Page 21 of Dirty Little Secrets

“ Y ou’re in late,” Kristina says coming home after her date.

She laughs bending to shrug off her heels. “Jesus, my feet are killing me.”

“At least it’s not your pussy or ass,” I deadpan.

She straightens, her eyes gleam. “Damn. That good, huh?”

There aren’t words to describe how amazing he is in bed. The man fucks like a machine. His words are dirty in a good way but the thing I love about him the most, he makes me feel safe.

Not once does he take me without my consent. The downside, I’m not a real person in his mind. I could be anyone he wants me to be.

He doesn’t know what my face looks like.

There is no potential for a love much. No attraction beyond what I let him see and it’s not much.

The worst part is that I’m lying to him every day at work.

He has no idea who I am and if he ever found out, I’d lose my job or worse, Brent will come for me before Xadien would have time to even call the cops.

Never did I think for a second, I would be paired with him. I should have walked out that first night but I couldn’t. For once, I didn’t want to be forced to be with someone.

“Same guy,” Kristian asks, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Yeah. I guess the app pairs you up until one or the other declines the invite. After the night is over or I should say, session. There is always a survey.”

She giggles. “No way.”

I nod still trying to process it in my head. “Yeah, it’s like a trucker’s bumper sticker that reads: How’s my Driving.”

“From the looks of it, I’m guessing five stars.”

I wince. “You could say that but after, not so much.”

Her expressing morphs into concern. “Are you okay?”

“It’s a good hurt.” I smile. “It’s been a while.”

Her expression shifts to relief. “Good. I have Epson salt…”

“I found it.” I interrupt.

I had to soak in it for forty-five minutes from the sting. It’s why I’m sitting on the soft couch. I’m praying my ass could sit on my office chair in a few hours. My hope is that Xaiden calls out sick but I doubt it. I wouldn’t be that lucky.

I bet when I walk in, he’ll have me doing everything I don’t want to do.

“Do you have any idea who it is, yet?”

“No idea.” I shrug hoping she doesn’t pick up on the lie.

I thought of a million ways to tell her the truth about it being Xaiden but don’t know if I should. What if she tells me to stop? To call it off. I’ll feel guilty. Then I’ll have to and won’t have the most amazing sex pushing the bad memories of Brent away.

“It’s hot, isn’t it?”

I grin. “Very. It’s like every fantasy you’ve thought about could happen. A safe space between two people with no strings attached. There is no one to judge what you like. Who you like. How you want it. You feel free.”

She leans her elbows on the counter like she’s listening to the best story. “What’s the best part?”

“That it’s safe and no one is going to hurt you. And…”

“And…” she mimics.

“The sex is… amazing,” I say on a laugh.

“I wish you could see who really he is,” she says softly.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because for the first time since I’ve met you, you seem happy.”

I sigh knowing this feeling won’t last forever. “It’s temporary but I have to you to thank for it all.”

She fans her eyes. “Stop trying to make me cry, Bitch,” she says playfully.

I throw a couch pillow at her but she dodges it just in time. “But for real, Kristina. Thank you. For the app. For giving me a place to stay. For being a friend.”

This is why I could never tell her anything. Not about Brent. My past or about it being Xaiden. It would ruin our friendship. She would think I’m less than. A liar. A thief. A traitor.

And for the first time, I have a friend. A real one.

“You would’ve done it for me,” she says bringing me back to the conversation. “At least you escaped that cheating asshole Landon and found some real dick. One that makes you sore in all the best ways.”

The expression in her eyes tells me she means it. These are times I wish I didn’t have to lie, but some secrets are just too dangerous to tell.

The elevator dings and the doors open. They say being on the top floor is the best but you quickly realize the ride to get there isn’t the best. It’s the third time the elevator stops to let people on. Sooner or later, it will be too full to let anymore people in.

Two men are behind me when a third walks in to my far left and then, as my if the ride up to Xaiden’s floor couldn’t make me anymore late this morning, Landon walks in making my mouth drop when I get a look at his face. The men behind me must be as surprised as they clear their throats.

I stare straight ahead trying to figure out if Xaiden is responsible for the purple bruising taking residence on the right side of his face or if Landon was involved in some type of accident.

The elevator dings and two men get off. The one to my far left is busy scrolling through his phone. A chill runs down the side of my arm when Landon bends close.

“Aren’t you going to ask what happened?” He whispers.

I continue to stare straight wishing the elevator would just hurry up and get to my floor. The elevator stops four floors below mine. When the man to my left steps off, my stomach drops when the doors close trapping me inside with Landon.

I try to ignore him but the corner of my eye is drawn to the side of his face. There is no way Xaiden did it. Not after the meeting. There is no way he would deliberately seek Landon out in retaliation. Would he?

I’m nothing but his secretary.

“That’s alright,” he says sardonically. “I’ll tell you. Your boss thinks you’re his little fuck toy now.”

“What does that have to do with what happened to your face?”

I want to tell him to go fuck himself but I won’t. Not when I’m trapped in an elevator and there is no way someone would help me if I screamed. I don’t think Landon is that stupid. Capable? Yes.

He cares too much about what people think of him but deep down in the pit of my stomach I know it was Xaiden.

“You should ask your boss?”

He leans close and I flinch.

He chuckles darkly. “You think I’m a monster?”

I turn my face to look at his battered face. The bruise the color of blueberries over his cheek bone. To the corner of his eye where the blood vessels popped because he was hit so hard.

“Take a good look, Nori. This is the type of man you’re spreading your legs for.

Don’t let the designer suit, fancy cars, and money fool you.

He’s dangerous”––his gaze sweeps down at me in disgust––“Controlling. He uses people. He treats women like a pair of shoes. Then throws themes out when he’s done. ”

“Looks like you’re jealous.”

He smiles making his face look lopsided from the swelling. Any lick of remorse for him evaporating by the second. I don’t like people getting hurt but Landon deserved it. If he only knew what real monsters looked like. I was raised, groomed, and broken by them.

I’m not na?ve to think there is something special between me and Xaiden. Every night in that room, we’re just two people feeding a need from the other.

He steps closer. My stomach drops when my back hits the wall of the elevator. “Why would I be jealous?”

“Look in the mirror and find out.”

The elevator dings. He steps back giving me back my space as the doors slide open.

“You’re just a whore being passed around by men who are smarter than you.”

I flinch like he slapped me. His words hitting me in the wound that won’t ever heal. The wound that no matter how hard I try won’t scar or fade. It continues to bleed. Reminding me that I don’t mean anything to anyone if they knew the truth.

I walk to my desk and put my purse in the bottom drawer. I open Xaiden’s office door not bothering to knock.

He looks up from his desk with an eyebrow raised. His cell phone pressed to his ear. He mumbles something and then hangs up.

“Is there a reason, you failed to knock, Ms. Summers?”

I march up to his desk hating the way Landon made me feel in the elevator knowing it’s fueling my anger making me do stupid shit like I am right now.

“Don’t Miss Summers me. Did you hit him?”

His gaze hardens. “Is that what he told you?”

I lick my lips nervously. “Something like that.”

I don’t want to tell him exactly what he said because it will remind me all over again what I am to him. To all of them.

“Did you like it?”

I straightened trying to calm my racing heart with the way his voice dropped.

Like a lover asking how his cum tasted after sex.

But I wasn’t at the club dressed in shiny spandex with my head covered.

I remind myself I was at work. He has no idea it was me because in his eyes I’m just his secretary.

An employee. Even if I wasn’t, he wouldn’t look at a woman like me twice.

“I’m not sure what you mean?”

“What I did to his face.”

“So you are admitting it.”

“The way you stormed in my office I don’t think I have to. You already know because he made a point in telling you. He wants you to think I’m this monster.”

“Well, are you?”

He places his elbows on his desk causing his white dress shirt to tighten across his chest hinting at the taut muscles and dark ink underneath. “Do I look like a monster? Or did you forget the way he grabbed you and held you against your will because he thinks we’re fucking.”

Memories of him fucking me filter inside my head. The smell of his skin. The taste of his mouth. The ache between my legs every time I sit. Memories I want branded inside of me to forget the ones that haunt me.

“But we’re not,” I lie.

“Of course not. Because I don’t fuck my employees and he should know better than to think I would sleep with you. I also don’t like men that put their hands on a woman. For any reason and I won’t tolerate it any capacity.”

If he only knew he already broke that rule. His reason for hitting Landon makes me crave him more but the fact that he wouldn’t touch under normal circumstances is like the bitter cold

“So what are you going to do next? Hit every man that touches me.”

“Are there any boyfriends you’re hiding that you are in fear of?”

I look out the window to the heavy clouds promising rain. “I don’t.”

“Good. Now, can you get back to work?”

I turn to leave, my mind spinning with all the ways I wish I could confess the truth.

But the way his eyes raked over me didn’t match the way he spoke about sex.

It was confusing, like I was two people trapped in one body.

Yet when he looked me in the eyes in the light of day, he only saw the one he didn’t want.

And that’s the truth.

“Nori?”

I pause with my hand on the door handle blinking back fresh tears. “Yes?”

“Don’t ever come into my office without knocking first.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “It won’t happen again.”