“No, that won’t be necessary,” I grind out as Ashley backs up, her eyes huge, her shock palpable. “I can find it on my own.” The damn building is only four stories tall. It isn't like I can get lost in it.
“As you wish, sir,” the cigarette-roughened voice says and then she's gone.
“You asshole,” Ashley breathes out. “How could you? How could you decide who to fire, just like that?” She snaps her fingers in the air, glaring daggers at me as she does. “Fuck you. I hope you step on a Lego in the dark.” And then Ashley's gone too, the door slamming behind her as she goes, but I can’t help the smile curling the corner of my mouth at her curse. I’d been told many nasty things in my lifetime, but I had never been told to step on a Lego in the dark. That was a new one, even to me, and I would've sworn I’d heard it all.
I fall into the nasty-ass leatherette chair behind the nasty-ass cheap oak desk, my cock begging for release, and my mind whirling.
I pull out my red, swollen cock, pre-cum already leaking from the tip. I have to stroke one out before the meeting or I’ll never be able to focus on a damn thing anyone says.
And I have to forget Ashley Miller, starting now.
35
Ashley
Yeah, I’m supposed to be working, I know. Don’t get all Mr. Henningford on my ass. If you’d just had Apollo—Mr. Kane—feeling you up like he’d just been doing to me, you wouldn’t be working either. Just sayin’.
I’m pacing in circles around my desk, like this lion I once saw stuck in an enclosure at the zoo. He just walked the same path over and over again, wearing it down to dirt, ignoring the rest of his enclosure as he went. At the time, I felt sorry for him.
Right now, I feel too…I don’t know what I feel. But something. Something very mixed up and twisted and worried and horny as fuck and—
“Ashley, are you okay?”
Oh thank god, Natalie is coming to my rescue.
“Yes! No! Yes? I don’t know.”
She’s staring at me like I’ve lost my mind. Which, to be fair, I kinda feel like I have.
“What’s going on?” she asks slowly, as if talking to a small child, or a deranged adult.
Okay, I deserved that. I mean, I don’t like it, but I deserve it.
“Apollo—” I hiss a little too loudly and everyone in a ten-foot radius turns to hear, no doubt because he’s, like, the only topic of conversation this morning. I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up doing a ten-page spread on him in the magazine this month, if only because no reporter is going to want to focus on anything else.
Natalie tilts her head and stares at me for a moment, and then nods knowingly. “We need to have a little chat,” she says, grabbing my arm and dragging me toward the smaller conference room on the main floor. A handful of men are streaming out—the hoity-toity upper management guys who rarely deign to mix with us lowly reporters—so we stand off to the side until they all leave, and then dart into the darkened room and close the door.
“What is going on between you and Mr. Kane?” Natalie demands, propping her hip against the boardroom table, crossing her arms and glaring at me. “Have you been holding out? Do you know him? Is he as good in bed as he is hot?”
“Natalie!” I hiss indignantly. “I have not slept with Apo—Mr. Kane.”
I can feel my fucking ears turning red, a sure sign that I’m lying, and Natalie, being Best Friend Extraordinaire that she is, definitely doesn’t overlook this fact.
“Wanna try that again?” she asks, cocking one eyebrow expectantly.
“Well, I haven’t,” I insist, crossing my arms stubbornly across my chest. But I can’t just stand there; I have too much energy in me to just stand and talk to her. I start pacing the room, the image of the trapped lion in the zoo crossing my mind, but I shove it away.
“I stole his cab this morning—”
“You what?”
“I didn’t know it was him!” I say plaintively. “I was late and I stole his cab and—”
“What was Apollo Kane doing riding in a fucking cab?” Natalie explodes, cutting me off.
I stop.
I stare at Natalie, confusion writ large all