Overtime (2 page)

“We’ve just won a very big project with a very tight deadline,” Jasper said. Valerie blinked in surprise. “Starbucks is going to be launching a sit-down restaurant chain, and they’ve asked us to put in a bid for it.”

“That’s huge,” said Valerie, surprised.

“We would stand to make quite a bit of money,” said Jasper. “But they want a full mock-up by close of business Friday for their print ads. I’m going to need you to do a lot of overtime this week.”

“Of course,” said Valerie. She didn’t think twice about it.

Jasper nodded.

“Set up a meeting for me with the head of copywriting and the head of the art department for this afternoon. Whatever they have going on now, they can reschedule. Tell their assistants it’s urgent, and that this is coming directly from me, but don’t tell them why. I hate starting rumors.”

Valerie scribbled and nodded.

“And please cancel all of my dinner engagements for this week. I believe there’s one tonight and one Wednesday.”

“Lunches?”

“Those can stay for now.”

“Anything else?”

“Not right now.”

Valerie stood from her chair, moved toward the door of his office.
 

“Valerie,” he said. She turned. He sat still at his desk, hands clasped, bright blue eyes boring into her, and Valerie felt a single pang of something that was a lot like nervousness.

“Yes?”

“You’ve been doing an excellent job so far. Thank you.”

Valerie blushed and her eyes flicked to the ground.

“Thanks,” she said, and left his office.

The week went by in a blur. Monday she was there until eight, just letting the right people know about the project. Tuesday she was there until ten, eating salad out of a takeout container for both lunch and dinner. Wednesday the head of the art department started yelling at her when she told him to drop his projects, do the Starbucks ad, and that
no, they were not using Helvetica
. Jasper had to step in to calm the man down. Thursday she was at the office until almost eleven, proofing and double-checking and talking to printers. She took the subway home every night, only to show up at the office again at seven in the morning.
 

Valerie began to suspect that Jasper was sleeping on the couch in his office, just because of the little things. He was always there before her in the morning, and while he never looked rumpled, a few of his gray hairs would be out of place, just a little, his shirt sleeves not pulled quite all the way down.

Hoes does he do that?
she wondered every morning.
Does he keep those suits in his office?

At seven-thirty on Friday evening, Jasper sent everyone home. As they were leaving, giddy and talking about what they were going to drink, she went into his office one last time, just to make sure. He was looking at the finished print campaign on a huge TV screen mounted on the wall beside his desk. Out of his windows, Manhattan glimmered back, lights blinking on in the summer’s late sunset.

“Do you need anything else?” Valerie asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m about to hit send. It’s four-thirty in Seattle.”

Valerie nodded and looked at the screen. She heard the last of her co-workers shut the office door, and then it was silent outside Jasper’s office.

“I always get nervous right before this,” Jasper said. “That I’ve forgotten something or that it’ll offend them in some way.”

Valerie looked over at him, surprised. He’d never been so informal with her. He’d never admitted to any sorts of feeling, either.

“We’ve checked and double-checked,” she said, unsure how to soothe him.

“We have,” Jasper said. He focused on his computer for a moment, clicking, clicking again, and then going still.

“Done,” he said, and leaned back in his office chair.

The long week was finally over, Valerie thought, and suddenly the exhaustion she’d been holding at bay all caught up with her. Suddenly her feet hurt, her shoulders sagged, and her eyes felt like she’d rubbed sand in them, and all she wanted was to get home, put on her PJs and watch some trash TV. Hadn’t a new season of
The Bachelorette
started not long ago?

Still sitting in the big leather chair behind his desk, Jasper was watching her. He’d barely moved since hitting the “send” button but all of a sudden, Valerie could feel his eyes on her, lingering on her, slowly moving over her breasts and ass. He hadn’t moved a muscle on his face but suddenly he looked lascivious, almost feral, like a lion about to pounce.

For a moment, Valerie was totally baffled. Jasper wasn’t married, and between his fastidiousness and his incredibly private personal life, she’d always just assumed he was gay. He didn’t act particularly gay, really, she’d just always assumed that was the case.
 

Now, caught in his gaze, she began to rethink that assumption.

She blinked and shook her head just a little. Jasper went back to his normal, human self. Had she imagined that? She told herself she had, but deep, deep down, she thought maybe she hadn’t.

Jasper leaned down and opened a low drawer in his desk. “This is technically against company policy,” he said, “but would you like a drink?” He sat a bottle and two glasses on the top of his desk. “18-year-old Laphroaig. I keep it for special occasions.”

“I shouldn’t,” said Valerie. She wondered how much that bottle cost: seventy dollars? A hundred? More? The most she’d ever spent on liquor had been thirty dollars, once, on an entire handle of Jose Cuervo, and that expense had seemed outrageous.

“I promise not to tell your boss,” Jasper said. A tiny smile played around the corners of his eyes, the corners of his mouth and Valerie didn’t know what to think. Had Jasper, the steely, no-nonsense part-owner of the company, known to make assistants cry, just made a joke?

Besides, when was the next time she was going to get to try alcohol this expensive? Never, that was when.

“Just a little,” Valerie said, and watched him pour two fingers of the brown liquid into a glass. Then he held his up and Valerie followed suit.

“Here’s to Starbucks,” he said, and they both sipped.

Act like you drink this all the time
, Valerie thought desperately as the strong, smoky liquid went between her lips, then down her throat. She didn’t cough.

“I do like a peaty Scotch,” Jasper said. He swirled the liquid in his glass and took another sip, and Valerie followed suit. She sat in one of the chairs opposite his desk, not entirely sure what to do. They were the only two in the office, and here they were, drinking scotch together.

Valerie took another swallow and looked out his office window, the lights outside beginning to swim just a little. This stuff went to her head so fast, and Valerie didn’t drink often, last weekend notwithstanding. Feeling the need to do something with her hands, she took two more small sips, realized that the glass was nearing empty.

I just drank twenty dollars’ worth of scotch,
she thought.

“This view is incredible,” she said.

“We moved in here about twenty years ago,” Jasper said. He spun in his chair and looked out the window with her. “The first five years we were in a floor-level office near Times Square. It was the early nineties and that was a terrible neighborhood at the time, but we got a couple big contracts and this opened up. Hard to convince clients that you’re the right person for the job from a basement next to a butcher who’s always yelling in Russian.” He sipped. “You were probably just a child when we moved in here.”

Valerie nervously sipped down the last of her scotch, and as if he could hear the emptiness in her glass, Jasper swiveled around. “Come get a refresher,” he said.

“I’m fine,” Valerie said. “I’ve got to walk to the subway and everything, I shouldn’t have any more.”

“Use the car service,” he said.

“Oh, no, I’ll be fine,” she said.

There’s a car service?
She thought.

“I insist. Now come over here.”

Valerie obeyed, rising to her feet, walking to his desk, holding out her glass.
 

Jasper put one hand around her wrist to steady her hand, poured another two fingers of scotch. He put the bottle down, her wrist still in his hand, ran one thumb over the back of her hand. Then he let her go.

Valerie’s heart hammered. Her palms began to sweat.
 

Was that...? Did he just...?

There was the leonine look again, as he leaned back in his office chair, still watching her, taking his own glass to his lips in one graceful motion. Valerie suddenly felt all wrong in her body, all elbows and knees, unsure where to look or put her hands.

Jasper took his drink in his other hand, stretched out his left to pat the top of his desk.

“No one’s watching,” he said.

The scotch floated through Valerie’s head, made her whole body feel warmer.
You should go home,
the wise part of her brain thought, the part almost entirely disconnected and floating up to the ceiling, away from her body.
Something is about to happen, and you will definitely regret it tomorrow when you’re not drunk anymore
.

But he’s really hot, and apparently not gay
, the unwise part of her thought.

Jasper looked at her, waiting. It was simple, really: she could hop on the desk or she could leave.

Valerie planted on hand on the smooth surface of the desk and pushed herself up onto it, feet dangling down. She had a vague feeling that she should maintain her dignity, keep her back straight, her knees together.

Jasper smiled.

Valerie took another sip and looked out the window. Jasper stood, drained the last sip in his glass.

He walked over to stand in front of her.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked. He put one finger under her chin, tilting her head up.

Valerie’s mouth went dry and she felt something stirring between her legs.

“Of course,” she whispered.

He took the whisky out of her hand and placed it on another table, away from the desk. His glass and the bottle were somewhere else as well, she realized. She hadn’t even noticed him move them.

He moved his fingertip down her body, tracing slowly down her throat to her collarbone, down the row of buttons on her blouse, between her breasts, over the gully of her bellybutton and the waistband of her skirt, biting into her stomach. He put both hands on her knees and pushed them open, slowly.

Valerie began to pull her skirt up, letting her legs free.

“No,” he said. “Lean back on your hands and stay perfectly still.”

Hands still on her skirt, Valerie looked up at him, surprised at the tone his voice had taken.

“I just—“

“Still.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, and Valerie could feel her heart beating through her entire body. Then, slowly, she put her hands behind her, leaning back on them.

Jasper pried her legs open, the fabric pressing into the flesh of her thighs, constricting her until the skirt suddenly gave way, tearing up the slit in the back and her legs went wide, the skirt folding up on itself nearly to her crotch. Valerie gasped. A tingle flooded through her entire body, blood rushing down to her cunt, suddenly only separated from Jasper by a thin layer of cotton.

His hands moved up her bare thighs, squeezing and stroking her flesh. Valerie was positive she was trembling, but she didn’t want Jasper, staring intently into her eyes as he moved his hands, to know.

You can still take it back,
she thought
. You can take it back until he fucks you. If you just leave now this will have never happened.

Jasper’s hand reached the top of her thigh, the soft crease where her vulva met her leg, and ran a single fingertip along the edge of her underwear’s fabric.

Valerie closed her eyes and let out a little sigh, leaning back on her hands, legs wide open. She felt totally vulnerable to this man who had both her body and her job firmly in his hands; this man who, if he wanted, could fuck her and then fire her.

She’d never been more turned on.
 

Her cunt throbbed. She was sure Jasper could feel it through the fabric of her underwear, as his fingers felt around the edges of it. He stroked over her lips, over her clitoris itself and Valerie made another soft noise, turned her head to the side.

Valerie wished she’d worn sexier underwear that day, instead of the thin cotton thong she’d tossed on under her tight skirt.

With both index fingers, Jasper lightly touched the edges of the fabric from her lips up around to the crease of her thighs, back down, and when he could see that Valerie was in a state, he took the thong in both hands and pulled.

She opened her eyes at the sudden violence, looking down, wondering what he was doing, and then she heard the fabric tear, felt her underwear go loose around her hips. He tugged again and the other leg snapped and then she wasn’t wearing it at all anymore.

Valerie swallowed, her cheeks hot. She hadn’t bothered with any pubic maintenance in weeks, not since Ethan had broken up with her. What for? She wasn’t getting any action, may as well go full-bush. Jasper ran his fingers through her fur, tracing soft little rows over her mound, inching her skirt ever higher so it was almost around her waist.