Falling Under You: A Fixed Trilogy Novella (1001 Dark Nights) (9 page)

But I wanted it—wanted
him
—badly enough to make the effort.

“Will you give me another chance?” I asked, my voice raw.

His lips parted slightly as he considered me, and I considered that mouth, wishing he’d kiss me, despite our location. It was well after five; no one was around. The cleaning crew wouldn’t be in for another couple of hours.

“There’s something in your tone that suggests you might beg if necessary.” His eyes lowered to watch my tongue dart along my bottom lip. “It makes me awfully tempted to say no just so I can hear it.”

My pulse picked up. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and my brain started swimming with ideas that weren’t wise. “Careful,” I said, as much to myself as to him. “We’re still in my court.”

God, what I could do to him on my turf. Turn my position over him into one with a carnal element. Show him exactly how bossy I can get. It hadn’t ever been a fantasy of mine, but he’d made me wait so long, I was getting desperate. Hungry. Yearning. All I had to do was stand up, press my lips to his…

As if he could read my mind, Boyd chuckled and took a step back. “I don’t know about that. I’m officially off the clock. Hard to say whose court it is right now.”

Oh, man. If the office turned into his territory—how many naughty things could he do to me? Turn the tables on my playground. Knock me off guard. I wasn’t sure if I liked the idea or not.

He didn’t make me have to decide, slipping out the door with only a wink, but I didn’t miss the flash of struggle in his eyes, the single signal that maybe there were parts of this negotiation that he was unsure of too.

* * * *

Two nights later, he was more certain.

“You staying late?”

I frowned, looking up to find Boyd standing in my doorway, his jacket on, the room dark behind him. Didn’t I
just
get back from lunch? A glimpse at the time on my computer screen said it was almost six. Huh.

I swallowed back a sigh. “Yeah, I guess I am. I really want to finish these reports up for the Donovan Tech proposal.” There was probably another two hours of work on them. Maybe three.

I’d already shifted my focus back to the spreadsheet in front of me when he spoke again. “Don’t you have until next week to turn them in?”

“But if they’re off my plate, I’ll have time to add my analysis to the real estate purchase Hudson is looking at.”

“Isn’t Mark the one assigned to that?”

I glanced up with a guilty expression. It wasn’t as if Hudson had specifically asked me to give my opinion on buying the land, but I knew he’d appreciate it.

And I liked being appreciated. Call me brown-nose Norma.

“Ah, I see,” Boyd said in a way that suggested he
did
see, that he was well aware my over-achieving nature was behind this and not any lingering romantic interest in my boss. Still, even though he understood, I couldn’t quite tell if he supported my actions.

But this was my job, and I was the boss. His support was moot. “Workaholic,” I said, reminding him who I was in case he needed it. “I can’t be helped.”

“I guess I’ll see you later then.” He smiled and gave a small wave, and my stomach tightened in the way it did so many times when I thought about Boyd.

This time when I turned back to my work, I was humming.

Barely five minutes had passed—at least, it felt like only five minutes—when my phone buzzed with a text.
Be in the copy room in ten minutes.

The message was from Boyd. He only texted me when he was summoning me. When I was in
his
court.

But it’s Wednesday.

I threw a glance to my desk calendar. Nope. It was Thursday. A
Boyd
day.

“Goddammit.” Yes, I said it out loud. Even though it was entirely possible that he was outside my door somewhere within earshot. I said it out loud anyway because I was
that
frustrated. I’d
just
told him I wanted to stay late, and apparently he didn’t care. Which was bullshit. I was not someone to be bossed around.

I was seconds from replying with exactly that when I reconsidered. His words from earlier that week replayed in my head. Words like
“blatant disregard of the position we’ve agreed that I have over you”
and “
seemed that our arrangement might not be working out.”

That was the whole point of us, wasn’t it? For Boyd to boss me around. It was what I’d said I wanted. So did I or didn’t I?

I hadn’t quite answered that when another text came in.
Have your panties off and your skirt up around your waist.

A shiver ran through my body.

Okay, I’d meet him. But I couldn’t fool around on the premises. The night in the conference room had been risky enough. I’d have to put my foot down about it.

Another text:
Stop thinking, Norma.

Right. Stop thinking.

Without responding, I saved the file I was working on and shut down my computer. Then I turned the lights off in my office, locked the door, and headed down the hall to the office supply and copy room.

It took three tries before I remembered the door code. I rarely ever needed it—I always sent Boyd to do the sort of tasks that required the use of this room. The delay getting in did nothing for my nerves. It was after hours and the entire floor was dark and quiet, but my heart was pounding so hard, I thought the inside of my chest would bruise.

I was there in time, panties on the counter, skirt hiked to my waist, but Boyd made me wait longer, that bastard. Try as I might to stop thinking, my mind raced those extra minutes with a million different thoughts.
Maybe he just wants to see if I’d do it
.
He might not even actually join me. Maybe he saw someone in the hall and is waiting for him or her to leave. If we got caught together, he could lose his job. The light in here is sure bright. No one should be naked under fluorescents. Wait. Is there a security camera in this room?

I scanned the ceiling before remembering the only camera pointed at this room was outside, positioned on the door.

Boyd would have already thought of that.

Relax, Norma. Trust him. Let him worry about everything.

Even as I coached myself, I turned off the main light switch so the only source of lighting in the room was from the strip under the cabinets. It was better for the mood. Not that I knew what mood Boyd was going for.

And that was because it wasn’t my business to know or decide.

With a sigh, I flipped the lights back on. He had to be so tired of me fighting him as much as I did.

Maybe he’d punish me for it.

I smiled thinking about that, and as soon as I heard the
beep, beep
of the code being entered, I pulled my skirt up higher and bent over the counter in case he needed the hint.

As soon as he walked in the room, he turned off the light. I had to bite back my grin. I
knew
it was better for the mood without it on.

“Norma,” he asked after a beat, “do you think you’re going to get spanked?”

“I’d deserve it if I did.” I could feel him behind me, assessing me, his eyes on my ass, but I kept my gaze forward, pinned to the sleek Formica countertop.

He rubbed his hand over the curve of my behind. “But you’re here. On time. Ready.”

“I almost wasn’t. I mixed up my days.” I tensed, waiting for the smack—
wishing
for it. He’d only spanked me the one time that first night, and he’d said he wasn’t big on punishment, but wasn’t this a good occasion to make an exception?

Mmm
. I hoped so.

But when his hand left my rear, it didn’t return for the slap I’d braced for.

“Get up on the counter, Norma. You look gorgeous like this, but I’m not going to punish you for correcting your mistake. Anyway, it’s not truly punishment if you’re asking for it.”

Pouting, I turned to face him. “I wasn’t asking for it,” I said, hopping up on the counter. “I was merely letting you know I was ready for it if that’s what you wanted from me.”

“Uh huh.” His subtext was clear—he should be able to expect I was ready for anything he wanted at any time. That was our arrangement. “Let’s talk about the bigger issue, shall we?” He slid his palms up my thighs, sending goose bumps scattering along my skin.

“There’s a bigger issue?” I sounded intoxicated. Which made sense since I felt drunk just from this small touch.

And of course there was a bigger issue—I was still fighting his every attempt at control.

But I played dumb. “I didn’t realize there were any issues. I mean, besides that I keep talking when I don’t know if I have permission to speak.”

“You can talk right now. We’re having a discussion. And yes, there’s a bigger issue.” He smirked in a manner that made me feel like prey.

I swallowed. “Which is?”

“Which is…” His voice trailed off, his interest catching on the postal scale on the counter and the shipping supplies stacked on the shelves next to it. He grabbed a self-inking stamp, a red Sharpie, and clear packaging tape, then turned back to me.

He set the items beside me then pushed my knees apart so that my pussy was bared to him. “Why is it,” he asked, reaching for the stamp, “do you think, that you mixed up your days in the first place?”

I shrugged, not sure where he was going with the question. “I don’t know. Got absorbed in work, I guess. Sometimes it’s hard to remember there’s a world outside of that.” I realized why he’d asked as I spoke my answer. “Oh.”

“But there’s a lot of world outside your office.” He pressed the stamp against my inner thigh, leaving a red rectangular mark on my skin. He moved it up higher and stamped me again. And again. Then several times on the inside of my other thigh.

I didn’t move to look at what the stamp said. It was too dark to see easily, and, anyway, I was transfixed by him—his mouth as he spoke, his hands as they moved with his task.

“There’s a lot of world I’d like to show you outside that room, Norma.” He set the stamp down so he could unbutton my blouse. Then he placed several more marks along my belly and along the top of my breasts.

Still, I kept my eyes on him.

He set the stamp down and reached for the roll of tape. “Give me your hands, please.”

I held them out, not surprised when he bound my wrists together with several layers of tape, the sticky part facing away from my skin. Next he moved to my legs, wrapping my ankle to the handle on a cupboard below me, then my other ankle to another handle so my legs were spread wide.

When he was finished, I pulled against them, testing their strength, and found all of them secure.

“Too tight?”

I shook my head.

“Good.” He nodded at me, his expression clouded with want. “All day long you sit at that desk, this is how I see you.”

“Half-naked?”

“Or all naked. Depends on how willing I am to try to hide my erection.” He sobered. “But I also see you tied. Tied to that office. Tied to that computer. Everything you do, every minute you exist in this building from the time you get here until the time you leave, you’re tuned into the job. Sometimes even after you leave, too.”

He meant
most times
even after I left. He was just too polite to say it, and I was too ashamed to correct him.

Boyd set the roll of tape on the counter then stepped back to study me. “Look at yourself, Norma.”

Hesitantly, I glanced down at the words he’d stamped across my body.
PROPERTY OF PIERCE INDUSTRIES.

My stomach dropped.

“You look pretty damn good like that, I have to admit. I’d be all over you every day if you didn’t belong to
him
.”

I hadn’t been prepared for the jealousy that colored his tone. “Boyd…” I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know what words to give to assure him that the work that distracted me had nothing to do with Hudson and all to do with me. Didn’t know how to explain that my actions said nothing about where my heart belonged.

And we weren’t talking about my heart. We were talking about my attention.

There was nothing I could say to that because he was right—my attention
did
belong to Pierce Industries, ninety percent of my waking day. And once upon a time, I thought my heart did too. Now I realized that my emotions had only followed where my focus was, not realizing that there was someone much more capable of holding my affection than Hudson Pierce.

My head lowered, pulled down with the sorry I didn’t know how to say.

“It’s okay,” Boyd said dismissively. “I can live with it. I can share you with him—like that—” He gestured to my tied hands, my marked skin.

“Because I know,” he moved closer, picking up the red marker, “when you aren’t his,” he took off the cap and scribbled something over each of the stamps on my body as he talked, “when you take yourself off the clock, and you show up at the mere summons of a text message…” He leaned back so I could see that he’d changed each stamp to say
PROPERTY OF BOYD
. “I know that then you belong to me.”

My voice felt trapped by the lump suddenly in my throat, but I managed to rasp, “I do.”

“You work so hard…” He set the marker down then slipped his hands underneath my hair to knead the muscles of my neck. “I still like you tied up. I prefer it, though, when you aren’t so tense.”

“I’m already ten times more relaxed than when I left my office.” Seriously, I felt like putty in his hands.

“Let’s go for one hundred times. Okay?”

I nodded, my body buzzing with anticipation. Whatever he had planned, I knew I wanted it, knew it would be amazing.

He threaded his hand in my hair and tugged it back sharply so that my mouth opened in a gasp that he swallowed with a languid kiss.

Then he stepped back, so far back that he hit the workspace opposite where I sat. He leaned against it, his hands gripping the edges of the counter behind him. “Make yourself come, Norma. I want to watch.”

I hesitated for only a handful of seconds, seconds that were filled with all the reasons not to do what he’d commanded, foremost that I’d never masturbated in front of someone before.

But then I stopped thinking.