Reverie: Chapter 15

AFTER THREE WEEKS of being on Jett’s team, we’d fallen into a routine. I’d learned the names of everyone in our space, knew that Josie in marketing got coffees in the morning, that Bob could whip up a legal contract faster than I could boot up my laptop, and that Gloria handled every one of Jett’s needs.

Perfectly. With ease.

Much to my annoyance.

I also knew Brey showed up at about 9 a.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. We decided if we got a lunch break, we would take it together.

We hadn’t gotten one yet.

Steven and I barely had time to peek at each other across our desks or discuss the weather. I’d wanted to discuss a lot more than the weather with him too. The man had finally gotten up the courage to ask me on a date now that he wasn’t my boss.

Or so he’d said. Yet, with the hours we were working, we hadn’t gotten around to figuring out when that date would happen.

In our first week, Jett Stonewood announced his team was about to step in for Senior Stonewood. He was stepping down, and we were stepping up.

I nearly lost my lunch. He handed me and the rest of the legal team about a million files and said he would be e-mailing more over. Contract after contract had to be rewritten or reworked. His father had solidified loyalties with a lot of companies through handshakes and backroom conversations over the years. Now that he was stepping down, nothing could be off the books anymore. Jett wanted everything in writing. He’d said as much to our team before he disappeared.

Over the past couple of weeks, he’d pop up in his office sporadically and then be gone again. Gloria would report that he had flown to New York or LA or some other place. His schedule was booked out for weeks at a time. And then he’d waltz in and nod to us all, stopping at certain desks to discuss anything of importance.

Bob would receive visit after visit about certain wording in an e-mail. Josie would perk up when he had a question about financials.

Steven and I would grind away in our corner, knowing that Jett would never stop by.

Misfits. Outsiders. The ones no one believed truly belonged.

I tried to look on the bright side day after day. Thousands of people were gunning for our seats. We were at one of the top-grossing businesses in the country where innovation met sophistication and thrived.

Yet, the feeling of being left out, of feeling inadequate, of someone passing you by time and time again was like sanding an open wound. If I tried to help Bob with a contract, he would scrunch his nose at me. I attempted to help Gloria rework an approach to a company about an investment, and she let me know she worked better alone. The woman cut right to the chase.

I even asked Josie if I could help her get coffees one day. Her doe eyes went wide, and she backed away like I was poaching her only job. Which maybe I was, but I wanted to do something that would make me feel part of the team.

I sipped my coffee and got back to the contract I was working on. There was a loophole, and I didn’t know how to change it without making the other company extremely uncomfortable.

I rubbed my eyes and then took one tiny second to look at my manicured nails. I needed a reset, a moment’s break so I could revise this.

The blue on them sort of matched the color of Tiffany & Co. And my manicurist had painted a little bow on the ring fingers. My dress was the same Tiffany blue with a ribbon around the waist, and I wore white stilettos to match it. The ensemble felt airy and fun.

“Victory.”

I jumped, slamming down the hand I was examining. The voice vibrated through me and sent shivers skittering down my spine.

“Where’s Bob?”

I cleared my throat, embarrassed. “He’s at lunch.”

Jett surveyed the room and ran his tongue over his teeth. Then he clicked his tongue as if he was shit out of luck. “Let him know I need to see him when he’s back.”

This was why I looked at my nails. The team handed grunt work to me, but no one trusted me with the real work. It made my eyes bleed and my hands itch for something more.

“Something I can answer for you, Mr. Stonewood?”

His lip curled when I referred to him. “Mister …? You know what, never mind. Yes, pull up the Benson file if you can.”

I already had it up on my computer. I repositioned in my chair and motioned to the contract I had open.

“Ah. So, you see the loophole too.” He eyed me with a little more attention this time.

Those deep blues crinkled at the corners, and I felt his assessment of me shifting.

“The wording allows for it. Legally, you could argue they intentionally worded it that way, but it probably wouldn’t hold up in court.”

He leaned over my shoulder, his chest brushing my hair, and I caught his scent, masculine and fresh. Intoxicating. A distinct reminder of some of the best orgasms I’d ever had.

I wiggled in my seat for reasons I didn’t want to acknowledge and shook my head a little to clear it.

“I see your point. How do we fix it?” His voice rumbled in my ear, so close that I could feel his breath on my cheek.

I started to respond, but he lifted his hand to point to a sentence on my screen. “Could we remove that sentence?”

“That leaves you liable if something goes wrong.”

A growl rolled from him all the way to my core. “Let me know when Bob gets back. I need him to figure this out by the end of the day.”

“I’m working on it.” I shouldn’t have pushed, but I knew I had this, the answer was right there on the tip of my tongue.

Jett tilted his head just enough that his five-o’clock shadow grazed my ear. “Are you now?”

I turned to look at him, and he was a breath away, so damn close I could have kissed him. I licked my lips, and his eyes tracked my movement. “I’ll get it to you by the end of the day.”

“See that you do, Victory.” He pushed away from my desk and straightened.

Everyone had continued to work. No one stopped to witness him visiting my corner. Only Steven and I were shaken by it.

He leaned over his desk to whisper, “I think he just got back from New York.”

“Didn’t come back in the best mood either.”

Steven chuckled. “Let’s do dinner after you finish that today, huh?” I waited for my heart to gallop the way it did when Jett whispered in my ear, but it stayed steady.

I nodded toward him anyway. “That would be great. I’ll have it by then. It’s right there.”

It wasn’t right there. It was so far from there I wanted to scream.

Bob waltzed back in after lunch and asked if I needed help. I told him I had it.

I didn’t have anything, and I damn well knew it.

Just past seven, Steven clapped me on the shoulder to announce we could do dinner another day because he had to get home. I had to get home too, but I couldn’t leave without ironing out this contract.

Gloria was the last to shut down her computer other than me. She glanced at Jett’s office, but he didn’t seem to pay her any mind because she spun on a heel and left. I expected that from her now. She didn’t waste niceties on anyone. Everything she did was calculated. Effective. Almost robotic.

Another hour passed. The glow from Jett’s office beckoned to me while I sat at my desk, letting my screen be the only sign of life in the office space. I reworked the whole clause in the contract. I sighed. If Bob could do this, I could do this too. Except I didn’t have his expertise or all those years of experience.

Why had I said I could do this?

A notification sounded on my laptop, and I looked to the corner of my screen.

THE LIGHT from his desk clicked off. His entire office in the glass fortress went dark and the city lights flooded in. My body hummed, my heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings, and the part of my mind where I told myself Jett was never an option turned off.

One of the glass doors opened and Jett walked out, navy suit jacket over his shoulder and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up. He glided down the stairs like a man so comfortable in his environment it had become part of him.

He’d married himself to the job and it showed. Every person respected his drive, his accomplishments, his unrelenting determination to work harder than every other businessman out there. His employees sat up taller when they encountered him, his clients’ jaws dropped when he reported quarterly numbers, his competitors bowed down when he went up against them. His presence alone mirrored that of a stallion in the wild, rare and magnificent.

“Victory.” My name rolled off his lips like a command. “I’m tired. Turn off your computer.”

“As you should be after flying around the country. I’m finishing up here, but Gloria showed us how to leave with our FOBs. So, no worries. I won’t be here too much later.” I scanned him. His forearms flexed, and my thighs clenched in response. I wanted to feel them around me again, near me again, even a brush of skin would probably hold me over until Steven and I went on a date.

And I had to go on a date with Steven because Steven was serious. He wanted more than just sex.

I did too. I squeezed my eyes shut to ward off the temptation in front of me and then glared back at my computer screen. I intended to conquer this godforsaken sentence. He must have finally given in because I heard his footsteps retreat, and I smiled to myself.

Without him in his office looking down on me and no one waiting on me to finish, I had all night to figure it out. The lack of pressure instantly motivated me. I’d approach the contract from fresh angles, rework the structure of it, form something new and better. All parties would benefit and walk away happy.

I started typing away with more targeted strokes, hit every key with pizzazz. All I had needed was some space.

A loud pop sounded. I yelped as my screen and all the lighting went dark. I glanced around, but my eyes didn’t adjust that quickly to the shadows.

I tried to restart my computer, but nothing happened when I pressed the button.

I reached for my desk lamp and knocked something over. I gasped at the clatter, and then I heard a rustling from behind me.

I whipped around and grabbed the first thing within my reach. My stapler would make a decent weapon, right?

“Hello?” I said, my voice strong. Whoever stood in the darkness couldn’t possibly see my hand shaking, I told myself. I inched away from my desk, navigating slowly to the door in order to put distance between myself and that noise.

“Pix,” Jett sounded amused as he stepped into the light that cascaded in from the window.

“Are you afraid of the dark?”

“What the heck is wrong with you?” I slammed my stapler down and stalked toward him. I shoved his chest enough that he took a step back. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Oh, please.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “What are you? Twenty-four? Everyone needs a kick of adrenaline now and then.”

“Twenty-five and I get my adrenaline rush doing things I want to do, not having someone frighten me in the dark.”

His lips curved up like a joker and he rocked back on his feet as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “What things normally get your adrenaline going?”

My mouth, I’m sure, opened to say something, but he stood there tall and sinister in the bluish glow that highlighted all his best features. The way his muscles bunched under that shirt, the way his hair was mussed just right, the way his eyes sparkled midnight blue … I couldn’t form words.

I cleared my throat and pointedly turned toward my desk to search for my phone. When I found it, I switched on the flashlight to gather my things. “I don’t have time to make small talk with you tonight. You don’t have time, either, as it seems the electrical in Stonewood Tower is down.”

“Shame.” He didn’t sound regretful at all.

Approaching the brink of cracking that contract only to have my momentum stunted by a blackout frustrated me. I lashed out because of it.

“‘Shame’? Not really, Jett. I don’t think I would enjoy making small talk with my new boss, although it isn’t like we’ve tried it. Instead, I’m completely ignored throughout the day and given elementary tasks as if I don’t have a college degree. Even though I got put in the damn all-star room where the sky’s never the limit for anyone except me. I’m limited to getting freaking coffee for Gloria.”

His teeth shined like a wolf’s in the night. “If this job isn’t what you pictured it being …”

I sighed and tapped my stiletto toe on the tile. “I just don’t see why I was put in this room. You could have put me anywhere. You have a whole legal team on the twenty-third floor.”

“Gloria normally assigns desk areas to new employees.”

“So, she wanted me in this room?”

“Nope.” He popped the P and stalked toward me. “I put you where I wanted you, Victory.”

“I’m useless here.” I motioned around the space. “Bob’s going to figure out the contract that I can’t change tomorrow, and I’m going to go back to getting only Gloria coffee because Josie will freak if I get anyone else a beverage.”

“Bob already looked at it.”

“What?” I recoiled at his words.

“He doesn’t know what to do with it either.” He shrugged, his large shoulders bunching.

“That’s not what you said.”

“I know what I said. I did it to motivate you.” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “The Armanellis are going to be a bitch to get under the right contract.”

“That’s the Armanelli contract? It says Benson.” My voice went high.

He nodded slowly and sucked on his teeth. “That’s confidential.”

“Why wasn’t I made aware when I was working on it?”

“That’s the meaning of confidential, Pix.”

I pulled a little at my sleeve, not sure I wanted to say what I blurted out next. “Legally, Stonewood Enterprises needs to make me aware of that. I have a right to know. I could hold you liable for putting my life in danger.”

“I’m not putting your life in danger.” His eyebrows slammed down.

“They’re a freaking mob family,” I leaned in and whispered like someone could be listening. For all I knew, someone was.

He rubbed his forehead. “That’s debatable.”

“If you’re trying to get a written contract with them, that means—”

“It means we get a written contract with them and protect Stonewood Enterprises from whatever they do outside of it.”

“Protect? From what? Are they killing people?” Instead of dying from cancer, I was going to die from this. I just knew it.

“You’re being dramatic. I didn’t take you for so much drama when I met you.”

“When you met me, we were on a sunny beach with no stress,” I pointed out for the idiot of a man standing in front of me.

“The Armanellis haven’t killed anyone in decades.” He rounded back to the subject at hand.

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” I shouted. Then, I took a breath and said with as much disdain as I could muster. “You’re a lunatic. I’m not working on this contract.”

“You already started, and I need Stonewood Enterprises protected.”

“Well, with what is already written, it won’t be.” My words were jackhammers of truth we both needed to hear. “What are you thinking, Jett? Even if I were to come up with perfect sentences, it doesn’t mean anything. They can’t be trusted.”

“Cade and Bastian have always been trustworthy.”

“Then why the contract?”

“Because their father and mine had an understanding. Without my father at the helm, we need to have something concrete, something in writing.”

“As if the law will stop someone in the mob.” I rolled my eyes and grabbed my bag, so ready to be done with the day. “You’re wading into waters no business should be swimming through.”

“Coming from you, that’s pretty epic.” One dark eyebrow raised in surprise. “Where’s the silver lining, Pix?”

I blew a puff of air toward the ceiling. “I get that my positivity is somewhat frustrating at times, Jett. I know I’m a lot, okay?”

His eyes widened in shock at my admission. I knew the truth though. My peppy attitude could be a turnoff. Sometimes, I couldn’t even handle my own cheerfulness. Some days I wanted to curl up in a ball and wallow in self-pity.

Tomorrow, I could be out of remission though. When you’re contemplating death knocking at your door, it’s hard to enjoy anything. So, I couldn’t live any other way now. This was living life to the fullest every damn day, even when it got tiring, because I’d come very close to not having a life to live.

“I never claimed to be anything different, Jett. But I’m not stupid either. I like to avoid completely avoidable dangerous situations.”

“Could have fooled me on vacation.”

“Why? Because I wanted to go on a hike or two?”

“You went gallivanting around that island looking for ways to die. You always do. You talk about wanting to feel alive and now you’re cowering in the damn corner without even trying to negotiate a contract.”

“This isn’t cowering,” I seethed, poking his hard chest.

“Then you’ll be at the meeting tomorrow when we discuss this further?”

“Meeting?”

“Yes. I invited the Armanellis here to see if we can come to a compromise.”

“Jett, shouldn’t we think about what this means for the company?’

“Bob can come if you don’t want to. Jax and Brey will be at the meeting as well.”

What an immature way of getting someone to do something.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Send the invite to my Outlook. I’ll make sure my schedule is clear.”

“Fantastic. Now, since that’s out of the way, are we fucking in my office or here at your desk?”

“Are you insane?”

“Not yet, though I might be on the verge after watching you all day in that outfit. What the hell are you wearing?”

Screw him. This light-blue dress flowed around every part of my body and made me look as expensive as the rings inside the Tiffany & Co. boxes. I twirled in front of him and let the skirt flare at my knees. “You like it?”

“It’s distracting, that’s for sure.”

“In a good way?”

“If you’re searching for a compliment, Pix, call Stevie later and ask him. I want to fuck you, not fluff your ego.”

I ignored his callousness because his eyes dragged across my dress like he wished he could burn it off me with a look. “We should probably go home, Jett.”

I didn’t want to, but one of us had to be smart. Who better than the one who didn’t own the company? “We can’t have sex in the office. There are probably cameras throughout this floor.”

I didn’t care about the cameras. My heart beat faster just being in his proximity, my legs got weak, my pussy throbbed.

“You’re right,” he said pointedly. “That’s why I turned off the power to this floor.”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Three brief sounds reminding me what it felt like to barely be alive in a hospital bed. They reminded me now to live. Three little pulses telling me to let him take me anywhere and everywhere. I would only live this once. Indulge once. Dive deep down into the place I felt most real and most alive. The time was now. I didn’t want to encounter the it’s-too-late realizations or the if-only-I-would-have regrets ever again. I had too much experience with that train of thought, and I wasn’t going back.

“That’s cocky.” I shot a pointed look at the bulge in his pants as I backed up to rest my hip on my desk.

He followed and pushed his body right onto mine. “Not cocky. Confident. Now, your desk or mine?”

I breathed him in as he leaned forward to nip at my neck. My nipples tightened under the dress, and I mentally racked my brain for what I might be wearing underneath it. I’d dressed for Steven, not Jett.

He slid his hands under the skirt and ran them up my thighs, then grabbed my ass. “No preference?”

I gasped as he jerked me forward to feel him against me, reminding me just how freaking big he was. How lucky I was to be here with him for this moment. “Oh, God. Just here. Let’s do this here. Now.”

I didn’t want to wait another minute. I grabbed my skirt and slid it up as I hopped onto my desk and spread my legs. White lace to match my white stilettos. I knew the color popped on my sun-kissed skin too. I stared at him taking me in. He wanted to own me, devour me, feed off me. He was there for the feast and would leave me right after.

“So, your desk it is.”

I nodded slowly. “I want it right here, Jett. You better devour me and leave me completely ravaged.”

When he showed his teeth, no one would mistake it for a smile. Under the city lights, he’d warped into a wolf. “Good. I want you to remember us here when you look up at Mr. Stevie across from you tomorrow.”

“You’re such a dick.”

“The dick who’s about to fuck you.”

I should have shoved him away right then. This wasn’t going anywhere, but my body didn’t care. It woke like a damn bear that had been in hibernation all winter.

“In that case,” I lifted my hips and slid my lace thong off. Then I spread my legs and planted my hands behind me. “Fuck me good because Steven went home, which means I’m not getting any without you.”

He growled and unzipped his pants. “You think he’s going to get you off, woman?”

“Oh, he will. Just not tonight.”

He laughed as he gripped himself and pumped once, hard. Pre cum already glistened at the tip.

My mouth watered. “Are you waiting for something?”

“Waiting for you to tell me this is your dream. Me and not him. I can see you practically concocting our future together. You and me in a nice house together or some shit.”

“Your realities rubbed off on me, Jett,” I scoffed. “I’m just here for a good lay tonight.”

“Now that, Pix,”—he whispered softly in my ear as he placed his hands right on top of mine behind me—“is the best thing I’ve heard all day.”

He plunged into me. I gasped and arched into him, trying to adjust to how fast the man worked, how quickly he took what he thought was his to take. I had to adjust to how quickly my body gave in to the idea too because I already was trying to grab hold of the orgasm that was about to burst out of me. “We have to slow down.”

He fisted my hair and pulled it back so that my neck was exposed. As he dragged his teeth along it, he pumped faster and harder. My legs wrapped around him, wanting him closer. “I intend to keep pace. You can’t control how fast you get off, that’s your problem.”

His rough voice sent shivers down my spine and I almost bucked off the desk when he dragged his hand down my stomach to squeeze the soft spot near my hip. If he didn’t want me to sync with him, fine. I took his words for what they were. We were in this, doing this, feeling this. For ourselves.

Sex with Jett wasn’t about making him feel good, wasn’t about trying to get him to want me.

It was about me. Me getting off. Me feeling good. Me screwing a guy because I wanted to, not because I was making anyone else happy.

The worrying about how I looked on that desk, how my face scrunched in ecstasy, how I might sweat too much, or my hair might not be perfect faded away. Worrying about sex with a man who didn’t care about anything except his own pleasure would have been stupid. With Jett’s lack of interest, my normal concerns died, and I felt more alive.

I screamed into the office. I clawed at his back and took what I wanted. I dug into his muscles, squeezed my legs hard around his ass and met him thrust for thrust. I didn’t wait for him to kiss his way back up to my lips from where he was ravaging my neck, I grabbed his face and brought it to mine. “Kiss me like you mean it for one second, Jett.”

“Just remember I don’t mean a damn thing. I’ll still be only your boss in the morning.”

“Boss of the whole fucking city, but sure,” I shrugged.

“Damn right.” His tongue kept up with our rhythm. His pillowed lips devoured mine and his hands were on my cheeks holding me to him. The kiss barreled me into an orgasm completely unhinged from anything I’d experienced before.

I rode his dick selfishly, milking every ounce of it, feeling my heart beat, my breath panting in and out. He let me set the pace even though he said he wouldn’t. When we stopped, I opened my eyes to take in the lights that shimmered outside and his face as he watched me come down from bliss.

His shirt wrinkled where I clenched it at his chest and his hair stuck up wherever I’d pulled at it. He leaned back and his twilight eyes assessed me. “You good?”

“Does it matter?” I yanked him close by his shirt. “We keep pace, Mr. Stonewood.” I tightened the hold of my legs around him so he pushed back in me.

“You’re still a goddamn knockout, Ms. Blakely. Even under my city’s lights.”