Bewitching the Boss by Jessa Kane
Five
Jane
“Could you move the tree a little to the right?” I wait for the maintenance technician to shuffle the potted foliage a few centimeters, leaning back to inspect its symmetry with the rest of the room. “Perfect.”
I reach up to adjust the string of orange and white lights hanging in the “haunted” tree, then turn to survey the rest of the room. The Firestarter Halloween party is just over a week away and we’re already halfway through decorating the warehouse space I found. We currently have the overhead halogens off so I can get the full effect of the purple and orange lighting that will run throughout the room. Tables are being positioned strategically, the bar stocked, the crime scene arranged.
It’s coming together beautifully.
Byron will be pleased with me.
Hope and yearning and obsession join forces inside of my chest, expanding, causing me to lose my train of thought along with my breath. Yes, more than anything in this world, I want that man to be happy with my efforts here. I want him to smile and enjoy himself—two things he hasn’t done in far too long.
Except for yesterday.
I succeeded in giving him enjoyment outside the coffee shop, our bodies plastered together, soaked in rain. So much enjoyment that I can still feel the deliciously large shape of him inside me twenty-four hours later. Can still feel his fingers digging into my buttocks, his staccato breaths on my neck. Is it way too much to hope for that I’m having a positive effect on Byron? That I’m nudging him back toward the living where he belongs? Because that was my plan. I wanted to show him it was okay to live again. In the light.
Not to drag him into the darkness.
And I’m afraid that might be what I’m doing, instead.
Making him call me names, begging him to shame me, like I deserve. I deserve to be shamed for what I’ve done. But he’s too good a man for that, right? I can’t turn him into a twisted root like me. My fear that I’m going to drag him with me into the pitch black is why I haven’t answered his calls for the last day. So many calls. Every time I let my phone ring without picking up, it’s like a knife rotating in my belly. I didn’t even allow myself to watch him swim this morning and it’s had me off kilter all day.
Rubbing at the ache in my throat, I find a place away from the noise so I can make a phone call to the caterers. But before I can dial, a door opens on the other side of the venue—and in walks Byron.
His sudden presence screams through me like screeching tires.
I drop my clipboard. Almost sink straight to the ground.
What is he doing here?
Does he want to check on the progress of the party or is he here to see me?
Yesterday morning I would have cried tears of joy if this man wanted to be around me, spend time with me, but now? As he strides toward me with a purposeful set to his chin, I worry for him. He doesn’t know what he’s getting into. I just wanted to make up for what I’d done by showing him some pleasure, some happiness, but I’m not the woman for the job. I’m going to turn him into something that he’s not, all because I’m broken and wrong.
“Jane,” he says, as he reaches me, the sound of his voice washing over me like a warm waterfall, even though it’s strained. Impatient. “I was hoping I’d find you here.” His gaze travels down to my toes, up my legs, hips, breasts, returning to my face with significantly more heat. “Can we talk somewhere privately?”
Yes.
I want to crawl to him. Tell him I’ll follow him anywhere.
But I can’t forget that frisson of alarm I felt yesterday, after we made love. This isn’t a man who needs to feel jealousy. This isn’t a man who is intimate in public or calls his bed partner a whore. Or a slut. And yes, I loved it. I love him calling me those names. I begged him to. It makes me feel naughty and hot. Like I was built with one purpose—his pleasure. But it also gives me the punishment, the shame I deserve, and he doesn’t even know he’s delivering it. That isn’t fair. I’m not being fair by seeking that glorious humiliation from him.
He should be with someone who is mentally healthy.
I’d probably murder her in her sleep, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
Being alone with him could prove dangerous, as much as I crave it. He’s my boss, though, at least for now. What choice do I have but to risk speaking privately with him?
“Sure.” I stoop down to pick up my clipboard and hear Byron hiss a breath, probably because he can see down the front of my dress. Against my better judgment—of which I am in very short supply these days—I allow myself a few seconds to linger. To savor the sensation of his eyes caressing my breasts, pushed up in their red satin bra. My attention drifts to his lap, to the growing bulge there, and I straighten once more with a pulse pounding between my legs. “We can talk outside.”
“Great,” he rasps, swallowing. “Lead the way.”
We walk through the sea of movement, through workers arranging partitions, foliage and lights, exiting through a side door. As soon as we’re outside and the exit door closes behind us, Byron has me in his arms, his mouth moving over mine in a frenzy. Once again, my clipboard clatters to the ground and I kiss him back, desperate. So desperate. His taste travels through me like a drug, enlivening my system, my nerve endings. Big hands find my hips, quickly dropping lower to slide up beneath the hem of my dress, running over my outer thighs, scraping up my buns and clutching them tight. “Byron,” I whimper, words getting stuck in my throat. Tell him who you are. Stop deceiving him.
“Why haven’t you been answering my calls?” He backs me further into the shadows, breathing heavily against my lips. “Did I not…was it not good for you yesterday?”
I’m almost too stunned to respond. “Not good for me? You are…it w-was heaven.”
His eyelids drift closed in his relief. “It was heaven for me, too, Jane.” He rolls his forehead against mine. “I want to go back there. I need you.”
There is no way, not a single chance, that I can say no to Byron when he says I need you. He’s my world, my infatuation, the very breath in my lungs. My conscience is being drowned out by the utter bliss it gives me to hear him admit he needs me out loud. “Then take me.” I hold on to his shoulders and wrap my legs around his waist, slowly rubbing my sex on his erection, purring against his parted lips. “Hard as you want, baby.”
He moans, the sounds stuttered by panting breaths. And he tilts his hips upward, biting his lip as I give him a standing lap dance. “Fuck, that’s good.”
“It’s even better inside,” I whisper, grinding, licking at his mouth.
“Yes. It will be.” His swallow is audible, regret stealing across his features suddenly. “But it’ll have to be after I take you to lunch.”
Confusion punches a hole in my lust. “Lunch? What do you mean?”
“I made reservations for lunch. You and me.” He slides his fingers into my hair, holding my head steady so he can peruse me. A moment passes while he searches for words. “When you left yesterday, I realized I didn’t know where you lived. I didn’t know if you were upset. Or scared. And I had no way of finding out. I’d just…those things I said to you, I needed to care for you afterward and I couldn’t do that. I haven’t felt fucking complete since you walked away.”
My mouth won’t move. Words won’t come out. I’ve never felt more exposed, more vulnerable in my life. What is happening here? “S-so you want to take me to lunch a-and comfort me?”
“Yeah. Is that crazy?” His lopsided smile almost causes my heart to detonate. “I want to know everything about you, Jane.” His entire body seems to flex, his upper lip stiff when he says, “Everything.”
Oh God.
This is even worse than I thought.
I am deceiving this man. I am turning him into a twisted mess, like me.
And he wants to give me legitimacy.
Wants to take me out on a date, maybe even wants me to be his girlfriend. Lord, the very idea of that is intoxicating. A dream I never thought could really come true.
It’s further proof that he’s too kind, too honorable for me.
“No.” I drop my legs from around his waist, stepping away on shaky ground. “I have a lot of work to do here, Byron. And…” My hands wring together, misery lancing me in the side. “And I just don’t think that it’s a good idea. I’m not looking for anything serious.”
Liar. You would throw yourself in front of a bullet for him.
It doesn’t get more serious.
Byron’s brows draw together above the black frames of his glasses, as if he’s going through a math problem, looking for where he made a mistake. And he doesn’t find one. “You’re not looking for anything serious?” he repeats, his skepticism obvious. “Don’t lie to me, Jane. You show up in my regular coffee shop, hoping to see me. To fuck me up and make me crazy. Right? You kiss me like you’d rather die than stop for a breath.”
“Listen to what you’re saying. I showed up in your neighborhood to make you crazy. Make you need me. Do you think that’s normal? Do you think that’s healthy?”
“No. Probably not.” He backs me further into the shadows, his shoulders blocking everything behind the building. Trees, the sun. “Is it healthy that I edged myself all night thinking of you, stroking right until I couldn’t take anymore, then stopping? Refusing the come unless it’s in your sweet little pussy?” He takes a deep breath, his pupils dilating, chest heaving. “Is it healthy that I offered free software to your company so I can install spyware on your computer? To watch what you’re doing and who you’re speaking with? Sent the proposal this morning. So yeah…” My back hits the wall and he leans down, pressing his mouth to the leaping pulse at the base of my neck. “You’ve fucked me up and made me crazy. Now you’re going to live with the consequences.”
Dizziness rocks me. Is this really happening? He’s…stalking me now? My body is flooded with ecstasy, so heavy I can barely remain upright. I could sink, sink, sink into this and never come up for air. I could addict him to me, same as I’m addicted to him, but no. No, I can’t do that to this beautiful human whose life I helped turn upside down. I’ve done enough to wreck his existence, I can’t engage him in this sick, filthy co-dependency. When he tries to flatten me against the wall, I stave him off with two hands to the chest. “Byron, listen to me. You can still get out of this without being ruined.”
“No, I can’t,” he says without hesitation, raking his mouth through my hair. “I’m already ruined and I like it. So I’m taking you to lunch, understand? Before I fuck you again and call you those names that make your pretty young cunt dripping wet, I’m going to make sure you know I respect you. You want to be my whore in bed, that’s fine. I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t make me hard. But when we’re not in bed, you need to know you’re my princess. All right?”
Grief almost cracks me wide open. “But I’m not a princess.”
I’m a murderer.
Indirectly, at least.
I was in the car that hit and killed his sister. I should have been more insistent that my friend call an Uber. He could still have his sister if I’d been more responsible. Now I’m going to obsess this man to the point of madness, that way I’m obsessed with him?
It’s reprehensible.
“You’re my princess,” he says, leaning down to kiss my mouth slowly, thoroughly, a groan building deep inside his chest. “The sweetest, most beautiful one there is. And I need to know you. I need to fucking consume you.”
What else can I do but nod and let him suck a red mark onto my neck, my core tugging anxiously in response? What does a girl do when the object of her obsession offers her everything? A fortune beyond her wildest dreams? Answer: She can’t do anything but nod, letting her body go pliant against him, nearly in a faint. She makes a sobbing sound and lets him pick her up, cradle her protectively and carry her to his waiting Tesla. She tries to tell herself he’ll get over the infatuation soon. That she won’t ruin him completely.
And she’ll know she’s dead wrong.
* * *
Byron bringsme to lunch at a private club. I’ve never been here, nor did I know it existed. He holds my hand on the way through a shaded courtyard, through a fence and into a stately looking brick building. An older gentleman in a suit greets us just inside the door and without a word, he guides us through a lounge area complete with billiard tables, low lighting and a smattering of members on their laptops. We’re brought to a small, intimate dining room located downstairs in a wine cellar. A table has been set up with white linens, candles, a bottle of wine.
Byron DeWitt arranged this lunch for me.
He came to my job and carried me here, refusing to take no for an answer. And now he’s holding a chair for me, looking for all the world like he can barely contain his hunger long enough to make it through this meal.
“On second thought.” He shoves the chair back into place and crosses to his own, sitting down and crooking a finger at me. “You’ll sit with me. Come here.”
Oh my God. I’m going to hyperventilate.
“It’s too much,” I rasp, hot shivers raking up and down my arms.
He watches me steadily, unblinking. “What is too much?”
“You being like this.” Like me.But out in the open.
“Do you want me to restrain it?” he asks. “This way you’ve made me feel about you?”
“No, I want it to run loose. That’s the problem.”
“You’re too late to stop it, Jane.” He’s breathing hard. “Come sit down.”
My mind is usually a palace of intensity, but it never spreads into real life. It feels like I’m living in one of my fantasies. It can’t be a dream, though. Everything is real. The smooth linen tablecloth beneath my fingertips, the glare of sunlight bouncing off the drinking glasses, the distant crack of billiard balls hitting each other. And Byron’s arm when it comes up and locks around my hips, drawing me backward, down possessively into his lap—that is very real.
“You’re a lot different than the first time I met you,” I whisper, exhaling tremulously when his mouth drags across the bare slope of my shoulder. “You were shy then. A little clumsy.” From behind, his teeth rake my neck and I gasp. “This is far from clumsy.”
His mouth pauses against my skin. “When I saw that man speaking to you in the coffee shop, something changed in me. I realized…you have options.” He grips my knee hard. “Eliminating those options is taking up all of my concentration. I don’t have room for shy. I can’t be self-conscious when all of my focus is going toward not eating you alive. Yet.”
“Yet?”
The way he hums in my ear makes my core clench. “I told you, I’m not getting physical with you again until we separate real life and…”
“Play time?” I offer in a thready breath, my eyes barely able to stay open, I’m so overcome simply by having this intimate conversation with him. Being held by my Byron.
The waiter arrives and pours us both a glass of red wine. He doesn’t seem to register or care that I’m sitting on Byron’s lap or that Byron’s hand is partially hidden beneath my dress. He simply takes our order for red snapper and risotto, leaving the way he came through the gleaming wood paneled wall.
“Yeah. Play time,” he answers me, picking back up with our earlier conversation. A moment passes while he seems to be thinking. “I need to know that when I call you those names, Jane, that I’m not…prodding at any damage inside of you. That I’m not making it worse without even realizing it.”
“You’re not,” I say quickly. Too quickly. Thank God he can’t see my face. The flush that spreads up to my hairline is telling. But telling how? There’s a sense of foreboding inside of me and I’m not sure what it’s warning me about. “It might not be typical for a girl to l-like that sort of thing in bed. But it’s not that odd. Is it?”
He huffs a laugh. “You’re asking me? I have no idea. I only know you.” His hand moves higher beneath my dress, his thumb brushing across the mound of my sex. “You’re all I want to know. So talk to me.”
“I don’t know what you want to hear.” The table and everything on top of it blurs in front of me. “I’ve had a perfectly normal life. Mostly. My father was in the military so we moved around a lot. He was gone most of the time. My mother, though? She was an interesting character. A former pageant girl turned makeup sales lady. From the time I was a child, she just focused on grooming me for marriage. Taught me to cook and clean and sew and how to make small talk. Everything was about getting a good man. ‘Find yourself a good man, Jane.’” Lost in the memories, I shrug a shoulder, sighing when he settles his mouth against it. Just listening. “One day, my aunt showed up at my front door. I’d never met her. She and my mother had been in a huge fight before I was born and decided not to speak again. And there was this ten-minute window where my mother was inside cleaning furiously—God forbid her long-lost sister see a speck of dust in our house. I was left outside with my aunt. My unmarried aunt who told me about her adventures while we waited. Dancing in clubs in Vegas, hang gliding in Wyoming, surfing in Florida. And it sounded a lot better than being married and having to live in the same house, on the same block, cleaning and doing laundry forever. So…I rebelled. I rebelled against my mother for years. For the most part, I wanted nothing to do with the opposite sex. I just wanted to dance and party and be free of responsibility and then…”
My throat cinches up like I’m being choked.
“Then what?” Byron prompts me, stroking a hand down the back of my hair.
“One bad decision,” I breathe, feeling like a fraud. A liar. Oh God, I have no right to be sitting on this man’s lap, being treated to this thoughtful lunch. How did it get this far? How did I get so close to Byron? I never expected my affection to be returned, not in the slightest. Every moment I spend with him now is a deception and he deserves so much better than that. If he knew what I’d done, he’d hate me. I’m terrified to see that hatred on his face. Petrified of how it would ruin me. Break me.
I’ll never be able to leave him alone completely, but I need to go back to the shadows, where I belong.
“I have to go,” I say.
His arm tightens around my waist, pulling me back more fully against his chest, bringing my feet up off the floor. “You don’t have to tell me about your bad decision, Jane. Not until you’re ready.” He kisses my neck. “I’m sure your bad decision has nothing to do with how we make love and that is what we’re here to untangle first.”
Oh, but my bad decision has a lot to do with how we make love.
Byron worries that calling me names and shaming me is unhealthy. Or that he’s encouraging something damaged inside of me to grow. And he is. But it feels so good. It feels like exactly what I deserve and need. It’s like going to confession and receiving my penance, leaving with a sense of temporary relief. The difference is that I’ll never truly be absolved of the sin I’ve committed. Not even if I go to confession by partaking in Byron’s body every day for a million years. And I’m pulling him into this black despair with me. Making him an unwitting part of my self-loathing. It’s wrong. I can’t do it.
Giving in to physical desire with Byron was one thing.
Being spoiled at a private club is another.
This is relationship stuff. This is building to something serious.
He wants to know me.
I’m dying to know every tiny thing about him in return, but if I let this courting phase continue, I’ll subject him to a relationship with a passenger in the car that killed his sister.
Unforgiveable.
If I’m going to walk away from this, the man of my dreams, he deserves some version of the truth, though, doesn’t he? “Byron…” I pick up the glass of wine in front of me and take a deep gulp for courage. “The truth is…there is a reason I need you to shame me. I’m not ready to talk about why, but…it isn’t healthy. And I’m sorry I made you do it. I’m sorry.” His breath releases unsteadily beside my ear, his heart speeding against my back. “But it’s all I have to offer you. Messed up, secretive little me.”
“No. I want all of you, Jane. Trust me with all of you. The truth.”
I’m already shaking my head. “I have to go.” Taking advantage of his guard being down, I push to my feet and spin to face him, my breath catching at the stricken expression on his face. Knowing him, he’s horrified that he spoke to me that way during sex now that he knows it fed something bad inside of me. And I find I cannot—cannot—walk away completely. Even though I should. I owe him freedom. But the wild obsession inside of me can’t look him in the face and say goodbye forever. I need a breadcrumb. Something. “I can’t give you a commitment, Byron. You’ll thank me for that one day.” Slowly, I lift the hem of my dress, drawing his hungry gaze to the wet material of my panties. “This is all I can offer you. I can give you twisted and wrong…and that isn’t going to change. Nor will my decision to keep this thing between us…physical only.” My voice cracks. “Call me if you can be okay with it, all right?”
Byron shoves a hand through his hair, nearly upsetting his glasses. He’s the picture of frustration. “Let me get this straight. You don’t want to be my girlfriend. You just want more…of what we did in your office. And on the patio of the coffee shop.”
“You can’t even say it,” I whisper, heat pressing to the backs of my eyes. “You can’t even say out loud what we do together.”
He takes a step in my direction. “Because you deserve more. Better. Everything.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then inform me.”
I’m already turning to leave. This conversation is tunneling closer and closer to the truth. My greatest shame. And I can’t see his face when he finds out. I can’t live through that. “You have my number. Goodbye, Byron.”
“Jane,” he growls after me.
His tone of voice tells me he’s going to follow. Give chase. Part of me is excited by the possibility of being caught, but mostly I dread it happening. I’ll break. I’ll tell him everything if he touches me now. So I run. I run through a side exit and out onto the street, ducking into a bookstore and hiding behind the first shelf, ignoring curious looks from the customers. Byron strides past the window with a mien of determination and I don’t waste another second calling for an Uber, my heart fluttering crazily in my chest, never to be the same.
He won’t call me.
He’ll never be okay with humiliating me. Exclusively. No chance at a relationship.
It’s not in his nature.
A few minutes later, I fall numbly into the back seat of the Uber, my body frozen with the knowledge that it’s over. I ended it. And maybe, just maybe, I’ve saved him from me. It doesn’t make up for the accident, but it’s better than letting us sink deeper. So deep we can’t come up for air ever again.
He won’t call me.
Will he?
