23

CARLY

 

I’m dreaming. I know I’m dreaming, but it’s a good one so I go with it.

I’m in his shower. Water is running down my body and I can see myself, as if I’m watching a movie of me. Dream Carly looks good. I look sexy washing my hair. The door opens, and I see him from behind. He’s moving into the shower and his naked body is absolute perfection.

Powerful muscular neck. Sexy broad back. Big strong shoulders and thick biceps. Two perfect dimples at the base of his spine above that beautiful bubble butt. My dream camera pans around to the front of him in slow-mo.

Corded forearms and strong powerful fingers on big hands. From his chest down to his waist is rippled. Muscles. Smooth hairless skin. Flat brown nipples. A small navel framed by that eight pack.

In real life he has a six pack, but dream Aiden has an eight pack. Because I’m a greedy bitch in my dreams. I’m Carly 2.0 in my dreams. And because of that, I’m not going to be shy or meek. I’m going to take what I want.

I reach for his arms and run my hands down them. My eyes follow the ridges of muscle down to the V of his hips, the sexy treasure trail, and down to a beautiful and hard cock that’s jutting out proudly. Hard. Veined. Thick. The mushroom tip ginormous.  Dream Aiden is well groomed and has perfectly proportioned balls as well as sexy thighs and muscled calves. I reach out. “I’m going to touch it.”

“Good, peaches. I want you to.”

“I’m going to lick and suck it.”

“Yeah, baby.”

“I’m going to climb on and ride it, Hot Sauce.”

“You wanna climb on now or you want me to suck your cunt first?”

Decisions, decisions.

“I want you to suck me first.”

Dream Carly doesn’t say the c-word, either. Because in real life it’s yucky. Why would men give such a harsh sounding word to something they love so much? Only, it doesn’t sound harsh when Aiden uses that word, for some reason.

When he uses that word it somehow serves as instant lube to me.

He gets to his knees. I back up against the wall. His hands slide from my calves up to my hips.

“Open up wide, baby.”

I step to open my legs and his thumbs part my pussy lips and then he puts his mouth right there. Right on my clit and sucks hard, eyes aimed up at my face. I grab a bar that has magically appeared in my dream above my head and hold on with both hands.

He lifts me up by my ass cheeks and I wrap both legs over his shoulders. He holds my ass in both hands and then sucks hard again, making me cry out. His tongue slides into my pussy and then he’s fucking me with his tongue.

“Aiden,” I moan.

“I don’t just wanna fuck you, Carly. I wanna love you.”

“Oh Aiden…”

My iPhone Marimba alarm starts trilling up and down, waking me up.

I sit up, gasping. “Oh fuck. Holy crow. Fucking fuck me,” I groan.

Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. On that note, like that song says: Back to life. Back to reality.

***

I’d set my alarm extra-early, so I can have a bath. Right about now, though, I’m wishing I’d set it for ten minutes later, because what else would’ve happened in that dream if I hadn’t been woken up right then?

Alas, I’m up and I shouldn’t even be dreaming about him. No matter his dirty talk or his beautiful body, or the way he looks at me.

I washed my hair last night in his shower, so I pin it up to keep it dry. I’ve made a coffee and set it on the edge of the tub. I’ve also put my phone in a plastic sleeve that I use for my e-reader for when I read in the tub.

I lounge in the scented bubbly tub and scroll my social media accounts. I decide this isn’t a bad way to wake up if I get up early enough to do it.

But, unfortunately, when I get out of the tub, I realize I’ve forgotten to bring a bathrobe. All that’s here is a single white fluffy towel. It’s a bath towel, but it’s not all that big.

I dry off and carefully wrap it around me. It covers the important bits, but only just.

It’s got to be four feet or less between the bathroom and my bedroom door, so getting from A to B and should be able to happen without a hitch.

Wrong.

Of course he’s in the hallway when I do. Of course!

He’s heading to the kitchen and we almost collide. He’s in a pair of dark wash button-fly jeans, Converse on his feet, and he’s wearing a tight black AC/DC t-shirt.

God, he’s hot.  It’s not fair for such a jerk to be so unbelievably good-looking. Why can’t I stop thinking about it? Why can’t I just dismiss his looks like a non-shallow person? I’m not usually so shallow. Is Carly 2.0 shallow?

“Oop!” I say, sidestepping, noting his eyes are perked.

I’ve got my phone and my mug in one hand and come very, very close to losing my towel. I fumble and save it by the skin of my teeth.

Oh, for fucking real? Gimme a goddamn break!

I hear him chuckle as I get my bedroom door slammed.

As soon as the door shuts, I lose my towel and my phone. I throw my arms up in the air and ask the universe, “Really? Really?”

Ugh. At least he didn’t see that.

I get into my undies and bra, then a pair of white jeans with some selective distressing, raggedy hems, a nice royal blue blouse with a deep V, and put on a chunky necklace and some big hoop earrings.

I head out to grab a coffee refill after I’ve tackled my make-up and he’s here, in the kitchen, drinking coffee and scrolling on his phone screen.

He glances at me, looks down, and then his eyes shoot back up as his eyes devour me.

No, don’t look at me like that, alphahole.

I get my mug to the coffee maker. He’s leaning right against the counter beside it.

He doesn’t move.

“Excuse me,” I request.

He still doesn’t move.

I look at him. He’s looking back at me with heat emanating.

“Thanks for not trying to make this awkward,’ I snap, snarkily.

“Awkward?”

“You saw me naked last night. You almost caught another show today.”

“I don’t feel awkward.” He shrugs.

I roll my eyes. “Well, bully for you.”

“Would you feel better if we made it even?” he offers.

“What?” I ask.

He reaches his right hand over his left shoulder and starts hauling his t-shirt over his head.

“No!” I shout.

“Then you won’t have to feel awkward,” he reasons, tossing his t-shirt to the counter. His hands go to his fly.

“Aiden, stop it!” I cover my eyes with my hands.

And then I feel heat. Body heat. He’s directly right against me.  My breath hitches as I gasp.

“Your sure?” He whispers this directly into my ear. His mouth touches my neck directly below my ear. I shiver, then let go of my eyes, and put my hands against his chest and try to shove.

His arms wind around my waist and now he’s looking down into my eyes. Arms around me.

Oh shit. His skin is hot. His eyes are burning into me. Why am I turned on?

Flashes of Dream Aiden assault my brain.

“Show you mine, since I saw yours. C’mon, peaches. I’m a good sport.”

“Lemme go,” I push at his chest. His naked, hot muscled chest. Fuck! He steps back. His fly is undone, and I catch a glimpse of the path to his treasure. I turn my head away.

“It’ll make you feel better, baby…”

“You’re an HR nightmare. How has CC not gotten sued?”

“I don’t sexually harass everyone. I’m rather selective, in fact.”

I roll my eyes. “Do up your pants, please.”

He does. And I curse the butterflies in my stomach.

“If it helps you feel better, it was a really nice eyeful, Carly.”

I look away. “It doesn’t make me feel better. And you scared the bejesus out of me.”

“Yeah, well… I explained already,” he mumbles and his jaw muscles flex.

I roll my eyes.

His phone makes a swish sound and he lifts it from the counter, peeks at it, then shoves it in his pocket.

“I’m drivin’ you to work this morning,” he announces. “I’ve told Pinky to go ahead without you.”

“What?”

“Think you heard me.”

“I don’t understand,” I say.

“I’m the boss, right?”

“At work, yeah,” I answer and start spooning sugar in, then grab milk from the fridge.

“And we’re heading to work. I’m driving you.”

“Why?” I ask.

“There’s a reason.”

I frown. “Why don’t you bring Ally, too?”

“Can’t fit two bitches on my motorcycle,” he says.

My eyes bulge. “A, don’t call us bitches. B, why don’t we take your car?”

“Crossfire’s only a two-seater, too.”

Oh. Right. I’ve seen his car in the parking lot at work, seen him get out of it while Ally’s having her before-work-vaping sesh.  

“And, because, I said so,” he says.

“Aiden…” I roll my eyes.

He glares and leans forward. I rear back. He’s right up in my space.

“I’m driving you to the office.”

“Because?”

“Because Pinky texted me last night to tell me the daytime building security guy creeped you out in the gym yesterday, fucked with the lights and scared you. He’s gonna see you leave for work with me, determine you’re off limits. Then, if he’s stupid enough to look at you wrong again after I’ve made sure he’s seen you with me, he won’t be surprised he’ll be dealt with.”

I’m gonna kill Ally.

I text her.

“You’re in the BFF penalty box, missy.”

She answers my text with a return text quickly.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you. We must have a bad connection. We’re driving through a tunnel. I’ll talk to you at work.”

“Very funny. You left already? Tell me you didn’t!” 

“Yes. I’m gone. Buying DONUTS and YUMMY PASTRIES. Aiden delegated me Friday treats today. I’m doing it to thank him for taking care of your problem with Seth. Ash knows the BEST place. I convinced him to get the car detailed so we can hopefully have a scent-free ride Monday.”

I don’t even want to process all this. Except a scent-free ride. Now, that’d be nice.

I storm into my room and grab my bag and my heels and carry them out and as I’m getting into them, his eyes are on them.

“You’re gonna need flats,” he tells me, staring at my shoes. My very nice strappy royal blue high heels.

“Huh?” I ask.

“As sexy as those are, they won’t work, Curly Sue. we’re doin’ laser tag tonight. You’ll break your neck.”

“Laser tag?”

He nods. “Team building.”

“No one told me. I thought it was dinner and drinks.”

“Check your spam?” he asks.

I roll my eyes and head back to my bedroom and grab a pair of sneakers and stuff them into my Adidas string backpack and then stuff my purse into it, too.

I put it over my shoulders.

He smiles from the opened doorway.

I don’t return the smile.  I probably give him a dirty look.

His smile grows bigger. Dirtier.

It’s too early in the morning for this. There’s also the fact that my very vivid dream of shower sex with Aiden is just on the edge of my consciousness.

Thank God it’s Friday.

 

***

 

When we get off the elevator, Aiden grabs my hand.

I’m about to yank it away out of reflex, but he says, “Carly,” in a deep, husky, commanding tone.

Oh. The Seth thing. My body jolts and I keep my hand in his. He gives it a squeeze, almost like a reward, and takes us to the desk and Seth.

My heart is thumping hard and I feel a little green around the gills suddenly.

Seth’s eyes are on us and he looks a little bit pale, too.

“Seth, right?” Aiden grunts.

“Good morning, Sir. Miss.” He directs the Miss at me.

All business. Wow.

I give Seth my Billy Idol lip. He looks contritely at me.

“There’s a light out above my parking spot for the Ducati. Fill out a report for maintenance, will ya?”

“Absolutely. I guess Keith didn’t notice that when he did patrol overnight.”

“No reason lights should be goin’ out around here, especially lights over things that are mine. Get me?”

Seth swallows.

My knees wobble. Whoa. Now, that’s a statement.

“There’s a plumber coming at ten o’clock to fix the main bathroom in my condo, too. Cherry Grove Plumbing. Let him in. Lock up after.”

Seth nods and jots it down.

Aiden’s lips touch my temple softly and his arm goes around me while Seth writes.

My heart is galloping. Fast. Those lips. Those soft warm lips. My throat is dry.

Aiden’s hand is moving up and down my arm as we stand there.

“All noted. Have a good day, Sir,” Seth says.

Aiden grabs my hand and we go to the elevator.

When it opens, and we get in, he moves in and puts his hand to my face and moves closer, slowly, as if for a kiss as the doors close.

My lips part and my eyes are locked to his.

His head is tilting, his lips are getting closer.

Smoldering eyes. I gulp.

The doors shut, and I find myself frozen.

He moves back and smiles.

He let’s go.

“Somethin’ about elevators?” he quips, and my face burns hot as I remember the tie. The CG tie. Has he read those books? Has some girl dragged him to the movies so they can act out some of the scenes afterwards?

And I’m just absolutely statue-still.  I don’t remember how to breathe for a second. Maybe I’ll have a red room dream tonight.

He sinks his teeth into his bottom lip and looks at me like the cat that got the cream.

I remember how to breathe. I straighten up. I close my mouth. Shit. My lips had parted, and my head had tilted. AND HE TOTALLY FUCKING KNOWS IT!!!

He winks and then the elevator dings and the doors open. We’re at the parking level.

I’m blinking and unable to think straight as we walk out of the elevator. Then it dawns he’s grabbed my hand again.

I yank it back. He laughs. Laughs!

This parking garage is filled with cars, some of them luxury cars. We get two rows over from the elevator and I see his motorcycle.  The light over that spot isn’t out. I guess it doesn’t matter. His point got made.

He pulls keys from his pocket and a car beeps and lights flash beside the motorcycle. The trunk pops up on the black Crossfire. He reaches in and pulls out a shiny gold helmet and pops it on my head. It’s odd that he’s got this old car when he’s so wealthy. It’s in mint condition, but it’s surrounded by luxury cars. 

He puts a black one that’s sitting on the seat of the motorcycle onto his own head.

We get to the office without incident, Aiden carries the two helmets inside with us. We walk by Bill, the IT guy, and Aiden gives Bill a dirty look. Bill blinks and looks away.

Aiden’s mood has shifted and now he’s kind of acting angry. I wonder what’s between him and Bill. Aiden was rude to him yesterday, too, when Bill was joking with me at the end of the day.

I say nothing. I make as little eye contact with people as possible. But, people are looking at us. Through the lobby, and then on our floor as well.  People saw me arrive on the back of his motorcycle, my arms around his abs.

His hard abs. My body was plastered against his strong broad back.  Why didn’t he take the Crossfire to work? I’d bet money, if I had any, that the motorcycle was intentional, to create more opportunities for touching.

He was walking beside me as we passed Bill, but as we did, Aiden moved closer to me. Now I’m going to be pegged as sleeping with the boss. Fabulous.

“Uh… thanks for that,” I say as we get to my cubicle.

His eyes hit mine and there’s awkwardness. Something weird is crackling between us. I wasn’t being awkward or sarcastic. I do appreciate him making that statement to the security guy and I think he gets it because his expression changes and he jerks his chin up and then goes into his office.

 

***

 

It’s four o’clock and nothing has gone wrong today. Nothing. It’s been an exceptionally good day. He hasn’t been in his office, so I haven’t felt the burn of his stare into my back or the urge to keep looking over my shoulder at him to see if he’s staring or not.

Ally brought a cornucopia of pastries and baked delights for Friday treats and for lunch, and Mr. C bought several large pizzas to celebrate the fiscal year end.

I’m thinking about the weekend, about walking the neighborhood around the building to see what else is a close-by amenity. I can’t spend any money on the weekend, and Ally’s already told me we’re having dinner at hers and Meryl’s apartment and then going clubbing Saturday. Sunday, maybe we’ll spend our day down at the pool or pack a picnic and go to the beach.

Alice pops by and hands me an envelope.

“Company Amex card.”

“Oh?” I ask.

“It’s for any NYC-related expenses or other CC expenses. There’s an expense guideline sheet in your onboarding binder. If you do have to use it for any personal expenses, you have to report that when you submit a copy of your statement and you can’t carry a balance on this card, so you have to pay any of your own spending by the due date of each statement.”

“Oh, okay.” Relief is flooding me.

“Expense reports are due at the end of each month and expenses are reimbursed directly into your bank account by the fourth of each month. Be aware all copies of bills are kept on file, so any line item details of purchases will be recorded.” She gives me a meaningful look.

“Roger that,” I smirk.

She smirks in return. “Call the number on the card to activate and pick your PIN#.”

Good to know. I won’t use it to fill my Kindle with romance books, then.

Phew. Phew!

I am more than relieved to not have to stress so much about money until payday next week. And I’m relieved that I don’t have to borrow money from anyone for the work trip.

Mr. C stops by my cubicle and smiles big.

“I saw that article you posted for us as a guest blog on that marketing resource library. Who wrote that?

“Me.”

Aiden walks by and heads into his office. His door is open, and his eyes are on us.

“It was fantastic. Nicely written. It’s gone viral.”

I smile. “I saw.”

“Good work, Carly.”

“Thanks, Mr. C.”

Yay.

At 4:30, everything is winding down. People are excited about the team building dinner and the weekend and I’m so looking forward to sleeping in, in the morning.

But, then I hear my name barked.

“Carly! Get in here.”

Aiden. At his desk, biceps bulging, face like thunder.

I step in.

“Did you reset the Lingo budget?”

I tilt my head. “No.”

“We’re spending $17,000.00 over our original budget.”

My eyes bulge. “We what?”

“This got set to 17K per day sometime in the last day. We barely use Lingo ads. You know something we don’t?”

“I didn’t reset the budget, Aiden. I did go in two days ago and changed all ads to contextual instead of search engine, though. It was set at 100% search engine, which is likely why the campaigns were bleeding money.”

“This search engine is number six. Six! If anything, the budget should’ve been slashed, not boosted. You need to run budget changes by me.”

“But… I didn’t touch the budget,” I defend.

He spins his computer around so that I can see the screen. And I see it, a budget of $18K per day.

My hand covers my mouth.

“Did you go on the dashboard?” he asks.

“Yeah, I did. I uploaded a new ad. I uploaded new leaderboards on four platforms the day before yesterday. Ally made those fantastic banners.”

“Then, you screwed up and set the budget wrong.” He’s typing, clicking keys.

Did I? I’m stunned. I don’t think I’d be so careless. I always triple check settings that are changed for anything I do.

“I fixed it,” he grumbles.

“I honestly don’t think I did that. I could contact their helpdesk. See if there’s a glitch.”

He shakes his head. His father is in his office doorway now.
“What’s this?”

My heart sinks.

“One sec,” I say and dash back to my desk to have a look.

I hear Aiden filling his father in and Aiden sounds utterly irate about it.

I click through a few screens and my eyes nearly bulge out of my head.  I click through to our internal lead manager software.

I rush back in there.

“Um, excuse me.”

Mr. C turns around and his eyebrows are up.

“I honestly don’t think I made that mistake. I’m extremely careful. But, if I did, it may have been serendipitous. And only because I told it to switch to contextual.”

“Because?” Aiden pushes.

“Because the conversion rate on the new Lingo ad is 64% and we have four new leads, sixteen newsletter sign-ups since this morning. One of them is someone from Babylon Unlimited. Isn’t that Franklin’s number one customer?”

Mr. C’s eyes light up. Franklin is our number one competitor.

Aiden gives me a look that makes my blood run cold.

What the heck?

“Well, interesting…” Mr. C is scratching his head. “Who at Babylon?”

“I’ll check. I’ll send a message to the helpdesk at Lingo to trace that budget increase activity, but it might have worked out okay after all. They pushed it out via contextual ads in their email. Their search engine is outdated, yes, but they still have a huge following on their business email suite. A lot of big companies still use that email, so I flipped the switch to push our ads to email and their contextual network, but I didn’t change the budget. Unless they can prove we did this, I’ll be able to get them to credit us.”

Mr. C claps his hands. “I’m calling Brad in Miami. I want him running with the Babylon thing. When does that newsletter go out?”

“Tuesdays,” I reply.

“Is the next newsletter done?”

“It is. Queued up and all scheduled,” I say.

“I wanna see it. Can you get me a draft? We may want to strategize for a special copy going to the Babylon address only. Aiden, you and I need to talk with Brad about that. I’ll schedule a Saturday call.”

He smiles at me and rushes off.

Aiden is shooting lasers at me with his eyes.

Why?

Why would he be mad about this, unless he wanted this to be a screw-up of epic proportions. Unless…

Did he just try to fuck me over?

My mouth drops open. He straightens up.

“I’ll call Lingo,” he says. “Find out what happened.”

“Oh, you will, will you?” I fold my arms across my chest.

He gives me an evil glare. So evil.

He totally tried to fuck me over. Why? What the hell did I do to this guy?

“You…” I start. I’m not sure how to even begin with this.

“Watch it, peaches,” He warns. “You probably wanna stop right there.”

I glare at him. “What did I ever do to you?”

He says nothing. This fucker.

Oh. It’s on. It’s on like Donkey Kong.

Carly 2.0 engage. Fuck me over? Fuck me over when I’ve done nothing but try to do my job? I don’t think so.

I don’t know what I’m gonna do about it yet, but if I’m this new me that I keep proclaiming myself to be, I have to do something.

Ally’s suddenly in the doorway. “Bus is here!” She’s unable to contain excitement. “Let’s go suit up and shoot some fake lasers at one another!” She pretends to shoot Aiden with a finger gun.

My face is hot. I’m staring at him.

He’s staring back at me. He’s as cool as a cucumber.

“It’s 5:15 on a Friday of our very first week. A long, long week. We need to go shoot. I’m stealing her!” she announces and tugs my hand.

He says nothing. Just keeps his eyes on me. A cold, hard stare.

I go with her, feeling sick. Sick to my stomach.

I tell her I need five minutes to send some details to Mr. C.

I fire him off a copy of the upcoming newsletter, the email address of the Babylon Lingo signup, and then close down my laptop.

I meet her in the lobby at 5:30 sharp where everyone without their own car or who wants to have a designated driver gets on a bus.