Office Pet Read online

  Office Pet

  Copyright © 2018

  Jamie Knight –

  Your Dirty Little Secret Romance Author

  All rights reserved.

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  Table of Contents

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  Chapter One

  Reese

  Chapter Two

  Reese

  Chapter Three

  Reese

  Chapter Four

  Reese

  Chapter Five

  Reese

  Chapter Six

  Kane

  Chapter Seven

  Reese

  Chapter Eight

  Reese

  Chapter Nine

  Kane

  Chapter Ten

  Reese

  Chapter Eleven

  Kane

  Chapter Twelve

  Reese

  Chapter Thirteen

  Reese

  Chapter Fourteen

  Reese

  Chapter Fifteen

  Reese

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kane

  Chapter Seventeen

  Reese

  Chapter Eighteen

  Reese

  Chapter Nineteen

  Reese

  Chapter Twenty

  Kane

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Reese

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kane

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Reese

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Reese

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Kane

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Kane

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Reese

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Reese

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Kane

  Chapter Thirty

  Reese

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Kane

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Reese

  Epilogue

  Reese

  Sneak Peek of Fake Pet

  Sneak Peak of My Father’s Best Friend’s Secret Baby

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  Chapter One

  Reese

  I stopped in front of a garish canvas called Apocalyptic Sunrise and tilted my head to the side. Perhaps I wasn’t cultured enough to understand the concept, but the oil painting looked like something a five-year-old on a sugar high would paint.

  “You could at least smile, Reese.”

  Simon lowered his head until his lips were a whisper away from my left cheek. A severe case of halitosis billowed from his mouth. My stomach roiled and the leftover pizza I’d wolfed down before I met him for our “date” threatened to make an exorcist-style reappearance.

  I stepped away from him and feigned interest in the splashes of orange and yellow smeared across the canvas.

  So much for my seven years of bad luck coming to an end. I’d had nothing but shitty dates since the day I’d broken my handheld mirror.

  Almost seven years ago, on the day I’d graduated from college, I’d discovered that my then boyfriend was the campus Lothario. When he came groveling and begging for my forgiveness, I picked up my mirror and hurled it at his head. He ducked. The mirror slammed against my dorm room door and shattered.

  To reverse my bad luck, a Wiccan website suggested grinding the broken mirror shards to dust and scattering them in the wind. That bright idea had left me with a scratched cornea and bits of ground up glass in my hair for weeks.

  Since then, I’d had nothing but bad luck in relationships, and was superstitious about everything. I avoided walking under ladders, I knocked on wood, I never opened an umbrella inside, and I always threw a pinch of salt behind my shoulder when I cooked.

  And, if I could have, I would have hidden beneath the covers every Friday the 13th until it became Saturday the 14th. But since I had bills to pay, that level of strict adherence to anything and everything that could help me avoid bad luck was out of the question.

  I’d tried every old wives’ tale that had come up in Google search results in an attempt to change my luck with men, but nothing had worked.

  Cleansing my chakras hadn’t worked, neither had visualizations, love spells, crystals, or burning sage and incense.

  Over the past few years, I’d given up on men and had focused on building my career instead of my personal life. Accounting compliance wasn’t glamorous, but, being an OCD freak, I enjoyed designing and implementing programs, policies, and procedures.

  I also loved, loved, loved internal investigations and uncovering potential breaches of policies and procedures. Most people thought I was more than a little weird about work.

  I didn’t disagree. But I also didn’t really care. Numbers didn’t require luck. They required logic and they were something I could control.

  I’d met Simon Harper through work. A month ago, McKenzie Technologies had gobbled up Hillock Accounting Services, the small investment firm I’d been with since graduating college. I’d worked my way up from lowly accounting clerk to compliance manager.

  I was better than good at my job and being part of a massive company like McKenzie Technologies was a challenge I’d grasped with both hands. But McKenzie Technologies already had several compliance managers, both senior and junior, with more waiting in the wings.

  Until I proved myself, I was stuck maintaining a database on state and federal statutes and regulations for investors.

  “Most women would be thrilled to be on a date with someone who earns as much money as I do,” Simon bragged.

  Sidling up to me, he slid an octopus arm around my waist. If he told me one more time how much money he had in the bank, I’d rip the framed and very heavy looking Apocalyptic Sunrise off the wall and slam it over his fucking head.

  He was trying way too hard to impress me. I was less than impressed, but men like Simon were too self-obsessed and arrogant to notice any disinterest.

  “I guess I’m not most women.”

  I stepped away from him and moved onto the next painting— Dark Days. Again, I didn’t understand what the artist was trying to achieve with this creation. The canvas was filled with red and black splodges.

  Maybe I wasn’t cultured or creative enough to understand abstract art.

  “You’ve got that right,” Simon said with a snicker.

  The pizza in my stomach churned at the innuendo lacing his words, and I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes and say that most women would have run away from him by now. But instead of blurting out something bitchy, I glared at him and hoped he’d get the message.

  Simon was the chief regulatory compliance officer at McKenzie, and one of my bosses. Over the past few weeks, every time I’d passed by his office, he would call me in to tell me about his car, his lake house, his watches, or some other materialistic thing that was supposed to get me down on my knees and sucking his cock.

  There was no denying he was a good-looking guy— if aging frat boys were your thing— and if he wasn’t such a jerk, in the right light, I guessed he could be kind of sexy.

  On paper, he was everything a woman could want: tall with broad shoulders, blue eyes, coffee-colored hair, and a smile that belonged in a toothpaste commercial. But he was also slimier than a lubed up slug.

  He thought all women should swoon in the presence of his greatness. When I’d said yes to this “date”, he’d caught me at a bad time.

  The night before he’d asked me out, my vibrator had died, and I had no AA batteries— it was so not what I’d needed while masturbating to my favorite porn clip. I blamed that disaster on accidentally walking beneath a ladder outside my apartment building on my way to work.

  When Simon asked me for what seemed like the millionth time if I would accompany him to the art exhibition, I was frustrated and horny, so I said yes. Big mistake. Huge.

  No matter how often I’d attempted to cancel on him after that, he’d talked me in circles, guilt tripping me to death and reminding me of “prior commitments” and “keeping one’s word”. And now here I was walking around a gallery looking at paintings way above my pay grade with a man who was obsessed with his own importance.

  All day long, I’d been dreading seeing him. I should’ve texted and said I’d caught Norovirus or the plague or leprosy or something, but instead, little old people pleaser me did what I always did. By that I mean that I did something I didn’t want to do so that I could keep someone else happy.

  Maybe part of me thought— hoped— that perhaps one on one he wouldn’t be as arrogant as he acted in the office in front of everyone.

  Wrong.

  So incredibly wrong.

  He was just as arrogant now, with a touch of narcissism thrown in for good measure. I sure could pick ‘em, and pick ‘em I always did.

  It’d been eons since I’d gone on a date. The constant disappointment wasn’t worth putting myself out there. My reasons for always saying no were long and cringe-worthy.

  There was one time when my old work bestie Maya had set me up on a blind date. It turned out it was with the cop who’d given me a ticket the day before. The cop I’d called a jerk. The cop I’d given the finger to as I drove off.

  There was also the time when my date showed up with his parents. His mom asked me if I believed in sex before marriage. When I said I did, the more sex the better, she barked at the
server to box up our barely touched meals— mine included— and stormed out of the restaurant with her son, my date, running after her like a naughty schoolboy. I was stuck with the bill.

  Then there was the guy I’d met on Swipe. He said he was divorced and had no kids. During dinner, his fuming wife stormed into the restaurant, with their two kids in tow. She told me he was bipolar and was in the middle of a manic episode.

  That debacle was two years ago, and it was also the last time I’d dipped my toes into the dating pool. Sometimes I could be a glutton for punishment, but even I knew enough was enough.

  The only problem was that no dates meant no sex.

  Not that I minded not having sex with the metrosexuals and crazies who’d crossed my path. And it wasn’t like the sex I’d been having with the few semi-fitting men I’d dated was very good.

  There were things I craved and the older I became, the more I ached to satisfy those cravings.

  Most men would have bolted if I’d asked any of them to spank my ass or pull my hair. Hence my need to watch online porn to vicariously live out my fantasies.

  While my self-administered orgasms scratched an itch, they weren’t the same as having a man’s throbbing cock between my legs. I was giving up hope of that ever happening again.

  “Look,” I said, trying to remain sweet and cool. “Can we both just agree this was a mistake and call it a night? We have less than nothing in common.”

  He selected a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, took a sip and then narrowed his eyes.

  “I can’t believe you’re scoffing at an evening out with me, and while we’re surrounded by such fine art, on top of that. I almost asked Jenna from reception. But your tits are bigger than hers and your ass is, too. I like a woman with some junk in the trunk.”

  My fingers curled into a fist. I so wanted to punch his perfect nose and watch as blood spurted down his shirt, but I held back. Attacking my superior a month into a new job with a new company wouldn’t go down well with HR. Even if the creep deserved it.

  “You’re quite the charmer, aren’t you, Simon?”

  He didn’t reply because his attention was somewhere else entirely. I followed his line of sight.

  I should have known. His beady eyes were making laser beams at my boobs.

  Perhaps wearing a low-cut dress that showed off my cleavage was a mistake, but I’d wanted to look good, and my red bandage dress always gave me a confidence boost. Plus, it complimented my new mystic star charm necklace.

  The seven points of the gold star were supposed to bring wealth, happiness, love, luck, wisdom, respect, and glory. But, so far, none of them had brought me any of those things. Perhaps it needed a day or two to blend with my energy.

  I glanced at the clock above the gallery entrance, hoping that it was almost time to leave.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  How could 30 minutes feel like 30 years?

  Simon quirked an eyebrow.

  “You have to be somewhere else?”

  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to use the restroom and then it’s time for me to leave. I promised my dad I’d check in on my grandma. She’s not feeling great, and, well, it’s getting late.”

  Every word I’d just said was a total lie. My dad died when I was five, and my grandma passed away a few years back, but Simon didn’t know that. Nor would he ever find out, since I never planned to see him socially again.

  Without waiting for a reply, I made my way to the back of the gallery and walked down a low-lit hallway filled with ladders, loose electrical wires, and blank canvases.

  I wasn’t really going to the restroom; I was looking for the back door so I could make my escape unseen.

  Footsteps echoed behind me.

  I quickened my pace.

  The exit must be around here somewhere.

  The footsteps drew closer.

  “Our night isn’t over yet, babe. Not by a long shot.”

  Shit.

  Simon.

  From behind, he cuffed my wrist with his hand in a possessive gesture that said mine.

  Then he spun me around to face him.

  “Get your fucking hands off me, babe.”

  I attempted to shake myself free, but his grip was a powerful one.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Your boss; that’s who the hell I think I am, and I’m not ready for tonight to end, not at all. You really going to ditch me for dear ol’ granny?”

  I dug the nails of my free hand into the back of his hand and smiled sweetly.

  “Let me go right now. If you don’t, I’ll tell everyone at work exactly what and who you are.”

  A hurricane of rage beat against my chest. I ached to kick him in the balls, but I was afraid of the rumors he’d spread about me at work if I let my inner hulk escape.

  Anger twisted his face, and he spat out, “Fucking tease.”

  I jerked back at the gassy stench wafting from his mouth. This guy obviously didn’t believe in brushing his teeth before he went on a date.

  “Charming,” I said, with a tilt of my head and a twist of my lips. “I think it’s time I went home. Name calling is something best left on the playground, don’t you think?”

  He released my wrist, but before I could make my escape, he wrapped a hand around my bicep and, digging his fingers into my skin, he pushed me against a wall.

  “You little slut,” he hissed in a whisper. “You’ve been flirting with me since day one. Coming into my office with your short little skirts. Licking your lips. Giggling.”

  I flattened my back against the wall.

  “You have me confused with someone else. I didn’t do any of those things. For starters, I don’t giggle. And I’d hardly call knee length skirts short.”

  He pressed his crotch to my hip and the head of what felt like a toothpick sized dick nudged against me.

  “If you want to keep your job, you’ll do exactly as I say when I say it. I’m not going home tonight without you sucking my cock and then swallowing my cum. Is that clear?”

  “Let me go.”

  Fear trickled down my spine, and I glanced around for possible escape routes.

  “I’ll scream my head off.”

  Not only was he an arrogant, self-conceited fucktard, but he also obviously didn’t understand the meaning of “no” and “not interested”.

  “No, you won’t.”

  I opened my mouth to scream, but before I could make a sound, he cupped his clammy palm around the lower half of my face.

  I struggled to free myself from his grip, but it was no use. He was too strong and much too overpowering.

  He lowered his head until our eyes met. They were cold and filled with malice.

  No way was I getting out of this without getting hurt.

  “I’m going to remove my hand, and if you even make a squeak, I’ll make your life hell. Understand?”

  I nodded.

  “Good girl.”

  He moved his hand from my mouth and then brushed the tip of a calloused finger down my cheek.

  Uncontrollable shivers shook my body.

  Tears burned my eyes, but I wouldn’t cry— I wouldn’t.

  No way in hell would I give him the satisfaction.

  “I’ve got something in my pocket that’ll loosen you up. Make you pliable if you get my meaning.”

  “Let me go,” I said, through clenched teeth.

  I reached up and grasped my mystic star necklace. If ever there was a time that I needed it to work, now was that time.

  He pressed his thigh between my legs and wedged me against the wall. I felt powerless and helpless, but I hoped I wasn’t letting my emotions show. I didn’t want to give this asshole the satisfaction of knowing how much he was scaring me.

  “You’re not going anywhere. Fucking me is a rite of passage for all of you brand new little number-crunching bitches. If you don’t do what I want, don’t bother coming into the office on Monday.”

  “Fuck you? Ha! Over my dead body.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  My fight or flight instinct kicked in, and adrenaline surged through my bloodstream. I slammed my forehead against his nose and heard a satisfying crack.

  My skull hitting his face pushed me off balance. Dizziness at the force of the blow washed over me, but I steadied myself.

  Falling to the floor would give him the upper hand. I was determined to do everything in my power to save myself.

  My heart was beating faster than ever before.