Seduction in a Suit: An Office Romance Collection

by Monica Corwin

  She cringed when she heard her father’s worried voice. Why in the hell had Malcolm also pushed the speakerphone button? Sky should leave the men to talk and take a shower. Instead, she found herself listening to their conversation.

  “Oh, you finally decided to take pity on your father and answer the phone. Lucky for you because my next move was to book a flight to Buffalo. Buffalo, Sky, really? The only thing that city is known for are its wings. You can’t possibly prefer Buffalo wings to Maryland crabs.”

  “Actually, I do. I like classic Buffalo wings without the extras. Crunchy and well sauced. Maryland crab soup is okay, if you like mixing meat and vegetables into one meal.”

  Her father didn’t even like crabs, but he would take offense to Malcolm’s playful banter. No one loved their state more than Robert.

  “I’ll have you know, Maryland crab soup is a hearty meal, a perfect blend of seasonings.”

  “Seasonings? What spices are in that soup other than Old Bay?”

  Sky peeked her head from under the comforter, looking up at Malcolm. The man still wore a smile plastered on his face, while she was sure her father was frowning on the other end of the line.

  “It’s nine in the evening, and you answered my daughter’s phone. I assume you’re the man she refuses to tell me about. Are you the reason she hasn’t spoken to me in two weeks?”

  “My name is Malcolm Styles, and I’m pretty sure you’re the reason she hasn’t spoken to me in two weeks.”

  He did not just say that. Sky sat up in bed and reached for the phone, but Malcolm batted her hand away.

  “You’re in her apartment, and she allowed you to answer her phone, knowing it was her father calling, I’d say those two weeks of silent treatment didn’t put a dent in your relationship with Sky. Care to reveal your secret to getting around my daughter’s wall and into her heart?”

  Malcolm’s eyes, dark with lust, scanned Sky’s face before lowering to nipples that hardened under his lascivious gaze.

  “You’ll have to figure out your own strategy, Mr. Ellis. It’s nice to finally meet you, by the way.”

  “It’s good to meet you, too, Mr. Styles. Where’s my daughter?”

  “Right here. How are you feeling, Robert?”

  “Better now that I’ve heard your voice and met your young man. We need to talk about the last two weeks.”

  “I know. I promise to call you tomorrow.”

  “There’s something I’ve wanted to speak with you about. Since Malcolm is there with you, I’d like to extend my invitation to you both.”

  Sky was already shaking her head at Malcolm, who was nodding at her, his smile even larger.

  “Listen, I was hoping you’d come for a visit. I know you’re busy with the new job and probably don’t have much time accrued to take off. But, with winter break in a few months, I thought you’d like to spend part of your time off with me. We’ve never spent Christmas together. I’d like to think it isn’t too late to share that holiday with my youngest daughter. Don’t answer now. If you do, you’ll reject the invitation on principle alone. Mull it over. December is months away, which gives me more time to chip away at your walls and wiggle my way into your good graces. Are you still there, Malcolm?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you love my daughter?”

  Sky reached for the phone again, but Malcolm’s long, strong arm kept her at bay.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Great. That makes me happier than you could possibly know. I would love to meet you face-to-face. No pressure, for either of you. Just give my invitation serious thought.”

  “We will.”

  Robert laughed. “Take it from an old man, Malcolm, never answer for an independent-minded woman unless you’re one hundred percent certain she agrees with you. The fact that you’re still breathing and I’m not listening to a dial tone tells me all I need to know about Sky’s feelings for you. That makes me want to meet you even more. Sky…?”

  “Yes?”

  “Christmas in Annapolis with your Ellis family.”

  “What do you mean by Ellis family?” This time, when Sky grabbed for the phone, Malcolm gave it to her. “What do you mean?”

  “Your Ellis family.”

  “I don’t have an Ellis family.”

  “You do, and it’s past time you joined it. I would like all my children here for the holiday. I know it’s my fault that never happened. Apologies never worked on you so I won’t offer another one. Just know, I want you with us. You’re no less important in my heart than your siblings. For good reason, I’m sure don’t believe me, but it’s true.”

  “I can’t do that. I can’t…” Sky dropped the phone, overcome with emotion. Thirty-five years too late. No longer a little girl crying for daddy and his love, Sky couldn’t reconcile her unwanted need for familial acceptance and her self-preservation instinct. She couldn’t allow Robert to draw her into his web of lies and hope.

  Malcolm picked up the phone with one hand and hugged her to him with the other.

  “You’ve laid a lot on Sky tonight.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m not sure if you really do, but it’s not my place to get into that with you. But know this, wherever Sky decides to spend Christmas that’s where I’ll be.”

  “Fair enough. I hope to see you both in December. Goodnight.”

  Sky curled in on herself, listening as Malcolm returned the phone to the base.

  “Don’t shut down on me again.”

  “I’m trying not to.” Malcolm’s warm, comforting body spooned hers, his right arm around her waist and his lips pressed to her shoulder. “I don’t want to push you away again. You didn’t deserve it, and I had no right to punish you for issues I should’ve resolved years ago. I’m sorry.”

  “I hated it, but I now understand why you asked for distance. I don’t mind giving you space. I just need to know when I do you’ll always come back to me. I don’t want to wonder if I lost you because I don’t know what’s going on in your head.”

  “You won’t lose me.” Sky shifted onto her back to look up at Malcolm. “You won’t lose me.”

  He didn’t smile the way she hoped he would. Malcolm stared down at her, expression serious and heart in his eyes. Unlike Sky, who hid her emotions behind silences and professionalism, Malcolm wore his like a crown of gold.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t lose what I don’t fully have. I have bits and pieces of you. Probably more of Sky Ellis than you’ve given to any other man you’ve dated, which I appreciate. But there’s more of you, and that’s the woman I want to marry. The entire Sky.”

  Closing her eyes, Sky sucked in a deep breath and then opened them again. As she knew they would, Malcolm’s eyes were still on her, steadfast and earnest.

  “I won’t ask until you’re ready.”

  “How will you know when I am?” What if I’m never ready? Will you stay or leave?

  “I’ll know. Styles men always do. So, about your father’s Christmas invitation. What do you want to do? Annapolis with the Ellis’s or Buffalo with the Styles’?”

  Sky groaned. “December is four months from now.”

  “Which only means you have four months to brood about a decision you could make today or tomorrow.”

  “You’re pushing again.”

  “I know. It’s a bad habit, when it comes to you. What about birth control pills?”

  “What? You’re giving me whiplash. We weren’t talking about birth control pills.”

  Malcolm’s hand slid under her nightgown and up to a breast. A finger began to play with her nipple, and lips lowered to her neck, kissing and licking.

  Sky squirmed against him, her legs opening to accept his thick, strong thigh between them.

  “We’re spending a fortune on condoms. We’re both disease-free.” Thigh pressed into her mound, a hard friction that had Sky rutting against him. If he kept that up, she’d come. “If you were on the pill, I would slip inside you rig
ht now. Tease you with the head of my dick, shallow thrusts before giving you every hard inch of me.”

  Malcolm put action to words. Kind of. On his hands and knees and between her legs, Malcolm glided his wonderfully stiff dick between her lips and over her clit.

  “Shit, Malcolm”

  “Feels good, doesn’t it? My skin against yours. Nothing between us but love and lust.” Leaning down, Malcolm’s hips pressed even more into hers, increasing the friction they produced. “Tear down another wall for me. Trust me with your heart and your body.”

  Sky had never had sex with a man without making sure he wore a condom. Twice already, with Malcolm, she’d broken her rule, if only for a couple of minutes. He was pushing again, and not in the way she enjoyed.

  Holding his face between her hands, Sky kissed him as she rode out the pleasure of his body taking hers to another orgasm. Her clit enlarged, sensitive, and pulsing with stomach-clenching desire and release.

  She reached down and between their bodies, taking hold of Malcolm’s erection. He rolled onto his back, and Sky went with him, her hand still wrapped around his magnificent length.

  “You want too much. Ask for too much, and push too damn hard.”

  Malcolm thrust into her hand, a devilish grin his response. Then he closed his eyes, tucked his hands behind his head and luxuriated in Sky’s hand job. She mixed up pressure and speed, guided by Malcolm’s moans and breathing.

  Her left hand moved between his thighs and to his perineum, her pointer and middle fingers gently massaging the sensitive stretch of skin. Knees fell to the sides, hands gripped sheets, and Malcolm was on fire, coming with bear grunts and a lion’s roar.

  Pleased with herself, Sky rolled out of bed and went to the bathroom. Five minutes later, Malcolm joined her in the shower. Twenty minutes after that, they were back in her bed, lights off, and wrapped around each other. The emotional weight of the day had Sky’s eyelids closing, head resting on Malcolm’s solid chest and hand over his heart.

  “What am I going to do with my cloudy Sky?”

  Love me and never let me go. “Have faith in me. In us.”

  “I do because behind every dark cloud is a rainbow.”

  “Now I’m a dark cloud.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  She did.

  “Angie and Sean’s marriage is a dark cloud, right now. Stormy with rain, thunder, and lightning. It wasn’t always like that. But life isn’t perpetual sunshine and rainbows, and neither are relationships. To appreciate our good fortune and the blessings we sometimes take for granted, we have to also experience cloudy days and chilly nights.”

  “That was a lot of sky and weather references.”

  Malcolm chuckled. “Yeah, I know, and I wasn’t even going for them.” Arms held her tighter and lips found her forehead and kissed. “I hope Angie and Sean can rediscover their rainbow.”

  “That kind of betrayal won’t be easy to get past.”

  “I know. But, like you said, faith. They both have to want to get to the other side of hurt, anger, and guilt.”

  “You’re also talking about Robert and me, aren’t you?”

  “You’re a smart woman, and I’m a romantic man who believes in an arrow-shooting Cupid, Santeria love spells, and pixie dust of protection and enchantment. As I told you once before the celestial sphere, a dome under which the sun, moon, and stars dance and sing in cosmic harmony, is an astrological phenomenon eclipsed only by the limitations of our vision and the gravity of our fears.”

  Vision and fears. Malcolm’s vision. Sky’s fears.

  Point taken.

  “You really want to spend Christmas in Annapolis with the Ellis’s?”

  “No. I’d like to spend Christmas in my house with you. What I want, however, is for you to cast off the shackles of the past and step into the future with me as an emancipated woman. If it takes going to Maryland and meeting your father and siblings to make that happen, then I’m all in.”

  All in. Their relationship had turned out to be much more than a shallow office romance.

  Sky hadn’t decided whether she would spend her Christmas with Robert and his family. But she liked the idea of taking Malcolm home and showing him where she grew up and her favorite places, much of what he’d done for her in Buffalo.

  “I love you, Malcolm. You’re my best birthday, Christmas, and Valentine’s presents rolled into one tasty Tootsie Roll.”

  “A Tootsie Roll? You do know that candy is neither chocolate nor a taffy. I do like that it also comes in a lollipop you put in your mouth and suck until you find the chewy center. Please don’t tell me that was another one of your attempts at being romantic.”

  “Fine, I won’t.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me?” Malcolm pushed to his elbows, displacing Sky from his chest. “Comparing an African American man to a fake piece of chocolate candy is not romantic.”

  “So, if I bought you chocolate candy for Valentine’s Day, you wouldn’t eat it?”

  “Hell, yes, I’d eat it. Chocolate is delicious, and I have a sweet tooth. But that’s not the point.”

  “If you’d eat the box of chocolates I’ll get you, by the way, I fail to see your point. And we’re not having an African American Studies debate about the appropriateness of me referring to you as chocolate candy. If you knew how many times I’ve thought of you as—”

  Sky slammed her mouth shut.

  “As what?”

  “Nothing, let’s go to sleep. I’m exhausted and, thanks to you, I didn’t get any school work done this evening.”

  “You’re going to tell me.”

  Sky pulled the comforter up to her shoulders and closed her eyes. “I can feel you glaring at me, go to sleep.”

  The bed shifted, and then Malcolm had Sky in his arms, her head back on his chest and her hand over his heart.

  “Hot as jalapeno peppers? Thick as cucumbers? Sweet as cinnamon-sugar popcorn? Filling as three-bean soup? Tell me.”

  “I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  “No, you won’t. You’re going to send me one of your ridiculous emojis, aren’t you? Probably a weird avocado one I’ve seen all over social media lately.” Malcolm swatted her bottom. “On second thought, send me one that’s cut in half.”

  What in the hell was an avocado emoji? “Cut in half? Why?” An image popped into her mind of a sliced avocado. “You’re terrible. I’m not sending you that.”

  “What about a red-hot chili pepper or grapefruit?”

  “No.”

  “You’re no fun.”

  “I’m plenty of fun. I’m just not going to send you an emoji that looks like a vagina or penis. Even I know that’s not romantic.”

  “It doesn’t have to be romantic. I’d love it because it came from you. I’m tired.”

  “You should be. And thirsty, for as much as you talk.”

  “I’ll make you pay for that tomorrow. Right now, I just want to hold you while I sleep.”

  Being in his embrace was a perfect way to end Sky’s day and her two-week Malcolm drought.

  “Goodnight, sweetie.”

  “You’re getting better at that. I love the way the endearment flows effortlessly from your mouth now. It makes a man feel all warm and gooey inside like a caramel-filled brownie.”

  “That was terrible, and you’re an unrepentant sap.”

  “I am. Goodnight.”

  Sky closed her eyes, relaxed, and began to drift off to sleep. Somewhere, in the murky space between sleep and consciousness, she heard Malcolm mumble, “Move in with me.”

  Sky’s eyes popped open.

  The End

  Want more of Sky and Malcolm’s love story? Stay tuned for book 2 in The Styles of Romance Trilogy, The Wish of Xmas Present. The Christmas romance will release in Dec. 2018, followed by Angie and Sean’s story, The Gift of Second Chances, in Feb. 2019.

  About the Author

  N. D. Jones is a USA Today Bestselling author who lives in Ma
ryland with her husband and two children. Having earned an M.A. in Political Science, she is a dedicated educator. She taught high school social studies and served as chair of the social studies department. Currently, she is a professional development teacher specialist with a local Maryland school system, working on increasing student achievement through teacher and administrator efficacy. She is a lifelong learner, pursuing her doctorate in Community College Leadership.

  A desire to see more novels with positive, sexy, and three-dimensional African American characters as soul mates, friends, and lovers, inspired the author to take on the challenge of penning such romantic reads. She is the author of two paranormal romance series: Winged Warriors and Death and Destiny. She's also embarked on a science fiction romance series, Forever Yours. N.D. likes to read historical and paranormal romance novels, as well as comics and manga.

  Read More from N.D. Jones

  https://www.ndjonesparanormalpleasure.com/

  Bound to the Boss

  A kink.club.com novella

  Holly Ryan

  Bound to the Boss © February 2018 Holly Ryan

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