STORY EXCERPT

“Did you hear? Mr. Hayes has a new boyfriend.”

I perked up as the female whisper reached my ears. There were very few advantages about being unnoticeable, but one of them was that people didn’t always realize I was present. All sorts of gossip reached my ears. Sometimes, I’d have preferred it for them to keep their secrets to themselves, but they hardly cared about what I thought.

“A boyfriend?” another woman repeated. “Who?”

“I don’t know,” her friend replied. “I heard it from Denise, who heard from Laura. Laura knows Mr. Hayes well, and she said that she personally arranged several meetings with this unknown man.”

Ah, the lovely chain of office gossip. It usually started with Laura, my boss’s secretary, and ended up spread up all over our department. The saddest thing—well, sad for Laura—was that any moment now, it would also reach Julian’s ears. Laura would find herself out of a job, on the spot.

I hid a smirk of satisfaction at the thought. It wasn’t that I felt jealous at Laura’s proximity to my impossible love, or not just that, at least. She had no business broadcasting the details of Julian’s personal life to whoever would listen. From my point of view, that lack of professionalism made her incompatible with her privileged position.

Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious about the identity of this famous boyfriend. At the very least, I’d have liked to know what kind of man Julian liked. If there were indeed several dates involved, this mysterious stranger had captured Julian’s attention somehow. Perhaps I could take lessons.

I snorted quietly, pushing back the bitterness and pain in my heart. As if. What I needed to do was to accept my own situation and perhaps consider going out with Todd’s son. It might end up as a disaster, but it couldn’t possibly be worse than what I was currently feeling.

Angry with myself, I reached for the box of chocolates I kept in my drawer, only to realize there was nothing there. Damn and blast. I’d finished them the day before and forgotten to bring a new one from home. Fuck. I didn’t think I could pass this hellish day without at least a bite of chocolate. The knowledge of my dream man’s new love had hurt me more than I’d have liked to admit.

Pushing my drawer closed, I got up from my seat and left my cubicle. The still-talking women barely looked at me before returning to their gossiping. I stalked to the vending machine in the hallway, dodging messengers with harried looks, as well as various employees heading out and coming in with paperwork that flowed between departments. I felt irritated. Hadn’t these people heard of e-mails? I hardly thought that all of the stuff they brought in was needed in paper copy. Couldn’t they forward the information like a normal human being would? Christ.

I stopped in front of the vending machine and dug into my pockets for my wallet, only to realize I’d left it in my jacket. Suppressing the urge to scream, I glanced at the Mars bar in the window with greed. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it was better than nothing. Fortunately, as if by miracle, I managed to find a stray bill in my pocket and inserted it into the machine.

Seconds later, I was holding my prize, the far too expensive bar that would probably have to replace my lunch. As I ripped the wrapper open and bit down into the chocolaty goodness, my hearing caught the sound of raised voices.

“But, sir, it was a mistake,” a woman begged. “I promise I won’t ever do it again.”

“See HR for your final paycheck,” a familiar man said coldly. Just the tone of it made me shiver, and my damn cock responded, instantly going rock hard.

Thankfully, I always had the foresight to dress in long jackets, as this was not the first time I’d experienced inappropriate arousal at work. Either way, it looked like poor Laura had been discovered earlier than I’d suspected, and Julian was indeed furious. In fact, I needed to get out of there as soon as possible. Mysteriously, the hall seemed to have emptied of people, and I had to return to my safe cubicle before Julian took out his anger on me. Not that I’d ever seen him fire anyone for no reason, but I was technically speaking wasting time by randomly eating a Mars bar in the middle of the hallway.

Even as I thought this, though, three people veered into my corridor. As was my luck, they turned out to be Laura, Julian, and Colton Braeden. They all froze when they saw me stupidly standing there, the Mars bar still in my mouth.

I stared of them for a few moments, or rather at my boss. It was very rare that I actually managed to see him up close, and I had a feeling that my situation would only worsen from now on.

He scowled at me, gray stormy eyes pinning me in place. “What are you doing here, Mackenzie?”

“Oh, isn’t it obvious, Julian?” Mr. Braeden grinned. “Mr. Scott here was hungry and wanted to have a snack.”

I finally swallowed the bite of chocolate in my mouth and gave the two men a pleading look. “I–I apologize. I just…I wanted—”

My boss didn’t allow me to finish the phrase. “Tell me, Mackenzie, are you any good at secretarial and administrative duties?”

I stared at him. “Yes, sir,” I replied after a pause I hoped wasn’t too long. “I mean, I hope I am.”

ADULT EXCERPT

His long, elegant fingers landed on the frames and removed my spectacles. The world grew foggy, and much to my dismay, I could no longer see his handsome face clearly. But then, he cupped my cheeks with striking gentleness and kissed my eyelids. “I want to fuck you so badly, Mackenzie,” he whispered. “Will you let me?”

“Oh, God, yes,” I replied. “I…Please…Please, sir.”

“Julian,” my soon-to-be lover amended. “I think we can be on a first-name basis from now on.”

“Julian,” I repeated, tasting the name in my mouth like I would a chocolate. I loved it. It was a strong, yet elegant and sensual name, just like Julian himself.

He shuddered, as if he felt exactly what I did when I said the word. I sensed the light tremble since I was still holding on to him. The material of his expensive suit couldn’t hide it. Perhaps he found it arousing to hear me utter his name.

Either way, the result was more than satisfactory. He’d clearly been convinced that I desired this, as he flipped me on my belly against his desk.

His powerful hands landed on my ass, kneading the twin globes. “I hate this damn jacket,” he mumbled as my suit threatened to get in the way. “Take it off.”

I would have loved to do exactly that, but my position wasn’t exactly conducive to disrobing. He took a step back and lifted me off the desk long enough for me to obey to his order. I did my best to move quickly, but my hands trembled and had trouble with a task I’d normally do in seconds.

Fortunately, there weren’t too many buttons to undo, neither at the jacket nor at my dress shirt. I finally managed to deal with the stubborn things, and Julian helped me out of them. It was surreal to have the man I’d wanted for so long undressing me like a boyfriend would, surreal to feel the brush of his lips against my naked shoulder as he finally discarded the garments on the floor.

My thoughts scrambled completely as he proceeded to undo my buckle and zipper. He took his time with that, caressing my unashamed arousal, making me tremble in lust. “Please,” I finally begged. “I can’t…I need you.”

If he kept torturing me like this, I would come before he even got inside me, and that would be an unbearable waste.

He took pity on me and at last lowered my pants and underwear. My trousers pooled against my feet, pinning me in place, and I knew I must make quite a ridiculous picture. But I didn’t care, not when Julian’s fist engulfed my erection. His nimble fingers rubbed my balls, massaging the wrinkled sac. I’d only felt my own touch in that area, and suffice to say it had been nothing like this.

I was so close now, so very close to coming. I could feel my orgasm buzzing at the back of my spine, gathering in my testes. But Julian pulled his hands away before I could fall over the brink. I moaned in protest, but that sound melted into one of pleasure when I heard his belt buckle jingling. I might not have a lot of experience, but I definitely knew what that meant.

I clutched the desk and pushed my ass out, wordlessly begging for what I wanted. Distantly, I heard him pull his zipper down and push off his pants. It was very strange, but my hearing seemed to have sharpened somewhat.

He spread my ass cheeks and started to rub his thumb over my hole. I shivered at the first touch of his dry finger over my virgin opening. His husky chuckle swept over me like a physical caress. “You really want this, don’t you, leannán?”

Was that a question or a statement? I really didn’t know, and I couldn’t have replied anyway. Fortunately, he didn’t insist on me doing so. The thumb retreated, only to return a few seconds later, now wet with some sort of slick liquid. Where had he gotten lubricant? Did he carry it in his pocket or what?

The mechanics of how this had been achieved ceased to matter when Julian thrust his finger into my ass. It burned a little, but the slight discomfort was nothing compared to the ecstasy I felt. When he touched my prostate, I thought I might very well burst into flames.

“You’re so tight,” he murmured in my ear. “I’m going to fuck you so hard.”

His words almost made me come on the spot, but by some miracle, I managed to hold back. An increasing desire to have him inside me kept my orgasm in check. I simply wouldn’t have it any other way. My ass clenched around his finger, and we both released twin groans. In his voice, I heard the same need and lust that rushed through me.

And yet, in spite of the urgency, he took it slow. I suspected he’d somehow guessed that I was a virgin, or at the very least, that I wasn’t very experienced at this. He added another digit into my ass, stretching me with a gentleness that almost brought tears to my eyes. The tortuous pleasure his skilled touch awoke within me threatened to tear me apart, and at one point, my coherence dissolved completely. My mind became a litany of my new lover’s name. I was melting, dying, burning, trembling with my desire and Julian’s.