Millie disappeared back into her room and I began to pace again, heart pumping. Coming here was a mistake—I thought it would start the bonding process, but instead it only made me want to take her even more than I already did, which was a liability. We needed people to think we were fucking, but we didn’t actually want to fuck. Getting entangled like that would only distract the both of us, and we didn’t have the time to waste.
She came out a few minutes later, dressed in a tasteful outfit. She didn’t have any makeup, and her hair was in a messy bun, but the clothes were perfect at least. “I just have one problem,” she said, leaning against the doorframe. “If we’re secretly dating, why would you hire me as your assistant, and why the hell would I do it?”
“Because you’re procrastinating taking the bar exam, and you need to pay rent, and I need an assistant. You’re wildly overqualified, but I don’t care, because I’m fucking you senseless in my office every afternoon, and you don’t care, because I’m paying you far too much money, and also because I’m fucking you senseless and you love it.”
Her lips formed a tight line. “You’re assuming a lot about your sexual prowess.”
“I’m the kind of man that forms his opinions based on prior experience.” I tilted my head a little and let my eyes roam along her curves, thinking about that hint of her breasts I saw just a few minutes earlier. “And I have a lot of experience.”
Her face softened and she shook her head, but her cheeks blushed again, and she disappeared back into her room.
I killed time on the couch, drinking my coffee while she finished getting ready. It took her another fifteen minutes, which wasn’t too bad. By the time she emerged, we were later than I wanted, but she looked perfect, the consummate professional.
“You’ll make one hell of a lawyer,” I said. “Those old judges won’t be able to take their eyes off you.”
“Plenty of women are judges now too, you know,” she said as she shouldered her black leather bag and glared.
“Women can also be attracted to you.” I put my mug down on her coffee able. “Come on then. Let’s go to work.”
She followed me outside, down the stoop, and we waited as I called for my driver. I watched her move foot to foot, nervously bouncing a little, and even though this was already more involved and fraught and emotionally intense than I ever imagined it might be—I had to admit, I was having a good time.
Millie was beautiful, she was flirty, she was smart, and she wanted to fuck me. She had it all.
My driver arrived, we climbed inside, and got started.
3
Millie
We flew in a private jet from Philadelphia to New York early the next morning, which took almost no time at all, and was a stupid, extravagant waste. When I pointed out that we could’ve taken the train for half the price, and a quarter of the environmental cost, Rees only shook his head and said, “Nothing but the best for my girlfriend.”
I knew what he was doing. His visit to my apartment was a test, and I had no clue if I passed or not, and I found that I didn’t really care. He could shove his test up his ass. I was doing him a favor and risking a lot for this situation, and although he was compensating me big time, that still didn’t mean he got to treat me like an employee.
We were partners, as far as I was concerned.
A black town car drove us from the airport into Manhattan. I’d never been to New York before, and I tried not to gape around me at the incredible building towering over the streets, at the profusion of people walking in groups packed along the sidewalks, at the bustle and the motion. Philadelphia was a big city, with a lot of activity, but it was dwarfed by New York’s sheer size. I was intimidated, but I tried not to show it.
I’d barely been away from the Philly region. I grew up in the northeast in a little townhouse that smelled like mothballs and my grandmom’s cigarettes. The furthest I ever went away from home was Penn State, and even that wasn’t so far.
New York felt like a fairytale, or a world I’d never known before. If Rees noticed that I was actively trying not to stare, he didn’t show it. Really, he didn’t show much of anything: since the moment we took off, he’d barely looked at me twice, and acted like I didn’t exist.
Which was probably for the best. I kept thinking to that morning, and the way I’d teased him, taking off my shirt where I knew he could see me, coming out again half-dressed, letting him look at me, parading myself in front of him like that—it was so pathetic and stupid. Some dumb, insane part of me wanted to take him up on his offer to have sex right then and there, since maybe he was right, maybe fucking and getting it out of the way would relieve whatever insane feeling I had for him. Letting it fest might only make it worse, complicate things, leave it a mystery and make me want it more.
He was an attractive man, as much as I hated to admit it, and he was right. There was tension between us, thicker than the Grand Canyon. I wanted to let him drive his hand into my hair and push me up against the door of the car, his teeth biting my button lip as his other hand reaches down between my legs—
“We’re here,” he said, peering out the window as the car pulled over in front of a nondescript townhouse. “East 74th street. Good spot.”
I frowned at him then looked outside again. “I thought we were meeting at his office.”
“Mirko doesn’t have an
