by Anne Malcom
Which was what I had been trying to act in Jacob’s presence, he had entered a handful of seconds before my meeting.
Jacob was a battle.
Despite the fact he’d already won, I continued to cling onto my façade of calm. Until his hands touched my skin. Then everything slipped off me. No, everything was torn off me. His touch was pain. Even amidst the pleasure. It was every sensation that my body and soul was capable of when I was used to nothing at all.
My gaze flickered from my computer screen that had taken all my willpower to focus on, not the wolf eyes that belonged to a man who owned me. Their pull was magnetic, every force in the air was yanking me to them. With the practice of years, I managed to resist any of my baser emotional urges to settle on the small man standing in front of me.
He was not small in stature, but that wasn’t how I measured people. I knew enough about him to make him no taller than a thumbtack.
I raised my eyebrow, regarding him without greeting him or inviting him to sit, I didn’t plan on him being here for long enough for that.
He stayed silent, glistening hands limply at his sides. Sweat like what was on his forehead. Despite his expensive suit, three-hundred-dollar haircut and Ivy League education—not even half of my employees had a college degree, I didn’t agree that they denoted intelligence—he was afraid.
As he should’ve been.
His Ivy League education didn’t teach him a lot, but self-preservation seemed to be in the curriculum.
“Do you know what I have a lot of?” I said after the silence that was long enough to make him uncomfortable.
He shook his head, sweat beaded in droplets trailing down his overly tanned forehead.
“Money,” I answered for him, tapping my pen against the desk. “It’s rather crass to say, I admit, but it’s not exactly a secret is it?” I moved my eyes around the corner office boasting million-dollar views of Manhattan.
Another head shake.
More sweat.
“Money can buy a lot of things. Cars, jewelry, men...women.” I quirked my brow as roses blossomed at the sides of his cheeks. “Contrary to popular belief, happiness is also on that list, if you know where to shop.” I stopped tapping my pen. “Do you know what money can’t buy, perhaps the only thing other than health and talent?” my voice was flat.
Another head shake. Was he mute? Or was he a very lifelike robot having a computer glitch? Or simply a bully, that had a lot to say in the playground, but nothing to squeak in the principal’s office?
“Time,” I said simply. “Time is a luxury to no one. Everyone has it. Loses it, steals it and wastes it. Which is precisely what you’re doing now. Standing in my office, clutching your masculinity like it’s your prom date’s panties and dripping your perspiration over my favorite rug. I don’t like wasting something I can’t make, earn or control. So how about you listen to what you know I’m going to say without actually making me say it.” I paused and let my words sink in. He can’t have been dense enough not to know why he was here, everyone that worked for me was highly intelligent, and this was his third HR complaint, which was why it was being brought to me.
“You’re a smart man, considering your parents paid for an education that would’ve been more useful as a house deposit,” I continued. “You know why you’re here. And you know the only reason you won’t be leaving here with your potted plant and framed fraternity pictures of your glory days in a box, is that you just so happen to be good at your job. When you’re actually doing it and not living up to every stereotype one could think of from an upper middle class, entitled, and misogynistic white male.” I paused again, wishing I could fire him. No way did I tolerate sexual harassment in the workplace, or any other place, on either side of the gender divide.
“Do I need to say anything else?” I asked. “Or are you going to waste my time some more and make me forget you’re good at your job?”
There was a pause, one that had me quirking my brow in warning.
He left the room quickly. I think he might have sprinted if he wasn’t clutching the last shreds of his dignity.
I didn’t hold an ounce of guilt for that.
He was only simpering and weak in front of powerful women who held his paycheck in their hands. Others, he thought were beneath him. I would have fired him for that alone, but it was very hard to fire someone these days. I could have, I had lawyers on retainer for these very scenarios, but I was tired. Too tired to deal with that. So he got three more strikes than I usually gave. A glimmer of a fourth and he was out. And I’d make sure that he never worked in this city again.
My gaze, of its own volition, flickered past the door to the corner of the room where he stood.
I swallowed roughly as the energy flickered, turned so charged even the letter opener to the left of my trembling hand couldn’t cut it.
He no longer was the statuesque mute he’d been moments ago, and he traveled the distance of my office in long, unhurried steps.
I did nothing but sit and watch until he rounded my desk, yanked my chair around roughly and leaned his muscled arms on either side, boxing me in as he bent down.
“You missed one,” he murmured.
I blinked at him, drowning in his gaze. “One what?” I managed to choke the two words, the powerful CEO from moments before was now a puddle on the floor.
His mouth was so close to mine it brushed it when he spoke. “Passion. You can’t buy that shit.” He moved so his rough stubble scratched my skin and his mouth landed on my neck.
I clutched the arms of my chair as his teeth grazed my collarbone.
“You can buy a lot, Boots,” he continued, voice thick. “Fancy clothes.” His rough hands caught on the delicate silk of my blouse. “Sparkly shit.” They moved up the column of my neck to brush against the diamond studs in my ears before moving back to the arms of my chair. “But you can’t buy an orgasm that makes you fly from this earth the moment I sink my cock inside you.” Wolf eyes met mine. “You can’t buy me,” he growled. Then his mouth claimed mine with ferocity that had me spiraling in my own head, clutching for coherent thought and moaning in protest as his lips left mine. “You can’t buy me, but you fuckin’ own me already.”
He straightened, the air cold and bitter where he used to be. I felt empty without his body touching mine, desire fizzled over my skin and beads of perspiration blossomed at my temples from my body’s crazed reaction.
His face was a mask once more yet the wolf was in charge of his eyes.
My thighs pulsed.
“Take off your panties,” he ordered, voice flat.
My nails raked at the sides of the chair. In a painful motion, I tore my eyes from his to glance at the oak door which had slammed shut moments before. It was unlocked. Since the first time in the office, I’d made sure it was locked for the other times—there had been many—Jacob fucked me on my desk, or the sofa, or against the window. I had multiple pairs of fresh panties in the bathroom directly off my office.
Which was essential, since Jacob and I didn’t use protection. There was no need to. I had his medical records. He had nothing that I could catch. Nor did I, I’d been religious about protection, though it was impossible for me to get pregnant. I’d gotten my tubes tied at twenty-four.
“What if you change your mind?” the doctor asked, with no small amount of judgment. I thought I paid her enough not only to not judge me but to not question my decision.
I glanced to the framed photo with her and a young boy on her desk. I nodded at it. “What if you change yours? Your son is all you wanted when he was young and pure. But what if he grows up to commit some horrific crime? Assaults women? Or just turns into an ugly person whether it be by nature or nurture? You can’t change your mind then, can you? Blood dictates the fact you can’t. So my decision is no less permanent than yours. If you have a problem acting in the capacity in which your doctorate dictates you should, then I’ll happily find another doctor.”
She performed the s
ervice, though her bedside manner left a lot to be desired.
Not that I cared.
She did her job, there were no complications and I was satisfied.
Still, even though the chance of getting pregnant was eliminated from that surgery, I always practiced safe sex. Even though I got my sexual partners to show me their latest STD results.
I was nothing if not careful and businesslike in all corners of my life. The men I chose to have sex with were much the same so they didn’t hesitate to provide the papers I requested and took the ones I offered.
Sex was polite and ordered. Just another business transaction.
Not with Jacob.
I didn’t even think about protection. There was no protection with Jacob. The only thing he protected me from was death. Everything else he took himself.
And I didn’t want anything between Jacob and me. I wanted it raw, I wanted as much of him as I could take.
“Do I have to ask a second time?” he warned.
I swallowed, my body responding with more hunger at his harsh tone.
“Eyes,” he growled. “You’ll give me your eyes while you do it.”
I immediately snapped my eyes to him and swallowed a little moan at the contact. I lifted my ass slightly so I could push up my skirt to gain purchase on my lace panties.
He hissed a breath between his teeth and his hands clenched at his sides as I pulled them downward, but that was his only outward reaction. His face was blank.
His eyes were feral with desire. Ice and fire.
I dropped my soaked panties to the ground, my eyes never leaving his.
“Jacob,” I pleaded.
I leaned forward with my arm, intent on yanking his belt buckle to bring him toward me.
The pure energy exuded by his glare stopped me. “I tell you to move?” he hissed. “You don’t move. You don’t speak.” He paused until I lowered my hand once more. “I want you to touch yourself.”
I sucked in another breath at his controlled words and the erotic command. I should’ve bristled at his command. I didn’t take them, I gave them. Both inside and outside the bedroom. But not with Jacob.
“I’m not patient,” he warned.
My breath was shallow and frenzied as I trailed my hand up my thigh.
“Spread your legs.”
I complied, my hand still moving.
My skirt was now hitched to almost my waist. I was exposed to him, at his mercy, things which shouldn’t have turned me on yet the moment my finger touched my soaked flesh I cried out with the contact.
His jaw hardened and the veins in his arms pulsed as his eyes didn’t leave mine. Didn’t move down to my inner thighs, where I was bare and exposed.
No. He was watching me.
I regarded him through hooded eyes and decided this was the most erotic moment of my life. A moment filled with passion, violence and I wasn’t even being touched by anyone but myself.
Then in a blur of movement, my chair was shoved back behind my desk, Jacob at my back. Before I could speak or even move my hand from its spot, the door burst open.
“Don’t stop,” he growled in my ear before straightening and stepping back slightly.
Vaughn entered the room, his kohl-rimmed eyes focused on his iPad.
“We’ve got three contracts that have just come in and I’ve got this new software for you to look over and approve. It’s not cheap but—”
He cut off abruptly as his eyes left the screen and fastened on me. Then Jacob. Then back to me.
My hand was still on my sensitive, soaking bare flesh, every inch of my body was pulsating, yet I kept my gaze even and blank. I imagined Jacob did the same though I didn’t dare look at him.
Vaughn obviously saw through our facades, or at least mine, because he grinned. “They can always wait,” he said slyly, clutching the iPad to his chest.
I nodded. “Yes, I’ll go over them later on this afternoon,” I replied, my voice ice. Only because I needed it to disguise the fire in my lungs. My finger continued rubbing, the authority from Jacob pulsating through the room with an energy that didn’t need words. This was quite possibly the craziest thing I’d ever done.
But I couldn’t find the control to stop.
I didn’t want to stop.
Put me in Times Square, I’d likely still lightly be brushing my sensitive flesh as long as Jacob was there. As long as Wolf Eyes fastened on mine.
“I want you to check over HR files and see if we can find a way to let go of Derek without a lawsuit, and if not, go and talk to his secretary and make sure she hasn’t been keeping quiet about something,” I added, changing my mind about trying to fire him immediately.
Vaughn kept grinning. “Consider it done.” His eyes flicked to Jacob. “I’ll let you get back to....work. I’ll ensure no one disturbs you.”
On that promise, he turned on his spiked heel and left.
I sucked in a breath.
Silence echoed through my ears, my body thrumming with hot desire. My body was frozen, though I ached to move.
“Did I tell you to stop?” Jacob’s voice was a low rasp as he stepped forward, his callused palm running down my neck in warning before slipping under the lace of my bra.
“The contract,” I breathed. “It’s more than a standard employee agreement.”
I didn’t know why I brought it up at this moment.
No, I knew exactly why I brought it up.
Because having Jacob’s hands on me, inside me, having him in ways I’d had no one and giving him things I didn’t know I had to give, I wanted to make it clear, what I’d done.
His hand circled my nipple and I cried out. “I know.”
My gaze snapped up. “You know?”
He circled my neck with his other hand, tilting my head backward. “Of course I fuckin’ know. You control everything around you. And you were faced with the one thing you couldn’t control, me. What I awoke in you.” His hand moved from my nipple down, mouth on my neck, he threaded his fingers against mine and entered me.
I bit my lip as a new intense pleasure erupted over me instantly and violently.
“So you wanted to control me. Moreover, you wanted to control yourself.” His finger moved and his eyes watched my reaction. “What did it say, Boots?”
“Tha-that,” I stuttered as another finger entered me. “That you were mine. That you were to engage in no sexual relationships with any other females while you were in my employ.”
“I was yours the second I entered that alley,” he growled, accusing me of that, as if it were under my control. “Don’t need a piece of paper to tell me that. And no fuckin’ way could I touch anyone before you. And after you? Impossible.”
Then he fucked me on the desk.
One Week Later
“You can cook?” I asked, though the pleasing smell of garlic and tomato answered my question for me.
I had changed out of my suit and was barefoot, barefaced and in my kitchen. With Jacob. My mask was not off, though, because neither was his. He was closer to me than I’d let any other human being, but there was a distance I’d never had with any person. Because of the part of Jacob that wasn’t a person. The part of me that wasn’t one either.
Jacob refilled my wine—the pink stuff that I usually hid from company, it didn’t make sense to hide anything from Jacob since he had ripped me apart and inspected all of my hidden depravity.
“Gotta eat,” he replied. “In every other part of my life, been eatin’ shit—metaphorically, of course. So when I’m feedin’ my body, I may as well give it somethin’ worth eating since my mind is force fed rancid shit.”
I blinked at him rapidly. At the personal and philosophical and heartbreaking sentence. It seemed that Jacob was done hiding things from me too. Some things.
He didn’t break my gaze.
“Though it seemed just as my mind was getting used to being fed with garbage I get something more. Something much more,” he said, letting the words soak into me like
the smell of his cooking, and then he turned to the stove.
I watched his back, muscled and large, covered by a plain tee. His ass was nothing short of magnificent in faded jeans.
My sleek, white and chic kitchen was designed for a lot of things. To make a statement, to be timeless, to make sure I lived up to the image I portrayed to the world, to distance me from the homely yet shabby kitchen of my youth. But it wasn’t designed for Jacob.
My life, carefully structured, curated, controlled, hadn’t been designed for Jacob, but somehow it felt made for him at the same time.
“I’ve never done this,” I said.
Jacob waited a long time to speak, as was his way. I imagined he was still unaccustomed to having conversations such as these. Or conversations at all. The clank of cutlery against plates took the place of my words before he answered.
“What? Eaten dinner somewhere that wasn’t your desk or some pretentious fucking restaurant where they serve two bites of food and call it dinner?”
I raised my brow. “Have you been talking to Molly?”
She hadn’t returned from India, had decided to extend her trip, as I knew she would. She checked in now and then, her security checked in twice daily.
He sipped his water, not beer—he didn’t drink. Nor did he answer. Jacob never answered rhetorical questions, nor actual questions, well, not with anyone else but me.
“No, I mean sat down at my dining table that cost twenty-five thousand dollars and eaten a meal on it,” I replied, putting the food in my mouth, savoring the flavors. Savoring the feast that was Jacob sitting beside me.
He watched me, as he always did. “So what you’re saying is we’re eating a twenty-five thousand dollar dinner.” He paused, regarding his half-eaten plate. “Not bad.”
I stared at him, the corner of my mouth turned up to a smile. Not something anyone but Vaughn or Molly had made me do.
It was a pivotal moment with the man who I always thought would bring me pain—and I’d been content with that. He was giving me more than pain. He was giving me a reason to smile amongst the pain.
It was terrifying.