“You did a good job at tackling that school situation. I’m proud of how you handled it.” I wanted to remind him he needed to tell me in words that he understood me when I gave him an order, but I wasn’t his Daddy, and I wasn’t his Sir. I was only his supervisor.
I kept my mouth shut and hated it.
Max gave me a small smile, and I groaned internally because I’d seen that look in my bed last night, slightly awed and lit by a surprised happiness.
When I turned off the engine, Max gave me a questioning look as he opened his door, and I waved a hand at him. He rushed ahead and slammed the door shut. I didn’t particularly care if anyone saw us arriving together, but it was likely for the best that it didn’t become immediately known where he was staying—best for me because Vane wouldn’t understand. He’d be fucking overjoyed to hear that Max had nowhere to go.
He would beg me to turn Max out, or at least ask why I’d taken him in.
Guilt bit at me as I made my way inside. We were on time for me, but very early for Max. I still took the stairs and let him go in the elevator, as if we hadn’t come at the same time. It gnawed at me that I wished I could have had that quiet time before work in the elevator with Max. Every step upward on the stairs let me know my muscles had been exercised last night. They didn’t hurt, just felt used. I’d plowed him, maybe fucked him harder than I should have for his first time. I hadn’t asked him how he was feeling this morning. I sucked in a deep breath and shoved the thought away.
On the fifth floor, I stepped out into the corridor between the elevator and Vane’s office and stared at the glow coming from the glass door that spilled into the dim hallway. Max was already inside. I could do nothing different at the office, no matter how I felt about him. I’d have to keep to the script.
When I stepped through the door, Max stood at the nook to my right making coffee in the small pot we kept there, along with sugar and other extras. He gave me a needy smile like he wanted me to tell him he’d done a good thing.
And I wanted to compliment him because it made him happy; I’d seen it.
“You know what you’re supposed to be doing today,” I said crisply and took off my coat to hang it on the wall pegs. Glaring, I stripped off my gloves while he stared at me with huge puppy eyes, and then I tucked them into the pockets of my coat before I went behind the desk to my spot. “Get to your schoolwork. You don’t need more directions.”
He cast me a small, hurt glance over his shoulder, and I ignored the pang that went through me. Even if I had lost my mind and I’d made him my boy, which I hadn’t, I should continue on with his punishment here. He’d gone out of his way to earn one. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t as excited as I’d been at first to dish it out.
The problem was, with a punishment for a boy who needed to learn a lesson, there was always an end in sight, even if I was the only one who knew when that would be. Right now, the only planned end to the drudge-work torture was Max quitting.
Anxiety flashed across Max’s face as he came over to the desk and opened the laptop he rarely used here. Apparently schoolwork was scarier than stapling. I wanted to soothe him—go over and rest a hand on his shoulder, give him a few stern words he could think about to carry him through until later, about how I’d take him home and spank him and….
Maybe it would be better if he simply hated me, like he should have all along.
“When you’re finished, I have stapling,” I said, sounding cold even to myself.
He nodded but didn’t look back at me. I sat down and opened my emails to go through them, but now that I knew more about Max, I saw his struggle. He would type for two minutes, then spend time hitting the Delete button. I wasn’t sure what paper he was composing, but the pattern persisted. Hell, it was amazing he’d ever completed any classes at this rate. The type-Delete, type-Delete horror show made for slow, excruciating work.
Eventually he let out an enraged snarl and closed the laptop. I didn’t ask about it when he picked up the stapler and went back to his usual job because he seemed too upset. I ignored him as best I could, all the while thinking of a million other tasks I could concoct that would be easier on him.
But I didn’t tell him to stop. I felt like an asshole and that only made me simmer with anger as I sat there shooting back responses to emails and making notes for Vane.
Around ten o’clock, Vane came in. He looked like hell warmed over with dark circles under his eyes and had a ball of tissues in his hand.
“Are you all right?” I asked, standing. “Do you need to go lie down on one of the couches in your office?”
He gave me a wan smile and stopped beside my desk. Even looking like shit, Vane was tall, dark, and handsome, with an exquisitely cut bespoke suit. In a strange way, his being sick was a positive rather than a negative, because it at least proved he was human.
“Thanks, JP, but no. I am going to work. And no, I’m not all right.” He chuckled happily enough anyway. “I took Jax sledding last night at a park outside of town that has a nice hill and woke up this way.”
“I bet you didn’t dress warm enough. Serves you right.” I crossed my arms.
“Jax said the same thing.” He shrugged and then let out a rib-cracking sneeze into his pile of tissues. He gave me another forced smile and shuffled toward his office.
“I’ll bring you in some tea.” I only just stifled an eye roll.
“Thank you.”
Shaking my head, warmth replaced some of my foul mood as I went to get him a few things and even considered running out to the pharmacy for him. Sometimes Vane was like an overgrown child and really did need someone to watch out for him. I took him the tea, and then I could feel Max’s gaze on me as I pulled on my coat to go out. I looked at him, and he glanced away, a frown stuck on his face as he went back to his stapling. Shrugging his odd reaction off, I went about my business of making sure the deputy mayor’s office was as functional as possible. While I was out, I stopped and bought a brand-new stapler for Max, a nice one that wouldn’t be so hard to squeeze, so the staples would be less likely to go in crooked.
After I got back to the office, unwrapped myself from my winter layers, and had taken Vane some medication, I stepped lightly to Max’s work area on the floor. His perky, squeezable ass was in the air as he reached across his piles to pull one closer to stack them together, and the view knocked the air out of me. I’d thought he looked good before, but now that I knew how amazing he was to fuck, and how pink and edible his hole was, it took almost no time for a tingle to settle on my cockhead and my shaft to firm. I tossed the stapler down and he groaned as it knocked his piles askew, but he let out a laugh and snapped it up, clutching it to his chest like it was made of gold.
“Thank you.” He stared up at me as if I’d actually done something godlike instead of only being barely this side of human. His mouth dropped open as I gave my semi a squeeze.
“Don’t. You’ve earned that.”
