The sun shined its bright light through the curtains in my bedroom, reviving me from my restless sleep. Kinda. I opened my eyes with a groan. No matter how early I lay down, I tossed and turned for ages before I could finally fall asleep. I was always exhausted. Would I ever wake up feeling refreshed, or was this a permanent state of being for me at this point?
With another groan, I climbed out of bed. Michael had already left the bedroom, and his side of the bed was cool to the touch. He always got up before me. Early to bed and early to rise.
I sauntered into the kitchen and grabbed a cup of coffee from the pot Michael had brewed. I sniffed, inhaling the pleasant aroma. He always made everything perfect, yet I found myself feeling bitter instead of grateful. I sighed.
Still feeling exhausted, I headed into the living room and curled up on the couch with my favorite weighted blanket. Yes, I went straight from my bed to lying on the couch. I preferred the sedentary lifestyle, especially since I never had a moment to just exist on weekdays. Weekends were all for me.
Cuddled in the warmth of my own body heat, I looked at the tempting stack of books on the table. I wiggled my arm from under the blanket and grabbed the top book. The matte finish felt like velvet beneath my fingers. I touched the shadowy image of the shirtless, gray-haired man dominating the cover. He was the embodiment of a silver fox, and I was here for it. He was also the married, overbearing boss of the female main character, and who didn’t love a forbidden man?
I sat up, rolled my sleeves up my arms, and wrapped the blanket around my lower body. I listened for Michael meandering about, but silence was the only reply. I opened the book, rested it on my lap, and let my eyes dance along the page as I absorbed every word. My mind was a blank canvas, ready for the art within each word.
The fictional world erupted from the floor and surrounded me. I lost touch with my reality and embraced the place where I could hide from my responsibilities. I had no accountability in that place, and I spent my time with people who made my heart race with anticipation and exhilaration.
My hand slipped into my sweatpants and found my growing excitement, making my fingers slick. I throbbed with expectation before the spine even made that satisfying crack when I first opened the book.
* * *
“Zoey?” The booming voice came from an office down the hall. I looked around at the empty cubicles. Everyone had already gone home, and the clock on my computer ticked past 7:30. I’d stayed too late—yet again—but I had nothing to go home to. Just a lonely apartment with a cat who hated me. I tapped a pencil on the desk as I tried to finish the last few minutes of the presentation I was listening to.
“Zoey!” The voice grew louder, and I pulled my earbud out of my ear with a sigh.
After locking my computer, I stood and smoothed my black skirt over my hips. The dingy blue carpet muffled the tap of my heels as I walked down the hall and stopped at the only other office still illuminated that late in the evening. I tucked my hair behind my ear, took a deep breath, and stepped into the doorway.
“Yes?” I asked.
The chair spun around to face me, and Mr. Lawrence’s blue eyes looked me over. “I’m glad you’re still here,” he said in an even tone. He knew I stayed late almost every night. “Is there a reason the reports for the client haven’t been submitted to me? I asked for them”—he moved his keyboard to look at the calendar on his desk—“last week.”
Fuck. I knew I forgot something. It was a big thing too. Probably the single most important thing I was supposed to remember all year. “I . . . made a mistake.” I had no excuse for why I forgot to get him the reports. Why he’d have to tell the bank tomorrow morning that he wasn’t prepared. It didn’t matter that it was my fault, because he would be the face of the failure. Yeah, I fucked up. “I forgot.”
He stared at me, his lips taut. “You forgot? You aren’t going to lie and make it seem like you aren’t this incompetent?” His normally handsome features twisted in anger, which I deserved. I was incompetent, and I deserved to be fired for such a colossal fuck up, but I silently pleaded for mercy. I needed this job.
“I’m sorry,” I said, dropping my gaze. I had nothing more to say.
Mr. Lawrence’s chair squeaked as he pushed it away from his desk. The wheels snagged on the shitty carpet. He stood, walked toward me, and took a seat on the corner of the desk. The intense way he stared at me made me swallow hard. I felt like I had a golf ball in my throat.
He brushed a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “You’re a good employee, Zoey. Smart, witty, well-versed, really quite the asset here.”
“But?” Please don’t fire me, please don’t fire me.
“This is a massive fuck up. What am I supposed to say at the meeting tomorrow? I can’t tell them that my employee simply forgot the most important thing I had to bring besides myself.”
“Am I fired?” I asked. I was torn because I hated my job, but my livelihood depended on it.
Mr. Lawrence walked to the coat rack in the corner of his office and shrugged out of his suit jacket before hanging it up. He loosened the neck of his blue tie, which sat tucked beneath his crisp checkered dress shirt. “No. I’m not firing you. I’ll just make a night out of it and do the reports myself.” He sounded disappointed, and his soft tone confused me. He should have been mad. “You’re twenty-something, right, Zoey?”
I cleared my throat. “Twenty-five.”
“I have thirty years on you, and I don’t forget important parts of my job like you do. Shouldn’t this be the other way around?” He smirked as he walked back to the corner of his desk and sat on the dark, expensive wood.
It was hard to get reprimanded by him without thinking of him bending me over the desk and letting me know what a shitty employee I’d been. I imagined him raising my skirt and using his big, firm hand to punish me exactly how I deserved. This fuck up would get me so many spankings I wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week. Heat flushed my cheeks at the thought, and I hoped he didn't notice.
“D-Do you need anything else?” I asked, getting hung up on my words.
Mr. Lawrence rolled up his sleeves. “How long have you worked here, Zoey?”
“Almost five years.”
“And in those five years, have I ever made you uncomfortable?”
“What? No.” I laughed nervously, swiping my sweaty palms on my skirt.
“Then why are you acting so nervous?” he asked with a genuine smile as he reached out and casually turned over the picture of his wife.
“Well, like you said, I made a colossal mistake.”
Mr. Lawrence grabbed a ball from his desk and tossed it between his hands. His big, strong hands. He noticed me staring. “Oh, Zoey, I don’t know how to broach this topic with you.”
“I can stay and do the reports,” I blurted.
“That’s not what I mean.”
He stepped toward me and touched the collar of my dress shirt. I held my breath as he pulled his hand away. My eyes trailed down the checkered pattern of his pressed shirt, stopping at his broad chest. I let my gaze fall until it reached his expensive slacks. Even through the pleated pattern of his pants, I could see how hard he was. It was undeniable.
I bit my lip. “What do you mean?” I thought I knew what he meant, but I couldn't believe it was happening. Was it really happening?
“I have wanted you for a few years now. It’s unbearable.” His blue eyes softened further, and there was a throb in his angular jaw, as if he wasn't sure if this was worth the risk.
It was. I was certain of that.
Did he know how much I fantasized about him? Why I often dropped my gaze when he looked at me? How I couldn't focus on his reprimands because my mind wandered to his cock? I wanted to know what waited beneath his suit. Even the way he said my name made me question if he was as demanding in the bedroom as he was in the workplace. I had made myself come to the answers to those questions more often than I cared to admit.
“Isn’t this against policy?” I choked out. I would break the shit out of that policy tonight. The rules didn’t matter to me, but I expected my question to bring him to his senses, and I waited for the realization to wash the hunger from his face.
“Very much so. I would lose my job. But I can’t stop thinking about your pussy.” He tossed the ball back to the desk.
His words made my jaw drop.
“I hope I’m not being too forward, Zoey,” he said in the most seductive yet fatherly tone.
“No . . . no . . . you aren’t.”
Mr. Lawrence’s warm breath brushed along the skin of my chest, making goosebumps scatter and rise to the surface. He leaned in and kissed me. His clean-shaven face was smooth against mine, and he smelled like aftershave. His hand drifted around the back of my neck and grabbed the clip securing my hair, pulling it from its place. My auburn locks tumbled down, falling over my shoulders.
“I want you to make it up to me.” He brushed his fingers through my hair, fisting it at the nape of my neck.
“Make what up to you?” I asked. I knew what I needed to make up to him, but I wanted to hear more of his sultry and commanding words.
He smirked. “All this time I’ll have to spend finishing the work you didn’t bother to do.” His words were harsh, and they made me clench my legs. I crossed them to try to calm the throbbing.
“How can I do that?” I asked with feigned naivety, but I knew what he wanted. I saw it through his pants. He was so damn hard, tenting his slacks.
Mr. Lawrence unbuckled his belt, and the clang of metal made me shiver. I kept my eyes locked on his large hands as he unbuttoned his slacks, focusing on the veins. The sound of his falling zipper broke the sticky silence of the office, and I worried the room would combust from all the erotic tension. His pants splayed open, exposing his cock. His length was impressive, even more so than I fantasized about, and I bit my lip as I watched him grab himself and stroke. I wanted to be the hand caressing the soft skin of his dick.
“On your knees,” he commanded in the exact tone of a man with that much authority over me.
He didn’t need to tell me twice. I dropped to my knees, the carpet rubbing my bare skin. He grabbed my hand and placed it on him. I stroked him, moving along his swollen and excited head. He fisted my hair again and pushed his cock into my mouth. The scent of his masculine cologne overpowered me, and I breathed it in and absorbed it into my memory.
His head dropped back as if I had been the touch he’d been waiting for, like my mouth was what he needed. He grabbed the back of my head and forced himself deeper into my mouth, fucking my face, smearing my red lipstick on my porcelain skin, staining my cheek.
He pulled his dick out of my mouth and rubbed his thumb along my lower lip. “Do you think that’s enough for the hours of work I’ll have to do tonight? Just that perfect mouth of yours?”
I shook my head as I got to my feet and wiped at my mouth with the back of my hand. It wasn’t enough.
He raked his arm across his desk, sending his cupholder flying and pens and pencils skittering across the carpet. The hurried and sloppy way he needed me didn’t keep him from finding my mouth as he laid me down. I pulled his keyboard from beneath my lower back and shoved it aside. My hip knocked over the framed photo of his family. His hands raced up my thighs as he bunched my skirt at my hips and rubbed his fingers against my soaked panties. The touch made me tremble. I wanted this as much as he did.
He pulled my panties aside, exposing my pussy, and I felt insecurity rise into my clenching stomach as someone as perfect as him looked down at something he’d wanted for so long. What if I wasn’t what he expected? I didn’t want him to regret taking such a risk on me. What if I was everything he expected? What would that mean for us? I’d be tempted to forget more work so I could get this punishment. He groaned as he rubbed his fingers over my swollen, excited clit. His touch made me shudder, too sensitive for his rough hands.
Mr. Lawrence shoved two fingers inside me, then three. I gasped, having always admired those large, strong hands, and now I felt every curve of them as they thrust inside me. Plunging his fingers deeper, he leaned over and kissed me again. My thighs trembled as he stood and palmed his dripping cock. He rubbed it against me, warm and wet with arousal, and my excitement coated him as he surged into me with ease. His fingers sank into my hips as he gripped them and fucked me. His desk shook, causing more things to fall to the floor. I worried his monitor would slip from the edge as it tilted closer, but his harder thrusts told me it didn’t matter if it did.
“Unbutton your shirt,” he commanded.
I did as I was told, unfastening every button until my shirt splayed open and exposed my breasts beneath a black bra. His fingers grazed my cleavage before he grabbed the straps and pulled them down, pushing the fabric away and freeing my chest. He dropped his lips to my nipples, swirling his tongue around them and sucking until I moaned.
“I want to see you bent over my desk,” he said.
Mr. Lawrence grabbed my hips and pulled me off the desk. He turned me around and leaned me over the wood. His hands raced to lift my skirt again, bunching it at my waist. He groped my ass with a rough grasp that pulled a whimper from my throat. It was exactly how I fantasized. Instead of stopping to ask if I was okay with it, he pushed me against the desk until my breasts pressed against the wood.
He leaned over me, his breath warming my ear. “I can’t believe how much work you’ve left me,” he said with a snarl as he smacked my ass, etching a deep sting within my skin. He drew his hand back and struck me again.
I bit my lip against the pain, trying to keep from screaming out. My skin still flamed with warmth, even as his hand left me with an imprint that remained long after he wound up for another slap. He struck me harder, gripping my ass at the end of the swing. I whimpered, unable to ignore the discomfort as his repeated hits bit at me. He wasn’t holding back. Not even a little. I deserved that pain because I was a real shitty employee.
“Zoey,” he groaned. “You disappointed me. Caused me so much more work. Work that I shouldn’t need to do because I have people like you to do it for me.” He drew his hand back and smacked me once more, pressing me harder against the desk. “You were a bad employee, Zoey, but you’re being such a good girl,” he growled as he used his knee to spread my legs.
The way he said my name and called me a good girl made me tremble in anticipation. As he pushed inside me again, I gasped and grabbed the edge of the desk to steady myself. He fucked me so hard I forgot he was fifty-five. I forgot he was my boss. I forgot my own goddamn name.
“You feel exactly how I imagined you’d feel,” he said.
“How do I feel?” I asked with heavy breaths. I wanted to hear him tell me.
“Tight. Perfect. Like you need to be filled.”
“Don’t come in me,” I whispered, my body tensing at the mention of it.
He lifted me by my hair and kissed the nape of my neck. “I will come wherever I want,” he growled into my ear.
I couldn’t say no to him.
He was my boss.
He pushed me down and grabbed my skirt, using it as a strap as he pounded me harder. With a gravelly moan, his hips slowed their assault on my ass as he came inside me. I felt him pulse deep within me as he filled me.
“Zoey,” he said. Pleasure laced my name. He lifted me by my hair. “I was forgiving this time, but don’t fuck me over again, sweet girl, or next time, I’ll take your ass too.”
* * *
I came. Hard. My thighs trembled as I pulled my fingers from my panties. Footfalls came from down the hall, and I tried to quiet my heavy breaths. I slammed the book closed and pulled the blanket over me, wiping my come onto my pants.
“Morning,” Michael said as he sat beside me with a cup of coffee. He grabbed my leg beneath the blanket and rubbed it.
I had guilt in my gut from my orgasm. I had imagined being fucked by someone else while my husband was in the next room. I loved Michael, but he would never fuck me with a burning desire like that.
No, a need. I wanted him to need me.
Michael cooked us breakfast as usual on weekend mornings, and we sat together and ate in silence. There was no need for forced conversation or charades. We were comfortable. I stared at him as he pushed eggs around his plate with his fork. With his glasses perched on his slender nose, he glanced up at me with the ice-blue eyes I fell in love with.
“Why are you staring at me? Creep,” he asked with a chuckle. He wiped his face with a paper towel and used his other hand to smooth down the hairs of his well-groomed beard.
There was so much to love about him. About us. Yet there I was, longing to push those plates off the kitchen table and have him take me right there, right then. He was oblivious to the fire in my eyes as the longing for his cock engulfed me. I stood, pushed what was left on my plate into the trash, and placed it in the sink. I kissed him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders.
“I’m going to go shower, if you want to join.”
“To be boiled alive? No thanks,” he said with a laugh. Yet another thing we didn’t have in common. He liked tepid showers. I liked to leave the shower with reddened skin. The heat of the burning-hot water soothed me.
I hadn’t purchased the multi-feature showerhead for nothing. I’d come with the heat surrounding and embracing me. I’d envision Michael fucking me for being the incompetent wife I felt I was.