Damaged Grump (Bad Chicago Bosses)

Before I can think of a response, though, a second text arrives.

Callie: Thanks, Roland. I could never convince him he even had a problem before. But knowing someone had my back made me give it that extra push to get him help and not quit until I’d argued him down. I appreciate this more than you know.

I exhale slowly and feel like my chest is imploding.

Don’t you know it’s rude to make a boy blush? I throw back.

This time I get a smiling devil emoji.

Callie: Bad boss. Pics or it didn’t happen.

Never, brat, I fire back.

For a moment, I actually consider taking a selfie and sending it to her just to prove that yes, my face does feel a touch warm. Except I’m not that pathetic.

Chuckling, I add, You’re on the clock. Get back to work or you’re in trouble.

Callie: Going to discipline me, Mr. Osprey?

My entire body flares instantly at the thought of what I could do to punish her.

That lush little ass of hers must still be red from my palm last night.

The raging urge to keep it that way eats me alive.

Same with that mouth.

Showering those soft, perfect lips with love bites until they’re rubbed red without that alluring lipstick, teasing her with slow plunging thrusts that sensitize her mouth until—

You said one night, Osprey. Damn you, one fucking night. Banish the thought now.

Again, she saves me from having to respond with another text.

Callie: Fine, fine. I’ll be good. I have a team meeting in five anyway. Later.

It’s so casual. So easy.

So unaffected by what we did last night.

Hell, I think I’m the shaken one.

Even so, I’m glad she’s taking it so easy.

I never realized until this morning just how much I enjoy her company.

Her wit, her wickedness, her complete and utter refusal to find me as intimidating as everyone else does.

Last night could’ve ruined that. Could’ve pushed us into a cold, formal freeze of a relationship with lines drawn in barbed wire, never to be crossed.

Instead, she’s still the same insubordinate hellion.

And I’m left questioning everything I’ve ever felt.

Ever believed.

Ever known.

* * *

This situation is new and I don’t like it.

I’m accustomed to being the aloof one. The indifferent one. My appetites indulged and then forgotten the next day without attachment.

What I’m not accustomed to is a red-lipped vixen breezing around me with her saucy smile like nothing ever happened, shockingly numb to me.

All while I struggle not to throw her on the conference table in front of my department heads and fuck her raw—with or without an audience.

I was fine the first day.

The second day.

We barely had contact besides a few work-related emails.

When day three came with a quick Zoom meeting, though, my skin started itching like hell.

That itch became an all-consuming third-degree burn the second I saw her lips moving on screen—vividly purple that day—like berries begging to be devoured.

My highly distracted dick had me asking her to repeat herself eight times when the words dropped right out of my head.

Humiliating.

Almost as bad as my nights in a bed that still somehow smells like her even after changing the sheets.

These days are brutal, time measured in the many, many times I get hard.

A quick glimpse of her hair. More cock-teasing texts. A brief flash of her slender legs.

She stopped by The Tea’s offices to leave some legal documents with Frank for the Haydn suit, and her smile fucking sawed me in two.

This isn’t normal.

I’m a man who’s used to getting what he wants.

I thought I had.

Apparently, one taste only made me want more.

Now I’m craving Callie like an addict as a solid week passes and I convene my staff for another all-hands-on-deck meeting.

We don’t normally pull in the subsidiary chiefs this often. However, with implementing new techniques from the Austin conference, we’ve been keeping a hard eye on day-to-day metrics. We can make swift corrections in the event we hit a digital iceberg and start sinking because these changes threw us off course.

Right now, though, the reports show steady growth and more name recognition for our properties. That’s led a few more advertisers to seek us out, snubbing our competition.

Good.

There’s a certain vicious pride in making the very people who labeled me the filthy stepchild of this industry come crawling at my feet now that their bottom line depends on it.

I’m not thinking much about bottom lines at the moment, though.

I’m just thinking about one bottom.

Callie’s, as she takes her turn in front of the room in a cyan sheath dress, the slim skirt of it creating a neat silhouette in the front.

The damn thing cups her so tight in the back I can practically see her panty lines over that peach of an ass.

She’s giving a presentation on engagement metrics. Talking up how Just Vibing adapted some of the strategies and rapidly doubled its engagement. She adds this silly green magic beanstalk to the graph that bursts up to the top of the screen. People laugh.