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“Understood,” I said, a silent understanding passing between us.
Elsa finished the tie and lay her hand over my heart. It was her subtle way of giving me her blessing, something that was still important to me. Elsa had served as my conscience for longer than I remembered.
“The pandemic is getting worse,” Elsa said, returning to her desk. “It looks like there could be a state-wide lockdown soon.”
“Keep me posted,” I said, heading for Charli’s office.
I was all the way there before I realized I hadn’t brought her any food. My forgetfulness was funny. Until I’d met her, I’d never forgotten a single thing. If I didn’t know better, I would have said I was lovesick.
Still, it wasn’t too bad. For every problem, there was a solution, as Elsa’s mom used to say.
“Sir.”
The sound of her voice was like the gentle coo of a dove. I turned to see the most beautiful girl in the world standing behind me.
“Charli,” I said, with a nod.
I could call her that now.
We were on familiar terms.
And I wanted them to become even more familiar.
“Were you looking for me? Am I late?”
“No, no, of course not.”
It took a second for me to realize I’d reached out and placed a hand on her hip. Not that it mattered much. Other than Elsa, we were the only ones in the office.
I could have put Charli over the desk and fucked her as long as we did it quietly. Still, discretion was the better part of valor and all.
“I thought we could go out for breakfast today,” I said.
Her doe eyes widened.
“Don’t you have work to do? A deadline to meet?”
“Yes, but I can do it at my own pace, and you as my assistant need to be with me. So that lets you off the hook.”
Her lips lifted into a wide grin.
“You’re the boss.”
I fought the urge to take her hand. That gesture was much more vanilla than I was used to expressing. Charli affected me differently than most women had. Not that I didn’t like them. I never fucked anyone I didn’t at least like. It was one of the few moral standards I had. However, there was a big difference between like and love.
I felt weird, even thinking about it. My mom and Elsa were the only women I had ever loved, and that was vastly different. What I felt for Charli was practically a pain deep in my stomach. The feelings I had for her both thrilled and terrified me.
My brain barely noticed what my hand was doing as my fingers laced with Charli’s. She looked at me in surprise for a moment before smiling and squeezing my hand. I squeezed back, loving the warmth and the nearness of her.
I had found Lucia’s café a few years before. It was one of the few establishments that kept hours similar to mine, so I became a regular. The owner liked to joke that I was the main person keeping her in business.
“Max, how ya doin’ dis fine day?” Lucia asked from behind the counter, her Italian accent coming through.
“Not so bad,” I said as I always did.
“The usual?”
“Yep, times two.”
“Ah, gotcha,” Lucia said with a wink.
It wasn’t the first occasion I’d brought a woman in, but it was the first time I’d done so at that hour and it was definitely the first time that I was holding hands with said woman.
“I’ve been thinking it over,” I said, putting my briefcase on the table and taking out a manilla file, “and I think I have everything all laid out.”
“You wrote up a contract?” Charli asked, taking the file from my hand.
“Non-binding,” I explained. “It just lays everything out, so you know what you are getting into.”
“Oh, okay.”
Charli flipped through the printed pages, nodding occasionally. Everything seemed fine. Right until she gasped.
“What?” I inquired.
The look on her face was a mixture of surprise and curiosity.
“Is this true?”
“Is what true?”
Too shy to say it out loud, she turned the paper in my direction and pointed at the paragraph in question.
“This.”
I skimmed my eyes over the words that had embarrassed her so much. I smiled to myself. She wasn’t the first woman shocked about the size of my dick.
“That’s true.”
“Wow. That’s big. And I’ve never even heard of half the stuff in here.”
“I wanted to go through all the options, but I don’t want to push you too far. That’s why we’re doing this now.”
“I want to! I mean—I just—wow. I didn’t even realize that some of the things were, you know, possible.”
“Possible and very fun,” I said with a wink.
Though she smiled, her eyes were wide and glassy, and her cheeks cherry red. She read on in silence, not objecting to anything.
She firmed her lips and nodded.
“I’m in.”
I handed her a pen, and she signed next to where I had printed out her full name. Returning my pen and the contract, I signed too. We both signed a second copy, just so we each had one.
