Page 4 of Foreplay with the Boss

“Have a boyfriend?” I asked, assuming that was where she was going with this, and I didn’t want to care about the answer. I went after what I wanted, but I tried not to be a total asshole and go after women who were already taken. Although I might make an exception for Kat.

She looked at me like I might be crazy and then shook her head as a smile spread across her face. “No boyfriend. I just got into town, and my stay in Boston is temporary.”

Temporary. Music to my ears. Sure, I could call one of my usuals to scratch the itch taking over my body, but after my interaction with Kat, I worried no one else would cut it. I wanted to listen to her talk more. Wanted to see if she’d finish her sentences once she grew more comfortable. Of course, I also wanted to strip her naked and see if that blush traveled over her entire body. To leave her breathless enough that she wasn’t finishing her sentences for a whole other reason.

My stop was next, and I decided I needed to make this a done deal so I could clear my head of this woman and switch gears for the day. “I’m going to need your number so I can call you sometime.”

Her hand went to my knee when the train braked, and instead of pulling back, she used me to brace herself as we stopped. Then she glanced toward the door. “Crap, I don’t want to be late and have another fight with the door, but um, yeah. Call me sometime.”

“I’ll get it from you once I get you safely outside, then.” I slid my laptop in its bag, shouldered it, and took her hand. I had a feeling if I hadn’t cleared a pathway, she would’ve been the last off and end up in another fight with her purse and the train door. Once we were a few feet away from the door, I moved my hand to her back and then lifted my phone.

She rattled off her number, and I entered it into my cell. “Good luck with your job,” I said.

She grinned. “Thanks. At least the day started off good. After it was bad for a few minutes, but…anyway, you get my meaning.”

I nodded. My phone rang, bringing my time to indulge in Kat to a close—for now. With a wave, she darted off, and I answered my phone. Maybe if I put in even later hours than usual for a few days, I could clear enough time to take Kat to dinner.

And if things went well—and I’d make sure they would—back to my place.

CHAPTER 3

Kat

As luck would have it, I had enough time to get a cup of coffee, which I didn’t even spill on myself. I managed to burn my tongue badly enough that I wouldn’t be tasting anything for the rest of the day, but since the caffeine was working its way through my system, I was still considering it a win.

I ducked into the lobby bathroom for a quick check in the mirror—the hair hadn’t magically tamed itself and I used a damp paper towel to tame the stray eyeliner—but I was feeling more confident than I had when I’d left my cute little rental this morning. I didn’t want to be someone who relied on compliments from men to feel good about themselves, but it’d been a while since anyone had hit on me, and I’d never been hit on by someone who was hot enough to make the strictest nun reconsider her stance on men.

I hope he calls me.

It was a thought I didn’t expect to have so soon after my breakup from Neil. I fell fast and hard, so it was no surprise that I fell hard for the cute accountant who worked a couple buildings down from mine. In the end, I think what brought us down was my failure to communicate exactly what I wanted. Part of me thought he should just know, but I knew that was unfair. I wanted passion and fireworks, along with a strong sense of security, and my logical side told me that wasn’t a likely combo. I needed to choose one or the other. And I did, I chose security.

But our sex was whatever came before vanilla on the taste scale. It was like…tofu. You stuck it in your mouth and thought it should taste like something, but then you kept on chewing and realized it didn’t. It was flavorless and kind of had an icky texture that you didn’t care for.

That was my sex life with Neil (but with less chewiness, although the icky texture was definitely a factor. I know, TMI). Anyway, I’d tried to hint at what I wanted—I’d implied he could be rougher with me; that I wouldn’t mind if he was more dominant. Only I couldn’t just say “Be a man and give it to me rougher and harder” or “For the love of God, stop asking me if it’s okay every few minutes, because if you have to ask, it’s not great”— without offending him. Even non-tough guys took those kinds of requests as insults on their masculinity, no matter how nonexistent it was.

So I’d tried to show him the movies with my favorite racy sex scenes, and I even read a few of the steamiest chapters from the erotica novels on my Kindle. They sure turned him on, but after all that husky breathing and mediocre tent-pitching, he didn’t take any cues from the heroes in the novel. No, he asked me to be more like the heroines. I wanted to please him and take things to a more exciting level, so I’d give him the lengthy blow job detailed in the pages, and in return, he’d thrust three times and finish while I was nowhere close to finishing, or even enjoying the weak thrusts.

For the last ten months I’d suffered through that, telling myself that his good qualities were enough to overlook boring sex. It was entirely possible that those novels only gave me false expectations of what sex could be like, but I had a feeling that sex with Jameson would be more like chocolate covered cinnamon bears, spicy and delicious, and completely satisfying on every level.

I fanned myself, my internal temperature rising with sexy thoughts about the sexy guy on the train, but then I gave myself a mental shake. That was a for-later thought, when I was alone in my bed, working on relieving ten months of sexual frustration by giving myself the only kind of orgasms I’d ever had—ones from my vibrator.

Noting my flushed cheeks in the mirror, I placed my cool hands over them. Time to stop thinking like a deprived nympho and start thinking like a woman who’s ready to learn everything she needs to in order for people to take her seriously as a boss.

Lifting my chin, I strode out of the bathroom and over to the elevator. I had a new boss to impress. I hoped that if I could show him that I was smart and capable, it’d change his mind about whatever bias he already had against me. No matter how hard I worked, people would always whisper about how I only got my job because I was the boss’s daughter. While, yes, that certainly had something to do with it, I was at the top of my classes in high school and college, and I put in more hours than most anyone else in the Hartford office. My marketing ideas and knowledge of the target audiences was greater than most of theirs, too, even if I sometimes hesitated to speak up and give my ideas until I was alone with my dad in his office.

Stupid jerks, making me doubt myself. Maybe I didn’t strike fear in their hearts, but I’d tried to be encouraging and motivate them to do their best. Instead I got a lot of excuses and guys who interrupted and talked over me at meetings.

So many times I’d wanted to shoot out of my chair and tell them that I’d had the floor and they’d better not interrupt me again. I said it in my head quite a bit, but apparently that wasn’t a very effective method.

I’d considered going the voodoo doll route a few times. But that seemed too far, and even sadder, unlikely to give me the results I wanted.

Which landed me here in this building, sucking up my pride and giving myself over to the idea that I did need help to achieve my goals.

My stomach lifted along with the elevator, and as I neared the twenty-fifth floor, I told myself that I was going to give my all to learning the ropes from Mr. Stone, the guy who’d climbed through the ranks at what used to be Wright & Harris Advertising Firm in five short years. One year later, when their firm merged with my dad’s marketing company, Taylor-Made Marketing, to create what was now Craze Advertising and Marketing Firm, JT Stone landed the CEO position. A position he’d held for four years. I’d heard endless stats and facts on the guy whenever Dad made comparisons where I repeatedly came up short.

How when he entered a room, people naturally straightened and paid attention.

How he’d cut spending and increased profits. How he was going to make Craze one of the biggest firms in the country, just you watch.

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