by Ellen Lane
Charlotte unrolled one set of blueprints before him on his desk, revealing a simulation of the first floor/ lobby area. “I’ve been looking at the foundations to make sure that everything is even, that the weight distributions remain the same...and I’ve just made a few little cosmetic fixes - you can see here, and here,” she indicated with a slender finger. “I’ve widened the main entryway to make sure traffic doesn’t get held up there. And I’ve added a few private offices in the back...I know that you weren’t too crazy about all that open space.” She emphasized the words with a small smile before showing them to him. “Nothing big...but I just wanted to ok them with you and make sure that everyone is on the same page before we actually start work on the first floor proper.”
For a long time, there was silence between them. Leaning over his desk, Vlad perused the plans, nothing the changes carefully. As Charlotte stated, they weren’t any huge alterations to the plans in general. They were little. So little, in fact, that she probably could have shown them to the crew without asking his leave first.
But she had come to him.
It was oddly touching.
Six weeks ago, Vlad didn’t think Charlotte would have bothered. In fact, it had never occurred to him until that moment how close they might have come to a power play. If he hadn’t spoken to Lucas...hadn’t forced himself to confront his unease...well, they might be in a very different situation indeed. Yet now, here they were - he would have to be blind not to see that Charlotte was compromising her plans for the first floor to give him a little of what he wanted - to make him feel more in control.
Running a hand through his dark hair, he looked up at her, the corners of his mouth turning upward in appreciation. “They look wonderful. Thank you, Charlotte.”
Almost instantly, a wild change came over her face. She had been gazing at him anxiously - almost as anxiously, he realized, as the first time he had gone over her plans with her. And this time, the outcome was very different.
Her next actions caught him completely off guard. Throwing herself across the desk, Charlotte wrapped her arms around him tightly in a surprisingly intimate embrace. All at once, all of her warmth, her curves, her scent - he was completely assaulted by the essence of Charlotte Gardner. She squeezed him tightly - though far from tight enough to make him uncomfortable - but Vladimir still found himself struggling for breath.
She had never been so close. He had always been careful to make sure she never got this close, because having her this close was dangerous. The silky softness of her cheek pressed against his rougher one - he hadn’t shaved in at least two days - and Vlad’s body immediately entered into a vicious battle with his rational mind.
It was a hug. Just a hug. A rather enthusiastic one, but it wasn’t license for him to do any of the things swirling around his head just now. Vlad found that he couldn’t even hug her back. In fact, his hands were curled so tightly about the edge of the table that he would swear he heard the wood splintering.
He endured a good five seconds of what could only be described as the most heavenly torture he had ever gone through before Charlotte finally realized that he wasn’t as enthusiastic about the gesture as she was. She pulled back almost immediately, her face a deep red. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...I was just….” She scrambled for words, her hands twisting uncomfortably before her. “I mean...thanks.”
And now he felt like a fool. His sitting stiff as a board had obviously embarrassed her - even if he had only done so to keep from doing something wildly inappropriate. But now, Vlad wasn’t sure which was worse, watching her flounder for words when the awkwardness between them was his fault or resisting the urge to see if that full mouth of hers tasted as sweet as he imagined.
He stood from his desk, making a low sound of irritation in the back of his throat. This was ridiculous. At this point, he was faced with one of two choices. Vladimir was tired - exhausted, in fact, of this whole charade. And right now, he didn’t feel like keeping it up any more.
So fuck it.
Before she could continue making apologies, he rounded his desk to take her wrist and jerk her against him. He barely registered the young woman’s shocked expression a moment before his mouth descended onto hers.
And then he forgot everything else.
He thought she might struggle. Might pull back and slap the ever-loving hell out of him before merely storming out of his office.
But Charlotte did none of that. Instead, she instantaneously melted against him with a soft moan that might have been worth all the discomfort he had endured over the past month. Vlad’s arms closed around her like a vice to pull her flush against him and he groaned as his tongue slipped between her lips.
He could never have imagined this. Not the way her fingers curled into his shoulders or the way her tongue darted out immediately to slide against his. She tasted like coffee and wine - like everything forbidden in the world - and he wanted all of her. One hand raised to sift through those unkempt, copper curls that had so tempted him, freeing them from their ponytail so they spilled down her back. Vlad thought they might be tangled and wild, but they were the softest thing he had ever touched. He found his fingers tangling in her hair greedily - tight enough that he knew he must be hurting her - but Charlotte didn’t complain. On the contrary, she merely mewled - almost like a kitten, standing on her toes to be closer to him.
Which was a mistake, on her part.
Once she gave an inch, Vlad took a mile. He couldn’t help it. What was left of his rational mind had fled the moment she made that sound...that sweet, needy little sound. He nipped hungrily at her lower lip a moment before his mouth slanted demandingly against hers. Where they might have been dueling for dominance of the kiss before, now, there was no question that he was in control - every flick of his tongue and teasing bite of his teeth making her tremble in his arms.
Vlad reached out briefly to sweep her carefully drawn plans from his desk before breaking their kiss briefly to lift Charlotte by her hips and set her on the edge. If she was going to say anything, her words were cut off the moment his mouth covered hers once more. He tugged her to the very edge of the desk - until one of her legs wrapped obligingly about his hips and his almost painful erection pressed against the scalding center of her.
Vladimir - he of few expletives - cursed intensely against her mouth, tugging her lower lip between his teeth sharply as he rubbed against her unabashedly.
He would never have thought it would be like this. Vlad knew he was far beyond the age that he could attest to his impulses ruling him. He was no untried teenager - but somehow, Charlotte tempted him beyond reason. He was intoxicated with the taste of her - and was rapidly wondering how much longer he could take her body sliding temptingly against his even with all the layers of clothes that remained between them. He wanted nothing more than to strip her of the tight yoga pants she wore and bury himself inside her until he didn’t know where he stopped and she began.
He was hungry for her - that was the only explanation. Hungrier had he had ever been for food, thirstier than he had ever been for even water...It was as if she triggered something in him that he couldn’t reign in. An animal that needed to be fed or the consequences would be disastrous.
He tore his mouth from hers to nip and suck over the length of her throat, tasting the salty tang of her sweat along with an alluring flavor that was simply her. When he tugged her sweatshirt down roughly to bare one shoulder, she made a soft sound that might have been protest - but then he was biting her there - marking her there, and the sound turned to a gasp.
After all his reservations - all the time that he’d held himself in check - she would be his. He needed her like he needed to draw his next breath and -
The loud jangling of the phone cut suddenly into what had only been silence and heavy breathing. The first time, it startled him. The second ring somehow managed to jog him back to his senses, and, for the first time, Vladimir realized the compromising position that he found himself in. C
harlotte sat on the edge of the desk, one of her slender legs wrapped around his, her head back and neck pockmarked with his attentions, large eyes glazed over with unmistakable pleasure. One of his hands was tangled in her hair, the other around her waist, holding her to him almost possessively as he drank his fill of her.
Fuck.
Fuck.
The phone rang again, and though Vlad had been jogged from his desirous haze, that didn’t stop him from wanting to go right back to what he had just been doing - from wanting to finish what they had started.
But that, he knew, would be suicide. For both of them.
He forced himself to release her, to take a step back and smooth his hair where her fingers had gripped at it desperately. He needed a moment away from her, or else he’d lose it again. “I’d better answer that.” His voice was low and husky, and he turned from her to answer the phone with surprising crispness, considering what he’d just been doing. “Vladimir Kensley.”
“Vlad, it’s Shiro.” His brother’s voice came across the line warmly. “Sorry to call you so late, but I just wanted to warn you, Dad has some Russian business on the horizon, so be on the lookout for that. I’m in Prague, and it reached me through the grapevine.”
“Ah.” His brain was still effectively scrambled, even if he sounded clandestine. “I’ll make a note of it.”
“Right. Make sure everything there is on lockdown before you go. Don’t want to lose any time on the project.”
“Of course not.” Vlad returned, with more force this time. “I would never.”
“I’m teasing, Vlad.” Shiro’s slightly accented tones held a wry edge. “See you in Russia.”
Just before he hung up, however, a female voice edged in from the background - an unfamiliar female voice. “Toshiro? Did you tell him?”
Who the hell was that? Toshiro usually travelled alone. He hadn’t hired anyone knew as far as Vlad knew. Before he could ask his brother who was there with him, Shiro hung up, leaving Vlad staring at the phone curiously.
Within a few seconds, however, he remembered that he had bigger fish to fry. When he turned around, he found that Charlotte was still perched precariously on the edge of his desk. She had tugged her clothes back into place and was eying him uncertainly. “That was your brother,” she finally managed, an arousing tinge of breathlessness still on the edge of her voice. “The Japanese one.”
“Yes.” He managed, replacing the phone on the cradle before rounding the desk once more to stand before her. Vlad thought that a few minutes away from her would have brought him round, but he realized he was just going to have to accept that as long as Charlotte was within a twenty-foot radius, he was going to have to contend with his starving libido. “Charlotte…” How the hell was he supposed to salvage this? The quickest and dirtiest way would be to apologize to her. To call the entire thing a mistake.
Perhaps his youngest brother was rubbing off on him, but Lucas wasn’t quite ready to make a faux pas that gigantic. “Look...I didn’t mean to…”
“Kiss me.” She finished for him blandly, her expression falling somewhat. “You didn’t mean to kiss me. And you’re sorry.”
“Hell no.” The words left him with more intensity than he had intended, and the young woman’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “I certainly meant to kiss you.” He decided that honesty was probably the best policy at this point.
Even though what they were doing was idiotic and reckless. Even though he was the world’s foremost opponent of relationships in the workplace and this went against everything he had been taught. He’d spent a large portion of his life relying on logic - being the one with all the answers.
But he’d be damned if he had one now.
“Charlotte, this isn’t what I planned. I’m trying my best to be civil when it’s all I can do to keep my baser impulses at bay.”
“Baser...impulses.” The younger woman repeated, her kiss-swollen lips moving lingeringly over the words. “You mean you want to fuck me.”
The words went straight to his erection - which had just begun to think about waning. Of course, those plans were cancelled the moment Charlotte let fly with her less than clandestine suggestion. He exhaled an unsteady breath. “You have a filthy mouth, you know that?” The comment hissed out from between clenched teeth, and Charlotte only grinned.
“No, I’m honest. The question is: Am I right?”
Goddamn it. He gave an inch, she took a mile. She was more like him than he might have believed.
“Even if I do,” He returned carefully, “This is hardly the place or time...and our working relationship isn’t of a nature that I would consider throwing away just because I want…” He trailed off, watching her watch him with eyes just as darkly desirous as they had been moments after he kissed her. She wanted him to admit it. She wanted to hear him say the words, the little minx.
So he indulged her. “Just because I want to fuck you.”
A visible shudder passed through her and Vlad’s fists clenched by his sides. She was going to be the death of him. She really was. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to, Charlotte.” He added, his voice taking on a stern edge.
The redhead’s expression sobered as she stared up at him, her hazel eyes genuinely confused.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because,” he rebuffed immediately, “We’re adults. We’re colleagues and we’re supposed to be working together. Whatever might be between us, it would be immature to forget that.”
Now he sounded more like himself. His voice was still low and throaty, and he still wanted her like the fucking dickens, but somehow, he had managed to gain an edge.
Charlotte merely continued to look up at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Just when Vlad thought he might have to do something horrible - like ask her to leave his office before they ended up right back where they started, she slid from the edge of his desk.
“You’re right.” She might have surprised him more only if she had sprouted wings and flown away. Thankfully, she wasn’t facing him, so she didn’t see his shocked expression at her almost casual statement. “I should go.”
This woman confused him more and more with each passing moment. Literally two minutes ago, she had started with all this business of fucking and now she was about to walk away from him - which was, Vlad reminded himself, what he’d wanted all along. Wasn’t it?
Bending over, Charlotte afforded him a generous view of her behind as she picked up the documents she had dropped from his desk and stacked them neatly before replacing them. Her blueprints got the same treatment - if a little more care - before joining them. “Take a look at the rest of the plans I brought, and if you have any questions, we can discuss it tomorrow. Over lunch.”
A lunch he would spend the entirety of remembering how she moaned when he pressed his jutting erection against her.
“Right. Tomorrow.” He hoped his voice didn’t betray his wariness. “I’ll see you then.”
“See you tomorrow...Vladimir.” She called him by his given name so seldom that the sound alone was more than enough to arouse him. But after what had just happened in his office? Vlad knew, the moment the door shut behind her, that the only way he
as going to sleep that night at all was after a little alone time with his dominant hand.
Chapter 6 - A New Project
“He did what now?”
Charlotte still couldn’t believe it herself. She was out with Lila and Benny for drinks - the first lull in work she’d had since they’d begun to work on the first floor of the Kensley center, and the young woman was recalling what had happened when she took it upon herself to drop off some late-night blueprints. Charlotte was still in shock a week later.
She could still feel the possessive grip of his hands on her waist as he devoured her mouth, the masterful way he shoved between her legs like he belonged there…
It had surprised the hell out of her.
Not that she hadn’t thought that Vladimir
was sexual. She hadn’t met a man yet who was asexual, and she hadn’t counted Vladimir among their numbers. It was just that she would never have thought...never had hoped that he’d be interested in her.
Well, that was a lie.
She had hoped. Hoped without any foundation whatsoever. Dreamed of the man touching her in ways he had more than fulfilled that day in his office. Vladimir Kensley, whatever measure she’d made of him, didn’t stop to worry with analytics and what was most efficient when he was absorbed in his task.
And he’d certainly been absorbed in her.
More than she would ever have imagined.
“Lottie. Lottie.” She was jerked from the memory and back to the present to find Lila grinning knowingly at her. “That good, huh?”
Benny, however, looked slightly confused. “Wait, wait. Hold on a second. This is the same Vladimir Kensley we’re talking about, right? Stick-up-the ass Vladimir Kensley? Over analytical Vladimir Kensley who was trying to get you fired?”
“He wasn’t trying to get me fired,” Charlotte corrected him, somewhat embarrassed. She knew it might have been easy to believe such a thing from the way she carried on the first two weeks she was employed, but things were different now. “He was trying to make sure my designs were in the best interests of the company.”
“And if they weren’t, he was going to get you fired.” Benny rebutted dryly, making Charlotte’s cheeks flush.
“Well, probably,” she agreed sullenly, “But not maliciously. This guys is just...obsessed with the wellbeing of his company.”
“He’s not so obsessed that it kept him from trying to do the dirty in his office when push came to shove.” Lila took a sip of her martini. “You say he just came at you? Out of nowhere.”
“That’s not what I said,” Charlotte groaned. “I just took him the blueprints, and when he told me they looked wonderful… I mean…. Jesus, the man has never paid me a real compliment so I was kind of enthusiastic. I hugged him. And then...after the hug…”