And the heat between her legs only intensified when Garrett shifted next to her.
Garrett would be the type to tease and tease until a woman could not handle the torture any longer. He would play kinky games in bed, power games meant to thrill and entice until his lover’s inhibitions all but melted away with every orgasm he gave her. Then, finally, he would really get to work.
The silence seemed interminably long until Dalton finally pushed her proposal to the corner of his desk. “Why did you come to us, Miss Spencer?”
“Wh–what do you mean?” Damn. She knew, just knew, he would ask that question to test her, but for some reason, she could not come up with anything other than the stupid fluttering of her eyelashes—her reaction to anything that momentarily floored her.
“Why Ellis Enterprises? There are four other multinational corporations in Male Order. Why us?”
“I’m visiting other companies around Male Order, but I wanted to come here first because of your well-known generosity in support of youth programs.”
He seemed to ruminate on her words for a moment, then looked at his brother. “You’re sure that’s all.”
“If you’re insinuating that I worked some sort of feminine wile magic while your brother ran in circles inside a fountain, you can rest assured that I did nothing of the sort. It was your brother who did all the finagling. And besides, I already made it clear that I had no idea who he was until we met again in this very office.”
Dalton, who was obviously a master at keeping his features schooled, actually smiled. His smile transformed his face, and for a moment, she saw the shock that registered on his face when he did.
“I’m sure he did,” Dalton agreed. “That sounds exactly right.”
“I don’t know why you think that’s so funny, Dalton,” Garrett said.
“Because that’s how you are, little brother.”
Garrett shook his head in denial. “Whatever.”
* * * *
Just one tug. Just one tug on the bow of her little “fuck me, please Mr. Big Bad Businessman” wrap-around dress and she’d be naked. She had a thong on. He saw the indentation on her oh-so-nicely rounded hips when he checked her ass out before Dalton, much to Garrett’s disappointment, pulled out a chair so she could sit down. Were her panties black? Lacey? Both? Maybe they were that see-through material he loved so much. She could keep those naughty Catholic school teacher heels on while he fucked her.
And there went his cock trying to claw its way out of his pants. Garrett shifted in his chair, adjusted his pants, and took her in from head to toe again while Dalton droned on about something.
Damn, but she was delectable, every softly rounded inch of her. He licked his chops and stared at the inches of bare flesh between her knee and the hem of her dress. He wanted to put his hands there and skim them up her thigh until he—
“Does that sound all right to you, Garrett?”
His head snapped up, and his gaze met Dalton’s. “I’m sorry. Run that by me again.”
Dalton gave him a look that said he would humor him in front of their very lovely company. For now. “I was just saying that there isn’t enough time to discuss the whole matter this morning. I was telling Miss Spencer that she should reschedule an appointment with us as soon as possible.”
Oh, he had just the perfect spot for their little meeting. “Sure. Sounds great. I’ll think of something.”
Dalton regarded Madeline for a moment, then looked back at him. “I’m sure you two can arrange something and fill me in on the details.”
Garrett felt his grin growing on his face, and he tried his best to hide it from Madeline. His big brother was cooking up a plan, and Garrett planned on going along with it. Damn, this felt good. He and Dalton had not played this game in a while. He really missed this. Garrett looked at Madeline and knew he would do almost anything to get his hands on her.
“I’m sure we can arrange something.”
Madeline gave him a wide-eyed look and shook her head as though trying to rid herself of something. He hoped it was errant thoughts of him and his brother. “Why don’t we just arrange it for the same time tomorrow or the next day?”
Garrett gave her a shit-eating grin. “Sorry. Can’t. We’re booked for meetings all week.”
“Are you?” She sat up straighter in the chair. “Well, what about next week?”
“I’d rather just get all of the logistics out of the way in our meeting as quickly as possible,” Dalton said. “Besides, we’d like to keep this under wraps until we finalize everything, and meeting somewhere a little more private would be best. Don’t you think?” Dalton’s gaze held fast to Madeline’s face, and Garrett swore he saw her squirm.
“I…” She swallowed, and Garrett trained his eyes on her delicate throat, wishing he could run his lips along her jaw.
Someone knocked on the door, and the sound cut off her response. He turned to see Vincent Pierce standing at the door and gave a mental sigh. Vincent had the worst timing of anyone Garrett had ever met.
“I’m not interrupting anything with the lady, am I?” Vincent asked with a wink as he strode into the room. “Should we reschedule our meeting?”
Dalton shook his head. “No, it’s fine. We were just finishing here.”
Madeline’s gaze flicked between the two of them, and she shot to her feet. “I think it’s time for me to go. Thank you for your time, gentlemen. I can see our meeting has run a little long. I’ll be in touch with your secretary by tomorrow.”
Garrett homed in on her ass as she bent to pick up her huge bag. He shifted in his chair and admired the way her skirt stretched over her ass before she straightened to her full height, which was not much at all, even in her heels.
Damn. He did not have nearly enough time to fully admire her ass. Once he got her under him, he would teach her to stay bent over for his viewing pleasure until he teased himself with her beauty to the point where he could not stand it any longer.
“No, by all means, stay.” Vincent’s gaze swept up and down Madeline’s body, and Garrett wanted to punch the admiring smile off the man’s face. “I’m sure your company is well appreciated.”
Madeline’s brows furrowed, but she gave him a polite smile. “Thank you, Mr.—”
“Pierce,” Vincent supplied, offering his hand.
Garrett swore he would see red if Vincent tried to do the sleazy hand-kiss thing.
But Madeline was all gracious manners. She did not even cringe when Vincent took a step closer to her so that the tips of his shoes touched hers. She just moved her upper body away from him and gave a polite, albeit tight, smile. Thank God. If she looked the least bit uncomfortable, he would have stepped in.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Pierce, but I should get going since you all have a meeting to get started.” She stepped away and turned so quickly the hem of her skirt spun out.
Garrett stood and looked at Dalton. “I’ll escort her out.”
“You do that,” Dalton said dryly.
* * * *
Breathe, Maddie. Just breathe. Passing out from hyperventilation was not the first impression she wanted to make on the Ellis brothers. Holy crap, those men were beyond sexy. She almost did not want to stand up after that meeting for fear her arousal would be evident on the back of her skirt. Speaking of which…
She ran her hand along her fanny and checked for wet spots. Nope. Everything clear. Thank God. Everything seemed too bright, too intense. Her skin had never felt this sensitive.
Madeline clutched her bag tighter to her shoulder and thought of the way Dalton and Garrett moved with a measure of cold, detached reserve, as though always aware of the fact that they were not ordinary people. There was a certain self-assured swagger about their gait, about the way they swung their arms, and the way their shoulders rolled with their steps that made Madeline realize these were not just everyday businessmen hiding behind suits purchased at Macy’s. Those two were some of the biggest power players in the countr
y, maybe even the world. And they met with her personally. What in the hell could they want from her?
These men got everything they wanted. Nothing and no one said no. And if someone dared to, Dalton and Garrett Ellis would stop at nothing until they won. She saw it in the stubborn sets of their lips and chins, in the steady and shrewd quality of their eyes. They were ruthless and sharp—commanders of the corporate world. They bowed to no one.
She reached the elevator, pressed the down button, and took a step back. Right into a hard, defined chest. The low chuckle immediately told her whose body now pressed against hers. Who knew Garrett Ellis’s suit hid all of that under there?
He stepped around her and leaned a shoulder against the wall. He gave her a half-cocked smile, and his eyes were alight with something the hopeful side of her recognized as lust. She rubbed the tops of her thighs together.
He smiled down at her, and her nipples tightened. “You walked out of there without saying good-bye.”
“Well, how nice of you to escort me out, Mr. Ellis.” Her tone dripped with too much sweetness.
“My pleasure.” His smile widened.
She waited for him to turn away, but he stayed right where he was, making her hot with excitement and arousal. She was about to tell him that she was a big girl and could wait for the elevator all by herself when a tall, willowy strawberry blonde walked by, sending Garrett the most intensely sexual look Madeline had ever seen. But Garrett just gave the woman a generic smile and tilted his chin toward her.
“Oh,” Madeline breathed. She could tell by the way the blonde’s eyes lingered on Garrett knowingly that something had happened between the two, something carnal, something that made Madeline feel inexplicably envious. She stared at Garrett and felt the corners of her eyes tighten into a glare.
“What? A man’s gotta do who a man’s gotta do.”
Her brows shot up on her forehead. “I think you meant to say ‘what.’ A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
He grinned this time and shrugged. “Who, what. It’s all the same to me as long as it’s good.”
Madeline took in his loose tie and imagined it binding her wrists together as he put his tongue to her. Her pussy clenched with the need to be filled, and her clit pulsed with every throbbing rush of blood coursing through her body.
“You know, I should be going.” She forced herself to swallow, but her mouth and throat were suddenly parched. She pressed the down button again. And again.
“Where to?”
Away from you before I do something stupid. “I have a couple meetings this afternoon and later this week I need to prepare for.”
“Fair enough. Just don’t forget about our meeting tonight.”
“What meeting tonight? I thought we were planning on something in the near future.”
“Tonight’s almost as soon as possible as it gets. I don’t see any point in waiting any longer than that. We’ll meet at Hester’s Steakhouse. It’s where all the real business is done around here.”
She tried her best not to find his smug look sexy. “Real business, huh?” She angled her body to face him fully. She wanted him to back her into the elevator with his huge body, drape her legs over his forearms, and take her against the back wall. She wanted to watch her reflection in the elevator doors as he slammed into her until she quaked around him.
She met his eyes, and the corner of his mouth rose as if pulled by an invisible string. His body loomed larger over hers, and his heat scorched her through her dress.
“Meet us at eight. We’ll talk in detail about your proposal then.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “And you’re free so soon?”
He just shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, because you have your family’s corporation to run and all that.”
“Nah, Dalton and I have plenty of time.”
Madeline got the distinct impression he was humoring her. She lifted her chin and met him square in the eyes. Well, square in the chin. “Strictly business only, right? I know it might be rude of me to say this, but I’m on a really tight schedule and I have a lot of work to finish up tonight. I can’t afford to spend a lot of time having a long dinner.”
“I see.” He dipped his head so that his lips brushed against her ear. “You do realize that I am aware of the fact that all your bluster is to hide the fact that you’re ready for me right now. I can smell it on you.”
She jerked back and stumbled into the elevator doors as they cracked open. He looked like her personal devil incarnate. His body screamed sex, and his eyes promised heaven. God help her, he was right. Her body was so ready for him, her nipples so painfully hard that her bra rubbing against them sent sparks of tingling arousal straight to her pussy. She backed all the way into the elevator and pressed L to take her to the lobby.
“So eight’s good for you, then?” Garrett stood directly opposite her, the expression on his face one of pure male smugness.
That bastard.
Madeline straightened her spine and set her shoulders. “Eight-thirty.”
He grinned. “My pleasure.”
* * * *
Dalton sat with his hands folded into fists on his desk and waited for Garrett to return. He couldn’t stand the way Vincent looked at Madeline even though he barely knew her. He could already tell this meeting would likely not go well. He wanted to get this over with.
Vincent slouched in his seat and fiddled with his tie, his dark eyes shifting from one corner of the room to the next. The man looked like hell. Something about him made Dalton’s skin crawl, but for whatever reason, their fathers had hired Vincent before they died. In fact, it was stipulated in their will that he would take over Ellis Eco-Energy.
Garrett finally sauntered in, closing the door behind him, but with a ridiculous smile on his face, not the look one should have during this kind of business meeting. He came up behind Vincent and squeezed his shoulders, which made Vincent flinch and look even more uncomfortable than before.
Leaning in, Garrett said, “Why so tense, Vincent?” He smiled as he stood and took a seat off to the side, just behind Vincent’s line of sight. His brother loved to unnerve people they had meetings with. Whereas Dalton liked to simply get things over with quickly, like ripping a Band-Aid off, Garrett liked to draw it out. It was like a game to him, and he was a cat batting around its prey before gobbling it up, bite by bite.
“All right, let’s get started.” Dalton flipped open the file on his desk, revealing the quarterly earnings report of all the various companies and subsidiaries that made up Ellis Enterprises. All the lines on each graph continued their upward trend of profitability, except for one. “So, Vincent. Our fathers put you in charge of Ellis Eco-Energy, for what reason I have no idea, and after heading it for about a year, it’s become clear that you are running it into the ground.” He slapped the spreadsheet down on his desk in front of Vincent. After pausing a moment too long, Vincent finally leaned forward and picked it up like a dirty tissue.
He barely glanced at it before answering. “And?” Dalton wanted to just punch the smug look off his face. He could hardly stand this insufferable asshole. He took a breath, knowing how easily another asinine comment or look could set him off.
“And? And out of all our companies, yours is the one that should be having no trouble turning a profit. Green energy has the largest growth potential in the energy market right now, and wind farming is at the forefront of the trend. Doing well should have been a breeze.”
“Pardon the pun,” Garrett interjected as he got up and headed toward the bar. Dalton glanced at his watch as he heard the sound of ice hitting a crystal highball glass. Not even five minutes had passed, and his brother was already bored with their meeting.
Great. Dalton rolled his eyes and sat forward in his chair, casting his hard gaze on Vincent as he waited with all the patience he could muster for the man to respond.
“These numbers don’t mean anything. We�
��re doing just fine—”
“No, Vincent, these numbers mean everything. This is business we’re talking about here. Cut and dried, black and white. Either you’re making money or you’re not. And you’re not. In fact,” Dalton flipped through the file, looking for another spreadsheet, “your company is damn near hemorrhaging money. Everything is running grossly over-budget—”
“It’ll be fine. Once we get the wind farm up outside of Male Order—”
“That project should have been completed six months ago, and now it seems to have at least six more months to go. We could have had the largest wind farm in the world, but now that title goes to the farm in Roscoe. I wanted Ellis Enterprises at the top of the clean energy heap, but do you know how far behind we are? How is it that I know more about your company than you do? It’s ridiculous. You don’t get to the top to micromanage and babysit, but that’s what I have to do with you.”
Vincent cringed at the last sentence, and a darkness swept across his gaze. “You mean how you and your brother worked your way to the top? Inherited from Daddy. Or should I say Daddies?”
Dalton cracked his knuckles before standing and leaning over his desk with a finger pointed at Vincent. “Listen here, if you paid any attention at all, you’d know that my brother—”
“To a lesser degree,” Garrett interjected.
Dalton chose to ignore him and continue.
“—and I have worked our asses off at this company. We’re the ones who started Ellis Eco-Energy before our fathers passed away and forced us up the ladder, putting you in charge there. That company was running just fine until you got your hands on it. I don’t know what you’re up to, but believe me, I will find out, and if there is anything amiss, get ready to have your ass handed to you on a platter.”
Vincent’s entire body stiffened, and he gripped the armrests of his chair until his knuckles turned to a ghostly white variegated with the red and blue streaks of his constricted blood vessels. He looked like he was about ready to pounce, and he just might have if Garrett hadn’t picked that exact moment to plop a glass of scotch in Vincent’s hands.
Mitchell, Ava and Holiday, Sydney - A Bride for Two Tycoons [Male Order, Texas 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 5