by Alexis Angel
Okay Brittney Bartlett, let’s see what you’ve got…
108
Kaden
I stand in front of my research team and take a deep breath. I know they all think that I’m here to ask them to research a new company acquisition or stock gamble, so I’m a little…hesitant to tell them the real reason they’re sitting around the Stately Oak conference table, laptops in front of them.
“Uhhhh…”
We’re off to a strong start.
“I’ve called this emergency meeting today so we can do some research,” I finally spit out. Everyone just stares at me. I might as well have said, “I would like to make a critical announcement – you must breathe in order to live!”
Plunging on, I say, “Brittney Bartlett. We need to research her.” Well, I at least got the words out. I mentally pat myself on the back.
“The investment analyst from Carter Jeffries?” Tom asks, looking confused.
“What?” I say reflexively.
“She’s an investment analyst over at Carter,” Tom repeats, looking at me quizzically. He fears me enough – at least someone does around here, Gweny – not to ask the question on everyone’s mind: Why am I asking to research someone I know so little about?
All right, fine. Truth time.
“Truth is, I just met her and I need to impress her.”
First, it was just a twitch of the lips, which quickly escalated into a full-blown belly laugh. “You want to pick up on this chick?” Hansen yells, and doubles over laughing again.
“Hell yes,” I admit with a chagrined smile. “Have you seen her legs?”
“Not close enough,” Tom says with a huge grin. I send him the death glare. He withers down in his seat, suddenly quiet. I mean, I’ll laugh with the best of them, but Brittney is my girl. No making jokes about fucking her.
When did she become your girl?
I brush the thought away. Soon. She’ll be my girl soon.
“I need to know everything about her,” I say, striding around the room. “Favorite color. Where she graduated from high school. Favorite restaurant. Favorite book.”
“She reads?” Hansen pipes up, surprised.
“Yes, she reads. Like most literate human beings,” I say drily. Everyone laughs. “I need to know what author she’s obsessed with. I need to know if she’d rather go skydiving or snorkeling on a date. If she sneezed last week, I need to know about it.”
Finally realizing that I’m serious about this, my crack research team bends over their laptops and start their searches. I know that soon, I’ll know everything I ever wanted to know about Brittney. I’ll know if she slept with a teddy bear at night as a child...
And I’ll know if she wants to sleep with me now. Because as fun as the fuck on my desk was, it wasn’t enough. I need more. I haven’t slated my thirst for her yet, not by a long shot.
109
Brittney
Okay, so it’s been three weeks, and I’m not above admitting that it feels like for-fucking-ever. When I left Kaden in his office, his pants hanging off the filing cabinet in the corner where I’d shucked them in the middle of our fuck-a-thon, I’d thought he’d, you know, come after me. Maybe not that day, but soon afterward. I wasn’t used to fucking a guy, and then not having him chase me. The chase was most of the fun.
But…Kaden somehow didn’t get the memo. How was it that he wasn’t calling me? He hadn’t even added me as a friend on Facebook yet. For being a stalker, he sure was falling down on the job.
Maybe he’d gotten me out of his system. Maybe he’d just wanted a quick fuck and then he was ready to move on. Maybe I’d somehow gotten more attached to him than he’d gotten to me.
The thought makes me uber depressed and I decide to eat a pint of ice cream when I get home tonight. There’s this chocolate gelatino that is to die for that I’ve been hiding in the back of the freezer for just this kind of occasion. I can wear my Donald Duck PJs and my floppy pink bunny slippers that even my sister doesn’t know I own, and just eat ice cream while watching reruns of Gilmore Girls on TV. That sounds suitably cliché enough. I might even dig out my copy of Pride and Prejudice and get my Austen on.
“What’s a beautiful lady doing in a place like this?”
I hear his voice before I see him, and I whirl around in my office chair in surprise, almost falling out of it in the process. Like summoning a genie in a bottle, here’s fucking sexy Kaden Charles himself.
“Oh hi!” I squeak out. I clear my throat and try that again. “Hi.” I lean back in my chair casually, trying to act as if I had not just been mentally drooling over the very thought of him, but I let my eyes rake over him, taking in his dark blond hair, and curling over his forehead, down past his Salvatore Ferragamo shirt and tie all the way down to his Sutor Mantellassi shoes. He’s looking good, real good, and I mentally forgive him for taking three weeks to finally contact me.
Although, I am surprised he just waltzed in here like this. How did he even get back to my desk? Usually security doesn’t allow people in back here. He must’ve greased some palms.
“So I’m buying Atlantic Trading Group,” he says, leaning against my desk. I have to crane my neck back to stare up at him, and I wonder for a moment about telling him that he has to sit on the floor so I don’t get a crick in my neck. But I decide to let it go for the moment. Some things are worth suffering through, know what I mean?
“Yeah, I saw that deal come through. And you just happen to be using Carter Jeffries to help you put the deal together?”
He grins, unashamed. “Well, I thought I’d use the best. I’ve heard at CJ, there’s this brilliant investment analyst who knows it all, so I figured why not use her services, right?”
“Right,” I say, trying to quell my laughter. I really shouldn’t be egging him on. He’d taken three weeks to show up here, after all. I should make him pay for that somehow.
“I’ve been thinking after our last…meeting, that what I really ought to do is take you out on a little yacht that I have, and we can just hang out for the day on the water.”
“Really?!” I can’t help it – I am shocked. Most guys think that to impress a girl, they need to take her to the fanciest restaurant they can afford, and pour as much wine down her as possible. I don’t know if I’ve been ‘wined and dined’ too often, or what, but that just doesn’t do much for me anymore.
“Yeah. Just you, me, and the ocean for a day. Or a week. Do you have any vacation time coming up?”
“A little.” Truth? My boss has been on my ass to take at least a week’s vacation, or corporate will have to pay it out to me in cash, and they hate doing that. It’s gotten to the point that my boss has started putting brochures for five-star resorts on my desk every day.
I don’t want to go to a resort, though.
But a week on the ocean? That sounds like…heaven.
I run my hand up his thigh, letting my fingernails scrape along until I get dangerously close to his dick. His eyes flare with desire and internally, I grin in triumph. So maybe he’s made me suffer for the last three weeks, but he still wants me.
He asks, “Want to go out for a drink tonight? At Bungalow 8 again? I can show you some dance moves out on the floor.”
God, I love guys who can dance. If he can really dance, I may melt into a pile of goo into my stilettos, like a non-witch version of the Wicked Witch of the West. So many guys think that going out onto the dance floor and waving back and forth, feet firmly planted in place, somehow counts.
Not even close.
A guy who can dance, and wants to take me out on a yacht and is an amazing fuck and loves libraries and is worth about a gazillion dollars? Oh, and is drop-fucking-dead gorgeous?!
What isn’t to love?
I open up my mouth to reply when—
“Sir, you aren’t supposed to be back here,” a security guard says at my elbow. I jerk my hand back down into my lap and my face flames a brilliant red. Goddammit, now I look like an idiot to my co-workers
. I had really thought he’d gotten the okay to be back here.
“You are supposed to be in the Creaking Maple conference room, not back here among proprietary trading technology,” the security guard continues, pompously. I have to wonder how he’s able to say that with a straight face, especially the Creaking Maple bit. I don’t know who named the Carter Jeffries conference rooms, but they have fuck-awful names. I usually snort coffee up my nose every time someone says XX SEXUAL REFERENCE.
“Well, I’d just come back here to say hi to Brittney,” Kaden says with a confident smile.
“You know this man?” the guard demands, staring at me.
I look back and forth between the sexiest man I’ve ever seen, and an overweight balding security guard with a pompous attitude that’d fit right in with the royal family of England.
And I feel that naughty grin come back.
“No, sorry sir,” I say apologetically. “I was just sitting here, working, when he came up and started talking to me. I’ve never seen him before in my life.” Well, all of that was true except the last bit, so I figure I’m only going to slightly roast in hell, instead of having flames lick up my legs. And anyway, he really deserves this, for coming back into the employee area without permission. I could get into deep shit over this.
The stunned look on Kaden’s face is worth it all. “But…but…” he stutters, as the security guard whistles to his backup, and together, they drag Kaden out of the office area, giving him a stern talking to as they go.
I turn back to my desk and let the grin out fully. Sometimes, I have a little too much fun...
I lean over, grab my phone, and text him. “Meet me at Opal in Turtle Bay in 45 minutes.” I can go out to lunch with him, and teach him how the real world works. Starting with, don’t fuck with a girl’s career.
110
Kaden
I drum my fingertips on the table impatiently. After getting a dressing down from security guards like I was six years old, I was shoved out the front door and not allowed to go down to the Creaking Maple conference room – god, their conference rooms are just as bad as ours – where the buyout of Atlantic Trading Group was being discussed.
I was…not happy. I’d done everything I was supposed to. I’d brought business to Carter Jeffries, something she cares about. I’d offered to take her out on my yacht, something she cares about. I’d even learned how to do a couple of dance moves, despite being born with two left feet, and my leg muscles now ache from three weeks of dance lessons every night by a local hip-hop dancer. Guaranteed to impress her, I’d paid an ungodly amount of money to learn these moves straight from a master.
And yet, she’d lied, fucking lied, when the security guard showed up. This is twice that I’ve gotten into trouble over her, and she doesn’t seem to give a good goddamn. When she shows up, I’m going to give her holy hell for that stunt. I’m going to—
“Hi,” she says, sliding into the chair across the table from me.
“Hey,” I grump at her. Because that’s really the only way to describe that syllable that I just said. “Brittney, I cannot believe you just did that. Right now, I’m missing the buyout meeting because you lied to the security gu—”
“You can’t believe I did that?!” she interrupts me, hissing and leaning across the table to glare at me. “I can’t believe you did that! I am on my way up at Carter Jeffries, there Wonder Boy, so I have to watch my Ps and Qs. You may own your own company and can do whatever the hell you want to do there, but I can’t. I have a boss, and a boss’ boss. They watch my every move ‘cause I’m a woman, and I’m trying to play in a boy’s world.
“And then you waltz on back into an area clearly marked for employees only, where proprietary info is kept, and think that I’m going to cover your ass when you get caught! When you showed up at my desk, I thought you’d received permission to go back there, or at least had greased some palms. But noooooo, you thought I would cover for you. Well, you thought wrong!”
The waiter shows up at just that moment, menus in hand.
“Should…should I come back in a minute?” he asks, gaze darting back and forth between us.
“No, I’m not hungry after all,” she says. “Billionaire here who thinks that rules don’t apply to him can stick around but I’m done.” She shoves her chair back, slings her purse over her shoulder, and brushes past the waiter who is standing there awkwardly, leaving just him and I sitting there, staring at each other.
“I’ll just leave these right here and check back on you in a minute, sir,” the waiter says apologetically, and, laying down the menus, disappears.
I stare at the menus, my eyes seeing but not caring. God, she was right. Every word of it. After all of the research I’d done, I’d forgotten to take into account the fact that she’s a very real human with very real concerns, like the future of her job. How her coworkers see her. How her bosses see her. I’ve been my own boss for so long, with only Gweny who dares to say a cross word to me, that I’d forgotten what it was like to have to watch what you do and who you do it with, because it matters on your yearly evaluation.
I have the realization that this isn’t a game. And I need to tell her that.
Ignoring the menus on the table, I head back out the door after her. I see her weaving her way down the sidewalk, walking head down, shoulders hunched, ignoring the world, and I know that she’s bloody pissed at me.
And I damn well deserve it.
“Wait,” I call out, dashing after her. I swear her strides are only getting faster, although she doesn’t look up, so maybe I’m just deluding myself.
“Wait,” I say when I’m touching her shoulder, whirling her around to look at me. The color is high in her cheeks and she looks ready to spit fire at me again. “I’m sorry,” I say, heading off her verbal attack. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I didn’t look at it like that. It didn’t occur to me that you could get into trouble for it. I’ve been my own boss for so long, I did forget what it’s like to have upper management to report back to. I shouldn’t have put you into that position.
“I care about you, Brittney. A lot. I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind for the last three weeks. I’m buying a damn company that I know almost nothing about, just so I can use Carter Jeffries. Just so I can be near you. Please forgive me for being an arrogant ass. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
She stares up at me, and I can see it written so clearly – she wants me to make beg for her forgiveness. She wants to humble me. I start to drop to my knees, figuring that if dropping to my knees in the middle of Manhattan doesn’t get her to forgive me, nothing will, but then she reaches out and grabs me and pulls me to her instead and then we’re kissing.
Oh god, we’re finally kissing.
I know that we’re in public and it’s not, strictly speaking, appropriate, but what I really want, more than anything, is to shove her up against a wall and fuck her. Or at least wrap her legs around my waist...
But I force myself to draw back. I’d just told her that I knew that she was under a lot of pressure to keep her nose clean for her job. I can’t go and ruin that by shoving my tongue down her throat and my dick up her pussy on the corner of 52nd and 2nd Street.
She looks up at me, her eyes hazy and a little cross-eyed. “Wha…what’s wrong?” she says. Her lips are swollen and I’m sporting such a large tent in my slacks, I’m probably going to get charged with public indecency just for that. It’s hard to remember why that’d be such a bad thing at the moment...
“We…we can’t kiss like this on the street,” I say, forcing the words out of my mouth. Forcing myself to say them even though my body is screaming for more, more, more, nothing but more. “I want you to know that I respect you. And your job.”
“Oh. Right. Well, how about this? How about you respect the hell out of me back at your place?”
I immediately whip out my phone and text my driver, not even spending the time to say yes to her. That’s three seconds lo
nger until I can have her in my bed.
And that’s three seconds too long.
111
Brittney
Why, yes.
I am a grown woman sitting on her hands. Because, you see, if I don't?
I'm going to tear the clothes right off Kaden Charles and mount him in this car before we ever get to his penthouse.
So I basically instantly forgave him...I believe him. He sounded sincere. And after the boys-only club I find myself playing all damn day? I find it totally plausible that he did completely forget that I am a person with actual bosses. He may be able to, but I can't just gallivant around the office or someone else's. Some sense returned to me when he strolled into my office and Kaden expected me to lie for his ass.
He'd done the dumb thing and gotten himself thrown in jail for me but he bounced back just fine. I would not be so fortunate had I fallen on the sword of his trespassing and covered up for him.
"Kaden Charles, you don't realize how lucky you are," I tell him, tilting my chin up. The truth is I have to avoid letting my eyes drop to that massive erection brutalizing his trousers. Then I won't be able to hold back.
"Well," Kaden says. He tucks a finger under my chin. "I guess that makes it my turn to be grateful," he purrs, leaning close enough to finish his words with his lips grazing my earlobe. Oh, fuck, his lips on my ear. Then he slides his tongue out. Oh god! I am two seconds away from shifting my panties to the side and tearing down his zipper just slide him home inside my pussy. I'm so wet with arousal that I can smell my pussy in the car. If I can smell it, I'm guessing the scent has carried to Kaden's nose, too. He has to know how wet I am for him.
When we fucked in his office, he certainly wasn't holding back. But knowing that as the car stops now, we've arrived at his home...that means that he's got me in his domain now. There's something thrilling in that. My nipples are piercing my bra in anticipation.
