Forced to Yield

by Tasha Fawkes

  How can I tell him I'd faked it? I resist the urge to tug my hair out in annoyance. I settle for grinding my teeth and pinching my nose for the umpteenth time this evening. “It’s the same thing over and over with you,” I continue, not unkindly. “I don’t want lists, Stewart, even of the things I like—and, by the way, that is way too brief a session of oral for any sexually mature individual to get anything worthwhile out of it. I want more than just clinical biology. I don’t want to be examined, or tested, or… or…” I wave a hand, mentally erasing what I just said. It doesn’t matter. He won't get it. Trying to get him to see what I’m saying is a fruitless endeavor. A waste of breath. Stewart’s eyes narrow, but in anger. Like he’s considering something.

  “You want more spontaneity?” he asks.

  “Yes!”

  “I can be spontaneous.”

  Before I know it, Stewart rounds my desk and wraps me in his arms. I consider backing away, but the defiant part of me wants to see just how far he’ll go. It isn’t Daniel Stone bending me over my desk, but maybe, just maybe…

  I gasp in alarm as his arms hug me a moment, and then he bends slightly, his arms now reaching around my waist. Stewart might be a pathologist who sits in a lab most of the day, but I know better than most that he’s actually pretty athletic. He puts his muscled arms to good use as he lifts me off the ground and slings me over his shoulder.

  “Stewart!” I admonish, a little louder than I intended. "Put me down!" I try to grab onto the corner of my desk for balance. I miss and grab his ass instead.

  He chortles. “This is what you wanted, Ash!”

  Too late. I realize that I made a huge miscalculation by being upfront with him. Sober expression or not, Stewart is still drunk—and now he’s quite literally taken my life into his hands.

  “Stewart! Put me down!” I command, pounding now on his ass as he carries me out into the hallway. No, no, no… this can't be happening! I try to lift myself enough to shoot a glance over my shoulder to see where he’s heading, but it’s difficult to get my bearings bouncing on his shoulder. I think he’s taking me toward the elevator. His grip tightens over the swell of my ass in response to my insistence that he put me down. At that moment, I know it’s hopeless trying to negotiate with him when in such a vulnerable position. As soon as he puts me down, though, I’ll make him wish he'd never…

  I gulp and scramble for purchase, trying to lift myself so I can balance my hands on his hips, but I start to slip. "Stewart! I'm slipping!" The reality of being dropped prompts me to freeze. “Stewart!” My voice rising in panic now. “I’m going to fall!”

  “Relax babe, I would never—”

  The bastard trips. He actually trips, stumbling over nothing but his own impaired reflexes, and my slinky dress might as well be butter in his hands. He scrambles to catch his balance and with his body off-kilter, I slide forward. Our legs tangle. I see myself falling ass over teakettle, but I manage to instinctively twist and barely manage to break my fall with my hands, lucky I didn't break one of them in the process. I topple to the ground onto my right hip, my hands sliding forward so that I actually manage to land on my forearms. Unfortunately, Stewart slides to the side. In Stewart’s defense, he twists at the last second to avoid all of his weight from crashing down on me. In my defense, he decides to use the front of my dress as a handhold.

  A horrendous tear of fabric accompanies the sound of the elevator door ding and the next moment, those doors slide open. I shake Stewart’s hands off me and manage to thrust myself upward onto my ass, arms braced behind me, my knees spread. I see movement and glance up.

  Oh God.

  Daniel Stone’s grass green eyes stare down at me.

  His perfect, chiseled face uncomprehending for a moment while his gaze takes in the sight. His eyes widen slightly and his eyebrows lift. Oh God. I can't speak; I can't even breathe. Of every scene in which I hoped he would find me tonight, the unfolding nightmare in which I find myself trapped never even crossed my mind.

  “Mister Stone!” I gasp, struggling out from beneath Stewart. I manage to scramble to my feet with only a modicum of dignity. I’m not sure what to do, what excuses to make. “I… we were just…”

  The green eyes that pin me to the spot sink lower. And lower. Just like I imagined they would, I consider in bewilderment, until my own gaze drops to follow his. Daniel stares at the front of my dress—or where the front of my dress used to be. The tastefully plunging neckline is gone; in its place is skin, skin, and more naked skin. Stewart ripped my dress all the way down to the scalloped black crest of my push-up bra.

  I instinctively cross my arms to cover myself, but it’s too late. I can almost see my reflection in Daniel Stone’s eyes; we’re standing that close. Did his pupils just dilate slightly? Am I imagining that? The look is there and gone before I can properly define what it might be.

  “Excuse me,” I mumble, mortified—again. I turn away and make a beeline for the women’s restroom, leaving Stewart behind. As soon as the door swings shut behind me, I slide my back along the door and hunch down on the tiled floor and drop my head into my hands. Despair engulfs me. I’ve practically just bared my breasts in front of my crush, my boss. I’m humiliated, but I doubt that matters to a man like Daniel Stone. I’m going to have to face the music.

  I rise and step to the sink and stare at myself in the mirror. A mess of tousled black hair and haunted brown eyes stare back at me. My pale complexion looks even more drained of color than usual, and for some reason my lipstick is smeared.

  I rearrange my appearance as best I can. There’s no hope for the rental dress, which I realize now I’m going to have to pay for in full. Shit. I pull the clip from my up-do and shake my hair out, then use the clip to secure my ruined dress in place. Nice, I grimace. The top of my bra is still visible, but this is the best I can do until I could manage to escape downstairs to the coat check. I push my way out of the restroom to find Stewart waiting for me in the hallway.

  “Stewart!” I glance around, but Daniel is nowhere in sight. I don’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed by the fact. “Where is Daniel… Mister Stone?”

  “He’s waiting for you in your office. He wants to speak to you… alone.” Stewart looks put-out. Did Daniel say something to him? Then again, Stewart is the last person I need to be worrying about right now.

  Daniel Stone wants to see me? Alone? In my office? Oh God.

  “Stewart, I need you to go.”

  Stewart looks ready to protest, until his eyes drops to the fists slowly clenching at my sides. The reality of the situation finally seems to cut through the fog of inebriation he’s been swimming in.

  “… all right, Ash.”

  “Call a cab,” I say. “I’ll text you tomorrow. Let’s both just hope I still have a job.”

  He opens his mouth to say something, and by the look on his face, to apologize for being the cause of this fiasco. I don't care. I shoulder by him and walk slowly toward my office, faltering more and more with each step.

  Daniel Stone is waiting for me. In my office. I’m about to be severely reprimanded, I’m sure, if not fired. What must he think of me?

  At the thought of Daniel alone in my office, I stop. My hand flies to my mouth. Before Stewart carried me out the door, I left my computer open. I left my manuscript document open.

  Oh, shit.

  Four

  Daniel

  I wait for Ashley Shiels in her office.

  The accommodations are small but serviceable. Of the three desks in the room, Ashley's desk has no personal touches. No photos, no knick-knacks, no silly mouse pads. Desktop neatly centered on her desk, its screen dark. Near one side, a laptop open. I take it all in, looking for some indication of the woman’s personality, but find little evidence to lead me to a satisfying conclusion. She keeps her personal life personal, her space tidy and impersonal. An enigma, especially after what I'd just seen in the hallway.

  Ashley Shiels. She’s a fixture at Pen and
Quill, as dependable professionally as she is beautiful. I have tried on several occasions to speak with her after I’ve exited my office and made my way down the hallway from my large office, but some business matter inevitably called her away. I always thought her restrained, maybe even a little uptight, but that might just be a symptom of my own presence. Most of my employees don’t know how to act around me. I consider Elektra the only exception.

  Nothing about Ashley was restrained just moments ago. I’ve barely devoted a single thought to the man that was with her since finding them both sprawled on the floor. It looked like a drunken accident, nothing more illicit than that.

  But I could easily make it more illicit. I can't stop thinking about her breasts: those pert, porcelain mounds, with nothing covering them but a pair of arms and an inexpensive bra that looked as easy to tear off her as the dress she wore. I can’t stop reliving the moment I saw her standing there bared before me. It was all I could do to keep from snatching her by the wrists and pulling her arms apart, the man on the floor be damned.

  How dare she hide herself from me? I felt the Dom in me rising, and I’ve fought to tamp it down before she meets me in her office, which I know she will.

  I do what I usually do in these instances, when work interferes with the pursuit of pleasure: I distract myself. There isn't much to look at here, but Ashley's laptop is open; the green light flashing rhythmically on the side. I tap the space bar and the screen lights up. I pull it toward me without much interest. Maybe I should feel guilty for invading my employee's privacy, but I doubt that a cursory glance at what she’s working on—on her night off to attend the Christmas party, for that matter—will do much harm. I've already seen more of her than she was probably expecting to reveal to me.

  A manuscript. I gaze at the familiar formatting. She’s working on her own manuscript. Most everyone around here is secretly working on one, no surprise there. Still, I didn’t expected Ashley to have a book in progress. What else is my scintillating little editorial assistant hiding from me?

  "Fuck me," she begged. "Please. Any way you want me. I can't stand this torture any longer."

  I lift an eyebrow. Well then.

  "You've ruined your stockings," her lover purred as he swept the dark chocolate cascade of hair back from her shoulders. "You're so wet, you're positively dripping. Does my own particular brand of punishment turn you on so much?"

  My cock stirs and offers an aggressive twitch at the word punishment. "Just what have you been writing, Ashley?" I murmur as I scroll down the page. I'm an adept speed-reader—I have to be in my line of work—but I want to take my time processing this latest revelation. Evidently, Ashley spends her spare time writing smut, and as for her predilections…

  "Maybe you forgot who's boss around here," he growled as he flipped her over and shoved her back against her desk. Her pencil holder toppled and spilled its contents onto the floor, but she couldn't have put a halt to the proceedings now if she wanted to… and like hell she did want to. She let her supervisor thrust himself between her legs. She rocked her hips back against the edge of her desk. His honey-blond hair fell forward over savage green eyes, brimming with hunger for…

  "Stewart! Where is Daniel… Mister Stone?"

  I hear her alarmed voice coming from just outside in the hallway. It’s all I can do to tear my eyes away from the screen and the torrid scene unfolding in my mind—courtesy of Ashley's sizzling-hot words. I have maybe seconds to act before she joins me.

  And I do. I tab open Ashley's e-mail, attach the manuscript to my address, and hit Send. Then I close out of the window and shut the laptop, giving it a little nudge with my hand to arrange it the way I found it. There's nothing that can be done about my throbbing erection tucked against my thigh.

  I watch the door, making a deal with myself as I wait for her to enter. It's something I'm used to doing, but this time the deal is unusually sweet. If Ashley Shiels walks in here with the front of her dress torn, I intend to do something about it. Something that is decidedly not chivalrous.

  She pushes the door open, and I'm disappointed, though not surprised. I knew she was smart enough to engineer a quick fix, and she's managed to salvage the shredded fabric and make herself halfway presentable again in the process.

  Pity.

  "Miss Shiels." I keep my voice low, though I'm already certain of our privacy. I motion toward the door, and she nods, closing it quietly behind her.

  “I…” she begins. Her eyes flicker to her laptop. I see a look of puzzlement. She probably remembers leaving her laptop open, but I allow her to second-guess her own memory.

  “Please.” I indicate the chair sitting catty-corner to her desk. She sits without a word. I need her to see me as her superior, now more than ever. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.” I try to establish eye contact, but it’s difficult when she's obviously determined to look everywhere but directly at me.

  “Yes. I’m all right… thank you for asking, Mister Stone.”

  Her cheeks flush a deep, fetching rose, and I imagine she’s reliving the moment. I hoped she would. A part of me hopes the way I'm looked at her registered.

  “Please. Call me Daniel.”

  “I don’t know what you must think of me,” she stutters. "But I’m not… I wasn’t…”

  “That man. Is he your boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  The refutation is so immediate and flatly spoken that I can’t help snorting with laughter. Her dark lashes sweep against her cheeks as her gaze falls to her lap, and her blush deepens. I've known women who flush all the way down to the tops of their breasts. Is Ashley one of them? Unfortunately, her ingenuity with the dress prevents me from finding out.

  "Was he harassing you?"

  "He's… no. Stewart's a friend," Ashley replies. "He had a little too much to drink. That's all."

  "Then it's a good thing I called a cab for him."

  She nods gratefully, the buoyant raven waves of her hair bouncing against her cheeks. There's a thought itching at the back of my mind, but I'll have to wait until I'm home—with her manuscript in my hand—to explore it further.

  Just where do you find your inspiration, Ashley?

  "I know you have a lot on your plate right now," I continue. "I wanted to take this moment to personally thank you for your work on the Christmas party. I knew we were in good hands when Elektra said she delegated to you."

  "It's… it was nothing." She shakes her head, but perks up a little. "Did you get a chance to go to the party?"

  "I don't usually enjoy these things."

  "Oh."

  "Not usually," I emphasize before she has a chance to be disappointed. I want that blush back. I want more than that. I rise from behind her desk, and she quickly pushes out from her chair to follow my lead—like an indentured servant who follows the Master's lead. "But tonight has been… illuminating. You're a hard worker, Miss Shiels."

  "Thank you, Mister Stone… Daniel." She struggles with my first name now, but not, I noticed, in front of the drunken 'friend' she left back in the hallway.

  "Is there anything else I can assist you with this evening?"

  "Not this evening, no. But I'm glad you asked." I move around the desk to stand closer to her. She doesn’t shrink from me—which is a welcome relief from my conversations with some of the other editorial assistants this evening—but I entertain the idea that she feels the heat radiating between us all the same. I'm still hard, but her eyes never so much as glance away from my face. Good. "I might have a special job for you. Nothing that will interfere with your work assisting Elektra… but we don't need to discuss it tonight."

  I let my eyes drop, allowing her to feel the full weight of my gaze trained on those already-heavy breasts of hers. I betray nothing: no disproval, no lasciviousness. I want her to recall this moment and wonder at its meaning when she lies alone tonight.

  "Come by my office first thing Monday morning, and we'll discuss the details," I say. "Good night, M
iss Shiels."

  "Good night, Daniel."

  She backs out of my way to allow me to pass, and it's all I can do to not crowd her into the deeper shadows of her office and ask her to give me a hand with the aroused state for which she is wholly responsible. Something tells me that Ashley would prefer it if I didn't ask.

  I nod, hold her eyes a moment longer, then slip past her and let myself out the door. I contemplate all the ways I'm going to get Ashley Shiels out of my system on the long elevator ride down to the parking garage.

  Monday can't come soon enough. In the meantime, I've got a book to read.

  Five

  Ashley

  I walk into work Monday morning with every expectation of being fired.

  I'm going to go about it gracefully, I've decided. I spent all weekend working out how my departure will go. Tory will cry into my commemorative Disney mug that I will graciously gift her, and Elektra will look on with disapproval as I gather my sparse belongings up in the cardboard box that I will soon be living out of.

  Oh, shit. I forgot the box in my car.

  I keep walking, although I can't help slowing my pace as I near my office. I can't help remembering how I found Daniel there the night of the Christmas party. I am absolutely positive that I left my laptop open when Stewart carried me out of the room—and I'm positive that Daniel must have seen my manuscript. Just thinking about that cool gaze of his reading over my hot, illicit fantasies is enough to confirm what I already suspect: by the end of today, I'm going to be out of a job. The fiasco with Stewart might have been forgivable as an accident, but there's nothing accidental about what I wrote in my novel. He's got to think by now that I'm some kind of sexual deviant, and worst of all, there's the chance he recognized some of his own traits, purloined and penned into the character of my male lead.

  But I'm still kidding myself. It isn't just 'some' of Daniels' characteristics I used to inform my novel's hero; it’s all of them.