Chapter 9
“I’m sorry, Sarah, but I have the same opinion as last time.” The gynecologist sat down across from Sarah with a thick stack of papers in her hand. “You’re free to look for a second opinion. In fact, I encourage it. That said, we should discuss some of the other things you’ve been telling me about your sexual health.”
Sarah stared blankly before her, the white office blending together in one giant ivory hue. The blond gyno attempted to get her attention, but all Sarah heard was “You can’t get pregnant. That was taken away from you too.” That’s all she heard from her gynecologist ever since her miscarriage. Because infertility made her feel so much better about what happened to her.
The doctor went over some of the answers Sarah gave the nurse when she first came in. “Are you engaging in unprotected sex?” “Do you engage in anal sex?” “How many partners have you had in the past year?” “When was your last HIV test?” The only thing the doctor approved of was how often Sarah got tested. Both kinds of tests – the STD tests, and the pregnancy ones. I remember when I got my first positive result on a pregnancy test… Her period had been a week late. Back then, Sarah approached her pregnancy news with pure pragmatism. I was pregnant. I had decisions to make. That first decision she made was to tell the father, the worst decision she could have made.
“Are you sure?” Sarah said at the end of her consultation. “About the pregnancy thing?”
The doctor slowly nodded. “There is still a lot of evidence of the past trauma you have described. I’m not saying you absolutely could not get pregnant, per se, but I would be very concerned about your ability to carry to term. There are some options we can discuss.”
Sarah left with another hole in her heart. Who was to say she wanted children? That wasn’t the point. The terrible point was that the choice was ripped from her, doused in kerosene, and lit up in flames. Ah, like Russell’s ex-wife…
Sarah stopped on the sidewalk on her way back to work. She had arranged to have an hour off from work so she could go in for a regular check-up. Now she might be late because she was too fucked up from the same news as usual.
And the fact she had blown Lucas off after promising to call him last night. What did Sarah do instead? Take out her frustrations with a healthy usage of sex toys and fantasies that included no one but Lucas giving her exactly what she desired.
Life was bullshit.
I didn’t call him because it’s wrong. Wrong to blend her professional and personal lives. Wrong to continue sleeping with a man she met under such unusual circumstances. Wrong to sleep with any man she had a personal connection to.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
She made it to work by ten, as promised. The office was already well underway with its routines. Alisha was gone, taking care of the meeting Mr. Monroe was in. As for Sarah, she was to report to the missus as soon as she got in.
The last person Sarah wanted to see. Perhaps more so than Lucas.
Alice Monroe was not her enemy, nor was she an undesirable person in Sarah’s life. But she had something that Sarah would never have – no, not the baby, although that tied into it. She has the choice. She gets to have that baby. She gets to have her lover’s child. A Monroe child.
Sarah had to take a deep breath before going in. Alice looked up from her desk with a smile and a brief inquiry regarding Sarah’s well-being. Sarah ignored that and went straight into taking dictation notes.
When she was finished, she walked out and saw Lucas hovering around her desk.
“Mr. Blackbourne,” she greeted, sinking down into her chair and acting as if he were a nuisance. “Can I help you?”
“I can almost believe it.” He crossed his arms. “Giving me this hot and cold bullshit.”
“Please, not here.”
“Fine. I know where to take it.” Lucas went into his office, closing his door behind him.
Sarah’s personal phone buzzed in her pocket.
What the…
She pulled her phone out to find a text from an unknown number. Please. Like she didn’t know who it was from. If Lucas could find out where she lived, then he sure as hell could find her personal phone number.
“Are you hot for me right now? Or cold?”
Sarah leaned her elbows against her desk as she texted him back. “We’re at work, Mr. Blackbourne. Try to be professional.”
“Why didn’t you contact me last night?”
“Because I didn’t feel like it.”
“Didn’t feel like it, or didn’t want to?”
Sarah turned her personal phone upside down on her desk and went back to work. She wasn’t supposed to be sending personal texts while on the job, anyway.
The only reason she didn’t put it away was because she enjoyed watching it buzz every ten seconds.
“A man could get quite frustrated with these games, Sarah.”
“Do you enjoy toying with me like this?”
“Don’t tell me you want things to remain strictly professional around us, proceed to grab my cock and ask me to fuck you, and then not have the decency to call me later so we could at least talk it out. Jesus, is this how you women feel half the time?”
Sarah chuckled and finally put her phone away. If Lucas wanted to make a real ass out of himself, he could come out here and do it.
But he never emerged from his office. Not even when Mr. Monroe finished his meeting and came out of his own office, Alisha trailing right behind him before breaking off to sit at the desk opposite Sarah’s.
“Is my wife here?” Damon Monroe asked his other assistant.
“In her office, sir.”
“Thank you.” Before he continued, he turned and said, “If Blackbourne finishes his work early, tell him I want to do lunch and discuss a few things.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
Alisha sighed the moment their boss was gone. “Don’t know how you do it, Sarah. I type and type and then…”
A flower courier waltzed into the office carrying a small bouquet of orange and red rose blossoms. He spotted the assistants sitting at their desks and instantly approached. Sarah recognized him. Local florist that Mr. Monroe used to send flowers to his wife and to his mother whenever the mood struck him.
She didn’t think twice about signing for them. No idea what the occasion is, and I don’t care. Alisha remained flummoxed as she lightly touched a dewy rose petal. “Be right back.” Sarah said to her fellow assistant. “I’ll take these to Mrs. Monroe.”
“Oh, no,” the courier said before taking his tablet back. “These are for you, Ms. Clayborn.”
She sat back down in her seat. “What?”
Alisha snatched the card from the bouquet. The moment Sarah realized who the flowers were from, she grabbed the card out of Alisha’s hand.
“Have a nice day, ladies.” The courier tipped his green hat and left the office.
“Who the hell are they from?” Alisha pulled the vase over and fluffed two of the blooms. “Red and orange? Who’s sending your flowers like these?”
Red for romantic, sexual love. Orange for desperate desire. Sarah knew who they were from, and Lucas knew that she knew they were from him. At least he didn’t sign the card with even his initials. Only three worlds were punctuated onto the tiny card.
No, not those three words.
“God. Damnit. Sarah.”
This was kinda fun. Make the man sweat and twist in his seat. Make him salivate over her from his tiny office in the corner of the corporate headquarters. Make him seethe in frustration because he couldn’t have her whenever he wanted. Make him go so crazy that he finally gave her what she wanted.
Whatever that was.
“I’m guessing based on that smug-ass face that this is a good thing,” Alisha muttered.
“Jealous?”
“Ain’t nobody sending me flowers around here, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Sarah pocketed the card, smelled the flowers, and picked up the vase to carry over to the receptionist’s desk. Alisha followed her with a steady gaze.
“Your desk looks lonely,” Sarah said to the receptionist. She placed the vase of roses on the left corner of the desk, arranged it so it caught the right light from the windows behind them, and smiled at her coworker – who was in the middle of a confusing phone call. “There. That should brighten things up around here.”
“Hey, if you’ve got a crush on me,” the receptionist said with her quick wit, “you could just say so. I’m straight, but…”
“So am I, against my better judgment.” Sarah went back to her desk and checked her personal texts one last time.
“You are incorrigible. I can’t stand it. Or you. Keep the damn flowers!”
The sheer amount of frustration in those texts sustained Sarah for the rest of her day.
***
Nigel was the only one who got a text from her personal phone after Lucas’s ramblings finally subsided. “I’ll be home late tonight. At the office.” He responded to confirm that he received her warning and told her to make sure she got some rest that day.
Ha. Hahaha.
Sarah stayed at her desk long after Mr. and Mrs. Monroe left with their coats on and kissy-kissy faces pointed in one another’s directions. Alisha bemoaned that she had to miss her favorite show that night due to some sports game on the TV. The receptionist chastised Sarah for sharing flowers that she was allergic to. All Sarah truly paid attention to was Lucas’s office.
He had only appeared a few times that day, each time when Sarah was too busy with other people to spare him an extra glance. The last time she saw him, he shut himself up in his office to take a marathon’s worth of phone calls.
Sarah waited until it was close to six, when the office was nearly empty and the cleaning crews were still not due for another couple of hours. She finally shut down her computer and cleaned up her workspace. The last thing she did before getting up was lock her purse in a small safe in the far corner of her desk. She didn’t need it where she was going.
It took exactly thirty seconds for Lucas to finally see her standing in his office doorway. By that time he was nearly finished with his phone call, but his turned chair prevented him from getting the full view of Sarah Clayborn taking up space in his office.
“…I have to go, Smith. Seriously. Send me an email and we’ll wrap it up in the morning.” Lucas turned off his phone and tossed it onto his desk. Was he waiting for me? I could almost believe it. That was if Sarah didn’t know how these rich businessmen operated – the hours were not for the faint of heart. “Sarah.”
Not a growl. Not a command. Not even a friendly greeting. Sarah kept her arms crossed, protecting her chest from his prying eyes. He’s seen them. My tits, that is. Grabbed them, sucked them, shoved his face between them… did he think about it often? As often as Sarah dreamed about him in her bed?
“Working late as well, Mr. Blackbourne?”
“If you didn’t come here to make some things up to me,” he picked up a remote and smashed his thumb against a big red button, “then I wish you hadn’t come to torture me at all.”
She entered, making sure the door was locked behind her. She briefly glanced at the security camera in the corner of the room, turned off with the aid of that remote. Sly. He probably didn’t know about the tiny cameras the Monroes kept in other corners of the room. Or maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t care, like she didn’t care. If he thinks I haven’t fucked in these offices before… Russell Monroe hadn’t cared where he bedded his favorite employee. Oftentimes they only had time to fool around at the office. The man didn’t like having her over to his place… a place he shared with his son, her boss.
By the time she reached his desk, she had pulled the bouquet card out of her pocket and prepared to drop it in his big, broad lap.
For a man who refused to make eye contact with her, Lucas sure was keen on taking that card and crumpling it in his hand. “What do you want from me?” he muttered.
Sarah leaned against his desk, arms still crossed. “I want you to understand that I am not your girlfriend. I am not your public arm candy. I am not, and never will be, your wife.”
Elbow leaning against the arm of his chair, Lucas blasted the full power of his gaze in her direction. The missing jacket was a nice touch. That white dress shirt and black and gray tie was liable to do unspeaking things to Sarah if she let them.
If she let them.
Instead, she’d fuck with him a little longer. She also wore a white blouse beneath her jacket. She didn’t need the jacket anymore. Things were hot in there.
“What do I want? What I want most is something you can’t give me.”
“Then tell me what I can give you.”
She bent down, hands gripping the arms of his chair. If she had her wig on, it would brush against his face, his chest, even his lap. But this wasn’t Angel looming over him. This was Sarah, a woman who hadn’t allowed herself to lust after, let alone pursue, a man in over a year.
“Guess what you can give me, Luke. Take a wild guess.”
“God,” he said with an exasperated chuckle, “you finally called me Luke.”
Sarah popped open the next two buttons on her blouse. A hint of a white bra poked through. Of course those blazing blue eyes went right to her cleavage. “Does that turn you on?”
“Everything you do turns me on, apparently.”
“Turns you on more than Angel did?”
“Who?”
“Don’t play with me like that.” Sarah straddled his lap, fingers tugging on his tie in a futile effort to get it off. When they failed – and Lucas tossed his tie over his shoulder – she pried apart the top of his dress shirt and indulged in the heavenly sensation of his chest. “You know who. The other me you fucked.”
“Did a damn good job, too.”
“Did you, now?” She flicked his nose. “I recall being left without, honestly.”
“I would never.”
“Just like yesterday when you refused to fuck me without a condom?”
“Never in my life thought I’d meet a woman who wasn’t all about that condom life.”
“Let me guess. You’ve got a few now.”
“Like the responsible adult that I am.” He tiled his head back, inviting her to kiss him. “Check my pocket.”
“I believe you.” Sarah pulled her blouse open. Heaven help me, because I can already tell how wet I am for him. As much as she wanted to submit to the situation, she had to stay over him, in charge, dominant. She wasn’t dominating the man, though. Just the situation. “Except I hate those things.”
“Now, Sarah…”
“I’m infertile,” she spat. “I can’t get pregnant. Even if my goal were to trap you with a baby, I couldn’t. Get it?”
His expression changed almost instantly. Gone was the lackadaisical countenance of a man about to get laid. “It’s about more than that.”
“I’m clean.”
“Sarah,” he said, “when we met, you approached me for casual, unprotected sex using a persona that suggested you did such things regularly. I was dumb for indulging you as much as I did like that. You deserve to be treated better. It’s just a condom.”
No, it wasn’t. Things were never “just” anything. Everything had a meaning, a presumption, an acknowledgment of a common truth. Sarah knew that her reasons were toxic bullshit. She didn’t care.
It empowered her. That was what she cared about.
She didn’t expect Luke to understand. She didn’t need him to understand. He was a pawn, like she was. Two people who wanted to fuck. Horny pawns.
“Fuck me, Luke.” She lowered herself onto his lap. Their trousers were still zipped up, but she could feel the hardness of his cock beneath her thighs. “I know you want to.”
“You really have no idea.”
“Why?” Her arms slipped down his back, hands suspended and clenched in the air. “Why do you want to fuck me so badly when you could have any other woman? Is it because I’m playing hard to get?”
As her arms slipped over his shoulders, his hands slipped down her spine and tucked into her trousers. Large fingers rubbed the top of her ass. That’s right. Touch me. “If I wanted every woman who plays hard to get as much as I want you, I would die. Actually, literally, die. Can’t handle it.”
“So then why?”
“You really want to know?”
She grinded her hips against his. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know.”
“I have no answer. I simply do.” He hoisted her up, that quick leap of power almost sending Sarah into the stratosphere. “I have to have you.”
“Did you feel the same way the first time we met?”
“I honestly like Sarah more than I like Angel.”
That was not the answer she expected, but it was enough to make her kiss him.
The way he grabbed her through her clothes, brought her closer to his body, made easy, gentle love to her lips made her shudder in anticipation. She half expected him to stop and invite her over to his apartment. To dinner. To take-out and make-outs. But he didn’t. Lucas kissed her with more ferocity, biting her lip and lightly thrusting his hard cock up between her legs.
“Seduction style is very similar, though.”
Sarah laughed. “That’s not all that can be very similar.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” He did not stop her when she unzipped him and rubbed him through his boxer-briefs. “At all.”
She licked his earlobe, creating a crazy trail of shudders through his powerful body. “Fuck me,” she begged. “Don’t hold back.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lucas reached into his deepest pocket and pulled out a silver box. It landed without pomp on his desk. One hand fumbled with the latch while he focused most of his attention on kissing her.
Sarah closed the box once she realized it was where he safely stashed his condoms.
“All of it or none of it,” she said.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Lucas sighed. “You’re not, are you?”
She pushed the box onto the floor behind his desk. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“Let me think about it.”
“What the hell is there to think about when I can feel how hard you are?”
He kissed her. A distraction to keep her from noticing that he had shoved her off his lap.
Down, down onto her knees.
“This wasn’t good enough for you yesterday.” That didn’t stop her from pulling his cock out of his pants as quickly as she could, though.
“That was yesterday. Today I’ll take whatever I can get.”
Her hand had a tough enough death-grip on his shaft that his knuckles turned white on the arms of his chair. “Bastard. I offered you my cunt.”
“Whatever I can get on my terms.”
This bullshit meant only one thing. Oh, she would blow him. Sarah would suck his cock until it was too sensitive to take it. But she would do it with her fierce gaze locked on his eyes so he understood how finished she was with him.
Why or why, then, did the experience have to be so good?
She did anything she could to get him off as quickly as possible, but that only made her ornerier as well. Why did he get what he wanted, but not her? And why did she fall for it? Why was she indulging in his stupid whim when she could be demanding her own pleasure?
Even if this pleasured her too?
“Oh, God,” Lucas moaned, slumped down in his chair and both hands taking turns pulling at her short hair and tugging the collar of her blouse. “Have I mentioned how much you kill me yet?”
That only made her stroke him faster and suck him harder. Precum covered her tongue, and she detested how good it tasted. And how firm he was in her hand. And how enticing every inch of him was to her body.
Fuck me, damnit. Let me ride your lap or at least slam me against this desk.
If Lucas Blackbourne thought she was going to be content with blowing him and nothing else? He really didn’t understand her at all.
He grunted shortly before pressing this thumbs into her collarbone. Sarah took the pressure to mean he was about to come. Was this some kind of record? How hard had this man been for her all day to come this quickly and easily? I dare you to come right now. She swallowed as much of him as she could, focusing on the sensation of his swelling cock in her throat instead of listening to him grunt like a feral animal.
His musk was overwhelming. The taste of his precum soon morphed into the taste of the seed she enjoyed over a week ago.
“Don’t stop,” Lucas commanded. His hands were so tight on her body that she was forced to stay in the same exact spot for the next ten seconds.
Ten seconds was all it took for him to come, anyway.
That’s what you get for turning down my pussy. The man jerked in his chair as the first shot of hot seed filled Sarah’s mouth. She swallowed it almost instantly, ready for more.
She wanted him to come so hard that he nearly passed out in his chair, and that’s exactly what happened. Well, maybe not the passing out part, but Lucas was so lost in his orgasm that he barely noticed her standing and buttoning up her shirt while his cock turned flaccid in his lap.
“Where are you going?” He tried to sit up, but he leaned so far back in his chair that it almost tipped over. “Get over here so I can give you something too.”
“Like what?” Sarah straightened out her blouse. “Finger me? Eat me out? Show me your stash of magic bullets and see how many you can fit in there?” Two. The answer was two.
“Whatever you want. I’m not shy.”
She stepped away. “You’re not touching me down there with any part of your body until your cock has had a chance again.”
“What do you want, Sarah?”
She looked at him one last time before heading toward his office door. I need to rinse my mouth out in the bathroom, and do something about how wet I am. “You, obviously. But I won’t take scraps when I already know how well you use that thing.”
He snarled into the palm of his hand. “Fuck that. What do you want?”
Sarah paused for the briefest moment before continuing to the door. “Don’t worry, Mr. Blackbourne. I’ll be sure to fantasize about you when I finish myself off at home.” Did her brother know what she was doing when she blasted Spanish guitar music from the stereo in her room? He better not know.
Lucas didn’t say anything as she left, but there was a scathing message on her phone when she got back to her desk.
“You will be mine. Every inch of you. Every part of you. I will unravel its mysteries and find out what you want. Starting this Thursday. You will come over to my place for dinner, so help me God.”
Sarah did not reply, but she left the office with a devious smirk on her lips.