Page 12 of The Boss

I looked away.

“I’m gonna hit the showers,” he said, standing up and securing the towel around his waist. “I’ve had enough heat for today.”

“I, uh, I’m gonna stay here a bit longer,” I said. The fact of the matter was, I couldn’t stand up at the moment. I needed a minute to calm down.

Isaac nodded and left me alone in the sauna. I didn’t move until I heard the water running. Thank the Lord this gym didn’t have open showers, because I had officially lost the battle with my body. Gripping my towel, I practically sprinted to my cubicle, my erection bouncing with each step. At least the locker room was empty. But as I reached my stall, I noticed a small crack in Isaac’s curtain—and I couldn’t help but take a peek inside.

I caught a glimpse of him—naked, standing under the spray, head tipped back as water cascaded down his big body. His cock was fuckinghuge—straight, uncut. Half-hard, swinging thick and heavy between those hairy thighs, his balls hanging low and full.

My stomach clenched. My dick twitched. I turned away fast, stepping into my own shower. But it was too late. The imageof him—wet, powerful, perfect—was burned into my brain. And there, with only a wall between us, I gave in.

My hand slipped down and closed around my hard-on. Biting my lip, I tried to stay silent as I stroked myself to the thought of him.

To the thought of Isaac Steele, my boss.

6. Zac

Melissa’s absence was like a slow, creeping migraine—one I couldn’t shake no matter how much coffee I drank or how many deep breaths I took. She had been the backbone of my work life for nine years. She anticipated my needs before I even recognized them, kept my schedule airtight, filtered the constant stream of requests and demands into something manageable. Now, without her, everything felt… unbalanced. Like I was running a marathon with my shoelaces tied together.

I wasn’t a man who tolerated disorder. Yet, that’s exactly what my days had become—messy, inefficient, frustrating. Calls stacked up. Emails went unanswered. Meetings blurred into each other, and my schedule was a mess because no one was there to remind me where I was supposed to be at any given time. My mornings were consumed by admin work I had no patience for, and my evenings were spent nursing headaches from dealing with things she would’ve handled in minutes. I hated it.

Worst of all, she wasn’t coming back anytime soon. She was on maternity leave, about to give birth in a few weeks, and would be staying home for the next year to raise her child. I was happy for her—truly. After nine years of putting up with me, she deserved the time off. But without her, I felt like I was trying to steer a ship without a rudder.

I exhaled sharply, rubbing my temple. I needed someone. And that someone sure as hell wasn’t Greg.

The agency sent him as a temp, and he tried, but he wasn’t cut out for it. Keeping him any longer would’ve driven us both mad. Yet the thought of breaking in another stranger, someone who wouldn’t know how I liked my coffee, wouldn’t know whichcontracts to prioritize, wouldn’t know that I hated small talk first thing in the morning… it exhausted me before I even started.

Then my mind drifted, unbidden, to Chris Landry.

I hadn’t meant to make a habit of working out with him, but somehow, I had. We never planned it, never texted about it, but in the past few days, we kept running into each other at the gym. In the mornings or the afternoons.

I didn’t mind. Chris was… easy to be around. He was sharp, but not pretentious. Playful, but not obnoxious. The kind of guy who had a quiet confidence about him, someone who made you feel lighter just by being around him. Our banter was effortless, our workouts competitive but nottoocompetitive. I liked that. More importantly—he worked hard. And I don’t mean only in the gym.

The kid had potential. I saw it in the way he pushed himself, the way he took instructions without ego, the way he absorbed information like a sponge. Maybe I could use that.

The idea struck suddenly, so suddenly that I was already out of my chair before I had time to second-guess it. I left my office and rode the elevator down to the software engineering department, a part of the building I rarely visited. It was a different world here—more casual, less polished. Open floor plan, people hunched over screens, the steady click-clack of keyboards filling the space. Rows of desks, the air buzzing with the quiet hum of concentration.

I spotted Chris at his desk, stooped over his workstation, headphones on, sleeves rolled up, the sharp angles of his forearms flexing as he typed. He was smiling at something on his screen, that easy, relaxed grin pulling at his lips.

I walked up to him and cleared my throat. “Landry.”

The reaction was immediate. The entire room stilled. Conversations halted. Keyboards stopped clacking. Like I said, Ididn’t visit this floor often, and I certainly didn’t single people out when I did.

Chris blinked up at me, taking the headphones off. “Uh—yeah?”

I tilted my head, lips curling. “Come work for me.”

The room was silent. A thick, weighted kind of silence, the kind that pulled people in, made them listen closer, made their eyebrows shoot toward their hairlines.

Chris stared at me. “Excuse me?”

“Melissa’s out on maternity leave. I need a replacement. You’re the guy.”

A beat. Then, his eyes widened. “I’m… what?”

“You heard me.”

Chris looked at me, then around the room, then back at me. “Are you serious?”

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