Beyond 10 Nights (14 page)

“Well I guess I’d better get some
sleep, I don’t want to yawn my way through my first day at work.” Leah found
she didn’t really want to say goodnight, she was enjoying talking to him too
much, but she was mentally and physically exhausted.

“Of course, I’m sorry; we definitely
have a big day tomorrow.” Getting to his feet he offered her his hand to help
her up and smiled as she took it. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know you tonight,
Leah.” He had enjoyed it more than he thought was really acceptable,
considering their status, but he kept that comment to himself.

His hand felt strong in hers and she
felt a shiver of awareness move through her, a shiver which she quickly
suppressed. Pulling her hand from his she gave an awkward smile. “I enjoyed
talking to you tonight too, Alex.” Doing her best not to think too much she
quickly crossed to her room and entered, shutting the door behind her. The last
thing she needed was to be having inappropriate thoughts about her new boss,
she told herself as she pulled off her clothes and slid into bed.

Taking up her phone from the bedside
table where she’d put it, she checked for messages; finding the phone empty she
set it down and closed her eyes.

Her last thought before falling
asleep was that she was no longer the girl with no libido, and she needed to
remember that just because a man was attractive, didn’t mean it had to go any
further.

6

Office
Relations

By the time Leah woke the next morning Alex was
already up, showered and dressed, and had ordered room service. He had an
internal alarm clock that wouldn’t let him sleep past dawn. On that occasion he
considered it a good thing, since it gave him some time to think about the
conversation he and Leah had had the previous night.

His thoughts wandered idly over their talk, and its
potential repercussions, until he heard her get up and the sound of the shower
in her en-suite bathroom reached his ears.  Unexpectedly he found his
thoughts turning away from their conversation to her in the shower, and his
body reacted as he imagined what she might look like naked and soapy.

With an effort he reminded himself that not only were
they roommates, but he was good friends with her fiancé and he was her
employer. The list of reasons for him not to be thinking of her naked, or of
what he would like to do to her while she was, kept growing until his cock
obeyed what his brain was trying to tell him and subsided.

At least it started to; when she stepped into the room
looking every bit the successful business woman he found his body responding
again. He found himself sincerely hoping that his arousal wasn’t visible, and
had to stop himself before he looked down and checked.

“How did you sleep?” he asked, trying to divert his
thoughts onto a safer track.

“Good, thank you. Something smells delicious.” Her
eyes were drawn to the table where the breakfast dishes were laid out, the
aroma from them made her stomach grumble.

“It should still be warm so help yourself, I need to
grab some papers from my room” He quickly made his way into the master bedroom,
thinking that he could do with a few moments to himself, so he could get under
control. What the hell was wrong with him? Sure, she was a beautiful woman, but
he worked with women like her all the time without reacting the way he was just
then.

Walking over to the table, Leah uncovered one of the
platters, smiling when she revealed bacon, eggs, and pancakes. The combination
was a sure fire way to make her happy in the morning, even if it left her in
need of a lengthy session at the gym to make up for it. She took the plate over
to the island bar and sat so she could eat.

Briefcase in hand, Alex walked back out from the
bedroom and joined her, much more in control than he had been. His reaction to
her presence told him one thing very clearly, it was time for him to start
looking for a new submissive. The way he felt toward Leah could only be the
result of his having denied himself pleasure the past six months, while he
completed the deal that had returned him to Chicago, he was sure of that.

“I love to see a woman eat.” The words were out before
he had a chance to think about how they might sound and he forced a smile to
his lips to cover up the fact that inwardly he was cursing himself.

“Is that one of your kinks?” Putting the fork down
Leah grinned at Alex, surprised to find that she wasn’t the least bit
self-conscious about putting such a question to him. She’d been reading in her
spare time about the different things that people enjoyed, not wanting to be
surprised ever again by a person’s interests, and felt it was a valid question.

Her question caught him off guard for a moment but he
recovered quickly and chuckled. “I hadn’t really thought about it in that
context before, but perhaps I should.” It was one of the strangest early
morning conversations he’d ever had, he thought, at least without benefit of
having enjoyed a submissive the night before. “Would you like to ride in with
me this morning? I wouldn’t like to guarantee what the parking for interns is
like, and I’d hate for your car to be damaged.”

“Thank you.” Though she hadn’t wanted to say anything,
she didn’t really like the idea of leaving the expensive car Rhett had gifted
in the parking lot at his company. She couldn’t stand the thought of anything
happening to it.

“In that case we should be leaving. It wouldn’t be
appropriate for the boss to be late, especially so soon after taking over the
company.  I should set an example for the rest of the staff,” he said with
a smile as she stood. A new submissive was definitely to be added to his list
of priorities he thought as his eyes followed her, enjoying even that simplest
of movements.

Grabbing her purse, Leah followed Alex out of the
suite and rode with him in the elevator to the parking level below ground. When
they got to his car he held open the passenger door as she slid in and settled
herself on the soft leather seat. Chivalry was not dead, she thought with a
laugh.

“I could use some humor this morning.” He grinned as
he slid into the driver’s seat, wondering what she found amusing. Without
thought he reached over and pulled her seatbelt on, he immediately regretted
the move as she tensed when his hand grazed over her chest. “Forgive me; I have
a thing about seatbelts.” Sitting back he pulled on his own seatbelt, trying to
make light of the situation.

She shouldn’t have been affected by such a simple
move, but she had been. It was crazy, she told herself; there was no reason for
her to be so affected by him.  Forcing her thoughts away from the touch of
his hand on her, she smiled. “I was just thinking that chivalry isn’t dead, the
seatbelt thing kind of goes along with you opening the door for me.” She was
rambling, and she knew it, but that had to be better than admitting to the
strange attraction she felt for her new boss.

“I enjoy treating a woman like a lady, Leah, but I
also know that women have the ability to be stronger than most men give them
credit for. This may sound outdated, but women have been genetically geared
toward running a household, and ensuring that it all runs smoothly for
millennia; in my opinion that same training makes them extremely capable when
it comes to running a business.”

“There’s a lot of feminists that would disagree with
you.” Despite what she said she found she couldn’t entirely disagree with him,
her upbringing in the South had pushed her very much in the direction of
housekeeping rather than education and business.

“I didn’t create the gender wars, Leah. Personally I
believe that a woman can have a very fulfilling life without a male presence,
but it is a fact that women have been groomed for the other role, they have
been right up until the middle of the last century.”

“Those days are behind us, Alex; a woman has the right
to choose to be whatever she wishes these days.” Leah found it refreshing, and
enjoyable, to be able to speak her mind without worrying about repercussions.

 “That is as it should be,” Alex remarked.
“Everyone should be in control of their own fate, regardless of their sex, or
the role in life they wish to take.” So engrossed in their conversation was he
that they reached the office complex far quicker than he expected.

After parking in the CEO’s space, Alex took Leah up to
the human resources offices, where he left her with the head of the department.
Before leaving her he made it clear that if she had any problems that HR
couldn’t solve she was to come straight to him and he would take care of it.

He noted the look on the face of his HR manager as he
told Leah that, and resolved to deal with it at a later time. He didn’t
normally take such a direct interest in his employees, but since Leah was going
to be acting as his unofficial personal assistant outside of regular working
hours, it was in his interest to make sure there were no problems for her.

The staff were incredible, Leah thought as she was
taken around each department in a quick tour before being settled in the mail
room. Initially she thought the HR manager had taken a dislike to her and was
punishing her for some imagined slight, but she soon learned that all interns
spent their first two weeks in the mail room. Delivering mail to, and
collecting mail from, the various departments was considered the quickest and
easiest way for an intern to learn their way around the building and get to
know everywhere they might have to go.

By the time lunch time arrived, and she was invited to
eat with Alex in his office, an invitation which surprised her and made her
more than a little nervous, she had come to the conclusion that she was going
to love working there. With the exception of the HR manager, Ms. – with a heavy
emphasis on that – Helena Lowell, everyone was welcoming, and understanding
when she took a wrong turn or found herself in the wrong cubicle or office.

Leah wasn’t sure it was a good idea for her to eat
with Alex, and worried that it might distance her from the people she was
supposed to be working with and learning from, but she pushed that from her
mind as he questioned her about her first morning with the company. He was
especially interested in what she had learned and how she had been treated by
the people she had encountered.

There were no negatives in her mind, and she told him
so, but when he heard that she had been started off in the mail room he
insisted on doing something about that. It wasn’t right, in his opinion, and
though he could see some of the sense in the company’s decision to start
interns in the mail room so they could learn their way around, it was a policy
he resolved to change.

After lunch Leah was put to work in the graphics
department, where she remained until Alex found her so they could ride home.

“I don’t expect to pay my newest employee overtime,
especially on her first day, so are you ready to call it a day?” Alex was
pleased to see that Leah was fitting in so well, he had wondered how the
department would feel about her being placed with them so quickly, rather than
following the established process for interns.

“I might have to beg you to reconsider, Mr. Svenson;
Leah has an incredible eye for detail and I can think of several projects
coming up where her help would be invaluable.” Since it was clear the new owner
of the company had an interest in her, Yvette had paid close attention to Leah
during her time in the department that afternoon, and had quickly concluded
that she would be an asset. Unlike many interns, she didn’t assume that
possession of a degree meant she knew everything she needed to know.

“Do I take that to mean you would like to have Leah in
your department full time, Mrs. Parker?” Alex asked; he was pleased to see the
interest but wasn’t sure the graphics department was where Leah would make the
best use of her abilities.

“Absolutely, her skills would prove to be very
beneficial here; not only would she be an asset on the projects we have coming
up but she would be a great help on our current project. The deadline is fast
approaching and we could definitely use the help to make sure we meet it.”

“I’m sure you would make great use of her skills, but
at the moment I wish Leah to gain as much experience as possible in all
departments before I decide where she can be put to the best use. You will have
her services until the end of next week, and then she will be moved on to
another department.” Alex smiled. “Perhaps, if you are lucky, you may have her
back again after she has been around the other departments, if I decide that
this is where she is meant to be.” He liked the head of his graphics
department, during the short time he had been in charge of the company he had
discovered that she was just as detail orientated as he was.

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Parker, I really enjoyed
working here today.” It pleased Leah no end to think her work that afternoon,
which she had considered fairly simplistic and well within her capabilities,
had been good enough to make the department head want her as a permanent member
of the team.

“Please, call me Yvette, we are very informal here. I
look forward to seeing what you manage tomorrow, and I very much hope you are
placed in this department permanently.” She was sure Leah would end up working
for her; the projects her department was working on were all very important to
the company and had the potential to push them well ahead of their competition.