“I would appreciate it.” He paused, then added, “Just this once. And I’m asking nicely.”
We had a momentary standoff. I gave in, not because he was my boss, but because I wanted to know what the game was. “Just this once,” I said.
He pulled a set of keys out and slid them across the desk to me. “I’ll text you the address and the entry codes,” he said. “And I’ll tell the concierge you’re there with my permission. You can go anytime.”
Aidan’s building was at Third Ave and 83rd Street, a low-rise red brick building with immaculate wrought iron railings. The noise of Manhattan was hushed here, as if this were a different city. My own Hell’s Kitchen apartment—which was far from cheap—seemed a long way away. The only sounds were a few car honks a few blocks away and the barking of a dog.
I got out of the taxi, the dry cleaning bag with Aidan’s clothes in it over my arm. The doorman let me in with a smile and a nod; he was expecting me. The foyer was clean white marble, the elevator to the sixth floor classic with a wrought-iron door. The entire building was as hushed as a library.
The elevator doors opened to the penthouse suite, and I typed in Aidan’s code. The door clicked and I opened it.
Aidan’s apartment was beautiful, a huge open-concept space with a bathroom and bedroom on one side. The main room held a dark gray sofa, square and masculine, with a matching dark coffee table. The kitchen had marble counters and gleaming steel appliances. A bank of windows overlooked 83rd Street, facing north. Next to the windows was a glass-topped desk with a computer on it and stacks of papers on it.
I stood looking around, curious. I’d seen plenty of my former bosses’ apartments when I dropped off mail, fed pets, or picked up forgotten jackets or cell phones. I was no stranger to luxurious places to live. In all of those cases, I’d never had the urge to snoop, which was why I was so good at my job. I may have had their security codes, but my bosses’ private business was just that—private.
Still, none of my previous bosses had been Aidan Winters.
I shouldn’t look around too closely. Then again, he’d invited me here, hadn’t he?
The dry cleaning was heavy over my arm, so I walked to the bedroom. It was masculine in here, too, the king-sized bed swathed in a navy comforter, a dark wood nightstand and matching dresser along one wall. The bed was made, but hastily, the blankets pulled up and left slightly mussed. He didn’t have a maid service, then, or at least not one that had been here today. I looked away from the bed, trying not to picture Aidan’s long body, possibly naked, sprawled out on it.
His closet was big and contained a lot of black clothes, as expected. But as I hung the dry cleaning bag I also saw other colors. There were casual pants and button-downs, and a stack of sweaters on the top shelf. The suit I’d seen on him Saturday night was in there. The closet smelled like Aidan, a scent I’d become closely acquainted with. I ran my fingertips over one of the shirts, remembering what he had tasted like when he kissed me in the elevator of the Lowell hotel.
Get it together, Samantha.
I backed out of the closet and closed the door. I looked around, wondering why Aidan had sent me here. Was it just to have me in his private space, to know that I had been there? Or was there another reason? He wasn’t trying to impress me with his expensive penthouse—he wasn’t the type, and he must know I wouldn’t be impressed anyway. There was something here he wanted me to see.
When I came back out into the main room, I spotted it. An envelope on the kitchen counter. I picked it up and took out the piece of paper inside.
It was a ticket to an exclusive art gallery showing. The gallery was in SoHo, the artist was obscure but trendy, and tickets were limited. The show was this Saturday night.
I ran my finger over the edge of the invitation, thinking. This was obviously an invitation to continue the game. The question was, did I want to continue it?
Last Saturday had been incredible. I’d discovered aspects of myself I never knew I had. I wanted that again.
But today he’d made me pick up his dry cleaning.
I couldn’t make things too easy for him. I had to make him suffer a little. I could make him wonder what I was going to do next instead of assuming he owned me.
I put the ticket in my purse. Then I walked back into Aidan’s bedroom. Standing next to his bed, I lifted my skirt and slid off my panties. They were a pair of my favorites—slate gray, slim cut, soft as my own skin. They undoubtedly smelled like me. I put them on Aidan’s pillow.
Then I left the apartment, locking it behind me.
Twenty-Three
Aidan
* * *
It was a hellish week. I had no idea time could go so slow. Saturday seemed to be years away.
Samantha had given me not a flicker of a signal when she came back to the office on Monday afternoon. I’d come home to find the ticket gone from my kitchen counter and her panties left on my pillow. I’d groaned aloud, alone in my bedroom, at the thought that she’d spent the afternoon at work bare beneath her skirt and I hadn’t fucking known. It was like she was born to torture me.
I’d been tempted to take a shower and jerk off, thinking about it. But I didn’t. She was teasing me. I’d have some self-control.
So on Tuesday I went to the office all business. I went to meetings, reviewed reports, and met with Samantha about my schedule. Looking at us, no one in the office would guess that I’d had her bent over a hotel room bed, her hands in the sheets, her legs spread for me. No one would know that I knew what color her nipples were, knew what her skin tasted like, knew exactly what sound she made when she came. We were the same boss and assistant we’d always been. And that made the game more exciting to play.
Finally, on Friday afternoon—a thousand years later—I went over a few end-of-week notes with Samantha in my office. I watched her sitting in the chair across from my desk, her legs crossed and her head angled down as she wrote a note on her notepad, and I said, “Do you have any plans for the weekend?”