Beauty and the BOSS (Billionaire's Obsession Book 1)

by R. S. Elliot

  I was kissing Luke Thorpe, THE Luke Thorpe. He was fondling me on his desk and tugging my panties down over my ankles. We were actually going to do this. Part of me knew that this was absolutely off-limits, was going to cause unimaginable trouble for both of us, and maybe jeopardize our careers. But I couldn’t bring myself to care, not with this need coursing through my body and Luke half dressed in front of me. I was going to pay for this, I knew, but I was clay in his hands, eager to be worked and molded into whatever shape he desired.

  Luke gasped when I wrapped my fingers around his hard length, and I grinned against his mouth, pleased with myself. I pumped him in my hand as he freed my breasts from my dress; it would probably be ruined after this. I cried out when his fingers circled my nipple, painfully erect, and he pulled me tight against him.

  He sank his teeth into my neck when he entered me, just hard enough to make me gasp, and I dug my fingernails into his back. I freed him from his restrictive suit jacket and could feel his powerful muscles moving beneath the thin fabric of his button-down shirt as he set a steady pace. My legs were quivering around him as he worked me mercilessly, pushing me further and further over the edge. I moaned when he groaned my name, and a few of his fingers came up to press against my swollen mouth, reminding me of the crowds of people sitting at their desks on the other side of the thin wall. I took his fingers into my mouth, delirious with desire, and sucked them while he drove into me.

  Luke’s fingers dug into my hips, pulling me as close to him as our bodies would fit as he thrust in and out of me. The slight pain of his fingernails digging into my skin was intoxicating, and I cried out his name as I threaded my fingers through his hair. The world was a blur of pleasure, and his breath was hot and labored in my ear. I was so close to earth-shattering release, and I could feel his cock twitching inside me. We were both so close, so close to—

  “Luke?”

  The voice was hesitant, neither of ours and worst of all, coming from inside the room. I threw my head up from Luke’s shoulder just in time to see Oliva press her way through the door and drop her notebook in shock. She swore and threw her hand over her mouth, and I gasped and tried to wriggle out from under Luke, but it was too late. She had seen. Everything.

  “Luke,” she hissed, slamming the door behind her and stepping into the room.

  Luke had, by this point, realized we were not alone and was scrambling to right his appearance and cover me up the best he could. I wanted to cry when he pulled out of me, leaving me with nothing but the memory of how good it felt to be full of him and on the brink of climax.

  “Olivia—”

  “I cannot believe you,” she began, hissing the words through her teeth. I had seen Olivia stressed before, but never this honest-to-God furious. “Are you insane? I’ve seen wild behavior from your before, but this is really something else. This is grade A son-of-a-bitch right here.”

  A purplish color was rising in her dark cheeks, and her eyes were aflame with anger.

  Directed toward Luke, I realized. Not towards me. In that instant, it was like I didn’t even exist, like Luke had gotten himself into this mess entirely by himself without my willing aid. I expected Olivia to be too embarrassed to talk to either of us or to throw her hands over her eyes and shuffle out of the room, but she stood there and stared Luke down like she had every right to, like she was a member of his family who came to read him his rights.

  “Olivia,” he huffed again, tucking in his shirttail. His hair was beyond saving, askew from my fingers running through it. Nudity aside, there was no question about what we had just been doing. “Would you please just let me explain?”

  “What’s there to explain Luke? You’ve got the intern spread like a buffet on your desk during office hours. I cannot believe you. I thought you were better than this. I really did.”

  “Olivia,” he snapped. “Listen to me. This... was not planned. This was not supposed to happen; I’m not having some kind of affair under your nose. Emily and I... she was helping me on a project and we—”

  “Oh, really?” Olivia asked, arching an eyebrow. She cast a disparaging glance down to Luke’s crotch. “Your ‘project,' huh?”

  Sensation was returning to my body in dull waves as the shock wore off. I hastily tugged my dress down over my hips and righted my neckline. I wiped a hand over my mouth even though I knew that Luke had kissed off any of the lipstick he had smeared.

  “We got carried away in the heat of the moment. For God’s sake, these things happen, we’re all just humans. You and I did stupid shit when we were in college, didn’t we? You’ve come to me with so many crazy stories about the guys you were seeing—”

  “Yes, exactly, you just said it, in college! You’re a grown-ass man, and that girl is barely legal. Employee or not, that is fucked up.”

  “Do I get to have a say in any of this?” I asked, my voice hoarse and thin. After all the day’s excitement, I felt like I might slip off the edge of Luke’s desk and hit the floor if I wasn’t careful. He seemed to sense this and put a steadying hand on my knee. Olivia didn’t look so sympathetic.

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t want any part in whatever this is, Emily. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine! He wasn’t.... everything was consensual, okay?”

  “I assumed that. It doesn’t make this look any better. God, Emily, you’re a student intern... This is... This is bad, alright? You at least realize that this whole situation is bad?”

  She was talking to me like I was a high schooler caught with her skirt up, bent over her teacher’s desk, and I resented her for it.

  “I might be stupid, but I’m not a child. I know what we did, alright? Like Luke said we just got carried away. I think it’s safe to say that this has been an emotional month for everyone with all the press about the new product launches.” I felt ridiculous trying to talk business to Olivia with my lacy bra poking over my neckline and my makeup in shambles from Luke’s punishing kisses, but I had lost my shame somewhere along the way. If she saw what she saw, we could talk frankly with one another.

  “You aren’t wrong, but that doesn’t make it alright.”

  “I didn’t say it did.”

  “Olivia,” Luke said in that steely, confident tone that made him sound like he had everything under control, even though he had been about to come undone inside me minutes ago. “Come here.”

  Now Olivia looked truly scandalized.

  “I’m not joining whatever club of bad choices you two have going on—”

  “Don’t be an idiot. I want you to sign something.”

  I was left sitting stunned on the edge of Luke’s desk as he went rummaging through folders in a drawer in his desk, flipping through the labels without looking up to meet either of our eyes. I had no idea what was going on. Could he really be thinking of work at a time like this? Was he just going to breeze into asking Olivia to read off his weekly checklist and bring him his schedule as though nothing happened?

  Luke slapped down a piece of photocopied paper on the desk, then retrieved a heavy fountain pen and passed it across the table to Olivia. She drifted tentatively closer to us and was now standing right beside me. Somehow this made her presence in the room more real, and embarrassment seized me all over again.

  “It’s a nondisclosure form,” my employer, my client, the man who I just let hoist me up onto his desk and strip off my panties, said.

  Olivia shot a daggered glance at him.

  “You’re just gonna shut me up, Luke, is that it? After all we’ve been through? I’ve known you since you were a kid you ungrateful—”

  “This isn’t blackmail or hush money. It’s just here to protect all of us, in case anything gets out.”

  The thought sent a whole new terror rushing through me. Get out? What could get out? Terrified visions of paparazzi snapping pictures outside his window or of disgruntled office workers hearing me beg for him through the walls danced through my head. My God. That could ruin me. Forget losing out on
France. This could get me expelled since this was a school-sponsored internship. I was sure Luke, and I had just very thoroughly and enthusiastically shattered some NYU code of conduct bylaws.

  Olivia was still glaring at him, but she picked up the pen.

  “If I sign this, you promise me that this never happens again.”

  “Of course,” Luke said, so sincerely that my heart hurt. His eyes darted over to me, green and searching, and I nodded.

  “Yeah,” I said once I had swallowed to free up my dry throat. “It’s not going to happen again. We promise.”

  Olivia picked up the pen and then signed her name in one defiant swoop. I was sure the fine print didn’t have specific details about a boss hooking up with his employee in it, but Olivia had probably signed plenty of things like this before. Maybe Luke had even asked her to sign under similar circumstances before. The thought made me squirm with discomfort. Was I the first girl this had ever happened with?

  “It’s done,” Olivia said. “Listen to me, both of you... I am willing to overlook this. I’m serious. I’m willing to chalk this up to a shit decision made during a shit month, and I’m willing to grant you that you’re both overworked and probably needed to blow off a little steam, anyway. But I just... can’t handle this, alright? Luke, for my sake, I can’t field paparazzi calls about your intern I just...”

  “I know. I know, Olivia, and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Thank you,” she said, looking tired. “Emily...”

  Her voice trailed off, and she looked me over with those keen, dark eyes, unable to decide what to do with me. I was sure she had no shortage of things she’d like to say to me, but she weighed them before she spoke, and I thanked God for that. I felt like I could be pushed over the brink into tears at the drop of a hat.

  “You’re a smart girl,” was all she said. “Act smart.”

  Olivia threw Luke one more cutting glance before she slipped out the door, and then it was over. I was still sitting on the edge of Luke’s desk, feeling exposed and stunned, and Luke was sagging against the desk next to me, all the life gone out of him.

  “My God,” he murmured, massaging his brow as though trying to get rid of a headache. He had put his shirt back on so quickly that the buttons were wrongly matched, and his collar hung on him at a cockeyed angle. “Emily, I’m so, so sorry…”

  “It’s alright,” I said hoarsely. “It’s like I told Olivia—”

  “It’s not alright,” he said firmly and looked over to me. I couldn’t read his expression, and that terrified me. Was he angry at me? At himself? “I should never have put my hands on you. I took advantage of you and I—”

  “Luke, please, you didn’t take advantage of anyone. I wanted that just as much as you did. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I started working here.”

  Luke passed his hands over his face and groaned heavily. He looked almost like he was in pain.

  “Emily, you can’t just say things like that. I’m your boss. And for God’s sake, you’re nineteen years old.”

  “I’m grown,” I shot back. “And I’m legal. You didn’t seem to have a problem with my age a few minutes ago.”

  “What happened a few minutes ago should never have happened, and now Olivia is involved. I don’t want this to keep spiraling out of control, and apparently, neither of us can hold back when we’re around each other. I’m sorry, Emily. You’re a wonderful girl, and obviously, I am very attracted to you. But I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be alone together anymore.”

  His words were like a smack in the face. Hot tears burned in my eyes, threatening to fall.

  “What about the photos? The project?”

  “We’re still going to use your work, and you’re still going to be properly credited for it. And I’ll look for future photography opportunities for you at the company that don’t involve me, I promise. But you acting as my photographer is just too intimate. I’m sorry.”

  I felt numb all over as I pushed myself off his desk and stood unsteadily. All the thrill and arousal from before had soured in my stomach and turned to shame and anger. I snatched my panties up off the floor and stuffed them into my purse, yanking up my camera bag as I smoothed down my dress. I tried to do all this without facing Luke so he wouldn’t see me cry.

  “Emily,” he began, so softly that it felt like pins and needles being stuck into my heart.

  “It’s fine,” I croaked. “You’re right. I was stupid.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Olivia did. And she’s right. I know better than this. I think it would be best if you didn’t talk to me, please, or call. Just… not for a little while.”

  Luke’s face crumpled, and he straightened as though he was about to come to me and take me in his arms. But he didn’t move.

  “I respect that. I will respect your wishes, Emily. And none of this will threaten your position here. This will not get out; I swear it.”

  “Thank you,” I managed, gathering up the last of my things from the office. An hour ago, I had been on top of the world, sitting in a circle of top-level executives who were praising my work while Luke’s hand was on my knee. He had smiled at me so genuinely when I suggested solutions to the Dallas problem, with a warmth I would never have expected from a man with a reputation for being unemotional and calculating. Now the memory was ruined, and everything felt terrible. All I wanted to do was run home and curl up in my bed and cry. But I knew that wasn’t possible. I still had a job to do, and now I had to avoid raising suspicion. I could only pray that no one had heard our tryst, but heads would definitely turn if I rushed out of Luke’s office crying after a lengthy private meeting and then left the office for the day.

  Luke drifted over to me as I made my way to the door, hand hovering protectively over the small of my back. But he didn’t dare touch me, not after what we had done and what Olivia had seen.

  “Take care of yourself,” he said, weakly I thought. Then he opened the door for me, and I walked out into the office with my shoulders back, and my head held high. I had wiped the tears from my face and didn’t make eye contact with anyone as I clipped over to my desk and took my seat. I also didn’t glance back at Luke.

  My head was swimming, and I knew that there was no way I was going to get any work done for the rest of the day. I hadn’t been brave enough to look at Olivia when I passed by, but when I looked up, I saw she was doing her best to avoid watching me, even though I kept catching nervous glances from the corner of her eye. Had she really been upset enough to report Luke for indecency with an employee? I didn’t know her well enough to be sure, but Luke seemed to, and I found myself increasingly grateful for the non-disclosure agreement he made her sign. I resolved to go to the bathroom, splash some water on my face, and put my underwear back on to make sure that I at least felt decent enough for the rest of my day. As I stood to go, I saw from the clock hung on the wall that it was only 10:30. I sighed heavily — what a way to start the workday.

  Chapter Eleven

  Luke

  The next week was slow torture. True to my word, I gave Emily a wide berth. I avoided her desk, didn’t meet her eyes for more than a polite second in the halls and waited for another lift if I saw she was in an elevator. It was impossible not to see the hurt in her eyes as she dropped her gaze when I passed by, giving me only the smallest smile so as not to hint at any impropriety. It twisted my gut to see her removing herself from my path, but what was I supposed to do about it? We had committed the ultimate indiscretion together. If anyone other than Olivia walked into that room and found us together, it would have destroyed her career. I had to be more careful. If I really gave a damn about her, I should always keep it in the forefront of my mind that I was her employer and she was my employee. I held all the power in this relationship and any fallout from what happened between us would come down squarely on her head. It wasn’t fair. But I knew by now that very little about life was.

  Still, I
couldn’t get her out of my head. If I thought that finally consummating our desire for each other would be enough to burn the thought of her out of my mind, I was dead wrong. The intrusive thoughts of her smile or her face rapt with pleasure increased, as did my shameful nighttime fantasies of her hips and mouth and lovely searching hands. I felt like a damn high school student. Even the mention of her name was enough to send me tail-spinning into forbidden thoughts. And more than that, I worried about her. I wondered how she was processing what happened between us, or if Olivia treated her any differently now, and even if she could move past what happened to her the night her car had been stolen. I was in too deep, obsessed, and preoccupied, and I needed to do something about it. But what could I do?

  The opportunity came a week later after Olivia came into my office on Monday to do our usual weekly run-down. She was still being chilly with me, but tiredly, showing more of her exhaustion with work than any real anger at me. Catching me with one of my interns was just another extra strain that wasn’t in her job description, one of the dozen things she was being asked to shoulder as our new product launch and the opening of our Dallas location consumed the entire SkyBlue office. I felt terrible for her and resolved to insist she take a vacation as soon as I could spare her.

  We didn’t talk much beyond business that day, but she did remind me that I had agreed to a speaking engagement in San Francisco.

  “California?” I demanded, as though angry that the state would even dare to exist.

  “You said you would go, and I confirmed your attendance last week. Sorry.”