by Lila Monroe
“I gamble with my own money, not the company’s,” Grant pointed out. “Or on the company’s time. And business doesn’t just take place within the office, Lacey; remember Carlo Montoni? He won a handful of change from me at the poker table, and the very next weekend he invested twenty million in our Jacksonville venture.”
“I guess I never thought of that before.” I remembered that deal. It had been just what we needed to pull out of a slump and finish the financial quarter successfully. Without that money? We’d have been up shit creek without a paddle.
“I’m sorry,” I said, blushing.
“What for?”
It was hard to look in his eyes now. “All the stuff I said to you. The stuff I’ve been saying. I’ve just been shooting off my mouth like a total bitch and…I didn’t know you actually cared.”
“No reason you would.” His voice was soft as satin and deep as the sea, sexy, intimate. His fingertips brushed my chin, turning it upwards until I was drowning in his eyes. “It’s a bad habit, I’m afraid…when you don’t want to be hurt, you learn to pretend to care about nothing at all.”
His finger traced the line of my chin and for a second, I forgot how to breathe. My skin tingled where he was touching it, and he leaned in, his eyes soft yet intent, his lips slightly parted—
I jerked away. “I have to leave,” I said, standing quickly. This couldn’t happen. I couldn’t let this happen. Not with my boss. No matter how much I—“Thankyouforalovelyevening,” I rushed, barely leaving any spaces between the words as I made my way to the door.
He stood. “Lacey, wait—”
“A lovely, lovely evening, just like, surprising lovely, almost shockingly lovely, lovely, really, I have to go—”
I made it into the hall, and then his hand was on my shoulder. He spun me around, pressed me against the wall, and kissed me like he was drowning and I was his last breath of air.
9
The touch of his lips lit a fire in me, heat burning through my veins, my skin flushing from my face to my neck and my breasts, his tongue teasing gently against my mouth. I kissed him back, savoring the taste of him, opening and letting his tongue explore, gently at first, and then urgently.
I gripped his strong shoulders and pulled him closer, loving the feel of all that muscle, all that power, beneath that fine fabric, beneath my hands. I felt so small against him, cherished and desired as his hands clutched at my hips with fierce possessiveness, as if I were the only thing he wanted, as if he would never let me go.
I felt his arousal long and hard against me as he ground his hips against mine, and I moaned into his mouth, breaking away for a second to nip at his ear.
He gasped, and I began to nibble lightly on his neck, reveling in those deep gravelly moans that worked from his throat, groans that made my nipples harden and my pussy clench in anticipation. His hands slid teasingly across my stomach, making small circles before traveling upwards to my breasts, tracing their curves through the thin silk, my nipples hardening further against the soft fabric and the teasing pressure of his fingers as I whimpered.
Then they slid lower, down between my thighs. Oh God.
“Do you want more?” he whispered, teasing over my pajama bottoms, and all I could do was nod.
“Say it,” he demanded huskily. “Say that you want me touching you.”
“I want it,” I breathed, the words leaving my mouth before I was even aware I had planned to say them.
His hands slid down and under the hem of my pajama top, lazily making their way up my stomach, his fingernails lightly running over my skin, stroking my stomach, tantalizing me with just a brush of my breast, just a slight dip below my waistband…I pushed myself against him, eager, no, desperate—I needed him to touch me, to grab me, to take me—
He grabbed my hip with his left hand and pushed me back against the wall, just too far away to press myself against him, just close enough that he could keep tormenting me. He bent his head, his lips brushing the sensitive skin of my neck like a brand, and I whimpered. “Please…”
“Say that you want me,” he growled. “You want me inside you, you’re wet for me.”
“I want you,” I whispered, all my breath stolen by the intensity of his gaze.
He sucked at my neck and I almost sobbed at the sensation, like an electrical line between where he touched me and my nipples and lower: I was sopping wet between my legs and I wanted him so badly, he sucked harder at my neck and his fingers began making slow lazy circles over my breasts, not quite touching where I wanted them to, where I needed them to—
“I want you, Grant” I said again, and he pinched my nipple hard and I bucked against him, crying out.
I could feel his smirk against the skin of my neck as he began to lick and kiss and nip in earnest, his breath coming in hot hungry pants that set my skin on fire as he traveled downward, his tongue dancing under the neckline of my pajamas and then oh God, that perfect mouth closing over my nipples through the silk, through the sheer mesh of the lingerie, sucking lightly, so lightly, still teasing me, making me beg—
“I want you!” I pleaded. I strained to press against him, but he was too strong.
Oh God, I needed to touch him so badly. I slid my hands down his strong shoulders to squeeze that perfect ass; he grabbed my left arm, but I was too quick with my right and before he could stop me I was rubbing his cock through his trousers, squeezing that thickness, my mouth watering at the thought of getting down on my knees and taking him between my lips, sucking on the head and running my tongue over the sensitive underside, his hand fisted tight in my hair as I took him deep into my throat—
“Naughty girl,” he murmured, “getting ahead of yourself.”
But he didn’t stop me. And he sounded a little out of breath himself.
“Please, Grant,” I whispered. “Please, please, let me just, let me—ah!”
He was sucking my nipples hard through the fabric again, his lips intent, my brain shorting out as he teased my sensitive tips with his teeth.
“Grant, we—”
He pulled my pajama top up and slid the bra down, and then his mouth was on my breasts, no fabric separating us, nothing but the sensation of his hands and his lips and his tongue and his teeth on my skin, squeezing me, tasting me, marking me—
One of his hands dipped into my pajama pants and pressed against me through my underwear; I was already dripping through it. His fingers circled my clit and I arced into his hand. “Please, oh please, so good, it feels, it feels, it feels—”
He cut off my words with a passionate kiss that left me as dazed and shaking as what his hands were doing, and then before I knew it he was on his knees in front of me, looking at me as though I were a triple-decker chocolate cake. As if I were a supermodel. As if I were a goddess.
He ripped my pajama pants down and devoured me with his eyes, those stormy seas become mirrors that reflected my desire back at me. His hands trembled as they framed my hips.
“Look at those panties.”
I sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Kate for providing me with such hot underwear, but then Grant slid them down and I felt his warm breath coming in small pants against the dampness between my legs.
“I am going to make you scream,” he growled. It was a promise.
And before I could speak another word of protest or desire, his tongue was teasing at my clit, stroking my folds and then diving deep within me—my hips quaked as ripples of heat and desire shot through me, fire consuming my flesh—
“Oh God, Grant, so good, more, so so so good, more please, I need you!”
Grant’s tongue sped up in its rhythm, stroking and caressing and consuming me with an intensity I hadn’t known I’d been yearning for my entire life.
I tossed my head back and forth, pinned to the wall by his strong hands, helpless before the pleasure he lavished on me. Nothing could feel this good, nothing had ever felt so good—God, that perfect mouth on me, wanting me—he sucked, and licked, and la
ved as though I were a rare and luscious delicacy, the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, and I pressed myself shamelessly against him, panting, whimpering, so wet, God I’d never been so wet in my life—I was moaning, whimpering, pleading—“Oh God yes, more, yes more, please, oh God, Grant, Grant, Grant—”
He reached up to twist my nipple as his tongue plucked at my clit before diving deep within me again, and I screamed as stars burst behind my eyes I came hard against his mouth.
His fingers pressed hard into my hips, possessive, as he stood back up, that cocky smirk on his face making my core tighten in anticipation of a second round.
“You taste so sweet,” he said, his voice that low bedroom rumble like foreshadowed thunder.
I glanced down at the fabric straining the front of his trousers.
“You want it,” he said, and it wasn’t a question this time.
Oh good God I wanted to fuck him so bad I might faint. I wanted to take him deep within me again and again until I was coming so hard I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see anything but stars. I wanted him up against this wall and then on the couch and the floor and the table and any other surface we could find. I wanted to suck on his neck below his ear until he moaned the way I had, I wanted to suck on his cock until he begged me to let him deeper, I wanted to dig my fingernails into his back as he came inside me, losing control just this once in his life, his hands squeezing my breasts as he came, losing control for me, because of me, just me—
I nodded, shaking with desire.
His eyes still locked on mine, Grant reached down and undid his trousers.
Grant Devlin reached down and undid his trousers.
My boss reached—
Oh God.
Oh shit.
Oh no. Oh no no no no no.
What the hell had I done?
I twisted out of his grip, grabbing my pajama bottoms and yanking them back up. Thank god for elastic, ran randomly through my mind. “I have to go!”
“Don’t fight this, Lacey.” His hand was on my shoulder, tracing lines on the sensitive skin of my neck, red and smarting from the attentions of his mouth—no! Don’t think about it. Don’t. “You want it. You’ve wanted it for a long time. And I’ll give you what you want. You’ll like the way I give it to you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said as firmly as I could. “This relationship needs to stay professional.” Could he hear my voice trembling?
If only his hands didn’t feel so good there, if only I didn’t know how good they felt other places, if only I hadn’t been such a fucking idiot and come out here and put myself in this situation.
I felt tears prick my eyes. Oh no, oh no, I couldn’t cry. Not now, not here, not in front of him.
“Oh dammit, Grant, weren’t you listening to yourself before? The company—God, it means so much. We’ve both sacrificed so much and I nearly just ruined—we can’t. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“I remember two of us in that little scene,” Grant said. He took a step closer; I could feel the heat of him behind me, his breath on my ear. “I could refresh your memory…”
“No! I mean, no. You never would have done this if you hadn’t been so bored.” Each word that I forced out was like a nail I was hammering into my heart. “We shouldn’t have done this. We can’t do this ever again. I’m not one of your flings.”
There was a sharp intake of breath, and I knew he was opening his mouth to argue, but I was already out the door and into the night, where the darkness would keep anyone from seeing my tears as they fell.
10
I managed to avoid him for three days. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, not with my new workload full of meetings, ribbon cuttings, meetings, events networking, and meetings. And then, just to shake things up a bit: meetings! With a chaser of meetings.
Unfortunately, it was a hell of a lot harder to keep from seeing him in my head: the muscles of his arms, the tented fabric over his straining cock, the predatory gleam in his eyes before he buried his mouth in my—
Let’s just say I was spending a lot of time in my bunk, and my fingers were becoming extremely well-acquainted with my underwear.
Which just made it more awkward to come into work and navigate the halls of Devlin Media Corp like it was a game of Pac-Man in the hopes of not running into him.
On the fourth day after our little…rendezvous…I finally ran into a project that needed the official documents from his office file cabinet, the original copies that weren’t allowed to go anywhere else without the security guys going all Defcon 3 on your ass. All of the interns were at their mandatory performance reviews, so I couldn’t foist it off on them, and I needed the data from those documents by the end of the day.
Once more into the breach…
It was looking like I might have to pull the fire alarm and duck into his office when he was out of the building, but then I looked at the charity schedule I’d drawn up and realized that I still had twenty minutes before he was due back from the soup kitchen.
He’d been sticking to his charity appointments even without me hounding him, thank goodness. That meant he really was serious about saving the company, and bonus! It made avoiding him that much easier.
I knew exactly where those files were; I could be in and out in a flash.
I was skipping along in such a happy little cloud of relief and glee at this realization, that I completely failed to connect the voices I was hearing to their source until I rounded the corner into Grant’s office and very nearly bowled over the short, balding middle-aged man with a rumpled suit and twinkling blue eyes behind his half-moon spectacles, who was shaking Grant’s hand.
“Oh, I’m so sorry—”
And then my tongue tripped over itself as I realized that the short, balding man was Jed Jennings, the owner of Librio Inc. And what was Librio Inc., you ask? Oh, only the company that Devlin Media Corp had been desperately pursuing for five years!
“Oh my goodness, Mr. Jennings, I’m so sorry!” Oh God, had I just ruined the entire deal? Bulldozing the owner of the company you wanted to buy seemed like a pretty good way to ruin the entire deal! Damn, if I had just stayed away— “I thought Grant was still out, I’ll come back later—”
“Oh no you don’t, Lacey,” Grant said, deftly stepping between me and the door, and resting a hand on my shoulder. “Our meeting was just finishing up, and I’ve been meaning to track you down to let you know how that soup kitchen event went.”
“Ho ho, so this is your handler?” Mr. Jennings boomed, in a deep West Texan accent that seemed to have been designed for a man three times his size and delivered to him by mistake.
“Oh, Lacey is far more than a handler, Jed,” Grant said, slinging an arm casually around my shoulders, stroking my arm gently. Damn, but a girl could get used to—wait, what the hell was Grant playing at? “Lacey’s changed my life. She’s made me turn over a whole new leaf.”
And then, before I could decide whether to thank him, deflect the compliment, or swat away his hand, he kissed me.
It was a sweet, soft kiss, the slightest brush of his lips against mine, only a hint of pressure suggesting a deeper desire. The kind of loving kiss a girl could read a whole novel’s worth of feelings into, if she weren’t careful.
And I fell straight into it, my legs going weak under me.
“Good to know your taste in women is as good as your taste in other acquisitions,” Mr. Jennings bellowed, apparently incapable of a volume below ‘foghorn.’
Thankfully, though, it cut through the lust-haze swirling through my head; I stood up straight—didn’t quite manage to disentangle myself from Grant’s firm grip, and quite possibly may not have attempted to as strenuously as I could have—and tried to smile as professionally as I could, the rest of my face neutral until I could untangle whatever Grant’s endgame was.
Mr. Jennings continued: “I’m relieved to see you really are settling down, my boy. Not that I didn’t believe you—just like to
see the lay of the land with my own eyes.”
“An admirable quality,” Grant said. “Lacey has that too. She takes on so many responsibilities; she’s really opened up my eyes to how important it is to be on the ground, digging into the details.”
“Has she now?” Jennings roared, his face glowing with what I hoped was delight and not, say, an impending heart attack. “Wonderful, just wonderful. I’m relieved you’re settling down, my boy; I’m a traditional fella, you know, I just couldn’t see my company go to someone who wasn’t a family man. I have to know you’ll take care of the things you love.”
“I certainly will, Jed,” Grant said, his arm tightening around my shoulders. Damn, but I liked the way that made me feel, encompassed, protected, sheltered from any storm—wait, what had he just said?
“I confess, I wasn’t always of your viewpoint,” Grant continued. “But Lacey’s turned me around. Who wouldn’t want to settle down with a woman like her? She’s my one in a million.”
Oh hell no. I had to stop this misunderstanding before it could go any further.
“Actually, I’m not—” and then I squealed as Grant pinched my bottom.
“Don’t be modest, Lacey,” he said, mischief dancing in his eyes as he pressed his lips firmly against my cheek. “I won’t have you talking yourself down like that. You’ve made me a new man.”
I gritted my teeth and smiled, trying to simultaneously convey ‘awww, what a thoughtful boyfriend Grant is, you should definitely trust him with your company’ to Jennings, and ‘I will disembowel you with a stapler’ to Grant.
“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
“I like the way you say that,” he murmured, far too low for Jennings to overhear. Almost gentle, yet there was a fire in his eyes that reminded me of that night when we—
Once again Mr. Jennings’ voice rose to the occasion, saving me from my own lust-filled thoughts by also rising to the volume of a modestly sized jet plane engine: “Grant my boy, you ought to bring this gal of yours to the gala tonight. Nothing like the gala for making a lady feel like the princess she is.”