by Tasha Fawkes
Even though things were a little crazy, I was happy. So happy I could barely contain it at times.
I pulled Kim into a hug and squeezed. "I'm so glad you're here."
"Where even is here?" she joked. "I still don't understand why you chose this place to get married. Your nuptials will be the most exciting thing to happen here since the last goat stampede."
I laughed and released her, poking her nose. Kim would always be a Vegas girl, even if it was rough and tough at times. The more of the world I explored, the less I felt like returning to the place I'd once called home. Now I saw it for what it had been—a refuge. From my past, and from any semblance of a future too.
Sure, getting married in the Nepalese mountains with only some goats, a couple of locals, and Kim as witnesses wasn't the glamorous white wedding I pictured when I was a little girl, but that dream had been the kind you have before you figure out what you want in life. A pre-fab fantasy for those who haven't lived to find their genuine passion.
My true passions were springing up all over the place, but it was my love for Chad that had eventually thrown that old desire to the wind. All that mattered was that I was with him. This far from society there was no phone signal, no disturbances, and no audience. It was perfect.
"We should get you out there." Kim sniffed. "They'll think I tossed you out the back window and made a run for it."
We both glanced at the crooked window of the hut. I laughed at the mental image of Kim and I racing down the hillside, arms pinwheeling at our sides and my veil flying behind me like a kite.
"Yeah, let's do it."
She offered me her arm, and I threaded mine through it. The door squealed as we pulled it open, announcing our exit to the ragtag wedding party.
Chad stood twenty feet ahead of me, wearing an elegant tuxedo that stood out from the otherwise pastoral setting. We'd picked out the perfect cliff ledge, from beyond which stretched a vista like none other. Jagged mountain peaks rose in the distance, clouds hanging low around their base like fluffy snow. The air was chilly and light, layered with the fresh scent of mountain grass.
Kim dropped my arm halfway, and I approached Chad alone. The priest stood just off to the side. He hadn't wanted to get too close to the ledge.
Chad looked the most handsome I'd ever seen him. His tawny hair was combed neatly back from his forehead, not a piece out of place. His full mouth curved more with every step I took, and I nearly got lost in his eyes and walked straight to my doom.
I stopped when I reached him, beaming from ear to ear.
"That's a steep drop," I commented.
He laughed and looked down. "Yeah, it reminds me of our first adventure together."
"I hope you're not thinking of jumping."
Chad met my eyes with vibrant intensity. "Not a chance in the world, beautiful."
My heart fluttered in my chest.
"Are we ready?" asked the priest.
We both nodded, and the priest stepped over.
Oh, we were ready, alright.
Ready for the next adventure.
Craving My Boss
Sneak Peek
One
Ashley
"Oh fuck! Yes! Give it to me!"
She arched her back, sweat pouring down the dip in her spine, and hissed as the hot tongue of her lover licked a trail all the way up to her trembling shoulder. In the next instant, a broad hand came down on her ass with a crack like thunder. The smarting pain lanced through her, mingling with her pleasure, and she cried out. Her hands, bound at the wrists behind her back, could do nothing to ward off the punishment. Her lover grabbed a fistful of her raven locks and yanked her head back.
"I thought I told you to keep that filthy mouth shut," he growled. His lips articulated the harsh words against her ear, and she shuddered. "You know what it does to me to hear you plead like that."
"I can't help it!" she gasped. Strong hands gripped her waist and overturned her suddenly, throwing her down on her back into the tangle of velvet sheets. Her lover followed her down, his blond hair damp with perspiration, his jaw clenched from the immense effort it took to hold himself back, his fierce green eyes promising swift correction for her mistake. She trembled beneath him as his animalistic gaze raked her. To him, she was a tantalizing dish of trussed-up limbs, a womanly feast who had no choice but to spread for him and let him end her torment with a thrust of his majestic...
"Ashley!"
I rocket out of my chair in the break room, the effect of hearing my name like a splash of cold water dumped on the proceedings. I slam the screen of my laptop down quickly as Tory Keppel, inconvenient coworker, strides into the kitchen.
"I believe the word you are looking for is 'manhood'? Or something similar? Or maybe something more contemporary," she offers as she pulls up the chair beside me and drops down.
I flush, my tongue as tied as my heroine, but I can't think of a good deflection to throw her off the scent. If she managed to read even a line of my book—
"You're describing Daniel, right?"
"No!" My protest sounds strangled and comes too readily to be believed. Tory raises a strawberry-blonde eyebrow at me. "I mean… am I?" I feign surprise as I pick at a loose thread on the hem of my skirt. "I hadn't noticed."
"I mean, I know they tell us to 'write what we know' in every pithy college creative writing class, but wow." Tory whistles. "There's no way you can know that much about our boss."
"I…" My throat has gone completely dry. Unlike the roll I was on a minute ago, the right words simply won't come. "… Please don't tell anyone, Tory. Especially Stewart," I plead. "It's just something I'm writing for fun."
I hope the amused twist to Tory’s smile bodes well for me, even if her eyes are skeptical. Stewart, my on-again off-again hookup of two years, is also Tory’s cousin. Stewart definitely doesn't know about my private prose sessions.
"All right. I won't tell," Tory promises.
My posture relaxes instantly, and it's all I can do to keep from slipping down in my chair and puddling onto the break room floor. "Thank you." I breathe a sigh of relief.
"But that tied-up girl is totally you, isn't she?"
I manage a sheepish grin as I collect my laptop and rise. It’s all for Tory’s benefit—because her conclusion is terrifying in its truth, and I don’t want her to know just how personal that last passage is. Better to put on a show of having come to terms with being caught than give over to the stark panic raging inside of me. I’m confident that for the sake of my relationship with Stewart, she’ll keep things between us.
What relationship? The little voice in the back of my mind niggles dismally as I stride down the hall toward the small office I share with Tory and another editor. My desk stands in front of the window. Things with Stewart had been—have been—tepid from the start, and that start was two years ago. ‘Tepid’ is definitely an adjective I wouldn’t use in my novel—so why have I made any space for it in my life?
I played up my relationship with Stewart to Tory twice to save my own skin. The truth is, I don’t consider what we have as a ‘relationship’—but he does.
What I consider a relationship, I’m finding is a lot more intense than most people can comfortably stomach.
I sit down behind my desk. Pen and Quill Publishing is a casual, open-door kind of publishing house. I don’t know why I thought that coveted concept of privacy could be found in the break room today. I pop open my laptop, my eyes skimming over what I’ve written, before hitting Save and exiling my manuscript back to the hidden folder I keep on my desktop.
Tory is right. My novel’s nameless hero is none other than Daniel Stone, the company CEO. Our boss. My boss. The descriptors I’ve employed in every hot passage so far point directly to my muse. It’d probably be a good idea to update some detail—any detail—to make it less obvious, but somehow, I can’t bring myself to render the changes. I want the hero to be Daniel Stone. And I want that bound, shuddering, gasping little sub begging for rel
ease beneath him to be me.
Somehow, I thought putting words to my most intimate fantasies would get them out of my system. No way that sort of relationship is possible—not with Stewart, and definitely not with Daniel, the multi-millionaire who barely remembers my name, but it’s only gotten worse since I started writing, and now I find I can’t stop. I’m hopelessly addicted to the plight of my raven-haired heroine, and I’m way too invested in the forms her punishments take.
Maybe it’s the close call with Tory that makes me more sympathetic than usual to queries from prospective authors today. I tab open my inbox and start replying to e-mails, avoiding my usual stock pleasantries and copy-pasted form rejections and focusing a little more on encouragement than usual. You might try querying at The Lifted Kilt Literary Agency, I advise one aspiring historical romance writer. Here is the contact info for one of their newer agents who is in the market for writers like you to represent! Feel free to use me as a reference. While our own preferences at this time lean more toward the contemporary, you’ll have an easier go of querying in the future once you’ve locked in an agent. Best of luck!
“Knock, knock.”
I glanced up from my latest dispatch. Elektra Ahladiotis, the firm’s senior editor, leans in the doorway. Elektra is a petite older woman in her fifties, although she doesn’t look it with that jet-black hair of hers and beautiful skin. She speaks with just a hint of her native Greece, which lends her voice a scintillating quality as exotic as her looks. She’s Daniel’s right-hand woman, and a formidable force of nature that I feel lucky to work directly beside most days.
“How is my assistant today?”
I’m not only Elektra’s assistant, but the editorial assistant to every other editor at Pen and Quill; still, what resources Elektra decides to command, Elektra gets. That includes me.
“Good.” I hit the Send tab on my latest e-mail and lean back in my chair, trying to school my expression to something carefully neutral even though my heart thuds erratically in my chest. Any unexpected appearance by Elektra usually makes my mind and pulse race with worry about having missed some minor editing detail, but today is worse than usual. Has Tory mentioned my pet project to her? Maybe I should’ve reiterated that she was to tell nobody. Maybe I should’ve made her sign a contract in blood. Maybe I should just start looking for another job since my career at Pen and Quill is as good as over.
“I just wanted to check in with you about the Christmas party this coming Saturday,” Elektra says. “As I recall, you were put in charge of food. I haven’t heard anything about it recently, so I assume it’s taken care of.”
She peers over her spectacles at me with those flinty dark eyes of hers, and it’s all I can do to not breathe an audible sigh of relief. All thoughts of living in my car with only my manuscript to keep me warm evaporate. “I’ve got it locked in,” I confirm. “Daniel’s… Mister Stone’s favorite restaurant has agreed to cater.”
“Maurelli’s?”
I nod. Elektra’s sharp gaze warms approvingly. “Your attention to detail has once more been noted, Ashley. Not many of Mister Stone’s employees make it their business to know his preferences. He is sure to be pleased.”
I nod again, more to hide the heat flooding my cheeks than anything. Of course, I made it my business to know Daniel’s preferences. Calling Maurelli’s was one of the first things I did when I learned he would be attending the party, and it hadn’t been an easy gig to secure. There’s a cunning quality to Elektra’s look now that makes me think this latest evidence of my devotion is sure to trickle back to him.
“You’ve done well, Ashley. I’ll leave you to it.” Elektra raps her knuckle on my desk in parting and glides back down the hall. Once I’m sure she’s gone, I do a gleeful spin in my chair. I have no delusions about Daniel’s availability, especially to someone like me, but I can’t deny how goddamn good it feels to succeed on even this minor front. And who knows? I might even get an acknowledgement Saturday from the big man himself.
Big man…
The thought triggers a mental image I could definitely use in my novel. “You need help, Ashley,” I mutter through a dreamy smile. I focus on work then, making sure I’ve caught up with all my e-mails before I click open the hidden folder. At the very least, I have time to finish that last paragraph before—
My work cell chimes. Text message. I’m still looking at the Word document, at all that empty space that needs filling—at that mewling heroine who needs filling most of all—when I thumb it open. I grimace when I see who the texts are from.
Stewart: Yo!
Stewart: Want me to come over tonight and help you relieve some stress?
Stewart: You’ve earned it. ;)
Stewart: I had us penciled in for some sexy times so just let me know. Also wanted to confirm the time of the holiday party this Saturday.
Stewart: Can’t wait to see you!
My inspiration shrivels. I close my laptop and mull over how to respond, which ends with me just staring blankly out an office window. How to reply? I told you not to text me at this number? We’re not in a relationship. I’ve told you a thousand times to quit acting like we are.
I used to think it wasn’t Stewart’s fault he couldn’t take a hint, but now I’m not so sure. I’ve been pretty clear on this front, and his unwillingness to recognize my waning interest—or to even listen to me when I tell him outright that I need more in the bedroom and less during the light of day—is starting to wear on me. I don’t like being the salacious, it’s-only-sex-between-us villain in Stewart’s life story, but maybe that’s who I am at the end of the day.
Good girls certainly don’t daydream about whips and chains and a healthy dose of mind-blowing pleasure with their pain.
Am I the villain? I stare at Stewart’s unanswered texts. The more I find myself able to put words and meaning to what I want, the more liberated I feel and less certain who I might hurt in the process.
There’s one thing I know, at least. I’m not afraid if the one who winds up bruised and begging is me.
Two
Daniel
“Daniel!”
The woman beneath me screams. It’s the way I prefer to hear my own name: in the form of a helpless plea; an explosive cry; a shapeless, senseless appeal for me to pull the trigger and end her suffering. But suffering is what Crystal loves. It’s why she comes to me.
And why she comes for me.
“Not yet,” I growl, leaning over the sweat-soaked, shuddering plane of my sub’s back. I thrust my thick cock between the cheeks of her perfect ass, burying myself to the hilt again and again as I take her from behind. Her magnificent breasts bounce with the force of the rhythm I dictate, catching and scattering the papers on my desk.
Crystal is the reason my office at Pen and Quill is soundproof. We’ve been going at it for almost an hour now, and her wails increase in volume as I come up with new and creative ways to make her beg for it. Getting fucked this hard from behind takes her to the absolute limit of her endurance, and I’m not about to let her off easy after one or two plaintive calls for mercy.
Crystal’s visit caught me unaware today—a surprise worthy of the punishment she’s receiving—but I don’t have the usual tools at my disposal. But I’m not her Dom due to my lack of imagination. I pull harder on the belt I’ve used to cinch her wrists behind her back, and she arches with a sweet little moan of compliance. I only need one hand to fist the belt around; I bury the other in her rich brown curls and yank her head back so I can get a better look at her expression. Her pretty face is contorted in ecstasy, her eyebrows pulled together until they can’t possibly climb any higher. I break my rhythm to thrust into her unexpectedly and watch her wince. She wasn’t ready that time. Her mouth drops open again and she tries her best to look over her shoulder, which requires her to fight against her restraints. Those big brown eyes almost dare to look outraged.
I live for the little rises, the fleeting challenges to my authority, that I get out of Cry
stal. They don’t come often enough for my taste.
And my tastes are voracious.
“Too hard for you?” I taunt. I punch my hips into her and watch as her tits press against the polished wood surface beneath her. “You’re the best thing to pass across my desk all day.”
“Fuck me, Master!” she pants. Hearing that word on her cherry-red lips both thrills and annoys me, as it should. Crystal’s not the one who gets to make demands in this relationship, and she knows it.
“You should see yourself right now.” I crane closer, winding her thick locks tight enough around my fingers to straighten that girlish curl right out of them. “You flounced in here this afternoon like you owned the place, but we both know I’m the one who owns you. If you could see the way my cock now fills your tight little pussy… maybe then you’d remember who’s calling the shots.”
“I’m going to come,” Crystal moans, dragging the word out in a hum. My cell rings, and I debate whether or not to let her achieve a final release before picking up. Letting it go to voicemail isn’t an option, especially not when I see my fiancée’s name on the caller ID.
Crystal’s discarded panties are conveniently within reach. I grab them, ball them up tight, and stick them between those protesting, voluptuous lips of hers. She clamps down obediently, wide eyes imploring, but I need her quiet. I wrench the belt that binds her wrists, testing my improvised gag as I use my other hand to pluck my phone off the desk. Her answering squeal is muffled to my satisfaction. I slide my cock all the way in to reward her as I answer the call.