“You can’t quit, hon.” Cal tut-tutted. “Who’ll pay the rent or buy the food? Until I find a job, you’re the only one keeping this boat afloat.”
“You’ll find something soon, Cal.” She patted his broad shoulder a little drunkenly before going back to contemplate her curiously unsatisfying frozen margarita again. “Now, can we please focus on my predicament?”
“Okay, so the guy is a world-class asshole,” Cal recapped. “He treated you shabbily, which would earn him a well-deserved punch in the face if he were here right now, and you hate him but still have to work with him.”
Cleo nodded morosely, the pit in her stomach increasing with every word. She put aside her half-finished drink¸ wishing she actually felt like getting rip-roaring drunk. It might have helped a little.
“Now, what I really want to know”—Cal leaned forward conspiratorially—“is he any good in the sack?”
Cleo sighed.
“He’s fantastic, and that just makes me hate him more. Should I even be telling you all of this? I mean, I feel like I’m breaking that stupid contract with every syllable I utter.”
“You probably are.” Cal shrugged. “But if I can trust you to keep all my sordid secrets—you could sink me if you wanted to and you know it—then you can trust me with this.”
And she did trust Cal; he was like a second brother to her. Her dance partner for years, he had seen her through all her trials and tribulations. He felt responsible for her fall and had been her emotional support while she’d tried to come to terms with everything she’d lost after the accident. He was the only one who truly understood. Luc didn’t get it¸ her nondancing friends didn’t get it, but Cal got it. Cal knew what it was like to feel alive only when you were dancing, and he recognized that she felt like the most important part of her had died after the accident. He was the one who’d gotten her out of bed in the mornings, had taken her to physical therapy, had bossed her into dancing again, even though she was just a shadow of her former self. He had helped her understand that while she would never again be the supremely talented dancer who had once had dance companies vying for her attention, she could still dance. It was in her blood, a part of her physical makeup, and she would never lose it completely.
“All I’m saying is that the man is seriously hot,” Cal said. “And if he wasn’t so obviously and uncompromisingly hetero, I would happily make a play for him.”
“You’re way too good for the likes of him,” Cleo said.
“As are you,” he said, completely serious.
“You’re the best, Cal.” She sighed and leaned in for a hug. He complied and she sagged against him, letting him support her slight weight.
“I’m so glad we’re roomies,” she crooned, and when he laughed, the sound had a bitter edge to it.
“Not exactly roomies,” he corrected. “More like freeloader and working stiff.”
“You’re not a freeloader, Cal. We’ve all been through rough spots, and you’ve done so much for me . . .” She had difficulty talking around the lump in her throat. “So don’t you dare denigrate yourself like that in front of me again, okay?”
“Yes, miss,” he teased, making an effort to shake off his obvious depression, even though she could tell that it lingered just beneath the surface. “Now tell me more. I want to know everything—length, girth, angle. Pointing downward, straight ahead, or kissing the navel?”
“Seriously?” She choked back a laugh.
“Well, if that thing points down, it just looks flaccid and . . . I dunno, incapable somehow.”
“I’m not discussing this with you.”
“Why not? You told me all about Frank Whatsisface’s, remember?”
“I did not. This is the first time I can recall us discussing the angle of any guy’s erection.”
“True,” he conceded, after some thought. “But that Frank guy was really boring. I wasn’t interested in hearing about his antics in bed.”
“Come on, he was nice.”
“And boring.”
“He was always really sweet to me.”
“And super boring.”
Cleo sighed. She really couldn’t argue with him. Frank Sharp, whom she’d dated for two months and slept with twice—in the same night—had been a regular snoozefest. Both in bed and out of it. Cleo had actually fallen asleep during the sex act, both times. Not her finest moment. She had broken it off with him immediately after that and hadn’t dated anyone else in more than a year. Dante was the first man she’d slept with since then, and poor Frank couldn’t compete with that. Most men would have difficulty competing with a guy like Dante Damaso.
“I’m not going to discuss the matter any further,” Cleo said decisively. “I’ve probably broken a dozen of his stupid nondisclosure rules just by telling you about it. Best to let the matter rest and pretend it never happened.”
Cal gave her a long, level look and she dodged his gaze. He could look as skeptical as he liked, but Cleo was going to pretend it never happened if it killed her!
Cleo had all weekend to think about what she would say and how she would act when she saw Dante again on Monday. She practiced her cool, slightly disdainful looks in the mirror, and her professional “Good morning, sir,” “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” and “As you wish, sir” out loud every morning and evening. Yet, she was still a bundle of nerves when she walked into the office Monday morning. He must have come to the office at some point over the weekend, because even though he clearly hadn’t arrived yet, there was a Dictaphone full of e-mails she had to get ready, and two A4-size manila envelopes with her name sitting in the middle of her desk. She frowned at the envelopes before picking up the flatter one. She took a deep breath and stuck her finger beneath the flap to open it. The sheaf of papers inside was exactly what she’d been expecting to see: her copy of the nondisclosure agreement, officially notarized. She shook her head and shoved it back into the envelope and then into her desk drawer. Well, so much for being cool, calm, and collected this morning. One stupid envelope and she was feeling anxious and angry at the same time. Her gaze shifted to the other envelope, which was slightly bulkier than the first. She picked it up cautiously, having absolutely no clue what could be inside it. It was ridiculously light, lighter than the first envelope, and Cleo ripped it open with less care than she had the first one. She upended it and watched as a piece of paper fluttered to the desk, followed by a scrap of white cotton. She blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a few seconds before her eyes widened in recognition.
She gasped, blushed, and grabbed up the Hello Kitty boy shorts in a lightning-fast move, terrified that someone would see them. Only after they were safely tucked away in her bag did she shift her attention to the paper that had accompanied the panties.
Sure enough, Dante’s bold, masculine writing was scrawled across the small square of paper. All it said was:
These got mixed in with my stuff. —DD
Cleo crumpled the paper up in her fist and tossed it in the wastepaper basket. Lovely. Just when she’d resolved to never again think of their encounter in Japan, he had to bring it all back in graphic detail without even having to be physically present.
She sat down behind her desk after getting the fancy coffee machine up and running, and watering her old enemy, the ficus. She was well into the e-mails when Dante finally sauntered in, nearly an hour later.
Completely focused on her work up until that moment, Cleo was aware of his presence almost immediately. She tensed, all her practice and preparation instantly forgotten in the face of his overwhelming presence.
“Uh . . .”
“Good morning, Miss Knight,” he inserted smoothly, before she could get a single word out. “I trust the jet lag isn’t too bad?”
“It’s . . .” Damn. Why couldn’t she speak? He waited for a moment, but when it became clear that she had nothing to offer other than that one strangled word, he cleared his throat and gestured toward the computer.
“Are you nearly done with
those?”
She nodded mutely.
“Good.” He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked back slightly on his heels. “Great.”
Why was he just standing there, staring at her? Why didn’t he say something? Or leave? Or tell her to go to so-and-so’s office for the rest of the day?
“Peter Whitman’s secretary has resigned,” he said abruptly. “And I feel that the position would be more in keeping with your skill set.”
“Oh.”
“It’s a slight dip in salary, but you knew that you’d eventually have to take a step down, right?”
“I did,” she said, finally finding her voice. She stared down at her hands, spread on the keyboard in front of her, like they were the most fascinating things in the world.
“Right, then. That’s settled,” he said a little hoarsely.
“I’m not sure who Peter Whitman is,” she admitted. “And when do I start?”
“You’ll spend the rest of the week here, but you’ll start with him next Monday. He’s the head of HR. I was vacillating between HR and accounting, but I thought that, since you seem to be such a people person, you’d find HR more interesting.”
The comment astonished her, and she raised her eyes to meet his surprisingly intense gaze head-on. His penetrating stare was a little unnerving, but she was quite touched that he had considered her personality before making his decision.
“Thank you.”
“Look, you know that this job is way beyond your actual capabilities, right?” Why was he still talking about this? He sounded like a man who was determined to justify himself.
“Well, if I didn’t before, I certainly know it now,” she said dryly, and his frown told her that he didn’t appreciate her flippant comment.
“This transfer has nothing to do with what happened between us in Tokyo.” Ooh, he went there. She hadn’t expected him to actually go there. “It was inevitable.”
“I know it was,” she said. “But it’s rather sudden. After all, Donna is still on maternity leave.”
“And she’ll be gone for another six months. I can’t have you here for another six months. You’ve proven yourself quite capable, but I need someone who can actually handle every aspect of the job.”
“Of course.” Weirdly, it felt like she actually had him on the back foot, and that made her feel a little more in control. “Would you like your coffee now, sir?”
He didn’t reply for the longest time, before nodding curtly and swiveling on his heel to head to his office. After the door shut behind him, she dropped her head to where her hands still rested on the keyboard and just sat there for a few minutes, trying to recover her poise.
“Right,” she said to herself as she pushed away from the desk and started to go slowly about organizing his urgent mail and pouring the extremely bitter dark-roast coffee he preferred.
She gave a perfunctory knock on the intimidating double doors that led to his massive office before pushing her way inside. Dante sat behind his exquisitely crafted bird’s-eye maple-and-walnut antique desk and stared broodingly at his huge computer screen. He had his elbows on the desk and his hands steepled in front of him, the tips of his forefingers pressed against his lips. Her entry drew his gaze from the computer, and he stared at her over the top of his fingers.
She rounded the desk, placed the coffee mug beside his right elbow, and centered the mail in front of him. He didn’t say a word while she was doing that, and she was acutely aware of his closeness, of the scent of him, the heat of him, and couldn’t get back to the other side of the desk fast enough. She stood there, her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes downcast, waiting to hear where he would parcel her off to this morning, but when he said nothing for the longest time, she dared a glance up at him. He still stared at her, his eyes narrowed and his lips pursed. He was slowly moving his mouth back and forth across his fingertips, looking lost in thought at he watched her.
“Will that be all, sir?” she asked expectantly. Maybe he’d send her to HR to meet her future boss. It would do her good to apprentice with his current secretary. Frankly, she couldn’t wait to get away from the top floor and its high-powered, frenetic pace.
“Did you get my package?”
She cleared her throat and shifted restlessly at the unexpected question.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I’ll have a proper read-through later, since I didn’t get a chance to check the finer details on Thursday before I signed it.” She couldn’t resist the dig, and she watched him closely for his reaction. But he revealed nothing, keeping his face completely passive, even while his gaze darkened.
“That’s not the package I meant,” he said after a few minutes of awkward silence. His deep, husky voice sent shock waves reverberating through her body as the words registered, and she felt a blush starting from her breasts and sweeping right up to the top of her head. She clamped her mouth shut and glared at him, refusing to respond to his words.
“I meant, did you get your panties?” he prompted perversely when she said nothing. “They were sweet. Not my favorites, mind you. That honor belongs to the blue Daisy Duck pair with the little white-heart polka dots all over them. Do you know which ones I mean?”
Of course she knew which ones he meant; he’d removed them with his teeth that last night in Tokyo. He’d been so absorbed with what was being revealed beneath the underwear that she hadn’t for one second considered that the design would register with him.
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like this,” she said shakily. “It’s—”
“Inappropriate,” he completed. “I know. The problem is that when I’m around you, all thought of appropriate behavior completely flees my mind. Now why the hell do you suppose that is?” He sounded angry as he said the words, and Cleo shared his frustration. He was like an addictive drug that she couldn’t flush out of her system. Every time she got in his general vicinity, she turned into mush and her brain stopped functioning.
He got up and rounded the desk until he stood behind her, close enough that she could feel the heat emanating off him in waves and his breath in her hair.
“I took one look at you behind that desk this morning, all—how do you say—prim and proper? And I wanted this,” he said, his voice low. He didn’t have to explain what this was; they both knew and they both accepted it even though they both hated the inexplicable need.
He moved, wrapping one strong arm around her torso and gripping her jaw with his hand as he tugged her back against his hard body. She could feel his iron-hard erection grinding into the small of her back. He sucked her earlobe into his mouth for the briefest of moments before moving down to nuzzle the sensitive area just below her ear.
Her knees buckled, and his other hand came up to cup the nape of her neck and gently but inexorably exert enough pressure to let her know exactly what he wanted. She complied, bracing herself on her elbows as she bent over his desk.
His hands went roaming, tugging her blouse from her skirt and burrowing their way beneath the silk chiffon until they found and cupped her small breasts through the lace of her demi bra. The slightest of tugs and he had the bra tucked beneath her breasts and his thumbs flicking away at her sensitive nipples. He played there for a while, knowing that very little more than that was required to get her going, before his hands trailed down over her flat stomach and then around to the small of her back, his fingertips skirting along the sensitive skin above the waistband of her skirt. When his thumbs met in the center of her back just above the slight swell of her behind, he shifted the position of his hands until he had her backside cupped in his palms. Cleo whimpered, unbelievably turned on by being spread out on his desk in his office in broad daylight.
His hands grabbed a couple of fistfuls of twill and dragged her skirt up, up, ever so slowly up, until—after an excruciatingly long time—she felt cool air on the backs of her thighs. Dante—who’d been silent up until this point—groaned when he finally had her skirt up over her back and her panti
es revealed to him.
“Hell, yes, I want some honey,” he ground out, and Cleo dimly apprehended that he was responding to Winnie the Pooh’s “Hunny?” question on the back of her boy shorts. He hooked a thumb into each side of the shorts and dragged them down to her knees, before kneeling behind her. Cleo held her breath, hoping his intention was what she was anticipating, and sure enough . . .
“Oh God,” she moaned when his tongue immediately went to work. She’d gotten so used to him doing this for her that she no longer felt self-conscious about the act, which had always embarrassed her with other guys. She curled her fingers against the surface of his desk and blindly stared at the rapidly cooling mug of coffee about a foot in front of her. She moved her upper body lower and lower until her torso and chest were flat against the desk and her cheek was pressed to the coolness of the surface. She spread her arms out on either side of her and just surrendered herself completely to him. She was on the verge of coming when he stopped, and she cried out in frustration until she felt him step between her thighs. She heard the sound of his zipper, the crinkle of a condom wrapper, and then . . . dear God—complete bliss when he finally penetrated her. He had her so primed that he barely had the tip in before she went up onto her toes, her back arching like a cat’s, as her orgasm took her.
His hands on her hips held her still, and he waited until her climax had waned before resuming his slow and thorough conquest of her very willing body. She was building up to her third orgasm when the phone rang, adding a reckless sense of exhibitionism to their excitement that had only been hinted at before. The complete and utter inappropriateness of the setting added a titillating edge to the sex that rushed her headlong into another climax so intense that she actually blacked out for a couple of seconds. She came to moments later, in time to hear him groan, the first time she’d ever heard a sound from him during one of his climaxes. He was usually completely silent, just a catch of the breath followed by a long exhale. This soft groan was new, as was the whispered expletive that accompanied it. He went completely limp, his full weight descending onto her back for a few short moments before he stepped back and removed himself from her both physically and emotionally in one smooth movement. He gently pulled her panties back up and lowered her skirt, covering her up with such care that Cleo felt almost cherished. The feeling disappeared when he moved away hastily, leaving Cleo to push herself up with arms that felt like jelly. Her entire body felt wobbly, and she sank into the chair opposite his desk, not sure how to cope with this.
A Ruthless Proposition Page 8