by Gabi Moore
“Looks like we’ll need another towel” I said.
He jumped up, looking for one, careful to avoid the previous puddle of chamomile tea.
“This place is a mess. Can I, uh, make you a proper cup of tea now? And where are those horrible knickers of yours?” he said.
“That’s weird. I swear I just saw them over here …it seems we’ve lost them…”
THE END –
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CRAVE
A Bad Boy Romance
By Gabi Moore
Kassie frowned as she walked through the building. Her footsteps echoed on the concrete floor, the sound bouncing off the partly built walls as though mocking her and her frustration.
Her father had finally allowed her to be in charge of the new office build, and so far it had been one disaster after another. The building suppliers had sent the wrong materials first, and she’d had a fight on her hands getting them to admit their mistake and send the right stuff. Then the on-site foreman had fallen off a ladder and broken his leg, and Kassie had had to find someone else to take his place.
She looked around her once more. It didn’t look as though the new guy had actually got much accomplished either. There were tools scattered everywhere, but no sign of any men actually working. So much for the guy being the best in the business, she thought to herself as she walked towards the scaffolding at the back of the cavernous office building. Shawn had been recommended to her by a few sources, and everyone had said that he was the man for the job, but all she was seeing was disarray and no evidence of his so-called skill.
Picking up a hardhat she pulled it down over her auburn curls with another frustrated sigh. It was probably just as well he wasn’t here. His first impression of her wouldn’t have been favorable, just like her first impression of him was not a good one. You’d think he’d make sure the men were working even if he wasn’t, she thought sourly. She was definitely going to have a few words with him, if he ever turned up, of course. She picked up her notepad and started to walk deeper into the building, making notes as she went and completely losing track of time until a deep voice caught her attention and made her jump.
She’d hired Shawn over the phone and as such had never met him in person before. She hadn’t known what she’d been expecting, but the hulk of a man walking towards her was definitely not it. He stood at least six and a half feet tall, and the width of his shoulders was just as impressive as his height. Like her, he wore a hardhat but she could see that he had long black hair that was tied back in a masculine ponytail, if there was such a thing.
“You must be Kassie.” His tone was friendly as he walked towards her with an easy gait, his hand outstretched as though to shake hers when he reached her. She wasn’t quite so easily placated though, and rather than place her hand in his she just looked down at it and then up into his face with a haughty expression.
“And you must be Shawn. You’re late.” Her voice was as cold as her expression was, and he was left in no doubt as to just how pissed off she was at him. “When I make an appointment to see people, I expect them to be on time. And where is the crew? They should be here working.”
She watched as Shawn’s deep grey eyes darkened along with his expression. “You didn’t specify where exactly in the building you wanted to meet up. I’ve actually been here for a few hours already.” He had a husky southern drawl that sent shivers of awareness running up Kassie’s spine, and she resolutely straightened her back and turned her coldest glare on him.
“That doesn’t explain where the crew are and why there’s no work going on.” She deliberately made sure not to apologize to him for the misunderstanding, not wanting to show him any signs of weakness. “They won’t get paid if they don’t work.”
“They won’t get paid at all. I sent them all home. None of them were suitable for this kind of job, and I like to bring in my own team when I’m working to a deadline.” He raised an eyebrow imperiously at her, almost as though daring her to disagree with him. “Don’t worry, you’re not going to lose any money and the work will get done a lot faster by using my own men. Besides, I thought that we should have our meeting and make sure that we’re both on the same page before I actually put them to work. Neither one of us wants to waste any time on stupid mistakes and misunderstandings, do we?”
Kassie could feel herself starting to blush, and she inwardly cursed herself for it. His smile as he turned away from her indicated that he was all too aware that he’d won this round, but it made her even more determined to make sure that he figured out really quickly that she was the boss here. She watched as he walked across to the large windowed wall, subconsciously admiring his firm ass and long legs as he walked. His close-fitting jeans and heavy work boots just seemed to make him look even more masculine and she mentally drooled at the sight of him. The fleeting thought that he would look even better undressed was pushed out of her mind as quickly as possible as she rushed to catch up with him on legs that were quite a few inches shorter than his.
“Let’s get something straight, shall we? You might be the foreman, but I shouldn’t have to remind you that I am your boss, so please don’t forget that and we’ll get along just fine.” She was quite proud of the fact that she kept her voice steady, because she was shaking like a leaf inside. She hated confrontation, but there was no way she was going to back down or show any kind of weakness. Not on the first job her dad had let her take charge on, and certainly not to this man.
Shawn didn’t say a word. He just turned his head, looked at her with a thoughtful look in his eyes and gave a curt nod. They both stood facing each other, and then he smiled in a way that made her think that she may have won the battle, but the war was most definitely not over. “I’ve arranged for my crew to be here in an hour, so if it’s okay with you, boss, shall we get on with things?”
She felt her blood start to boil all over again at the sarcastic way he called her boss, but she decided to take the higher ground and ignore it. Nodding her head in agreement she opened her notepad and started to go through the job specs with him, gaining a new appreciation for him as he gave her valid feedback on certain things that she wouldn’t have considered usually. They disagreed over a few matters, but they managed to reach an amicable solution to most of them, much to Kassie’s relief.
They were just finishing up going over the floor plans when Shawn’s crew arrived, and after a few words from their foreman they quickly got to work while he and Kassie walked outside to discuss the last few matters that needed sorting out. She blinked against the bright sunlight and removed her hardhat, letting her curls tumble around her shoulders in glorious disarray. She was busy looking at her notebook so she missed the look that crossed Shawn’s face as he saw her properly for the first time. While they had been indoors it had been dim and he hadn’t managed to get a good look at her, but out here with her hat off and the sun shining she almost took his breath away.
When he had first met her he had wanted to bend her over his knee and spank some sense into her spoilt, rich girl ass. Now he wanted to do the same thing, but for a totally different reason. He adjusted his stance uncomfortably to try and ease the ache that had sprung up between his legs. He was all for having some sexual fun with a beautiful woman, but she was his boss, as she’d reminded him on more than one occasion already, and the last thing he needed was the complications that would arise if he tried to teach her a lesson or two sexually. But, God, he was tempted. He was very tempted.
He watched her as she opened up the blueprints and spread them over the hood of her car, bending over as she pointed something out to him, and he had to give himself a mental shake to get his mind out of the gutter. Did she have any idea just how provocative she looked bent that way, with her legs straight and her ass just ripe for the taking, he wondered to himself. The fact that she was wearing skin-tight jeans tucked into work boots only seemed to add to the seductive picture.
He brought his attention back to what she was saying, his mind quickly filling in the blanks of what she had been saying while he had been thinking about doing all kinds of bad things to her. “Wait a minute. Say that again. You want stage one to be completed by when?”
He wasn’t sure that he’d heard her right, but when she answered him he knew that he had. “By the middle of the month. We need to get stage one completed as soon as possible so that we can move on to stage two. Time is money, or have you forgotten that?” She had her haughty voice back, and Shawn could have screamed.
“Of course I haven’t forgotten it, but there’s no way in hell that the guys are going to be able to get it done that quickly. Not unless you want them to compromise on the quality of the job.” Kassie was looking up at him with a pretty scowl on her face, her green eyes flashing fire as she anticipated yet another argument springing up between them. “If we rush it, mistakes will be made. That’s going to have a knock-on effect and end up costing more time and money to put right. I know there has to be a deadline, but make it a realistic one, for God’s sake.”
Kassie could have quite happily screamed in frustration. What made it worse was the fact that he was right, and she knew it. “Well, don’t take too much time, Shawn. Please be mindful of the end goal here. We have six months in total to get this place ready for business, and if I have to start adding on time to the contract then I’m going to start penalizing you and your crew financially. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, boss. Crystal clear, boss.” He didn’t even try to hide the sarcasm in his tone, and Kassie felt her hackles rise again. “Let me make something clear, Kassie. I take pride in my work, and I take pride in the work my crew does.” His voice had hardened, and Kassie, typically someone who never got nervous when dealing with members of the opposite sex, felt herself take an unwilling step backwards. “If you have a problem with any of them or with the work they do, you come to me first and I’ll deal with them. You have my business card, so you can get hold of me day or night. If I find that you’ve gone around me and dealt with whoever it is before talking to me first, it will be you who is penalized, and I don’t mean financially. Am I making myself clear?”
For the first time in her adult life, Kassie had no come-back or biting response. His words had been biting enough, but it was something in the way he said them that had her insides quivering; and it wasn’t only with nerves either. She straightened her shoulders and raised her chin up a notch to give her time to steady her voice before answering. “Perfectly clear, thank you.” She gave him a curt nod as she spoke and then turned and walked away on legs that weren’t quite as steady as they should have been.
Sat in her apartment later on that evening she poured herself yet another glass of wine, and then shook the bottle in disgust when she realized it was now empty. The nerve of the man, talking to me as though I was nothing more than an incompetent schoolgirl. She took a large gulp from her glass and then continued having a conversation with herself. It’s not like it’s my first rodeo. I mean, I do know what I’m doing. Most of the time anyway. She took another mouthful of wine and got unsteadily to her feet, walking across to the kitchen with the intention of liberating another bottle from the fridge.
She wasn’t usually prone to drinking all that much, and she hardly ever drank when she was alone. But, the meeting with Shawn had left her shaken and unnerved and a few glasses of wine after she’d got home had seemed like a good idea at the time. Rather than calm her down though, it had made her belligerent and more pissed off than she was earlier.
She reached for the bottle of wine in the fridge and then paused. I should call him and give him a piece of my mind, she thought. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. She closed the fridge door again, the wine all but forgotten in her determination to let the sexy foreman know exactly what she thought about him. Reaching for her bag she pulled out her notepad and went to her contacts list to pull up his telephone number. She dialed the first few digits and then hesitated, her eyes still on his contact information in front of her.
Fuck calling him. I should pay him a visit and tell him face to face what an arrogant bastard he is. His contact information didn’t just show her his phone number, it had his business address as well as his home address listed as well. Kassie put the phone down without completing the call and reached for her boots. Realizing that she’d had too much to drink for her to drive, she reached for the phone again and called the taxi service she usually used, then she went outside and sat on the front step while she waited.
A short time later, her nerves still steely with wine, she got out of the back of the taxi outside Shawn’s house. The car had pulled away before she thought that she should have asked him to wait to make sure that Shawn was even home, and she heaved a sigh of relief when she saw that there were lights on in the house. She walked to the door with determination in her step and kept her finger on the doorbell until she heard footsteps inside.
Her foot tapped impatiently on the concrete step as she waited for the door to be opened. “I’ve got a few things I need to say to you.” Her voice was louder than was necessary, but she was too tipsy to notice or care.
“What the hell? You do know that it’s almost midnight, right? This couldn’t have waited until tomorrow?” Shawn sounded pissed off and for a fleeting moment Kassie had the grace wonder if he was married, or if he had a girlfriend warmly ensconced inside his home. She pushed the thought aside though and stood outside of the door with her arms on her hips.
“No, it couldn’t have waited. Because if I’d waited then I wouldn’t be able to say what I wanted to say. I mean, I wouldn’t have been able to say what needed to be said to you.” She had been rehearsing what she was going to say to him while in the taxi, but now she was here and he was in front of her she couldn’t seem to get her words out properly. “What I mean is…”
Shawn was trying hard not to laugh at how flustered she was getting. “Have you been drinking?”
“I might’ve had a couple of glasses of wine, but that’s got nothing to do with this.” She sounded like a petulant child, and she knew it, but there didn’t seem to be anything she could do to stop it. “Anyway, we need to talk.”
“I guess you’d better come in then, hadn’t you.” It was a rhetorical question and he stood to one side and held the door open for her to walk past him. “Keep walking straight and go into the room in front of you. I’m going to go make a pot of coffee to sober you up.”
Kassie started to walk in the direction he’d indicated and then paused and turned back to him. “Can’t I come to the kitchen with you? What I need to say shouldn’t take long and then I’ll leave you alone. After I’ve called a taxi. Would it be okay if I called a taxi from here? I think I left my cell phone at home.” She was still rambling drunkenly although thankfully she was unaware of it. Shawn had a feeling that she was going to feel mortified in the morning when she realized exactly what she’d done in her drunken state.
“Of course you can come into the kitchen. Are you sure you can walk that far without falling over?” He couldn’t resist teasing her, and as a blush spread over her high cheekbones he mentally cursed his cock as it twitched in awareness. The last thing he needed right now was an affair with his boss, although what he had in mind could hardly be classed as an affair. The woman needed taking down a peg or two, and if she wasn’t careful he was just the man to do it.
The two of them made their way to the kitchen with Shawn leading the way, and he pulled out a chair at the kitchen table for her to sit down while he made the coffee. “So what is it you need to say to me?” He put the coffee pot on and then turned to face her, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his muscular chest. “It must be important for you to come out of this time of night.”
“You’re a jackass, and I don’t like the way you talk to me on site.” Okay, that had so not been what she had been wanting to say to him and it definitely wasn’t what
she’d rehearsed in the taxi, but the words fell from her mouth before she could stop them.
“Sweetheart, if you don’t like the way I talk to you on site, you’re going to hate the way I talk to you off it.” His voice had deepened to a husky drawl that sent shivers running through Kassie’s veins. “We’re not on site now and you’re in my home and on my time not company time, so be very careful what you say because I can’t guarantee that you’ll like the response you get.”
Kassie’s eyes were huge in her face as she listened to him. She could honestly say that no man had ever made her feel such a mix of emotions before. He was infuriating and opinionating, but he was incredibly sexy and, dare she say it, masterful. She wasn’t sure how to feel about him, or even if she was capable of forming any kind of rational impression of him in her current state.
“I didn’t come here to be insulted.” She got unsteadily to her feet, ignoring the pull of sexual awareness that her treacherous body was willing her to act on. Her breasts ached and her clit throbbed, and all he’d done was stand up to her. She needed to get out of here fast, before she made an even bigger fool of herself. “I came here to discuss work matters, but I was obviously mistaken.” She wasn’t sure what she was rambling on about or what exactly she felt mistaken about, but she had to do something to try and save face.
“You were mistaken about what, Kassie?” He pushed away from the work counter and walked towards her. “Mistaken about coming to talk to me, or mistaken about the real reason that you felt you had to come and see me at this time of night?”