She picked up her folder and looked at them with utter disdain.
“I don't know about anybody else in this room, but I would rather go lobotomize myself elsewhere than stay in this room with you both any longer. So as to what I think…I think your arrogance and high levels of testosterone makes both of you two goddamn idiots who belong in an underground fight club and not running a prestigious business like this. I for one will not be coming back to any of these fortnightly meetings unless you both get it together. That is what I think.”
With that she walked out of the conference room and did not look back. Moments later she saw others following her lead and smiled. Enough was just enough and those two idiots just needed to get that. If she had to face the firing squad in Aiden’s office when he came in for an update later that day, she would happily deal with it. Someone had to get them straight and on track. They were all in it to the same end. Jake and Simon needed to get that. If they couldn't then that was not her problem to deal with.
“Good job!” Kelly, her assistant said poking her head around her door. “It was about time someone did us that solid.”
She smiled and swiveled in her chair to look at the city below her. It had felt pretty great, but in the meantime she grabbed a hot dog and pondered on her fate when Aiden got in. At least if she faced the gallows she would go on a stomach full of her favorite meal. There was just something that was too depressing about going to hell on the verge of starvation.
* * *
“Hey Aiden! Get out here!” London called. He was about to smack the teenager silly for disrupting his stalking tendencies. He decided to ignore him as long as he could and turned his attention back to his computer screen.
He kept hitting the replay button to watch her speak again. It was amazing how she managed to get the two men to shut up. Jake and Simon were the reasons he stopped going to those meetings. They were excellent sales managers, but clambering buffoons on a regular day. Truth was he no longer had the patience for their incessant childish tantrums and fights. They reminded him of the relationship he had had with his brother before he died. Sometimes he wondered if this was how exhausted his parents had been by them.
“Aiden! What are you doing? We have to go!” London burst into his office.
The newest motorcycle clan recruit was just eager to show his shifting prowess. Recruits were only allowed to wear the MC cut after they had been deemed loyal enough. And after they could shift effortlessly. There were a lot of laws and bylaws that governed their brotherhood. Top of that list was mastering your shifting abilities. Having been in the clan for eight years now, Aiden had been here several times before. He still showed up because it was a duty he had to perform. And if it could get London off his back then so be it.
“I am coming!” he shouted irritated.
“Ooh! Who is that?” London asked with his lustful eyes looking at the woman on his computer screen. “She is hot!”
“Shut up and let’s go!” Aiden pulled him by the ear, but the seed had been planted.
Anna was definitely one for the books. She had all the right curves in all the right places. The sexy pencil foot dresses and skirts she wore to work just made it hard to avoid looking. And those heels...man those damn heels had him thinking thoughts that would earn him an eternity in hell. She was the kind of woman that you just wanted to take home and do ungodly things to her. When he had met her the first time, her curly strands, belying her mixed ethnicity had entranced him. He had barely heard a word she said as he looked in her beautiful milky brown face framed perfectly by her curly hair. He had just kept saying yes, totally oblivious to what she asked. It is a miracle she had managed to set up his account the way she had. When his business had taken off, he had found out just how much of an accounting dynamo she was and he had gone back to steal her away from a boring bank job.
He kept telling himself that he had just wanted her to work for him and it was nothing more than that. After the first month of having a hard on every time she walked by him, he could not be in the same space with her all the time. She never gave him more than a passing glance, but he could not ignore her existence. Now watching her put two arrogant men in their place was just something beautiful. He had those cameras installed in the conference rooms so he could see the meetings. It did not matter where he was. But he was sure he was committing some federal offense by just staring at her all the time from them.
Something was wrong with him. He brushed it away as he hopped on his motorcycle and followed London to meet with the rest f the MC. He could use the distraction of a hunt right now.
“Aiden is stalking a girl online!” London blurted out as soon as they got to Brett’s spacious garage minutes later.
“One of these days I am going to kick your teeth out of your head,” he said to London. The boy laughed and nimbly danced out of his reach.
Jackson, one of his oldest friends laughed. “Bro, you just need to go tell her how much of a hard on she gives you.”
“That would be so crass,” he lamented. “A woman like that needs romancing.”
Brett was the next to speak. “You might be so surprised. As bears remember we tend to be attracted to the right kind of woman.”
“Is that your sage advice, Sir Recently Married?” Aiden asked a bit annoyed with them for honing in on his one weakness.
Brett slapped him on the shoulder and handed him a beer. “Nope. That is just intuition. When you find yourself attracted to a woman to the point where it becomes so difficult for you to even work in the same space with her, there is a reason for it. Take it from me. I have been there.”
Aiden took a swig from the bottle and acknowledged the truth to that experience. The truth was that Brett, Brian and Tyler had all been there. As the only three entangled shifters in the clan, they had all recently gone through the same emotional challenge. An attraction to someone who could be considered inappropriate. Brian had crashed into Carrie in Jeanette’s bar and later married her. Brett had fucked the brains out of his newest employee and only female mechanic worth speaking of. Then later married her. Brett had thought the relationship was inappropriate, but AJ would not let him get away so easy. Now they were happy. Tyler was now shacking up with Brett’s little sister and a girl he had grown up with, and they were happy. Now here he was pining for a woman he had no clue how to get. And his friends were all drinking beer and staring at him like he was hopeless.
“Just go for it bro,” London chimed in with all his non-existent years of knowledge on these things. “You should or I will.”
“Then he will definitely kick your teeth out,” Jackson joked.
As a round of hearty laughter went up in the garage they all finished their beers and headed out. As the group of motorcycles hit the highway, he looked around at his bear brothers with pride. They had gone through a lot together. When the Tribe bikers had killed his brother, these guys had stood by him and his reprisal actions all the way. He loved them, but that was too mushy a thing to say out loud. Nevertheless, even little London knew that if someone should wrong him, the whole crew would rain fire and brimstone on whoever it was.
This was a brotherhood he would die for.
An hour later when he shifted to go hunting with them he decided he would take their advice. Anna had tormented his waking and sleeping hours long enough. He had to have her or at least know for sure that there was no chance of that ever happening. One thing was sure and that was when he went into work tomorrow he would make his move.
May the gods...or whichever cosmic soul was in charge of all this romantic shit, be on his side.
Chapter 2
Two days later she watched as Aiden hopped off his motorcycle downstairs. He then rode up to the thirty-second floor for an impromptu board meeting. She was wondering if the meeting was called to decide on her dismissal. Quite possibly since men are known to band together when threatened. To her surprise when she was called to the meeting she found Jake and Simon sitting humbly. They sat a
midst all the others who had been there the day she had walked out of the meeting.
“What is this about?” she asked Kelly who was seated with a straight back, chewing the insides of her cheeks beside her. The woman looked pale and Anna was beginning to think that was an indication that she should worry too. Then again, if the cat’s fur was out of place Kelly would damn near have a heart attack. And so she decided to wait and see what it was all about.
“Okay,” Aiden said looking at her. She found herself blushing beneath his gaze and quickly turned away. She had tried to ignore it, but this was a man her body screamed for. Every single time he was around she felt like she would just walk into his office and strip down to her birthday suit then have her way with him. He coaxed that kind of thinking out of her.
She just wanted to act like a wanton whore for him, but he was her boss and he never gave her the time of day.
“What is this about Aiden,” Jake asked. “I have a meeting with a client very soon.”
“If you don’t shut your mouth, the only meeting you will be having is with a new employer,” Aiden said. This was about to be a testosterone showdown. The only difference was the alpha male was in the room in all his glory. He was dressed in a business suit that hugged his lean muscular frame in all the right places. And he was not about to be upstaged.
“This ought to be good,” Kelly whispered to her with a chuckle.
“Those cameras over your head,” Aiden said pointing to the cameras she had not taken note of. “They are in here so I can watch the proceedings of every meeting regardless of where I am. I might not be here all the time, but it does not mean I am not overseeing every single thing that goes on here.”
“Oh shit!” Anna lamented.
Aiden turned to Simon and Jake. “It took a woman to get you both to stop behaving like teenagers and you should be ashamed of yourselves. You both walk around here like kings of the mountain, and I let you because you are both extremely competent. However, that does not mean I am afraid to replace you. You monitor people to whom you are supposed to be role models. Yet you squabble like entitled children over something I can take from you without so much as a flinch. Stop it! Compete, bust each other’s balls, upstage each other! But when it comes to these meetings and the proper management of my business, do fucking better!”
Anna was shocked at how long Aiden had spoken and the ice-cold tone in which he did it. She thought that was the longest she had ever heard him speak. And despite the fact that he was obviously not trying to be cute, she found him absolutely adorable. The fire she had for him blazed even more than she could control. She had to get out of this room, but he was not done.
“Thanks Anna for bringing the meeting under control,” he said turning to her. She lost the ability to speak. “Now I want the updates that were supposed to be given. Should any of you piss me off, I will relieve you of your employment effective immediately.”
He sat down with the confidence of a man in control and the sources of his ire were humbled.
“Now that is a man who knows how to handle his business,” Kelly said taking a sip of her glass of water. Anna agreed, but the entire time she was wondering if he was just as good at handling other business.
Get a grip you harlot! She reprimanded herself as she tried to listen to them speak.
When the meeting was done, she was the first one out the door. If she had a cock she would have been going someplace to blow one. But being a woman it was more complicated than that, and so she decided to settle for a hotdog. With a fleeting glance behind her she could see Aiden speaking to a few others. His eyes met hers on the stairs and she dashed away with her cheeks blazing red. Taking the elevator to the ground floor, she walked out into the cool autumn breeze to the hotdog cart.
“You look like you are running from hell hounds,” Jim the man who owned the cart said. He had become one of her best friends and she looked forward to their lunchtime chats.
“No, just trying to get away from Aiden before I decide to back him in a corner and fuck him.”
Jim laughed. “You really should just go for it. Lasting relationships have been built on far less and I can tell you that I have seen him eying you too. You should just go for sit before all that heat you are carrying for him makes you spontaneously combust.”
“What is this about spontaneous combustion I hear?” Aiden’s sultry voice asked from behind her.
She turned in shock to look straight into the Amazonian bronze of Aiden’s face. His ancestry was evident, and it added to the mystery of him and she couldn’t help but want to know. She chose not to ask however. If she followed Jim’s advice she might end up knowing sooner than later. If not, some mysteries might be better left unsolved.
“How the hell did you get down here so fast?” she asked in shock.
He simply smiled and cocked his head to look her up and down. He did that too. Whenever he was around he moved so fast you had to wonder if he was normal. You would see him in the coffee room one minute and then he would be gone. By the time you turn for a second he would be seated in his office clear across the hall.
“Anyway anybody with an inkling of common sense, would just about jump out the window to get away from Jake and Simon,” she said when he didn’t answer.
She didn’t wait on a response and she knew that she might have crossed a line; after all he was the boss.
“It was that bad?” he asked.
“It was far worse than you can imagine! That has been going on for months you know,” she said with gusto and she did mean that.
He chuckled. As she turned to look at him as a strong gale of wind picked her scarf up off her shoulder and floated it away on the wind. With a swift snap of the hand he grabbed it before it could get too far. And then he stepped dangerously close to her to wrap it around her neck. He was so close she could smell his subtle and intoxicating scent stealing into her senses. Despite all that, he maintained a respectful distance. Anna was not sure if it was to provoke her more or simply because he wanted to respect her personal space. She stood still; unable to move as he wrapped her scarf around her with gentleness. There was not even a hint at the powerful beast that lived inside him. She had never before been this close to him. The sensory overload his presence caused was something she could do little to hide.
Keep calm and eat your hotdog. But that order she gave herself was not working out for her at all. Her knees felt rubbery as she watched his hands tie her scarf properly. She almost had to ask him to stop touching her. The back of his hand brushed against her cheek when he was done, and she could only mutter a barely audible thank you before he stepped back.
“That should do it,” he said when he was done bundling her up, and took two deliberate steps away from her. The hotdog vendor, who had silently been taking in all the action, stretched a hotdog out to her and as she regained control of her limbs she took it. Aiden handed the man a fifty, shoved his hands into his pockets and nimbly walked away. He did it as if he had not just nearly cause her to spontaneously combust. For a moment she felt like a groupie or one of those stupid teenagers who couldn’t control herself.
“Did that just happen?” she asked Jim in a whisper.
“Yes...” the man said staring after Aiden. “Yes, that did just happen.”
“You look absolutely ravishing, by the way,” Aiden turned and called to her.
She went red as the people hustling about paused for a millisecond to throw a glance in the direction of the woman he had just paid a compliment. He knew what he had done as he smiled suggestively at her. The nonchalance of the compliment was even stranger. Oh, what lovely weather. I think I would like to fuck you, by the way.
Clearly she was the idiot for even thinking something was wrong with that. He most certainly did not.
“I told you the man had the hots for you!” Jim hollered at her in complete jubilation. “Just go for it.”
She smiled; happy he was a man who clearly had an appreciation for her curves. The
same curves she had grown to love despite society’s insistence on telling her that bones were the ultimate must have. She had learnt the power of her curves. She love the confidence that came with her curves. In the past those curves had driven both women and men alike crazy with lust.
Bearly Christmas Page 151
