Entry-Level Mistress - By Sabrina Darby Page 0,22

extended “bathroom breaks,” they didn’t comment. Except for James, who shot me judgmental looks as if he knew exactly what hanky panky was going on. Which, I supposed, he did. Maybe he was my conscience, my Jiminy Cricket, and I should have heeded the warnings in his disapproval. Instead, I went deeper.

On Friday, I started thinking about the weekend. There was a show in Cambridge that Leanna wanted to go to. There was a gallery opening as well on Saturday. But what I really wanted to know was whether this weeklong flirtation would keep going or if Daniel would fall back on whatever pre-scheduled events he had.

Lunch hour passed without any message from him. I’d been answering his texts all week, jumping at his call, and it just felt too quiet. Maybe it was time for the game to change.

Two p.m. He was in a meeting; I knew that. He’d mentioned that one of his business associates from London was in town. But at the same time, I wanted him. I wanted him to do what I wanted him to do.

I flipped open my phone. Started typing.

thirtieth floor. Now.

I had no idea if he’d meet me. I could totally understand if he didn’t. Yet if he did … I couldn’t stop the pleased smile at that idea.

I took my time, strolled to the elevator, stopped to ask Jillian, one of the higher-ups in the department, if she wanted the image I was rendering in any specific format. Maybe I fooled no one, but the meandering made me feel less conspicuous.

The thirtieth floor was its usual dim self, the hallway eerily silent. I stepped into the conference room. Empty. I struggled to ignore the disappointment. The elevator ride from thirty-second floor to thirtieth was much shorter. He’d had plenty of time to get there.

The floor-to-ceiling glass window offered a stunning view of Boston, not so different from the one visible from Daniel’s office. Even when my father had been a rich man himself, he had never worked out of a skyscraper. He’d preferred a SoHo brownstone, visiting the main office only when necessary. I’d never wondered about that before, about his working halfway across town from his business partner. Hartmann had been the one with the midtown offices, the fancy reception area and the views. Maybe there had been some strife there before Hartmann’s death. Maybe it had had to do with Daniel’s mother.

But my father wouldn’t talk about the past and I was strangely reluctant to bring it up with Daniel, even though the past was the very reason I was here.

Now Daniel Hartmann wanted to expand his business globally. What did that even mean? A skyscraper overlooking the world? A view of skylines in Istanbul or Dubai? Or something fantastical and futuristic?

I wasn’t entirely sure if I’d heard him or sensed him first but then I felt him, wrapping himself around me, brushing my hair aside to kiss my neck.

“You,” Daniel said, interspersed between kisses, and between the insistent motions of his hands pulling my skirt up, “knew I had a meeting.”

“Yes,” I admitted, reaching back to caress him, to unfasten his pants.

“Which, technically, I am still in the middle of.” He pulled my hips back slightly, away from the wall. I rested my hands on the glass, gasping both at the thinness of it separating me from a thirty-story drop and at the touch of his fingers. He slipped my thong down my thighs. Thighs I parted more even as I arched my back.

“You left your client upstairs?”

“Yes,” he said, thrusting into me. I bent my head, my forehead resting against the glass. It was exquisite, earthy and breathtaking all at once, with the view before me and the strength of him filling me, pushing me forward.

“Daniel?” I looked back over my shoulder toward him. “Why did you settle in Boston?”

For a moment he was silent, and the movements of his body as he slid forward and back felt full with tension. I regretted asking anything in the middle of sex, of creating any sort of distance. But then his mouth lowered to my ear, his breath teasing my skin.

“So I could do this,” he said softly, “Right here, right now, with that view beneath us.” I pushed back against him, silent but for my moans. He had avoided answering but that was all right, part of the unspoken agreement to keep things light.

But then he slid out, and the scent of me, him, latex, was heavy in