He tugged her toward him, the pearls tumbling to the carpet, until she was sideways in his lap, his desire for her solid beneath her bottom. Holding her in one arm, cradled, he kissed her hotly, and with the other hand he explored, a touch at her neck, then her collarbone, moving lower, until he was sliding his hand into the V of her blouse, caressing the sensitive skin just inside the cup of her bra, teasing, only to draw back out and make his way down her clothed body, her nipples aching to feel his touch.
She moved her bottom against the erotic promise of him, a sensuous feeling in itself, and he reared back from the kiss, as if surprised it had gone that far.
That made two of them.
She noticed in passing that it was dark outside the windows, and the plane shook slightly, the universe apparently reflecting the rocking of her world.
His cock was hard beneath her, his breathing uneven.
Would it be so bad of her to forget about her career for once and act on what she really wanted? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t made bad career decisions along the way. And never had she made a bad career decision for such a hot, pleasurable, and immediate payback.
He swallowed, and she set her mouth lightly along his strong jaw that with the beginning of a beard took him from gypsy to pirate in the space of an afternoon. She licked the dimple at the side of his mouth, making her way back to his lips, and kissed him again, nearly jumping out of his lap when he sucked her tongue.
She pulled back with a laugh. “I think you were underestimating your experience.”
“I think you were underestimating biology.”
She brought her lips back to his and whispered, “You’re getting pretty good at lines.”
“The role-playing really helps.”
He kissed her this time, grasping her chin and holding her still as his tongue sauntered into her mouth. It was either biology or the scotch, but she was feeling something powerful, that was for sure.
Moving by instinct, her good sense meter turned off apparently, she adjusted her position from sideways to straddling his lap as they kissed, hiking her skirt up around her thighs and regretting that she had worn pantyhose. His erection beneath the crotch of her L’eggs pressed against her, hard and substantial and very, very tempting.
He brought his hands from her waist slowly up to her breasts, taking one solidly in each hand, squeezing, not too hard, not too light, and she groaned, digging her fingers into his silky hair, not at all coarse as she had once imagined it would be, since it was curly.
“What were your mother’s criteria?” she asked softly against his lips.
“What?” His eyes were unfocused, his cheeks flushed.
“The sperm donor. What were her criteria for him?”
“Tall. Good eyesight. Good bone structure.” He sounded hoarse and disoriented, and he went to kiss her again, but she pulled back a fraction.
“That’s it?”
He surged forward, ignoring the question, moving from her breasts to the buttons of her shirt to enable him to get closer. He had gotten the shirt undone and slipped it off her shoulders before she realized it. He pressed his lips to her heated skin, down her neck to the cleavage between her overstrained bra cups, nudging the fabric aside to get at a nipple, licking and then sucking. She groaned and abruptly made up her mind to let herself have this moment, this hot forbidden encounter.
What the hell? She had already given up the ghost somewhere along the way from their first kiss.
After climbing off his lap, she stood up to yank her hose down and off, along with her panties, while he watched intensely.
“You do have a condom, don’t you?” she asked.
He nodded, reaching into his back pocket and extracting his wallet, the movement emphasizing his hard-on. Unzipping her skirt and sliding it off so she was bare on the bottom, she leaned forward and unzipped his jeans as well, carefully, very carefully, while he sucked in a breath and took out the condom, flinging his wallet to the floor.
“I’m doing this because you’re so fucking hot and I want to,” she whispered. “Not because I’m giving in to any pressure because you’re my boss and you came right out and asked me to like an idiot.”
“I appreciate that.” He ripped the condom open while she grasped his hot, pulsing cock, then shoved the boxers down and climbed on top.
“Let me.” She took the condom from him and slid it down his length. “Those pilots better not come in here.”
“Well, at least one of them has to drive the plane.”
The plane lurched.
“Wow. You’re big.”
“I never, ah, measured when it’s uh—”
“Shhh.” She sat down on his now-sheathed cock, causing them both to gasp, and Talbot’s head fell back to the seat cushion, his eyes closing.
“Nice, eh, Mr. Boss Man? You like that?” She was caught between fantasy and what might be the end of a not-very-illustrious legal career. “You wanted to fuck me when you saw me, didn’t you?”
She punctuated her words by sliding up and down his pulsing length, so wet she did it easily.
“When I actually saw you, yes,” he gasped as she took him impossibly deep inside her. “I mean, not before when you were in the office because then I was just annoyed, uh, you were doing that thing with your pearls and making me—”
She kissed him, feeling her tongue rub against his, and he convulsively gripped her bottom, in a good way.
Pulling away from his lips, she murmured, “This is so bad. Sleeping with the boss. I’m such a naughty girl.”
His blue eyes glittered back at her as she moved her hips slightly in a way that made them both moan, and he wordlessly urged her to repeat the motion, his hands firmly on her cheeks, bringing her forward and then back, again and again.
“Now you’re supposed to say ‘you are a naughty girl,’” she prompted, “and threaten to spank my bare bottom.”
“Uh-uh. This is just us now, and you’re not the least bit naughty,” he said, low and sincere, and she laughed.
“No! You’re the stern boss, and I’m the naughty girl who works for you. You’re not playing right.”
“Mmmm, I’m not playing.”
The admission went right through her, stalling her for a second. She shouldn’t be, either. She shouldn’t be playing with this volatile situation, hooking up with her boss. But he slid a hand up to caress her breast and, mesmerized by the shot of pleasure, she settled back into the rhythm.
“Oh, what the hell? I could die tomorrow, you know?” Her breath came shorter as she rode him.
She came up on her knees, moving faster as he closed his eyes, kissing her neck. She was very close. Bracing her palms on the shoulders of his T-shirt—somewhere along the line he had shrugged off that hideous jacket—she finally got around to reading what it said. I’m with Stupid.
She came in an incredible burst of years of pent-up sexuality, and he shuddered against her, pulling her close while they rode it out. In the aftermath, he rubbed her back, and she listened as both their breathing slowed.
His T-shirt slogan really summed it up. Stupid. Yep, that was her all right. That had been incredibly stupid.
And she was as good as unemployed.
Sex with Camilla was extremely good. So good that as soon as she climbed off his lap, her absence bothered him, and he had to resist the urge to tug her back. He’d wait, he supposed, until he got another erection, which given how turned on she had made him, should not be very long. So he sat there, replete, as she turned her back and started dressing.
That was too bad. Putting her clothes back on and all. He tugged the used condom off, knotted the end, and tossed it into the waste container.
“Do you have to get dressed?”
“Eventually.”
“Now, I mean.”
She glanced at the door to the cockpit as the plane took a dip that almost knocked her off her feet. She slapped his hands away as he went to steady her.
“There’s still a lot of time left to the fl
ight,” he pointed out with a smile.
“Zip up your pants, boss man,” she said. “The fantasy’s over. Time for real life.”
After a second, he did so, sorry she was in such a hurry.
She picked up the discarded pearls, but instead of putting them on again, opened the overhead and stuffed them into a pocket of her computer bag, along with the panty hose she didn’t bother to put back on, either.
“This is all your fault,” she said, buttoning her shirt. “Well, not all your fault. But mostly your fault.”
“What is?”
“Our having sex, which means I won’t be able to keep this job.”
“Because we had sex?”
“Hello. Yes.”
“Why?”
“For one thing because this is a public company, and a CEO can’t have sex with an underling. I’m sure it’s against a million HR policies. But you’re not firing me.”
“Right. I got that.”
“I quit.”
“What? Why? I mean, are you sure that’s necessary?”
“What else should I do? Just have sex with you whenever you’re reminded you need to have it?”
Again, he could spot a trick question. So he said, instead, “I don’t want you to quit.”
“Because you want to have sex with me?”
“Yes.”
She scowled. He’d walked right into that one.
“And I want you around, too. I like you. I think.”
“You have a screw loose,” she muttered. “But then so do I for what I just did.”
“You climaxed, though,” he noted. “And call me Mason by the way.”
“Yep, Mason, I came. But it wasn’t worth giving up my job.”
“Again, I’m not so sure we need to concede that. When we land, I’ll call Marcia.”
“You will not!”
“Of course I will. I always do when I touch down after a flight.”
“Fine, but you won’t tell her about this.”
“If I don’t, how can I ask her whether it’s necessary for you to quit?”
“I don’t need her to tell me I have to quit. I know I do. This is so not how this is supposed to go.”
“How is it supposed to go?”
She sat down across from him, deflated. “I’m supposed to prove to you what a brilliant legal mind I have, and you’re supposed to quickly learn I’m indispensible and give me stock options that will make me rich.”
“I could give you stock options.”
“And then, maybe, just maybe, after working together a few years when I’m well established and don’t have anything to prove—and you learn to dress properly—then, then maybe you can discover you’re in love with me and ask me to marry you.”
“I don’t believe in falling in love.” The only reference he’d ever heard to it growing up was his mother saying that it was an invention to sell products, and he hadn’t seen anything since then that had convinced him otherwise. Not that he was really looking.
“You don’t believe in love. Yeah, that’s a big shocker there. But that’s how it’s supposed to go. Not you being a, well, like you are and cold-bloodedly saying you want to have sex with me the first day and me drinking one too many scotches because I’m so freaked out about that and then you being so hot with your role-playing and your kissing and your touching me that I actually wind up having sex with you on my first day.”
The drinking one too many scotches bothered him, and he felt duty bound to ask, “Was your judgment impaired?”
“Yes,” she snapped, then buried her head in her hands. “No. Not enough to matter. I did it.”
“You shouldn’t feel so bad about sex,” he said softly.
“I don’t feel bad about sex.”
“Any chance we can have it again?”
“I feel bad about who I had sex with!”
“Well, I could marry you, if you want.”
“This just keeps getting better.”
“I don’t think I’d ever find your, or really any lawyer’s, services indispensable because, frankly, lawyers end up complicating every transaction needlessly. But if the other side has one, the rule is you have to too so they can complicate it in a way that’s good for you to counter-act the complication the other side’s lawyer is busy doing in a way that’s good for them.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I can’t fix that part of how it’s supposed to go. Your legal mind being indispensible and all. But I am free to marry, and now that I think about it, it might be a good idea.”
“I don’t even want to ask why.”
“It would provide for a steady source of sex with someone I’m attracted to.”
“You don’t know too many married people, do you? But sure, no problem. I’ll marry you. As long as I get to draft the pre-nup.”
“Okay.”
“That was a joke. Get it? I’d draft a pre-nup that said I got half of everything if we divorce at any time. Like a week after the wedding.”
“I sense you’re not taking my proposal seriously.”
“I sense you’re not even joking about it, which is why I would never even consider it.”
He should be offended by her comment, but he was more busy wondering why he was still interested in talking to Camilla, even after they’d had sex. Why he felt sort of sorry for her that she seemed to feel so bad about the situation.
And why he could remember her name. Every time. Almost from the very beginning.
“Besides,” she said with a little smile. “I’m sure Marcia would never agree to you marrying me. What’s with you two anyway? She isn’t secretly your mother, is she?”
“No. But she was a friend of hers. Her only friend probably.”
“Is she still alive?”
“Marcia? As far as I know.”
Camilla swiped him lightly on the arm. “Don’t be a smart ass.”
And he realized with a shock that he had been. A smart ass. He had been joking. He smiled, startled at the observation.
“Answer the question. Is your mother still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Do you see her much?”
“No. Not much.” Or at all really. After he got her out of his company, his mother’s bafflement at how Mason had turned out led to a permanent estrangement, except for the monthly checks Marcia sent on his behalf. He almost felt closer to his sperm donor, whoever the hell he had been.
“What about your parents?” he asked, because he wanted to know. Like joking, it wasn’t something he normally did. When was the last time he had wanted to know something about someone that wasn’t business related? He wasn’t sure.
“My parents? Oh, they’re alive. In Detroit. Still bragging to anyone who’ll listen that their baby girl went to Harvard. Still hoping I’ll get rich off it someday. Still destined to be perennially disappointed.”
Those blue eyes looked a little watery, alarming him, and she quickly brought the heel of her hands up to them and pressed hard. “Do you have any aspirin?”
“I don’t. I try to limit pain killers as much as possible to keep my brain clear.”
“You’re a real straight arrow, aren’t you, Mason? Other than that hitting on the new girl thing.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. And for the first time he was. Her distress at letting their play progress into full-blown, incredibly hot, not-to-be-forgotten sex made him regret how shamelessly he had wanted it. How willing he was to let the scotch or the natural chemistry they shared, biology, whatever, overcome what she clearly thought was a line that shouldn’t be crossed. “Listen, Camilla—”
The plane took a huge jolt from side to side, and he caught her automatically in his arms as she lurched forward. Bringing them both back to sit on his side of the plane, they looked to the cockpit door, which was still closed. Another lurch of the plane, though, and they both automatically turned to the window to see what was going on outside. They had flown above the storm wh
en they first took off, but it seemed as if it had caught up to them. It was dark, with no longer even a hint of sun, and the rain pelted against the wing of the plane in long, hard slashes. A flash or two of lightning followed by thunder made them jump.
“Was it doing this when we were having sex?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I wasn’t noticing anything but being inside you.”
“Such a romantic. First a proposal and now poetry.”
He smiled. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you?”
“I guess, but if you have to ask, I’m not doing it very well.”
He tugged her closer. “You’re doing it extremely well. I don’t even recognize it if other people do it.”
“Maybe nobody else ever has.”
“That’s possible,” he conceded.
The cockpit door opened with another sideways dive of the plane, and one of the pilots staggered out, holding on to a strap on the wall to keep upright. “We’re having some issues, Mr. Talbot,” he called out to them.
“What’s wrong?”
“The storm is rougher than we thought and caught up to us a lot faster than we anticipated, so it’s still at full strength,” he shouted over the sound of it. “The wind speed, the lack of visibility from the rain… We can’t fly in this much longer.”
“Should we turn back to New York?”
“No, we’d never make it. We’re too far out to try it by now. We’ll have to land.”
Camilla peered outside anxiously, but it was too dark to see anything below. “Land?” she squealed. “Where?”
“If we go sharply north,” he explained, again in a shout, “we’ll hit Nova Scotia. Halifax is our best bet, and we might just make it.”
“Might?” she said faintly to Mason.
Mason nodded at the pilot, though it wasn’t like they were asking him for his permission or anything. In this kind of situation, it certainly didn’t matter a whole lot who owned the plane.
“Strap yourselves in,” the pilot yelled, “and if we have to crash land, put your heads between your knees.”
“I was just thinking of doing that,” Mason said. The pilot made his way back to the cockpit. “But in a remarkably more enjoyable context.”
She looked at him, her lips thinned and her hands shaking as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind an ear. Her cream complexion had made it to paper white by now as the plane turned perceptibly left, and without a thought, he pulled her closer, securing her seatbelt as he did so and then seeing to his own.
Tempting the New Boss Page 6