Jennie
Is she going to kiss me this time? Just over twenty-four hours ago, my hands were in her hair in an elevator while her mouth parted beneath mine. Less than twelve hours ago, that perfect mouth was between my legs. Everything else that happened seems of no consequence.
She leans in but doesn't kiss my mouth. Instead, her lips brush my throat, just beneath my ear, her breath warm against my skin. My own mouth falls open as I make a futile effort to breathe. Will she bite down? I think. Bite down, suck me, and leave a mark?
Mark me? I must be insane. Leave a hickey where anyone could see?
"Please," I breathe. The sound of my own voice sends a pulse straight down between my legs, where an ache begins to spread out from my center, curling deliciously through me. My wrist tingles from where she brushed her fingertips over it.
"Please what?" she murmurs.
I shiver. How can I say it, when I don't even know the answer? Just— "Please," I repeat. She's got to know. She's got answers to every question my body's ever asked.
Her hand comes to rest on my hip. The heat of her touch scorches me through my pants. It could scorch me through a down parka. How could my bare flesh handle it? And yet I open my mouth to beg again, past all prudence.
And then the front door opens.
My blood ices over. Lisa jumps back. Wendy's stilettos sound on the hardwoods around the corner.
I stare at Lisa, who looks altogether too collected for this moment, though she's appealingly flushed. I can't possibly look collected. I must look like a stranger, a crazy woman—
Lisa reaches out swiftly to adjust my blazer. My breath hitches.
She whispers, "Okay," and then Wendy appears, texting and frowning at her phone.
By the time she looks up, I've straightened my shoulders and lifted my chin. The room has begun to come back into focus and my ears no longer buzz.
Wendy smiles at me. "Well? Shall we—"
"I'll take it," I tell her, hardly seeing her, not looking at Lisa, who takes over my peripheral vision anyway. A blur of peaches and cream. "This place. I want it. I'll take it."
Wendy drives us back to my office. We go past restaurants, past bars with neon signs, past offices with their doors shut for the night.
Kin, Lee Oh is officially closed, too. It's nearly nine. Of course, there could still be people there. There can be all kinds of people there to keep me and Lisa from repeating what I so desperately want to do, what is so desperately unwise.
Sana, for example.
She's packing up to leave as Lisa and I pass by her office. I look at her, we make eye contact, and I wonder for a second if I've ever seen this woman before. Or this office, for that matter.
Sana's eyes widen, so briefly I might have imagined it. I can't imagine why they would. By now I've surely managed to compose myself. It's my specialty.
"Um, hi, Jennie," Sana says, one hand held still in the air as she prepares to slide a manila folder down into her tote bag. "I thought you'd be gone for the day."
"I'm not." Why the frost in my voice? I can't be angry that Sana is here to save me from myself, can I? "I have plenty of work to do. Don't you?"
Sana goes red. Behind me, Lisa shuffles, probably in discomfort.
With bite in her tone, Sana says, "I've worked late every night this week. I'm handling my caseload." She looks at Lisa. "Do we have to do this in front of her?"
At the mention of Lisa, even without her name, my own face flushes. My body wants to sway backward into her heat until we collide again.
"I'll just wait in your office, Jennie?" The note of meek obedience in Lisa's voice turns all my blood into fire. What a joke that is. As if Lisa Manoban waits on my pleasure, instead of keeping me in thrall to hers.
"You'll do nothing of the sort." My voice, given physical form, would be an icicle.
Sana's mouth puckers, but I don't care. I reach back before I realize it, and my fingers close around Lisa's forearm. She tenses, and I tug, and Sana's eyes definitely widen, and I somehow get hold of my senses again.
What's happening to me? I say nothing. Instead, I let go of my assistant, clutch my purse, and stalk down the hallway to my office. Behind me, I hear Lisa murmuring something indistinct—no reply from Sana—followed by the clatter of her shoes.
Sehun and Mark's office doors are closed. I've got the place to myself, it seems.
I step inside my office. Lisa's footsteps sound on the floor behind me. My office door clicks quietly shut. My eyes close.
"Um," she says. "We should talk, maybe?"
Talk? She wasn't interested in talking before. Now's a hell of a time for it. My hands curl into fists. Her hair would feel soft in them.
"I'll need you to make arrangements for the movers." My voice is steady, if not cool enough. "Southern Pack and Load worked for—" I almost say us, Taehyung and me. "Me last time. They'll do."
"Jennie—"
"I want to be out of that hotel room within two days. As for dividing up the things in my home, everything in my bedroom and study is mine and nonnegotiable. You'll need to—"
"Jennie, come on—"
"I'm talking, aren't I?" My voice breaks. My face scalds in humiliation.
"You could try turning around, too."
"For what?" I cast my gaze around my office. I know it from wall to wall, and yet it's like I'm in uncharted territory. "The settee in my study is from Paris. Make that a top priority. I don't care about anything in the media room, the foyer, or the guest rooms. The, the kitchen, I suppose—" I touch my temples and press down. The buzzing in my ears is back.
"You never cook." Lisa's voice is terrifyingly gentle. "Do you?"
"I still need a kitchen!" I feel like a first-year law student being backed into a corner by my torts professor. "Everyone needs a kitchen!"
"Okay." She's got the gall to sound soothing, but all the word reminds me of is what she'd said back in the apartment. I want you to be okay, Jennie. Is she insane? "I'll make a list and figure out what you're most likely to need right away."
I should walk forward. Sit down at my desk. She should be at her own desk, taking care of the last of the day's minutiae before going home and getting up bright and early to make all these arrangements. "I'll make the list myself. Don't presume you know what I'm most likely to need—"
I could cut out my own tongue.
Silence hovers in the air. It's full of promise. My breath shakes in my chest, I tighten my fists, and wait for the innuendo that will undo me.
"I picked out your apartment," she says.
What? The words are so nonsensical that I whirl and face her head-on. Her face is flushed again, but disturbingly calm, as if the ocean of need surging inside me is nothing but a placid lake for her. "What are you talking about?"
She rubs the back of her neck and has the grace to look a little sheepish. "Wendy sent me five listings. You said you wanted two. So I picked out the ones I thought suited you most."
Now I remember Wendy mentioning I'd eliminated three other apartments out of hand. I'd barely taken it in at the time. Lisa's decision should be the height of presumption. "You only sent me two out of five?"
"You only wanted two." She lifts her shoulders in a shrug, although now those shoulders look a bit tenser. She's not as calm as she pretends. "I've learned not to give you more options than you ask for. You usually know what you want."
The "usually" isn't lost on me. I sidestep it. "How did you narrow it down?"
"Oh, I don't know." That isn't true. I can tell by the way Lisa's gaze slides to the side for a moment. "Though Sehun suggested I find you something with a view."
I draw my shoulders back. That's not especially comforting information. Sehun always sees more than he lets on. "Oh, did he?"
"Yeah. But I told Wendy, I mean, I suggested places close to work."
"That's it?" That can't be it. There was somehow more to those places than location. They'd had something in common that went beyond that.
"Plus an open-floor plan," she adds. "Big, exposed spaces. I didn't want you to feel boxed in."
"Exposed," I say quietly. The apartments had both been that. High ceilings. Two cavernous bedrooms with glass-walled walk-in showers. An open kitchen. Floor-to-ceiling privacy windows in the living area that don't need curtains or blinds. Nobody will be able to see in, but I'll still feel as if I'm living inside a snow globe. Easily picked up and shaken around.
Lisa thinks I'll enjoy such a layout. After all, it's fashionable. But is it what I want? I haven't allowed myself to think about what I really want for so long that I might not even remember how.
What do I want? What do I even like? How will I know it when I see it?
"Do you want to be exposed, Jennie?"
My gaze snaps back to Lisa's as she pulls me out of my reverie. Good God. She can read my mind. Before I can help myself, I reach up and touch the spot on my neck she was nuzzling less than an hour ago.
I seem to have figured out something I like.
Her eyes blaze. My stomach swoops down while heat spreads through me again, from that spot on my neck this time.
She hadn't bitten down. I can't think why not.
No. Wait. What am I doing? This insanity must stop, finally, now. I open my mouth to say, Enough. Go home. I'll see you tomorrow.
"I don't know," I say instead. I'm the tiny woman inside the snow globe while Lisa stands on the other side of the glass, seeing everything.
"I think you do. You're so buttoned up. You're so hidden. The first day I came in here—" She gestures at my office. "I thought it seemed so isolated. People have to go through two doors before they can get in."
"Mark and Sehun also have…" My voice dies. Yes, they both have anterooms, but their offices are otherwise unlike mine. They're brighter, more open. But it's fine for my office to be my fortress, while my Paces house was my…
Prison.
My eyes close as I accept it.
"It's okay," she says again.
"No, it isn't." My hands hurt. Oh, I've clenched them into fists again. There's nothing to hold on to, though. She's too far away. Besides, I have no right. I'm not permitted to touch her, not again. We established that last night.
"Jennie." Lisa takes a deep breath. "I…"
"Don't," I blurt out.
After a pause: "You don't know what I'm going to say."
"I can guess." I turn my head up and look at the ceiling.
"Okay. Fine. What would you guess?"
"You want to continue what you started back in the apartment." The words come out of me against my will. When I say them, I'm back in the apartment while Lisa has her way with me.
"And what was that?"
"I'm not—!" I mean to say I'm not saying it. But when a sudden surge of outrage forces me to face her at last, I get… The cliché is true. I get lost in her eyes.
"I didn't start anything." Now Lisa's voice is soft, almost soothing. "You did."
She means the elevator. I step back, unable to help retreating. "And I'm going to end it!"
"You make all the decisions, don't you? Doesn't that ever get exhausting?"
"No!" Yes. Yes, it does. Even though I feel electrified from my head to my feet, part of me is also tired to the bone. Since when has it been so exhausting to be myself?
"I think you're tired." Lisa fiddles with a loose lock of blonde hair that brushes against her shoulder. "I'm tired, too."
I stare at her. "You're tired? Tired of what?" From what I can tell, her life is a lot less complicated than mine.
"Fighting." Lisa worries her full bottom lip. Those teeth could have bitten me. Marked me. They didn't. "I've been fighting nonstop for two years."
"Two, is it?" I can't help my sneer. "Try clawing your way to the top for twenty years."
Then I wait for her to tell me I'm out of line. I wait for it breathlessly, in fact. It's true that she's fought some hard battles. Who am I to say otherwise? Surely she's about to lash out at my—my insolence—
"See? That's what I mean." She tosses the lock of hair back over her shoulder. How can that minute gesture make me feel feverish? "Life's been whupping my ass for two years. How much worse must it be if it's been doing the same to you for ten times that long?"
I keep my mouth from sagging open. Is she trying to make me feel like an old woman?
"I'm tired of being at everyone's mercy," she continues. "I'm tired of feeling like I'm crawling over tacks to get anywhere." She lets her breath out slowly. "I'm learning to pick my battles. I already know this isn't one I'm gonna win."
"'This?'" I shouldn't ask. "What's 'this?'"
She gestures between us. "Fighting this. You know what I mean."
"It was just for one night, wasn't it?"
I shouldn't have phrased that as a question.
"That was the plan, yeah." Lisa rubs the back of her neck. It's endearingly awkward. Apropos of nothing, I find myself wishing she still had that pink streak of hair.
My knees are getting weak. "What are you saying? That you want to do it again?"
Lisa's eyes flash at me, anger and hunger in equal measure. My knees might actually give out. "Is that what you need to believe? That I'm the only one who wants it?"
"I don't know what you're telling me! Just spit it out. You want it again?" I repeat.
She keeps her full mouth in a thin line, then lets her lips bloom again. Petals unfurling. "Gee, I can see why you're the best lawyer in town. Yes, I want it again."
I draw my shoulders back. As it happens, I am the best lawyer in town, and I won't let her forget it. "You're certainly putting your cards on the table. Unwise."
"Oh, for—come on. We're not doing this over a conference table, we're…" She gestures as if hoping that'll explain exactly what we're doing.
"It's a negotiation. Like everything else. And you want it again." My mouth is dry. "So set the terms. Tell me what you're negotiating for."
"Now that's what I don't know. I thought once would be enough last night, for both of us." Lisa's gaze falls to my mouth. "It wasn't, was it? I thought I'd get enough of you, but I…" She trails off and shakes her head.
If this is going to continue, it seems there's only one way we can handle it even close to ethically. Even so, there's no reason for a cold pit to open up inside my stomach. "So you're…quitting your job after all?"
"No! I told you." Her face flushes. "This is where I want to be. This, whatever we've got going on, doesn't have to conflict with my job."
My throat hurts when I bark out a laugh. "You must be joking. You think it won't conflict with your job when you—when you—" Screw the boss. The words, so honest yet so crude, refuse to leave my mouth. "It would be wrong. I'd be abusing my power."
Lisa shakes her head again. "Not when I'm the one saying we should do it."
"It's not that simple!" Even if she wants to believe it is, I can't let myself be deluded. Although, right now, what Lisa's proposing does sound alluringly simple. "You're so young."
"I'm old enough to know what I want." Her lips quirk up in a resigned smile. "And old enough to know better, too. Doesn't matter. Jennie, I'm not suggesting some big affair. Just—taking the edge off sometimes. That'll be…" She swallows. "That'll be enough."
The longer I look at her mouth, the more the pulse between my thighs is starting to feel like a living thing. I'm… Oh God. I'm getting wet.
"We shouldn't," I whisper.
Lisa's eyes get so hungry that I might as well be a field mouse while a hawk circles in the air. "We shouldn't," she agrees hoarsely. "You definitely shouldn't. You just can't help yourself, can you, Jennie?"
"Oh!" My right hand clutches at my collar. Where did all the air go?
"Want to set some terms?" Lisa's holding her hands down by her sides, but now she's the one fisting them, as if she's fighting not to reach out for me.
"Terms?" I croak.
"Yes. We need some, don't you think?" She blinks at me, almost innocently. "Some boundaries and rules."
Rules.
Her rules.
Heat swallows me whole at the thought. "What did you have in mind?"
"Well…you need to feel like you're not abusing your power. And I need to feel like I've got a handle on my—uh—" There's something Lisa's not saying. Her eyes are darting to the side again.
"On your what?"
Lisa sighs heavily. "On my life. I know you're my boss. These boundaries…they mean you're not my boss here. I'm not powerless. I get the final say."
She looks at me with a moment of such pure, honest vulnerability that my breath catches. Then the look is gone. Its wake leaves me with a stinging moment of regret for what, apparently, I can't have. But how could I protest terms like that? It's what someone puts on the table for the final offer. The other party can take it or walk.
She continues, "So…it's the same as last night. I touch you. You keep your hands to yourself." Her words begin to speed up. "I get what I need. And so do you."
"And what do I get?" I'm leaning forward, on tenterhooks to hear what Lisa's offering.
"You get eaten out within an inch of your life," Lisa says. "You think I made it good last night? You'll need to take a whole day off to recover from what I'm gonna to do you now."
"Oh." The word comes out of me in a groan while the ache between my thighs grows painful.
Lisa flushes. Her eyes sparkle with what must be triumph. She's got me, and she knows it. Nobody could resist her. It can't be possible.
"So…we, we have a deal?" My voice shakes too much.
The sparkle in Lisa's eyes turns to a downright voracious gleam. "Looks like we do. Sit down."
Pressure between my legs. I'm squeezing my thighs together. It doesn't help. "Here?"
"Everyone's gone home," she says. "Sana was packing up. Nobody else is here. Can you really wait for it?" Her eyes flash. "Can you wait to drive us to the hotel before I've got my mouth on you? Or would we just wind up doing it in the back seat of your car before we even make it out of the garage?"
What's that on the inside of my thigh? Is it…? It can't be. But it is. I'm dripping. I gasp.
"Go over there." Lisa nods at the chair.
Already, her demeanor has changed. She's standing up straight again, with her head tilted and a cool glint of command in her eyes. What had she just said? Something about wanting control back in her life, or—
Who cares what she said? I can't sort it out. I can barely take in the fact that my legs are carrying me toward my desk in abject obedience.
While I do that, Lisa heads to the door and locks it. Oh. I should have thought of that. Why is it impossible to think of anything?
I turn to the chair and prepare to sit, wondering yet again if this can really be happening. Before I can, though, Lisa says, "Stop! Take off your pants."
Oh. I look down at myself. Yes, I'm still wearing pants.
My hands reach for my belt buckle, and it's only when I pull the leather through the loop that I realize what I'm doing. Undressing for Lisa. I'm…stripping.
I stare at her, stricken, my hands frozen on my belt. She looks back, her face impassive but for the avid interest in her eyes. That's not enough. It can't convince me to strip for someone like this—I've never done this for any boyfriend, not even for either of my husbands. I've never put on a show. I'd feel so ridiculous.
Don't make me ridiculous, I plead as I look at Lisa. I can bear anything but that.
As always, she seems to read my mind. The interest never leaves her eyes, but rather burns hotter, becomes atavistic hunger.
"Have you ever undressed for anyone?" she asks. Then she frowns and holds up a hand. "No, don't answer. I don't want you to think about anyone else right now. Nobody but me, while you show me everything that's mine tonight."
My hands clamp down on my belt buckle again. "Everything that's yours?"
My tone is miraculously imperious. I hold my breath and am not disappointed when she raises one unimpressed eyebrow that thrills me from head to toe.
"Sure," she says. "Your whole body wants to be mine, Jennie. No matter what your brain says. Or mine," she adds, almost under her breath. "It told me that last night, and it's saying it again right now. So take off your pants."
It should be humiliating, being told my body cares about someone else's opinion more than it cares about mine. It is, a little. How can humiliation be a thrill, too?
I fight the urge to kick my shoes off in frustration. Instead, I toe out of them and nudge them away with my feet. Then I unbuckle my belt. I feel clumsy. Lisa should be undressing me instead. Her hands are dexterous. They'd strip me, bare my skin, caress me with such purpose.
"Look at me," she says.
I raise my head and look at her. God. She's like a different person than she was only moments ago, before I began undressing. Lisa looks like a lioness, both feral and self-satisfied in the prey she has before her.
"That's right," she whispers. "Keep going. Look at me."
Never looking away from her, I slide the belt through the loops and then wonder what to do with it. Roll it up neatly and place it on the desk? No. My arm moves of its own will, and I toss the belt to the side, where it coils through the air like a snake before clattering onto the floor.
"Oh, yeah." Lisa's eyes light up. "Perfect. That's how you do it."
Yes. Yes, I'm doing it perfectly. More eager now, I unbutton my pants and slide the zipper down as slowly as I can manage it, when all I want is to tear off my pants and underwear and let her do what she promised. Her breath catches. She's pleased again.
I fight not to smirk—she could turn the tables on me any moment if I did—and slide my pants down my hips. My slender build and careful diet certainly pay off in moments like this. My pants drop easily to the floor, leaving me exposed in my…
My face heats up. In my beige cotton underwear. At least it's a thong, to keep any unbecoming panty lines from showing. Nevertheless, it's not exactly La Perla.
"Holy fuck," she says hoarsely.
I blink. She's staring between my legs, right at the thong. I look down to see what's so fascinating about it, wondering if the cotton has transfigured into silk.
No such luck. It's done something far worse. The cotton has soaked through from my arousal. I gasp to see the wet spot forming—and, with Lisa's gaze burning right at it, it begins to grow as I get slicker still.
Instinctively, I try to cover myself, just as I did last night. I should have guessed Lisa would stop me: "No! Don't you dare hide."
My hands fist at my sides. I look at her, which takes a mighty effort. She's not looking back. She's still staring at the wet spot, and as she does, the tip of her soft, pink tongue licks her lips.
A noise. A groan. My groan.
"You want it so much," Lisa whispers. "So do I. Sit down, honey, and spread."
Honey? How dare she? I am going to reprimand that sort of cheek any moment now. Any moment after I sit down and feel the cool leather of my chair against my ass, left exposed by the thong. Any moment after I spread my legs.
"Wider," Lisa orders.
Any moment now, surely—after I spread my legs wider, enough to feel the stretch in my thighs. The wet cotton rubs against my aching flesh, and I arch my back helplessly.
"God," Lisa breathes. "Do you know what you look like? Legs spread for me, your panties wet, still all nice and buttoned up on top?"
I bite my bottom lip. More, say more. Do more.
Lisa seems to think for a moment, and then slowly unbuttons the first two…three…my God, four buttons of her dark blue blouse, a becoming shade that makes her skin glow.
I wait breathlessly for more, but she stops, saunters forward, and kneels in front of my chair. When she does, she parts the blouse enough for me to look down and see the line of her ample cleavage.
I whimper.
Lisa grins, Cheshire-like. Then she rises up on her knees so she can lean in and whisper in my ear again. I bite back a cry as she says, "I've got what you need."
"You…" My voice should have been razor sharp. It's not, and it peters out after the one word.
"We've got time." Lisa's murmur makes me quiver with every passing word. "There's no hurry."
There isn't? It certainly feels like there's a hurry. The ache between my thighs is almost a real pain now, an emptiness that's never begged so much to be filled.
"It's late. Everyone's gone home. It's not the middle of the day, when I'd have to make you leave your clothes on. We'd have to be fast then, Jennie. I'd just push this…"
She rests her hand on the waistband of my thong, only inches from where I need her most. Then she plucks it so it smacks against my skin.
"Push this little thing aside, not even take it off you." A rasp enters Lisa's whisper. "I'd have to push it aside just enough to finger you right here at your desk, make you come as fast as I could."
My head falls back against the seat as I cry out softly.
"But we've got time." Lisa kisses my throat again. "So you just let me do it slow."
Slowly, I'd correct, if I weren't throbbing from head to toe. Waiting is intolerable. "No—I—"
"No?" She presses another kiss beneath my ear. It's feather-light and yet lands against my good sense like a meteorite blasting through the atmosphere. "You're not going to let me do it nice and slow?"
She puts her hands on my naked thighs. I gasp. My hips are lifting, tilting forward.
"It'll be really good." Lisa's promise tickles beneath my ear with her breath. She brushes her fingertips over my belly, and I can't think anymore. Especially when she follows that light, tortuous touch with her lips.
"I can make you come so hard," she whispers. My breath sticks in my throat.
Then her teeth nip the skin beneath my navel—skin that has grown unmistakably softer and rounder over the years. Lisa nibbles it as if it's the most delicious feast she's ever tasted. Biting me at last.
My back arches as heat races from that single square inch of skin to tingle between my legs, in my nipples, in the pounding pulse of my throat. Lisa wants to eat me, I think, and the thought makes the ache inside me something closer to agony.
I can't help it. I'm pretty sure I mean to call on God. Instead, I hear my voice crying out: "Lisa!"
Lisa hisses against my skin, her breath cool against flesh she's made wet with her mouth. "You're already there, aren't you?" she whispers. She kisses where she nibbled me. "You're ready to…"
Instead of finishing, she slides her hand from my thigh to cover the soaked cotton of my panties. The heat and pressure make my hips jolt. Before I can scramble together one coherent thought, she presses down firmly with the heel of her palm.
I come. Sharp and sudden, just like that. A cry rips from my throat as I clench deep inside, hot spasms of pleasure that echo with my every heartbeat.
And they're not enough. When next I'm myself, there's a throb between my legs that tells me I'm anything but sated. There's room for embarrassment, too—I came at a speed that would put any teenaged boy to shame. What will she think of me?
I swat the thought away instantly before it can sting me like a horsefly. Lisa helps me banish it completely by pressing a tender kiss to the reddened patch of skin on my belly. "There now." She kisses me again and looks up at me with gleaming eyes. "Now we do it nice and slow."
What Lisa thinks of me doesn't matter. Nothing matters but this: the sight of her bending forward and pressing her face against the cotton that's plastered against me, inhaling as deeply as if it were the sweetest perfume.
"Oh, yes," she whispers. "No more fighting tonight, Jennie."
I groan something that sounds like agreement. She smiles. And before she destroys me completely, she bends her head and drops one kiss on each of my goosebumped knees, savoring the sound of my helpless moan.