mature content ahead

KIMBERLY

—in fact—wake up on time.

I am not a morning person. I never was a morning person. I will never be a morning person.

Jace came knocking on my door approximately twelve minutes past eight to yell at me for not being up yet. With a snarky "I'm up!," I proceeded to get ready for the day.

After doing my morning routine—albeit faster than I normally do—I dressed myself in a deep red lace bustier top with a matching oversized red suit jacket and dress pants. I slipped on my black red-bottoms and made my eye to his car with two minutes to spare.

It was a talent.

"I don't even want to know how you manage to do that," he muttered, handing me a bag and cup of coffee.

"Do what?" I took a look inside to see a familiar almond croissant. How did he know where to get my favorite croissants?

"Look like that."

"Well, almost twenty-six years ago, my mom and dad decided to procreate," I quoted one of our past conversations.

"And then the world went to shit," he muttered.

"Fuck you."

"I know you want to."

He had me there.

Ignoring him, I took a bite out of the croissant and let out a moan. If there was one pastry I could eat forever and never get sick of, it would be this damn croissant from Bean There. When Vivian, him, and I first found the cafe in high school, it wasn't that well-known.

Over the years, it gained more popularity considering how often we went there, but it was still under-the-radar, for the most part. Thankfully, people were more interested in photographing me coming out of a club or bar rather than a cafe.

"Do you always moan when you eat?" Jace asked with a slight strain in voice.

"When the food's worth it, yes," I replied, looking in his direction. Damn, someone's turned on. "My moans do that to you? I can give you roadhead to make it better." Intrusive thoughts for the win.

He groaned with annoyance and arousal, "Jesus, woman."

"What? It was just an offer." I shrugged innocently. "How do you even know about Bean There?"

"It was the first cafe I went to when I moved to New York," he gave me a legitimate answer for once. "I figured it was good, so I kept going."

"Good?" I practically shrieked. "Bitch, this shit's heavenly!"

He gave me one of those looks and kept driving. I didn't mind because it gave me more time to fawn over this piece of heaven in my hands. It was the perfect balance of flaky and decadent with just the right amount of almonds. The light dusting of powdered sugar on top was the cherry on top.

In other words, this was worthy of a chef's kiss.

After about fifteen minutes, we were parked in the company's parking garage and Jace wordlessly came over to my side to open the door. We walked through the front door and I waved to Zina before following him to the elevator.

Whether or not it was a blessing that there were other people in the elevator was a question I contemplated on the entire way up. We got off on the right floor, but I immediately noticed a missing presence.

"Where's Savannah?" I asked.

Jace didn't even space a glance in my direction. "She starts her day at nine-fifteen."

"Why are you here thirty minutes before her?" Since Savannah was his assistant/secretary, it was normally customary for her to be here before him.

He opened his office door and gestured for me to go inside. "Theoretically, I should be starting my day at nine-thirty, but I like getting to the office earlier. I didn't feel the need to subject her to the same ideology."

"But, you had no issue making me come in this early?"

"No, wife."

"So," I trailed off, sauntering over to where he was sitting behind his desk. "Do you need a recount of the last time it was just the two of us up here?"

The anger I felt towards him subsided when the sobriety started kicking in. I felt a blind rage towards everything but focused it on him since he was the most recent part of my life that threw me off.

It was impossible to stay mad at him after learning about everything he did for my family when I failed them... after everything he did for me when I raged against him.

He made it so hard to keep my feelings in check.

His eyes darkened, following the movement of my body as I took off the suit jacket to show off the bustier. Coming up behind his chair, I lowered my face so my lips were just an inch away from his neck.

From the corner of my eye, I could see his Adam's apple bobbing. "Do you think it's possible for me to forget?"

Smirking, I trailed my lips against his neck and was about to place a kiss when he grabbed me by the waist and into his lap with my legs straddling him. "Shouldn't you be working?" I teased.

"I'll work when I want to work." With that, he pulled me closer with his large hands against my spine. He began ravishing my neck and exposed chest with open-mouth kisses. This man had a strange fascination with my chest.

I certainly didn't blame him by the way I laced my fingers through his hair, pulling him closer. I needed this. I needed to get laid.

By the way he was aggressively sucking on my skin, I knew I would have hickeys that would be both difficult to explain and cover. But, at the moment, I couldn't care less. There was something so animalistic and hot about how he was kissing my skin.

A sharp gasp left my mouth when his tongue started tracing the edge of the lace. It was followed by a loud moan when that blessed tongue slid between the fabric and the skin of my breast, grazing my sensitive nipple.

Jace looked me in the eye as he nudged the fabric down with his chin before taking my nipple into his mouth, pulling it with his teeth until it was borderline painful. "Jace..."

My breaths were turning into soft moans as pleasure coursed through me. He was so good with his mouth...

"Shut up," he muttered, soothing the skin with his warm tongue.

I was able to snap back, but the cool wood of his table hit my exposed skin. I didn't even realize we moved.

With his rough—thank you, American football—hands, Jace pushed down the fabric before cupping both of my exposed breasts.

I probably looked insane with my hair sprawled over the desk and sex-crazed eyes, but the way he was looking at me would make you think I was the most beautiful woman on this planet. He muttered something inaudible before palming my tits, pulling and rubbing my nipples.

Jace swooped down, taking my other tit into his mouth. Subconsciously, my hands pulled at his hair as my legs came around his burly waist. A whimper escaped me when he stopped sucking on my breast and moved up to my ear.

"Who's the only one allowed to suck on these?" he asked, his hands coming back up to massage my breasts.

"You," I moaned when his teeth clamped down on my earlobe. "Fuck."

"That's right, wife." He continued sucking on the sensitive spot under my ear, his hands moving to push my legs closer together around him.

There was something so fervid and ardent about the way he was touching me. Two months of pent up sexual tension between us was making it hard for me to focus on anything else but how good he felt around me.

Realizing that he's touched me more intimately than I ever got to touch him, my hands unwound themselves from his soft hair and trailed down the hard planes of his abdomen, desperate to know how they'd feel under the shirt.

Pulling at the black dress shirt, I finally untucked them from his pants, my hands moving under the fabric with a newfound rigor. Fuck. My fingers traced over each of his individual abs, mentally counting the hard muscles.

One... two... three... four... fix... six...

A knock suddenly sounded at the door.

Fuck. I haven't finished counting.

From the looks and sounds of it, Jace was hoping I'd finish counting too.

We both looked forward to the door before I pushed him off of me, to which I received an infamous glare. "Who is it?" he called out, moving so I could get out from under him.

I adjusted the straps of my top and tried fixing my hair to the best of my ability when a sad voice replied, "Jace... I kinda need a hug."

Savannah?

The girl opened the door and entered the room shaking with... tears?

In the time that I've known her, I've only ever seen her sad once, but even then, she picked herself back up in less than thirty seconds. So, I never even imagined she knew how to cry. And, given the way Jace reacted, he didn't know she could either.

"Savannah, what's wrong?" I asked. She suddenly dropped to the floor, crying harder as I rushed over to her.

Jace trailed after me, unable to put a stop to his shock and speak.

"She... she... she... she cheated on me," Van barely got the words out through the sobs. "I saw her kissing another guy. A guy she told me she's just friends with."

My husband muttered 'I knew it', which was followed by a deathly glare I shot in his direction. I sat on the ground and pulled the crying ray-of-sunshine in my arms, putting her head against my chest as I stroked her hair.

Vivian and my mom always did that to me when I cried, so I was hoping—practically praying—that it would have the same soothing effect on her. "Savannah, honey, there's no one on this planet who's worthy of these tears. You deserve so much better than her."

"I should've known," she cried harder, the tears making their way down my chest. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cry all over you."

"Let it all out."

And she did.

She stayed in that position for a good five minutes, crying her heart out. Jace, from my side, tried comforting her, but the jerk didn't know how. What was supposed to be soothing words came out like sharp commands to stop crying.

I still stroked her hair as the tears came to a stop. "You have really soft boobs," she whispered sadly.

Unable to hold it in, I started shaking with laughter. "Thank you, babe. Do you feel any better?"

"Yeah," she sounded so defeated and so unlike her. "A little bit."

Van picked up her head from my chest and I held onto her shoulders to look her in the eye. "I want you to take the day off and relax. I'm here and more than happy to cover for you. So, do whatever you feel like doing besides crying over someone who doesn't deserve it. Got it?"

She numbly nodded and got up to her feet. Wordlessly, Jace opened his arms out to her and pulled her into a tight hug. He really did love her like a little sister.

Savannah released herself from his arms and made her way to the door before turning around to look at us.

"Did I interrupt you two doing the nasty?"

♕♕♕

After Savannah left, Jace and I took turns using the bathroom to make ourselves look presentable again.

His neck was a little stained from my red lips, but he looked fine otherwise.

I, on the other hand, looked like I was mauled by a rabid animal on my neck. There were hickeys all over my chest and neck. I was going to kill him. My suit jacket did practically nothing to cover them up.

My eyes flitted down to the necklace around my neck, guilt coming up my throat.

I was going to throw up.

Stop thinking about him right now. Nothing good will come out of that.

Fixing my hair and makeup, I left the bathroom, spotting Jace working behind his desk. How could he go back to working right now? But I couldn't tell if I was seriously turned on by his work ethic or insulted that I wasn't distracting him.

"Do you have any extra clothes here?" I asked, looking around the room for storage of some sort.

"I don't," he looked up, his eyes had a prideful glint as he took in my current state. "But, Van might have something she forgot to return in her desk."

Men...

Nodding, I head outside the office and quickly search the girl's desk for something to wear. Savannah was definitely curvier than I was, so I was hoping to find something that would fit me, but God was really not on my side.

I pulled out a black turtleneck that looked like it would fit Audrey more than me.

Fuck me.

Without sparing him another glance, I rushed to the bathroom and attempted to put the shirt on. I took the bustier off and painstakingly pulled the shirt down. It barely made its way over my tits and stuck to me like a second skin.

Stuffing my previous top into my bag, I took a look in the mirror and cursed at how prominent my nipples were through the top. Yes, it covered my neck and almost all of the hickeys, but at what cost?

This is what I get for being horny.

I exited the bathroom and glared at Jace's amused expression. "Don't say a word," I commented as he stared at my chest.

Grabbing Savannah's company laptop, I settled across from Jace and gave him a rundown about his schedule for the day. Most people would be offended if they went from being a CEO-candidate to secretary/assistant, but I loved the work equally.

Just how doctors can't function without nurses, administratives can't function without the support system they have through assistants and secretaries.

"You don't have to do her job," Jace looked up at my working figure. "I can handle it. It's not the first time I've had to work without her."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

'Savannah has endometriosis, so she gets really shitty period cramps," he began explaining. "On the days that it's especially bad, I normally send her home and get food delivered to her apartment."

There was no doubt that my face betrayed the shock I was feeling. Ash grew up surrounded by women, so it was understandable that he would talk about periods like they were normal. But all the other men in my life talked about it like it's some sort of witch's curse.

Seeing a man before me talk about it so easily was alarming.

Why did this make him so much hotter?

"Don't look so shocked," Jace snorted. "I grew up with a single mother. I had to run to the store to get pads more times than I can count. Plus, Emre grew up with five sisters and the ass never bothered learning about types of flow or the difference between pads and tampons, so I had to buy shit for them too."

"Aren't you such a doting son and friend?" I fake cooed, laughing when he rolled his eyes. "To answer your question, it's fine. I like working."

With a slight nod, he went back to the papers on his desk.

♕♕♕

We spent the next few hours working together. He would go to meetings and I would type up any notes from the other assistants in attendance. I would rather chop my feet off than see any of the people who had a hand in making the decision that fucked me over.

Jace was in the middle of another meeting when my phone pinged with a business news alert.

LAURENT-SHAW INC.'S HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF PARIMANA GROUP"

Oh no. This was very bad. Parimana Group was one of the companies Kingston Industries has been working with to cut a deal for a smooth acquisition. If they got taken over by Laurent, we were literally fucked.

I didn't even know that Laurent knew about our company's desire to acquire the smaller group. If anything, to my knowledge, only the top administrators knew.

Within a few seconds, Jace burst through the door and I knew he found out about the hostile takeover too. But, what I didn't expect was Dad and Alex to follow behind him.

Dad looked at me in shock, indicating that Jace did not tell him about my presence in the office. "Kim..."

There was a tenderness to his voice that I haven't heard in so long. I didn't realize how badly I missed it until I saw the matching expression on his face. "Hey, Dad." I waved awkwardly.

Alex, on the other hand, came over to wrap me up in one of his fatherly hugs. "It's good to see you again, Kimmy. We were all worried sick."

Guilt, for what seemed like the millionth time, climbed up my throat. Not only did I not know how to respond to that without lying or using sarcasm, but I didn't want to respond to that.

Thankfully, Jace changed the center of focus back onto Laurent. "The company should be fine for now, thanks to the alliance. I was planning for Laurent to pull this shit, albeit not this soon and not with Parimana, but I have a deal planned out with key foreign businesses. We're going to focus on formalizing everything soon."

It was at this moment I was glad I didn't have a dick because I had a major lady-boner right now.

Nothing turns me on faster than a man with a modicum of intelligence. But, there was something that didn't sit quite right with me about the entire situation. My mind was still fixated on how Nathan Laurent even knew about Parinama.

"Sounds good," Dad replied with a curt nod, avoiding eye contact with me now. Ever since Jace took over as the official CEO, Dad stayed on as an advisor and was formally appointed to the Board of Directors.

I forgot Alex was even there until he said, "Is something on your mind, Kimmy?"

"Huh?" My head shot up at the question directed towards me. "I was just thinking."

"About?" Jace asked, sounding genuinely curious. It's been a while since someone actually valued my opinion, especially when they saw me at one of my lowest points.

But there was still a part of me that was so used to being brought down that I didn't know how to articulate my thoughts without the fear of being dismissed.

"It's nothing," I started, giving into my insecurities. Jace replied with a 'try me' look and I suddenly felt obligated to give my two-cents. "How did the ass even know about Parimana? To my knowledge, no one but the top admin knew."

"That," Jace replied, hunching over the desk, "is what I'm trying to figure out."

But, there was something in his eyes. A thought that no one wanted to voice aloud.

There's a high chance we had a traitor in our midst.

***

dun, dun, dunnn.

any guesses who?

love, zia.