Boss Me_Alpha Billionaire Romance

by C. J. Thomas

  I screamed so loud, so long, my voice broke. All that came out were throaty croaks as I nearly lost my mind with pleasure.

  “Yes, yes, yes . . .” It was all I could say, all I could get out between his rapid-fire thrusts.

  I felt his urgency, the change in pace and strength, and my muscles contracted around him once more as he sent me over the edge.

  “Fuck!” I shrieked, almost sobbing as I came one last time. He was the only thing holding me up, my hips in his hands, and he slammed once more against me with a roar.

  I couldn’t believe it. He let go of my hips as he slid out of me and I collapsed onto my side.

  I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I’d been run over by I truck.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  He was on his back on the other side of the bed. I sensed him rather than saw him, my eyes closed as I fought to regain my breath. It was almost too much to be believed. I hadn’t known it could be like that. That wasn’t the sort of sex a girl learned about. She had to experience it for herself.

  I looked down at my dress, all bunched up and twisted. I should have felt cheap, like a tawdry whore. I didn’t—in fact, I liked looking and feeling that way.

  I couldn’t believe that, either. What had he done to me?

  What would he do with me once we were finished?

  His eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling. God, he was beautiful.

  Would he want me to leave? That was the question on my mind.

  Should I get up, straighten myself out? I wasn’t even sure I could walk on my shaky legs, much less make it downstairs to a cab.

  It was like he sensed my hesitation, and he turned with a soft smile on his face. “Thank you for that,” he mumbled.

  “You’re thanking me?” I chuckled softly, still a little out of breath.

  “Why don’t you get out of that dress?” he asked. “I lost control of myself. Sorry. I just couldn’t wait.”

  “You don’t have to apologize,” I assured him. I rejoiced as I slid my panties over my feet, then knelt to raise the dress over my head until there was nothing left separating me from him.

  He watched me, his eyes gleaming with appreciation. I almost hoped he didn’t want to do it again, since I wasn’t sure I could take more.

  He didn’t make a move in that direction, so I did the only thing I could think to do in my shaky, vulnerable state: I curled up next to him, hoping he would hold me.

  He did.

  CHAPTER 4

  Aaron

  “Shit. I’m going to be late.” Those were the first words out of Kenzie’s mouth the morning after our wild night together.

  Not exactly sweet nothings, but then, I wasn’t the type for that.

  In fact, it was a relief that she was in a hurry. I needed to get my day started, too, though it didn’t matter what time I showed up to work. One of the many, many perks of being the boss.

  I tried to hide my surprise and growing irritation. Then, instead of leaping from the bed, Kenzie snuggled further down into the blankets.

  She wasn’t going anywhere.

  I clenched my jaw, keeping my mouth closed to stifle the sarcastic comments threatening to bubble out of my throat. She wasn’t the type to use and abuse. She was a different kind of woman, and I didn’t want to offend her.

  “You don’t seem like you’re in a big hurry,” I joked.

  “I’m not,” she said. “I know I should be, but I’m not.”

  “Why not? Does the boss not care when you show up?” I couldn’t understand people who ran their business that way, then complained that their employees walked all over them. Discipline was one of the pillars of a successful business, one I instilled in every person who walked through the door of my offices.

  “Sure. I just wish I didn’t have a pit in my stomach every time I arrived at my office, is all. I even feel a little sick when I think about going there. Isn’t that sad?”

  She tried to sound tough, self-deprecating, but there was a tenderness beneath the words, the sarcastic tone of voice, that endeared her to me. I reminded myself lightly to not pay so much attention to her, but I couldn’t help it.

  Just like I couldn’t help wanting to be nice to her—I wasn’t the type of ass who kicked a quality woman out of bed without caring about how she felt.

  I also wasn’t the type who hung around in bed, cuddling and baring my soul. I had the feeling she wanted to get to know me better, which surprised me—I’d thought she was a little too sophisticated for that, a little too intelligent. I wouldn’t have chosen her otherwise.

  I looked over to her side of the bed where she looked very small under a fluffy down comforter. She sighed just then, pushing hair back off her forehead with a hand that stayed on her head. Like a woman whose brain was too full of conflicting thoughts.

  “You okay?” I asked. I had the feeling she would tell me whether I wanted to know or not.

  “I should be. Sometimes I hate myself for feeling dissatisfied. Talk about your first world problems, right?” She laughed softly, a deep, throaty laugh.

  Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t ask. “Why should you hate yourself?”

  She glanced over at me, then shook her head. “I have what I always wanted. A great job—on paper, anyway. I know how lucky I am even to have a job in this market, especially one in my field.”

  “What’s your field?”

  “I work in media. I’m really nothing but a glorified blogger.” She chuckled bitterly. “I mean, a double major in journalism and advertising in undergrad, a master’s in emerging media studies. And what do I do for my clients? Whatever my boss deems me worthy of handling.”

  “With all your schooling? You’re no idiot.”

  “No, but I am a woman.” She shrugged.

  “Yeah, I noticed.” I peeked under the sheets. She giggled, pulling them back over herself.

  “You know what I mean,” she said, smirking. “It’s a man’s world, Aaron. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I’ve noticed. I’m just not the kind of boss who treats women that way.”

  “Sure,” she said. “That’s what they all say. That they give women a chance. Why doesn’t anybody ever talk about giving men a chance? It’s expected that the man has the letters after his name—CEO, CFO, COO. If a woman does, it’s the result of a benevolent boss who believed she had potential when nobody else did. The man still gets the credit for promoting her—unless her boss is a woman, of course, and then it’s favoritism.”

  “Wow, I hit a nerve. I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged it off. “Anyway, that’s my job. We run one of the most popular news and lifestyle sites out there, and all they ever give me is the occasional article. Meanwhile, I edit just about everybody else’s work. Then there’s the work I do to keep the advertisers happy. I’m the go-between for them and my boss, only the buck pretty much stops with me. He has no idea how closely I interact with them, and how quickly they would drop the company if they had to deal with him for even a day. He’s not exactly personable. Yet my office is the smallest on the floor. I have all the responsibility and none of the glory, in other words.”

  I nodded in all the right places, made the right sympathetic sounds. In my head, it was a different story.

  One of the most popular news and lifestyle sites.

  There were only a few really top-tier sites on the web. I wondered which one she worked for—I was familiar with all of them. Men like me traveled in small circles.

  I could cross a few of them off the list, those headed by a woman. From the way she made it sound, too, it was more of an in-house publication, rather than taking information from all over the web.

  A dickhead, chauvinist boss.

  I knew only one who fit the bill.

  Could it be him?

  CHAPTER 5

  Aaron

  On the way to the office, I thought about her. We’d only just parted ways—I had my driver drop her off at home before coming back to pick me
up.

  Meeting people like her made me take a long look at my life and the things I took for granted.

  Like the comfortable ride into work. Work I enjoyed—lived for, sometimes. A world I shaped to my liking. There wasn’t a moment in my adult life when I’d felt overwhelmed, under somebody else’s thumb. It wasn’t how I operated. I’d worked hard to be the one in control.

  I walked through the lobby, the words Ricardo de Lugo emblazoned in ten-foot letters on the wall behind the front desk. I couldn’t help the swell of pride at the sight of those words, even years after starting the fashion house with little more than a handful of sewing machines and a lot of determination. If anything, the memory of those days made me even prouder of what I’d accomplished.

  I was untouchable, at the top of the heap. That was where the view was best.

  It didn’t escape me that my employees scurried to their desks when they saw me coming. I wasn’t one of those let’s all be friends CEOs. On the contrary, I was the boss, they were the staff. If they did as I asked, we got along well.

  Not that I wasn’t open to new ideas or having my ideas vetoed when there was a legitimate reason. At the end of the day, though, I was in charge. And the entire company knew better than to let me find them gossiping around the water cooler.

  The minute I got to my desk, after checking in with my assistant, I closed my office door to do a little digging in peace. Nobody dared disturb me once the door closed—another one of my rules.

  Kenzie Olson.

  It took a single Google search to come up with a handful of articles with her name on them. The subject matter was fluff—entertainment news, the latest updates from Paris Fashion Week, tips on entertaining on a budget.

  I rolled my eyes, but grew serious once I started paying attention to the writing over the material. She had a breezy, confident voice. Almost like reading a letter from a friend or gossiping with a pal over drinks. The more I read, the more I wanted to read.

  Who did she work for, though? Who would be stupid enough to waste talent like hers on stupid puff pieces?

  All of the writing was for the same site, and in the footer was a single name: Madison Media Group.

  It felt as though the air left my body in one long sigh. Reed Kingsley. Exactly who I’d suspected. He was the kind of asshole who would subject a woman like Kenzie to the sort of inane bullshit she’d described to me. Keeping her down just because she was a woman. Giving opportunity to everybody but her.

  It made me sick.

  Then again, he’d already been making me sick for years.

  His face came to mind, with its weak chin and beady gray eyes. It was a face I’d wanted to bury my fist in for longer than I could remember.

  Ever since the day I found out he’d gone behind my back and poached the company from me when I’d been inches away from making it my own.

  The deal had gone smoothly, with no hiccups whatsoever. Both sides seemed happy with the way the transaction progressed—I knew I was. Fashion might have been my bread and butter, and I loved it still, but the need to break free and expand my empire had been tugging at me for years before I decided to purchase Madison Media Group. I’d seen it as the first big step toward breaking into the world of publishing.

  Within an hour, it all fell apart. I’d gone from putting a bottle of champagne on ice in preparation for a victory celebration to finding out it would be Reed Kingsley who’d be acting as CEO of the company.

  Somehow—and I was never quite sure how it went down, though I had my suspicions—he’d managed to get in behind my back and steal the company away. He must have had somebody on the inside, somebody keeping him abreast of the otherwise top-secret deal.

  He’d known just when to sink the knife into my back.

  While the outcome hardly left me a pauper—I was already a billionaire several times over before the deal even came to mind—it left me with a thirst for revenge. I’d bided my time until then, waiting for the perfect moment just as he had. He’d find out what happened to fools who thought they could pull one over on me. I almost felt sorry for him.

  Almost.

  And here she was. My weapon, Miss Kenzie Olson.

  A smile spread across my face as it became clear how easily I could use her against him.

  It would mean spending more time with her, however.

  And that gave me pause. I could admit to myself that I liked her, maybe even more than I should have if I wanted to stay safely out of her clutches. When I’d brought her home, it had been under the strict assurance to myself that nothing would come out of it.

  Less than twelve hours later, I was considering bringing her even closer to me.

  I’ll be fine. She’s just one more woman.

  After my first—and only—disastrous foray into romance, I’d sworn the whole thing off. It was a policy which had kept me happy and pain-free for over a decade. I wouldn’t go back on a promise to myself, not for anything or anybody—no matter how good they were in bed.

  I leaned back in my chair, fingers laced behind my head, putting a plan together in my head. The biggest challenge would be taking my time. She was smart, savvy. She’d know in a heartbeat if I used her.

  Instead, I had to employ a little finesse. I had to calm her, like a skittish animal. Just the way I had in bed, when she’d succumbed to me.

  I’d broken her will then, and it would be just as sweet when I did it again.

  CHAPTER 6

  Kenzie

  Oh, my God. I hate this place.

  It only took me four-and-a-half minutes for that thought to pop into my head.

  Barely five minutes after I’d stepped into the lobby, traveled up in the elevator and gotten off on my floor did I wish more than anything that I’d called in sick.

  Because that was when I heard Reed’s voice.

  “Kenzie, I’d like to see you in my office.” No question. No please. Just the request.

  I waved to show I’d heard my boss’s request, then stopped at my desk to drop my things off. Sometimes I wondered if he didn’t have a security feed on his laptop, watching for the moment I stepped foot inside the building. How else would he have the uncanny ability to sense just when I was approaching my desk? It was unnerving.

  I pushed those thoughts aside and hurried into his office. He glanced up when I entered the room. “Close the door.” I did as I was told—again without so much as a please—my stomach churning.

  I was twenty minutes late, and even that was a miracle considering the way I’d torn through my apartment like a woman on fire just to get here when I had.

  “Everything all right, Reed?” I sat across from him, reminding myself not to fidget. He’d know right away how nervous I was and he would pounce on it.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing. I wondered where you were at nine. That’s the time you’re supposed to be here, right, Kenz?”

  I swallowed over the distaste I felt every time he abbreviated my name even further. We weren’t friends. We weren’t even close associates. I barely stomached him, yet he treated me like we were pals—except I couldn’t imagine him ever berating a pal for being twenty minutes late to the office.

  “You and I both know the time I’m supposed to be here, Reed. I guess you don’t want to hear that sometimes a person has a bad morning, huh? I mean, it happens. Josh and Bill stroll in whenever they feel like it. I don’t see you pulling them into your office for a dressing down.”

  I couldn’t believe I had the balls to say it, and judging from the way Reed’s wide-set eyes widened, I wasn’t alone. I’d never so much as shot him an angry glance in the past.

  What had come over me? Maybe the venting I’d done in bed with Aaron had planted the seed. I was tired of denying to myself how miserable I was, tired of reminding myself how lucky I was to have such a great job.

  It wasn’t such a great job.

  “What I didn’t bring you in here for was an attitude.” Sometimes I wondered if he heard himself when he
spoke. How could he stand it if he did? If I were him, I would kill myself, or sew my mouth shut, or something. Anything to avoid saying something so stupid and patronizing.

  “I could be at my desk right now, getting through a pile of work. Wouldn’t you rather I was doing that? We’re both very busy.” I stood, straightening my dark suit. “However, if you take a look at my record, you’ll find that I never use all of my allotted sick, personal, or vacation days in any given year since I started with the company.” That was in stark contrast to the men I worked alongside, naturally. They always found reasons to extend business trips—for as much as a week, in some cases.

  Reed’s face turned an unnatural shade of red. “Fine. Get to work. We have a busy day ahead of us.” I sketched a salute before turning on my heel to leave the room.

  I couldn’t help feeling proud of myself for standing up to him. Never once had I heard him use the patronizing tone he’d used on me with any of the men in the company, even men at much lower levels than the two of us worked. I had my own office, albeit a small one. I deserved to be spoken to with a little respect.

  I wasn’t foolish enough to believe he’d let me go without punishing me. In fact, when the first of many emails came through with a wide array of tasks—all of which had to be complete by the end of the day, of course—I sighed with relief. I’d been waiting for him to dig into me from the second my butt hit the chair.

  A knock at my door around lunchtime was the first break I allowed myself. I glanced up to see Paula, one of Reed’s assistants, standing in the doorway.

  “Do you want me to pick up anything for you?” She gave me a sympathetic smile and I remembered that she had access to Reed’s email. She must have noticed the flood of messages flowing my way all day.

  “No thanks. I have a little something in my drawer.” I always kept snacks in there, the chance to go out and pick up lunch being such a rare occurrence.

  “Good for you, telling him off like that,” she whispered, then glanced up and down the hall to be sure nobody had heard her. I knew nobody would—it was after twelve, which meant the boys club would be out enjoying themselves. The place could be on fire and instead of helping put it out, they’d leave for lunch at noon.