The Boss Vol. 2 (The Boss #2) (4 page)

A
fter eating half
the corned beef sandwich and all the pickles, I wrapped up the other half and stuck it in the employee fridge. I labeled it “for anyone who wants it” hoping Grace might eat it, but I was acting like enough of a pussy. If she didn’t want the damn sandwich, she didn’t have to eat it.

Maybe she didn’t like deli meat. Maybe she’d become a vegetarian in the last week.

Maybe I needed to jerk off until all this ridiculousness I was spouting drained out of my head.

I buried myself in work until dinnertime came and went. It was hours past dark the next time I looked up from my schematics and stretched my neck. My eyes were starting to blur and I needed to clear my mind.

At least the other one had gone on hiatus. Thank fuck. I hadn’t been this perpetually horny since high school. Probably not even then, since I’d always had control of my impulses. If I didn’t want to be attracted to a woman, I ignored the feeling until it dissipated.

Why that had yet to work with Grace, I didn’t know.

I rose and bent at the waist to stretch out my back. My ergonomic, extremely high-end desk chair wasn’t getting the job done today. Perhaps I’d look into getting a new one someday, when I had time.

Right now, I needed to take a walk. The coffee I’d been mainlining all afternoon had done a number on me. My muscles were jangling, my heart racing, my blood pounding under my skin. It was as if I was in a flight-or-fight situation instead of feeling the natural effects of sitting for so many hours in a row.

I walked past Grace’s desk. Her computer was dark, her chair tucked in. She must’ve gone. She’d probably left sometime ago. Only workaholics like me regularly lived at their desk. And she had another job, one that suited her far more than this one.

She wasn’t meant to be stuck behind a desk. Not with her kind of eye. She had the kind of talent that deserved to be nurtured, not squandered on spreadsheets and ordering supplies.

Even if she was only working for me for some secret reason only she knew. I would never believe for a moment that her arrival that day had been coincidental. She knew who I was, and my connection to her grandmother. She had to.

One way or another, I would find out all that she knew.

I continued down the silent hallway, passing by Jack’s assistant’s darkened office. Jack nor his assistant kept the kind of hours I did. I didn’t blame them. On the contrary, I quite liked being the only one working late on a regular basis. When I was alone, it was easier to think.

Easier to be.

In silence, my designs had room to grow. The ones I continued to sketch even as I prided the company on its focus on function rather than style. The artistic side of me had never quite died, much like my fascination with Grace. I’d used it to build my company, and now I used it in secret. As if drawing beautiful things that weren’t strictly functionary was somehow taboo.

For the man I showed to the world, it was.

I pushed open the bathroom door. And stopped.

Grace was at the sinks, her leg propped up on the lip. She was doing something to her hose and cursing a blue streak under her breath. My eyebrows rose at the colorful language until my gaze darted down the long expanse of leg revealed by her actions.

Fuck, she was wearing garters. Lacy-top hose and garters.

I was a dead man.

“Goddammit, stupid clip.” She pitched the offending item and lifted her head, blinking owlishly as if she’d just realized she wasn’t alone. How she hadn’t heard the door, I didn’t know. But goddamn that clip.

Blessed clip.

She glanced up at me and her lower lip trembled. Yet she maintained her pose that left her gorgeous leg on display. “What are you doing here?”

Inexplicably, I started to smile. “This is the bathroom, is it not?”

“You should have your own bathroom. You shouldn’t even be here. It’s Friday night. Don’t you ever date like normal people?”

“You’re a fine one to talk.”

“Actually, I’m on my way out.”

“So you do have a date then.” I didn’t think she did, but I wanted—needed—her to say it. “Is that why you’re doing a last-minute repair on your hose?”

“It didn’t work.” She started to drop her leg, but I stilled her by raising a hand and bending to pick up her discarded paper clip. She’d mangled it a bit, but when I stepped closer to examine the lacy tops of her hose, I could see where one of the hooks had snapped. I pried the clip apart, reshaping it, and slipped it between her warm, smooth skin, the frilly top of the hose and the band, fashioning it into a kind of hook. “If you don’t move too much,” I murmured, fixated on the creamy perfection of her supple thigh, “it’ll hold.”

“I have to walk to the train.”

“At this time of night?” I didn’t know what time it was, exactly, just that she shouldn’t be out strolling alone. Not because she couldn’t take care of herself, but because I wanted to ensure she reached her apartment safely.

If that made me an overprotective bastard—well, at least one of those terms fit.

“Not all of us have chauffeur-driven limousines.”

I ignored her snark. “When you’re ready to leave, I’ll drive you.”

She jerked her leg away from me and let her foot fall heavily to the floor. “I’m fine to get home myself. Now if you’ll excuse me—” She started to brush past me, and I reached out to grab her arm. My fingers closed around her wrist and she lifted her hand to my chest, ostensibly to push me away. Instead, her fingers dug into my shirt and she dragged me closer, her mouth dangerously close to mine despite our height difference. Those razor blade heels gave her more of an advantage than she’d had the last time we were together and she used it, hauling my face down to hers. “One more thing. You don’t get to say a damn thing about what I do or don’t do. If I want to ride the train naked, that is my choice and you have no say in it.”

It took everything I possessed not to fist my hand in her hair and pull her insolent mouth to mine. “Oh, you think not?”

“I know not.” She started to relinquish her hold on me, but my fingers only tightened on her wrist as I turned her toward the sink. “I said I’m leaving,” she added shakily.

“So who’s stopping you?”

“You’re blocking my path.”

Deliberately, I took a step back and gestured toward the door. “So go.”

Wary blue-green eyes met mine before she pushed off the sink. With her first step, there was a metallic plink on the floor. The clip had come free.

“Goddammit.”

“Such a mouth on you.” I bent to grab the clip again and pivoted to slip up her skirt. She didn’t move as I pushed the fabric higher and came face to face with those gorgeous thighs again, clad in that narrow band of lace attached to her garter. Or mostly attached. I pulled the clip apart once more and slipped my finger into the garter, holding it away from her toned flesh as I tried to make the clip hold. She trembled as I let the band snap back. “No sharp movements,” I reminded her, sparing her a quick glance.

Her heavy-lidded look was my undoing.

Hell, who was I kidding? Everything about her undid me—from the tendrils of blond hair clinging to her flushed forehead, the derisive curl to her lips, the defiant tilt of her chin.

Those sexy eyes that demanded I do her bidding, even if her mind—and her mouth—said something entirely different.

For a humming moment, she stared down at me as if I was bent low for a whole different reason. One I craved so much that my cock throbbed in the confines of my trousers.

“What about the mouth you have on you?” she whispered.

I didn’t know if that was her idea of a retort or a come-on, but right then, I didn’t care. I was crouched at eye level with her pussy, barely covered by the thin black skirt and her current excuse for panties. It would only take the slightest nudge to push up the fabric to see if she wanted me as much as I wanted her. I’d be able to see—and smell—the truth.

But I didn’t dare inhale right now. If I took one whiff of her, I’d lose all semblance of control. As it was, I was on the edge.

I backed up and rose, slowly, well aware of her gaze devouring me. “You’re not walking alone to the train,” I said, daring her to defy me.

To give me a reason to bend her over this sink and exert my will in a way that would make her scream with pleasure.

“Try to stop me.” She took a step toward the door, then another, letting out a yelp when I leaned forward to plant my hand on the door above her head to hold it closed.

“Looks like you’re stopped,” I murmured, brushing my nose against her hair and lower to the curve of neck and shoulder where her scent was strongest. Her nerves spiked the aroma of lilacs until it was intoxicating. “Unless you want to run…”

I almost expected her to. Hell, frightening her away—and possibly risking a sexual harassment suit—was better than succumbing to this madness between us once again. The only consolation was that we were in the one camera-free zone on company property, but it wouldn’t take much imagination to look at the footage and deduce why we’d both been in the bathroom for so long.

This wasn’t me. I wasn’t some hormonally-driven horndog who couldn’t manage to keep his dick in his pants. She brought something out in me, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

“And if I don’t?” Before I could process her words, she turned, still pinned between me and the door. “Are you going to try to fuck some sense into me?”

The word
fuck
coming from her pretty pink mouth sounded so filthy. Hot as hell. Just like she was, all annoyance and indignation and good girl beauty. An irresistible combination.

I fisted a handful of her wavy blond hair and tipped back her head, exposing her throat. I was tired of talking. She drew words out of me too, where I normally lapsed into silence as easily as I breathed. With her, there seemed to be no end to what I wanted to say.

Now there was only one thing I wanted. The soaked slit between her thighs.

She expected me to kiss her. I could tell from her accelerated breathing, from the flare of her pupils. But I wasn’t going to comply. Not when diving between those trembling lips would drive me insane.

I released her hair and scooped her up, smothering her sound of surprise by pressing her mouth to my shoulder as I carted her to the sink. She bit me through my suit coat and shirt and I would’ve grinned if not for the brutal jerk of my cock at the pinch of her teeth. I set her down and gripped her throat, rubbing my thumb over the wild beat of her pulse as I held her head lightly against the mirror.

She glared at me, arousal and anger firing in equal measure in her sea-colored eyes, and wrapped her legs around my waist. The movement hiked her skirt up so that all I had to do was yank aside the insubstantial scrap of panties guarding her pussy. Her eyes widened at my brusque movement, but the irritation in them didn’t subside. Neither did my hold on her throat as I moved closer to rub my pants-covered cock against the heat between her legs.

“Fuck.”

She blinked at my low curse. “Thanks for the warning.”

I didn’t want to laugh. It wasn’t the time for it. I had my hand around her throat, for God’s sake, and she had her legs wound around my hips. Her center was hot enough to sear me through my pants, and burying myself inside her was an imperative at this point.

But there were other considerations.

“I don’t have a condom.”

She tilted her head then pried something out of her bra. She slapped the packet in my hand and shrugged at my doubletake. “After the first time, I figured I’d better be prepared.”

“So you thought it’d happen again?”

“What do you think these were all about?” She turned her foot and dragged her heel down the back of my thigh. “Only exceptionally good sex is worth being tortured twelve hours a day.”

So many responses flooded my mind at once that I went with the most prudent one. I unzipped my pants.

“Uh uh.” She gripped my wrist, holding my hand against my straining cock while I gritted my teeth. “I gave you something, you give me something. Tit for tat.”

“I was trying to.”

Her smile came and went before I could enjoy it. Then she was flicking open my cuffs and shoving up my sleeve, a sigh escaping her as she revealed my tattoo. The swirls of sepia ink that made up the thick rope that circled the anchor that climbed up my arm were as much a part of me as my skin at this point. I rarely even remembered the tattoo was there. But from the way her eyes were eating me up, I might as well have had my fingers on her clit.

Speaking of…

I relinquished my hold on her throat and slipped my hand between her thighs, skimming the pads of my fingers along the sensitive skin above her garters. She stopped rolling up my sleeve and just gripped my arm, digging in her nails as I drew my thumb down her swollen seam.

If I’d had any doubt she was into me, into
this
, the wetness under my touch told me otherwise.

I didn’t waste time on exploration. Not here. We were in the company bathroom, and from the flush blossoming on her throat and cheeks, she was as ready to fuck as I was. She just needed relief. The same release I’d been aching for since the moment I’d withdrawn from her sweet pussy days ago.

Weeks now.

I slid two fingers into her and swallowed a groan at the tight heat that closed around me. Goddamn, she was on the verge too. She threw back her head against the glass, not even seeming to care that it must’ve hurt. One hand gripped my inked forearm and the other grabbed onto the edge of the sink as she parted her legs, giving me room to give her the kind of rough fingering I’d avoided the first time we were together.

Then, we’d had time. Hours to fill with nothing but learning each other’s reactions. Now, it was a matter of making her explode against my hand before she did the same around my cock.

Driving deeper, I nudged her back against the mirror, pressing my cheek to hers so that I could hear every delicious sound she made. Every ragged inhale, those desperate little whimpers, the moans that broke from her throat like she simply couldn’t contain them anymore. A quick nip of her lower lip had her eyes opening again, her lids lifting slowly as if it was too difficult for her to raise them.