing that observation. Keep everyone out of my office today.”
“Everyone, or someone in particular?”
“Everyone.”
It’s been four days without Brielle. She’s stayed in the marketing department, barely leaving her office.
I know, because I’m constantly waiting for her to pass by my door just so I can get a glimpse of her.
Besides the half-second conversation we had in a room full of people about how the Heartland project was going, she hasn’t said a word to me.
I fucking hate it.
I try to get some work done all morning, but my mind is struggling to stay focused. She’s like a drug to my system, and the withdrawals are killing me.
The quiet of the office is interrupted when a commotion starts outside my door. Before I know it, the door is ripped open, and Brielle is standing there like a vision come to life.
“I’m sorry, sir. I told her that she couldn’t come in here,” Louisa says.
“Are you on a call?” Brielle asks, her tone harsher than I expect. A thrill shoots through me.
“No.” I send Louisa a single head nod to let her know it’s fine. She backs out of my office as Brielle strides inside.
She closes the door behind her and then moves to the blinds, closing the slats so that no one can see inside.
“What are you doing?”
My heart rate jumps, my mouth watering as she stands in front of me in a red dress that glides over her skin and a pair of shiny black pumps with little bows on the heels.
Despite the color, the dress is appropriately modest for work.
Not that it stops my thoughts from going to wildly inappropriate places.
“What am I doing? What are you doing? Two days of blowing me off. Two days of radio silence. ‘Let’s not pretend this is more than what it is,’” she mocks my deep voice. Every word brings her closer and closer, until she’s standing right in front of me.
She lifts one delicately heeled foot and places it right between my legs. My dick twitches, growing rapidly in my suit pants.
“Do you want this to be over? Is that the message you’re trying to send me? Because if so, just tell me.” The sole of her shoe rubs me through my pants.
And I let her. She’s a temptation I’m too weak to resist.
“People know, Brielle,” I warn her.
“I know.” She perches her perfect ass on my desk, her parted knees making my head spin.
“Don’t you think we should back off for a while? At least until the rumors die down.”
I want to eat my words before they’re even out of my mouth. I’m trying to be reasonable, levelheaded, but it’s hard when I’m thinking with the wrong head.
“Is that what you want?”
“Fuck no,” I growl, sliding my hands up her soft, creamy thighs. Her legs drop open further, and a soft sigh falls from her pretty pink lips as I swipe my thumb over her wet pussy. My eyes close, trying to retain a semblance of control. “Are you not wearing any underwear, beautiful?”
She smiles a devilish smirk and moves onto my lap. Her legs straddle my hips. She tips my chin up, capturing my lips with hers, our tongues mingling together.
I am painfully hard and desperately needy. My thoughts are solely focused on her. But even with all of that, I would stay just like this, her body wrapped around mine, kissing her soft, full lips until they’re red and chapped.
“Didn’t want them to get ruined.” She rocks her hips over me, and the last thread of control snaps.
I pick her up off me and spin her around.
“Put your hands on my desk and hold on.”
She listens without hesitation. Fire spreads through my veins. I hike her dress up over her ass. This view is unreal.
“I wish you could see what you look like, spread out for me like this.”
“I wish you would quit talking and fuck me.”
I free my dick in less than a blink and drag it over her wet center. “Don’t make a sound, beautiful. I’ll let you scream my name tonight, but right now, not a fucking peep. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” she moans.
“That’s one.”
“One what?”
“Make that two. If you keep making noise, I’ll be punishing you all goddamn night.” My hard length slides through her slit, again and again.
She squeals, a blush creeping up over her cheeks.
One hand wraps around her throat while I hold on tight to her hips with the other. Finally, I thrust into her warm, wet center. My vision dims, the joining of our bodies unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before her.
Her mouth falls open on a silent moan as I slam into her. It’s only been a few days without her, but now that I have her again, my dick sheathed inside her perfect pussy, it feels like the first time all over again.
Brielle shifts her ass back, taking me deeper, harder, urgently chasing her pleasure and heightening mine. The desk shakes on every powerful thrust, shit falling to the floor that I couldn’t care less about.
I can feel the first tremors of her orgasm start, clenching down on my cock. I shift my hand to her clit, and she drags out a long, low moan as she falls over the edge.
“That’s three,” I whisper in her ear, my voice strained, my own release building in the base of my spine. “It’s almost like you want me to leave my handprint on this ass.”
She turns her head to look back at me with sexed-up eyes and parted lips. “I do, Damian. I really do.”
I crash my lips into hers, needing more of her somehow.
“Fuck,” I groan into her mouth, burying myself inside her, my cum filling her up.
We take a moment to catch our breaths before I pull out of her, the evidence of our affair dripping down her thigh.
She spins around to face me, circling her arms around my neck and threading her fingers through my hair.
“I didn’t like when you pulled away from me.” She looks up at me with that dark blue gaze that I fall into.
“I got that message.” I smirk, placing a chaste kiss to her swollen lips. “It won’t happen again. If it was up to me, I’d make you leave this office with my cum dripping down your leg for everyone to see who you belong to.”
“And I’d wear it proudly, like a badge of honor.”
I pull napkins from my desk drawer, gently wiping the evidence away. Maybe in another life, she’d really be mine. Mine to have on my arm. Mine to claim publicly.
Mine to love.
But in this life, all we have is a secret affair. A sense of shame surrounding our relationship. Something that no one else is allowed to know about.
I toss the napkins in the trash while Brielle rights her dress and fixes her hair.
“How do I look?”
“Stunning,” I tell her.
She swats at my arm with a pleased smile. “But do I look like I was just fucked in the boss’s office?”
Yes.
I play with the ends of her pretty brown hair, then tilt her head up to me so I can kiss her again. “No. I’m sure no one will know.”
She strides to the door, my gaze fixated on her ass.
“Tonight,” she says, looking over her shoulder.
“Come prepared, beautiful. It’s going to be a long night.” My voice holds the promise that I know she wants.
She opens the door and stops short.
Louisa’s shocked eyes flick between me and Brielle.
“Might want to find a bathroom, love, before you head back to your office.”
Brielle looks back at me with a menacing glare.
“Thanks,” she says quietly, turning toward the bathroom to get a look at herself.
My eyes track her shamelessly, no point in pretending that we didn’t just fuck in my office.
“Not a word,” I tell Louisa darkly.
She tries to hold back a grin, her eyes shining with humor. “Am I still keeping everyone away, sir? Or are you feeling better now?”
I shoot her an unimpressed glare, my brows knitted in disapproval, and turn back to my office without responding. I open the slats of the blinds and leave my door open to indicate that I’m available if anyone needs me.
Having a midafternoon rendezvous in my office is not something I’ve ever done before, but I have to admit, it certainly turned my mood around today.
We can’t let it happen again though. It’s too risky, and wildly unprofessional, for both of us. We need to be more careful if we don’t want to get caught, because the idea that I can walk away again is a joke.
And if I can’t walk away, and I can’t let her go, then the only thing left is to make sure we keep this under wraps. It won’t last forever, but I’m going to do everything in my damn power to make it last as long as possible.