Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (77 page)

“Welcome to my world,” Red chuckled as he
made two drinks at the bar.
 
“Extra
dry Martini,” he said carrying both glasses over and handing one off to her.

“I can’t drink during a workday,” she
complained, but took it anyway.

“This isn’t just any workday.”

“True.”
 
She sipped it and made a face.
 
“Yuck.”

“Keep drinking, you’ll get used to it,”
he said, taking a sip of his own and smacking his lips contentedly.
 
“In the old days, ad men drank about ten
of these a day and nobody blinked.
 
Different times.”

“You weren’t an ad man during those
times.”

“True, but I’ve heard stories, believe
me.”
 
He smiled and sat on the edge
of the desk like he had that first day they met.

“Why aren’t you upset?” she said.

“First of all, I’ve had a long time to
get used to this stuff.”
 
He took
another gulp of his martini.
 
“And
secondly, I can’t allow myself to get pulled into the drama of what people are
saying about me.
 
About you and
me.
 
I won’t let myself get dragged
into the mud—that’s what these people want.
 
They want to hurt me—have me
calling up their offices with a rebuttal story. They want my attention.
 
And I’m not going to give them what they
want.”

“You make ignoring their insults sound
easy.”

“Well, it’s not.
 
But I’m a good actor.”
 
He smiled at her.
 
“You have to understand, Nicole.
 
You’re in my world now, and it’s a
pretty rough place.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to figure that
out.”
 
She shivered.

He stood up from the desk and moved
behind her, started to massage her shoulders.
 
His strong hands felt so good, so
incredibly safe, and her nipples grew stiff and the blouse tightened across her
breasts.
 
“I remember the first day
you walked in here and I could hardly contain myself.
 
I wanted you so badly.”

She closed her eyes and smiled as his
hands continued to work.
 
“It didn’t
seem like you wanted me.”

“You couldn’t tell by the way I was
looking at you?”

“I thought you were annoyed.”

He laughed.
 
“Hardly.”

Red’s hands moved down from her shoulders
and started to drift beneath her dress.
 
“Red…” she moaned.
 
“We
shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” She was having trouble
remembering why.
 
And then her eyes
fluttered open.
 
“Because I’m
supposed to be working.
 
You said
before that you didn’t want me taking advantage of our relationship.
 
Remember?”

He laughed again.
 
“At the time—“

“No.”
 
She stood up and faced him.
 
“Do you realize everyone down there
hates me now?”

“No, they don’t.”
 
He wasn’t taking any of this
seriously.
 
His face wore a bemused
smile and it was upsetting her a little.

“They do, Red.
 
They look at me like I’m the lowest
piece of garbage.
 
That story in The
Rag, and you promoting me all in the same day…Do you realize how bad it makes
me look?”

His smile faded.
 
“I know it’s difficult,” he said.
 
“I should have warned you more about
what might happen, what you might have to deal with being engaged to me.”

She nodded.
 
“A heads up would have been nice.”

“I wouldn’t blame you for backing out,”
he said softly.

“Backing out?”

“Pulling out of our engagement.
 
This is going to be a nasty business in
the press—the tabloids, your co-workers downstairs.
 
Everyone’s going to say things, they’re
going to be jealous and bitter and make up stories about you.
 
About us.”

“I would never break our
engagement.”
 
She stared into his
eyes.
 
“Are you having second
thoughts?
 
I mean, maybe I’m more of
an embarrassment than you realized when you first proposed.”

Red looked into her eyes and grabbed her
shoulders firmly.
 
“You’re not an
embarrassment to me.
 
I’m the one
who feels embarrassed right now, because the way I’ve lived my life has brought
about a situation that causes you pain.
 
I’ve lived my life in front of cameras, encouraging the media to report
on my private life, fostering a certain image.
 
While it might have made me some money
and given me a bit of fame, nothing is worth causing you even the slightest
discomfort.”

She believed him.
 
She put a hand up and caressed his
cheek.
 
“I’ll be stronger, Red.
 
I won’t complain about the stories from
now on.
 
I just…I was caught off
guard by all of it.”

He nodded.
 
“Of course you were.
 
I should have talked to you about it,
but I’ve grown accustomed to this sort of thing.
 
It was wrong of me not to think of you.”

She smiled up at him, knowing that they
were in this together now—a real team.
 
It was the first time in her entire life
that Nicole had truly felt like there was someone on her side, battling with
her and for her.
 

Because of Red’s words, and the way he
held her, a horrible day had been turned into something magical.
 

“I love you, Nicole,” he whispered,
kissing her ever so softly on the lips.

After the beautiful kiss, she looked at
him.
 
“I love you too.
 
Thank you.”

“Stay a moment longer,” he said.

“I should go back to my desk.”

His hands moved down to where her blouse
was tucked into her skirt.
 
He began
pulling her blouse out, sliding his hands in between the fabric, his fingers
touching the bare skin of her hip.

“Don’t leave just yet.”
 
His mouth was against her ear, warm
breath that tickled and aroused her senses.

“I can’t stay.
 
Not now.”

“Stay.”
 
His voice was insistent, hungry.
 
“Let me make it all up to you.”

“How?”

She wanted him to show her, and so he
began.
 
He grabbed her by the waist
and lifted her.
 
She wrapped her
legs around his waist and he carried her to the desk, and she lay back onto
it.
 

Red pushed the papers and books and
little awards statues off the side of the desk, and they clattered to the
floor.
 

Nicole’s legs were wide open as he thrust
his hips against her, his nostrils flaring.

Her blouse was a button up little number,
and he reached down to her shirt and began unbuttoning them one by one. First,
her breasts were revealed, then her stomach.
 
He admired her body as she lay there.

Red placed a hand on each leg and then
ran his hand all along her leg, up her thigh, pushing the skirt up to her
waist.
 
As one hand moved slowly up
the top of her thigh, his other swept up her stomach and to her breasts, slid
under her bra and began playing with one nipple.
 

Next he was kissing her firmly on the
mouth, his tongue exploring, reaching.
 
Nicole felt the heat building between her legs as he stimulated her body
with his nimble fingers.
 
She arched
into him and grabbed his belt buckle.

“No,” he said.
 
He took her by the wrist and pinned her
arm over her head as she lay across the desk.
 
Then he grabbed her other wrist and
pinned that above her head too.
 
He
pressed his body against hers and she could feel his hardness through his
pants, rubbing against her wetness.
 

“I want you inside me,” she begged,
writhing beneath him.

“I want your panties off,” he replied,
and let go of her right wrist long enough to tear her little black panties off
of her.
 
With her skirt hiked up to
her hips, the air of the room was cool against her nude lower half.
 

“I’m so wet.”

“Let me taste for myself.”
 
He let go of her completely and dropped
down, pulling her legs over his shoulders.
 
Red engulfed himself in her warmth.
 

Nicole moaned and thrashed, so close to
orgasm, wanting to have one, but also wanting to put if off.
 
She couldn’t stop herself from finishing
though--Red’s mouth and tongue were masterful, playing all the right notes on
her instrument.

She bucked and thrust against his lips,
and he pressed his tongue to her nub, flicking it endlessly while she cried out
in ecstasy.
 

Finally, she was spent.
 
Red stood up, grinning.
 
“That must have alleviated some tension,
Nicole.”

She climbed off his desk as he
straightened his clothes.
 
Nicole
buttoned her shirt and pulled her skirt down, adjusting her clothing
self-consciously.
 
“I can’t believe
we just did that in your office.”
 
She glanced to the enormous picture window and her eyes went wide with
terror.
 
“Your window.
 
Anybody could have seen in—the
paparazzi, anyone!”

“Relax,” he laughed, picking up his
martini and having another sip.
 
“The window is tinted, nobody can see in.
 
I’m not a complete fool.”

“Oh.”
 
Nicole sighed, relieved.
 
“So now I suppose I go back downstairs
and pretend everything’s normal, even though nothing is.”

Red came and put his arm around her,
kissed her on the forehead.
 
“Just
be yourself.
 
You’re a hard
worker.
 
You’re very smart and
skilled.
 
Nothing’s changed any of
that.
 
Don’t let them make you
ashamed of who you are.”

She nodded, not entirely convinced, but
still feeling better than she had a few minutes ago.

“Thanks,” she said, “for the pep talk
and…the other thing.”

“Anytime.
 
And I mean that.”
 
He walked to the side of his desk and
started picking up the papers and things he’d swept to the floor.

“Let me help you,” she said.

“No,” he waved her off.
 
“Back to work.
 
Go.
 
Go.”

And so she went, after first giving Red a
quick kiss on his clean shaven cheek.
 
Feeling oddly naughty, but also rejuvenated.
 

As she rode the elevator down, Nicole
started to get a little angry at the way her co-workers had treated her
today.
 
Who were any of them to
judge her?
 
Nobody had even bothered
to actually ask her what had happened or get her side of the story.
 
They’d simply decided she was a
gold-digging tramp getting special privileges because of her affair with Red
Jameson.

   
So what if she’d gotten
hired to an entry-level position without “paying her dues” the way everyone
else did?
 
That kind of stuff
happened all the time in business, and at least Nicole was a hard worker,
willing to learn and grow.

Nicole decided to tackle Remi’s treatment
of her head on, striding out of the elevator and right to her boss’s
office.
 
The door was closed so she
knocked twice, emphatically.

“Come in.”

When Remi saw who was entering her
office, she rolled her eyes.
 
“I’m
kind of busy right now.”
 
She turned
to her computer and started to type.

“Can we just talk for a minute or
two?
 
Or can I come back in a little
bit when you’re less busy?”

“Who said I’d be less busy in a little
bit?
 
I work all day, I don’t take
time off for extra curricular activities.”
 

Nicole folded her arms.
 
“Is that a dig at me?”

Remi sighed.
 
“I really don’t have time for this,
Nicole.”