Chapter10
She went into work early the next morning, her nerves wound up tight as she wondered what it would be like between them. She didn’t know what they would be – if they were still boss and employee who had shared a romantic and sexy date, or if they were going to continue down the path that they had started on and let things progress. She didn’t know how she should act around him when their co-workers were around, but she did know what she had felt all night the night before and what she was still feeling the next day.
Her thoughts drifted off as she stood beside the copy machine, her mind taking her back to the dance floor where they had kissed, and the car ride home when he had held her hand in his most of the way, brushing his fingers back and forth over hers. Most especially to the moment when he had walked her to her door and bid her goodnight.
He’d taken her in his arms again, only that time, he had held her so close against him, setting his palms on either side of her face as his fingertips moved over her cheeks and her neck and his mouth overtook hers, kissing her deeply with a growing hunger that did not give way when they parted, leaving them both breathless and desirous of more.
Her body had yearned for his touch, and she knew that it was much too soon for that. It was much too soon for anything to be happening between them, but if she was being honest with herself, there was just no stopping it.
There was a real and genuine electric chemistry between them, and though they might try to deny it, there was no getting around the fact that they wanted each other, and they had both felt the attraction from the day they had met. Something had sparked, and it would not be ignored, and it would not be pushed aside for protocol and professionalism.
“Girl, what are you doing? Are you going to stand there and make a hundred copies of that page, or are you all done?” A gentle voice prodded her out of her reverie, and she turned with a start to see Grace standing behind her.
“What on earth are you thinking about?” she asked, shaking her head at Aleisha.
Aleisha rolled her eyes in good humor and laughed lightly. “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I was thinking about other things. There’s a lot going on.”
Grace looked at her seriously over the top of her half-rimmed glasses. “Mmmhmm. Well, there’s a lot going on here in this office, too, so let’s stay on top of what we’re here to do.”
Aleisha nodded and took her stack of papers back to her office and put them on her desk as she tried to collect herself. When she looked down at what she had done, she groaned. Grace was right. She did have something not far from a hundred copies of the same page. She hadn’t been paying attention to the buttons on the machine at all.
She stood up and took the extra pages out of her office and over to the recycle box beside the copy machine. At least they weren’t sensitive documents that needed to be shredded. They could be recycled and used for other things.
Grace stopped her as she was passing by her desk. “I was going to tell you that George from New York Tech called and left a message. They want to meet with you and Kyle.”
Before Aleisha could say anything, she heard a familiar voice behind her, and it made her body come alive. “Did you tell George we’ll call him when we’re ready to meet with him?” Kyle stopped beside Aleisha and looked exactly as he did every single day.
Trim in his suit, his hair combed perfectly, his face calm, and his eyes deflecting anyone who might want to see what he was really thinking inside.
Aleisha stood there beside him, her body stirring and her thoughts going wild. She worried that she would give herself away, especially to Grace, who could see almost anything in anyone. She worried that she might not behave the way that Kyle would prefer at the office. She worried that her warming cheeks would somehow make it obvious to the rest of the office that she had kissed Kyle the night before and left him wanting much more.
“I did. I said that you’d call him when you got in and that if he wanted to make an appointment that it was going to have to be made with you instead of me. You’re both still working on that, aren’t you?” Grace asked, looking from one of them to the other. Aleisha looked back at her and nodded as coolly as she could manage.
“Yes, I’m actually hoping to get in touch with their mechanics before we talk to them. Wish me luck on it.” She gave Grace a little smile, and Grace nodded and looked over at Kyle. Aleisha turned and walked away. “I’m going to go check on that right now, actually. I’ll see you two later.”
She hoped that she sounded like she always did, that she was acting as she always did. She walked into her office, closed the door, and let out a huge sigh of relief. She was going to have to ask Kyle what he wanted their protocol to be at the office and what he was thinking of for their future. She had to have some answers. She couldn’t keep walking around wondering what was what.
She didn’t have to wait long. Fifteen minutes later, Kyle walked into her office with a file in his hand and closed the door. The minute the door was closed, he dropped the file on her desk and walked around behind her desk, reaching for her hands and pulling her to her feet.
She gasped as he closed his arms around her and stared hard into her eyes. “You have no idea how difficult it was to stand next to you this morning at Grace’s desk and act like everything is normal. It took everything I could do to stop from doing this.”
“Doing what?” she laughed softly in utter wonder.
He smiled a little and closed his mouth over hers, kissing her soundly and fully as his hands moved over her back, pulling her tight against him. When he finally let her go, they were both breathing heavy and gazing at each other through lidded eyes.
“Are you going to be doing that often?” she managed to whisper softly as she tried to catch her breath.
“Do you want me to?” he asked just as quietly, his eyes searching hers.
She couldn’t stop herself from saying what she felt and what she was thinking. “Yes.” She nodded. The word had barely escaped her when he placed his hands on either side of her face and drew her to him again to kiss her even more deeply and passionately than he had before.
When they stopped, he held his forehead to hers gently. “I hope this isn’t wrong for you. I hope that this isn’t moving too fast for you, or that it’s moving in the wrong direction for you. This has to be right for both of us, but… god, I couldn’t stop thinking about you last night. I nearly called you about five or six different times, and if you didn’t have the twins at your home in bed asleep, I swear I would have come over just to be near you.
“You’re changing things so much for me… things I didn’t even know I could feel. You’re making me so hungry for you, like I can’t get enough of your smile and that sweet laugh of yours, and your beautiful brown eyes, and your wit and your…” he paused and leaned back, looking down at her body and then back up to her face.
With a shake of his head, he sighed and let her go, only kissing her forehead softly. “It just seems like everything about you is drawing me in, and there’s just nothing that I can do to stop it. It’s fast. I know that. It’s fast for me, too, but I don’t feel like I can stop this, and I don’t feel like I want to stop it.”
She smiled at him and took his hands into hers. “I feel exactly the same way.”
“I knew it!” he laughed a little. But then he sighed and looked down for a moment, returning his gaze to her a few seconds later. “We have to be careful, though. We have a lot at stake here. We should keep up our appearances here at the office – you know, act like everything is the way it should be between us here, whenever anyone else is around. But if we’re alone, all bets are off.” He winked at her and leaned forward to kiss her mouth softly.
“Is this really okay?” he asked, eyeing her seriously.
She knew what he meant. Was it okay that things were changing between them? Was it okay that he wanted her as much as he did? Was it okay that he was so fascinated with her and interested in her?
“Yes, it’s okay. I’m not feeling anything differently than you are. We’re both on the same page about this. I guess… I guess we’ll just see where it goes.” She gave him a shy smile and felt her body melt under his heated gaze.
“I know exactly where I want it to go.” He didn’t leave anything to guess with his statement or his intention, and she felt her entire body go up in flames at the thought of him touching her and holding her against him. She drew in a sharp breath, and he kissed her again, soft and slow and long, and then let her go.
Kyle walked to the door and sighed heavily, reaching up to straighten his tie before he squared his shoulders and walked out of her office with the file in his hand that he had come into her office with. He closed the door, and she sank down into her chair and grinned as big as she could, staring at the closed door and touching her finger to her lips. If she was going to stop herself from feeling anything strong for her boss, it was much too late. She could not have been crushing on him more.
Early that afternoon, she drove down to the garage downtown where New York Tech had their buses maintained. She parked a block away and walked in, looking slightly breathless as she examined the counter and the guy working behind it closely.
He was young, in his mid-twenties at most. He was standing there filing papers into a filing cabinet. The counter and small makeshift office was off to one side of the massive garage, set up against one wall of the building, while the rest of the three-story garage was dark and gritty and filled with buses and other vehicles. The air was saturated with sounds of machines and some distant radio playing old fifties songs.
She stood up straight and walked over to the desk slowly and purposefully. The young man behind the desk looked up at her and stared as she walked toward him.
“Whew! It’s warm outside today…” she smiled at him as she unbuttoned her blouse a few buttons, leaving a generous glimpse of her décolletage. She picked up a brochure from the countertop, flipping it back and forth in front of her as she fanned herself.
The young man stared at the upper curves of her breasts and slowly raised his eyes to her face. He swallowed the big lump in his throat, and she batted her thickly lashed eyes and grinned at him. Leaning forward much further than she needed to, she offered him an even better look at her curves as she focused on the name embroidered on his shirt.
“Jonathon… is that you?” she smiled as if she had learned some sweet secret about him.
He blushed, and the pink in his cheeks washed all over his face. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Hi, Jonathon. I’m Vanessa,” she lied. “Gosh, did they leave you here all alone today?” She looked around and didn’t see anyone else around them. Deep inside of her, she breathed a big sigh of relief because she wasn’t going to have to change what she had in mind as her best possible plan to get what she needed.
He shrugged and nodded, looking up at her again, while stealing a few more glances at her breasts. She watched him. “Well, you must be a pretty smart guy for them to leave you in charge of all of this. I like smart guys.” She grinned at him, and he blushed again.
“Is there something that I can do for you?” he asked in a thin voice. He watched her with rapt attention as she slowly licked her lips and ran her finger over her collar bone. “You know, now that you ask, I wonder if you have any bottled water? I’m so thirsty from all this heat… it’s just sooooo hot outside.” She smiled coyly at him, and he gulped and nodded.
“Yes, sure, I can get you a bottle of water.” He turned and hurried off to a small college-sized refrigerator that was under the counter. She took the opportunity to look around the area and saw the filing cabinet. She knew she couldn’t get to it if she wasn’t alone. She wasn’t going to be able to steal the files. She had to think fast.
Jonathon brought back the bottle of water and gave it to her with a trembling hand. “Here you are, Miss… uh… Vanessa.”
She winked at him. “Thank you, Jonathon. You’re such a life saver.” She slowly unscrewed the cap and tipped the bottle back against her lips, taking a slow sip, and when she lifted the bottle and licked her lips again, she made sure that a few drops fell from the bottle to her breasts. The droplets ran down her skin, and she giggled at the young man who was staring openmouthed at the drops that wound their way into her cleavage and deeper places.
“Oops… oh well, I do need to be cooled off… everywhere.” She laughed lightly. He raised his eyes to meet hers again.
“Well,” she said leaning forward and bringing her chest even closer to him, “you know what else I need that I know you could help me with. You’re such a clever man, and so handsome too, I just know you’re the right one for me to talk to about this. I’m soooo lucky that I found you today because you’re exactly who I need to help me.”
He swallowed again and blinked at her. “Yes, of course, I’m glad to help you with whatever you need me to do. What is it that I can help you with?”
She pouted a little and looked slightly distraught and disappointed. “Oh, well I have to meet with Shaun today… you know, the big shot from New York Tech, and I was supposed to have some papers for him, but I just can’t seem to find them myself. I was hoping that you could save me… you could help me, and I could get some copies of those papers from you.”
Jonathon gazed at her full and pouting lips and nodded his head. “Papers… yeah, sure… what um…” he glanced down from her lips to her breasts and then cleared his throat. “What papers did you need? I’ll get them for you. I’m definitely your guy.” He gave her a weak smile, and she giggled and reached her red-tipped fingernail up to touch his cheek.
“I knew it! You’re going to save me! Thank you. I need their maintenance records. That’s all.” She smiled, and the grin on his face faded a little.
“Oh… well, I don’t know if I’m supposed to give those to you.” He looked doubtful for a moment, and she put on the waterworks, bringing tears to the edges of her thick eyelashes.
“Oh, but if I don’t have those… gosh, who knows what will happen. I might even lose my job! I have to have those for my meeting with him today. I just have to, and I can’t get them anywhere else. You’re my only hope, Jonathon!” she pleaded with him, reaching up to run her fingers down the front of his shirt.
He cleared his throat and lifted his chin. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to lose your job or anything. I guess if you’re supposed to have them to meet with him, then I can help you with that. Hang on. I’ll…” he glanced down at her body again and then looked back up into her eyes, “I’ll just grab them for you and make some copies really quickly.”
He turned to head over to the filing cabinet and opened a drawer, rifling through the folders there. “What month did you need?” he asked as he turned to look up at her with a wide smile.
She turned her head left and right as if to make sure that no one else was there, and then she walked around the counter slowly and went right up to Jonathon who was staring wide-eyed at her as if she was a stunning rule breaker.
“Well, you see, that’s the thing, Jonathon. I need all of them. I’m supposed to have all those copies, and I don’t, and that’s going to mean a big problem for me if I have them when I meet with him.” She pouted again and slid her hand into the crook of his arm, leaning against him with her chest. “Please help me, Jonathon,” she spoke softly. “You’re my one chance. Don’t let me down, okay?”
He gulped again and, taking a long, deep breath, he turned slowly and faced the cabinet. “All... all of them, huh?” she saw him stressing out, and she grinned and lifted her finger to run up and down his arm.
“I really appreciate this. In fact, I don’t even think I could tell you just how much I appreciate this. You’re doing so much for me. I wonder if there’s anything that I can do for you?” she teased him with a smile, hoping to god he wouldn’t think of anything. She was fairly certain that if she steamed him up enough he might be in too much of a fog to think of anything.
If he was older, he’d have plenty of ideas that he would probably not mind sharing with her, but she was lucky and he was young and probably inexperienced, and though he might be thinking all kinds of things, he wouldn’t have the guts to say them to her or suggest them.
His face turned bright red, and she smiled at him as he began to yank thick files out of the drawer. She knew that his blood pressure was going through the roof, and she didn’t fail to notice that his pants had begun to protrude at the front in the groin area, though she made a point of looking away from him there. She wanted to save some kind of dignity for him.
He began to copy the files and she helped him, complimenting him the whole time and flirting mercilessly with him. She hadn’t intended to be such a flirt when she walked in, but from the moment she saw him, she knew that it was her best bet.
Half an hour later, every single document from every single file was copied, and Jonathon was nearly dripping sweat, though he had grown slightly more comfortable with her in his brief time beside her. She took all of the files in her arms and leaned close to him, kissing his cheek softly.
“You’re a life saver, Jonathon, you really are. Thank you. I owe you one.” She grinned at him again and then sauntered out of the garage, leaving him panting behind her.
With a deep giggle, she headed for her car and drove back to the office. When she walked in, Kyle was standing at Grace’s desk talking with her. They both looked up at her, and both of them blinked in wide-eyed surprise as she stopped before them.
“I got all of the files from the New York Tech garage,” she said proudly, planting the big stack on the desk and setting her hand on her hip triumphantly.
“And just how did you do that?” Grace asked, looking pointedly at Aleisha’s chest. Aleisha looked down and gasped, realizing that she had forgotten to button up her blouse, and simultaneously realizing that both Grace and Kyle had just seen more of her breasts than anyone except Jonathon had seen since her last doctor’s visit.
“Oh! Gosh… I’m so sorry. I uh… it was hot out there. Really hot.” She buttoned her blouse quickly and reached for the files. “I’m going to go have a look at these. I’ll be in my office.”
She turned on her heel then and left them both staring after her. Kyle came into her office a few moments later and closed the door behind him. He eyed her sternly and walked toward her.
“Hey, just how did you get those files from the garage?” he frowned suspiciously.
She looked up at him as he approached her and laughed. “I might have flirted with the desk guy a little bit, but I didn’t do anything illegal. This can’t come back to bite us. I promise.”
Kyle lowered one brow and reached out to her, taking her hands in his and pulling her close to him. “Well, I definitely can’t blame the guy for giving in to you, but I don’t want you flirting with anyone but me.” He looked at her seriously, and she felt her heart leave her body. He meant it.
He closed his mouth over hers and kissed her hard and hungrily. His hands moved from her back to her hips, pulling her close against him. As his mouth left hers and began to trail down her neck, stealing her breath away, she gasped, and he closed his hands over her ass, squeezing gently as he moved a solid erection against the front of her body.
“Kyle!” she breathed raggedly, holding tightly to him.
“You are one beautiful woman, and I know that, but seeing you the way you were when you walked into this office… god, it was everything I could do not to just grab you out there at Grace’s desk and kiss you. You’re making my thoughts go wild.” He kissed her neck and sucked at it gently, setting her skin ablaze and making her body ache for him.
“I know you flirted to seduce someone for those, and I’m a little jealous, but if you promise to do the same for me with a different outcome soon, I’ll let it go.” He bit at her neck and her ear gently.
“I’m going to promise you I will, but only on the condition that you don’t let me go,” she answered in a throaty whisper, scarcely able to believe what she was saying to her boss, and knowing that she meant every word of it.
“No chance,” he vowed as his mouth found hers again. They kissed long and deeply for a few minutes before he finally let her go and turned away from her to catch his own breath.
“Okay…” he sighed heavily. “We’ve got to get to work. I think I’ll take half of these into my office, and you can work on the other half in here. I’ll never be able to get through them if you are in the same room with me. Not today at least, and we need to have these done.”
“Deal.” She grinned at him and kissed him softly once more before he left with a slightly flushed face and half of the stack. She watched him go, and she closed the door behind him and giggled blissfully to herself. It was delicious to have him the way that she had been thinking about him, to be able to touch him and kiss him, and even just then to feel his arousal and desire for her against her body. It only inflamed her curiosity and desire for him even more. She knew that she was playing with fire, but she was becoming so quickly consumed with it that she didn’t want to put it down or let it go.
Early that evening, before they left the office, Shaun Morrison and Greg Whitcomb came to the firm and met with them. Kyle and Aleisha had everything that they could possibly need for their case, and when they walked into the deposition with Shaun and Greg, Aleisha felt as if she was on top of the world, owning it all, and there was nothing that either one of the men before them could do.
Kyle began speaking, and she looked over at him, watching the way that he took immediate control of the room, falling under that powerful spell of his as he spoke and commanded the attention and respect of all three of the rest of the people in the room with him. He handed each of them a file and made a new demand.
They flat out refused, and he showed them the aces that he and Aleisha had found. He presented them with the evidence that they had neglected the care and maintenance of the entire bus line over the entire eastern seaboard, and both Shaun and Greg were appalled. They demanded to know where the records were gotten from, and how they were obtained, and Kyle assured them that they’d gotten them legally.
There was nowhere for either Shaun or Greg to turn. They spoke alone together briefly, during which time Kyle and Aleisha shared a few smoldering glances and hidden smiles. When the other pair came back to the table, they agreed to the terms of the settlement.
They paid the tremendously high dollar amount that Kyle had demanded of them, and they agreed to give Jeremy Flanders a good job reference, and most importantly, to regularly report to the city and that state that they were complying with upkeep and maintenance on all of their vehicular fleet. They also agreed to publish a public apology in the New York Times.
When they left, they were mightily humbled, and Kyle turned to look at Aleisha. He shook his head as he went to her and sat beside her on the edge of the conference table.
“You are such an incredible, amazing woman. Do you realize that none of that would have ever happened if you hadn’t caught it at the beginning? You could have just insisted that Jeremy Flanders and the Hendersons signed their settlement pages, and it would have closed, and that company would have gone on endangering people all over the place.
“Instead, you saw the hole in it, and you dug and dug away at it until you found out what was really going on, and then you went and got the ace in the hole that we needed. You went out today and got those documents from the garage.
“We would have beaten them for even more money if we’d had to take them to court, but you made sure that we didn’t have to go to court and risk losing because you ensured that we had just what we needed in here today to look after those people and to take care of the business that needed to be taken care of. This whole thing now is all straightened out because of you, and no one else but you.” He shook his head in wondrous disbelief.
“I’m so glad that you’re up here working with me, and not just because I am so attracted to you. I’m proud to have you here as a member of my team and as a major representative of this firm. You’re going to be one of the greatest attorneys in this city someday, and it will all be because of cases like this. Good job, lady.” He grinned at her.
He was about to reach for her hand when the glass conference room door opened, and Richard Peterson came striding in. They both turned to look at him with a start, and he glared at them both.
“Alright, so you got New York Tech, but that means they’re off the radar for this firm. You better sure as hell get Granger tech on board to make up for it.” He gave them both sharp looks and turned around and walked out of the room.
Kyle sighed and looked over at Aleisha. “I’m working on it. Do you have any more magic up your sleeve today?”
She sighed and shook her head. “No, I am saving that one for tomorrow, I think.” She wasn’t sure what she was going to do to help him find something that would cement Granger into coming to their firm instead of someone else’s.
“I believe in you. We can get it done. There’s no doubt about that. This team of you and me… well, nothing can stop us, and Granger Corp is going to come to this firm, and they’ll be our clients.” He reached for her hand and closed it warmly in his, and she smiled happily at him.