1
Jean-Paul “JP” Dubois
Deputy Mayor Vane Elwood stopped by my desk on his way out for the evening, and I shuffled the paperwork I’d been organizing into a stack and then clipped it, handing it over to him. He gave me his usual arrogant smirk, the one that had me swooning for about three days when I’d first started as his assistant. All that enraptured nonsense was before I pegged him as a manipulator and kindred spirit.
“What’s this?” he asked as he leaned across the curved mahogany desk to take the stack of papers, but even as he spoke his eyes kept slipping to the corner of the room near the printer along the wall, where Kalinski had spread out to work on the floor. Essentially, I had the irritable former intern trapped. He couldn’t go anywhere in the room without walking past me, more or less, not even the bathroom.
Every move he made was firmly under my control.
My stomach zipped with happy tingles because I already knew what Vane would see over there, and as much as I’d been trying not to have too much fun with my assignment to torture Kalinski into quitting, I couldn’t help it. The little fuck had deserved every second of office hell I’d been able to conjure for him, and I was nowhere near done with ideas to make his life miserable.
After the stunt Kalinski had pulled, where he’d tried to get Vane and his fiancé, Jaxson, fired a few months ago by running to the newspaper about their “inappropriate” relationship, there was nothing paper, ink, and boredom-related I wouldn’t do to make him pay. I’d woken up at three in the morning last night and written down a new drudge-filled chore—organizing the last twenty years of expenses for Harold Lang, who manages the intern pool, would be positively awful. That man kept the most abysmal records.
I was beginning to worry that maybe I was a bad person.
Fighting off a smile, I cleared my throat. “Mr. Elwood,” I murmured sharply, and he froze. “That, in your hand, is the expenses you’ve attempted to turn in to have compensated by the city. I’ll ignore the fact that for the fifth month running you’ve neglected to supply receipts with your initial request.” He gulped so hard the knot of his light gray tie, which matched his eyes, bounced. He squinted at me. “How many times do I have to remind you, personal expenses that aren’t necessary for your job aren’t covered? No one is paying for your overpriced briefcase.”
“But I need it!”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Really? Then, where is it?”
He glanced at his empty hand as if just noticing there was nothing but air in his palm and then used it to rub the back of his neck. “Well….”
The idiot.He was lucky I liked him. “I’ll go out and purchase you an appropriate case if you’d like to carry one I deem acceptable to turn in for reimbursements.”
“Never mind.” He blanched and angled himself to completely stare at Kalinski where he was on his knees, doggedly pulling a paper from each stack in front of him and stapling them together. It was amazing how many people in this building needed pamphlets assembled when they knew they wouldn’t have to do it themselves.
“What do you have him working on there, JP?”
Kalinski flinched lower toward the floor and a sick, excited glow gathered to warm my chest. I loved talking about him like he wasn’t in the room. Objectifying a man had never been a kink of mine, I’d always considered myself a caring Dom—to the point I’d driven several men off to the tune of accusations of being smothering—but I was learning fast I might enjoy having total control over someone.
Leaning back, I crossed my arms. In the last two months I’d been having more fun than I ever thought I might in my entire life. I spun in my chair and stared at Kalinski’s nice, round peach of an ass sticking out in our direction. Vane ogled, too, but who wouldn’t? Hell, if his fiancé, Jaxson, was here, he’d be watching as well. Much as Kalinski irritated me, that ass answered for a lot of crimes. I’d forgive him for half his rich-baby-boy outrage just to get to look at it, if only I could dream up a way to make him keep his mouth shut some of the time. We’d had a rare half hour without him whining about his current job, and that made me like him a lot more. My dick gave a throb and I breathed out slowly.
“I’ve had little Maxwell doing this and that.” I waved a hand. “But my day would be a lot nicer if I could gag him.” I gave Vane a tight smile, and he snickered.
Kalinski froze.Hell, I must have said that last bit louder than I’d thought. I was shocked at the way my cock surged harder at the idea of stuffing his mouth full enough that he wouldn’t be able to make a sound. How nice would it be to have a thick gag hooked between his pink lips? I turned and slid closer into my desk, even though I knew Vane’s attention wasn’t going to be on my lap.
“Don’t stay too much longer, JP. I need you sharp to go to that meeting with me tomorrow.” Vane gave me a shake of his head and a wink on his way out the door. He’d caught on to the fact that I was enjoying myself rather too much, although with true Elwood panache, he hadn’t mentioned anything beyond the occasional reminder of who Maxwell Kalinski’s parents were.
Why he thought I would entangle myself with a traitorous man-child was beyond me. It was kind of Vane to concern himself, but I was fairly certain Kalinski over there would rather huff copier ink than touch me in an intimate way, sad as that reality was to consider with that ass bobbing around as he bent forward again.
“I am two classes away from my degree, you know,” Kalinski snarked as soon as the door clicked closed behind Vane. There was an unexpectedly defeated quality to his words. I was used to his rage by now, so this was new. “I can do jobs that aren’t staple papers and carry boxes.”
“You don’t say. Maybe once you graduate, I’ll let you get off your knees.”
He turned to look at me and his face flushed an amazing reddish pink. I wasn’t entirely surprised when he stood and kicked at the piles of papers, sending them flying. I’d been doing my best all day to goad him. My stomach melted with heat at finally getting him to explode, and he froze, staring in horror at what he’d done.
“You’re going to make me pay for that tomorrow, aren’t you?” He sounded almost close to tears, and a very teeny tiny part of me felt bad for what I was doing. The plan was to make him quit, and had been from the start, because he’d only gotten the job he had right now in our office by blackmailing Vane. He’d thought he had the balls to get the deputy mayor kicked out of his position, but it was painfully clear he was out of his league when it came to dirty politics.
Once Vane had figured out Kalinski’s mother was a judge, all bets were off. Yeah, Vane had done some things he shouldn’t by sleeping with Jaxson in the office, but Kalinski had tried to extort him about their relationship, since Jaxson was an intern when their relationship started.
We all knew who Kalinski’s mother would be more angry with if it came down to actually telling her all the seedy things her perfect private school angel had gotten up to here in city hall, and it wasn’t Vane, who was happily engaged.
“Oh, I certainly will make you regret your tantrum.” I rested my elbow on my desk and my chin in my palm. “Actually, you’re going to pay right now. Sort those stacks. I want this job done before you leave.”
“You can’t do that!” He ran his hands through the longer dark hair on the top of his head, and when he was done, it was everywhere—shiny and soft-looking—and his disarray reminded me of better things he could be doing than sorting paper. Fuck, it really was a shame that all the most attractive men I met were either off-limits or self-entitled jackholes.
“I think you’ll find I can do as I please. I’m the office manager for the deputy mayor, and I’ve deemed that work of utmost importance.”
