Surrender to Temptation Part III: Tempted to Obey (3 page)

I could feel Tony’s eyes, watching me warily. I pretended to be scrolling through a report on my computer, when in reality I was watching the words whirl by in a stream of black on white.

To make my hands stop trembling, I lifted my mug, sipped at the sweet tea. The heat warmed my insides very slightly, and I calmed, but only a bit.

For my own peace of mind, I had to speak with Zach. I almost wished that I had found the strength to continue into the conference room, because I was finding it hard now to pull out the strength to confront him.

“Do you have a minute, Devon?” Tony’s face was a study in wariness when I looked over at his desk. Though I wanted to snarl, deep down I knew that it wasn’t him I was angry at.

Forcing my lips into a semblance of a smile, I raised my eyebrows questioningly.

“I wondered if you could take a look at the first-quarter report for Spartacus Records.” The record company was a big client of Phyrefly, purchasing their private jets solely from us. “I’ve input something wrong somewhere, and I’ve gone over it three times, but I just can’t find it.”

Numbers. Spreadsheets. I could do this. Within minutes Tony had sent the file to my computer and I was poring over it with enough concentration that my anger ratcheted down a notch.

“Here!” Excited when my eyes locked in on the error, I gestured Tony over, pointing to the place on the screen. “It’s right here, in Column D.”

“How the hell did you find that so fast?” The look that Tony gave me was filled with admiration, and I wasn’t so upset that I missed his up-and-down stare. “This spreadsheet is pages long.”

“Oh.” Flushing at the praise, I pointed to the total at the bottom of the column. “Well, when two columns should balance and don’t, an easy check is to subtract one total from the other. If the difference is 1, 10, 100, 9 or 99, then you’ve probably made an error in addition. In this case you typed an
O
instead of a zero, and it threw the math off.”

“You’re amazing.” Tony leaned in slightly, the interest on his face easy to read. I swallowed forcibly, wishing with all of my might that it were Tony, or someone like him, whom I was attracted to.

Life would be much, much easier if I were.

As if on cue, I felt that tingling sensation on my skin, the one I got when Zach was near. I looked up and across the room to find him standing just outside the conference room door, speaking with a member of the team that he had been meeting with.

His eyes were fixed on Tony and me with our heads together, and he did not look impressed.

A tremor ran through me. He would be alone in a moment. This was my chance.

I had to do it before I lost my nerve.

“Tony, could you excuse me for just a moment?” I smiled at the man with as much sincerity as I could muster. It wasn’t his fault that I was fixated on someone whose mood swings gave me whiplash.

“Sure.” Tony’s stare followed mine as I stood and smoothed my skirt. He frowned, his brows furrowing together. “Devon, I know no one can hold a candle to the amazing St. Brenton, but I can guarantee that I’d treat you better.”

I smiled at Tony, and the smile held more than a bit of regret. I couldn’t bear the idea of hurting his feelings, so I opted to skirt around the truth of the matter, which was that after Zach, I wasn’t sure I would ever be attracted to anyone else.

“Too bad coworkers in the same department can’t date.” Tony snorted through his nose, seeing through my bullshit. But as he made his way back to his desk he made sure to rub a hand over my shoulder with a grin.

“Give him hell, Devon.”

Tony’s words gave me strength. It looked like Zach was close to wrapping things up, so I sucked in a deep breath and hurried back across the room.

He saw me coming, and his eyes narrowed in warning. I felt my fury begin to boil again, rapidly reaching the boiling point.

“Mr. St. Brenton.” I spoke right on the heels of his conversation’s end, knowing that I needed a witness to get him to cooperate. “I need to speak with you for a quick moment, if you don’t mind.”

I kept my voice polite, but the man who had been meeting with Zach looked at me with curiosity, telling me that my anger wasn’t quite as well hidden as I thought.

“I’ll leave you to it.” The man nodded at us both before leaving. Zach moved to go with him, and I hissed.

“I don’t want to make a scene, Zach, but we need to talk. Five minutes. You owe me that.”

Zach’s face showed no emotion as he studied me, his stare hot and steady.

“Very well.” Relief washed through me as he stalked into the conference room, leaving me to follow.

The uppermost layer of my hot wrath evaporated into chills as I found myself suddenly alone with Zach, for the first time in a week. I began to tremble with nerves and anticipation, a heady combination when mixed with abject rage.

I was aware of the curious stares of those outside the conference room, my coworkers trying to watch what was going on without actually seeming like that was what they were doing.

I tried not to show any of my feelings on my face, which was difficult, since I was shivering.

“You can’t treat me this way.” Zach watched me as I spoke, his face impassive. I wanted to cry with frustration. “If what we had was just a fling, then fine. But you should have the courtesy to tell me that we’re through, instead of leaving me hanging. It’s cruel.”

Anger rippled over Zach’s face, but I couldn’t tell if it was directed at me or not. He picked up a remote and pressed a series of buttons that caused the windowed walls of the conference room to become opaque, and excitement licked through me.

“I won’t be just another of your hangers-on, waiting for any scrap of attention that you toss my way.” In the last week I had made the mistake of searching the Internet for information on him, clues to his past. What I had found instead were reams of gossip on the billionaire mogul’s personal life, namely the women with whom his name had been linked.

There were so many—some famous, some not, all gorgeous—that I had felt physically ill.

“Come here.” Zach’s voice was hot and struck straight to my core. My head told me that to obey would be the stupidest thing I had ever done; my body couldn’t have cared less.

I had to struggle to hold myself in place, but I had something that I needed to say before I let him touch me again.

“Are we done, or are we trying to figure out what this is?” It was so hard to hold my voice steady. “I’m not asking you to make a major commitment. But if we’re going to explore this, then I need to know that . . . that that’s what you want.”

If he laid those hands on my skin, and then left me again, I wasn’t sure how I would recover. I would—I could—but I didn’t want to have to go there if we weren’t on the same page.

How could he possibly want me—how had he ever wanted me—after all of those beautiful, smart, accomplished women in his past?

“Devon. Come here.” Cautiously I moved across the large conference room to where he stood, so large and arrogant and
male
. I could feel the sultry heat of his body, drawing me in, and it warmed me to the marrow of my bones.

Be careful, Devon
. More so than any person I had ever known, this man was dangerous.

I stood in front of him, my fingers twisting nervously in the starched fabric of my black button up blouse. When he grabbed me by the arms and turned me around, pressing my back to the hard length of his front I gasped, heat pooling instantly between my legs.

I cursed how much he could make me feel with only the slightest of touches.

Fisting a hand in the length of my ponytail, he tugged my head back, twisting until I looked him in the eyes. The licorice-dark depths of his eyes sparked with the same fire that I felt.

“While we are together, no other man touches you.” The words were hot against my ear, and he followed them with a sharp nip of warning on the tender lobe. My throat felt dry, but he pulled my hair again, urging me to answer.

“No one but you.” I whispered. He growled, the sound low and deep.

“Take off your panties.” I inhaled sharply and looked sidelong at the frosted wall that separated us from those milling around outside the conference room. Though when the temporary opaqueness was activated, the wall was impenetrable to the eye—and I had been on the other side during enough meetings to know that it worked—yet I felt incredibly exposed.

The door wasn’t even locked.

“You wanted this, Devon.” With his free hand Zach reached around me to cup my throat, squeezing gently. The gesture reminded me of our night together a week earlier.

I had to trust him, and he me, or this was over before it had even begun.

“Will you help me with my skirt?” I felt excitement whip through his frame, which was pressed so tightly against me. His erection dug into the flesh of my lower back as I bent forward, and I thrilled to the knowledge that I had such an effect on him.

Lowering both of his hands to my hips, he squeezed the flesh there once before gathering the fabric of my A-line skirt in his fingers, lifting my skirt bit by bit.

When I could feel the cool air of the room kiss the skin of my upper thighs, I hooked my fingers in the lace strips that ran over each of my hips. I tugged at the scrap of fabric until it fell to the floor, skimming my legs on the way down.

“Step out.” I did as he said, my knees trembling. “Now pick them up.” He pulled my ass into his pelvis and urged me to bend at the waist. I felt the rigid length of his erection pressing into the heat of my center as I bent and caught the small garment in trembling fingers. I pushed back against him, a sudden wild image of him opening his fly and shoving his cock into my naked heat then and there burning its imprint into my mind.

I felt every inch of his hard flesh as I stood back up.

“Give them to me.” I forced myself to look up, to look into his eyes as he took them from me. They were composed entirely of bits of black lace, and were part of the outfit that had been provided for me at his house a week ago.

They were a far cry from the simple, tasteful cotton that I usually wore. The flicker in his eyes told me he knew that, knew that these were the ones he had given me.

Cupping my jaw in one large hand, he traced a finger over the planes of my face. My mouth was swollen with need.

“Does it excite you, knowing that someone could walk in on us at any minute?” His words caused a tremor to run through me. I licked my tongue over my parched lips. It sounded so dirty, so very unlike something that I would like, but I couldn’t deny it.

“Everything about you excites me.” My voice was soft. Pleasure painted Zach’s features at my words, just for a moment, before his habitual control returned.

Releasing me, he stepped back, putting a definite amount of space between us. Lifting my panties to his face, he held them to his nose and inhaled, looking as though he were sampling the bouquet of a fine wine.

I gaped with shock. Had he really just sniffed my underwear? My eyes widened as he went one step further, tucking the bits of lace into the pocket of his pants. They were so small that it didn’t look as though there was anything there.

“Go back to work, Devon.” Before I could do anything rash, like throw myself at him, he pressed the buttons on the remote and unfrosted the windows to the conference room. Nervously I ran a hand over my disheveled ponytail, then fussed with my clothes before forcing my hands into fists that fell still at my side. Perspiration slicked my skin, clinging at the long wisps of my bangs.

Without having to look, I knew that the eyes of everyone outside the room had swung toward us, on display as we were. I suspected that most people in the cavernous accounting office beyond were watching, too.

I hadn’t been employed there for very long, but I had already come to understand that the employees of Phyrefly Aviation regarded anything to do with their enigmatic CEO with fascination.

We hadn’t been alone in there long enough for anything untoward to have happened. But I knew, and Zach knew, that my underpants were now in his pocket. And I knew that I had turned him on.

“I want those back.” Pasting a smile on my face, I narrowed my eyes to let him know I was serious. “They were a gift.”

Finally,
finally
, that smile of his that I loved so much made an appearance. He laughed out loud, and I glowered further, even though I was thrilled to have pulled the sound out of him.

“You’ll get them back.” To the people in the hallway, Zach was merely sharing a joke with an employee. I, however, was standing close enough that I could see the dangerous glint in his eyes.

“I intend to deliver them personally.”

Chapter Two

Though I’d now had contact with Zach, my afternoon was proving to be just as unproductive as my morning. I was hyperconscious of my bare skin pressed against the soft fabric of my skirt. More than embarrassment, I found that sitting at my desk, naked beneath my skirt, was terribly exciting. Every time I shifted and my thighs pressed together, I could feel the sensitivity of my arousal.

What was Zach doing with my panties? Did he have them out on his desk? In his hand? Or were they still in his pocket? I delighted in having a secret that only the two of us knew.

Frustrated beyond reason, I stood and made my way to Mrs. Gallagher’s desk. Though it was an adult work environment, and though I was perfectly entitled to leave for a short break, I still felt as though I needed to ask the woman’s permission. She made me feel as if I were back in grade school. It was a discomfiting sensation.

“I’m going to run downstairs for some coffee, Mrs. Gallagher. Would you like anything?” The woman tucked a strand of rich copper hair behind her ear and slid her tortoiseshell reading glasses down to the tip of her nose so that she could focus on me where I stood, at the edge of her office.

It struck me then that she was an attractive woman, though she hid it well with her condescension and irritating manner.

“I do not drink caffeinated beverages after ten in the morning, Miss Devon Reid.” She slid her glasses up on her nose and looked back at her computer screen, and I knew that I had been dismissed. “And if you had a decent night’s sleep, rather than cavorting till all hours of the morning, you wouldn’t need to, either.”

I felt the warmth of a blush spread over my cheeks. It had been a week since I’d been up late doing anything exciting, but the memory of that night had disrupted my sleep ever since. Her tone also rankled, though from what I saw she was just as abrupt with everyone.

When I reached the bank of elevators I felt the prickles on the back of my neck that told me someone’s eyes were on me. I turned back and found Mrs. Gallagher watching me, her features furrowed with concern.

Though she made a show of looking away and ignoring me from that moment on, it wasn’t the first time I had caught her examining me with concern. Given how at odds it seemed with her typical behavior toward me, I couldn’t even begin to guess what it was about me that worried her.

I was too tired to begin to figure it out.

The lobby was quiet. I passed through the security sensors that guarded the entrance to the employees-only section of the building and followed the scent of roasted arabica beans.

I had just joined the end of the long line—the Phyrefly building stood thirty-two floors tall, and though coffee was available on every floor, Higher Grounds allowed us a chance to stretch our legs and socialize for a moment, so it was very popular. Anticipating the jolt of caffeine that might help me to get through the rest of the day, and contemplating a sugary doughnut to go with it, I became dimly aware of a commotion back out in the lobby.

“Employees only beyond this point.” The deep grumble belonged to one of the security guards who manned the entry into the depths of the gigantic building. There were rumblings from the two other men who worked with him—big, intimidating-looking men—but above all the ruckus sounded a voice that was very familiar to me.

“My girlfriend works here, and I’ll visit her if I damn well want to!” The tone of voice was thin and arrogant and full of agitation. It also sounded familiar.

No. Surely not.

I turned slowly, hoping that I was imagining it.

I wasn’t. Caught in the beefy arms of Ron, the one security guard who actually smiled at me occasionally, was my ex-boyfriend, Tom.

Tom, the cheating bastard.

I watched, strangely nonplussed, as Ron finally let him go. Tom straightened like a bird whose feathers had been mussed, shaking as if he could remove the imprints of Ron’s hands like droplets of water. His version of casual clothes consisted of neatly pressed khakis and a starched button-down shirt in navy and white checks. They were now wrinkled, and a tuft of hair stood straight up from the rest of the neatly combed golden strands that covered his head.

I wasn’t happy to see him. Neither did I feel an overwhelming urge to storm up to him and slap him across the face.

Mostly I wanted to hide. I didn’t want to deal with him or any of the feelings that his appearance dredged up when my mind was already so full of Zach.

“Shit.” I hissed as I spoke, and the man in front of me in line cast an uneasy glance at me before inching forward, placing distance between us. My mind raced as I grimaced. I had to be an adult. Though Tom had been fully in the wrong, I hadn’t been acting like an adult when I ran away, and I had to make that right.

Inhaling deeply, squaring my shoulders, I exited Higher Grounds and crossed the lobby to where my ex still sputtered.

“Tom.” My voice was even. He looked up, saw me, and gave one last shudder, presumably trying to remove the sensation of being manhandled from his skin.

“What the hell kind of company are you working for, Devon?” Now that he had straightened himself out—except for that tuft of hair, which I certainly wasn’t going to tell him about—I watched Tom fall back on his usual arrogance and swagger.

That swagger wasn’t something that sat well on my ex. Though it probably wasn’t fair to compare the two, when I thought of Zach and the high-handedness that was ingrained right into his every act, I found myself growing warm.

“The security is here to keep employees safe, Tom.” He looked a bit surprised that I hadn’t immediately agreed with him. Part of me felt the urge to slip right back into my old ways—to acquiesce, to placate.

I couldn’t do that. Forcing myself to hold my chin high, I looked my ex right in the face, noting the puzzlement that ran over his features when he took in my demeanor.

“They don’t have the right to rough up innocent people.” Tom brushed a hand fussily over his shoulder, smoothing away dust that I certainly couldn’t see. I stifled a roll of my eyes. Catching Ron’s eye over Tom’s shoulder, I had to bite my cheek to keep from smiling when the man cast me an incredulous, “do you actually know this idiot?” look.

I
had
known this idiot, once upon a time. And though I didn’t know where things stood with Zach, I now certainly knew better than to settle for someone like Tom.

I couldn’t blame him for my insecurities—they were my own issues, though Tom certainly hadn’t helped matters any. Never mind his cheating, he had never made me feel anything as intensely as Zach did, and the thought of going through life without experiencing sensation like that made me shudder.

“Tom, if you tried to get past the gates, then you weren’t innocent and you knew it.” I heard the sharp edge in my voice, and instead of trying to hide it, I found myself embracing it. Seeing Tom dredged up all kinds of old devastations, ones that I had come so far in working through in the past few weeks, and I found that I didn’t appreciate it at all.

“How did you find me?” I hadn’t told anyone where I was going—I hadn’t known, myself—until I’d gotten here.

Tom pursed his lips, studying me as if trying to discover what was different, before he spoke. “I linked our cell phones several months ago. All I had to do to find you was to log into the program. You’ve been spending work hours here every day for the past couple of weeks. It was easy enough.”

My mouth fell open at the audacity of his response—there were so many things in it that I didn’t agree with. Zach had discovered my clothing sizes and cosmetic preferences, and the resources he had to have accessed in order to obtain such information blew my mind. Still, he made no secret of the influence his wealth bestowed on him or his controlling nature. I fully intended to have it out with him over his invasion of privacy. However, while Zach’s actions had only irritated me, I found this cell phone stalking of Tom’s to just be creepy. It also made me angry. I had thought that I was truly alone when I was in Cambria, and had found comfort in the fact that no one in the world knew where I was. To find out that had been a sham was deeply upsetting.

“Why on earth would you have linked our phones?” Per his own dictate, our finances were separate—it wasn’t like we shared a phone bill, or even a grocery app.

The barest hint of guilt crossed Tom’s face, and I understood in a flash. Though I didn’t have romantic feelings toward my ex at all anymore, his betrayal still had the ability to cut me to the core.

“You wanted to know where I was all the time so that you wouldn’t get caught.” It wasn’t a question. The bastard. The lying,
cheating
bastard.

I had had enough. Punching as much disdain as I possibly could into my sneer, I turned on my heels and walked away, heading toward those security gates that Ron and company had refused to let Tom through.

I, however, was an employee of Phyrefly Aviation. And I intended to use those gates to get the hell away from Tom.

“Devon, wait. Please!” I slowed, gritting my teeth as I did. “Can’t we at least go for a coffee, to talk?”

He made it sound so reasonable, like I at least owed him that much. And maybe I did. I found myself spinning back around and striding toward him, though my every step felt as though I were slogging through mud.

“Make it quick, Tom. I have to get back to work.” Without waiting to see if he was following or not, I reentered Higher Grounds.

I still wanted my coffee, dammit. I was going to need it to get through this clusterfuck of a day.

***

I watched as Tom stared out the window of the coffee shop, his mouth agape at the couple who had just walked by. Two women held hands, one a tall, attractive blonde dressed in a neatly cut business suit, the other a petite girl with her hair dyed bright blue, the dye job accented by the rings that pierced the skin of her ears, nose and eyebrows.

“What the hell kind of city is this to live in, Devon?” He turned to face me with no surprise, but plenty of disdain, and I bristled. I loved the vibrancy of San Francisco, loved that everyone in the city seemed comfortable in their own skin.

Though the city wasn’t that far from Sacramento geographically, it was worlds apart in every other way.

I wasn’t quite in the San Francisco mindset yet, but I was working on it.

“Tom, hurry up. Please.” The longer I sat there with those calculating eyes of his assessing me, the closer I came to reverting to meek, compliant Devon, the one that even Tom, the most vanilla man I had ever met, had become bored with.

I felt as if I were stranded in the choppy waves outside of Zach’s house, trying to keep my head above water.

“When are you going to drop this nonsense and come home, Devon?” Settling back in his chair, Tom sipped at his coffee with a casual air.

I placed my own coffee on the table and stared at him, knowing that incredulity must be written all over my features. I stared, waiting for him to explain further.

He seemed annoyed when I didn’t answer right away.

“Tom, I left you a note. I told you I was leaving. Given the situation in your apartment when I left the note, I think you’re fully aware of
why
I left.” I watched as Tom became visibly irritated, setting down his coffee cup hard enough that the steaming liquid splashed out of the small opening in the lid.

“You can’t possibly be serious, Devon.” There was that disdain again, and anger began to simmer in my core. “I let you have some time away, since you clearly needed to . . . deal with the situation. I even convinced the other partners to hold your job for you. But they—we—are expecting you back.”

Time to deal with the situation? Was he serious? I barked out a laugh, and then another. I felt like I should be furious, but it became clear to me in one crystalline moment that this man wasn’t worth so extreme of an emotion.

“We’ll get married, Devon. Next year we’ll buy a house. That’s our plan.” Tom looked incredibly puzzled that I wasn’t falling into his arms. I shook my head in disbelief.

“Tom, you are delusional.” Sitting forward in my chair, I looked him over thoroughly. He was good-looking, in a bland way, but what I now saw in his personality made him seem thin and weedy to my eyes.

Even if I hadn’t met Zach, hadn’t had my eyes opened to the vitality of a real man, I couldn’t picture myself married to this poor excuse for a human for the rest of my life.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have left the way I did. But you cheated on me. Cheated on me, Tom! You fucked someone else.” Tom reared back at my profanity, a word I probably wouldn’t have used weeks earlier.

I didn’t care. I was on a roll.

“I deserve more than that, Tom.” I couldn’t quite put a name to the emotion that I was feeling as I pushed my chair back from the table. “And I don’t want to see you again.”

“Devon.” Tom caught me by the wrist before I could leave. I looked down at his hand clasped around my wrist, its touch slightly clammy against my dry skin.

I felt nothing. No heat, no despair.

Just nothing.

“Get your fucking hand off of her.” The growl from behind me could have come from a wild animal. I yanked my arm free of Tom’s grasp and spun, adrenaline slicing through my veins like a knife, my heart in my throat.

Zach towered over nearly everyone else in the small coffee shop, taking up more than his fair share of space in that way that he did. Though he was still dressed in his fancy suit, the green tie that he wore that day as tidy as always, his stance and his expression spoke of danger as he glowered at Tom.

Here, I thought, was everything that I had been searching for. Here was everything that Tom and I hadn’t been.

Though I at least knew Tom well enough to see the anxiety travel through him, he retreated into the uptight persona that he had perfected. Not bothering to stand, he still tried to look down his nose at Zach.

“Who are you? More of the hired muscle?” To my surprise Zach laughed then, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. Even as his lips curled upward, he looked capable of murder.

I was appalled to find myself thrilling to the barely restrained violence in him. Whatever was running through his mind, it fed some need deep in my soul. I wasn’t proud that I found I liked being able to evoke such a visceral reaction from him.