The corners of his eyes crinkled. “My apologies,” he said, and playfully swiped his finger through the chocolate icing before rubbing the small dab back onto her chin, barely grazing her lower lip in the process.
God, that was sexy, she thought, and now it was only fair that she repay him the favor. She laughed, swiped her own finger through the icing, and went to dab some across his chin in return. He moved to dodge it, but only managed to make it so that she missed his chin and smeared the sweet, creamy substance across his lips.
They both laughed, and his tongue darted out to lick some of the icing from his mouth. She looked around for a napkin, and finally found them in a chair across the room where the bags the food had come in were still laying.
She stood to walk toward them when he grabbed her by the hand, stopping her. He stood from his chair in front of her, only inches away, and her pulse began to race in response to his proximity. Did he have any idea of the effect he had on her?
He raised his hands to caress her chin to wipe away the chocolate he had smeared, and before she had time to process it, his face drew close to hers and his lips pressed feather light to where the chocolate covered her. She could feel his warm tongue, so tender and pliant, dart out and wet her skin. His hands wove into her hair, cupping her face as his mouth set her entire body on fire.
A soft moan escaped her before she realized or had a chance to stop it, and this made him back away just enough to look deep into her eyes. What was he searching for?
She looked up hungrily back into his, and then she pressed herself upwards on her tiptoes to kiss the chocolate from his lips.
It was the softest, sweetest, most delicious kiss she thought she had ever experienced, both literally and figuratively. She almost couldn’t believe any of this was happening, and if she hadn’t known any better, she would have sworn she was dreaming. But this was no dream. He was really here, wrapping his thick, strong arms around her to pull her in closer and deepen the kiss that was threatening to consume her entirely.
She could feel the sparks flying between them. Could he feel it, too? She couldn’t even recall if she had come on to him, or if he had come on to her first, but what mattered now was that she realized in this moment that she had been waiting for this for weeks. The feel of his body pressed to hers was like a period at the end of a sentence. She just hadn’t been complete until he was there.
Before she knew it, he had trailed his hands down her body, lifted her up and backed her up to sit her on the edge of the table, pushing the Chinese food out of her way in the process. He took up residence standing between her legs, so close to her body she could feel his warmth radiating off him, permeating her flesh. He didn’t try to press her further, just kissed her long and deep, and she drank him in like a soul-quenching drink to a woman dying of thirst.
His fingers trailed a gentle caress down one side of her face, and she took the opportunity to explore the lines and curves of his face with her own hands, brushing over the harsh lines of his jaw, the prickly roughness of his five o’clock shadow, and after removing the frames from his eyes, the scar she trailed a finger over in the center of his eyebrow.
He seemed to revel in her explorations of him, and he grazed his thumb across her lips before claiming them once more. The moment was so sensual and tender, such a stark contrast from the usual gruffness she saw in him from day to day, and her heart swelled to see that this intimidating, ruthless man could touch and hold her with such warmth and affection, just like the one other night they had shared together.
She felt so close and so cherished by him in this moment, the thought bubbled up inside her. Should she tell him the truth? She was so close to opening up and admitting this life-altering secret she’d been keeping from him and everyone for weeks. Could she trust him? Would it change everything?
What was she thinking? Of course it would change everything. Nothing would ever be the same, but would he leave her out in the cold, or welcome her into his warm, protective arms the way he was holding her this very moment?
“Rogan?” she began when his lips made a sensuous line down her throat.
“Yes?” he breathed, deep and smooth.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she said, letting her head fall back to give him undeterred access to the sensitive flesh at the valley between her collarbones. God, his mouth felt so good on her.
His hands slid down her to rest on each side of her hips, gripping them, sinking his fingers into her flesh through the oh, so thin fabric of her dress pants, and kissed her once more. He spoke his response against her lips. “Tell me anything, Farren.”
She basked in the blissful sensations of his fingers pressing into her flesh in such a sensitive area, and she inched forward to press against him, chest to chest. She wrapped her arms around his waist and just held him close to her, resting her head against his chest, and hearing his heart pounding. She wished she could freeze time and stay right here in this nearness to him for as long as she dared.
He wrapped his arms around her in response, pulling her in tight, then he looked down into her eyes, giving her permission to say what she needed to get off her chest.
“I wanted to tell you that… I’m-”
She was cut off by the sound of the front entrance door opening. Her eyes went wide, realizing that no one could see them in such a compromising position, and she wasn’t surprised when he took a step back, taking her by the hand and pulling her to stand from the table.
He had no sooner let her hand go than a woman appeared in the door to his office. A beautiful woman with silky, smooth strands of dark blonde hair and rich, brown eyes that went straight to Rogan, then to Farren, before she opened her Cupid ’s bow lips to speak.
“Oh! I’m sorry, was I interrupting something?” she asked.
Farren was so mortified and so deeply wounded by the appearance of yet another one of Rayner’s lustful beauties that she took the opportunity to create herself an out.
“Not at all,” Farren answered before Rayner had a chance to say anything. “I was just telling Mr. Rayner I was finished for the evening and was heading out the door.”
Farren turned her head back toward him and gave a quick wave. “Goodnight, sir. Enjoy the rest of your night,” she said as she darted out the side door to her own office to gather her things and leave in a hurry.
Once they heard her quick footsteps retreating down the hall to leave, Rogan turned to the woman with a concerned expression.
“Elaina, what is it? Is everything okay?” he asked, thinking to himself this had better be good. If it wasn’t, he had every intention of going after Farren. What had she been about to tell him?
Elaina shook her head. “It’s Dallas. I don’t know what he’s up to, but I know it can’t be good.”
TWENTY
“Farren, are you okay, hon?” Rita asked with concern from the other side of the bathroom stall.
“I’m fine, Rita. I just have a weak stomach. I’ll be okay,” Farren called back to her, hoping Rita would leave her to vomit in peace, but of course, no such luck.
Rita leaned against the stall door next to Farren’s. “You’ve had a weak stomach an awful lot here lately.” The skepticism was evident in her tone. “Is there something you’re not tellin’ me?”
The loud flushing sound echoed off the tiled walls, and Farren opened the stall, wiping her mouth as she creeped out toward the sink.
“Like what?” Farren asked, playing dumb. She liked Rita, and they had become pretty friendly in the time she’d been here, but she wasn’t that close to her yet that she would tell her the big secret that was becoming harder and harder to keep, as often as her morning sickness had been coming on. She hoped that phase would pass soon, and that she wouldn’t be one of the few people that dealt with morning sickness past the first trimester, like some of the pregnancy books she’d been reading had told her.
“Now don’t play coy with me, little missy. You know what I’m
getting at,” Rita teased, following Farren to the sink.
Farren was quiet, and when Rita came around to look at Farren, her face became serious.
“Farren, darlin’, is everything all right? Really?”
Farren tried to laugh it off. “I’m fine, really. You don’t have to worry about me. Everything is the same old - same old,” she lied, but kept a smile on her face doing it.
Rita wasn’t buying it. “Okay, I’m just going to say it. You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
Stunned, Farren stood stock still with her eyes wide, panicking. If Rita had figured it out, surely others had, too, and that meant trouble.
“Is it that obvious?” Farren asked, hoping against all hope that the answer would be no.
“Well, maybe not to all these boys around here, but I’ve had three kids. I’d recognize the signs from a mile away.”
“Please don’t tell anyone, Rita. Please?” she begged. “I’m not ready to share the news with anyone yet. I haven’t told anyone.”
Farren knew how much of a talker Rita was. She could only hope Rita would just this once respect her wishes and keep this news to herself.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Rita promised with an understanding nod. “How far along are you?”
They started towards the door as Farren answered her. “Just over two months, I think.”
Rita elbowed her playfully in the side. “I bet you’re as horny as a dog in heat, aren’t you?”
Farren’s eyes went wide, and her cheeks turned a deep shade of red. The question mortified her. There was no way she was answering that.
But the answer was, oh my God, yes. She had never been more turned on so much in her life. She’d started having dreams every night where Rogan delighted her body in ways that had her begging for him, wishing like hell he would grace her with even half the pleasure in real life like he had started to that night those few days prior. It was getting to the point where it was becoming harder to be around him, remembering how he had held her in his arms and kissed her, had caressed her skin, had pressed his hands into her hips.
All the naughty things he was doing to her in her sleep every night was just the icing on the cake, and thoughts of chocolate cake made a fresh appearance in her mind as well.
Thankfully, or maybe not so thankfully, depending on how she looked at it, Rayner had been away for most of this week in various meetings outside the office since the night they had kissed.
As such, that gave Dallas Evans the idea that he had free reign to frequent her office every chance he got, which she was definitely not thankful for.
She had just sat back down at her desk, trying to forget Rita’s horny comment from the bathroom, when Dallas came strutting into her office.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he greeted her, staring down at her slightly enlarged cleavage.
She tried not to roll her eyes. She gave him a deadpan stare, hoping he’d get the point and leave. He never gave up that easy, though. Why would he start now?
“I’ve decided you’re coming out with me tonight, and before you decline, just know that I’m not taking no for an answer this time,” he informed her.
She laughed, but there was no humor behind it. “Dallas, I’m not going out with you. Let it go, already.”
His eyes turned to slits, and it was apparent that he was angered by her denial. “Give me one good reason, and I’ll tell you why you’ll change your mind.”
“Because I’m just not that into you,” she said, quoting the infamous book.
He laughed, taking her comment as a joke. “Lucky for me, that’s not a prerequisite to joining me for dinner.”
“Because my boss would be pissed if he knew you were in here talking to me,” she added.
He quirked a curious eyebrow. “Yes, that is interesting, isn’t it? But Rogan is out this afternoon, and last I checked, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
He crossed his arms in front of his chest with a self-satisfied grin and watched her as if waiting for her next protest.
“Because I don’t want to,” she said and turned away from him to get back to her work.
He moved to walk around her desk and approached her from behind. She turned to see what he was doing and opened her mouth to ask him as much, but before she had a chance, his hands were on her shoulders. He pressed into them with sturdy fingers, massaging the tense muscles, and damn if it didn’t feel good.
He leaned down to speak low into her ear. “I can make it worth your while,” his low, seductive voice said with a promise.
Oh, God, not the hormones, she thought, as the endorphins in her body betrayed her and begged for more of the delicious pressure being applied to her deep tissues. She knew she craved to be touched way too much if Dallas Evans could have this effect on her. She had to shut that down, and fast.
She shrugged away from him. “Dallas, do you mind? I really need to get some work done. Don’t you have work to do?”
Dallas sighed, holding his hands up in front of him. “All right, but eventually, I’m going to convince you to give me a chance,” he promised before leaving her to get back to work.
***
Another day had gone by, and Farren was getting into the nitty gritty of a part of the project she and Rayner were close to finishing. She was testing a sensor’s connectivity with a prototype that Mike from Robotics had built for them, and needed to adjust one of the settings. This required her to get inside the thing, so she walked down the hallway to grab the tools she needed from the storage room.
When she got inside, she could just make out the sounds of low whispers coming from a back room attached to the storage room. She couldn’t see who the whispers were coming from, since the main area was packed with clutter, but she recognized one of the voices to belong to Dallas Evans, and the other to Beau, the other manager she’d seen with Dallas in the hall on her first day.
She paid them no mind but creeped over to find the tools she needed without being noticed, so she could quickly leave and get back to her work without having to stop and listen to the idle chit-chat that Dallas inevitably would have made her suffer through.
She wanted to get this part of her project done before Rayner returned tomorrow so that they could move on to the final stages of the project, the really good stuff, seeing the fruits of their labor at work.
Once she found what she needed, she turned on her heels and was about to head out the door when she overheard one of the voices, Dallas’s voice, carry a disturbing message to her ears. It was one that had her stopping in her tracks to listen for more.
“Fuck Rogan Rayner. He’ll get what’s coming to him, and he won’t even see it coming,” Dallas spat out with vitriol. “By this time next month, he’ll be knocked off the god-damn high horse he’s been riding for years, and I’ll have a front row seat to watch him fall.”
Beau’s voice chimed in. “You’re actually going through with it?” he asked.
“What’s to stop me? He’s had me under his thumb for too fucking long, and the son-of-a-bitch is finally going to get what he deserves,” said Dallas.
Farren’s eyes went wide and she ducked behind a filing cabinet to remain unseen as she listened on. What was going on here? What was Dallas talking about, and what was he going to do to Rayner? More importantly, why?
She tried to subdue her shallow breaths as her heart began racing with adrenaline. They obviously hadn’t noticed her come in, and she wanted to keep it that way. She knew it would not be good if they caught her leaving now.
Part of her wanted to bust in there and confront them, call them out, and tell them she was going straight to Rayner, but at this point, what would she even tell him? She really had nothing concrete to go on yet. She had to stick around and find out more.
“I didn’t think the little assistant was cooperating yet,” said Beau’s voice.
Oh, shit. Were they talking about her now?
“Not yet,” Dallas admitted, “but she’s close. She�
�ll be putty in my hands by the end of next week, guaranteed. I could see it when I went into her office yesterday inviting her to dinner. She’s still a smart-mouthed little bitch, but I felt her melting under my touch when I massaged her shoulders.”
She could feel the anger filling her with a slow, boiling heat that began in her chest, rising up and outward to the clenching of her fists. Then realization hit her. He was trying to take Rogan down, and he was trying to use her to do it.
“You’re a sick bastard,” Beau said with hubris rather than insult. “You don’t think it’ll look suspicious using his assistant again?”
Again? What did he mean by that? She wracked her brain trying to think of anything they might be talking about concerning her, but she came up short. She never interacted with anyone here except for Rita. Rogan had made sure of it.
Then it hit her. The last assistant? She remembered there was some type of scandal with Rogan’s last one, but never found out anything about who she was or what had actually happened. Could it have had something to do with Dallas? Was this why Rogan had forbid her from getting involved with anyone here?
She wondered if he had any clue what had been going on right under his nose, and the answer was, of course he was, at least on some level. Looks aside, the man was brilliant. Suddenly, all of his possessiveness clicked into place and made sense.
“Not a chance. This little girl is so young and clueless. She’ll be an easy set up. And judging by how long it took him to hire another assistant, he’s got to be on his guard that he might be burned by another one. The minute she’s implicated, and she will be – I’ve made sure of it – he’ll see red. If there’s one thing I know about Rogan, it’s that his temper controls him. Then we’ll have him exactly where we want him. Expose the fucker to the media, let her take the fall, and the takeover will be mine for the taking.”
Oh. Shit. He was setting Rogan up for a public scandal and hostile takeover. She had to go to Rogan, immediately. He had to know now. It couldn’t wait until he got back in tomorrow. Meeting or no meeting, she had to find him, fast.
Boss Unyielding: A Secret Baby Office Romance (The Boss Series Book 1) Page 10