Colt (7 page)

I woken by an unfamiliar noise. For a moment I think it’s an alarm clock and I’m late
again
but no – this strange sound is coming from beneath my
pillow
.
What the hell?!
Still half asleep, I slip my hand under my head and fumble the noisy, unfamiliar object out into the light, realizing it’s the Blackberry that Colt gave me yesterday morning. I force myself to sit up in bed then squint down at the display, which announces that I have one new text message. It’s from Colt, of course:

Stacey, I need you to come to the Dorchester NOW. I’m running late so our first meeting will be here instead of the office. You’ve got fifteen minutes.  

§

And fifteen minutes later, there I am,  standing breathlessly outside the door of the hotel room I booked for him just yesterday, about to knock on the door when all of a sudden it comes flying open and out rushes a woman who must be Magdalena Cortez.

She looks a little different to the photos – her hair is messy and unkempt, her eye makeup is totally running in streaks down her cheeks, and her dress is rumpled and hanging open at the back.

In fact, she’s in such a hurry to leave that she hardly even notices me, just pushing right past me, her heels clutched in her hand as she rushes off in the direction of the elevators.

I turn back to the open door to Colt’s room, reaching out and giving it a tentative knock. No answer. So I decide to venture inside.

The first thing I hear is the hiss of the shower, coming from the en-suite bathroom.
Great.
I sit down awkwardly on the edge of the bed for a moment, before standing up again, wondering just what the hell to do.

“Hello?” I call. “Colt?”

But he obviously can’t hear me over the noise of the shower.

I decide to wait back out in the lobby until he’s got dressed.

He’s such a bastard. Why the hell did he demand I get here in fifteen minutes, if knew he wasn’t even gonna be ready? He just wants to show me he’s the boss. As if I didn’t already know ...

But just as I’m turning to leave, I hear the shower shut off, and then a moment later the door to the bathroom opening. I turn back around and what I see knocks the air from my lungs.

Because there’s Colt.
Naked
. Well,
almost
, save for a towel which he’s holding
down there
, only just about covering his modesty.

The first thing I notice are the
tattoos.

“Holy shit. Since when did you get so inked?” I blurt out, my eyes almost popping out of my head as I take in his tanned, sculpted muscular torso, beaded with droplets of water, and totally
covered
with big lines and patterns of swirling, pitch-black ink, not to mention the
 piercing
gleaming from his right nipple. “Does Alexander know?” I add.

He shrugs. “I started getting tattooed around college, if you must know. Pretty much as soon as I left for Europe. And no, he doesn’t.”

I realize I’m just openly staring at his chest now, which is even more toned and buff than I was imagining. And I have to admit, although I don’t normally go in for that kind of thing, the tattoos are actually pretty damn hot, too.

I tear my eyes away from his body and back upwards to meet his gaze which as usual is cold, hard, and piercing.

And damn, if it isn’t suddenly like the whole room is charged with this intense electricity. I can feel it pulsing around us, like he’s some magnet, drawing me towards him. I fight off the sensation as best I can.

“So, uh, anyway,” I say, trying my hardest to sound as professional as I can despite the jello-legged feeling I’m getting from standing so close to him, that flimsy towel threatening to drop from his waist at any moment, “what about this meeting? Were you thinking of doing it here?”

I nod towards the seats and table behind us, as far away from the bed as possible.

“Or, um, we could get breakfast? Or just grab a coffee in the lobby ...”

I can feel my mouth running away with me.

Shut up, Stacey. Before you say something really stupid.

“Woah, Stacey, slow down,” he says, not taking his burning, blazing eyes off me for a second. “The meeting can wait. You see, I don’t feel like getting dressed
just
yet.”

“What do you mean,” I croak, hearing my voice trembling now despite myself.

I want him so bad ... But I need to stay strong.

“You know
exactly
what I mean,” he replies, cool and confident. “I’m here, you’re here. I’ve got this suite booked for the rest of the day. It’d be a shame not to make the most of it.” 

“Isn’t that a little, uh, unprofessional?” I stammer, my heart pounding, my scalp tingling, my clit beginning to throb.

“I’m the boss, Stacey,” he growls, in that commanding tone that gets me instantly wet. “I get to say what’s unprofessional and what isn’t.”

Stay strong
, I repeat to myself, feeling my heart booming in my chest and my nipples beginning to stiffen despite my best efforts to keep calm.

And from the corner of my eye, I realize that sure enough he’s rubbing himself with the towel before finally letting it just drop to the floor between his spread legs.

Oh
my god
. Here he is: the man I’ve been yearning for, my whole fucking adult life, standing naked before me, practically
begging
me to sleep with him. And every atom in my body is screaming at me to just give in and go for it, despite how fucking wrong it might be – despite the consequences.

But
still
I somehow hold back.

In fact, I don’t even tear my eyes away from his face to sneak a quick peek at his cock, despite the fact that I’m desperate to finally see it.

“Go to hell,” I spit, before turning and leaving him standing there in the middle of the hotel room, confused and naked. 

It’s late morning by the time I reach the office – and I’m
never
this sloppy. Damn. This girl is fucking with my head. And now it’s even affecting my performance at work. This
has
to stop. As I ride up to the twenty-fifth floor in the elevator, I wince again, remembering what happened in my hotel room just a few hours ago. I really fucked up again, didn’t I? But there’s just something about her – something that seems to compel me to do things almost outside of my own control. I don’t even know what came over me when I said that corny stuff about the hotel room. Or when I sent her that baloney text message about the ‘meeting’. She must think I’m a total creep now. 

You want to know the thing that I find hottest? The thing that turns me on the most? It’s that whenever she gets angry, she looks at me with this
fire
in her eyes. A fire she doesn’t even know she has. And goddamn if it’s not the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Fuck. She’s just the same as she was at fifteen – she doesn’t even know how beautiful she is.

And on top of that, and this is a new one for me, my pride is hurt. I can’t remember the last time anyone turned me down. In fact, I don’t think anyone
has
turned me down before.

Fuck.

It’s like she’s got this hold over me. And the only way I can seem to get her attention is if I act like a spoilt brat teenager, just like I did back then.

She must remember that electricity between us, all those years ago. I wonder if she can still feel it?  I really don’t know. And sometimes, when she looks at me, it seems like the only thing she’s feeling is pure unadulterated hate.

Fuck. What
are
these feelings?

Is this what I think it is?

No, it couldn’t possibly be ...

Just then my thoughts are interrupted by the crisp metallic ping of the elevator as it reaches the floor to my office, the doors gliding open. I take a deep breath then step out into the busy, bustling room, striding past the many desks towards the sanctuary of my office. But before I can reach it, I’ve got to pass one more desk, haven’t I?

Stacey’s
desk ...

“Good morning, Mr
Grayson
,” she says as I approach, playing the role of a highly professional team player to perfection.

“Listen, Stacey,” I murmur under my breath, pausing by her desk and leaning in towards her, so that nobody else can hear what I’m saying, “about this morning ...”

But if she acts as if she hasn’t even heard me.

“You’ve got a one o’ clock lunch meeting with Atlantic Airlines,” she interrupts, her eyes fixed on her computer screen. “And this afternoon you’re scheduled in for a photo shoot with Cosmopolitan at four. Would you like me to give you another reminder about that later on?”

I look down at her, trying to catch her eye, trying to will her to look back up at me, but she keeps her gaze trained coldly ahead on her laptop screen.

“Thanks, that would be, uh, great, yeah,” I mumble, before turning and heading to my office.

I push open the heavy wooden doors, letting them swing closed behind me, feeling both angry and also amazed that she’s managed to find her way so fucking deep inside my head like this.

I’m not used to this, not at all.

I’m used to being the one in charge.

But somehow, in just a few days, she’s managed to mess
me
up.

I can’t believe that if she hadn’t interrupted me like that, I was actually going to
apologize to her!

What a joke.

No apologies
, I think, sinking down into my chair and resting my feet on my desk.
From now on, I’m taking control again ...

Damn him.
Every single fucking time he walks into a room its like I can’t
breathe
; like someone’s punching me square in the gut, knocking the air right out of me, asphyxiating me. He’s just so fucking gorgeous. He fills the room with this magnetic kind of electricity. And I
know
I’m not the only one who feels it. Whenever I watch him from my desk, interacting with everyone else in the office it’s so obvious that he charms everyone he meets: men
and
women. He’s just got that dangerous-as-hell cocktail of looks and personality, which so far has let lets him get away with whatever he likes.

But not with me.

I can’t believe I actually managed to stand up to him like that, but I’m so glad I did. Because I’d rather die than give him the satisfaction of knowing he’s got to me. But even so, it was close. It took all the strength I possessed to talk to him as if he hadn’t hit on me in that hotel room just a few hours ago.

I hate him. I fucking
hate
him.

Why am I so angry? If I really think about it, I’m angry because I want this. I want him, so, so bad. And it’s driving me crazy. Because I just know it would be wrong. So instead I’m just gonna act super professional – like nothing ever happened – and hope that somehow these feeling go away, ASAP.

I decide to keep myself busy all morning by really working hard on a long report on market trends, trying to keep my mind
off
him. But even so, despite my best efforts, every now and again, I feel my thoughts straying back to him again – back to what happened in that hotel room this morning. Back to his perfect body. Back to those tattoos. Back to his words ...

I’m the boss, Stacey.

God, I’m getting wet again despite myself, just
thinking
about it. Something about the dominance in his voice, the sheer power and control, just gets me hot as hell ... 

Does he treat everyone else the same way as me?

Then I remember Elizabeth, that leggy brunette I met on my first day here; how she told me not to fuck him in my first week or she’d lose the office sweepstake.

Well, I suppose
that
pretty much answers my question, doesn’t it?

§

Before I know it, it’s lunchtime, and I’m glad when Colt comes striding out of his office, on his way to his lunch meeting with Atlantic Airlines – glad to think that for the next hour at least he won’t be in the same damn building as me.

“Oh, Stacey,” he says, turning to face me like he’s forgotten something important. “I want you to make me a dinner reservation tonight for two at Sexy Fish. Eight pm.”

“Sexy
what
?!” I laugh, unable to help myself.

This has got to be some kind of joke.

“You heard,” he growls coldly, before turning on his heel and striding off towards the elevators, giving me one final tantalizing glimpse of his broad muscular frame, so perfectly shown off by his immaculately tailored midnight blue suit.

To my surprise, when I type ‘Sexy Fish’ into my search engine it turns out it actually
is
a real place – an exclusive, Asian-themed seafood restaurant in Mayfair. The list of celebrities who’ve eaten there in the past
week
alone is enough to keep a gossip columnist busy for a whole month.

I wonder which lucky lady he’s taking out tonight
, I think as I dial the number.
I know one thing, though. It sure as hell ain’t Magdalena Cortez ...

§

After his lunch meeting, Colt returns to the office, striding straight past me, this time not even stopping to ask whether or not I’d been successful in booking him a table (I have), and so I just dive right back into that report, wanting to prove to him once and for all that I can actually
do
this job.

Then, at just before four, I buzz through to his office.

“Mr Grayson, It’s almost time for your photo shoot,” I say.

A part of me suspects that perhaps this ‘shoot’ isn’t real, that it’s just as phony as that crap about needing a business meeting at his hotel room – I mean, come on? Do Cosmo really want to profile some
businessman
, even if he
is
young, handsome and successful? But I guess it’s not my job to question the appointments in his diary, just to make sure he’s reminded of them.

“Thanks for the heads up, Miss Richardson,” he replies.

A moment later, the doors to his office burst open and Colt emerges, a leather hold-all now slung over one broad shoulder, his thick hair swept back in a glossy tumble. As he passes my desk, he stops, forcing me to look up at him.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he says, that familiar know-it-all grin playing on his full lips, one eyebrow raised in a quizzical smirk.

“Huh?” I reply, totally confused.

“You’re my
PA,
remember?” he snarls. “You’re coming with me ...”

§

“That’s great, just great!” Claudia, the photographer calls out, as Colt poses in the studio, playfully tugging at his tie, the first few buttons of his shirt undone, a cocky, arrogant expression lighting up his face as the camera flashes, again and again and again.

I sigh, wishing I could pull my eyes away, not wanting to give him the damn satisfaction. But the truth is, he looks
hot
and I can totally see now why he’s been chosen for this shoot. In a different life, he could easily have made a career as a model, and he seems so relaxed and playful in front of the camera, not an ounce of self-consciousness.

So yeah, it turns out this photo shoot is real
after all – although a part of me still suspects that the only reason Colt has dragged
me
along is just to rub my face in it. To prove that at least
some
women find him hot.

Oh, if only he knew ...  

“Can you undo a few more buttons?” Claudia calls.

And when he does, willingly, uncovering a little more of his golden skin and the dark latticework of tattoo ink, it seems to throw the photographer over the edge.

“Holy shit! You never mentioned you had
tattoos?!
” she gasps. “Our readers are gonna
love
this. Okay, I’m afraid that whole shirt is coming straight off, mister!”

Colt laughs, lapping up the attention, eagerly unbuttoning his shirt and shrugging it off his broad, sculpted shoulders, every inch of his perfectly proportioned torso now on show, lit by the blazing lights of Claudia’s studio and the insistent flash of her camera as she circles him, taking shot after shot, all the while calling out a stream of encouragement and compliments.

“Oh, that’s
gorgeous
. Give me some more of those abs, baby! Think you could pop the first button of your pants, too? Make it like you’re about to take them off?”

I can’t help it. Despite myself, I’m feeling jealous, as this sexy, sassy photographer drools all over him. She must be in her late thirties, with a slim figure and thick bouncy golden curls of hair and a dirty, MILF-y vibe. And maybe it’s just me, but it seems like Colt’s flirting right back at her, too.

“So, Claudia,” he grins as he starts to tease the camera by making like he’s about to pull his pants off too, “you think your readers are gonna want to fuck me after they see these pics?”

Again, I roll my eyes, but even so, I cant tear them away from him. And as he starts to actually slide his pants down, uncovering the golden skin of his thick muscular thighs beneath – not to mention the freaking
huge
bulge in his tight white underwear – well, I feel an embarrassing flush of heat between my own legs, too.

“Oh, you
bet
,” Claudia laughs back. “You’re looking
smoking hot
... Come on, off with those pants altogether.”

Again Colt laughs, unselfconsciously stepping out of his tailored suit pants, the tight white fabric of his underwear all that’s left to protect his modesty now, and a part of me suspects that the way this shoot is going,
that
won’t be on his body for too much longer either.

Sure enough, I hear Claudia say, “If you’re feeing brave, we could do a couple of fully nude ones, too?”

I feel my heart begin to boom in my ears and a blush rising to my cheeks, even though nobody even remembers I’m here, nestled away right at the very back of the studio, watching this crazy scene unfold.

“Sure. Why not,” Colt grins, and at that exact moment, his gaze reaches out, past the studio lights, right to this far corner where I’m standing in the shadows, watching on.

“And what about you, Stacey?” he says, as his eyes lock with mine. “Do you want to fuck me too?”

I can’t speak. I’m fixed on the spot, unable to look away as he confidently slides his underwear down his thighs and steps out of it, leaving him fully naked.

Oh my god
, I think as my eyes are finally drawn downwards, right between his legs.
He’s even bigger than I’d imagined ...

“Holy shit!” Claudia laughs, obviously just as surprised by the size of his package as I am. “I was going to ask you to cover yourself with one hand, Mister, but with that monster, I think you’re gonna need to use
both
!”