Kitabı oku: «The Deep End»

Chapter One

‘I’m not used to a woman who takes charge,’ said the man from Philadelphia as he dragged her thong down to her ankles. He raised a brow as she parted her legs. ‘Is this your thing?’

Grace smirked down at him and leaned back. ‘I’m just efficient. We’ve got about a half an hour left before the meeting.’

‘So that gives us, what, fifteen minutes each?’

‘Assuming you’re as good as you claim to be. If you’re really good, you’ll get some extra time for yourself.’

The first thing she had noticed during the meeting yesterday afternoon was that this man talked too much. Her boss, Hugh Caroway, had barely contained his annoyance as again and again the man interjected.

He was supposed to be the one who went home with her the previous night. She liked his green eyes and wide mouth, and found his faint country-boy drawl charming. He was her bonus after a month’s worth of fifteen-hour days and the conversation had flowed freely between them as they joined the others for dinner, but drinks had been on the Taureau-Werner dime. Grace could have sworn Prohibition was still in effect in Pennsylvania, the way the whole visiting team from Breton-Craig drank, and by eleven o’clock her man was completely useless for anything more than a nauseous cab ride back to his hotel.

It’s a good thing I’m forgiving, she thought and looked down her body to where he knelt between her legs. She bit down on her lip and held her breath as he parted the slick folds of her pussy. He spoke again, too low for her to catch his words, and stroked his thumb across her swollen clit.

‘Tick-tock,’ she whispered and cupped the back of his head.

Thank God for her boss’s long liquid lunches. While Hugh Caroway was off comparing dick sizes with the heavies at Breton-Craig, she’d taken advantage of the impenetrable solitude of his office to make up for lost time.

Luckily for Grace, his wagging tongue was good for more than just being a pain in her boss’s ass in the boardroom. It was always a gamble when she came across a man who was insistent about going down. She found that those keeners were at one end of the spectrum or the other: true masters with their tongues, or sloppy messes who needed her to point her clit out to them.

She curled her toes and grasped the cushion under her head. This one definitely fell into the former category with the way he stroked his tongue across the underside of her hard nub. She preferred a more aggressive tongue, complete with rough hands holding her open and a little finger play at her bum, but for a bit of mid-morning cunnilingus he was just perfect.

Grace shook free of her shoes and propped the balls of her feet up against his shoulders. He glanced at her and she bit down on her smile. His suit was expensive, but she knew he wouldn’t say anything if he wanted to continue. She reached down with one hand and quickly flicked the buttons from her neck to her navel.

He lifted his head and rubbed his face into her thigh, concealing his grin. ‘Show me those great tits. Play with them while I play with you.’

Grace lost the fight to keep from smiling. She pushed against his shoulder and lifted her hips. ‘Why don’t you play with them for me?’

‘While you suck me,’ he murmured, his mouth moving back down to her swollen folds.

‘Not while you suck me, while you fuck me.’ She pushed up onto her elbows and nodded towards the executive desk before the window. ‘There are condoms in the top drawer.’

‘You are efficient,’ he said and stood. ‘We can both get off at the same time.’

‘Efficiency has nothing to do with it,’ she said to him as he dug into her boss’s desk. ‘Do you have any idea how much I’ve worked leading up to these meetings? This is just what I need to get rid of some of that tension. You’re a pro at eating pussy, but what I want is that big cock of yours.’

His expression was wary as he returned with a condom in hand, earning a laugh from Grace that rumbled up from deep in her belly. ‘Did you think I hadn’t noticed?’

‘Actually, yes. You were so … what’s the word? … aloof until you gave me that little invite.’

The invite had been anything but subtle. She’d had his attention since he entered the meeting room, but she’d waited until dinner. As they waited on their second round of drinks and after she was sure she wanted his company, she knocked his cellphone over the edge of the table and, when he bent to pick it up, she shifted her legs enough for her skirt to slide up to her thighs, enough to give him a peek of her bare pussy.

‘I noticed,’ she went on, her gaze falling to the bulge between his legs.

He’d been hard in the cab they’d shared the night before. He was a big boy. It had been hard to let him go and head home alone, but she’d had her fill of drunken fucks when she was in university.

And she hadn’t been kidding. Her free time was scarce, and in the last couple of years her social life had consisted of those who caught her eye as she passed through the office. Her longest dry spell had been four months, and she didn’t care to repeat it. The more intensive her job became, the more she needed to burn off that stress with something more than a vibrator.

Now that he was back before her, his erection prominent as he peeled away his jacket, she was glad she had waited. That seething male animal bristled beneath the surface as he went to work on his belt. He shoved his pants down and a glorious cock sprang up.

He was groomed and cut and utterly mouthwatering. The urge to take him into her mouth nearly derailed her, but the need to have his cock pumping against her G spot overruled all other urges.

She sank back into the sofa, drew her legs closer to her ass and circled her finger around her clit.

‘You think I can take it all?’ she asked, her voice coming thick from the back of her throat.

There: she saw it happen, that savage creature unleashed. Grace had gambled on her man from Breton-Craig, and, as he knelt between her legs with that gorgeous shaft bobbing over her pussy, she felt victorious.

He tore the condom wrapper with his teeth and quickly snapped the rubber down his length.

‘I think you can take it all, if I give it to you.’

He leaned over her and shoved the cups of her bra down, an action that pushed her breasts up for the taking, and tugged her nipples between thumb and forefinger. The sting was magnificent. Grace pushed up, but he put her back down.

She moaned as he sawed the length back and forth along her slick pussy. She once more grasped the cushions on either side of her head and rose up. ‘Don’t be a tease. Give it every fucking inch.’

A low grumble poured out of him. He grasped the edge of the sofa back with one hand and positioned the tip of his dick at the hot throbbing mouth that waited for him.

For just a moment as he slipped in and out, Grace worried that at the moment of truth he would prove clumsy and she’d have to take the reins, but he quickly found his mark and shoved balls-deep.

He worked his cock in and out with shallow thrusts. She didn’t know whether he was merely being careful with her or if he wanted her to keep urging him on, but Grace went with the latter.

Even if they’d had all the time in the world, she would have wanted it hard and fast, and so she bucked up and bared her teeth at him.

‘Fuck me into this sofa,’ she hissed, then cooed as he withdrew until only the head remained. He was red-faced and demonic as he looked down on her.

‘You are hungry for a cock, aren’t you?’

She released the cushions and slapped her hands on his waist. ‘We don’t have a lot of time. Just fuck me already.’

He winced as she dug her nails into him, but didn’t pick up his stride. His grin was strained, but the body he held her captive with was in perfect control. ‘Nice and slow for a minute. Let me hit the spot a little.’

A delirious smile broke across her mouth as he pushed forward and that magnificent friction against her G spot sent a tingle through her that ran along her spine in a shiver. He went deep again and she almost drew blood as once more he pulled out slowly.

‘I could stay another night,’ he was saying, somewhere far off from where her head was floating and her body was sinking into pleasure. ‘Spread you open and keep you wet like this all night long.’

She didn’t want to hear it. Not now. She only wanted this, the echo of their heaving breathing in the empty office and the thrill of knowing her boss could break routine and return early. She didn’t want to hear about the past or the future. With men like her Breton-Craig man there was only the hard cock and wet pussy to bridge the gap between the lover she had between her thighs and the next one she took when she needed the release of a hard body joined with hers.

The sting of his balls slapping against her ass jolted her, and she could see and feel the effect it had on him. The masterful facade he had been trying to maintain cracked.

She dropped one hand between them and flicked her middle finger against her clit. ‘Watch me while you fuck me.’

‘Oh, fuck, yes,’ he said in a croak. He pulled out all the way and draped her legs on his shoulders, then fumbled to get back in where it was warm and wet.

Grace grinned and smeared moisture across the hairless plane just so he could see how wet she was. She loved appearances: breasts out, pussy spread open and so wet things were bound to get messy.

He gripped her, arms wrapped around her legs at the knee, and began to pump her. The tingle as he passed over the sweet spot grew to a perfect current, coupled beautifully with the throbbing beneath her fingers. Held in place by his clutch and the pressure of his weight, Grace was precisely where she wanted to be: trapped by the dual friction rubbing in the places where she was most sensitive.

He picked up the pace, jutting his hips and filling her harder every time. He pressed his lips together and made a desperate humming sound as his gaze moved over her. She rubbed her clit faster to match his thrusts.

‘Do you do this all the time? Fuck strange men half-dressed in your boss’s office?’

‘You’ve got to admit, it’s dirtier when you know you’ll never see me again.’

She pushed up onto one elbow and looked down to where their bodies met. She could only catch a milky blur of his sheathed cock as he pumped her, but the sheen of her juices on his inner thighs told the story of how primed she was.

He reached down and cradled her ass, fingers digging in as his gaze followed hers. ‘You ought to see the view I have from here.’

In her last wicked act against him, Grace watched his face as she spread her fingers and showed him how wet and swollen she was.

His grip on her turned vice-like, and, as she resumed with two fingers on her throbbing bud, the man from Breton-Craig slammed against her.

As gorgeous as his dick was, it was her own fingers on either side of her sex that took her all the way. Grace hung her head back and squeezed her eyes shut. Her breath caught in a hiccup at the back of her throat and she rode that sensation of her pussy being stuffed as her clit pulsed.

‘I’m coming,’ she hissed and opened her eyes to his flushed and leering face. ‘Just hold off a few more … oh, fuck … just a little more …’

She bucked up as it hit her, riding fast through her explosive climax. He went deep one last time and her finger stilled over her clit as her sex squeezed around his length. This sensation of being utterly soaked with pleasure as his cock twitched inside held her suspended, heedless of the warning pangs from the muscles in her thighs and stomach that she had been contorted, nearly bent in half, in her lover’s climax.

With the ringing in her ears subsiding, Grace came back to life and shook herself until he released her and sagged back at his end of the sofa. One need sated, she was parched with the next immediate need and hobbled to her feet. From Caroway’s mini-fridge she pulled out a bottle of water and drank down half before offering it to the Breton-Craig man.

At first he looked at her like he didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten there, but, just as she had, he shook it off and took the bottle from her. His gaze never left her as he drained the bottle, and Grace delved into the credenza behind Caroway’s desk.

His expression was amused as she laid out her emergency kit – moist towelettes, a small hairbrush and a secondary stash of make-up in her day colours, and a plastic zipper bag with extra panties. Caroway never went into his credenza; he wasn’t the type to look for something when he could call Grace and get her to do it, and so her stash was safe.

He pulled off the condom and dropped it into the wastebasket on top of her discarded wipes. ‘I was just making dirty talk, but you weren’t kidding. You do this a lot.’

There wasn’t any judgement in his tone, and so she chuckled as she wiped herself clean. ‘I’ve probably fucked more men here than I have in my own bed, but it’s not like I do this every day. I have my moments, and I told you I work long hours. Some weeks I live at my desk. I have to get laid when the opportunity presents itself’

‘And your bed, is it nearby?’

Grace perched on the edge of the desk and opened her compact in front of her. The damage wasn’t too bad. She looked fucked, but it was fixable.

She glanced at him. Her clit was still sensitive, but she was already cooling with the end of their fun. ‘You’re leaving on the red-eye.’

‘I don’t have to.’

Her gaze on her reflection, she started to powder her face. ‘Yes, you do, and I’ll be here half the night with no time for a second round. This has been great, but I’m afraid it’s not meant to be.’

As she lined her lips, he zipped himself up and moved on to the mirror by the door. From the corner of her eye she saw him fussing to put his hair back in place.

She knew what was coming out of his mouth next. There was always an excited tension that filled the room in the moments before the words, before that inevitable question surfaced.

‘Have you ever seen him?’

She pursed her lips, blew herself a kiss, then snapped the compact shut. ‘Seen who?’

‘Taureau.’

‘He doesn’t work in the office.’

‘I just thought he might, since we’re so close to his compound.’

Grace chuckled and went to work on smoothing out her suit. No stains. Perfect. ‘I don’t think it’s a compound. I think it’s just a house, and it’s not close. It’s ten hours between Toronto and Saguenay. Saying he’s that close is like saying Newfoundland is just a few doors down.’

‘He’s supposed to be in on our call this afternoon. Will I see him?’

‘No, you won’t. He’s like the Wizard of Oz. You’ll hear his voice but that’s all you’ll get.’

‘Is it true that woman cut half his face off and he wears a mask?’

‘Seriously, do you think a man with his money would be hiding out in the wilds of Quebec with no face like some third-rate Phantom of the Opera? He’s probably had it fixed, and besides, if you’d read the story, you’d know she didn’t cut his face off. She just sliced him up.’

‘They say he had her killed.’

She was starting to get irritated with the direction the conversation was veering. She’d had it dozens of times: every newcomer to the office thought, given Caroway’s position as president and her proximity as Caroway’s assistant, that she had seen the legendary Jacques Alain Taureau. She had no details to give them, and yet they persisted in gleefully throwing all these myths at her for her to confirm or refute, even after she had explained her ignorance.

She strode across the room to nudge him aside from the mirror, then went to work on her hair. ‘Unless he developed the power to give her breast cancer, I’m pretty sure he didn’t kill her.’

He leaned against the accent table beneath the mirror and grinned. ‘You’re defensive about him.’

‘I’m not defensive about anyone. I just hate repeating facts you can pluck off of the Internet.’ She pulled her blonde hair free of pins, and threw him an apologetic look as she ran a brush through the tangle. ‘Yes, Taureau is messed up. No, I’m not a part of his inner circle. When he’s involved in a call, I don’t even take minutes. If you want any more details from that, there’s a documentary online you can look at, but for now I suggest you stop thinking of him as a legend and start thinking of him as a colleague you need to impress. He doesn’t like stammering idiots, and I’ve seen a few walk out of the boardroom looking like they got a wedgie from the schoolyard bully.’

He said nothing as she stabbed and poked her hair back into the tight bun at the nape of her neck, but once she finished he reached out and ran a slender finger where her blouse split open just above her tits.

‘You could change your mind, you know. I just thought you might like me to finish what I started, and I have to say I’d love to see if your mouth sucks as good as your pussy.’

His words had the effect she was sure he intended. Just once she would have liked a little more than an hour or two. She would have liked to get to know one of these men who passed through the office. When the Breton-Craig team moved on, she’d go home and pour herself a glass of wine, have a long hot bath, spend a little quality time with the contents of her nightstand and wait until the next opportunity like this presented itself.

She stepped away from him and began collecting her things from Caroway’s desk. Once everything was in place and she had tied the garbage bag with the discarded condom in it, she glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Less than ten minutes. You’d better get going. Caroway will be coming back any second now and if you’re late you’ll miss the meeting. The doors are locked as soon as Taureau comes online.’

He went to the sofa and picked up his jacket. ‘Anything else I need to know about Taureau?’

Grace crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a wry smile. ‘Keep it short and don’t fuck up.’

She didn’t even know the name of the man from Philadelphia, she realised as she returned to her desk. Dan or Brent or something that clicked off the tongue during an introduction. Whatever his name was, he was smooth enough and he could talk. As long as he didn’t go long-winded, she had no doubt that the acquisition of Breton-Craig would be a done deal by the time the meeting was over, another financial notch on Taureau’s belt.

The clock read three minutes after two. She was tempted to take a stroll down the hall to see if anyone had taken too long to shake the piss off their dick and was locked out.

She’d long ago stopped questioning Taureau’s methods. From what Caroway and others had told her, the owner of Taureau-Werner Inc. came off as barely tolerant during every one of these meetings. If he was bored, he made it known. If he thought an idea or an opinion was stupid, he was quick to shred the offender.

Every so often in the office, there would be nostalgic talk about the days of the old man, Shane Werner, and his charm. Not many were alive who could remember the grandfather who had turned a small regional bus company into a conglomerate of airlines, hotels, restaurants and airport shops. Those who had worked for Werner, like Caroway, shook their heads and puzzled at how Shane had left the business to the grandson who was reportedly a mental case after his girlfriend tried to kill him.

Once the wild playboy, at the age of twenty-four Jacques had been attacked by his drug-addled lover. She slit his throat and carved up his face before turning the knife on herself. It was said that Jacques Alain Taureau wasn’t fit for the position of CEO. The torch should have been passed on to Jacques’s father, Dominic, who had earned himself a Senate seat after twenty years in politics, and was the polished type you would expect to excel in business.

And yet Taureau had done well in the decade since his grandfather’s death, in spite of the Howard Hughes mythology surrounding him. Since Grace had begun working for Taureau-Werner seven years ago, he’d acquired three smaller airlines and absorbed a chain of luxury hotels.

Breton-Craig didn’t own luxury hotels. They owned roadside motels across the Midwestern United States. The idea behind this merger was to revamp the brand and add a restaurant to each property. Breton-Craig would do the work while Taureau-Werner put in the capital and reaped the rewards.

She knew Caroway wasn’t entirely on board with this deal. He liked the shine of Taureau-Werner. He thought adding motor inns would tarnish the company’s reputation. Grace suspected that he had either kept his mouth shut about that or been put in his place by Taureau, and that once the money started coming in he’d shut his mouth for good.

Though Grace had put on a good front for the man from Breton-Craig, she had been left exhausted by their bout of fucking. It had burned off the tension that kept her alert, and the thought of having to stick around until after dark made her want to slip back into Caroway’s office and take a nap.

She settled for a half-hour coffee run and sent the phone to voicemail. One large coffee and something sugary would keep her going until she was able to head home.

* * *

‘It’s crazy,’ her mother said, and Grace leaned over the speaker and mouthed along to the next words. ‘Worse than crazy.’

With every call to her mother, Grace heard that expression at least four times. She couldn’t remember that phrase ever passing over Edwina’s lips when these conversations were face to face.

In fact, she didn’t recall, when her mother lived in town, talking this much about the weather, her cousin Martha’s hospital visits, her stepfather’s diabetes or people she’d never met. Before the move to Florida, they’d meet for tea and sandwiches on Sunday, or Grace would pop out for a long lunch so they could browse for nail polish at the mall. The conversation was light and Grace enjoyed the company.

Now the weekly conversation was just another obligation, and Grace spent the entire call looking for those cues that it was coming to an end. She called from her desk these days, knowing that Edwina wouldn’t delay her if she knew Grace hadn’t eaten or was at the end of a thirteen-hour day. When she hung up, the guilt would be heavy in her gut and she’d commit herself to showing more enthusiasm the next time she talked to Edwina. But she would still be glad it was over.

‘The next time you come down, I’ll get you to bring me some of those caramel cakes I used to get,’ Edwina said, and Grace closed her eyes to suppress a moan. She knew what was coming next.

‘I can mail them to you,’ she replied, and pushed her shoulders into the back of her seat. ‘They’ll be there in a week.’

‘No, I don’t want you to waste your money on postage.’

‘It’s fine. I’ll pick them up the next time I get groceries.’

‘I didn’t think you went grocery shopping anymore. The last time we were up your fridge was bare.’

‘Mom, stop.’

Grace didn’t need the reminder. Her fridge was bare most of the time. Her diet consisted of whatever could be found on the worn takeout menus from the break room and her fruit intake came entirely from the waxy pickings that collected dust at the café in the lobby. Every so often she’d get ambitious enough to have a cooking day, but whatever she made would be forgotten until she discovered some frost-caked plastic container in her fridge freezer.

‘You’re not drinking too much, are you?’

‘Mom, stop talking like I’m an alcoholic.’ She’d never be allowed to forget the presence of that quart of raspberry vodka in a fridge without milk or bread. ‘I don’t have time to be a drunk.’

‘Life isn’t all work, Gracie. You should get yourself a slow cooker –’

‘And I’d have to get up an hour early to cook.’

‘I’m just worried about you, that’s all.’ Edwina sounded defeated, and Grace got to her feet, trying to banish the thought that she was a horrible daughter.

‘I know you are, but I’m fine.’

‘Fine is what you tell people when you feel like shit.’

‘Mom –’

‘You should at least try and meet someone. It makes a huge difference when you have a warm body waiting for you when you get home.’

‘I really don’t want to discuss warm bodies with you,’ Grace said, and thought about shutting her mother up with details of the warm body she’d enjoyed earlier that day. ‘When did you develop such an interest in my social life, anyway? When you lived here you used to growl at me about having too big a social life.’

‘There’s a difference between being twenty years old and partying every night, and being thirty and spending all hours of the day at your desk. Have you tried that online dating?’

‘All right, I’m hanging up now.’ She couldn’t help laughing at her mother. It was like she was reading for the part of meddling mother in a romantic comedy. Maybe that’s what you became as you got older: a stock character.

‘I’ll give you a call next week?’ Grace asked. ‘I’ll mail you the caramel cakes next week, and I don’t want to hear anything about the postage.’

She disconnected but stayed sitting at her desk, turning her can of diet soda back and forth, until the guilt passed. Then she headed towards the boardroom.

If it hadn’t been Friday, Grace would have left the boardroom mess until the morning and been on the road with drive-thru and sleep on the agenda. Because the hard work was over for now, and because she was alone on the thirteenth floor, she took a moment to herself.

The acquisition was successful. Breton-Craig was now a part of Taureau-Werner.

She slipped off her shoes and wriggled her toes into the expensive carpet, popped the top two buttons of her blouse, then sank back into the leather chair at the head of the conference table. All that was missing was a bottle of wine.

No doubt there were a few stragglers somewhere in the building trying to make a deadline, but aside from the cleaning crew and security she was alone. Especially on the thirteenth floor, the executive floor, where there was no one.

The view of the city skyline was ethereal, bringing to mind Zeus and his kin looking down on earth from Olympus. It was easy to imagine that the small world below could be so easily manipulated by a whim from above, that she could reach out and nudge a building out of the way to enhance her view.

She remained there overlooking creation for what seemed like hours, until something as common as the water cooler gurgling brought her back. It was a hateful intrusion, a reminder that she was no goddess and there was no real peace to be found in the Taureau-Werner building.

Grace didn’t dwell on it. She’d heard enough whining from the rest of the staff during the day; she didn’t want to hear it in her head when she had all this before her at the end of the day.

You’re tired. You’re cranky. You need sleep. Tomorrow, everything will look less grey.

She rose and stretched. Joints popped, and a yawn crawled up her throat. She went around the table and collected empty coffee cups and soiled napkins, wiped crumbs away and set all the chairs in perfect formation.

As she reached for the OFF button on the projector at the centre of the table, the room lit up. Reflected on the screen at the end of the table, the laptop had come out of sleep mode. The text on the screen informed her that a call was coming in from JAT: Jacques Alain Taureau.

For a moment, she was unsure whether to answer. There was no reason for him to be calling now. It had been Taureau who had adjourned the meeting.

Just the thought of Taureau made her nervous. She’d been telling the Breton-Craig man the truth: she never had any personal contact with him, and to her knowledge he never left his house in rural Quebec.