by Marian Tee
Still drowning in a mental pool of embarrassment, I slowly took his hand. His hand immediately gripped mine, but what made my eyes shoot up to him incredulously was how he also managed to caress my fingers at the same time.
He returned it with an innocent one of his own. “Since you’re the last one to arrive, I hope you understand that you will be the last one I’ll be interviewing one-on-one.”
I could only nod dumbly. I hadn’t even known there was going to be a one-on-one. I was absolutely unprepared for it but right now, what I was most worried about was how my nipples seemed to be knocking against my blouse and begging for his attention. Worse, I also felt the heat of his gaze burn through my blouse just before he looked back at the other applicants. It was only for a second, but God! That second was something I’d never forget – just that one look and he made me feel like he was already cupping my breasts and sucking my nipples.
I clutched my armrests more desperately. It was all I could do to control myself, knowing that if I crossed my legs, he would know I was doing so because I was becoming wet for him. Oh dear, I was wet. For the first time in my life I was wet between my legs and it had nothing to do with taking a shower. It had everything to do with the man still eye-humping me, and it was all I could do not to eye-hump him back.
How could a pair of silvery gray eyes be so powerfully seductive?
The nature of my thoughts made me want to drown myself longer in the pool of embarrassment in my mind, now transformed into a sauna of utter humiliation.
Constantijin Kastein.
He owned the company I was applying to and I hadn’t even recognized him. How could I be so dumb? And I was late for my interview, too. Why was I even here?
Constantijin was still speaking, his voice deep and husky but his accent less pronounced this time. And then he was handing out questionnaires. He gave mine last, and our fingers not so accidentally – on his part – brushed. I bit back another gasp, aghast and just outright stunned at how the merest touch from him could turn me on, more so than I already was.
How was it that I had lived 24 years without even being tempted to watch porn or masturbate and yet one look from this man was enough to make me mentally pant for his touch? If I had to be ruthlessly honest with myself, a part of me was even imagining what his cock would look like. I didn’t care about anyone else’s – I just wanted to look at his.
My face burned with color at what I had just privately admitted to myself.
When he bent towards me, I tensed. “Relax,” he said so softly that I knew I would be the only one able to hear him. “I don’t bite.”
Just as I opened my mouth to answer, he added even more softly, “Not unless you want me to. Starting with those lovely nipples of yours.”
Ladies and gentlemen, as of 9:24 in the morning, on the 21st of September, I have officially had my first orgasm – or something really close to it. Trembling, I quickly turned away, my seat swiveling completely so that he would only be able to see the back of my chair. I had no plans responding – absolutely no plan at all since I knew whatever I said, it wouldn’t be able to hide how those words excited my body, even as my mind recoiled from them.
Constantijin Kastein was like no one I knew – or even imagined knowing. I would never have thought of any stranger saying something like that to me; but when he did, it sounded terrifyingly right.
Ten minutes into the questionnaire and I could feel his gaze on me again, more heated than ever. We both knew I was aware that he was mentally undressing me with his gaze.
For a second, my fingers clenched around my Barbie-pink pen like a vise – the only thing I could do to release the weird and intense pressure that the sexual tension between us had created inside of me.
“Cute pen,” he said suddenly, startling me into dropping the said cute pen.
I stared in frustration at how that action had left an inch-long zigzag mark on the middle of my answer sheet. Great – just darn great. Whoever would end up checking this would be forgiven for thinking I might have been doodling around because I was having a hard time answering their questions.
“Thank you,” I muttered, swiveling my seat towards him as I reluctantly lifted my gaze to meet his, knowing I owed him that much. It was exactly as I feared.
Constantijin held my gaze with his bright gray eyes – and claimed me entirely through it. His seat swiveled as he faced me completely, our knees bumping as he did. I could only swallow, knowing that everything he did was a calculated move to seduce me – even though there were a dozen of other people in the room with us.
With this kind of sexual tension – none of that really mattered.
“Is pink your favorite color?” Oh, dear Lord, that accent was so sinfully sexy, too. It made me think of him with days-old stubble, arousing me as he used its rough texture to tease my brea---
Where the hell were all these thoughts coming from?
Realizing he was still waiting for an answer, I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I wanted to turn away but knew it would be the height of disrespect if I did. He was Constantijin Kastein of Kastein, Incorporated, after all.
He inched even closer, and I tensed again when our knees bumped the second time. Unable to bear another not-so-accidental encounter, I swiveled my seat back and glanced determinedly down at my questionnaire and answer sheet.
If I had thought that would dissuade him, it just seemed to have the opposite effect. Constantijin actually inched closer – enough for his breath to fan my cheek. As he spoke, I could feel his gaze caressing my breasts. “Thank God the ink’s not pink. That would be too much.”
I gripped my pen tightly again. Damn him. It was him that was too much…everything. Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself to tell him off. But when I looked up, he was already busy talking with Bottle Blonde, who – in complete contrast with how I felt – seemed more than eager to have him seduce her. Or even vice versa. You could tell by the way she was playing with the low neckline of her tight black dress, as if she was trying to figure out how to make it “unintentionally” reveal more of her already much-exposed cleavage. Any lower and she’d be showing her nipples.
Constantijin asked us to return the Q&A sheets after a few minutes. I slid mine on the table toward him, unwilling to have our fingers touch again. I grabbed my bag, hoping I could leave right away so I would have time to compose myself before the dreaded one-on-one interview.
When I turned to leave, I saw Constantijin blocking my way, his back to me as he firmly bid Bottle Blonde goodbye. As Constantijin turned towards me, Bottle Blonde threw me a vicious glance of loathing. I pretended not to notice because if I did, it would be like a war between one slut and another and I was no slut – even though my body had been begging to differ from the moment Constantijin started his visual seduction.
Nodding a polite goodbye to him, I kept my head down as I tried to sidestep him and leave. But he was suddenly in front of me, blocking my way again. This time, I couldn’t help looking up with a mixture of suspicion and exasperation. I felt just a bit of sexual frustration, too, but that was neither here nor there.
Constantijin only grinned at the look I gave him, throwing up his hands in the air as the door slammed shut behind Bottle Blonde’s exaggeratedly swaying hips. “I mean no harm, Ms. Everleigh,” he said with exaggerated wide-eyed innocence.
It took everything in me not to smile back and keep frowning, even though he looked even more irresistible when he was so obviously flirting – with me. The thought was such a huge turn-on I didn’t know what to do with my body anymore. Should I throw myself at him? Should I run out of the room and never look back? My virginity was under threat, after all.
“I look forward to interviewing you later.” The way he said the words made it obvious he had something entirely different in mind.
I physically tried planting the slim heels of my shoes into the ground, knowing if I didn’t, my body would automatically lean towards him, an instinctive response to the seduct
ive spell he was so expertly weaving around me.
Looking at his proffered hand suspiciously, I slowly took it for a shake.
And not a second later, I knew I was right to distrust him. Constantijin’s hand immediately locked around mine and he used it to haul me towards him. I stumbled onto him, and the tips of my nipples brushed against his chest.
Constantijin inhaled sharply. “You are so fucking sexy.”
I tried to struggle out of his hold. “Please stop this,” I managed to say. “I’m not interested.”
One hand still imprisoning mine, he used his other hand to cup my chin and make me look up.
His smile was breathtaking, and it made my nipples harden even more. “Of course you are,” he whispered.
He had already released me by the time I managed to get all my wits back. Constantijin was opening the door, his tone business-like and perfectly at odds with the sensual heat in his gaze. “Till later, Ms. Everleigh.”
When the door closed behind me and a voice on the PA system announced the name of the first interviewee, I practically ran to the restroom so I could call Alyx privately.
“You won’t believe what just happened,” I half-shrieked when she answered.
Alyx answered promptly, “You were fired,” and made some weird guzzling sound afterwards. She was thirty floors down, bribed into waiting for me with a drink-all-you-can treat at Starbucks. Daria – our other best friend and who completed our decades-old-threesome – would have been with her, too, if she wasn’t currently sailing the Mediterranean on her honeymoon with her Greek tycoon.
I glared at my iPhone, wishing I had just FaceTimed Alyx so she would see exactly what I thought of her verbal show of support.
“Very funny.” Not waiting for her to answer since Alyx was unbeatable when it came to smartass comebacks, I said right after, “Constantijin Kastein is flirting with me.”
I waited for her reaction with a madly beating heart. Alyx was a journalist and she knew everything about anyone who mattered. One look at Constantijin and you knew he absolutely mattered, more so than a billion people’s lives probably.
Alyx didn’t disappoint, and when she actually stopped slurping down her frappe to exclaim, ‘Whoa’, the pace of my heartbeat shot up dramatically.
“Constantijin Kastein – the VP of your company? The guy BBC dubbed as the King of European Media and Netherland’s #1 Playboy? The one Hello magazine had on its cover last month and a spread of his twenty-three properties all over the world and his forty-something collection of sports cars and classics? That Constantijin?”
Of all the things she said, just one thing stood out in my mind. He was the #1 Playboy in his whole country? No wonder my nipples were still hard as pebbles. How many women did he have to bed to get that kind of title? The thought of that beautiful body next to another woman’s created a twinge of pain in my heart, but I told myself it was out of disgust. I was looking for true love, not sex. I had to remember that.
“Yes,” I finally said glumly. “That’s the one.”
“Why do you sound sad?” Alyx demanded. “Isn’t that a good thing? It would mean that he’s dynamite in bed!”
I couldn’t help giggling, but only because Alyx talked as if she had oodles of experience when I knew she was as much a virgin as I was. “Like you’d know.”
“I watch porn. You don’t.”
“I’m blushing for you,” I said, and it was true.
“Look, Yanna. You know I don’t believe in your true love nonsense. If Constantijin Kastein wants you, I say go for it. You can’t ask for a more perfect guy to deflower you---”
“Alyx!” I couldn’t believe what she was saying.
“I’m just being honest,” she said defensively.
“You’re, like, not helping, you know?”
“You’re, like, totally turned on, aren’t you?”
Just this moment, I wished she wasn’t such a true friend. That way, she wouldn’t have found it so easy to see through me.
“Yanna Everleigh for interview.”
I jumped at the words, stunned that even the restroom also had speakers connected to the building’s PA system. I glanced at my watch, my eyes widening when I realized that only ten minutes had passed. Wasn’t I supposed to be the last one he interviewed? They were all interviewed then?
“I got to go,” I told Alyx, near to hyperventilating at the thought of going face to face with Constantijin again. God, I was so hopelessly entranced by him.
“Don’t forget to use a condom,” Alyx managed to sneak in just before I ended the call. I glared at my iPhone the second time even as our call ended. Condom? Yeah, right.
Standing in front of the glass doors, I had to take another deep breath before knocking. My heartbeat was still thumping so loudly it completely drowned out the sound of my knock. I turned the knob with shaky fingers and went in, murmuring, “Mr. Kastein?”
As the door closed shut behind me, I saw Constantijin standing in the middle of the room, his back to me. He seemed to be gazing at the magnificent view outside the 180-degree windows spanning half of the room. When he turned around, I couldn’t help but swallow.
He didn’t have to say a word for me to know what he wanted.
The blazingly hungry look in his silvery gray eyes was more than enough.
“Call me by my name,” he invited huskily.
I hastily averted my gaze before he could command me into doing anything he wanted with his eyes alone. “I don’t think that’s appropriate, Mr. Kastein.” I wanted to sound prim and standoffish, but I couldn’t fool myself into ignoring the breathless quality of my voice. I sounded just as hungry and frustrated as he seemed.
Shit.
When the silence lengthened, I found myself glancing at him. He was smiling, a dangerously sexy smile that had my hand unconsciously creeping upward to my chest. It was a futile effort to calm my erratic heartbeat.
“Yanna?”
“Y-yes?”
“I didn’t interview the others.”
That stumped me. “W-what?”
“I knew right away who I should hire or not. But you…” He frowned. “I really do need to interview you.”
He did? Why did he?
“I will objectively evaluate your answers and I make no promises about your chances for getting the job.”
I nodded, still not looking at him.
“But after that…” He paused.
When the silence stretched, I was unable to resist the temptation.
My knees buckled at the promise in his eyes. But it was gone in a flash, replaced by an impassive mask falling over his face as he spoke. “Sit down and we’ll start the interview.”
When I practically collapsed on the seat he had courteously pulled out for me, I had to pretend I didn’t hear him laugh outright. He took the seat next to me again, pushing his seat closer to mine, closer and closer until our knees touched once more.
I glared at him.
His eyes laughed at me, as if daring me to be the first to acknowledge what was happening between us.
Constantijin said solemnly, “So it says in your resume you used to work for your father’s pharmaceutical company. Why did you leave?”
Still painstakingly aware of the heat from his body and the way my knees tingled every time he moved and his knees bumped against mine, I said haltingly, “It wasn’t for me.”
“But if I take you…”
My eyes widened. Take me? Like, take me, like, now?
He smirked. “Oh, Ms. Everleigh, what are you thinking?”
I turned red, realizing he knew exactly what I had been thinking.
He said smoothly, “I’m just wondering how I can be sure that if I take you into my company you won’t feel the same in the end?”
It took me a few seconds to answer. “I worked for my father’s company out of family loyalty – I gave it a fair shot but I just wasn’t a good fit. But the job your company is offering – I want it for no other reason than I kno
w I’m going to love it and work hard to be the best at it.”
He looked at me, as if waiting for me to say more.
I looked back at him steadily since I knew there was nothing else I could say.
Finally, he spoke again. “Well put, Ms. Everleigh.”
The whole interview took about half an hour, and he ended it with the usual, “Thank you for your time, Ms. Everleigh, and we’ll be calling you about the results soon.”
He sounded so businesslike I started thinking uneasily maybe I had just misread the situation and he hadn’t been really hitting on me. When he stood up, I did so, too. I opened my mouth to thank him, but he beat me to speaking. “Now that’s over with…”
In the act of taking my bag from the seat, I froze at the strange tone of his words. Had interviewing me been that much of a bore?
“We can start talking about us then.”
Shock made my fingers go limp, and my bag fell back onto the seat soundlessly.
“Look at me, Yanna.”
My heart raced faster at how different my name sounded when he said it with his Dutch accent, so pronounced.
“Yanna,” he said again, warningly this time since I still hadn’t looked at him.
The command in his voice was like music my body couldn’t resist dancing to and I found myself slowly lifting my head up to look at him.
God, he was really too beautiful for words. It hurt to look at him and not touch him, and it hurt even more to force myself to stay still when his words were so blatantly raw with his need.
“I want to fuck you, Yanna.”
My lips parted in shock at what he was saying even as the rest of my body melted. Every nerve in my body was screaming, undress now, undress now!
When had I become such a shameless hussy?
He walked towards me, and I could only stand there, a slave waiting to be claimed by her master. The thought made me cringe. Where did that come from again?
“Mr. Kastein.” I could barely hear myself over the racket my heart was making. I started backing away from him when I realized he really was determined to close the distance between us.