It is not like I would accomplish anything at home, though. Here, at least, I can provide the illusion of efficiency. I began this company years ago in my attempt to help the world and create a comfortable life for Tasha. I succeeded, and I’ve moved on to do so much more than I originally planned. Huntsworth Industries has become one of the most respected corporations for blending technology with housing worldwide in addition to picking up the slack of feeding the planet’s hungry. No child will eat mud if I have the means to help them.
“Intellectual property is usually harder to fight for, Beck, but we have the screen shots your IT security team provided of the employee copying files.” My attorney wants me to utterly destroy the former employee, but I am having a hard time bringing myself to that level of ruthless CEO behavior. “I’m glad you pushed them to have those safety nets set up on all computers.”
I don’t care if my employees spend a little of their time playing games or chatting during the work day as long as it doesn’t bring down their performance rating or quota. Downloading schematics of upcoming tech releases is another story… “Bob, I want to set an example of him so that we don’t have anyone else try it, but I don’t want him behind bars for a decade either. Any money from a settlement, however, I want diverted to a scholarship fund or some other charitable contribution. I don’t want any fines he is charged to affect our actual income. I won’t profit off someone being an asshole.”
My attorney agrees and runs through a few more issues he wants hammered out before I can end the call. I try to hold still, to stop my pacing, but whenever my frenetic movement is contained, the hunger for Lia begins to gnaw at my gut. It aches in a way I cannot remember feeling for anyone, not even for Carrie. We were married right out of high school, and she was my rock all through college and working my way up from crap jobs that taught me to be considerate to all my employees, not just the ones whose names are emblazoned on doors or desk plates.
When I walked in on my wife with another man, it had shattered me. It’s been nine years, and I still find it difficult to trust a woman with my heart. I gave Carrie the world, and she took me for seven million dollars, my favorite car, our penthouse downtown, and access to my private jet whenever she wanted it for the first year following our divorce. At least she gave up all custody rights to Tasha. I’m not sure what I would have done if she had tried to take our daughter.
Hell, I’m not sure what I will do now with Lia coming to work under me. Under me. I start filing papers that had built up on my desk. She should be kept busy, with actual work—not getting busy with me.
I have not felt lust like this ever, this distraction and need. From the moment I walked into the garage and saw her under the car I wanted to fuck her, claim her, make her mine. The nearly instant arousal that filled me by just being near her was enough to make feel like a randy teenager. While I had been almost desperate with the desire to fuck her right there in my garage, I would have settled for licking away the sweat glistening on her chest.
Lia gives new meaning to the word “stunning.” She was always cute, and I can admit to harboring a few naughty thoughts over the years, but I never allowed myself to go down those paths even mentally as more than a momentary lapse of propriety. She was a minor—a teen girl who would wear the skimpiest bikinis while sunbathing on my back porch as if to purposely tease me—and I was happily married. At least, I thought Carrie and I were happy together. Now, though, Lia has filled out into a curvy young woman who is so down-to-earth it nearly broke all my resolve when I caught her staring at me. Her mother had been a striking woman before cancer left her wasted and weak. Genetics has been kind to Lia.
Watching Lia work, tongue peeking out from between her lips as she immersed herself in her art, left me breathless. The strength of her limbs from years of lifting heavy components into place and working with power tools gave her toned muscles and an internal fortitude lacking in so many of her peers. I knew from her conversations with Tasha during Lia’s years away that she was as beautiful inside as she was out. There was a gentleness to her that had her donating hours of face painting to local hospitals’ pediatric patients as well as gifting art for their walls so that the children had nice things to look at as they convalesced.
Being near Lia astonished me. Heat and desire struck each time she moved, and even now I find my body responding to the memory of her in my arms. I don’t know how to react to her, and my brain is left out of commission in the wake of just her smile.
Tasha told me over dinner last week that Lia was coming back, so her appearance in my garage had not been a surprise. It had been no effort at all on my part to grant her permission to work in my garage workshop. It was not like I had time often enough to play there. There was space enough for five cars, and we only used two of them.
I had prepared myself for the pretty, bubbly, snarky, and often lost in her own head girl whom I had watched grow from childhood into her teen years. She was far from the awkward teen growing into her long legs while learning about the world. I still remember catching her making out with a boy on my own couch while Tasha was with her boyfriend in her room. Lia was the diversion so Tasha wouldn’t get caught doing more than I wanted to see in my home. They had been grounded from each other for a few weeks over that one.
But Lia, at twenty-two, a few months older than my own daughter, makes everything that much harder. I’m glad she’s home, despite the reason for it, but resisting her and whatever it is we have brewing between us is going to test my resolve.
I am no stranger to women wanting me, but other than a single interlude when I attempted to start dating and slake my thirst for human companionship, I have not welcomed anyone into my bed. It is hard to know who is after me for my money and connections versus being honestly interested in me. Hell, I would probably even welcome someone interested solely in my body if I knew it wasn’t because they’ve seen me in various magazines and know who I am.
Despite being old enough to have an adult daughter and the greying hair that comes with having such a free spirited daughter, I take care of myself. I work out in the company gym at least three days a week with a trainer and have equipment at home as well. Keeping my body looking how it did during my early twenties requires determination, but it is an effort that leaves me feeling in control of my life. I eat right most of the time, and while I do have a fondness for lattes and other sugar and milk-laden coffee drinks, I make up for them on the treadmill and by lifting weights.
When I stripped off my shirt and jacket to help Lia, I wasn’t trying to show my physique. Teasing her had been a bonus effect. My mind was on auto-pilot from seeing the bombshell she had become, and my only thought was on not ruining a thousand dollars or so of fabric with grease. The drycleaner would have flayed me alive when our housekeeper took in the weekly basket of clothes.
I ended up covering the shirt in come after Lia left, only marginally better than ruining it in the garage. My cock refused to deflate, not even talking to Tasha had been able to calm my desires. Hiding my plight with the folded jacket, I’d gone into my study, locked the door, and then quickly jacked off, thinking of how Lia felt in my arms. Those full, high breasts of hers… The way I wanted to lick off the sweat I’d seen beading between them when she was bent over. How I longed to suck her nipples into my mouth.
When she wriggled her hips at me, I knew she had caught me looking. My cock had gotten hard with that move of hers, and it was only as I thought of her kneeling on my bed, shimmying before I could fuck her, that I found the release I needed.
Lia did not kiss like a young woman just out of college who was looking to tease. She kissed me like she meant it, like she felt everything I did. The chemistry, the cotton candy buzz of her tongue on mine, sang in my blood long after she pushed me off her and ran away without us talking about what happened.
I know I should apologize to her for letting it happen, but I don’t think I can. I need her.