by Christa Wick
I saw nothing but honesty in his eyes and felt as much relief as I did confusion. The man was such a contradiction. Usually, he was too intense for me to think properly around. Seeing these new glimpses of the sides I’ve never seen before was simply throwing me for an even bigger loop.
And before I could find my bearings, he swept the ground out from under me yet again.
“You’ll be taking over Janice’s duties,” he informed me matter-of-factly. “As my new senior executive secretary, you’ll need a much nicer wardrobe. This is simply an advance on the salary that will be accompanying your new title."
Incredulous, I turned my head to look at him, our lips almost touching from how closely he stood next to me. His gaze dropped to my mouth, his eyelids lowering until they were almost shut. Mesmerized at how the slow, deep breaths he took whispered across my lips, I forced myself not to lean closer, not to bridge that small distance with an offering of my own.
"Are you seriously asking me to continue to work for you?"
Collin’s eyes narrowed, slow and deliberate. “I’m not asking.”
He lowered his hand and wrapped my fingers around the envelope. "You'll run the office and travel with me on the same trips Janice would have attended."
I studied him carefully. “Does this mean you believe me? That you trust me?”
Sidestepping my question with a scowl, he reached for my opposite hip and turned my body until we stood face to face. "I haven’t decided yet. So let me be clear, Mia. If you were lying to me, you better take this and run." He closed the space between us and kept on pressing forward until he had my back against the door. With his big hands holding my face captive, he leaned in to whisper roughly in my ear. "And if you run, know that there's no place on earth I won't find you."
With that, he released me, his hand dipping briefly into his pocket to press the door's remote as he silently walked away.
4
Collin
"You should have fired them both," Trent complained heatedly from where he sprawled on the couch in my office.
The arrogance he displayed in questioning my judgment irritated me, but since he was also sitting in the exact spot where I had brought Mia to a trembling climax, I found myself more amused than annoyed by his presence.
"Fire two executive secretaries on the same day? Hell, in the same quarter?" I countered. "How would that look inhouse? We’d never be able to contain the talk, and then it’d eventually leak, which would make it even more impossible to contain."
With only a grunt to acknowledge my point, Trent shifted gears and asked instead, “Why the hell are you going easy on them? Neither of them deserve it. Janice clearly chose her grandson over the company, and Mia, hell, she’s a liar you couldn’t break. They’re both a liability.”
“People do fucked up things for family,” I reasoned. “Just because her grandson is a bad seed doesn’t mean I’m going to punish her unreasonably.”
Trent snorted. "A bad seed? The guy has a felony record, a spiraling drug habit, and dealers he owes money to as he continues to break the law left and right, according to our intel. What the hell would our clients say if they knew one of our employees decided it was okay to let a known criminal live in her spare bedroom? A fact she failed to mention to us, I might add." He glared at me. “That seems to be going on a lot around your secretarial pool.”
Ignoring the latter comment, I swiped through the updated file Trent had sent me on Mia and proceeded to piss him off even more. "Speaking of her grandson. Go ahead and put a protection team on Janice asap."
His lips parted in a fresh protest, but I froze him with a look. It was clear we weren’t going to see eye to eye on either Janice or Mia and frankly I could care less. Her recent familial complications aside, Janice has always been loyal and hard working. Dismissing her with the dignity of an early retirement was what that earned her in my book.
The generous severance and security detail was more because I’d actually genuinely liked the woman, and wanted to make sure she’d be okay when her grandson inevitably ended up in prison again. Or worse.
"Do you have anything of operational value to tell me or are you just here to waste my time?" I asked him when he began pacing and muttering under his breath.
Hearing my don’t-fuck-with-me tone, Trent finally remembered his place and calmed the hell down, making his first sound statement of the day. "Make James waive any financial confidentiality so I can do a deeper dive into Mia’s history. With a master's from a top school, she has to have bigger student loans than she let on. Which means there’s probably more she’s been hiding.”
"I’ll think about it,” I replied. Not because I thought he wasn’t going to find anything, but rather, because I was fairly certain he would. Who knew where Mia’s lies started and ended? Given her life to this point, to be honest, I couldn’t really fault her.
Trent’s file on Mia had been thorough, and tough to be read. Born and raised in North Carolina, her father had died before her fourth birthday. Her mother had remarried a few years later—to a jackass with some priors I made a mental note to dig into more later—before tragically dying a few weeks after Mia graduated high school.
Her plans to attend Duke University had thus been abandoned in favor of two years at community college out of financial necessity. She then moved out of the state without any support system whatsoever by the looks of things, seeing as how she’d apparently been estranged from her asshole stepfather since her mother’s death.
Hell, it was hard not to admire how far she’d managed to go given what she went through.
And evidently, Trent was picking up on that admiration.
Unsurprisingly, he went right in for the kill.
"Some sizable opportunities in the Middle East,” he said then, casual as can be.
It was obvious to me now that he’d been intentionally trying to weaken me with the attack on my handling of Mia and Janice so that I would be a softer target for this particular conversation.
"Our operational expertise is Eastern Europe and Latin America," I responded matter-of-factly, putting the tablet aside to strum my fingers against the desk. Catching the tell, I slowed, then stopped the strumming altogether.
But not before Trent noticed, of course.
"Oh, we have plenty of expertise on the Middle East," Trent said. His head tilted to the side for a few long seconds, almost as if he were genuinely contemplating what he was about to say for the first time.
I knew better. Among all the Special Operations Command soldiers I had worked with, he was the only one who could soak up the expertise of those around him. He had certainly figured out all the mental games I once played as an interrogator.
"There's a conference in Dubai," he began. "It's supposed to be about green energy, but that's just code for building nuclear reactors. You could send me to feel things out."
I shook my head. "No one is going."
Trent shifted from the soft sell to the battering ram approach. "You read Henley's Red Sea Coalition notes, yeah? Bahrain, Saudis, Israel, Russia…there are a lot of people drawing up new maps. And don't remind me that we have enemies in the Middle East. We have them everywhere. You want some Russian cutout company like BlackTide accounting for the spent uranium coming out of those reactors? Just imagine the next proxy war we get into against them."
He finished with his fingers mushrooming outward like a nuclear bomb exploding.
"When?" I asked.
"I'll need to catch a plane out this Sunday."
"I'll give you my decision by end of day," I told him, my fingers back to strumming against the desk despite my best attempt to stop them.
5
Mia
Heart pounding almost out of control, I looked for the third time between the notecard in my shaking hand and the black silk box on my bed. The package had arrived ten minutes earlier by a private courier in a dark blue van that bore no identifying mark beyond its license plate.
Not done que
stioning you.
I didn't need a signature to know the message was from Collin.
Letting the card fall onto the bedspread, I reached into the box and fingered the surface layer of fabric. Breathtaking even to the touch, the top outfit had been cut from a pale gold silk chiffon. I lifted it from the box and walked to the mirror. It looked like something a queen would wear on her honeymoon, rather than the frumpy, oversized junior secretary to the CEO of Stark International.
Senior secretary, I mentally corrected. News of Janice’s early retirement and my promotion was already circulating the company. It was all official now.
Trying to forget the events of the last week and my sexual capitulation in Stark's office, I held the fabric against my jeans and sweatshirt. I shook my head, my ash-brown hair softly rustling against the thick fleece of my top.
I couldn't imagine stuffing my body into the delicate material. Almost floor length, the dressing gown hooked in the front where a drawstring ran just beneath the breast line to ensure the soft, malleable flesh contained would be held upright. Amber-colored crystals flowed like butterfly wings above and below the drawstring, the cut of the gown such that the panels didn't join to conceal the flesh beneath. More revealing, the semi-sheer fabric would expose the darker coloring of my nipples.
Numb, I slowly returned to the bed and mechanically removed the matching thong underwear from the box, the gold sharply defined against the short, black lace robe placed beneath it. I removed the remaining outfits one by one and placed them on the bed. Half-shelf bras and matching panties, corsets and, beneath everything, four pairs of high heeled shoes, each a perfect match to one of the ensembles within the box.
Overwhelmed, I sank to the floor.
Two partially packed suitcases crowded the area next to me. I had spent the day preparing for a flight to Dubai, my first business trip with Collin. The plane departed Sunday. He had given me packing orders after Janice's retirement party on Friday.
That short notice had followed three long days of being every bit as invisible to Stark as I had been the first six months working within his company. Even during the moments we were completely alone in his office, he had remained a blank sheet of steel. A dozen plus times his dark blue eyes had met mine, no heat or emotion evident in their mysterious depths. Every accidental brush of flesh had been just that—accidental.
Now this delivery!
I lightly bounced the back of my skull against the silk box, every last item in it meant for the bedroom and designed to be quickly stripped from the wearer's body. All this from a man who had shown no interest in me before or after that one single incident.
Growling, I pushed up from the floor and headed into the kitchen. I dropped a tea bag in a mug of water, set the cook time on the microwave and slipped into the bathroom. Turning on the tub's faucet, I let the water heat before closing the drain and squirting in some bath foam.
As the tub filled, I finished making my tea then stripped and slid into the hot, hot water.
Hell, yes, just the thing I needed.
Easing further into the water, I closed my eyes. Beneath the covering of foam, my hands roamed my thick body. Camouflaged by bubbles and nearly weightless in the deep tub, I could pretend Collin truly found me desirable and wasn't instead playing some Machiavellian game to expose me as a spy.
I snorted at the concept. Didn't Stark know—real spies don't have curves, at least not the kind I came equipped with.
Holding my breath, I sank below the water line. Air bubbled through my heavy, dark curls until my hair rested against the porcelain bottom. Naked, warm and relaxed, with a bed covered in lingerie, I couldn't avoid dwelling on how Stark had taken me in his office.
I folded my hands atop my mound, my fingers surreptitiously parting my labia in search of my clit. I slipped a finger lower, the tip invading my pussy. How many times had Stark filled that wet, swollen hole?
In the corner with his fingers.
Again on the couch between the rough smacks to my ass.
Finally, with my chest flat against his desk, his cock taking me from behind, the shaft and head so big they stretched me until I was lost in a delirium that fluctuated between pain and pleasure.
Gasping for air, I broke the surface of water and bubbles, my body twitching from the orgasm my fingers and memories had quickly ripped from my body.
Trembling, I opened the drain and concentrated on the sudden vortex of water and bubbles created by the act. My emotions swirled with them, spinning more slowly at the top of the inverted cone, accelerating as they narrowed to the wild, dancing pulse of my clit.
Short, measured bursts of sound polluted the air as I fought to avoid hyperventilating. I shook my head, wet hair slapping my flesh in a punishing self-flagellation that did nothing to calm my frenzied body or mind.
In a little more than twelve hours, I would be trapped on a plane for Dubai with a man who had mastered my body in a single encounter without surrendering even a gram of his soul.
I was screwed—badly—and there wasn't anything I could—or wanted—to do to escape.
Collin's interrogation began as soon as I stepped onto his private jet. He directed a member of the cabin crew to place my bags on the long meeting table that divided the cabin and leave. Once we were alone, he unzipped the bags and began to explore their contents.
"What are you doing?" The relief I had felt on learning that no one at the airport would paw through the revealing clothes inside the luggage evaporated as he fingered the gold chiffon robe. When he didn't answer or stop his search, I folded my arms across my breasts and glared at him. "I read through the list of prohibited items three times, there won't be any issue with the Dubai customs."
His gaze lifted at my challenge, a cold blue fire shimmering at the surface. "I have my own security concerns, Mia."
I rolled my lips, closed my eyes. How the hell would I successfully deflect his advances if I couldn't manage my own temper—or any of my other passions. I licked my lips, trying to cool the heat that had erupted at the way he touched the edge of the robe.
"Don't lick those luscious lips unless you're ready to suck my cock."
My eyes flew open. My gaze jerked from Stark to the door the crew member had disappeared behind. Turning abruptly, I took a seat on the dark red couch that lined the curved wall of the plane, my arms protectively wrapped around my chest and shoulders and my legs tightly crossed.
A few more minutes passed as Stark searched my bags then paged a steward to stow them. Taking a seat beside me, he opened his briefcase and ordered an espresso.
"Miss James?" the steward asked after a few seconds of silence.
I looked up and realized he was waiting for my drink request. Really, I wanted a very large shot of Scotch or something equally numbing. Maybe an entire cask of the dark, burning liquid to take my mind off my pussy and the man sitting beside me.
"Water, please."
I waited for the steward to depart then scooted to my left, away from Stark.
His hand came down on my thigh, the soft dig of his fingers silently directing my return. The instant I complied, he removed his hand and resumed studying the papers he had pulled from his briefcase.
I rolled my eyes, the gesture unnoticed. Stark didn't actually want me next to him, he just wanted to make me uncomfortable. His entire plan started with the delivery of the clothes yesterday and their examination just a few seconds before. He intended me to twist internally at the end of a very long rope of my own making as he continued to ignore me for the duration of the flight.
Fine. I had passed a long night without sleep. He could play his game. I would nap.
Or at least try.
With my eyes shut, I heard papers shuffling in Stark's hands, the sound of coffee beans grinding and the jet's engines as the pilot prepared to taxi. The steward returned with the water and espresso, the plane beginning to move.
Finding Stark absorbed in his papers, the steward smiled brightly at me. "We're th
ird for take off. Will there be anything else before we're in air?"
Stark answered with a distracted "no." I shook my head, unnerved by the certainty that the young man would disappear for the next twenty minutes or more, leaving me alone with the ruthless enigma beside me.
Sipping my water to keep the glass from shaking, I watched the steward go. As soon as the cabin door closed, Stark removed the drink from my hand and placed it in the cup holder on the shelf behind the couch.
"Remove your panties."
My breathing stopped, the blood thickening inside my veins. I looked at the door through which the steward had just departed.
"The crew follows a strict protocol on my flights, Mia. As will you."
I rolled my lips between my teeth, trying to work up the will to protest. I wasn't ready to outmaneuver him. Granted, I might never be ready to accomplish such a task, but a few extra minutes or hours of stalling would be a cooling balm to my fractured will.
"I only issue fully considered orders." Collin dropped the papers onto the cushion next to him, his voice roughening. "Disobedience is the one luxury I won't give you. Remove the panties, now."
Lungs restarted, my chest began to quickly lift and fall as the chemicals of a fresh panic pumped through me. I hurried to obey as his hand moved toward my knee. I did not want him tearing the panties from me in a repeat of the scene in his office. I might not get a fresh pair before we had to clear customs.
Gripping the sides, I started to push the underwear down my hips. Feeling the bottom panel of material stick to my wet flesh, I blushed. Even his brusque indifference wasn't enough to temper my arousal. Closing my eyes, I pushed the fabric over my knees and down my calves, blindly lifting my legs.
Holding the fabric away from me, my hands shook. I couldn't leave the underwear out on display and my bags had been removed from the cabin.