Under Cupid's Contract: Quarantined with My Boss on Valentine's Day Read online

  Under Cupid’s Contract

  Quarantined with My Boss on Valentine’s Day

  Love Under Lockdown, Book 25

  A series of standalone quarantine romance books.

  Copyright © 2021 Jamie Knight Romance.

  All rights reserved.

  Jamie Knight –

  Your Dirty Little Secret Romance Author

  Here are the books so far in the Love Under Lockdown series:

  1): Under Lock & Key

  2): Under Lockdown

  3): Under Strict Orders

  4): Stuck Together

  5): Under His Roof

  6): Under the Hawaiian Sun

  7): Under Wraps

  8): Under His Care

  9): Under the Sheets

  10): Dating During Lockdown

  11): Under His Protection

  12): Locked Down with Mr. Right

  13): Under His Watchful Eye

  14): Below Deck

  15): Under the Rancher’s Firm Hand

  16): Under His Suit

  17): Who Wants to Lock Down a Billionaire?

  18): Under His Discipline

  19): Under the Want Ads

  20): Cramped Quarters

  21): Lock Step

  22): Under His Ownership

  23): Under the Mistletoe

  24): Under the Countdown

  25): Under Cupid’s Contract

  New books are always being added.

  Click here to see the entire series!

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One - Vega

  Chapter Two - Hugo

  Chapter Three - Vega

  Chapter Four - Hugo

  Chapter Five - Vega

  Chapter Six - Vega

  Chapter Seven - Vega

  Chapter Eight - Hugo

  Chapter Nine - Vega

  Chapter Ten - Hugo

  Chapter Eleven - Vega

  Chapter Twelve - Hugo

  Chapter Thirteen - Vega

  Epilogue - Vega

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  Sneak Peek of Under the Countdown

  Books in the Love Under Lockdown Series

  Chapter One - Vega

  Even for a perpetual optimist, someone who always looks on the bright side of things, it was still important to know when you were beat. The sleek German device grinned at me, mocking me thoroughly as I removed the filter and dumped it in the trash. I sighed and yanked the plug from the wall in annoyance, feeling a little surge of bitter satisfaction as its lights went out.

  I may have been outsmarted by my new coffee maker, but unplugging the beast and stuffing it back into the box made me feel like maybe I won the war.

  After packing up the machine, I carefully closed the bag of overpriced coffee. I’d only used a bit from the top and the bag could be resealed, so no one would ever know it had been opened. Which was only right considering how much the small black bag of home-roast had cost, even online. The general expense was the primary reason I couldn’t have nice things.

  If nothing else, I’d have a present for my best friend Maya. No way she would let some complex coffee-making machine bedevil her. My culinary training was of a more traditional sort. Printed instructions, in both English and German, not required.

  The caffeine gift would have to wait until around next Christmas, though, considering her birthday fell on December 24th. Not that one would know that the season had well and truly passed. The holly was still very much jolly on large portions of my street.

  It was reaching a point where it was downright comical to still be seeing all the twinkling lights and snowmen, but some Californians were gung-ho. Even with the kick-off of the festive season creeping threateningly close to Halloween, some just didn’t seem to be able to let go of the holiday season. I’d be the first to admit that egg nog was among the top ten inventions ever, but I just got a case lot and froze it. None of the other Yuletide trappings required, come January 10th. Maybe it was some kind of strange compensation for the total lack of snow.

  In spite of my defeat, I tried to put on a brave face. Stowing the recycled bag of trend back in the coffee cupboard, I accepted my terrible fate and brought the jumbo jug of instant coffee crystals to the counter. The steam flew like a white flag as the stove top kettle blew. I consoled myself with the fact that instant coffee was better than no coffee at all.

  Once the caffeine had perked me up enough to function, I headed for my closet. The clothes inside stood like soldiers awaiting inspection. Not identical, but near enough that it was hard to tell them apart on first sight. Simple, subdued, black and white. Selecting the most sensible suit I could spy, I shook out of my P.J.s and slithered into the silk-lined wool.

  It only took spilling coffee on a white shirt once for me to want to take every precaution, so it didn’t happen again. Even if it did feel a bit silly. I’d been working from home for nearly a year. Yet, I’d kept up my old routine, like I still had an office job. Which, sadly, hadn’t been the case for about three months.

  It wasn’t a case of old habits dying hard, though they absolutely did, as much as mindset. Attitude wasn’t everything, but it could make a difference. Act like you have a job, and you won’t feel unemployed. Even if an unemployment check was the only real income you saw.

  The angels sang, the room filling with light as laptop came to life. Bluetooth headphones filling my skull with music, I set about the labors of the day, hopeful in heart but steely in determination.

  Scrolling through the want ads felt a little like some sort of digital treadmill, each of the listings scrolling by, most unnoticed, until they all became part of the same repeated blur. My finger on the scroll wheel was getting quite the workout. It sadly reminded me of the last time I’d tried online dating in a desperate attempt to break my lengthy dry spell.

  I knew I wasn’t the hottest fox on the planet, but it wasn’t like mirrors shattered when I passed or anything. I had a pretty enough face, and while I’d never been happy with the size of my waist, it was accompanied by a decently sized bust and hips.

  Yet, alone I remained. It felt a little pathetic to still be not just single, but a virgin, two weeks shy of my 25th birthday.

  It felt very much like I’d left no stone unturned in my relentless search, for either love or for a new job. Except that there was always another stone.

  A growing sense of pessimism gnawed inside my skull, threatening to greatly darken my mood. A change could be as good as a break, so I switched gears, and windows, over to my email. Hoping for a distraction, but never suspecting what I would actually find there that fateful morning.

  It wasn’t the first time. If it was, I doubted I would have recognized the type so readily. Still, there was no mistaking the top message in my inbox.

  The response was from Boucher Books. The biggest small press publisher on the west coast. What they lacked in print runs they made up for in mystique. There was never a book that their company released that didn’t garner instant critical acclaim.

  That kind of hype, combined with the scarcity of copies, ensured the company sold out of every book they chose to print. Numbers which looked very good for their overall standing. Like filmmakers who booked the smallest screening room at Cannes so they could boast their showing sold-out.

  While based on a temp
late, the missive was surprisingly personal. Unlike any form letter I’d ever seen.

  But in spite of that piquing my intrigue, the most interesting part of the email came in the later stages. Particularly the bit about wanting me to start immediately. As in that day, that instant. The exact wording was ‘at your convenience,’ but I’d been around long enough to know that basically meant ‘as soon as you’re able.’

  The second most interesting part, at least to me, was that the letter appeared to have been composed by Hugo Boucher himself. It could sometimes be hard to tell with electronic communications. The signatures were just the same kind of text as the rest of the message. Anyone could have filled in the name. Except there were little quirks. A odd sentence structure here, speaking of someone for whom English was not their first language, and a typo there, that spoke of human intention.

  I was able, and almost frighteningly willing, getting onto the company website within seconds and signing up for every group, mailing list and assignment they currently had on offer, before the minutes on the clock hand changed twice

  It didn’t mean I would get every project I signed up for. It was mostly likely a candidate system. Everyone in that department who was interested signing up and then, whoever was in charge of the project, picking who they thought was best. It was a system I knew well, and tended to cope with, by way of the shotgun approach. It was a decent way of statistically raising my chances of get at least something that I might want.

  Curiosity tugged. As I waited to hear back about which projects, if any, I’d been assigned, my mind drifted to the inciting email. I’d only managed to get my hands on one of Boucher’s books, and an electronic version at that. I was happy to get anything of course, but his seemed the kind of work to be held and experienced viscerally.

  There were print copies. Mostly on eBay, posted by the lucky sods who had snagged them when they were still new. All for prices well outside what I could afford, even if I ate only rice, with nothing but dreams of anything beyond instant coffee. I’d already been a student once.

  But the words from that digital copy of his work came back to me. Line by line, phrase by phrase. Those simple letters arranged in a way that left me glad to be alive. No matter how bad life got. The literary equivalent of the sentiment ‘any day above ground is a good day.’

  Boucher spoke to me though those backlit pages. Mostly read in the dark to get the effect. I also didn’t want anything else to be able to distract me from the experience. Like how people often turn the lights off before a movie, even when they’re at home.

  The projector of my mind hummed as his beautiful words created images. I’d never really understood the near animosity between literature and visual art. They might have different ways of going about it, but were ultimately united in their goals.

  I couldn’t draw, or even really paint. Nor was I really much of a writer, myself. I would never be published, but my career, such as it was at that point, had been in publishing, and I loved it. I loved to read.

  Hugo Boucher was on another level, though. He was absolutely beautiful, in body as well as in print. Although I didn’t have too much reference to go on as far as the former. Photographs were scarce, much like his treasured output.

  There were rumors of art, paintings that no one had seen. Not to mention another book he’d been working on for over five years. I stared at the single photograph of him on the company website and it almost felt like he looked at me across space and time. Rendered in a stoic black and white, doing little justice to his true Norman features. His full lips held a cigarette. A risky move in the days of health cartels and easy offense. Though, in his defense, the image had been captured over ten years ago, its subject an obstinate youth of 25.

  It was kind of crazy, considering I’d never met the man, but somehow I felt like I knew him, like he understood me. And I’d had a torrid crush on him since I turned the first page

  And now? Him being my new boss? It felt a little like fate.

  I hadn’t meant to do it. My hand was moving very much of its own accord. Or so I told myself. To avoid the guilt if nothing else. Girls weren’t supposed to do that sort of thing. It was taboo for everyone, sure, but it was somehow more forgivable for guys. But as the button loosened on my pants, forgiveness, and indeed purity, were the furthest things from my mind.

  My experience was short, but my imagination was vivid. It wasn’t long until I was on a bed, at least in my mind, my hand between my thighs, like it was in the waking world. The two versions of myself working in concert, striving toward the same goal.

  I gasped as my clit throbbed, roused by the sudden attention, almost painfully sensitive.

  The sound of the door made me moan in anticipation. A smell of musk filling my senses as he came in, naked from the waist up. His lower half clad only in a pair of silk pajama bottoms. A magnificent hard-on already outlined in the front of the pitch black material. As he approached, my imagined self slipped my fingers from my pussy. Allowing him full access for whatever he wanted to do. I was completely his, and he seemed to know it.

  I could feel the edge of the bed dip with the extra weight, as Hugo climbed up. Starting at my feet, he kissed his way all the way up my open legs. Working his way gradually, teasingly up my thighs toward my waiting pussy. Aching for his tongue. A gift he was more than happy to give. Running the flat of his tongue against my tender, virgin lips, drawing a moan out of me in kind. Playing me like a slide-whistle.

  The gasp ripped out of me, my back lifting from the chair as I lightly worked my finger inside myself, while imagining Hugo Boucher eating me out on the bed. His light blond hair bobbing lightly between my thighs as he made me scream, using only his tongue. Getting me ready for what was coming next.

  Planting soft, wet kisses on my skin, Hugo blazed a trail from my pussy along my belly and up to my tits. Taking care to be gentle, he lightly sucked one nipple and then the other. Always making sure to stimulate the one not between his beautiful lips lightly with his fingertips. His other hand continued tenderly working my pussy, keeping me relaxed and ready.

  The trail continued up between my tits to my neck. Plying tender licks and nibbles making me moan. His fingers working my pussy toward a second orgasm. The walls of my pussy drawing even tighter around his fingers. Agreeing with me in not wanting him to stop.

  Moving up to my lips, he came to be right on top of me. The head of his cock pressed up against my pussy, kissing met tenderly. Stroking his head against me to help me relax even further, he eased inside me. The soft throb of his beautiful cock like a second heartbeat as he lovingly took my virginity.

  Strength drained from me as my climax faded. Leaving me slack and heaving in the affordable piece of Swedish ergonomics. Some absent part of my brain noticed that the lumbar support was really first-rate. I carefully removed my fingers, sucking them clean. Finding I rather enjoyed the taste of myself. Sweet with just a bit of a tang.

  I didn’t know when it would come. Just that it would. The obligatory wave of guilt that came with anything forbidden like this. I mean really, masturbating to fantasies of my new boss taking my v-card? But somehow an hour passed, with no such guilt. No matter how many times I looked over my shoulder, metaphorically, to see if it was approaching. I hadn’t gone blind. No lighting had crackled from the sky. It felt good, and that was all.

  Chapter Two - Hugo

  The image appeared as though by magic. Rising up out of the rough surface of the canvas. First as an outline, drawn in charcoal, then in full living color. The rosy flesh added to the cheeks, the light of life to the eyes.

  It was like surgery. Each precise and practiced movement yielding the expected result. The pen might be mightier than the sword, the brush was sharper than the scalpel. Revealing the bones and skeleton of the world.

  I’d gone through the usual motions. Feeling ever more like a fraud. Made a ritual of slipping into my pure silk pajamas and cap, looking much like a character from
classic literature. Even if The Night Before Christmas had long ago passed. I did the thing with the warm milk, with if anything only made me more alert. I even, to my eternal shame, tried counting sheep. Getting to one-hundred thousand before I decided to give up.

  The sandman was not going to grace me with a visit that night. Much like every other night for the past five years. Were it not for occasional catnaps during the daylight hours, all the doctors would agree, sleep deprivation would have done for me years ago. One particular insomnia specialist of advanced years and considerable experience, claimed to have never seen anything like it.

  Beyond help, by either science, milk, or sheep, I did what I always did when in doubt. I created. Writing was out of the question. There was still the book to contend with. I knew, as sure as the sun rose and God made little green apples, I would never be able to work on anything else until it was out of my mind and off my chest. Otherwise, it would haunt me like a ghost the rest of my days. Sadly fitting really.

  So, painting it was. I’d never even picked up a brush before I was 30, yet, there I was, an adult prodigy unknown even to myself. The term some liked to use for a situation like mine was ‘savant,’ even if it wasn’t wholly accurate

  Their insistence on the term most likely stemmed from an inability to reconcile the idea of discovering talent late-in-life. The general myth was that true talent is cultivated from a young age; Mozart being the go-to example. Honestly, I’d just never thought to try.

  That’s not to say it was easy. I still had to learn. No one is born knowing geometric technique. Yet, learn I did, and within a year I could make photo-realistic renderings. All kept safe in my room. The discovery of them would be just another thing to make people interested. Which could only lead to more calls for me to come out of hiding. Not to mention renewed speculation as to why I’d disappeared in the first place. It wasn’t the time. I still had thinking to do before I could face the world again.