A barrel-chested man with a shaved head had been standing next to Barlow’s desk, and now appeared to be leaving.
“Kendall Brookes, from The Weekly Enquirer, sir. Would you like coffee? Tea?” she asked me.
“No thank you,” I squeaked.
She smiled and stepped out of the way of the man who was leaving, holding the door for him and following him out of the room. I heard the click behind me and gulped.
“Take a seat, Miss. Brookes,” said the one and only, Jace Barlow.
Chapter 2
Jace
Something about her stopped me in my tracks. When I saw her sitting there in the waiting room through the one-way glass, I made the decision on the spot to break the rules and invite her into my office.
She wasn’t going to be getting a meaningful interview for The Weekly Whatever-the-fuck it was, she was going to be getting some hard cock. That’s all I was willing to give her.
I was sick to my stomach of the kind of girl that used to hang around with us, back in what I could only think of as the old days. Back then, I was hired muscle, working my way up the chain in the Picolli Crime Family’s organization.
Those bitches were barely one step above prostitutes, if that. Once I took over and put one foot into this world, this legitimate front, I was disappointed to find that they were all the same no matter where I went.
This one though, Kendall Brookes, she looked different. Her tits were small enough to be real, big enough that she’d have to hold on to them when I got to fucking her good and hard. A dainty little thing, she looked like she’d never been through the kinds of things I was going to do to her.
Fresh and innocent, I bet the guys in her world brought flowers and asked her father’s permission. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d asked permission for anything, except when I already knew what the answer was.
The way she was holding herself, I could tell she was terrified. Those little arms crossed over protectively in front, as if she could hide behind them or something.
With a visible gulp, she closed the distance between the door and the chair I’d directed her to, and I watched her intently. She really was petite. I bet she was tight as fuck.
I was already undressing her with my eyes, looking past the clothes that were on the old side, and probably hadn’t been worth much when they were new. She reminded me of one of those chicks from those movies in the nineties, where the ugly duckling had a superficial makeover and suddenly became the hottest girl in school.
The best part about it was that she obviously had no idea how sexy she was. Damned if she wasn’t making me hard already.
I tented my fingers in front of me as I leaned forward and waited for her to sit. Scenes of me circling around to the other side of my desk and forcing her to her knees to suck my cock flashed through my mind.
As she sat in the chair, she immediately dropped her handbag, the contents spilling at her feet. That blush deepened as she muttered an apology and bent down to pick her things up, giving me a quick flash down her top at those tantalizing curves of her breasts, before her luxurious dark brown hair obscured the view.
No. This one was too good to just fuck straight away. I was going to play it out, just a little, make her so wet that she’d be begging for my cock. Then I’d make her wait a little bit longer, and by the time I finally gave it to her, she’d be so desperate that she’d hardly notice that she’d never spread her legs for a man like me before. Not until it was too late and I was already taking everything I wanted from her perky little body.
“Sorry about that,” she said, sitting upright again and stuffing everything back in except for a notepad and pen.
“It’s fine. So what can I do for you, Miss Brookes?”
“Well… uh… first of all… um… thank you for, you know, making the time for me. I, and The Weekly Enquirer, really appreciate it.”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said.
She licked her lips and appeared to be desperately trying to think of something to say. I raised an eyebrow. Of all the journalists, reporters, and would-be documentary makers who had come running at the opportunity to interview me, only to fall victim to my long term plan to get them to fuck off, Kendall was easily the youngest.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Me? I’m… I’m eighteen.”
Teen pussy. Just what the doctor ordered. The corner of my mouth rose in a smirk that would have cost me the game if we were playing poker. As it was, it only seemed to strengthen my advantage over her.
“Aren’t you a little… green, to be handed an interview like this? You wouldn’t believe how many fuckin’ calls Violet out there fields every day about this very thing.”
Kendall flinched at my swearing, and my smirk grew. After all the shit I’d been dealing with all morning, karma had handed me Kendall. Not only was she a tight little package, she was a good girl too, whose idea of hard sex was probably missionary position with socks on and lights out.
“I… I…” she stammered.
I waved it away. “Don’t worry about it. You’re doing really well.”
“Oh. Um. Thanks. So, Mr. Barlow, you won a hundred and eighty million dollars in the state lottery. Most people seem to throw their winnings away, or retire. Nobody ever did what you did. Why didn’t you take your winnings and live out your life on a beach?”
I almost laughed at the understatement. Damn right nobody ever did what I did. This girl, man, she had no idea. She’d never been shot at, never killed a man, probably never even been in a fight.
I’d been doing all those things as long as I could remember. Every skull I cracked was one more step in my grand scheme, but I never could have planned to buy a lottery ticket on a whim, win, and fast-forward my plans by ten or twenty years.
Leaning back in my chair, I rested one foot on the opposite knee and laced my fingers together over my stomach. Fixing her with a look that had melted the panties off women far more wary than her, I gave her an answer that meant precisely fuck-all.
“Well. I had work to do.”
Chapter 3
Kendall
There was no way I was going to end the day without losing my job. This interview was going less successfully than skydiving with an anvil for a parachute. So he had work to do, he liked baseball, he grew up in a group home, he recommended a healthy breakfast. What else?
“Um… do you like art?” I pointed at the paintings on the wall and the sculpture in the corner.
“It’s OK.”
With dogged determination, I wrote down “Art -> OK” in my little notepad, and when I looked up again, I swore I saw his eyes roaming over my body. I could almost feel them like fingers lightly tracing along my skin, and a shiver of misplaced excitement travelled down my spine.
Men didn’t look at me like that, not really. Certainly not men like Jace Barlow, who could have a harem at his disposal at the snap of his fingers. According to some rumors, he’d gone backstage at a fashion show in Milan and afterwards some of the models were walking noticeably bowlegged on the catwalk.
Still, it was an illusion I rarely had a chance to entertain, so I let myself bask in it for a few seconds. How often had I dreamed that some nice guy would look at me, like what he saw, and take me off the shelf?
I was about to ask him about his tattoos when his cell started ringing. He held up his finger to silence me and brought his phone to his ear.
“Go ahead,” he said and paused to listen. “Yes… What? Where? OK, keep him… uh.” He glanced at me. “Occupied until I can get there… I’ll get there whenever the fuck I’m ready, don’t forget who you’re talking to… Yeah, yeah... Bye.”