And then she was out the door and into the lion’s den.
Chapter Six
The reason for Michael to even have an office in Houston was to do some actual work there. Not stare out the window on to the loop. A new acquisition always needed the most attention from Reynolds Industries at the beginning.
Kind of like a new mistress.
Unfortunately, he had been neglecting one for the other. He’d barely been able to make it out of bed since Vanny accepted his offer. Almost out of principle, he’d dragged himself into the office before they flew back to New York this afternoon. But he’d spent all morning counting the minutes until she showed up here and they could go. Not that he was so anxious to get to New York. He wasn’t. He knew what he was anxious for. Her.
She’d been with him almost constantly for nearly a week and he was waiting to tire of her company. Mysteriously, he hadn’t yet. They’d done none of the things he usually did with a new mistress.
Except the sex of course. They’d done that. A lot. He never seemed to tire of her lush, fit body and her fresh, honest enjoyment of their time together in bed.
But there had been no romantic candlelit dinners at five-star restaurants. No quick plane trips to Paris. No shopping sprees.
Michael had tried. All of those things. And Vanny had seemed tempted by not a one of them. Especially, most shockingly, the shopping spree.
“I hate shopping,” she’d said when he continued to suggest it. “It’s a necessary evil at most.”
Words he didn’t believe he’d ever heard out of one of his mistress’s luscious mouths.
So when they weren’t in bed—and it was embarrassingly rare that they weren’t—they were doing one thing or another he’d never done with a woman. Jogging. Seeing a movie, in a regular theater, not some kind of premier. Stopping at a fast-food restaurant.
That last, he could have done without, but Vanny had been intrigued when he admitted he’d never eaten at a McDonald’s. Apparently, that was unheard of, although after he had eaten there, he wondered why.
But he hadn’t done much work the whole week. Actually, any work. He’d authorized the Treasure Driller to start operating again, but couldn’t seem to get excited about the concept of finding out what had happened there. In fact, he’d taken very few people into his confidence as to what really had, not sure why.
The knock on the office door got his attention. He’d been barking at Miss Prentiss all morning and he knew she wouldn’t venture in here unless she had to.
“Yes.”
She came in.
“What? Is Vanny here?”
“Yes, Mr. Reynolds, but I’m afraid there was something of a situation down in the lobby.”
“With Vanny?” He sat up straighter.
“There was a policeman at reception asking to see you.”
“Oh.” He turned back to the window. “You know better than that. Have an in-house lawyer talk to them and get the details and then contact Remy.”
Remy Lindsay, his personal lawyer for twenty years, would handle whatever the local police wanted.
“Yes, of course. I sent someone from legal down, but in the meantime, the policeman asked for Miss Donald.”
“Vanny? Why the hell for?”
“Apparently, it’s an inquiry regarding the Treasure Driller.”
“Where is she?”
“That’s just it, sir. He asked the receptionist and she pointed Vanny out as she was making her way to the elevator.”
“Oh shit.”
“The policeman asked to speak to her and she agreed. My understanding is the in-house lawyer arrived just then and the three of them went to a conference room in the legal department.”
“Where?” he snapped. When she gave him the location, he strode out, adding, “Get hold of Remy and have him standing by for my call.”
Taking the regular elevator, not the executive elevator, he went to the floor Miss Prentiss had indicated. Stepping out, he ignored the stares of his employees as he headed toward the conference room buried at the far end of the legal department. He didn’t recognize anyone and he was too pissed off to even nod.
When he opened the door, Vanny was sitting there with a man in a sports jacket, presumably the policeman, and a freckle-faced redhead he recognized as the head of the litigation department for Transcoastal. All three looked up in surprise at his entrance. The lawyer stood up. The policeman did not.
“Mr. Reynolds,” the lawyer said. “This is Lt. Rigsby. Lieutenant, this is our CEO, Michael Reynolds.”
“Yeah. The one I was told wasn’t here.”
Michael held his hand out to Vanny. “Come on. This interview is over.”
Vanny was dressed in her usual outfit of jeans and a tee. She didn’t look uncomfortable and she didn’t look about to obey him. So nothing unusual all around.
“I’m just answering a few questions, Michael. I have nothing to hide.”
Perhaps the most dangerous tool the authorities had in any investigation. I have nothing to hide.
Without disputing it, he went to the conference phone and dialed in a number.
“Mr. Lindsay’s office,” came over the speaker.
“This is Michael Reynolds.”
“One moment, Mr. Reynolds.”
Remy came on a moment later. “What’s this all about?” he asked.
Michael ignored the question and addressed the cop. “This is Remy Lindsay, my personal attorney and the personal attorney for Miss Donald. If you want to ask her any questions, you can contact him and set up an appropriate interview, with counsel present. Not ambush her as she’s walking through the lobby and fire questions at her.”
“So you two are friends?” the cop asked, looking from him to Vanny and then back again.
“None of your fucking business.”
“Hold on,” Remy cautioned from the phone. “Would the policeman there please identify himself?”
“Lt. Rigsby, Houston P.D.”
“Lieutenant, might we allow Mr. Reynolds and his, er, Miss Donald to depart and then we can continue this conversation?”
“His, er, Miss Donald agreed to answer my questions and I don’t hear anything different out of her now. So if it’s all the same to you, I‘d like to keep going here. You can stay on the line if you want. No skin off my nose.”
Michael tried to make eye contact with Vanny, but she was purposely playing with the rim of her Styrofoam coffee cup and refusing to look at him.
“Fine.” Michael sat down. “You can leave now,” he addressed the litigator. God knew what Vanny would say, or had said already.
“Michael, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let me stay on the line.”
“I didn’t mean you, Remy. You stay on. You,” he nodded to the in-house lawyer, dismissing him, “can go.”
The guy left immediately.
“Okay, so as you were saying, Miss Donald, you found a bomb.”
Oh fuck. “Wait right there,” Michael interjected. “What’s the purpose of you questioning her? This is a company matter. It has nothing to do with the police.”
“If there even is any so-called matter,” Remy added from the speaker, flying blind. “Perhaps you could explain what exactly it is you’re investigating, Lieutenant.”
“We received reports that there was a bomb on a Transcoastal rig, the Treasure Driller.”
“Reports from whom?” Remy asked. “The company refused to comment on those reports.”
The lieutenant looked at the phone deadpan, as if Remy could see him. “Look. Miss Donald here has already admitted she found a bomb.”
Vanny finally returned Michael’s intense stare and shrugged.
“What of it?” he snapped to the cop. “I’m not aware of Transcoastal filing any police complaint on the incident.”
“Well, see the thing is, planting a bomb isn’t exactly a private matter. We don’t need anybody to file a complaint. We kind of don’t allow bombs, got it?”
“Giv
en how far the rig is out in the Gulf,” Remy said, “I doubt you even have jurisdiction, Lieutenant.”
“It’s a little murky, but the Coast Guard has asked us to take a first stab at the investigation. Transcoastal is a Houston company, so Houston has a vested interest in somebody planting a bomb on one of its rigs right at our back door.”
“I didn’t plant it,” Vanny said.
“I did,” he said, before he even thought it through.
“Not another word, Michael.”
He ignored Remy. “It was a security exercise. I wanted to see how the crew reacted to the situation.”
Both Vanny and the cop were looking at him skeptically.
“You left a ticking time bomb for Miss Donald to find. You expect me to believe that?”
“The ticking was cosmetic. I claimed to disable it once I was alone, but it wasn’t actually triggered in the first place. It was just a dud. Looks no different. And I didn’t care who found it. I simply wanted to see if someone would and what would happen as a result. Whether the evacuation would be timely under those conditions. That kind of thing. Companies do this kind of thing all the time, Lieutenant.”
Vanny seemed a little less sure. “Is this for real?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
Remy was silent on the other end.
“It was an exercise, as I said.”
“And you fired Miss Donald here because of an exercise?”
“That was purely temporary, for show. Transcoastal fully intended to reinstate her at a future time.”
“And didn’t tell her?”
“Miss Donald and I came to other arrangements.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Of course. You obviously know we’re seeing each other. You really believe I would be doing that if I had fired her for planting a bomb? Talk about strange bedfellows.”
Now the cop didn’t look so sure. He glanced at Vanny.
“Surely you don’t investigate training exercises, do you?” Michael said, standing up and holding out a hand to Vanny.
She stood up as well, although she declined to take his hand. He opened the door, telling the litigator who was lingering outside, “Please show this gentleman out.”
He didn’t say a word to Vanny in the elevator. Not a word. When she started to say something, he shook his head definitively. A testament to how he must have looked, she didn’t push it.
Once back in his office, he pulled her into the adjoining bedroom.
“I am so angry at you,” he said once he’d closed the door.
She yanked her hand back. “So what? You going to spank me now?”
“You know what? I’m the one with the money, but you’re the one who’s spoiled.”
“Oh so I’m spoiled because I won’t jump when you snap your fingers. ‘Get up, Vanny. Come here, dog.’ Is that it?”
“You’re spoiled because you do whatever the hell you want without thinking out the consequences. Do you know what could have happened down there with you just blithely admitting to finding a bomb?”
“I did find it!”
“Cops are not your friends, Vanny.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“And you’re being naïve. That lieutenant wasn’t your dad or some roughneck you could charm, or me. He was a working-class stiff with a case load he had to clear and the handiest suspect ever just handed to him! The daughter of a guy who had been fired for sabotage! What do you think he would have done with the information you gave him down there?”
“Investigate maybe? I didn’t plant that bomb, Michael, and my dad didn’t tinker with the valves. And none of this is a fucking training exercise, is it? Somebody is sabotaging your rig. I thought you might give a crap about that and want to find out who was doing it.”
“What I give a crap about is not having you end up arrested for it. You go off with a cop, without a lawyer—”
“For a rich guy, you’re awfully paranoid about the police. Aren’t they all in your pocket or something anyway?”
“No! They’re not. I don’t bribe cops or pay off politicians or anything else you’ve imagined in your little mini-series-McDonald’s mind.”
She slapped his face. “You condescending asshole.”
He held a hand up to his burning cheek. Oh he was so going to teach her a lesson.
She hadn’t meant to slap his face. For one thing, it was so drama-queenish. Almost straight from a mini-series, as he’d accused her. For another thing, it seemed to really piss him off, if he wasn’t already as pissed off as she’d ever seen him. She bet he’d never roughhoused as a kid either. She remembered how furious he’d been when she pushed him in the cabin and surmised her indignant slap just now hadn’t been her smartest move.
Use your words, Vanny, her condescending playground monitors had always urged her. She guessed she should have listened.
Michael yanked her over to the bed and sat down on the edge. She tried to squirm away but he pulled her over on to his lap, face down on the bedspread, her legs hanging out the other way.
She’d never been spanked in her life. He wouldn’t!
Before she could stop him, he unsnapped her jeans and pulled them and her panties down just far enough so she was bare-assed over his lap. She struggled wildly, but he held her in place with one hand. Easily.
“Don’t you dare, Michael!”
And then smack.
“You bastard!”
Smack. Smack.
His hand was so big it covered both her cheeks.
“You should’ve gotten a spanking a long time ago, Vanny.”
His slaps came down just hard enough to sting, but controlled enough that she suspected he may have occasionally done this in the past for more than teaching a woman a lesson.
“I’m going to leave this gorgeous ass with a little reminder of what I think of your behavior this afternoon.”
The thought unexpectedly turned her on, as did the heat at her backside. Closing her eyes, she let out something that sounded suspiciously like a groan at another firm smack.
He paused and she took a deep breath.
Fuck. It should not have felt so wildly exciting.
She shuddered, feeling his cock beneath her harden.
Smack.
She sucked in a breath and felt him hesitate. Then startling her, he shoved three fingers inside her wet pussy.
“Oh God.”
Smack.
As he spanked her, he fucked her with his fingers, hard and deep and she squirmed at the pleasure.
“Fuck.” It was him this time. He dumped her off his lap, flipping her onto her stomach and yanking her jeans and panties all the way off. One damn reason to get around to buying tighter jeans was so he wouldn’t always have such an easy time of getting her out of them.
She groaned and looked behind her to see him pulling his rigid cock out and kicking her legs farther apart with his still-trouser-clad knees.
Then he plunged just his middle finger in her pussy again, swirling it around, and withdrew it, suitably moistened.
So he could bury it knuckle deep in her ass.
She yelped in her surprise at it and he laughed.
“Ssshhh! Not worried about Miss Prentiss hearing now, are you?”
He thrust his moist finger in and out of her butthole slowly, pulling her a little up on her knees to give him a better angle from behind, and then thrust his cock, hard, up her other channel in rhythm with his finger.
Both of her holes filled.
“You like this, baby?” he taunted.
She moaned.
“I think you do. I think I’ve finally shut my sweet Vanny up.”
God, the pressure, the fullness, it felt alien and very, very hot.
He withdrew his cock slowly, his finger in tandem and she whimpered at the dual friction.
“Oh yeah, you’re so tight I can tell your little butt is virgin, isn’t it, baby? So tell me how you like it.” His cock sank bac
k into her slick pussy and his finger stretched her ass. She arched against the sensation, so good, so bad. The next thrust of his cock was a little harder, jarring her forward, and she heard a quick hitch in his breath as from that point on he increased his speed, the flexing of his hips against the cheeks of her ass making a slapping sound. He pushed her down onto her side and wedged one leg between hers, kneeling over her as he plunged into both her openings again and again, pulling out his cock and his finger and then thrusting both deep up into her.
“Come on.” His voice was breathless. “Nothing to say, my bad little Vanny?”
It felt as if his finger was going deeper every time—Jesus, he might have even added a second one, her eyes were shut so tight she wouldn’t know—adding a pinch of pain to all the pleasure, his cock reaching ever higher inside her as he did. When she clenched the muscles of her vagina against his rigid, thrusting cock in automatic reaction, she felt the hot grip of something primal and wild in her backside as well.
“Talk to me, Vanny. Tell me how it feels to have me buried up both your holes.”
“It feels, ah, oh God, it feels…so…so…good,” she moaned.
“Yeah, I thought my sexy little Vanny might like this.”
“Like” wasn’t quite the right term for it. She was writhing with his ministrations, giddy with the naughty excitement of it. She wished she were fully naked for him. That his mouth was on her tits as well, sucking her nipples as he plumbed the depths of her.
“My shirt,” she mumbled, fumbling for the bottom of it.
He paused, wedged firmly inside her, as she struggled to pull her shirt up and yank one cup of her bra down, holding her naked breast wordlessly toward him.
The low rumble of his laughter came out against the heated skin of that one freed breast. “Oh Vanny, what a greedy little thing you are.” But she didn’t care. Let him laugh. She wanted that last overwhelming touch, needed it.
He sucked her nipple hard and rammed into her one last time, surprising her eyes open with the pleasure of the coordinated attack. She came so hard she thought she would faint. And she cried so loudly that—forget about Miss Prentiss—the prissy receptionist in the lobby probably heard it.
He groaned as well and swiftly pulled his cock out and then shot a hot stream of ejaculate all over her ass, coming between her cheeks but not penetrating.
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