Chapter 3
Alessa
The bus halts. I bolt out as if bullets spray my steps. One of Portland’s tallest high-rises lurks before me. On a good day, I enjoy taking in the pristine architecture, the marble flooring, the silver-lined mirrors, the state-of-the-art security systems, and the gilded executive elevators.
This is not a good day.
Two security guards are on duty in the lobby. I flash my badge and show them the stack of folders in my hands. One nods and motions for me to take an elevator up. Guess what? It won’t budge. Stuck again, Elevator 2? Wouldn’t be so bad if Elevator 1 went to the top floors.
I glance at my watch as Elevator 2 finally gets its ass moving. Nine-thirty. My boss hadn’t given me an ultimatum, but I knew that tone in her dark and dangerous voice. She wanted these files yesterday. What if I’m preventing her from making a big business deal? What if I’m costing her thousands… no, millions!... of dollars? She’s going to blame me! Then what? I lose my job in the aftermath because she has to punish somebody?
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I’m not going to have a job by midnight, am I?
The lights are off in the executive suite. All but the low-energy ones illuminating the way to Julianna Marcon’s corner office. The one belonging to her partner, Ms. Bradford, is dark. Pretty soon cleaning crews will move through here. Will they work around my boss, or are they dismissed until later? Why the hell do I care about that when I should be worrying about my job?
The fact that the double doors leading into the suite aren’t opening?
I wrestle with the glass door as if my life is about to be snatched from my body. I can’t afford hangups like this!
The door clicks, and I practically fall into the central office. If the secretary had been here, he would have laughed at my dumb, clumsy ass. If he wasn’t trying to glimpse at my undies, anyway. The guy has a terrible reputation around here, although he usually leaves me alone – I’m not as pretty as the other female interns. Positively average compared to them.
Even so, the secretary would have laughed at me. I’m glad Ms. Marcon and I are the only ones here tonight.
Someone pushes aside the blinds shielding the window to her corner office. I stop halfway there. One critical look sideswipes me, startling… scaring… arousing me.
So sue me. I’m human. I’m a sapphic woman looking into the dark eyes of Julianna Marcon, one of the most prime specimens of young executives around. Even at this late hour, she’s wearing her dark navy blue power suit with a black silk camisole beneath. Perfectly cut and tailored. Dare I say bespoke? She’s got the money for it. LA, New York, London, Paris… I hear from her assistant she gets the measurements done right here in her office and the tailors send her fabric samples. What’s it like to live in that kind of luxury?
Based on the stern face waiting for me on the other side of that glass? It’s terrible. Awful. I should never fantasize about it.
The door opens. Good. Now I don’t have to knock or buzz, because I sure as hell don’t know the keycode to her office. It changes every week, anyway.
“Alessa.” Holy shit. That’s my name, and it’s not happy to greet me. “Come in.”
I had started walking again, but now I come to another standstill. Her hand motions me in. Why am I sweating? Am I short of breath? You’d think I ran up the stairs to get here.
The woman is so much grander in person. Her presence alone is enough to fill the entirety of the executive office. If she did things to me over the phone? Getting a whiff of her lily perfume as I approach her has my legs trembling and my heart racing so quickly that I’m afraid I’ll pass out. Would Julianna Marcon give me CPR until the ambulance arrives? Oh my God, is my insurance good enough to afford an ambulance?
“I have the folders.” My eyes never break from hers as I shove the stack forward.
“I’ll look inside my office.” She turns, motioning for me to follow her.
Really? Into her office?
I’ve never been there before. The few times she addressed me, it was downstairs at my desk or in the center of the greater executive office. The only people who get to come into Julianna’s private office are her business associates, assistant, sometimes the secretary, and…
The barrage of girlfriends she dates.
Julianna Marcon has been through as many girlfriends as I have fingers, and that’s since I started working here a few months ago. I swear, every week a new woman in her twenty-somethings (and the occasional thirty-something) parades through this office wearing something Ms. Marcon has recently purchased for her. Their hair colors change. Sometimes their physiques change. Some of them are educated and some of them are so stupid you wonder how they put their bras on in the morning – then you realize they’re not even wearing one. Yet aside from any women she does business with, those are the only ones I see coming in here.
Now, me?
Ms. Marcon’s large, personal office is Spartan at best, drab and impersonal at worst. The furniture is your usual assortment of black wood and leather. A few tastefully abstract paintings hang on the wall. Lots of potted plants, but none of them real… only deceptively fake, because who knows what business associate might be allergic? The only visible sign of tech is her huge computer monitor and ergonomic accessories. A dark-finish bookcase lines the wall behind her chair, full of law books, business books, economic books… and a few spare copies of Victorian literature. Later, I’ll find out that she keeps First Edition copies in her waterfront penthouse.
She sits on the front edge of her desk. It takes a few inches off her imposing height, but she’s still the powerful, dominant figure of the room. The building. I am nothing compared to her. Her station, her status, the snap of her fingers that could have people scrambling halfway around the world… I’m Alessa. A nobody. A lowly intern who comes from a decent background, but that’s the story of a billion people. There’s a reason nothing remarkable ever happens to me.
Julianna peeks at one of the folders. “Alessa.”
Uh oh. Did I forget something? “Yes, ma’am?”
The stack of folders ends up on her desk. She’s not going to look at them? After I busted ass getting here? “You’ve been… quite the presence around here.”
She’s going to fire me, isn’t she?
Because there’s no way that voracious look in her eye is about anything other than firing me. She looks me up and down like a piece of scrap about to be thrown into the trash. I’ve screwed up too many times. They’re cutting me loose. I can say goodbye to this nice opportunity to seriously pad out my résumé and get a decent job with my degree…
“I’m sorry if I’ve done something to disappoint you, ma’am.” I step back. Might as well make it easier to get the hell out of here when she fires me. That way she won’t see my tears. Gotta save some sort of face around here.
“Disappoint me?” Her voice drops, a slight lift at the end. “I’m not disappointed, Alessa. Honestly, if you think I called you here for folders, you’re not as quick as I thought you were.”
“Quick, ma’am?”
“Quick-witted, of course.” She pushes off the desk and comes closer to me. Her perfume magnifies. Her presence is overwhelming. I’m a meager person compared to her cool confidence. This is the kind of woman who gets whatever she wants.
Whoever she wants.
Why… the hell does that turn me on so much?
I’m a mess. I’m embarrassing. I haven’t been in this woman’s office for two seconds and I’m already fantasizing about things I have no business imagining. Namely, I’m fantasizing about her kissing me. Hard. Against her desk. She’d be a helluva woman to have a first time with. Not a first-time kissing, since I’ve done that before, but a first time… you know…
Fucking.
Don’t wanna think about anything. Don’t wanna have to do anything. Just wanna lie back and let a woman who knows what she’s doing take me. I want my first time to be special, you know? It’s gotta feel good. It’s gotta be with someone I see myself spending the rest of my life with, or someone so out of this world I must hop on the chance to jump her bones.
Julianna Marcon fills one of those descriptions.
“I’ve had my eye on you since you started here, Alessa.” The woman is a master. She rounds on me, sending me back against her desk. My fingers grip the edge of the mahogany, oak, cherry, whatever the fuck it’s made from, because I can’t be assed to get details about wood correct when my otherworldly boss is looming over me. Is it possible for this woman to have a fuck me now look in her seductive arsenal? “Something about you caught my attention. I think it’s your different personality. You’re a breath of fresh air in this office.”
I’m blushing so hard I’m going to combust. “I honestly didn’t think you knew me that well, ma’am. Or if you did, you were only annoyed with me.”
“Annoyed? How can I be annoyed when you’re the hardest worker around here? The only one who works harder than you… is me.”
I can’t breathe. She’s coming closer. Her body encloses me. Her lips lower toward mine. I can’t fucking breathe.
“You captivate me, Alessa. That’s not something I say easily. Because I am not an easy woman to captivate.”
Before I can fully think it through, my hand slips, and I stumble forward. Julianna catches me, her hand sliding to my waist with a sureness that sends another surge of heat through me. My hands find their way to her shoulders, and I’m somehow wrapped in her arms, breathing her in. The world around us blurs, and the only thing I feel is her, grounding me in this moment.
If I had a clear mind, I’d tell my boss to fuck off, because this is soooo not legal. Or ethical. Or realistic.
I’m not in a clear mind. I must not be, because kissing my boss is the best idea ever.
“Alessa,” she whispers, her lips so close to mine I can feel her breath. “If you’d like to leave, I’ll understand. But if you stay…” She trails off, her voice as soft as velvet. Her eyes, deep and searching, hold me there, asking without words.
I can’t find any to respond, but the answer is clear in my body’s response to her, in the way my hands tighten against her, in the way I close the final gap and press my lips to hers. It’s soft at first, a slow brush, but the spark that flickers between us is undeniable. Her kiss deepens, all-consuming, and I’m more than willing to let myself fall entirely into her.
Kissing my boss? The best thing ever.