Beautiful Bastard

My boss, Mr. Bennett Ryan. Beautiful Bastard. To get the job I wanted, my father always said I had to become irreplaceable to the man at the top. I'd certainly done that. I'd also developed a daily fantasy involving a roll of duct tape and his perfect, infuriating mouth. He was exacting, arrogant, and entirely evil, with a face any male model would kill for and hair the girls downstairs called “freshly fucked.” Our days were a battle of wills, a constant exchange of clipped tones and thinly veiled insults. I wore heels I used to consider circus height just to meet his condescending gaze. He, in turn, found new ways to make my life hell, punishing me for being one hour late by demanding a full mock board presentation by the end of the day.

He sat at the head of the long conference table, suit jacket off, sleeves rolled up his forearms, waiting for me. Dusk darkened the Chicago sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. I began my presentation, my voice steady, but my focus shattered the moment his hand pressed into the small of my back, sliding down to settle on the curve of my ass. Every muscle in my body tensed. My brain screamed at me to shove him away, but my body had other ideas. “Turn around, Miss Mills,” he whispered, his voice quiet and rough. I turned slowly, his hand sliding to my hip, his thumb stroking my skin. His fingers slipped beneath the hem of my skirt, tracing the strap of my garter belt. I sucked in a sharp breath. He found the edge of my panties, pushed a finger inside me, and growled, “Fuck. You're wet.”

I despised this man, but my body betrayed me, craving more. I grabbed his silk tie and pulled his mouth to mine. His lips were as perfect as they looked. In a flurry of torn buttons and frantic hands, he lifted me onto the cold table, his touch rough and demanding. These weren't the gentle caresses I was used to; this was a man who took what he wanted. He drove into me, hissing through clenched teeth, “Never been fucked like this before, have you?” When he pulled out just before I came, I thought he would leave me there, until he yanked me up, pressing me against the cold glass of the window overlooking the city. “You love that all of Chicago can look up here and see you,” he murmured, his teeth grazing my ear. My orgasm crashed over me, leaving me gasping against the glass. But when he demanded I make him feel good, I stood, pulled my ruined blouse together, and walked out, leaving him with his pants around his ankles.

Christ. I am so fucking screwed. For nine months, I'd been consumed by fantasies of someone I didn't even want. Well, that wasn't true. I wanted her more than any woman I'd ever seen. The problem was, I also hated her. And she hated me, too. When she walked into the office the next morning, ignoring me completely in a white dress that was the bane of my existence, I knew I'd lost control. It only took a crumpled receipt for her ruined blouse to send us into the stairwell, her body pressed against the wall, my fingers buried inside her. “Get your cock out,” she'd ordered. “I need to feel you in me. Now.” But just as I came hard inside her, I pulled out, leaving her gasping and furious. “What goes around comes around,” I'd smirked, dropping her shredded panties into my desk drawer to join the pair from the night before.

Our war escalated, moving from the office to an elevator - where I covered the security camera with a sticky note before ripping off another pair of her impossibly expensive panties - to a fitting room at La Perla, where the sight of us in the full-length mirror drove us both to a frenzied, silent climax. But the game changed when my mother insisted on setting Chloe up with an old family friend. The thought of another man touching her, of her smiling at someone else, ignited a possessive rage I didn't know I had. At a family dinner, I watched her flirt with him, her foot secretly stroking my cock under the table. It ended with me following her to a third-floor bathroom, her back pressed against my chest as we watched her date on the patio below. “Look at him,” I growled in her ear, my fingers sliding inside her. “Does he make you feel like this?” When my sister-in-law, Mina, found us in the hall afterward, flushed and disheveled, the consequences of our recklessness finally crashed down. “It was a mistake,” I heard myself say, the lie tasting like ash in my mouth.

Our truce came in a hotel room in San Diego. After weeks apart, the tension between us was a living thing, a raw nerve. “Give me all of you for one night, no holding back,” I begged, and she did. For the first time, there was no anger, only a desperate, consuming need. We stayed in bed for hours, our bodies tangled, the air thick with unspoken things. I learned that she'd never had an orgasm before me. I learned the shape of her body in the morning light. I learned I was falling for her. But when I was forced to miss a meeting, and she stepped in to handle it flawlessly, my old instincts took over. To an old colleague, I heard myself dismiss her work as a mere “exercise,” calling her a “great kid” who needed “seasoning.” I saw the exact moment her heart broke, the light in her eyes extinguishing as she overheard every condescending word.

She resigned the day we returned to Chicago. The silence in the office was a gaping wound. For two months, she was a ghost, refusing my calls, my emails, my apologies. The world turned gray. I lost weight, drank too much scotch, and alienated my family. Finally, on the day of her final presentation to her scholarship board, I cornered her in a conference room minutes before she was to begin. She looked like hell, and I knew I was the reason. I handed her the completed presentation for the multi-million dollar account she'd left behind. “This is your work,” I told her. “I need you to take these slides. And I need you to take me back.”

She stared at me, her eyes filled with a familiar fire I'd desperately missed. She presented her own work - a brilliant, clever campaign for a small pet food company - and blew the board away. But she used my handouts as a supplement, a quiet acknowledgment of what we'd built together. After, when the room was empty, she walked toward me, a slow, dangerous smile on her face. “I'm not your intern anymore,” she said, slipping her hands under my jacket. “No,” I agreed. “You're my colleague.” I leaned in, my voice dropping. “And my lover?” She pulled me closer, her body a perfect fit against mine. “Yes.” It was a breath, a promise. “But I love you,” I finally admitted, the words feeling more real than anything I'd ever said. “And I'm on a first-name basis now with most of the sales staff at La Perla.” A laugh burst from her, bright and clear. “Sold,” she said, pulling my mouth to hers. “Shut up and kiss me.” I did. “Yes, boss.”