This is a follow-up to One Gifted Secretary (Romance, 6/16/2020). A few readers requested one, and I'm curious myself what's in-store next for CEO James Alexander LaPierre and his brainy secretaries.
James Alexander LaPierre, the CEO of Worthington Mutual, chess player and also a player of hot, brainy women, had made his choice. He would put aside his playboy ways and date the chess-playing, blond and sexy Alyssa Combs on an exclusive basis, a first for him.
Alyssa was the latest winner of a contest called Sexy Secretaries Week. JL, obsessed with brainy young ladies with high IQs, had invented this improbable competition himself. Instead of parading his secretaries around the boardroom in swim suits, he had them take the Wonderlic Personnel Test, a twelve-minute, fifty-question IQ test. Alyssa had scored a 41, way higher than her nearest competitor. But unlike past winners, Alyssa wasn't content with just a bonus check and a night in the sack with JL. She wanted something more intimate and serious. JL wanted that also. He adored Alyssa, and was determined to accept her condition that he not sleep around as long as they were an "item."
It wasn't easy, not for a handsome playboy who had slept his way through Worthington's elite female secretarial pool. Lexi Cook. Ashley Pritzker. Marissa Rogers. Beth Farmer. The list of these past Wonderlic winners went on. Lexi, my "raven-haired beauty," JL had called her, was a particular favorite of his. Before Alyssa had come onboard with the company, Lexi and JL had slept together on and off. She had scored a 35 and, like Alyssa, had bested many of those in management. Sexy Lexi, with her long, shapely gams and that sensuous mouth and straight, silky, raven hair that blew around her pretty face in the wind. Oh, lord. She wasn't easy to "give up." Yet JL did, because he thought Alyssa was worth it, the super-brainy Alyssa, who could beat him in chess and, like him, enjoyed reading the New York Times every day and working the paper's crossword puzzles.
It didn't take long for the other secretaries to get wind of what was going on between the boss and his latest Wonderlic champ. Lexi already knew that Alyssa had won because Alyssa herself had told her. It took a few weeks before Lexi and the rest of the "girls," as JL called them, to realize that JL had changed, at least for the time being. Never had he dated any of them exclusively, though that was the aim of some, including Lexi Cook. He was the proverbial 'good catch,' successful, good looking, culturally astute. Marriage material, if only he was marriage material, if only he could save his bed for that one special girl, and Alyssa appeared to be her, if the rumors were true, and at Worthington rumors usually were.
Alyssa could feel the envy bordering on jealousy, could feel it as she might a biting wind that blew in. The sarcastic looks, the snickers and silent treatment from some of the secretaries made for an uncomfortable work space. JL had anticipated such petty jealousy when he began his Wonderlic contests, which is why he always informed the winning secretary in private. However, human nature being what it is, the winners more often than not gave themselves away in subtle and not so subtle ways. Envy followed, mostly good-natured in tone because the girls knew that JL's interest was only skin deep, confirmed playboy that he was. Confirmed, that is, until Alyssa charmed him into putting that status on hiatus.
Alyssa endured the envy of her professional peers with a steely resolve to ignore it as best she could. She felt it was a small price to pay for being with JL. They saw each other after work hours a couple times a week and all weekend. All those romantic dinners and day trips and overnights, all those chess games (Alyssa won a little over half of them) and those mornings where they lingered over coffee reading the New York Times.
JL hardly lost his lust for other women, those in the office and others he met outside of it in passing. Still, after two months of dating Alyssa, he remained true. "I'm still being a good boy," he said to a male friend. "I'm crazy about the woman." He genuinely cared about her to the point where it hurt him knowing that she had to face a small but vocal group of catty, envious women every day.
Lexi Cook was one of those women, at least when it came to the envy part. She kept her mouth shut, kept herself "above the fray," as she put it. She didn't snicker, didn't bad-mouth Alyssa behind her back. In fact, she felt kind of sorry for her, while also envious of her thing with JL. Weeks before, after Alyssa had revealed to her that she had been crowned the new Wonderlic champ, Lexi told her not to expect much more than a bonus check and a romp in the sack. JL would never stick with one woman, she maintained. "Long-term to JL would mean something longer than eight hours," she had said.
Weeks later, it was obvious that he was proving her wrong. If only JL had poured that kind of affection on her, his "raven-haired beauty," smart enough to win one of his Sexy Secretaries contests, sexy and pretty enough to fuck a few times a night but not good enough for him to "anoint" her The One, if only for a couple months, the way he had done with Alyssa. It bugged her because she was competitive by nature, in her job, on the tennis court and when it came to men. She had a feeling that JL couldn't remain monogamous for long. He'd break down soon enough, perhaps even before the next Sexy Secretaries contest. Lexi knew that she was one of JL's favorites, that he fancied her, as a Brit might say. Where past Wonderlic winners normally got one night in bed with JL, Lexi didn't need much persuading to get him to accommodate her multiple times after her win. For Lexi, it wasn't just about the sex; it was about her hope that something long-term could develop between her and JL. It hadn't happened, yet Lexi never gave up hope that it would, even with Alyssa in the picture.
She began to think of ways to make it happen. "Maybe I'll learn how to play chess," she told a lady friend. Lexi knew that Alyssa and JL were both chess players, had sort of bonded over the game. Lexi soon dismissed that idea with a laugh. "I don't have any interest in chess. Of course," she continued, "JL also plays Scrabble, something I'm quite good at. We used to play together. He's very good, but I held my own, even beat him a number of times."
The friend suggested that Lexi start with the "basics," her sexuality, in other words. It hadn't been enough to snag JL all to herself in the past, but it was where Lexi needed to start. "As far as JL's concerned," the friend said, "your performance in the bedroom is your greatest asset. If he's the confirmed playboy you say he is, he's probably getting antsy for another woman right about now, so it shouldn't be too difficult to seduce him and you shouldn't have to win another IQ test in order to do it."
But where and how? When JL wasn't at work, he was with Alyssa. She'd seen them leave work together, no doubt to have dinner, then to overnight at his place. She and JL had that going on during her six-month reign as Wonderlic queen, though not to the extent that Alyssa now enjoyed. This "project" wouldn't be easy. This would take all the guile she could muster and then some.
*****
Lexi's friend had been right; JL WAS getting antsy for another woman. Variety was the spice of life, right? JL believed that, especially when it came to sex. He was trying, oh how he was trying to stay monogamous. Eight weeks had passed since he and Alyssa began dating, the longest JL could remember being with just one bed partner. Of course, his thing with Alyssa wasn't just about sex. It ran deeper than that. He shared personal information with her that he hadn't shared with others except for his immediate family. She did the same. He treasured those mornings they spent together reading the New York Times. What woman had he ever done that with? None. And what woman he knew intimately played chess, much less gave him challenging games? None. He could even, gawd forbid, see himself one day "settling down" with her.
And yet...
And yet he wasn't quite ready to settle down, because it meant monogamy, and monogamy sounded too much like monotonous—as in sleeping with the same woman for months on end. Years on end? Not possible! Guys weren't monogamous creatures, he believed. Guys needed more than one woman to satisfy their carnal urges, at least younger and even middle-age guys did, and JL wasn't yet forty. He hated the idea of "cheating" on Alyssa. He was crazy about her, as he told a friend. Perhaps he was even falling in love with her.
And yet...
And yet his mind and eyes wandered, and his cock stirred, and he found himself flirting with his raven-haired beauty, the sexy Lexi Cook. They'd had their go-arounds, their fun. It was always great fun with sexy Lexi. Not a chess player. Not a reader of the New York Times. A Scrabble player, yes, and a damn good one at that. Brainy Lexi: her Wonderlic score of 35 bested his by a few points. Not in Alyssa's cognitive league but damn fine. Verbal, articulate Lexi: able to leap complex thoughts with a single phrase. Irresistible Lexi: the erotic way she shook her head, letting her hair fall over her pretty face and dark eyes, and the sensuous way she crossed and uncrossed those long, shapely legs; and her scent, intoxicating as a bed of honeysuckles one day, a bowl of strawberries topped with whipped cream the next; and her body, slender and lithe, accommodating to whatever position he desired.
