Was she crazy? She’d never submitted to a man’s will. Not in the bedroom, at least. She stiffened slightly, unnerved by the compliant sensation running through her. Kampbell was nothing like the simpering sub that had been the heroine of the story. But this was a dream, right? It was her subconscious’s way of weaving through a story that had stimulated her, even if it were completely opposed to how she normally responded in the bedroom.
“Submission is good for the soul.” His deep tone washed over her, lighting her senses on fire. Had he sensed her hesitancy? His words calmed her more, reminded her that this was just her mind taking her on a journey.
A piece of material came over her face, blackening out the light of the fire. The mask he placed over her eyes didn’t allow her to see anything. She paused, awaiting what he would do next, her body alarmingly alive and wired. Her senses of touch and hearing were incredibly heightened. She felt a feather trail over her ass, just before she heard the whoosh of his hand coming down on her once more. Moaning, she felt liquid ooze from her pussy and coat her inner thigh. He saw it, too, it appeared. Raking a hand against her leg, he smeared his fingers in her juices, careful not to touch her in the places she needed his caresses the most.
She sucked in a breath when she heard him suckle his own fingers, tasting her flavor. His cock grew impossibly harder against her as he released the digits with a loud pop, which he punctuated with another slap. Wriggling in his lap, she ground her clit against his hard thigh, straining for the release she knew was hurtling toward. He opened the folds of her pussy and landed another swat there, the sting greater along the sensitive nerves of her labia.
So close, she could feel the swirling need coalescing behind her clit. Another swat, one more flick of her clit along his masculine thigh, and she knew she’d tumble over the cliff into oblivion. His hand came down, delivering the needed sting and she burst into a million pieces, her eyes closed tight as she rode wave after wave of her release. Floating, she felt the electricity zip through her whole body, her back arching to the intensity.
She breathed deep, eyes opening, and saw she was alone, in the hotel’s bed, the bright morning sunshine streaming into her room through the white sheers. Closing her eyes once more, she wanted to go back to sleep, to find Azmaroth again and let him continue to torment her with his tempting brand of sensuality. It had felt so real, so tangible. There’d been no spanking. It had been a figment of her feverish mind, brought on by too much late night reading on her Nook.
Then why did she feel lush, the remnants of the afterglow of orgasm flushing her body? And why did her ass sting?
* * * *
“Foreign markets were once where the most opportunity could be had for profit, but with declining European growth...”
Kampbell wanted to shoot herself. Of course she’d been late to the first meeting of the conference due to her fruitful dream and had been stuck sitting in the front row. It would have been way too obvious if she’d pulled out her Nook and began to read as the speaker droned on and on about random financial mumbo-jumbo. She did not care one lick about any of this, even though she probably should. It was what the firm was all about, making money. And a random bit of trivia at a fundraiser here or there couldn’t hurt as she was pitching her company to interested investors.
If she could focus on anything happening before her, that was.
Her mind was frantic, thinking back to the story she’d read and the dream that had followed. She was even now hot and bothered, her clit pulsing with need, her fingers itching to reach under the table and up under her skirt to relieve the tremendous need she felt building within her. Visions of Azmaroth slid through her mind, the cover picture merging with the mental image that had come to her as she’d read the story and her fevered dream.
Striking blue eyes were the first thing she saw, eyes full of fire and ice. She was sorry she hadn’t been able to see his face and body the night before. He would have been a visual feast, a beast of a man. His roughened palms had stroked her body in her dream and she imagined him to have labored hard to get the callouses he had. Those hands had wrung a sexual response from her like no other. His trembling thighs had been thick under her body, massive muscular tree trunks made flesh. She knew instinctively that his quaking had been from his attempt to leash his own need.
That barely reigned desire was what had intrigued her the most. To be wanted with that kind of intensity was something she’d never experienced.
Kampbell seemed to intimidate most men in her experience. She stood head and shoulders over many men at five eleven. Considering her high-paying career and her confidence in nearly all her endeavors, men just seemed to wither in her presence. Except for the jerks, the Steves of the world. The men who thought they were god’s gift and that all women should bow at their feet.
A strong personality wasn’t something that many men seemed to be interested in. They wanted a woman who would be just like the heroine in the story had been: quiet, submissive, and knew her place. Kampbell wasn’t one to cow-tow to what the expectation was. She was her own woman, and everyone else be damned.
So why was she so attracted to Azmaroth and his wicked palm?
Why was she sitting in this meeting fantasizing about a character in a novel, a bad novel at that? Shaking her head, she attempted to pay attention to the speaker. She felt as though she was in the Peanuts classroom and the teacher was waa-waa-waaing as none of the words at this point made much sense. Her stomach heaved and she felt her whole body tremble with need. A sheer film of perspiration coated her body and she desperately wanted to get up and leave the room.
Deciding to do just that, she began to gather her few items. As she began to rise, the speaker introduced another, and the crowd began to clap. Sitting quickly, she chose to wait until the new speaker got to the podium before making her retreat.
Her Nook was on top of the pile of pamphlets and PowerPoint presentations that had been handed out at the start of the meeting. It began to power on, the screen going wonky suddenly. Lines of color popped and exploded as she dropped her stack and attempted to power the thing down, to no avail.
“Good morning. I hope you’ve all enjoyed the conference thus far.” A thick, luscious voice began to speak and her whole body stood up and took notice.
Lifting her eyes from her Nook, she then felt like rubbing them, because there was no way she wasn’t hallucinating. Azmaroth, or at least the man from the cover of the book, was standing at the podium. Bright blue eyes flashed in her direction, a wicked smile stretching his firm lips taut as his gaze pierced her.
“Submission is good—” As the words rolled off his tongue, he stared at her and she felt faint. Her whole body trembled at the inconceivable occurrence presented before her. There was no way that this man should be in this room talking of submission. His gaze left hers and she felt like she could breathe once more. “—for a company as a whole. Financial submission, that is. There are times in which you need to sit back and watch the market and not jump to decisions based on gut reactions. We were always told to be aggressive, to reach out and take what we wanted, but in this economy, we need to reconsider that action.”
His thick voice moved over her body in thick waves. Her heartbeat pounded in her chest, almost to the point of pain. The hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention and every nerve in her body tingled in response to him. His eyes passed over her a few more times, but didn’t capture her gaze again. Relaxing into her seat, she knew there was no way she could leave now. Not before she found out more about who this man was.
The last speaker had introduced him, but she’d been about to sneak away, so she’d not truly listened. All the initial speaker’s words had blurred together anyway. Carefully, she turned on her Nook, to compare the man on the cover to the man at the podium.
Of course, the man at the podium was not in a loincloth but a three piece business suit. He was incredibly large, his muscular body evident even under the layers of Italian silk. His l
ong hair was pulled behind him, tied at the base of his neck in a leather thong. But it was the voice and the eyes that had let her know they were one in the same.
Perhaps this man had once modeled. He was absolutely stunning enough to have done so. That had to be the explanation. But then why did his voice sound just as it had in her dream?
Kampbell shook her head. There was no way this man was the same one from her dream. She’d stayed up into the wee hours of the night reading and her mind was playing tricks on her. One deep voice sounded like the next, right? Wrong. Smoky, deeply melodic, his sound was like a brandy warming her on a cold, winter’s eve. She couldn’t quite get the unease to leave her body. There was more to this, her gut told her so. And she’d sit and listen to the boring financial talk for as long as he spoke. He could speak gibberish for the next four hours and she wouldn’t move.
She would get to the bottom of this story.
Chapter Three
An hour later, the room began to empty. The predominately male group was a help to her, as few stragglers remained behind to talk to the massive beast of a man. Kampbell watched as he spoke to two men who seemed enthralled by the information the man had provided them. He was authoritative and spoke with a confidence she found incredibly sexy. His eyes twinkled when he smiled and it hitched up her heartbeat, the one she had finally gotten control of.
The two men shook his hand, one after another, and left to find the next meeting. She had answered a few emails on her phone and then pretended to be organizing all her notes and presentation sheets as he’d spoken to the two, not wanting to appear to be waiting. He slowly sidled up to her and stood before her table.
“Have lunch with me Kampbell.”
How does he know my name? “I’m at a loss. You know my name and I missed yours.”
“Ashton Hawkins the Fourth. At your service.” He reached a firm hand out to her. “But you can call me Ash.”
Her hand slid into his large one and an electric surge roiled through her. His hand was calloused, not smooth as she’d expect from someone with the name of Ashton Hawkins the Fourth.
“And how do you know me?”
“You are one of only two women at the conference. And considering you are the stunning one, I think every male here knows your name at this point.” His blue eyes twinkled as he spoke, and she couldn’t help but to return the sly smile he gave her.
Had he called her stunning? She liked him already.
“So, lunch?” His expectant look was sexier than it should have been. It spoke volumes. The man lusted after her. And the feeling was mutual.
“Lunch sounds divine,” she said with a sly smile.
* * * *
Seated in the hotel’s restaurant, she looked him over again, now that he was so close up. He was breathtaking. A too strong jaw, deep-set cheekbones, and a slight wrinkling at his eyes when he smiled made him slightly imperfect but utterly handsome in the combination. His aura, the comfort and ease of his shoulders, the charisma that surrounded him, and the confidence he bore like a shield was what truly made him sexy.
The longer they sat chatting about the food as they perused the menus, inanely deciding on their courses, the more she began to giggle like a school girl. He was funny. And she was incredibly relaxed in his presence. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had made it feel this easy to be in his company.
“So, Kampbell, you must tell me why you came to this conference if you are the Director of Marketing. Don’t you work with Steven Hatfield? I thought he was coming to this seminar?”
“I thought so, too, but at the last minute I was thrown in his place. Not exactly sure why as, like you said, I’m in Marketing, not Finance. But I get to come to New York for a week, stay in a sumptuous suite at the Gramercy, and have lunch with an intelligent, sexy man, so all is right with my world at the moment.”
Her eyes rounded at the last bit of that, because that so wasn’t what was supposed to come out of her mouth. Intelligent and witty! Witty! Not sexy. He was sexy, but she wasn’t supposed to play that card yet.
He smiled at her, the twinkle coming back into the ice blue of his gaze.
“You think I’m sexy, do you?” Leaning forward, he captured her eyes. “The feeling is mutual, Kampbell. To be honest, you have to be one of the sexiest females I have ever laid eyes on.”
Her temperature rose twenty degrees as his laughing demeanor suddenly took a very aggressive, serious manner. The twinkle exploded into lust and his eyes bore into her, making her want to squirm in her seat.
“You do?” The words almost squeaked from her throat. The waiter thankfully brought their bottle of Moscato to the table and poured her a glass. She sucked down the whole thing in one slurp, needing a moment to escape the unnerving intensity from across the table.
Looking at the shocked waiter, she plopped the glass back on the table. “Hit me again.”
The waiter quietly snickered and poured her another glass before asking for their lunch order.
“I’ll have the Minestra with the Panino Indiavolato.” She could already see the soup dropping all down her top as she tried to eat in front of him and her looking like an idiot. But what the hell.
“I’ll take the Baccalà and Malfatti al Maialino.” Ash turned to Kampbell as she finished her second glass of wine in as many minutes. “And bring us another bottle of the Moscato.”
Was he planning on getting her drunk? But then again, she was doing an awfully fine job of going that direction herself. She needed to slow down. Ash had suddenly made her nervous, in a good way, but she was unused to men such as him, especially given that he seemed so attracted to her. She needed to bring his intensity down a notch.
“So, Ash, tell me a little about yourself.”
“I am very boring. Believe me. I am much more interested in you.” The twinkle in his eye hit her in full force and she suddenly had the desire to talk about herself rather than listen to him. Her mind was feeling foggy from the wine. She pushed past the need and asked again.
“No, I want to know about you. You seem like such an enigma.”
His smile faltered for a moment and the seductiveness pulled from his face, as if he didn’t like to talk about himself.
“There is little to know. I was born in a very small area just outside Boston, helped on my father’s farm as well as another job to raise money for college. I was educated at Harvard. I work for a very large corporation, where I worked my way up. I’m now in acquisitions. My boss in incredibly demanding and can be a bit of a—beast—so all I ever do is work. That’s about all there is to know.”
“That’s sad. Everyone needs to have a life outside of work.”
Sorrow seemed to touch his eyes as he fondled the stem of his wineglass, which he’d yet to take a drink from. “We all do what we must, Kampbell. This is my lot in life. I work and I work. And then I work some more.”
“But we’re sitting here now, enjoying a conversation. Relaxing and about to relish a hearty meal. There is no work right now.”
He gave her a sardonic smile. “I am always working.”
“Am I something to be acquired?”
His eyes rounded at her. “What do you mean?”
“You work in acquisitions, and if I am not to be acquired, then this is most definitely not work. Relax, enjoy your wine, and let’s blow off the rest of the afternoon and tour the park across the street. It’s a lovely fall day. We need to go enjoy it.”
He smiled at her, the first real one he’d shown her, and it stunned her in its beauty. He grasped the glass of wine and swallowed half the Moscato, his strong throat working the liquid down.
“I think that’s a lovely idea. Let’s do it.”
* * * *
Kampbell felt the midday sun shining on her like a loving caress. Big, white fluffy clouds floated in the azure sky. The park was beautiful, at the height of fall with the rich colors of amber, orange, and yellow floating within the greens of the trees. It was unseasonably warm for N
ew York City. An occasional breeze whipped through reminding all that autumn was truly there.
She had taken off her heels as they’d walked through the grass on a soft knoll. Sitting, she pulled him down beside her. People watching was something she hadn’t done in eons. She watched those around her from afar, just enjoying the company of the man beside her.
“So, when was the last time you cut out of work and just hung out under a beautiful blue sky like this one?”
“Much, much too long.” Ash leaned back, laying on the grass, looking to the heavens. “It really is beautiful, isn’t it? I hadn’t stopped long enough to really look at the sky in ages.”
“Even powerful businessmen need to stop and smell the roses on occasion.” She lowered herself to lie beside him. She began searching through the clouds looking at shapes. “Pirate ship!”
She pointed at one to his right.
“What?”
“Look, the cloud. It looks like a pirate ship.”
He chuckled. “Kampbell, you are unlike any woman I’ve ever met.”
“And how’s that?”
“Beautiful. Intelligent. And kind. Kindness is a trait that many no longer have in this world.”
She turned to look at him, feeling the weight of his eyes on her. The smile in his expression quickly turned back into the aggressive seriousness once more. Lust flooded her veins at the look and her body reacted violently to his gaze.
“Kampbell, I want you. I want to make love to you all day and all night.”
Caught in the web of desire, she had to know if he was as hot a lover as the man from her dreams. Could he push her boundaries as Azmaroth had hinted at?
She rose from the ground and reached out her hand to his.
Chapter Four
Backing into her hotel suite, Kampbell could barely get the door opened as her lips were locked in a war of wills with Ash’s. They finally entered and the door was slammed shut. Her clothes were ripped from her body as she was pushed toward the bed, her own fingers peeling his jacket and shirt from his body. Within moments, they were down to their undergarments. Hands and fingers roamed and explored as their mouth continued to battle.
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