Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

J une 19 TH

So, I get the enemies-to-lovers trope now. I had always wondered why a woman would fall for a guy who she hated, but in certain situations it can be very hot. We didn’t make it to full lovers, but my time with Timothy was sexy AF. It was similar to the feeling of the furry orgy—letting go and taking what you want. Not letting society or rules or anything dictate what you want. Just primal, pure lust. However, the feeling of embarrassment that follows is not so hot. Thank goodness only the fire department saw and not any of my colleagues.

“What the hell is the fuss about?” Leah asked early the next morning as they walked to Café Felix for an emergency breakfast. “It’s Friday. I hope it’s nothing bad. I want to get to the weekend.”

“I’ll tell you all at once,” Paige told her for the hundredth time. “But I also wanted to walk with you to talk about something uncomfortable.”

“Do you not feel fresh down there? Are your tampons leaking? Do you need me to tell you how to have sex?”

Paige rolled her eyes at her friend. “It’s about Noah.” Leah’s teasing instantly stopped. Her smile turned into pursed lips and she looked straight ahead as they walked. “He likes you. But you know that. The question is: how does it make you feel now when he has started to join us at book club and on nights out? I think he fits in with us, Leah. And more importantly, he seems to appreciate you for you. He’s not asking you to change. He’s seeing you at your most . . . um, how to say this? Not your best. You’re being rude, you’re not listening to him, and you literally ran from him. So, enough of what I think of Noah. What are you feeling? Because if you hate him, if you know something horrible about him, if you’re just not interested, I’ll make sure Eli and Amelia back off you two.”

Leah exhaled and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk as they approached Felix’s. “Don’t tell the others. I’m not ready to talk this to death, but it’s the opposite. I can’t find anything wrong with him. Since you mentioned it last time, I’ve looked. Yeah, he’s not my usual type. But I started to think about what I found attractive, and it was confidence, not how they actually looked. So, while Noah doesn’t fit the physical profile of my past dates, he is so understatedly confident I find myself in a constant state of wanting to jump him. I can’t think about anything around him except work or I turn into a complete slut.”

“Oh.” That wasn’t what Paige was expecting. “Why not act on it? Noah is certainly willing.”

Leah nervously played with her bracelet. “I’m scared. It’s not just the confidence. It’s everything about Noah. He lets me be me, but he also calls me on my BS. He does it in a way that isn’t condescending. Then, at the same time, he’s the first to praise me, to tell me I’m doing a great job, or that I look beautiful. He somehow makes me want to be better. It’s like I messed around with boys, and now I see a full-grown man before me. I know it’s different. I know this won’t be a one-night stand. It’s real, and it’s scary for a commitment-phobe like me. Then there’s the whole work promotion thing. I know he’s not my boss now, which is why we can date, but I want to prove myself first. Not necessarily for Noah or even my colleagues, but for me. I want to succeed and know I did it on my own.”

“I can understand that. It’s why I won’t sleep with Jack. Not that we haven’t come close a time or two. Did you ever think about telling Noah this? I bet he’d wait for you to come to grips with all these new emotions and goals.”

Leah suddenly hugged her. “Thank you. I don’t think I knew how much I needed to say these things out loud.” Leah took a breath and shook her shoulders as if shaking free of her problems. “Now, let’s hear what the big deal with you is,” she said as she opened the café door.

Three mouths were hanging open, and six eyes were as big as saucers as Paige’s friends all stared at her.

“You almost died!” Amelia launched herself onto Paige and hugged her tight. Soon, Paige could barely breathe as her friends all hugged her.

“And good to know enemies to lovers is as hot as it is in books. However, I cringe at the idea of anyone seeing me doing that with someone I hate. Good thing it was just Gina who caught you,” Eli said with a shiver.

“What are you going to do now?” Leah asked.

Paige shook her head. “What else can I do but go to work today and hope to get through the day without anyone asking me about it?”

Paige glanced at the clock. It was almost the end of the day. She’d heard from Lenora Hamilton that working with the ghostwriter on her autobiography was going well. Paige had also heard from the ghostwriter that this book was going to melt the shelves with all the celebrity sex tales from Hollywood’s modern-day Marilyn.

Things were going well. The most anyone had said about the elevator was how scary that must have been. There had been no mention of Timothy being caught with his hand in her panties and her hand on his cock.

“Hey, Paige,” Kendrick said after poking his head into her office. “I’m heading out. Amanda and I are grabbing a drink with some of the other assistants. Do you need anything before I leave?”

“Amanda, huh?” Paige smiled. They were really cute together and she hoped it became something more. They were both two genuinely nice people. “No. I don’t need anything. Have a great weekend.”

Kendrick grinned at her and was about to leave when he looked behind him. “Oh, Amanda said that Mr. Griffin asked for you to stop by his office before you leave for the night.”

“Thanks.”

Paige was almost ready to leave. She just had to send a couple more emails. By the time she turned off her office lights and headed to Jack’s office, the floor was empty. It was amazing how fast an office could clear out on a Friday.

“Knock, knock. Amanda said you wanted to see me?” Paige asked as she headed into Jack’s office.

Jack looked up from his desk and nodded at her to take a seat across from him. He stood up and walked around the desk before spinning his laptop around to face them. “I wanted to show you something.”

Jack leaned down and pulled something up on the laptop before moving out of the way to lean against the desk. He wasn’t watching the laptop, but her.

Paige watched the video start with blackness. Then, all of a sudden, an empty elevator came into view a split second before she and Timothy West walked on board. Her heartbeat raced and her stomach plummeted just as the elevator on the screen did.

Her cheeks turned heated when the kiss happened. Her breathing picked up as she knew Jack was watching her watching herself and Timothy go at it in the elevator. It had seemed like so much longer when it had happened, but it had really only been seven minutes according to the clock on the security footage. She had to admit, discounting the embarrassment factor, it was pretty hot to watch.

Jack stopped the footage when they’d been caught by Gina. Jack closed his laptop, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked madder than she got when someone dogeared a book page. “You have some explaining to do, little one.”

Oh no.

“No, I don’t. I don’t owe you an explanation. However, I will tell you that I thought I was going to die. I guess we just took our minds off of it.” Jack just stared at her. “We still hate each other.”

“So, that was a hate fuck? Or, would have been.” Paige nodded. “Let me be clear, Miss Turner. No one fucks you in this building but me.”

The room was electric. The sexual tension literally swirled around them. Now Paige understood how in books a hero or heroine could get totally lost in the moment. The world around them, the problems, the roadblocks between them all vanished. She was living that moment right now. All those fears, all those worries about having sex with your billionaire boss fled at the crook of his finger.

Jack crooked his finger at her to indicate she should come to him. Paige was a smart woman. She had control over her body. However, in that moment, she didn’t. The lust, the need, the desire to please this man and to be pleased by him was so primal that it overrode all her senses, including common sense.

One moment, she was a regular woman about to leave work, and the next, her hair was fisted in her billionaire boss’s hand, her lips were pressed to his, and their tongues slid against each other, mimicking the movement of her hips.

Then suddenly, Jack’s lips were gone. He’d pulled back. His eyes were burning as he looked at her, that dom mask easily in place. “Strip for me, Paige. Show me what a good girl you are.”

Paige was breathing heavily. Her breasts were trying to leap from her blouse and into Jack’s hands. However, stripping as he leaned against his desk watching? She was more of a get naked as you’re making out type of person. Not that that led to actual sex for her, so maybe this did. The way Jack was devouring her with his eyes told her she was finally going to lose her virginity, and she was here for that.

Paige reached behind her and slid the zipper to her knee-length pencil skirt down. With a little shimmy of her hips, it fell to the floor. Jack’s nostrils flared, and she saw him take a deep breath as if to control himself.

Power. That’s what Paige had right now. It wasn’t embarrassment. It was embracing her sexuality, owning it, and wielding it for mutual pleasure. Even with Jack not touching her, she’d never felt sexier.

Paige reached for her blouse. It was a lightweight silk short-sleeved blouse with a bow at the neck. She pulled the fabric and the bow slid free. Not breaking her eye contact with Jack, she reached down and slowly drew her blouse up and over her head until Paige was standing there in the least sexy pair of undies a girl could have. The cotton briefs were pink with rainbows on them. Her bra was one of those white T-shirt bras to try to minimize lines that could be seen through the silk blouse. Seduction had not been on her agenda today.

However, the fire in Jack’s eyes said he didn’t care.

“The bra, little one. Don’t make me ask again. You already have one punishment coming your way.”

The way her panties became wet with the word punishment was surreal. Sure, she’d read about it, but being faced with it was a completely different situation. Would it really be as orgasm-inducing as the books said? Paige was excited to find out. She didn’t go slow. She reached behind her, unclasped her bra, and shoved her panties down.

“Very nice, little one. Neat, but not bare. Makes me want to run my fingers through it to find your hidden treasure. Now, bend over the desk and let me spread you like the pages of the books you like to read.”

Paige stopped breathing. Completely. Her heart hammered as she somehow made her legs move to the desk. Jack was still clothed as he came up behind her. He placed a hand in the middle of her back and gently pushed her. He didn’t need to. Paige’s desire right now for him was so great she was eagerly bending over his desk.

She gasped as her bare breasts lay on the metallic top of the closed laptop, but Jack’s hand rubbing and kneading her ass set her afire.

“You will never be with another man in my building. Do you understand?”

His hand landed with a smack on her ass. Paige gasped in surprise, but then his hand was rubbing her ass, causing her to moan. Holy Bookworm! The books didn’t lie. Sexy spanking was hot. Like super-hot.

The second smack made her groan and lean back, trying to rub against Jack. She needed him badly. She heard him chuckle and then heard the sound of his zipper. “Are you still a virgin, little one?”

“I hope I won’t be for much longer,” she said, her face lying on the wood of his desk, her hands gripping the edge of it as she felt Jack’s fingers trace her seam.

“Greedy little one, aren’t you?”

Paige groaned with desperation. She was in a lust-filled haze, and there was only one cure for it.

“Jack Edward Griffin the Third! You are a very bad boy!” The sound of Jack’s mother’s voice was the unexpected cure for lust.

Paige squeaked as suddenly the man who had his dick out and about to rock her world was yanked away from her.

“I’ve told you again and again, no sex in your office! Especially with this little slut,” Mrs. Griffin spat as she held Jack by the ear. He was bent in half, his dick still out of his pants, as his mother glared at her.

“Sorry, Mother,” Jack said with a sigh.

“Wait a minute, I’m not a slut! I’m a virgin, for crying out loud,” Paige cried as she grabbed her blouse and skirt. Mrs. Griffin actually snorted. “Well, I am. Even if I weren’t, it’s no business of yours. I can have sex with whoever I want, including your son. The time of sex-shaming a woman for her natural desire to enjoy sex is over. You might loosen up if you tried it.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to enjoy sex since you’re fired,” Mrs. Griffin spat. “Isn’t she, Jack? I told you no more screwing the help, but you just couldn’t keep it in your pants. Just like your father. ”

“Mother,” Jack groaned. “I’m not like Father. I’m not married, so I can have sex with whomever I want.”

“You will not. I’ve worked hard to clean up our name after your father screwed his way through the household staff. I won’t have you doing the same. Now, fire the hussy.” Mrs. Griffin pinched Jack’s ear harder for good measure.

“Mother,” Jack whined before trying to straighten up, only for his mother to yank his ear again. “I will not fire her, Mother. Paige is actually very good at her job. She’s done nothing wrong. And you can’t fire her without my permission, which I will not give.”

“We will discuss this tonight. Come!” Mrs. Griffin yanked on Jack’s ear as he stuffed himself back into his pants while his mother literally dragged him from the room, leaving Paige standing by herself, staring after them.

What had just happened? Paige looked around, wondering if this was a prank. But no. She could hear Mrs. Griffin berating Jack all the way down the hall until the elevator door closed.

Paige’s hands now shook for an entirely different reason—fear. Fear of her reputation. Fear of losing her job. What the hell had she been thinking? As she grabbed her bra and panties from the floor, she knew what she’d been thinking. There were a lot of billionaire boss books for a reason. That was the sexiest encounter of her life. Well, it had been . . . until his mommy dragged him from the room by the ear. Paige really had no idea how to tell her friends what just happened. No one would believe her.