He stares at them, his lips trembling slightly. He must be angry about it, I guess. Not only have I almost ran into him – twice – now I’m coming into his building looking like a complete slob.
For a brief sizzling instant, I let myself imagine he’s staring at my breasts for other reasons. I imagine his firm tanned hands sliding up my body, peeling away my bra and palming my breasts, one in each hand. Or tearing my shirt away with his teeth so that buttons pop and go flying…
But of course, that’s just fantasy, the curse of being so imaginative due to my addiction to reading books on my Kindle. Sometimes, it’s hard to draw the line where the pretend starts and the real begins.
“What’s your name?” he demands.
“Scarlett,” I whisper.
“Scarlett,” he repeats, in a tone that’s difficult to read.
“Uh…yeah.”
“And you’re interviewing here today?” he asks, smirking at me as if I’m just one big joke.
“Y-yes,” I stutter, cursing myself for being so dorky. I wish I could be like the women in those kick-ass TV procedurals I sometimes watch, who always have the right thing to say in the moment. But, as an aspiring writer, my wit is an after-the-fact sort of deal. “I’m just running across the street to get another shirt.”
“Why?” he growls, stepping closer.
We’re standing in the middle of the lobby but people filter around us like water, ignoring us. Then I notice that security guards stand in a circle around us, as if this is some sort of private meeting, just me and…the CEO.
Why would he do this for me? Just to make fun of me?
“Because I look…unprofessional.”
“No,” he snarls.
I feel his warm breath on my forehead, causing goosebumps to rise unstoppably all over my skin. I wonder what that breath would feel like in other places, blowing like a furnace against the sensitive sensuality of my aching lips. I have to stop letting my mind wander there. Whatever’s happening here, it’s not that.
He must just be angry at me for the way I almost stumbled into him again.
“No?” I whimper, when he doesn’t go on.
“You don’t look unprofessional,” he barks. “You look…” He cuts off, smirking. Forty-two years old he might be, but as his stark blue eyes glisten, he has the energy and aggressiveness of an uncaged animal, primal and dangerous. “You know what, Scarlett? Let’s leave it here. I’ll see you soon, anyway.”
“Wait, what?”
“Didn’t you know?” He bares his teeth in primordial amusement. “I sit in for all my interviews.”
Then he turns away and walks toward the elevator.
I can’t help but watch him go, his broad back tugging on the edges of his suit jacket, creasing at the armpits as the fabric struggles to contain every sinful inch of his powerful body.
I feel like I’m in a dream as I walk onto the street. But, doing some quick research on my phone, I know that I won’t have enough time to get to the nearest clothes store and back.
Maybe I should just leave, but there was something in Mr. Sasso’s expression, some sort of…I don’t know.
Interest?
I shake my head, trying to dislodge the unlikely idea.
He’s a billionaire, a CEO, and in his late teens and early twenties he was a boxer. He’s a talented non-fiction author and could easily have any woman he wants.
There’s no way he wants me.
CHAPTER THREE
Santiago
I sit at the rear of the large interview room, my hands resting on the arms of my chair, trying to keep myself calm. But it’s difficult after the meeting with Scarlett.
When I happened to see her in the lobby, it was like I was a savage animal. Nothing in this world could’ve stopped me from striding across to learn her name. I noticed the coffee stain on her shirt, making me want to palm it, to rub it, to feel her nipples get hard…the same way they’ll get hard when she begins to produce milk for our children.
I imagine pinching her nipples lightly in my hand, tempting the liquid gold to cream around her pink frothy nipples, perhaps even tasting a little for myself. It would only be fitting, I reason, to make sure the heavenly manna is sweet enough…or maybe I’m just giving myself an excuse to play with those delectable mounds.
I almost told her in the lobby about my plans for us, but I didn’t want to startle her. I need to wait for an opportunity when we’re alone.
Unfortunately, this won’t be it, as a manager is getting set up across the room at the interview table. Her name is Marybeth Smithson, a hardworking woman who has been with Sasso Communications since the mid-2000’s.
I hardly get involved in the interviews preceding my princesses, not that this is unusual. I just watch, normally, anyway, seeing if I can detect any unearned bravado in the applicants, or, occasionally, detesting the way some women will try to use the assets that don’t appear on their résumé to their advantage.
Not like my queen, who keeps the place I’ll store my precious seed clothed tightly in pantyhose and an ass-hugging skirt. I feel my manhood surging against my pants, a tight pulsation at the base, my balls like weighted stones in my underwear. It’s like all our future offspring are roaring, begging me to plunge deep into her plus-size perfection now, now, now.
When it’s finally Scarlett’s turn, I have to grip the edge of the table to stop from letting out a carnal snarl.
I didn’t realize how long her hair was. She’s arranged it so that it covers the coffee stain, falling in waves down to her breasts, soft and begging to be caressed. I want to let it fall like champagne through my fingers, and then tug it, softly, letting her know that I’m in charge as I lead her into a land of pleasure and unquenchable desire.
She brushes her skirt down before she takes her seat, her hands grazing along her thigh. But not in the way some of the others do, as if willing me to look. She does it without thinking, nervously. She can’t seem to help biting her lip, making her seem cute and vulnerable.
I want to shield her from the world as she raises our family and make my house a home worth living in…but also give her the room to fly like the magnificent angel she is.
“So, Miss Manning,” Marybeth says. “I see here that the most experience you have in working in communications is for the school newspaper. Is that right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Scarlett says, a blush as deep as her name crawling tenderly across her throat, her pulse quivering. “But I’m only eighteen years old, so I don’t think it’s completely ridiculous to, you know, to put that on my résumé. And I did a really, really good job.”
“Hmm,” Marybeth says
“I wrote all the material for an entire semester last year. Every single page. As well as doing all the research for the paper, too. Two of the editors transferred and the other was a pot-smoking lay-about, so I had my hands full. But I never missed a deadline.”
“Because, presumably, you were setting them,” Marybeth mutters.
I watch, stunned, as my nervous princess becomes a sassy-as-hell empress, sitting up and folding her hands. Her painted nails are understated, just like the rest of her, but as she leans forward, I spot a hint of lioness in her expression. It’s all too easy to imagine her protecting my children with the same ferocity.
“I was setting the deadlines, it’s true,” she snaps. “But I never did myself any favors. I actually set deadlines a week earlier than our previous editor did. I love to write, I love words. I love the truth and I love…”
She trails off, panting.
Her whole neck has turned a deep shade of red now. My manhood is like a starving python in my pants, muscled and taut and eager as it shifts around. Squeezing the table is the only way to stop myself from charging over there and stripping her shirt off to see if that vivid flush has spread to the perfect landscape of her chest.
It’s not just her physical beauty, though, even if she’s sexier and more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.
It’s the fire in her eyes, combined with the anxiety. She’s not putting up a front. She’s genuine. She is who she is.
And I respect that.
“Go on, Scarlett,” I urge in a deep growl.
She flinches, glancing at me as if she forgot I was here. “It’s just that, Mr. Sasso—”
“Santiago,” I growl.
The idea that my mate, the woman who, if we’d met in a different time, would keep our children safe in the cave as I went out and hunted for a bounty fit for a woman like her, would call me by my surname makes me sick.
“Well, Santiago...” She swallows. “It’s just that I’ve admired your company for a long time. And I know I haven’t got the most experience in the world. And I know I’m only eighteen and I haven’t been to college. But I care. I really care. And I’m a hard worker.”
Marybeth shuffles some papers, effectively dismissing her chances of getting the job. But I feel a deep thrum in my chest. The passion in her voice, the sincerity in her bright gem-colored eyes…it reminds me of me, when I first started this company.
“We’ll be in touch,” Marybeth says curtly.
I stand up and wander to the desk, glancing at her résumé.
I see that her address is at the top, the location of her apartment causing surges of flame to move through me.
It’s in a rundown part of town. I want to put Scarlett on a throne and cover her in furs, dripping jewelry, all the finery of life…and then strip it all away so that she’s lying naked and flushed and fertile on the floor, begging me to plunge my fecund poleax between the sacred folds of her baby-making temple. She doesn’t belong in a place like that.
But I have her address now, and that’s all that matters.
I step back, keeping my gaze locked on her. “We’ll be in touch,” I growl.
I notice her face drop, as though she thinks she hasn’t gotten the job.
“And you’re hired,” I say. “There was never any doubt about that. Of all the candidates we’ve interviewed this morning, you’re by far the most passionate, the most genuine. You didn’t try and trick us. You could’ve bloated your résumé with fake achievements like all the other candidates did, but you showed the most important quality I look for in an employee, Scarlett. You showed honesty.”
And that’s just one of the things that’s going to make you a perfect mother to our children.
But I can’t tell her that, not yet, not with Marybeth here to steal some of the privacy and splendor of the moment. And, also, I know that once I tell her it will be a godlike feat to restrain myself from exploring the terrain of her undulating curves.
“Oh, wow,” she says, gasping. “Thank you so much!”
“You start tomorrow,” I tell her.
“So then, um…”
“What are we going to be in touch about?”
She nods, biting her lip in that way that threatens to make my balls go nuclear.
“That’s personal,” I tell her sternly. I nod at Marybeth, who takes the signal and quickly leaves the room. Then I step forward, but somehow manage to restrain myself from mauling her right here. “Just promise me one thing, Scarlett. You’ll stay in this evening. I have my business to take care of. But I need to tell you something…alone. Promise.”
She finally lets her lip go. The flesh is marked slightly. I clench my fists so hard my fingers jab into my palms painfully. I want – no, need – to touch those lips, but not yet, not here.
“I promise,” she says.
CHAPTER FOUR
Scarlett
When I finally get back to my crummy apartment, with the peeling wallpaper and the faucet that’s gone drip-drip-drip ever since I moved here from the orphanage, I pinch my arm just to make sure I’m not dreaming.
But I’m awake. Santiago Sasso offered me a job. I start tomorrow.
And he also told me not to leave the apartment tonight. That’s not exactly a challenge, as I’m so tired it’s a struggle to keep my eyes open. But I’m home much earlier than I expected to be. As soon as I walked into the lobby, a man in a suit was there, in black sunglasses, looking like a member of the CIA or something.
“Miss,” he said. “Mr. Sasso has instructed me to give you a ride home.”
As I rode in the back of the car, I squeezed my hands together and tried to stop the eels of anxiety from slithering electrically through my body. I’ve got no idea why Santiago Sasso himself would take such an interest in me. I can’t help but let my mind wander back to that horrible embarrassing incident I suffered as a teenager.
I trusted somebody once before, and it didn’t turn out well. Now, Santiago himself wants to see me…why? Is it some kind of cruel trick?
I sit down on my couch, completely beat, and let my head fall back as my eyes close.
All throughout the interview, I saw him looking at me with that stern, oh-so-CEO look on his face. It’s the same face I’ve studied on the back page of his non-fiction books, admiring the salt in the stubble he sometimes wears in some of them.
My over-active wannabe-writer’s imagination throws up a bunch of thriller scenarios, a thousand horrors for his reason for wanting to meet with me.
It just doesn’t make any sense.
I’m the girl men ignore. I’m the girl who hides away in a private corner of the library, pushing my face as deep into the pages of a book as it will go. Sure, lately I’ve replaced paperbacks with my beloved Kindle, but the sentiment is the same. Imaginary worlds are way, way easier to live in.
In imaginary worlds, I get to know what it’s like to be seen, not just by men, but by anybody. That’s how I spent my whole life at the orphanage, an invisible wraith. And, the one time I was finally seen, it didn’t turn out very well at all.
I guess some bitter part of me accepted a long time ago that the things other, skinnier girls take for granted, they just aren’t for me. I didn’t even go to prom. I’m just not that sort of girl. So, whatever Santiago Sasso wants, I just can’t help but think it’s something sinister, something…mean.
But then, everything I know about him tells me otherwise. He’s a good man and his company is built on values of morality and honesty.
Confusion grips me in invisible, torturous hands. I find I can’t settle. I go to my tiny, thrift-shop desk in the corner of the room and try to hammer out a few hundred words on my beat-up laptop. Sometimes, as I sit in this ramshackle desk, I let myself dream about being a writer.
Knock-knock.
I swallow down acid anxiety. The knocks reverberate throughout the apartment with the confidence that tells me they must belong to Santiago. There’s no way a man like him would knock quietly.
I go to the door, realizing too late that I’m still in my coffee-stained shirt. I adjust my hair like I did in the interview and open the door, heart thumping deafeningly in my ears.
Santiago leans against the doorframe, his bare arms knotted with tight balls of muscle. He’s taken his jacket off and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt and, as he leans there, it rides up his belly, showing the well-defined delineations of his ab muscles.
“Scarlett,” he growls. “Are you going to invite me in?”
“Uh, yeah, sorry,” I say. I’ve just been standing here gaping at him like a complete doofus. “Do you want coffee? Oh, actually, I’ve run out of coffee. Tea?”
“Tea will be fine,” he says, strolling casually into my apartment. I close the door behind him, unable to look away from his partly-diaphanous shirt, to the tight collection of powerful back muscles beneath.
What would it be like to run my fingernails down that back, to feel each twitching point of power? “You keep the place clean. It’s not much, but you take pride in it.”
“I try to,” I say, moving through to the kitchen.
Why the heck is he here? I want to come right out and ask him, but there’s a thick butter-knife tension in the air, making it difficult to talk.
He drops onto the couch, putting his arm over the back. When I set the
tea on the coffee table, he nods to the place next to him. I lick my dry lips and sit down, knowing that he’s just put his hand there by accident, but wishing it was for me…wishing he’d grab me and hug me close to him, let me rest my cheek against his rock-solid chest.
“I think it’s time you knew, Scarlett.”
I swallow. My suspicious instincts hum as a dozen explanations riot through my head.
“Um, okay…”
He turns to me and then grabs my hands, moving his thumbs over my knuckles. I clutch onto him tightly, worried this is all some sadistic trick and yet unable to stop.
“Scarlett,” he growls. “You’re mine. There’s no simpler way to say it. From the moment you almost ran into my car this morning, I knew. I’ve been waiting my whole damn life for you. I always thought the idea of the one was absolute bullshit. But now I know the truth. It’s not. And you’re the one for me.”
“But I’m…” I shake my head. “I’m not exactly the sort of girl who must be all over you all the time—”
He gives my hands a light squeeze. “I’m not interested in them. You’re a goddess. We’re perfect for each other in every way. I’m going to put my seed in you, Scarlett.”
“Oh, God,” I whisper. My womb does a freaking backflip inside of me, sending out signals that scream yes-yes-yes. I know I do a terrible job at hiding the desire from my face, but I can’t help it, I want it with such excruciating urgency. “Are you serious? This isn’t some sort of crazy trick?”
“Trick?” He narrows his eyes at me. “I’d never trick you, Scarlett. We both care about the truth more than anything. I want you. I need you. I never dreamed I’d find a woman capable of being my partner, but now I have.”
I open my mouth to speak, but no words will come out. Then the man whose author photo I’ve admired for as long as I can remember leans forward and brushes the hair from my forehead. “I’ve wanted to do that from the second I laid eyes on you.”
I shiver. “You’re saying I’m messy, huh?” I sass.
“No,” he growls. “Because I knew it would make you shiver and whimper the way you just did. And that’s just fucking perfection.”
Mr. CEO: An Instalove Possessive Alpha Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 160) Page 2
