Chapter 19: Magnate Melancholy

Friday, 4:07 pm

Four hours later, I had a new bodyguard, and her name wasn’t John. I wasn’t convinced that choosing her over one of the Johns was the right call, but she seemed more than capable, and I felt more of a connection with her than I had the others; that had to count for something. Granted, that connection was probably my attraction to her, but I was still hiring someone qualified. As soon as she accepted my offer, Erin notified Helen, who had been finalizing the paperwork for a security team.

Chloe filled me in on the details she could. Hannon Security hired her after she left her last job, thanks to Henry Psalter. Her first assignment was part of the security detail stationed at his main office, but her attention to detail helped her quickly work her way to his personal security. The person in charge of the Gerrard account had been the owner’s son, John Hannon. That’s right ... another John.

She enjoyed her job and found the work easy compared to her previous life. She enjoyed her team and the people Colin surrounded himself with but didn’t care for Colin himself. He was stubborn and short-tempered. Chloe admitted that her interaction with the man had been limited; he was never that communicative with his security detail, preferring to interact with John alone. Despite that, she managed to stop an actual assassination attempt on Colin as well as several assaults against various personnel.

She couldn’t answer many of my questions about the old man ... specifically why he left me with nearly a trillion dollars and complete control over his entire estate. Among security, John was likely the only one to have that kind of privileged information. Unfortunately, John was dead. At first, the doctors had claimed a heart attack, which was strange because the man died at thirty-five in perfect health. His father had taken the initiative to do an autopsy and extensive analysis of the body, only to discover a poison that had been difficult to detect. That triggered a closer examination of Colin, the discovery of the true cause of his death. Considering how recent the event was and the sensitivity of the information, none of what Chloe was telling me was public knowledge.

With Chloe’s suggestion, I decided to go with another security firm that didn’t have a history with the Gerrards in case someone at Hannon was guilty of foul play. I challenged the fact that she had worked at Hannon, but provided proof that she’d been off when the murder occurred and provided an alibi. In fact, her innocence was the reason she knew as much as she did. Hannon Senior needed someone he could rely on to help him piece together what had happened. Satisfied, I put Chloe in charge of selecting the team. She asked for the resumes and files of all the other candidates to consider as well.

After finishing the interview, Chloe said she would take the weekend to move into a room in my house. That surprised me, but Chloe insisted on it before accepting the job offer, stating that the only way to ensure she could do her job properly was to live as close to me as possible. We discussed her having access to my email accounts, passwords, codes, and all the same keys, but the invasion of privacy felt too great. Helen showed up during the privacy discussion and took Chloe’s and Erin’s side, insisting that my bodyguard would need as much unencumbered access as possible to do her job well. It took being outnumbered three-to-one, but they eventually convinced me that Chloe needed access to all of it. Erin already knew almost everything, and now, so would Chloe. Helen assured me that the firm’s paperwork would ensure my bodyguard’s discretion, and Chloe assured me that if I could trust her with my life, I could trust her with anything.

The price of safety was steep.

After agreeing on the living arrangements, Erin left with Chloe to familiarize her with the house, find her a room, arrange for her credentials, and make sure all the paperwork was filled. Once all of that was complete, Chloe would immediately set up a detail to start working by the end of the day. We shook hands once more, and then the two ladies departed. That left me and Helen on our own. She set her things down on a chair and sat on the couch next to me. I smiled at her, and she smiled back, clearly feeling awkward about something. “How are you doing, Marcus?”

“I had a visitor last night,” I said.

“I heard,” she said quietly.

“Yeah? Who told you? Erin, or your daughter?”

She winced a little under my question’s sharp tone. She didn’t answer immediately, staring at the floor in thoughtful contemplation. Finally, she looked up at me. “My step-daughter.”

We stared at each other in long silence, and I was trying to decide how mad I should be. Helen was a stickler for details. The entire time I had known her, she considered all the angles and anticipated things that would have never crossed my mind. She had been my go-to and my confidante. She found Erin for me, and I didn’t appreciate that Erin was quickly usurping her as the woman I could trust the most. Sure, it was bound to happen, but finding out she was withholding information from me was a shitty way for that transition to occur.

“You didn’t think that was something to mention in the bathroom on Monday?” I asked. Had it only been Monday since Helen gave me a blowjob in a YPV bathroom? Jesus, a lot had happened in five business days.

“I miscalculated,” she said.

“How?”

“I didn’t think she would be so interested in you, and I wasn’t aware of her visit at the coffee shop.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me? Why did it have to be a calculation? She’s told me more about your family than you have, and I felt blindsided. You could have avoided that, Helen. You should have told me about Ashlee, and you should have told me that Roger was having issues with what we’re doing.”

For the first time in a week, Helen looked rattled. Her blue eyes were surprised, and I realized she hadn’t expected me to know that.

“Marcus,” Helen finally said, “As you can imagine, I’m not exactly thrilled about sharing the details of my family with you, and I’ve done just as much to keep what happens between us from my family as well.”

“Roger does know about us, right?” I asked, my stomach in knots at the thought that her husband ignorance from the beginning. What if he hadn’t known? Could things become problematic between me and my lawyers? Did I need to get other lawyers?

“Yes,” Helen said, “But I don’t think he expected my involvement to be so ... thorough. The time away from the office, and the time spent with you ... it’s been gratuitous.”

“So he just expected this to be a temporary thing until he got me to sign on the dotted line?”

Helen tilted her head to the side, obviously weighing her words carefully. “I think he expected me to start weining you off my affections a bit sooner. It was one of the reasons to push for an assistant the day after you signed. We needed to find you a new toy to play with so you could relinquish the current one back to its ‘rightful owner’.”

“Jesus, Helen,” I said, “you make it sound like you didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Oh I most certainly did,” she said, leveling a gaze at me that backed up her words. “I just went a further than Roger might have wanted.”

When she didn’t immediately offer more I offered to fill in the gaps, “The deal we made. He doesn’t know about it, so now that they have my business, and I have Erin, he doesn’t seem to understand why we keep seeing each other.”

Helen nodded. “At first, I was able to convince him that you were primarily interested in staying with us because of our relationship, but I haven’t been the only voice whispering in his ear.”

“Ashlee?”

Helen nodded. “You’re handsome, young, and Ashlee’s type.”

“She has that kind of sway over Roger?”

“Normaly, no,” Helen replied. “That’s where I miscalculated. Your account was so important that there was no way any of us was going to let Ashlee within ten feet of you. They needed someone more seasoned to handle you. When I interrupted Ashlee in the bathroom, I thought that would be enough. I suspect she’s been saying things to her father about the amount of hours I’ve put in with you this week.”

“As I’ve said, Roger and I have an arrangement. I’ve been useful in the past at securing agreements, and we’ve both had our share of extramarital affairs. We’ve even shared a few. When it comes to me, he’s not a particularly jealous man, but he does care about his pride. Roger has made sure that every man I’ve been with was aware that he knew. He’s even watched me with a few of them, but he keeps me on a tight leash. Anyone I’m with has to be on his terms. He was more hands-off with us because of your importance.”

“And our deal happened,” I concluded.

“He still doesn’t know about that,” Helen said. “No one does. As far as they know, I’m simply more enthusiastic about you than some of the others, and Roger’s starting to lose patience that I haven’t been at his beck and call lately.”

I turned and leaned back into the couch next to Helen and mulled over what she was telling me. The situation she described to me sounded an awful lot like a form of forced prostitution, but even after giving me all the details, Helen didn’t seem upset, ashamed, or scared. She still seemed cool, collected, and ready for business. It was a testament to her strength and made her seem even more formidable.

“Do you want out of our deal?” I finally asked.

“No,” Helen said. “Unless you’d prefer to not have me. I’m not interested in being in a relationship where I’m not wanted.”

The word ‘relationship’ threw me for a second, but based off the context, it was probably a reference to our deal. “Why did you make it in the first place? Don’t you like your life? Doesn’t this put you in the possible position of losing everything?”

“I like the money,” Helen admitted. “I like the power and prestige of being on one of the best firms in the world and managing the money of powerful and influential people, but as much as I enjoy those things now, I’m limited by whatever Roger lets me have. I married him when I was twenty-seven and he was fifty. He was handsome, intelligent, and powerful. He swept me off my feet with all sorts of promises and expensive gifts. For the first five years, I was happy. I even tried to take on the roll of Ashlee’s mother, but after the first few years, he started getting bored with me. I caught him cheating a few times, and then there were the extended nights away. By then, I knew what I’d married into, but I was stuck. If I left him, I’d have nothing. Within a decade of our marriage, we came to the arrangement I told you about.”

“Meeting you, and seeing how you looked at me again ... I liked it. Not only that, but you were naive. I saw you as someone I could leverage to get out of my current situation. When I saw how relaxed Roger was with us, I assumed I could use it to my advantage. I thought I could work for you, slowly turn you against the firm, and then when it came time to renew your contract with them, I could convince you to leave them for another firm and become your primary manager. I convinced them that you wanted a stipulation to renegotiate the contract in a year. I basically gave them a trial period. It’s relatively standard. A year would have been enough time to convince you that the relationship with YPV wasn’t for you. Bringing someone like you to any other firm would probably make them grateful enough to bring me in as a partner.”

“Wow,” I said. “You had it all figured out.”

Helen nodded, her face an emotionless mask, but her body language was tense. I could tell this was making her uncomfortable.

“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked. “I just asked about your daughter and husband. You didn’t have to tell me about trying to use me.”

“Because I like you, Marcus,” Helen said. She turned toward me, our knees touching as she gave me a small smile. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not in love with you. Honestly, I don’t know that I can be in love again. Roger did a lot of damage to the younger me, but I enjoy you.”

She slid one leg over my lap and straddled me, reminding me of the first time she showed up at my apartment a week ago. She draped her arms across my shoulders and gazed down at me with her crystal blue eyes. That small smile of hers remained.

“I’ve enjoyed your company. I’ve enjoyed building a new life for you, and I’ve really enjoyed the sex.”

The scent of her flowery body wash was light and pleasant as Helen brought her forehead to mine and nuzzled our noses against each other. It felt oddly intimate and romantic, which was very different from our other trysts; those had been slow, all-consuming desire and lust, like the edges of a sheet of paper curling and blackening by the smoldering embers that marched inexorably across it. For the first time since I met her, Helen felt like an actual person and not some succubus. I didn’t get the sense she was trying to distract me with sex or manipulate me. She felt ... vulnerable.

Then I felt her hips slowly rock back and forth in my lap, grinding her crotch against mine. There she was. There was the temptress.

“Roger only-”

My phone buzzed beside me on the couch, cutting Helen’s words short and stalling her gyrating hips. We both stared down at the name on the screen.

It was Ashlee.

“Answer it,” Helen said softly as she began to push herself off me. I felt a strange mixture of reluctance and relief as Helen backed off of me; Helen’s presence always filled me with a level of lust that was nothing short of palpable. Simultaneously, I felt very unpleasant things deep in my gut after her admission of manipulation after trusting her so implicitly. I wasn’t surprised by the revelation. More than once, Helen’s actions felt calculated, but it still stung.

“I don’t want to talk to Ashlee right now,” I said as she slid off my lap.

“Answer it,” Helen insisted in a still-quiet voice as she knelt in front of me. She reached up, and her slender fingers curled around my belt, undoing my buckle as she urged me on with her eyes.

Once again, my libido did the thinking, and I reached blindly for my phone as I stared directly into Helen’s ice-blue eyes. I hit the answer button and brought the phone up to my ear as the woman kneeling in front of me pulled my pants down enough to expose my cock. It was already halfway to hardness thanks to Helen’s slow grinding moments ago. She slowly wrapped her fingers around the base of it and leaned forward to lay her cool cheek against the part she hadn’t grasped.

“Hello?” I said, trying to make my voice sound as normal as possible. Helen kept her eyes fixed on mine as she nuzzled my warm member on the smooth, unblemished skin of her cheek.

“Marcus? Hi! It’s Ashlee!”

“Hey Ashlee. How are you?” I asked, letting Helen know that I was definitely talking to her daughter and not someone else using her phone. Despite what she told me about her troubles with Ashlee, Helen gave a small smile in response and turned her head so that her lips met the side of my prick. She delivered a long, moist kiss to its sensitive skin and and closed her eyes as she continued to drift her lips across the top half of my length.

“I’m okay. Just at work. I heard you were getting security today. That’s good! Now that people know who you are, I’m sure you’re going to have all sorts of creeps coming out of the woodwork to find you.”

“Yeah. I’m not crazy about it, but I see the importance.” I said as I watched and felt Helen silently deliver long, languid kisses along the side of my dick. She gently squeezed the base while the fingernails of her other hand gently grazed along my balls.

“Good. We can’t have you getting shot in the face. It’s too pretty,” Ashlee tittered.

“Thank you. I wouldn’t want it to get shot either,” I said. I made a conscious effort to not return the compliment, feeling awkward about telling a woman how pretty she was while her mother’s mouth was on my cock.

There was a moment of silence between us, and I suspected she was waiting for some sort of affirmation of her attraction. Helen pulled her lips off my member and mouthed, “Speakerphone.” She obviously saw the trepidation on my face because she returned my unspoken concern with a look that plainly said, “Trust me.”

Reluctantly, I complied and set the phone on the couch next to me.

“Did you get my message last night?” Ashlee finally asked, her tone subtly sharper, but still pleasant. I must have hit a nerve by keeping silent.

“The note? Yeah, I saw it,” I said and tried my best to sound as conversational as possible as Helen returned her mouth to my cock, raining sweet, sensual kisses across the head.

“And my little present?”

“Your panties? They’re ... in my room.” I slowly began moving my hips in small, involuntary circles as Helen continued to shower my dick with affection. I was fighting to keep any hint of what was happening out of my voice.

“And the other present?” The sharpness in her voice melted into something more beguiling.

“The pictures?” I asked. Helen’s eyebrows rose as she proceeded to trace the underside of my cock with the tip of her tongue.

“Yes.”

“I saw them.” I said, my breathing getting shallow. Helen’s grip on the base of my cock tightened and a bead of clear precum bloomed into view at the tip. I bit my lip and had to stop myself from groaning as the blonde seductress extended her tongue and slid the flat of it along the mushroom head, capturing the evidence of my stimulation. “I liked them.”

“I wish we hadn’t been interrupted last night,” she said, her voice lowered to a husky tone that betrayed her growing arousal. “I got home last night and touched myself thinking about you and what might have happened.”

I couldn’t help myself. “What do you think would have happened?”

“Whatever you wanted”, she purred. “I’d do anything for you, Marcus. I’m touching myself now, just thinking about it.”

“You’re at your desk?”

“In my office. I wish you were here now. I would love to suck your cock.” I heard a breath from Helen as she silently snorted once, a smile on her face as cradled the head of my member between her lips.

I swallowed hard, staring at the mother on her knees with the head of my cock pressed to her lips while the daughter described how she would do it. This had to be the most erotic thing I’d ever witnessed in my life. It surpassed what we had done with Bobbi. It was hotter than her holding onto Erin while I took her ass. Helen had been there for my most depraved moments ... making some of my wildest sexual fantasies come true.

“How would you do it?” I finally asked her.

“I would take long licks up your cock,” Ashlee said, her words soft and slow, each word dripping with avarice.

Taking instruction from Ashlee, Helen slipped the tip of my cock from her lips, stuck out her tongue, and dragged it up the length of my cock in slow, deliberate licks, staring into my eyes the whole time.

“I would kiss up one side and down the other.” Helen followed suit, placing her lips on the side of my cock again and delivering wet, suckling kisses.

“Oh Marcus, I want to worship that cock of yours,” Ashlee moaned into the phone. “I want to feel your balls in my hand. I want to massage them. I’d make you feel so good.”

I felt Helen’s fingers return to my balls, cupping them in gentle hands as she delivered another wet kiss on one of the most sensitive parts of my dick just under the head.

“Oh fuck...” I groaned, unable to contain myself.

“Are you touching yourself, Marcus?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“So am I. I’m so wet for you, Marcus. My fingers are fucking coated in pussy juice. I wish I could feed them to you.”

In my mind’s eye, I saw Ashlee feeding her fingers to Helen instead, before Helen brought her lips to mine. The thought of tasting Ashlee on her mother’s lips ... I let out another groan, feeling myself inching closer to the point of no return.

“Then I would take you in my mouth. I would suck you off so well. My lips would be all yours.”

“That feels ... I bet that feels amazing,” I said, half to Ashlee teasing me on the phone, half to Helen, bathing my cock with her lips and tongue.

“I would take you in my throat as much as I could. I would choke myself on you. I would let you fuck my throat again and again until I learned to take all of you without gagging.”

A single, low titter escaped from Helen just before she mimicked her daughter’s words and engulfed my cock with her mouth. Her lips plunged halfway down the length, and I felt her tongue mold itself to the underside of my cock as she sucked on it. She pulled her head back, releasing all but the head.

“I’m getting close,” I said through gritted teeth. I reached over my head to grip the back of the couch, needing to hold onto something, but not wanting to interrupt Helen from her work.

“But I haven’t even gotten to the best part,” Ashlee said.