Boss with Benefits_An Office Romance Read online

  “Aww, Mom,” Christian groaned.

  I reached up to my eyes, surprised at the wetness on my fingers. I had said I wouldn’t cry, but fuck it.

  “Seth, this is, you are—”

  Before I could get the words out, Seth threw his arms around me.

  “Um, can we do this somewhere other than my room?” Christian asked in a clearly-unimpressed tone.

  Seth responded by leading me out of the room into the hallway outside. Christian was quick to close the door to give us our privacy.

  I gazed up into that handsome, chiseled face with the light scrubbing of stubble. I kissed him, but that didn’t seem enough, not nearly enough to express the jubilant mash of feelings thundering inside of me.

  “Want to check out our room?” he asked in a low voice. Clearly, he had seen the intensity in my eyes.

  “Don’t forget Nana,” I reminded him, and he grinned.

  “No, not this time.”

  After we had wheeled an ecstatic Nana to her room and set her up in the adjustable bed in front of her TV, a whole provision of Marilyn Monroe movies at her fingertips, we hurried off to our room.

  One foot in, and I knew exactly what we would be doing tonight. Sex. That was what this room was designed for and would be used for. The fabrics, the velvet noir of the curtains, the silk navy of the chaise, the filmy curtain-walls—everywhere you turned, the result was the same. It was a boudoir masterpiece. All of this culminated in the colossal red-silken wonder of a bed with curtains that hung all the way around a broad frame.

  I took one step forward, my gaze locked on his. Smiling slightly, Seth took my hand.

  “Not so fast, my little sex kitten. We have to eat first.”

  Nodding, I took a breath, exhaled with a whoosh.

  “Yes, eat first,” I repeated, as if saying it would make the proposition more real.

  As it turned out, we were right to wait. Seth had his chef—Billy, as it turned out—make us the most stupendous pizza I’d ever tasted.

  “Isn’t that your—”

  “Driver, yes,” Billy said, as he lifted a slice to his own mouth, “Sometimes Mr. Jackson has me come here to make him my famous olive and pepperoni pizza. He pays me double overtime, so that appeases the missus.”

  “I can see why,” Nana said, wiping a stray string of cheese off her lip with the back of her hand, “I’ve never had pizza this good in my life. And that’s a whole lotta time, as you all know.”

  We laughed gaily.

  It only took us a few minutes to wolf down every last bit of Billy’s pizza. In the lounge, which boasted a TV even bigger than the one in Christian’s room, we all curled up in front of the latest Spiderman movie. By the time the final credits were rolling, both Christian and Nana were sound asleep.

  I took in their peaceful faces with a bit of envy. “Those two, they’re the best sleepers I know. Give them five minutes, and they’ll be out like a light.”

  Seth took my hand. “We did have a long day.”

  I turned to him and kissed his cheek.

  “A long day—and a fantastic one. All thanks to you.”

  Seth could barely contain the smile on his face. Coughing, he rose.

  “We should probably get this one to bed,” he said, as he rustled Christian’s hair affectionately.

  Together, we carried him and tucked him in his bed. After I’d hugged and kissed Christian on the cheek, Seth did the same. I watched him as he did it, studying his face.

  “What?” he asked as we left the room.

  “You,” I said, digging the tip of my pointer finger into his chest, “You really like Christian, don’t you?”

  “I do,” he said, surprise clouding his face as he said it.

  He took my hand, and, leaning down to kiss me, paused. Simultaneously we remembered and exclaimed, “Nana!”

  After we had wheeled her to her room and helped her into bed, it was our turn to retire.

  “I don’t know,” Seth said, with a yawn as he closed the door behind him, “I’m pretty tired; you?”

  I nodded. “Exhausted.”

  Slowly, I unzipped my sweatshirt, keeping my eyes locked on his.

  “I think I’m too tired to do anything tonight. Sorry, babe,” I said in a casual voice.

  Wide eyes entranced on the path of my zipper, all Seth could manage was a, “Uhhh.”

  I pulled the soft brown top off the rest of the way, letting it flop to the floor, my upper body and chest now completely exposed. Keeping my eyes on him, I started working on my jeans, unbuttoning and unzipping them.

  “Yeah, I think it’s best if we go straight to b—”

  I never got the last word out because Seth swept me up in his arms and, moving aside the curtain with one hand, deposited me onto the bed. Feverishly, he covered my face with kisses, his hands working furiously on taking off his own pants.

  “Please, Alisha. Please.”

  I pulled back, to shoot him an innocent, wide-eyed smile.

  “Please what?”

  He responded by fondling my breasts, jiggling them then caressing them in time.

  His gaze shot from my breasts to meet mine. “I want you.”

  He swirled the word around my face, and kissed and nibbled it into my neck, then my ear. His want drove him up and over my back, zig-zagging kisses all over until I’d sagged sideways onto the bed. My pants weren’t entirely off yet, but Seth made quick work of them, yanking them to my feet in one impatient motion. He ran one finger over my silky green thong admiringly.

  “It’s the same color as your eyes and the same fabric as my sheets.”

  He clambered onto the bed beside me, and I rolled on my side so I could feel the silkiness of the sheets myself.

  Seth looked at me, his eyes still locked on me. “You’re beautiful—absolutely, incredibly beautiful.”

  This time that was the word he breathed all over my body, from every crease, fold and dip, the same word, the same proclamation, “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.” Until I was giggling and wet, and he was turning me over so my back was to him, sliding himself into me with a groan.

  When he entered me for the first time, both of us froze, reveling in the sensation. Fuck, I was so filled, utterly filled. It was as if, in every way, Seth and I fit together, not just emotionally but in an actual physical sense—that our bodies had been actually constructed with each other in mind.

  Having him fucking me from behind like this was a nice change, too. Seth’s face was right by my cheek, breathing and kissing his delight onto it, as his chest kissed my back with contact. In and out, slow, so painstakingly slow, and flawless. This pace was a sort of primordial rhythm, a rubbing of ourselves onto and into each other, deep. My whole body was shuddering, drunk on his. The longer we slid over each other, the slower we seemed to move and yet, the hornier I became.

  “Alisha,” Seth said suddenly, pausing.

  Chapter 39

  Seth

  As I burrowed into her, deeper than ever before, something else was threatening to come out. The words that I couldn’t let free.

  “Alisha,” I said, pausing.

  “Yes?”

  At that, I flipped her around so we were facing each other. This was when I picked up my pace and began rubbing myself into her faster, harder, better. So deep and intense that I didn’t have time to consider what was still trembling within me trying to break free. God, Alisha was so wet and so hot. Her breasts were soft, huge, and cushy, like pillows under my hands, while her lips were pillows for my mouth.

  And that groaning of hers, God damn. I closed my arms around her and rose so that I was carrying her into the center of the room.

  “Seth?” she asked in a small voice.

  Holding her with one arm now, I put a finger to her lips. And then, lowering her so her hips were in front of mine, and her pussy was at the level of my cock, I slid her onto me.

  I grunted with satisfaction, while Alisha moaned. Gripping her hips, I repeated the motion, her w
hole body jiggling as I moved it onto mine.

  Alisha put her hands on my shoulders to steady herself while I moved her forward and back, her pussy clasping at me just as eagerly as my dick was entering her. Forward and back, in and out, it felt so good. The room was a haze, a hushed haze of the slick sound of our bodies moving together, the gurgle of our groans. I carried Alisha over to a filmy curtained wall and pressed her into it. There, I kissed her with everything I had, my dick dipping deeper into her with a kiss of its own. When I broke away and paused to let my gaze sweep over her sexy aroused form, I knew it was time.

  I carried her back to the bed and pinned her there. I leaned over, my mouth going for her thighs, savoring the taste of the wet between her legs. Every part of me wanted every part of her. But right now, there was one hunger that most needed to be satisfied.

  I pressed my cock back into her eagerly, and she responded in kind, swaying her hips back and forth. Soon, I was on my back, and she was riding me. She ground herself down in pleasure, her half-lidded stare enough to make me cum on the spot.

  I closed my eyes. Concentrate, Seth. So I did. I thought of mud and gross people you see in the corners of the subway and stinky gym shoes. Anything to keep myself from busting a nut too soon. On and on she swayed those dexterous hips of hers, left and right, forward and back and around. My whole body was throbbing now, with pent-up pleasure and what I’d wanted to say, that I couldn’t even remember now.

  When she started shaking, I knew she was close.

  “Look at me,” she urged, a tremor in her voice.

  But I kept my eyes firmly shut, awash in the pleasure, in the onward-flowing rhythm, the in and out. She took me by the shoulders and shook me.

  “Look at me,” she cried.

  As she ground her pussy down onto me with everything she had, I opened my eyes. Our gazes locked, her lips parted. Fuck, that look in her eyes. That wasn’t just arousal or fondness; that was—

  “I love you!” I cried, as my body and hers seized together.

  As I poured out into her and she howled back into me, every moment was tinged with it, the love, the lust, the wanting, and the satiation. Until we were still locked together as one. Our breathing was in sync, and the movement of my body was matched by hers.

  “Did you mean it?” she asked.

  I opened my eyes to see her head on my chest, looking up at me expectantly.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Her lips pressed together in irritation. “You know what.”

  I stretched out my arms, assuming an aloof expression and tone, “Oh, I don’t know—”

  Furiously, Alisha wrenched herself off me and was halfway off the bed when I caught her by the arm.

  “I did mean it—and it terrifies me.”

  Her whole body tensed, Alisha’s shoulders sagged. “What does that mean then?”

  I stared into her frightened, uncertain eyes, burning with the same flame I felt within me, and I knew the answer. But I couldn’t say it. Not yet.

  “Wait here,” I said, leaving before she could argue.

  I returned with a white silk dress that I laid on the bed in front of her.

  “Would you put this on?”

  Alisha looked at me uncertainly.

  “Seth, what’s going on?”

  “I just want to show you something outside, please. I bought this for you a week or so ago. I thought it was stupid, so I stowed it away, but—”

  I dressed as she did, and, when I caught sight of her, my voice died in my throat.

  “You look—you are—”

  I wasn’t sure which words would make her understand how the simple silk sheath comprised everything that Alisha was. All my favorite parts about her—the simple elegance, the understated beauty, the shy vibrancy. How it now magnified her beauty, quadrupled it.

  I took her hand, and we tiptoed out of the room, down the hallway, and to the back door.

  “What about shoes?” Alisha asked as we padded off the porch onto the cool grass.

  I shook my head and gave her a little tug onward.

  “We don’t need ‘em. We’ll only be a few minutes.”

  Still, Alisha lingered on the stone porch.

  “Trust me,” I said, my gaze meeting hers.

  Tentatively, she took a step out, smiled, and then set off ahead of me. It didn’t take us long to reach the top of the hill right beside the willow tree.

  Poised at the top, looking down on the vista of trees below, Alisha shot me a questioning look. I nodded.

  “Here.”

  We plopped down on the grass under the willow tree, side by side, her head on my shoulder. And, as I looked down upon the breathtaking view, it occurred to me that I’d seen it hundreds of times before, yet never like this. When my gaze returned to Alisha’s peaceful face, the words fell out of me.

  “I don’t know how to explain it to you. How to explain it to myself. This. Us.”

  Silence, save for the muffled chirping of far-off crickets.

  “I used to sit up here, you know, ten years back. Before McKenzie, when I still thought love was out there. I used to wonder when I’d meet her—the woman I’d love enough to sit up here saying nothing with. That her existence, her mere presence would be enough. Then I met McKenzie, and the whole idea seemed ludicrous, taking her, of all people, up here would be crazy. Taking anyone up here at all, seemed crazy by then. I figured love was something for the bored or foolish, not for me.

  “And then, little by little, I met you. And not just that first time I saw your shy freckled face, the quiet graceful way you held yourself. I saw you for what you were, who you are: a good mother, a compassionate granddaughter, a sexy lover, a remarkable woman. And then, before I knew it, I was thinking about it—this. Taking you here.”

  More silence. Even the crickets had fallen quiet to listen. Alisha was eyeing me patiently, too. She knew it was coming. The words that had been bottled up in me since that day at the amusement park.

  “I don’t know how it happened. But little by little, I started loving you. And now that you’re here—”

  I glanced over and took her in. Really took Alisha and all that she was in. The moonlight cast her face in a pale, unearthly glow that suited her. The quiet fire in those eager green eyes, the parted magnificence of her lips. Every part my gaze landed on confirmed that this was the woman for me.

  “Now that you’re here, there no doubting why I’ve been drawn to you from the start. It’s because you’re you, and I’m me, and we work together, Alisha, we work. We more than work together: we thrive. I meant what I said back there. These past few weeks have proven it. You mean more to me than my company ever has and ever will, more than I’d ever thought anyone could. I said it once, and I’ll say it again, although it hardly seems to encompass the tidal wave of emotion I feel every time I look at you. Alisha, I love you.”

  Alisha closed her eyes, inhaling and exhaling deeply, as if letting my words flow over her and seep into her skin. When she finally opened them, they were full of tears.

  “I love you too. And everything you’re saying makes me happier than I could’ve dreamed, but Seth, just what exactly are you saying?”

  I realized it at the same time she did. “I’m saying that I love you and I love your family, and I want to spend the rest of my life with them, with you. If you’ll let me.”

  Now the tears had finally streamed down her face, while her lips had risen into a giant smile.

  “So what do you say?” I asked, in a wavering voice, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

  “I say—”

  She finished with a great big kiss. Her whole body sunk into mine, her lithe tongue, her supple mouth, her eager hands all telling me the answer that I needed to hear for myself, from her lips.

  When we broke apart, I shot her a quizzical look.

  “So is that a yes?”

  Alisha threw her head back and let out the most beautiful peal of laughter I’d ever heard.


  Seizing my face in her hands, she kissed the answer into my lips, my cheek, and finally my ear, “Yes, of course. Yes, Seth. Yes. Yes. Yes!”

  Epilogue

  Alisha

  Three Years Later

  How could three years feel like three months?

  I gazed at Seth, trying to find the answer there, in his handsome profile. But the only sign that three years had passed was in the few extra gray hairs along the side of his head. Indeed, I loved Seth as much as ever. The years hadn’t made our love stale or boring in the slightest; they had only intensified it.

  “C’mon, just look at that rad red Jaguar. I pull up to school in that, and my friends are gonna go wild!”

  Christian tossed his shaggy head for emphasis, the braces on his teeth only adding to the beaming of his face at the thought. I let my eyes rest on his still-gangly form, smiling to myself. Who would’ve thought this sociable, happy kid was the same boy who had struggled with bullies a few years back? After Seth had coached Christian on how to react when the bullies struck—and had a few stern talks with their parents himself—the problem had become non-existent. And now, just what a social butterfly Christian had bloomed into was evident in his absences from home every other weekend, not to mention the constantly changing lineup of friends he brought home.

  While I reminisced, right now, the two men in my life were at the edge of the car lot, discussing car choices. It was Christian’s first car, and he’d be damned if he didn’t get the flashiest fastest car possible. Seth, however, had other ideas.

  “Your friends will probably think it’s rad,” Seth agreed, with an inclination of his head, “But so will every cop and carjacker in a five-mile radius. Red is like wearing a sign on your back that says, “kick me.” Why not something just as fast, but a little subtler?”

  He tossed a wink my way, and I grinned. While I was suited to take the lead in many home matters, I was leaving choosing a car to these guys. Besides, what was the nice wooden bench here for, if not happy wives?