Chapter 12: Taming Mr. Walker: Chapter 12

Danny

I wasn’t lying when I told her she had ruined me. I almost blew a five-million-pound deal so that I could sit in a small girly flatshare, squirming in my own pre-cum watching a girl too young for me and completely off-limits, get herself off. Like a horny schoolboy.

Karl is still livid with me even though, by some miracle, I managed to salvage the deal. He was too furious to pull the details from me of why I was AWOL.

I couldn’t explain it to myself, never mind Karl.

I take a swig of coffee. I was on the conference call until 2 a.m. and then had Karl bust my balls for thirty minutes after that. Telling me how reckless I was, how we had been working on this deal for months.

It was worth every minute.

Watching her get herself off was the biggest turn-on of my life.

The bloody simpleton Mike is droning on when I enter the boardroom. He thrusts his chest out to show me he has control of the room.

Compared to any of the Nexus offices, this place is a joke. The boardrooms are filled with dying technology that wastes half the meeting trying to establish a video-link and plastic chairs that look like they belong in a school.

I’ll be glad to see the back of this pokey dump when we move them into the Nexus headquarters next week. Although half of them won’t get to enjoy it for very long.

I scan the room, and all eyes are on me with one exception.

She stares intently at Mike like he’s the most interesting man she’s ever heard. I’m almost jealous. A flush creeps across her face.

I exhale hard as I sit down. My eyes drop to her long, toned legs. She must be about 5’7, still short compared to me. At 6’4, everyone is short beside me.

I take in every detail of her appearance, banking it in my mind for later. Up past her tight jeans hugging her thighs to where her long brown hair curls around the curve of her breasts.

Fucking delicious.

Mike clears his throat. “Boss, we were just recapping on what has gone well this quarter.”

“Why?” I ask, frostily.

“Why?” he repeats less confidently.

“This is supposed to be a crisis meeting,” I snap, leaning forward in my chair. “Not a meeting where you pat yourselves on the back saying what a great job you’ve done. Bluntly, these products are failing.”

The room collectively inhales a breath.

“Sir,” he stammers, “against our stats, we are—”

“Your stats are wrong,” I cut in. “From now on, you measure against the Nexus stats. And against those, your products are failing.”

“Mr. Walker,” he braves again. “We’ve received positive feedback from all our major clients through the questionnaire we sent out.”

I run my tongue over my teeth. I don’t have the patience for this garbage. Together with spending half the night on calls to the States and a certain brunette keeping my dick awake, I’m tired as fuck.

“No new customers in three years. No increases in the current customer usage. Constant outages. High support calls. Bad reviews in the press,” I list out through clenched teeth. Do I have to do their jobs for them? “This is where you can set yourself apart from others. Where is the initiative in this room?”

Now, none of them meet my gaze.

Mike clears his throat so much that he seems to be choking.

“Has anyone tried to address any of the issues rather than bury their heads in the sand?”

Tumbleweed.

The only sound is me angrily drilling my fingers on my laptop, trying not to punch a wall.

Why do I fucking bother? I should sack all of them on the spot. Most of them stare at the floor. I scan the room, demanding them to make eye contact with me.

My eyes flit to Charlie again.

Her cheeks redden as she looks up, then she turns away.

As I glare at Mike, I let out a heavy breath. This is his fault, he’s buried any last hope of innovation in this team.

“The software is ten years old with no proper design behind it, there’s no strategic thinking. It’s been a mismatch of add-ons and hacks over the years with not a single coherent design or vision,” comes a strong voice from the other side of the room.

My eyes travel back to Charlie, surprised.

Her knuckles grip the side of the seat. “It’s expensive to maintain, and we can’t push new features fast enough. We do no user research on what our customers actually want. No new customers in three years because we’ve added so many hacks. It’s an over-engineered system,” she continues. “People are scared of it.”

“Nonsense,” Mike barks. “Charlie, I really don’t think this is help—”

“Let her finish,” I cut him off, raising my eyebrows for her to continue.

“The lack of increase in the current customer usage is because we’re not adding the features they want.” She pauses. “Constant outages are because we have an unsustainable hosting platform.”

My attention is drawn to her mouth, but I find myself listening to what she’s saying.

“High support calls because of our constant outages, obviously.” She stops to take a breath. “I have a number of suggestions for quick wins that we could add that would cut development time but, ultimately, this software is built on aging technology. If we want new clients and to keep our existing clients, we need to redesign it top-down not bottom-up as we are currently doing.”

I arch a brow. “Good, Charlie. I’d like my designers to hear your ideas.”

A flash of annoyance passes over her, and I can’t nail why. Is she pissed off at my surprise?

“I wholeheartedly agree with you,” I reply firmly. “We need to invest in re-engineering this product from the top down. Remember, you have the backing of a global tech company now. I want to hear ideas on how we will make this happen.”

I grit my teeth and wait.

Finally, they start talking, so I know they’re not puppets, and ideas start bouncing around, tentatively at first, then boldly.

My attention drifts back to the leggy brunette.

She’s facing me, but her gaze is on everyone but me. Is she embarrassed? Does she regret it?

It was obvious she’d been drinking. She isn’t known for being so overtly sexual; such a tease. Then again, it was the first time in years I had been close enough to her to find out.

Her breasts rise up and down in her white shirt, triggering arousal in my groin.

She fidgets in her seat and uncrosses her legs, bringing the glorious memory flooding back.

The girl is sensational, there’s no doubt about that. Karl and Jack have both said it themselves, although they somehow aren’t as affected as me. A stare from those green eyes under their dark eyelashes and I turn to goo.

Seeing her play with herself was the hottest fucking turn-on of my life.

Pleading with me to take her, to have her. That pink, swollen, beautiful pussy; it could have been all mine. Knowing I’m the only man she’s ever done that in front of.

And the only man she ever will, a small voice pipes up in my head out of nowhere.

My eyes rake over her body. I can tell she senses it; she bites her bottom lip, clearly anxious with the attention.

I should be motivating this group but instead, I want to order them all to leave so that I can rip her jeans to shreds and fuck her right here on the desk. Mount her like a fucking animal.

She felt so tight.

Feeling her wet flesh has left me harder than ever. She was soaking. I wouldn’t last long the first time, not if she’s that wet.

I watch her lips from across the room, those full pink lips, and they remind me of her other lips. I want both around my cock, sucking me dry.

Taking my length as I come inside her again and again.

She wants me sexually. I know that for sure now.

I put my laptop over my erection and silently command her to look at me.

Finally, our eyes lock, and her lips slightly part, a glorious flush rising to her face as I eye-fuck her. I smile softly as our secret passes between us.

She stares down at my laptop. She knows exactly what I’m thinking. That I’m replaying the image of her fingers satisfying her swollen pink pussy in my head.

She’s the most captivating woman I’ve ever seen.

“Mr. Walker?” I force my eyes off her and return to Mike.

“Say it again, Mike,” I ask, irritated, forcing images of a naked Mike to calm my erection.

“What’s our action plan?” he stammers.

What is my action plan? Where does this end?

Karl has been ranting to Jack and Tristan about my behaviour, and they are asking questions.

She must have been a good lay, Tristan joked in a text message this morning.

Tristan.

To him this would be the ultimate betrayal. I’m Daniel’s godfather, for Christ’s sake. The boy is named after me.

She won’t tell him. I might get away with it. There’s not a hope in hell she will want Tristan finding out about last night’s events.

Besides, I haven’t slept with her … yet. Last night was all her doing.

But what happens if HR tells her she hasn’t made the cut? She’s so feisty and unpredictable.

Why am I kidding myself? She is in control. She is metaphorically leading me by the cock wherever she wants me to go.

Charlie

Oh. My. God.

There’s no return from this. No salvation.

Life imprisonment would be a better option than working under a guy who I threw myself at, begging him to take me, only to be rejected.

Forced myself upon.

Offered myself on a plate.

Who the hell does that?

Do I have any self-respect left? After living as a prude for the last twenty-eight years, I have now morphed into some desperate horny exhibitionist.

Of course he had an erection. He’s a bloke. When the shots wore off, the reality and facts of the evening started to emerge. He tried to stop it. Find someone your own age. You’re drunk.

How drunk was I? Every time I recall the events in my mind, they change.

When I finally got to sleep at 5 a.m., the sick dread had ravaged my mind so much I woke up sobbing.

He hasn’t contacted me. Then to have to sit in that meeting with him … my stomach was in knots the entire time to the point I thought I might be sick.

He looked so tired and irritated throughout the entire meeting. Why the hell did I think I could seduce a moody CEO who thinks his new child company has the collective intelligence of a gnat?

My hands shake as I adjust my glasses and try to focus on the screen. After Danny Walker’s tongue lashing, everyone in the office is quiet and sullen. I have four hours and twenty-three minutes until I can pick up my coat and run out of the building.

Mike sucks his teeth loudly beside me, stabbing at my nervous system. Every time.

“Fuck’s sake.”

I turn my head to see what he’s complaining about and see Danny Walker advancing towards us, his face taut with tension.

Dark shadows circle his eyes, and his hair sits in an unruly mob on top of his head, but he’s still devastatingly handsome.

He slams paper down in front of Mike’s desk, and in a battle of teeth, bares his own to Mike.

I can’t cope with this. I shrink into my chair, covering my face with my hand.

“A whole day, Mike?” Danny barks from my peripheral view. “The software was down for a whole day?”

My heart gallops. The damn outage. Mike knows nothing about it.

I spring to standing as if someone lit a match up my ass.

“Just a minute, Charlie,” Mike barks, annihilating my escape.

I turn to them both, my stomach fluttering with unease. “Yes, Mike?” I ask softly.

“It’s Charlie’s responsibility to ensure we suffer no outages.” He smiles triumphantly. “Charlie, please explain how this mistake was made.”

I stare at him in disgust. Talk about throwing me under a bus.

My eyes dart from Mike’s to Danny’s to find he is watching me warily.

“Configuration changes weren’t applied correctly to some of the servers,” I say feebly. “I’m working on a report explaining the root cause and how to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

We stare at each other, my skin pricking with embarrassment.

Danny runs a hand over his jaw. “Two days ago, and you haven’t done the report yet?”

My entire face is on fire as I drop my head in shame. “We’ve had to resolve other critical issues since. I didn’t have time.”

“I’ll make sure Charlie understands the repercussions, Danny,” Mike sneers, and my eyes rise to glare at him. “This won’t happen again.”

“It’s Mr. Walker to you,” Danny growls, his jaw tight. “Don’t blame your staff. You are Head of I.T., correct?”

Mike’s face drops. “Yes but—”

“I’m sick of hearing excuses. Do your job and take accountability.” Danny lets out a tired breath and turns his focus to me, wordlessly. For a horrifying moment, I think he’s going to reprimand me for what I did last night. Who can tell with this man?

I fight back tears.

“Charlie, I want that report before you leave today,” he says flatly, rapping his knuckles on the side of my desk as he starts to walk off.

“Yes, sir,” I reply in a whisper.

He falters briefly in his stride, just enough so that I see something dark flash across his face.

Four hours and ten minutes until I can hide from the world.

I’ve never felt so incompetent, as a female, as an employee and as a person.