The last few weeks had been interesting. Gavin and I had entered into a sordid relationship of sorts. Always in his hotel room, always when I was on duty. He would pitch an ungodly fit about anything and everything to get me up there. The managers were happy that I seemed to have a calming touch, even though it never lasted long. That, and they had no idea what kind of touch I used.
Gavin Grayson was a force to be reckoned with.
Not just as an asshole. He was also quite a lover and, as I was beginning to see, so much more.
Behind his cool, abrasive exterior laid an extraordinary and affectionate man . . . one with an incredible intellect.
However, he did have a very demanding side—Mr. Grayson.
GG: I want to see you
I looked down at the screen and blinked, smiling. He was contacting me outside of my working hours. When he had asked for my number, I didn’t think he would really contact me. I was in complete shock. He actually did it. I mean, wasn’t I just a fling for him? Was this more than just great sex to him?
Emma: I don’t work tonight.
If I had thought my reply was the end of the conversation, I was greatly mistaken. Gavin Grayson was used to getting what he wanted, and that night he wanted me.
GG: Come over
I sighed. Did he really want me to lose my job? It was bad enough I’d been having sex with him in his hotel room during work hours. I was already sick about what would happen when or if it was found out just what went on in his room.
Emma: You know I can’t
GG: Fine. Let’s go to dinner then
A date? Was he serious? My pulsed raced. I wanted a date with him, badly, but I couldn’t go out even if I wanted to. So instead, I offered another alternative, one I could live with.
Emma: I have homework. 415 Cherry St Apt 2C
I shot him my address, unsure if he’d kept it after he’d sent me the flowers. The ball was in his court. I didn’t have time to entertain him, or fall to his whim. If he wanted me, he had to come and get me.
I didn’t hold much stock in him actually coming, but I desperately wished he would. Just to show me I was more than just convenience. That I meant more than what we had at the hotel.
A few hours later I was on my couch in lounge pants and a tank top, my hair thrown back into a loose bun, papers surrounding me. I was so thoroughly engrossed in my project I almost didn’t hear the knock on my door. Granted, the TV was on and drowned out the sound.
I was a little peeved when I stood up from my lake of papers and made my way to the door. To say I was surprised to see Gavin standing there was a great understatement. It was after nine in the evening. He hadn’t replied, so I never expected him to actually show.
I stood, staring at him. “Wha . . . Gavin?”
“You’re being rude, Emma,” he said.
That seemed to wake me from my surprise, and I stepped aside to let him in.
He smirked down at me as he entered. “You look cute.”
I looked down at my PJs and really wished I’d been wearing something . . . else. “I . . . I’m just working on homework. I didn’t think you’d actually show up.”
“I said, you look cute. I like the look. Much better than your uptight supervisor suit. It looks more . . . you. Not to say I don’t like the suit, because you are usually hiding those fucking stockings underneath.”
“Says the man in the uptight-asshole power-trip suit,” I shot back, ignoring his comment about how hard my stockings made him. I smirked over my shoulder at him as I locked the door.
He frowned and proceeded to rid himself of his suit jacket, tie, vest, and dress shirt. He stripped off his belt as well and removed his leather shoes, leaving him in his undershirt and slacks.
He held his arms out and spun for me. “Better?”
“Marginally,” I muttered and then mourned the loss of his suit. The man looked damn fine in one and knew how to work it.
“What are you working on that’s keeping me from taking you out?” he asked as he looked around. “Wow, your apartment is small.”
“I know,” I replied. “Not all of us are incredibly wealthy. This is how the other half lives. 758 square feet, baby.”
“Your apartment is smaller than my room at the hotel,” he noted.
“Yeah, well, like I said . . .” I trailed off, annoyed, and turned to walk away.
“Hey, hey,” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me to him. “I’m sorry.” His arms wrapped around me and nuzzled into my neck as he held me tight. “What are you working on?”
“It’s a presentation for my management course,” I replied with a sigh.
“What do you plan to do once you have your MBA? I assume you aren’t staying at the hotel,” he asked with honest curiosity.
I shook my head. “No. I am out of the hotel as soon as possible. I’m looking for jobs right now. Mostly treasury departments, staff accountant positions. Maybe once I have more experience, a controller.”
“Hmm. Do you need any help?” he asked. His offer was genuine, but I was used to faring on my own.
“No, I don’t need help. I can do this myself,” I replied, walking away from him and back to my sea of papers.
“Let me rephrase that; would it help if I was your audience?”
I stared up at him, still curious why he was there since I was sure he could tell I wasn’t going to jump into bed with him.
“Okay,” I conceded. “That would be helpful.”
A huge, uncharacteristic smile broke out on his face before he sat down on the couch across from me.
For the next two hours we worked on my presentation. He helped me fine tune a few things and finalize my edits, making it a masterpiece of a presentation that was sure to impress my professors.
Afterwards, we curled under a fuzzy throw blanket and watched a movie. Gavin had me pulled tight into his chest, and about an hour later I heard the soft sound of snoring from behind me. I turned and looked up, and his eyes were closed, his mouth slightly parted.
I hated to wake him, but he needed to get some sleep.
“Gavin,” I whispered, the back of my fingers caressing his cheek. “Gavin, you need to go to bed.”
He groaned, but reluctantly opened his eyes. I stood and took his hand, guiding him to the bedroom. Eyes half closed, he peeled off his undershirt and slacks, leaving him in his boxer briefs.
If he hadn’t been mostly asleep and adorably cute—words I would not normally associate with him—I would have had thoughts of taking advantage of him. He fell into my full-sized bed, much smaller than his king at the hotel, and pulled the cover over him. I stared down at him for a moment, but a moment was all I was allowed before Gavin’s hand reached up and grabbed my own, pulling me into the bed. A giggled erupted from me before I settled under the covers, his arm around my waist as he snuggled into me, spooning.
In minutes I was dreaming, secure in my Gavin cocoon.
It was early the next morning that I was woken by a very hard cock sliding against my panties. A moan left me and I opened my eyes. Gavin was above me, his gaze hooded. I sucked in a breath; he looked so sexy like that, his need showing.
Every cell awoke and my hips rose to meet his, rubbing my clit against his hot shaft. I watched his eyes flutter closed before he grabbed his cock and slid between my folds.
My back arched off the bed, and I cried out in pleasure as he pushed all the way in. We rocked together, slow and sensual. Soft caresses and tender touches; very different than our previous encounters. Something had changed.
“You really should get on the pill,” he groaned.
“Are you saying you’re keeping me?”
He nodded. “Yes. You’re mine and I want to fuck you like you are mine, which includes coming inside you.” He took my bottom lip between his teeth and pulled. “I want to fill you without getting you pregnant.”
“As soon as school’s out,” I said.
He pressed all the way in. “Good.”
Two nights later, Gavin showed up at my door, food in hand. My heart sped up as I stared at him, a huge smile on my face. The two nights I wasn’t working, he had searched me out. He wanted to see me as much as I wanted to see him.
“So, what were you like as a kid?” I asked as we sat curled up on my couch after dinner. It was odd to see him on a Friday night, but it was also somewhat unusual for me to be off on a Friday. “Were you always an ass, or is that a recent personality trait?”
He laughed at my question before glaring slightly. “I . . .” He began before letting out a sigh and eyeing me. “I was a book nerd.” He stopped to gauge my reaction before continuing. “A gangly teen who was in all the advanced placement classes who had no friends.”
“I’ll tell you a secret . . . Nerds are hot,” I admitted with a wink.
“Well, it wasn’t until college that I seemed to grow into my body and fill out. It was there that I started to grow into my current personality. I’d be in classes with assholes and jocks who I’d be paired with on a project, and they assumed I’d do the work for them. Instead, I would do my part of it and then write who was supposed to do the next section.”
“I can just imagine the beating you got for that.”
That made him laugh. “Yeah, the high school me, maybe. But by then I was tired of being picked on, tired of being used for my intellect. I’d had enough, and I wasn’t taking their shit any longer. Anyway, one time a guy in my project group approached me with three of his friends. I may have ended up with a broken hand, cuts and bruises, and bleeding everywhere, but I left with self-confidence and four jocks crying on the ground.”
I stared at him in shock. From the incident with the party boys in the room next to him I knew Gavin could hold his own, but winning a fight against four guys was a huge accomplishment.
“What?” he asked.
“Umm, wow.”
He gave a shrug. “Once out of college, those jocks were working for me, and I may have been a bit vindictive.”
“No,” I said in mock credulity as I sat up. “You weren’t mean to those poor jocks, were you?”
“I’m not very nice with people who don’t work for me. How do you think I am with people who do?”
“Remind me never to work for you.”
That made him laugh, and he pulled me up to straddle his lap. “But I have all these fantasies of you on my desk I really want to try out.”
“After-hours fun.” Reaching up, I set my arms on his shoulders, my fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.
A contented moan vibrated from his chest, and his hands rubbed across the outside of my thighs. “Then the risk of getting caught is significantly decreased.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, what about you, Emma?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Not much to tell. I’m originally from North Carolina and moved to Boston about twelve years ago. The youngest of two kids. My older brother, AJ, is an engineer in Cincinnati. A few years ago my dad was recruited by a company in Texas, and my parents moved down there, but it folded a year later.”
“That’s terrible.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t seen them in three years because of it.”
“Why don’t you go visit?”
“Because my vacation days are spent on things like finals, and I work most holidays. Plus, I can’t afford to and they can’t afford it either.”
His brow scrunched up. “Is he still without work?”
“He is,” I said with a nod. “My mom works, but it’s barely enough to pay the bills. So, I work and I go to school so I can make a better life for myself and my family.”
“That’s very noble.”
I shook my head. “I’m not noble. If anything, I’m plain.”
“You are anything but plain, Emma. You are the bright spot in my day.”
I caught my lip between my teeth as I smiled at him. Sometimes he said the sweetest things. “See, there’s the guy I like.”
Gavin‘s lips turned into a crooked grin before he pressed them lightly to mine. “Only for you.”
“I feel like we’re doing things backwards,” I said as I pulled back a little.
“What?”
I waved my hand between us. “This. Us.”
“Because we’ve had a lot of sex and not much else?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“That is exactly why I came over.”
My brow quirked up as I looked at him. “Not for sex?”
His fingers flexed against my hips. “Well, there is that. After all, having you within ten feet of me turns me on. But I want more than that with you.”
In a fit of excitement, I slapped my hand down on his chest. “I have an idea. Let’s play twenty questions.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever played that,” he said.
“It’s easy. We can alternate. I’ll ask you a question, then you ask me, and we can both answer.”
He gave a nod. “All right.”
I tapped my finger against my lips and hummed. “What do you like to do in your free time?”
“Before you?” He settled back into the couch as he thought about it. “Work occupies a lot of my time, but I used to love going out to Caesar Creek and fishing.”
“Where is that?”
“Ohio. Northeast of Cincinnati. It was a long time ago, back when I was in high school. When I had time to sit in a boat and think about nothing.”
“When did you live there?”
“It’s where I grew up. I left for college and only go back to visit my family.”
“Siblings?” I asked.
“I have a younger sister, Samantha, who is a nurse, and my parents.”
We both had family in the Cincinnati area. That was convenient. Maybe we could go together and I could see AJ. “Okay, what do you currently like to do?”
“I like going to live baseball games. I suppose I could become a Red Sox fan since I’m here,” he said with a sour expression. “After that, having a drink with colleagues.”
“Not friends?”
“You’re the only friend I have in Boston,” he said with a rueful smile. “What about your free time?”
“I honestly don’t know what that is.” I heaved a sigh and moved my hands across his chest, loving the feel of the slow, steady rise and fall beneath. “I’ve been working and going to school full time for the last six years. When there are breaks between semesters, I try to relax and binge Netflix. If the weather is nice, I like to drive to the beach and sit and look out at the water.”
“Just look?” he asked. “You don’t get in?”
“That water is fucking cold,” I said with a laugh. “I imagine one day how I might go to a warm-weather beach and how nice that would be.”
“Maybe we can take a vacation down to the Virgin Islands in the fall.”
I blinked at him. “Seriously?” The idea excited me, because it wasn’t just about a trip with him, it was talk about a future for us.
His eyes were locked on mine when he nodded. “Yes.”
I leaned forward and threw my arms around him. “I would love that,” I said as I pressed my lips against his. It was something I’d avoided for a half hour because I knew where it would lead, especially with me on his lap. When I pulled back, his eyes were heavy, and I forced myself not to kiss him again and take things elsewhere. I cleared my throat and sat back. “Your turn.”
“Where do you see yourself in ten years?”
I quirked a brow at him. “Is this a job interview?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “It’s just a question.”
“Ten years . . . hmm . . . Married with a couple of kids and working as a controller.”
“Kids, huh?”
“What about you, mister?”
“Running Cates, having a family of my own, and ruling the world.”
Family of my own, repeated in my head. Maybe we could have a family together.
“Ruling the world? Getting aggressive in that drive to the top, huh?”
Another chuckle. The sound always put a smile on my face. I loved it when he was relaxed like that. Those moments together were my favorite, because it was then I knew we were more than just sex.
“I don’t think I ever set out to get to the top, but as I worked, I realized that was where I wanted to be. I love being in control.”
“You are quite commanding.”
“Commanding, hmm?”
I nodded. “Quite. Demanding, too.”
In a shift, suddenly I was on my back with him nestled between my legs. “Aggressive, overbearing. I’ve heard them all before. But do you want to know what I really am?”
“What is that?”
He hovered over me, his lips inches from mine. “Passionate.”