an even firmer grip on my shaft.
Her petal pink lips parted as she watched me, and I imagined her on her knees in front of me. I couldn’t stop myself. Not even if I’d tried. Not even if the entire board of directors strolled through the door right now. Wrapping her underwear around my fist, I gave my abused shaft a long, hard stroke.
I groaned. But the whimper that tore its way out of her throat gave me the strength to hang on. I wanted more noises like that from her. And I wanted them all to myself.
We were inches apart in this bathroom. And I’d already crossed so many lines. What was one more? But this was the line. One my father would have crossed in a heartbeat without a second thought. Because it gratified him. Because he thought he deserved it.
I was different. I knew I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve her.
“Ally. I can’t.” I shook my head, pinching my eyes closed. I couldn’t be like him.
“Okay, Dom.” She sounded so fucking disappointed, and it made me feel even worse. I was the bad guy, even when I was trying to be the good guy.
I heard the sound of the bathroom door closing softly. And when I opened my eyes, I was alone in the washroom.
Alone again.
I couldn’t even go after her to apologize. Because I was too busy jerking off into those red panties. My balls ached as they drew up against me, and I felt it build at the base of my spine. In seconds, I was coming so hard it hurt. Watching in bitter, deviant fascination as my orgasm covered the wet spot that she said was for me. I kept coming, huge, wrenching spurts that couldn’t be contained by a little swatch of cotton. But I didn’t care.
“Ally.” Her name scorched my throat. “Ally.”
29
Ally
The name of the game was avoidance.
After a long, sleepless night punctuated by not one but two icy showers, endless mental pep talks, and searching the internet for “distraction techniques,” “how to stop picturing my boss naked”—don’t Google that one, by the way—and “how to become a monk,” I’d come to the conclusion that my only rational course of action was to pretend that Dominic Russo didn’t exist.
I’d been furious with the man. And then one glimpse of the purple-headed sea monster in his pants, and I’d gone all pizza delivery porno on him.
The pain on his face when I’d walked in on him had burned into me. As had the vision of him fisting that magnificent fucking erection through his open trousers.
Me. He’d been thinking about me. And when I made it clear that I was available, that he could have the real thing, he’d shut me down. The man was masturbating to a fantasy about me, and he still didn’t want the real thing.
The only thing that made any kind of sense was that he was hiding behind the rules, using them as an excuse. Because I was Elizabeth Bennett and so far beneath him it made him sick to entertain the thought of actually being with me.
That pissed me off all over again.
The next morning, I slunk into the admin pool, surveying the room like a gentle woodland creature scenting the air for… whatever eats gentle woodland creatures.
“Nice of you to join us,” Malina said snidely.
I was beginning to think she did everything snidely. Today, she was dressed in a winter white sheath dress with her hair scraped back in a perfect platinum bun. Her mouth looked as if it had either had a run-in with some bees this weekend or she’d paid a visit to a syringe of fillers.
“You look nice,” I observed.
She rolled thickly lashed eyes with contempt. “Ugh. Shut up.”
I shrugged, then flopped down in my chair to boot up my computer. While it chugged to life, my nice new work phone signaled a text.
Charming: We need to talk.
My brain screamed, “Oh, hell no,” as my traitorous lady parts started an inappropriate celebration.
I was not putting myself in a situation where I could see, hear, smell, or be within fifteen feet of the man. I didn’t know what was going on biologically with me, but I was an adult, gosh darn it.
I was not a hormone-driven teenager with no respect for consequences.
The one thing that I’d managed to drill into my head overnight was that this paycheck was the only thing keeping my father where he needed to be. And I wasn’t going to