Chapter Eight

Working for Alex was the worst decision Indy had ever made…not that it required much choosing on her part. He’d made the decision for her and landed her in her current mess.

As one of the vice-presidents walked by, Indy clicked away from the job search website she’d been perusing to smile at the woman. She could search for a new position in her off hours after work, but she was usually far too exhausted to eat, much less to take on the effort it required to apply for jobs.

Alex kept her busy in more ways than one, starting from that very first day two weeks before.

She’d started her first hour as the CEO’s assistant crawling on top of him, her skirt hiked up around her waist and her naked ass waving in the air. Alex had been sprawled out on his office couch, his fly open, and she’d been trying to ease his cock through the opening—no small feat when it had swollen up big and hard in the meantime. Meanwhile, Alex had gripped her ass and steered her crotch down to his face, though he only managed to get in a few kisses before her wriggling disrupted his efforts.

“I pictured this going a lot more smoothly,” Alex had complained.

Indy had added her own gripe. “I can’t get your cock out. Maybe some lubrication will help.”

“Good idea,” Alex had agreed. He’d immediately gone to work with his fingers, rubbing her slit until it was good and wet.

His manipulations had gotten her back into the mood of things, despite the awkward positioning. Then she’d been able to give his dick a good lick through the opened zipper.

“There’s a button at the top,” Alex had helpfully reminded her.

Of course. That had been the problem. With the button taken care of, she could then slide his cock completely into her grasp then straight into her mouth. Yum.

She’d liked being on top of him, setting the pace, sucking him off at her own speed. He’d groaned and tried to move deeper into her mouth, but she’d resisted every time. He’d come when she was ready for him to and not a second before.

From the sounds he’d made, though, anyone might have thought she was killing him.

Soon Alex seemed to tire of being solely on the receiving end, and he’d hauled her ass closer to him, her knees splayed on either side of his chest. Then he’d had complete access to her warm, wet pussy, and he’d devoured it with all the hunger he’d promised. He’d licked her cunt dry then sucked her clit, making her cream again, before doing it all over. She’d even felt him using his finger to enter her hole and scoop up more cum into his mouth.

Alex had made it difficult for her to concentrate on what she was doing, but as soon as his cock sprang free of his pants, she was miraculously able to focus.

He had a gorgeous dick, long and thick but nicely proportioned, so that it wasn’t too long or too thick. Just the right size for a good blow job.

She’d given it another lick, right around the head of his cock, encircling it completely. Then she’d heard Alex urging her on.

“Suck me, baby. Make me come.”

He’d said those words before or words very similar to them, days ago, years ago. Time had lost all meaning around him. The two of them together formed a continuous loop of sucking, fucking and coming. The perfect circle.

Just like their last sixty-nine. They’d groaned and moaned their pleasure in each other’s bodies until Indy had come in his mouth in a drenching gush that left her shuddering. Alex had taken longer, making her work hard for his climax, employing lips and tongue and fingers. Finally, she had taken his balls into her mouth, stretching her jaw out to their widest to accommodate his taut flesh, and as she’d sucked them, he’d started to ejaculate. She’d had to move quickly to catch his hot jism on her tongue.

Afterward, there’d been none of the awkwardness that she’d so often experienced after sex. It was a comforting thought to imagine that no matter how wild and new their sexual encounters were, Alex would always look at her with those steady bluish-gray eyes and smile his easy smile, as if nothing she could say or do in bed would shock or embarrass him.

How could she tell that she would never get sick of it, of him, when he was the kind of man who got tired of women quickly and moved on soon afterward? How could she ever trust him with her heart?

 

* * * *

 

“You have a teleconference with the Australian branch in about an hour,” Indy reminded Alex as she quickly and efficiently sorted through his mail. It still amazed her how much mail he got in the age of electronic communications. In fact, it was pretty incredible that he still had teleconferences rather than meetings face-to-face, so to speak, over videoconference.

He’d paused by her desk on his way into his office, as he so often did during the day—waiting for a green light, she cynically told herself. Yet that was an unfair judgment. Alex stopped to listen to her because he had an aversion to walking by any employee with merely a passing acknowledgment. She knew he thought it was rude not to stop and respond to her frequent reminders, rather than just grunt and nod as Hank had tended to do.

“Thanks,” he said. “That’s it?”

He’d been out of the office speaking at a seminar for the first half of the day, so she knew he meant to inquire whether that was the only thing that needed seeing to, but she could so easily interpret the query another, far more interesting way.

“Well”—she drew out the word—“Ms. Kleinman had walked by at least three times this morning and again just a minute ago. I think she wants to talk to you.”

“Wise guess,” Alex said, his tone turning the simple words into lavish praise, “but she can make an appointment if it’s important.”

“But then she can’t pretend to just be dropping in.”

Alex laughed before passing on, refuting her suspicion that he’d stopped to try to coax her into filling in that slow hour with him.

A lot of people popped in during the day to see if Alex had ‘a minute’, which most often turned into ten, fifteen or even thirty minutes. He was generous with his time but Indy, who was responsible for his calendar, was not. She had no problem chasing away the time burglars if it meant Alex could get out of the office by seven and meet her at her place by eight, which they had done almost every night for the past two weeks.

It wouldn’t last. She had to keep repeating it to herself like a mantra. She was renting him, not buying, and she was probably already overdue to return him back for the next woman in line.

When she let herself think about it that way, it hurt like crazy. Then she had to try to distract her thoughts away from the inevitable end of their relationship and back to the very pleasant present. Oddly enough, it helped to distract her when she was close to Alex. For his part, he never seemed to question why she had her own version of the pop in to his office, which often involved a quick hand job or a little over-the-clothes make-out session. Why would he complain?

Alex didn’t complain, but he also didn’t talk about the future. He was actually very circumspect about talking about their relationship at all. That was probably a good tactic on his part. He could always claim ignorance when she tried to suggest they were actually in a real relationship rather than a casual one. How could she fight against that? Both people had to want to commit in order to make it work. She’d learned that lesson the hard way from men like Ray.

She seemed to see a lot of Dr. Mehta nowadays. He was often hanging around the main lobby at the beginning and end of the workday, chatting in an almost furtive way with people she could have sworn he didn’t even know. It surprised her because Ray wasn’t terribly sociable at work. She knew from their dating that he considered himself above ninety-nine percent of his colleagues. Yet now he appeared to be making efforts to spread himself around.

Whenever he visited Alex’s office, he gave Indy a smile that all but dripped with sugar. Fucking the boss had obviously raised her in his estimation, though he would probably give her the same warning he had so many months ago—letting her know that she wasn’t quite marriage material. And she wouldn’t argue with him.

It seemed the closer that she got to Alex, the more urgent their time together became. She was losing him, bit by bit, day by day. Outwardly, he was the same, but inside of him some clock was likely ticking down their time together.

It was killing her. Being so close to him all the time was agonizing, yet they spent so much time together that she stopped even wishing for time apart. She was greedy for him—for more, not less…for all of him.

For the sake of her sanity, she had to get away from that clock—and Alex.

Indy reached beneath her desk for her purse. By mutual agreement, she and Alex never spent lunch together. It was only eleven-thirty, but she was ready for a break. A walk, maybe. Even just a trip across the street for a coffee and a buttered bagel might calm some of her nervous energy.

Ray Mehta was staking out the lobby as usual. Indy passed him with a brief smile. They had nothing to say to each other.

To her horror, Ray fell into step with her as she crossed the wide floor.

“Hello, Indy. How are you doing?”

He managed to infuse the common words with a not-too-hidden meaning, but Indy was determined not to react to the subtext.

“Hello, Ray. Fine, thanks, Ray. How are you?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. By now she was at the door—almost outside, almost free.

Ray stepped in front of her, barring her way. “How is Alex?”

Indy let her mouth curve into a sarcastic smile. “Alex Winters?”

Their conversation in the elevator weeks ago still burned in her memory. What had he meant to tell her? About Alex’s reputation? She’d found out about that on her own. What was surprising was how little had been said about Alex’s womanizing when one of the perennially favorite topics of conversation at Mavrell was its CEO.

Ray smiled with all his teeth, the kind of smile that could probably be mistaken for friendly at a distance but was clearly a snarl up close.

“Are there any other Alexes you’re fucking right now?” he asked smilingly. “I guess with you, someone could never really know.”

“What’s that?” Indy demanded. “An accusation? I don’t cheat, Ray. At least try a believable insult.”

The snarl-smile dimmed for a second, but he recovered quickly. “Is that right? Well, it’s too bad, really. If you had a backup, you might be less in danger of getting your heart broken.”

Coming from him, that was ironic. Except now, looking back, whatever so-called love she’d thought she’d felt for Ray Mehta seemed like a paper shell of the real thing…what she felt for Alex.

Oh, God, he was right. She was in danger. No matter how hard she’d struggled to keep it safe, her heart was in Alex’s hands. Her poor, poor heart.

“Who said anything about hearts?” Indy said, holding her chin up. Ray was sniffing around for weakness—it was what he did best, she now saw—but she wasn’t going to give him any scent trails. “You seem to know a lot about your boss’s habits,” Indy went on, despite herself. She was remembering the way Ray had suddenly appeared to be putting himself out, overtly mingling with his colleagues. “Why the sudden interest?”

Ray dropped the smiling act. “Everyone knows about him,” he told her. “You’re just the last one to find out, as usual. You know, they say a man’s head is in his pants, but you women are just as bad. A few good fucks and you’re panting after a guy.”

“A few good fucks,” Indy mused. “At least it was a few more than we had. Right, Ray?”

She hadn’t bothered to lower her voice for the last bit, and Ray glanced around the lobby behind her intently. She saw his shoulders relax. No one around, she guessed.

Indy shouldered past him. “I’ve got to go. Thanks for the friendly advice.”

“What are friends for?” Ray called out to her back.

Of course, he had to have the last word.

 

* * * *

 

“What did you say to piss off Ray Mehta?”

Indy looked up from her computer screen. Alex was standing over her, a slight smile on his face.

“Nothing,” she said. Then she amended the stark statement. “Not much. He cornered me at lunch.”

“He cornered you?”

Indy kept her fingers flexed over the keyboard. She would not look up to see what kind of expression accompanied that abrupt change in tone. She would not…

She glanced up and saw the dark look on Alex’s face. To think that she had that kind of power… No, she didn’t have that power. She imagined she had that power. She had nothing of him, nothing but a little slice of his time and the attention of that head that resided in his trousers.

“He was weird,” Indy elaborated, sorting out in her own head what had been wrong. For the last hour since she’d returned to her desk, she’d tried not to think about it. Now she had to. “He acted like he was the one who’d been hurt by me.”

She probably shouldn’t have said that. It would only remind him that she’d been dumped by Ray. No man liked having leftovers, particularly from someone he knew.

Alex parked his ass on the edge of her desk. “What did he say?”

Indy recounted the conversation to him.

“I’ve noticed that he’s been trying to be more friendly with people,” she added. “I can’t help thinking that he was doing it for a reason.”

“He was,” Alex said. “I found that out this afternoon. He wanted to speak to me earlier. He wanted to warn me.”

“To warn you?” Indy’s stomach was fluttering like her frugal lunch was trying to crawl back out. “About me?”

“About you,” he confirmed. “About your history together—and apart.”

“Our history together was short and ugly,” she said, thinking back over the last few months. In comparison to Alex, her relationship with Ray seemed like a lesson in torture she’d somehow decided to sign herself up for. She’d never known before how comfortable she could be with a man outside of the bedroom.

Alex was watching her closely. “He suggested that you’re a serial cheater.”

“I wasn’t,” she said tiredly because she was still thinking hard. “He might have been. He was clear about me not being good enough for him. Some people take that conclusion as a license to be unfaithful.”

“What did he imagine wasn’t ‘good enough’?” Alex wanted to know, putting clear verbal quotation marks around the last two words.

“My background and my family,” Indy told him, “or my lack of both—like not having a family is a character flaw.”

Alex was quiet for a moment. “I have a stable, respectable family,” he finally said, “but I don’t take personal credit for it. It’s mostly luck, some work and having the insight to realize that it’s both of those things and not to take it for granted. But I thought that was all out of fashion right now. Your friends are your family and so on.”

Indy shook her head. “Not in the Indian culture. Your family is who you are—and it is a character flaw for you if your grandfather was a thief or just terribly poor. Your family may not matter in many ways, but it still matters in terms of who you marry.”

She broke off. She had been stupid enough to believe that Ray thought the way she did and all that mattered was that they wanted to be together.

“Were you thinking about marriage?” Alex asked.

“He wasn’t,” Indy said with angry emphasis. God, was she still angry about Ray? Because so much of it had been her fault for believing in something that had never existed. She was determined never to make that mistake again.

Alex persisted. “Were you?”

She didn’t want to lie to him. Not now, not when she could tell that the stopwatch was ticking down the last few minutes for them.

“Yes,” she said, “I was thinking about marriage. I thought that was what he wanted. He was pretty hot on the idea of tradition, only I never noticed then how he always talked in the abstract. He talked about his future wife and how perfect she would be, but he never once suggested that it would be me. Of course, I didn’t realize it at the time. I assumed we were one and the same. How stupid, right? I’m nowhere near perfect.”

“Who is?” Alex wanted to know. “You don’t have to be perfect to love or be loved.”

Love. Had he meant to use that word?

She shook her head. It was all so confusing. Alex was the man she wanted but Alex wasn’t who he seemed to be.

Alex spoke with unusual hesitancy. “Did he tell you anything about me?”

Indy looked away from his steady stare. Now was the time to face facts and show him that she could accept him the way he was, for however long he wanted her.

“He said I would be the last one to find out the truth about you,” she told him, speaking quickly to cover her nervousness, “but I already know, and I’m okay with it.”

His head jerked back as if she’d slapped him.

“You’re okay with it?” he repeated.

“Yes.” This time she met his glance directly. “I know, and I can accept it. We can move on from it or, you know, we won’t. I guess that part’s up to you.”

He stood up. “Move on from it? Is that how you see our situation? My feelings for you are something to be accepted and moved on from? Is that just a pretty way of saying ‘ignored’?”

Indy was bewildered. “Are we talking about our feelings now?”

“Not yours,” Alex said, his jaw clenched nearly shut. “Mine. You’re making that clear.”

Indy felt a smile trying to break out on her lips, one she struggled to conceal when she could see how angry Alex was.

Angry. Alex! It was incredible and heartwarming for all the wrong reasons. She wasn’t happy that he was angry, but she was glad he could feel so strongly about her.

Somehow she had to make him say the word ‘love’ again and this time link it with her.

“No, Alex, we’re talking about our feelings.” She reached out to grab his hand. “Please, let’s go in the other room.”

She wanted some privacy—her outer office was open to anyone walking by—but he obviously came to a different conclusion.

“No.” He tore his hand away. “We’re not having sex. Not now.”

Some of her joy seeped away. Sex was her best weapon, her only tool for keeping a man interested. Without it, she wasn’t anyone special. She was just Indy.

“I want to talk,” she said, “that’s all.”

Inside, she was frantically thinking about what to say. It was as if a wall had sprung up between them, and in trying to meet, one was trying to climb over and one was trying to dig under it…and neither way was working.

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll talk.”

There was a grimness to his tone that made her shiver inwardly. This was going to be much harder than she ever imagined.

It was difficult enough to step into his office where they’d spent so much time together, some of it ignoring their respective work completely. She could picture herself bent over the desk, her skirt hiked up and Alex fucking her from behind—or sprawled across his lap while he spanked her and played with her clit at the same time. That last scenario had taken a lot of convincing on her part, but he’d loved it once he tried it, as he’d seemed to love everything they’d done together.

Was it just the sex? The spanking and the titty-fucking and the many, many blow jobs? Was it only, as Ray had suggested so long ago, because she was sexually ready and willing to do anything that men wanted to who were with her?

“You start,” Alex said once she’d closed the door behind him. He leaned back against the edge of his desk, his arms crossed over his chest as if locking her out of his heart. If his body language was actually speaking, it would be saying ‘get lost’.

This was so hard!

“Alex,” she started safely, with his name. “I want you to know that I accept the reality of things. How different we are. How this can’t last forever.”

“Who said we’re so different?” he interrupted. “Who said this won’t last?”

“We are different,” Indy insisted. “You run this company. I’m just an assistant. You come from a stable, happy family. I lost my family. I can’t even remember any more if we were happy or not.”

The stern lines of his face softened. He came toward her and took her by the arms. His touch was hard and warm and welcome. He represented that stability she’d mentioned was lacking in her life.

Somehow he’d become so important to her, despite her best efforts to remain aloof.

“Those are surface differences,” Alex told her. “We have the same values. We have the same goals in life.”

Did they? Maybe that was how he saw her, as a woman who needed many sexual partners, who craved variety as much as he did.

“I’m tired of dating incessantly and still being lonely,” she said.

His grip tightened. “So am I.”

His quiet emphasis, more than his actual words, gave her hope.

“It has to be about more than great sex,” she said tentatively.

Alex smiled. “Good. I agree.”

Again, it was his tone that lent her courage.

“Alex, I’m crazy about you.”

His eyes were like flames. “Good,” he said, “because I’m in love with you.”

As she stared up at him, she saw that it was true. Just like that, her worries grew wings and flew away. Just like that, her world was filled with joy.

Now she said what she’d been too afraid to say before. “I’m in love with you, too.”

He pulled her up against him. “Show me.”

She shut her eyes and, blindly, she kissed his neck, his jaw, the firm strength of his mouth. He held her close, and when their lips touched, it seemed to galvanize him. He kissed her with a wide-open mouth, drawing her tongue past his lips and laving it with his own.

The office offered many possible choices for a quick fuck, and they’d sampled them all—the couch, the desk, the wheeled office chair, which took some balancing and coordination. They’d even once done it on the floor, coupling frantically like animals because they’d been upset with each other for some trivial reason, and that primitive venue was the best option for exorcising that simmering violence.

Indy was willing to revisit any of those pleasure spots now, but Alex apparently had another idea, since when she tried to move away from the door, he blocked her with his body.

Reaching down, he forced up her skirt. She wasn’t wearing any panties. Her skirt was too tight for them, and the weather too hot for hose.

“Hm, bare,” Alex murmured with approval as he fingered her closely trimmed pussy lips. “I love that.”

She wanted him the same way, but she was so excited that she fumbled over his zipper, taking agonizing seconds to release his cock from his trousers. She wanted to devote some time to playing with it—she loved the feel of him in her hand—but she really needed both hands to grasp Alex’s shoulders. She barely had time to take the foil packet she knew was always in his back pocket nowadays and slip the condom onto his penis.

Alex wrapped his strong arms around her and cupped her ass, bringing it up until she sat braced against the door, her bottom resting on the seat his hands made. It was a new position for them, but already she was liking it. The sturdy door took most of her weight. All she had to do was stay upright and locked in place. To help that, she lifted her legs and curved them around Alex’s hips.

They were one entity now—stronger together, capable of meeting any challenge.

She gasped his name. He was touching her again, parting her labial lips to feel the wet warmth within. She knew he was only checking to see that she was ready, but his touch, however incidental, was driving her crazy.

“I need you, baby.”

He was speaking her thoughts aloud.

She said one word. Yes. Then he was surging inside her, pausing only to adjust to their novel angle before he thrust and embedded his cock fully inside her.

Indy arched against him, holding on to his shuddering shoulders as she pulled his strong dick deeper into her cunt. So good. So right.

He was everything she wanted, now and forever, and she was no longer afraid to say it.

Alex reared back a bare inch before shoving back into her. Then he managed two inches of separation so that his penetration was slower and more delicious.

Indy shut her eyes and leaned her head back against the unyielding wood.

She marveled at the strength of him and at his control. Sometimes it could be terrible, like when he drew out the task of pleasuring her until the wait became a sort of ache, but now it was only wondrous…beauty and light.

She bobbed up and down as Alex fucked her pussy. Soon she would bear down on him and really milk his dick good. But for now, she could enjoy the ride, knowing they would get there in the end. They always did.