Chapter 6

JESSICA

 

 

I take off my glasses and close my eyes slumping on the floor, my back against the underside of the sofa.

My heart is still racing despite the fact that I’ve been at home for almost an hour now.

I try to make sense of the jumble of thoughts floating in my head, but I can’t. I don’t think I know how to.

I totally freaked out for lack of a better expression and then I talked with my sister again to get her insight about this situation, only to find out she fucking knows Charles and she also knew already he was the man I was meeting today. That’s why she was all giggly this morning when she wished me good luck. When she met Charles, alongside Aston last week she got the feeling I might like him.

So yeah, Aston, the love of my sister’s life is apparently my other boss.

Lara said that when she saw Charles —I couldn’t make her spill whatever it was that he was doing in a Lingerie shop with Aston— she immediately thought about me, that he could be the kind of guy I might go for.

Yes, my sister knows me that well.

And she is so right.

Charles is so my type —he is too much my type to be my boss, maybe.

I close my eyes and I see him so clearly in my mind’s eye: his tall, muscular frame, his broad shoulders and narrow hips, thick biceps bulging under the sleeves of his perfectly tailored dark suit, the golden tone of his skin, so deliciously scented with some sort of aftershave or cologne so panty-meltingly good that it should be outlawed, those dark, shaggy, blonde hair that made my fingers itch with the wish to muss it as soon as I stepped into the office and in the veritable magnetic field emanating from him, a squared jaw covered in a layer of perfectly trimmed, short, slightly darker beard, clenched in tension and hunger and finally his crystal blue eyes staring deeply into me and in such a heated way that my legs buckled and even now I can feel my pussy growing wet at the memory.

I shake myself out of my reverie.

Lusting after Charles and his many —many manly charms— is not exactly productive, especially if what I want is to clear my head a bit.

I think back at my most recent conversation with my sister.

Lara told me that while she and Aston where sharing stuff, they figured out that I was going to interview for the edge fund company he and Charles co-own today and then decided Charles and I didn’t need to know that.

I confess I was a bit mad when she said that, not surprising considering how high are my emotions running right now, but Lara’s explanations were convincing.

She is my best friend besides my sister and Charles is like a brother to Aston, they feared the knowledge of the link between us all would have added strain to our first meeting, put us under pressure so that’s why they decided to ‘let destiny do its thing’.

It got me a little to calm down, but when I did I could really see their reflections had merit. Based on how much they know us, they thought Charles and I could hit it off —and boy, did we!— and didn’t want to interfere in it.

Makes sense.

Also, she admitted, they though it will be fun.

And maybe I can even see why, but just maybe.

I don’t feel funny right now, I feel like a total incoherent mess and I’ve felt this way since Charles left me to my tour of the building and once I started doubting and my doubts started to cement one on top of the other, there was no stopping me: I got out of Henley & Spade as if someone was chasing me, completely terrified by the speed of our actions and the intensity of our attraction, of my reactions to Charles and my feelings for him.

Yes, feelings. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I do: I have feelings, impetuously strong ones, for a man I just met.

I shake my head. This morning when I talked with Lara it was so difficult to comprehend what she meant when she said she met Aston last Friday and just knew that he was the one.

Now I’m not any closer to understanding such an idea, yet I feel the same way about Charles: I just know.

I don’t know how and I don’t know what this means, but I know there could be something between us, something so powerful it would erase everything else from my path, no memory of past lovers would be left standing and no other man could ever make me feel this way.

How do I know?

That’s the only easy thing about this whole situation. It was in the way my heart tugged, in the sensation of safety I experienced in his presence and most of all in the amazingly wonderful kiss we shared.

It was like a fucking out of body experience or something. I’ve never felt like that in my life, so happy, so at peace, so connected with another human being, another soul, his soul, beating and breathing with my own as our lips met and sealed, igniting our hearts. He is a stranger to me, but I know his heart, better than I know my own, yet I can’t help but wonder if giving into the impulse that lures me back to him would be the right thing or if I’ve simply gone insane.

Maybe that’s it, maybe I’ve just lost it completely.

How else could I explain the way I behaved?

How can I be running from a boss because he wants to be all over me only to go straight to a boss that I wish would be all over me right now?

And yet…

Did I do the right thing in leaving like that?

Should I have stayed?

Did I just ruin my chances with him only because I got scared?

What do I have to do?

Call him maybe?

Tell him that I was—

A knock on the door stops the course of my thoughts and I stand up to go see who is it.

As I open the door, I feel a smile stretching my lips as part of me almost hopes that somehow Charles tracked me down and is now standing on the other side of it.

Boy, I couldn’t ever have been more wrong.

My smile falls off my lips and I feel my body going rigid as I stare into the eyes of my other boss —the creepy one.

Great. Just fucking great. This is exactly what I needed. An awkward confrontation with a sex-thirsty fiend.

I can see he looks furious and I can even imagine why. Saturday I didn’t know if I would get the job at Henley & Spade, but I knew very well that I wasn’t going to keep on working for this pathetic excuse for a man, so I said fuck the consequences and I mailed my resignation letter.

I gather he must have read it today.

“What the fuck are you thinking, Jessica?”

I recoil at his tone and at the familiarity with which this guy speaks to me.

I can feel a frown scrunch up my forehead. “I beg your pardon?”

“You want to quit?” he barks, his beady eyes boring into me.

He is trying to be intimidating I guess.

“I don’t want to quit, Mr. Powells, I quitted already as of Saturday. I explained my reasons to Mr. Marshalls over the phone, because I didn’t want him to worry for me and he said I should go ahead with my plans and don’t worry about giving two weeks’ notice.”

At first I did not want to talk to him at all about this, but once I calmed down a little I figured I had done nothing wrong and it was better Mr. Marshalls knew the truth from me, rather than getting an adulterate version of what happened from his sleazy business partner.

This way, we still managed to keep everything quiet, but at least Mr. Marshalls would be prepared in case, Mr. Moral Pillar of Society here ever tries his little nasty games on some other poor soul.

Mr. Powells wrinkles his nose and sneers at me in disgust.

“You little slut, I can’t believe this. First you go around the office flaunting that piece of ass in my face and when I react like any man would, like you want men to react, you pull something like this? Go behind my back? Play victim?”

I sigh deeply, feeling offended and frustrated in the face of his unrelenting chauvinistic stupidity, but I don’t get mad. He doesn’t deserve my rage, only my contempt.

“Mr. Powells, you’re a lawyer, you should know what a slander consists in. I didn’t want to take action against you, even though I could, because I didn’t want Mr. Marshalls to sink down with you, please leave: don’t make me reconsider.”

“I can’t believe this! After all I have done for you, I get nothing? We hired you practically out of grad school, taught you the job, took you in practically without any guarantees and I get nothing for it?”

I feel my eyebrows climb up my forehead. “First of all, you in particular taught me nothing but to be weary of my working place and secondly, are you in any form implying I should sleep with you only because you gave me a job I was more than qualified to do? Because if that’s the case, then you have serious problems, Anton.”

“Bitch!” he screams and as soon as the word is out of his mouth he launches himself at me, he grabs me until I’m no longer in the doorway but out in the hall just like him and then he pushes me against the wall; his body so close to mine I can feel his heavy breath fanning on my face.

I feel his hands tightening on my shoulders, and I react.

He may be a Manhattan snooty prince, but I’m a Jersey girl, this shit doesn’t fly with me.

I drive my knee up and forward and I get him where it hurts the most, before I push him away.

He drops on the floor, hands clasped between his legs, red-faced, panting and calling me all sorts of names.

I think it’s over, but then I screech in surprise and jump back when he hauls himself up with a groan of rage and tries to get a hold of me again, going for my hair.

This time he doesn’t touch me at all. I hear a thudding sound and then my ex-boss is lying again on the floor.

Charles knocked him out cold.

“Ch-Charles? How did you—?”

“Are you okay?” he demands, his voice is a mixture of worry and barely-restrained fury, but his eyes are full of a tenderness I feel deep in my heart.

I nod.

He sighs deeply, shaking his head. “Fucking bastard. I think I know him from somewhere. Isn’t he Anton Powells?”

I nod again, feeling myself beginning to shake all over now that the tension is starting to leave my body and the rush of adrenaline is receding.

I can hardly believe Charles is standing in front of me, his warm, comforting big hands on either one of my shoulders.

“I saw him fall down bent in two before. Did you kneed him in the nuts?” he asks, chuckling.

“I did,” I say, smiling a little.

Charles picks me up and kisses me hard. “Let’s go inside, baby.”

I look down at my former boss still on the floor.

“What about him?” I ask.

“We’ll call the policy once we get you settled a bit.”

I shake my head. “I can’t… I can’t do that… I mean I know he more than deserves it, but… his business partner doesn’t. I’ll explain later.”

Charles sighs, but in the end nods albeit reluctantly.

“So what should we do with him?” I ask again

Charles laughs. “It was just a punch, I’ll be okay and if he is half as smart as they say, he’ll get lost as soon as he regains consciousness.”

I bury my face in his chest as we get back in my flat.

“Your bedroom?” he asks in between kisses and I wordlessly point him in the right direction.

He lies me gently on the bed, kisses me one more time and then pulls back and starts to leave the room.

I frown reaching for his hand. “Where are you going?”

He kisses my knuckles and smiles. “To get you a glass of water. I’ll be right back.”

Alone again, I sit up, until my back is resting against the headboard and I sigh, trying to organize at least a little the mess I have in my head.

The progress is minimal by the time Charles comes back and he offers me a glass of cold water.

I’m too shaken to think lucidly right now, but one thing I know is that if he is here then perhaps he feels the same way I do and if that’s the case I’m never letting go.

“Charles, I… I’m sorry I left like that. It was just too much, too fast. I’ve never felt this way before and and… then I started to…”

He sits beside me on the bed and gathers me into his strong arms. “What, baby?”

I lay my head onto his shoulder. “To doubt myself and what I felt. I mean, rationally how can you explain such a thing? How can you—“

“Feel so much, for someone you know so little?” he finishes for me and I nod.

“You don’t, Jess. You don’t try to explain. I don’t think you really can. I don’t think anyone really can. You just…” he stops and heaves a deep breath, casting about for a word.

“Feel it. Know it…” this time I end his sentence and he smiles at me.

“Exactly, Jess.”

I giggle. “You know I actually prefer Jess to Jessica,” I tell him randomly.

He kisses my temple.

“What made you call me that?” I ask, looking up at him.

He kisses me again, on the lips this time. “I don’t know. It felt right.”

I snuggle into his arms. “Right…,” I murmur. “Everything feels right about this. About us.”

I turn more toward him and our lips meet again, more intently now and before we know it, it’s happening.

Just like this morning, I’m losing touch with reality, feeling myself pulled against him, my soul floating toward his, his hands and lips anchoring my body to his.

And this time I know there will be no stopping.

No coming back.

And God, I don’t want to ever leave his arms, I don’t think I would know how to even if I try.

He pulls away, hands caressing my face. “I am crazy about you, Jess. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I am. I have no explanation, no idea how this could be happening. I don’t know how it’s possible to be this far gone and this quickly for someone you just met, but that’s how I feel.”

I feel my heart soar at his words, so close to the ones I was too afraid to utter and yet an exact mirror for what I feel.

“I feel exactly the same and I don’t care if we don’t understand, maybe we don’t need to. Not right now.”

He nods and clutches me to him, his lips frantically smashing on mine, his tongue eagerly seeking entrance in my mouth and dueling with mine, until we are both blind with desire and this is no longer enough.

Charles whispers my name on my lips. “I need you,” he groans. “I need you so much.”

I feel his erection jump against my belly as he presses his much bigger frame down on me and my pussy clenches in lust and want.

“I want you, Charles. I want you now,” I moan on his mouth and I kiss him desperately as our fingers dive under our clothes passionately looking for skin.

I feel his hands roam all over my body and sooner than I thought could be possible I’m totally naked under him.

The yoga pants and tank top I changed into as soon as I got home, laying in a heap on the floor beside the bed.

Charles’ fingers slide down my back until they reach the curve of my ass and squeeze, making me moan and writhe under his powerful frame.

His face hovers over my breast and then his mouth latches onto one of my hard, tight nipples; his other hand caressing and kneading the other breast and then lower and lower until all I can think about is feeling his fingers between my legs and there they are: parting my puffy wet lips, his thumb rhythmically stroking my clit while his other fingers explore even lower, barely grazing my slit and making me buck against him, a moan leaving my throat at the perfection of his touch.

“Oh, fuck, you are so beautiful, baby. All pink, wet and ready. I want you so much,” Charles says hoarsely.

And I’m done playing. I want him as naked as I am. I want to see all of him, feel all of him.

I tug at his shirt and my trembling fingers work furiously fast to unbutton it so much so that I pop one of the buttons.

I look apologetically up at him, but Charles only smiles at me.

“Eager, are we?” he asks, his mouth encompassing mine.

I moan in the kiss. “You have no idea.”

He pulls back. “I’m pretty sure I do, babe. I’ve never been more hard in my life.”

He takes one of my hands and guides it between us until my fingers are closing around the obscene bulge tenting his pants.

“Why don’t we take these off?” I ask, lowering his zipper.

“I like the way you think, honey,” he says in a chuckle, but his exclamation turns into a deep hiss of pleasure when my hand curls around his naked, stiff cock, lowering it until the slick, shiny large head is tickling my clit.

We both moan at the contact and my eyes flutter shut.

We haven’t even started to fuck and this is already the best sex of my life.

I feel his lips on my nipple again and I arch my back against him, all the time stroking his rock-hard erection against my wetness, his heavy balls slapping against my inner thigh.

“Oh, fuck, babe, I’m not even inside you and this already feels better than anything I’ve ever known,” he mumbles on my neck and I smile realizing we are thinking along the same line.

I moan, my fingers clutching his cock even harder, my hips working my clit against it, making pre-cum drip from his tip and onto my wet pussy as I whimper and he grunts in pleasure.

Charles grasps my wrist, making me lose my grip on his length and I feel him lower down my body until his head is buried between my thighs.

“I’m going to fuck you so good and hard, Jess, your pussy will forever remember this… forever remember my cock and my cock alone, but first I need a taste of this sweet honey. The scent alone is driving me insane,” he growls against my core and his hot breath on my aroused, wet flesh, combined with his filthy, sexy words is enough to make me come.

I barely recover from the sudden rush of the unexpected orgasm when I feel his lips on my pussy and his hot tongue tapping on my clit; a scream that probably my entire neighborhood heard leaving my throat and my heart lodging in the empty space left behind.

“Oh, Charles! Charles… I need you… I need you inside of me.”

He groans, sucking on me and slurping down my hot wetness. “Oh, fuck, baby, I knew it: you taste like a cloud from heaven dripping in fucking sugar.”

I press his head down on my pussy as I feel another climax taking me under and he dives in more than willingly, his tongue lowering to my clenching slit and starting to fuck in and out of me.

He draws out my pleasure to the last tremor and then he slides back up my body, kissing as he goes and I feel his powerful hands claim every square inch of my heated skin.

“Charles, come inside me, please,” I beg, barely choking out the words.

He kisses me until I can’t breathe anymore, pulls away from me long enough to retrieve protection from his wallet and don it and then he grasps my thighs and spreads them wide, resting each one on either side of his hips; his cock standing proud between us, his balls tight.

“You sure baby?” he asks, his voice nothing but a snarl and I feel such a rush of love going through me I can barely speak.

“I am…” I say, pulling him down on me and then is happening, he is sliding into my pussy in one long, mighty stroke, his balls pressing against my ass, his hands keeping me in place as he starts to pound in and out of me like there is no tomorrow, sexy grunts leaving his chest as his cock touches places inside of me I didn’t know I even had and I feel another orgasm quaking my body.

“You are mine, Jess. You are fucking mine now and forever. Say it!” Charles growls.

I feel my pussy clench at his possessive tone and the meaning of his words makes me so damn happy maybe I really am going crazy.

“I am, Charles. I’m yours,” I breathe out.

“Fuck, you feel so good, so good, baby… you’re so damn tight!” he groans, throwing his head back, his fingers clutching my thighs and his thrusts gaining even more speed and depth as he angles me a little more, ripping moan after moan from my swollen lips.

He plunges into me over and over, the headboard repeatedly banging against the wall, our bodies slapping together, the squelching sounds of our passion filling the air along with our moans and groans of pleasure and then I’m there again and this time I’m bringing him down with me, his body freezing over mine, his cock swelling and contracting into me as he comes, bellowing his pleasure toward the ceiling before dropping down on me.

We stay clasped to one another for a long time, just breathing and absorbing the intensity of what happened between us, our bodies still tightly joined.

After a while, he slips out of me, rolls over and takes care of the condom then he comes back to the bed, gathers me flush to his side, pulls the cover up and around us and kisses me until we both lose consciousness.

 

—*—

We have been awake for quite some time, snuggling and talking about everything and nothing, the bond between us deepening with every passing moment and the more we are together, the more I’m sure the intuition I got when we met —that he could be it, that he could be my forever, was spot on.

As my fingers lazily play with the smatter of hair on his muscular chest, his long arms cradling me, I remember I wanted to ask him about his meeting with my sister.

“Lara told me she met you and Aston last Friday in the lingerie shop she manages…”

I feel his chin nod against the side of my head.

I smile. “I was very curious to understand what you guys were doing there, but my sister, tease that she is, didn’t want to tell me…”

I hear him sighs and slide me a little more up on his prone body until we are looking in each other’s eyes.

“I was there to pick a present…” he says, suddenly looking embarrassed.

I frown. Not entirely sure I like were this is going. I have to ask though. “For whom?”

He clears his throat. “My ex-girlfriend…”

Odd. I sit up a little, pulling the sheets closely around my breasts. “Why would you buy lingerie for your ex?”

Charles swallows thickly. “She was my girlfriend then.

I physically recoil from him. Deeply disturbed by his words. He just broke off things with his girlfriend and now he is in bed with me?

What does this mean?

What does it make me, some sort of rebound girl or something?

He sits up as well, reaching with a hand to gently grasp my face until I’m looking at him.

“Jess…”

I pull away. “I don’t understand, Charles. You just got out from a relationship… what… what does this mean for us?” I ask.

Charles shakes his head. “Nothing, baby. Nothing at all. It’s not what you’re thinking, trust me.”

I don’t know why, but I do trust him and I nod, even if a little part of me says I should know better.

Yet why would my sister not tell me he had a girlfriend?

Why did she keep this significant bit of information from me?

She wouldn’t withhold this knowledge from me if she knew it could negatively affect me, of that I’m sure, so there must be a good explanation.

“Care to tell me what it is, if not what I’m obviously thinking?” I demand, crossing my arms on my chest.

“Well my ex, Louise was… to put it mildly a huge lapse in judgement. We weren’t together that long overall, barely three months, but I knew it was a dead-end relationship way before we reached that mark. For the last several weeks of our… understanding we didn’t see each other in person for more than ten minutes at a time and not even that often since last month. We didn’t… before the breakup, we hadn’t slept together in even longer. I thought she was different when we met, but it became almost immediately apparent I was wrong. Louise is spoiled and selfish and she used to like my money more than she liked me I’m afraid.”

I feel one of my eyebrows arch. “Okay, so a bitch basically, but then why didn’t you…?” I trail off.

He shrugs. “Why didn’t I dump her? Well if you ask my friends or my sister, they would probably tell you I take the philosophy of going beyond first impressions, being positive and giving people a second chance a little too far. I’ve been wrong before, of course, but never as wrong as I was with her. Another reason was that I was very tired of being alone I guess.”

“I understand,” I whisper. Loneliness utterly sucks, there’s nothing like it and I can tell he has suffered because of it as much as I have, no matter how positive his outlook on life.

Somewhat mollified by his recount of their empty relationship, I lean against him again, but I’m still full of questions.

“Still this doesn’t explain the lingerie…” I mutter.

Charles laughs. “While you caught up with the fact that she was a bitch, what you don’t know is that she was also a crazily demanding one at that. Last Saturday was her birthday and she requested a piece of lingerie from Intimate Delights as a present, nothing else would do. I wanted to break things off with her, but doing it over the phone didn’t seem right and then it was her birthday so I felt it would be best to talk with her this week, but then Friday night she showed up at my place uninvited, messed up my bedroom in search of her present, demanded I give the lingerie to her and then proceeded to dump my ass herself, so you see, baby: I’m all yours.”

I laugh incredulously. “Wow… that really is crazy, she needs help.”

Charles chuckles. “But not from me… not anymore.”

I have another question for him, this one is more difficult and it takes me some time to properly get it out.

“Were you ever in love with her?” I finally ask after a long silence, talking in a small voice, both anxious and afraid to hear his answer.

“No,” he replies decidedly. “I wasn’t. I’ve never been in love with someone before.”

I feel a heavy weight roll off my heart and I sigh. “Me neither…”

“That’s why you stopped dating completely six months ago?” he asks, insightfully, kissing the top of my head.

I nod, focusing on the beat of his heart, thumping steadily in his chest under my cheek.

“I figured alone with myself would be better than alone with someone else, especially if the feelings I wanted were never there.”

He hugs me tightly to his side. “But now they are… now they are, baby. You are mine and you are never going to be alone again,” he states with certainty, his deep baritone resonating through me and I know he is absolutely right. I know I can believe him. I found my real man. This is it. This is really it.