by T. L. Reeve
“Damn it! How did we not see this?” Joaquin slammed his hand down on the table, startling her.
“Our accountant should have,” Charlie said while rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I’ll go find out what the hell is going on. Quin?” She glanced up at him. “Good work. As soon as we figure out the money issue, we’ll implement your changes.”
She should have been jumping for joy, yet she couldn’t do so while Joaquin’s brother stole from the company. “Thank you. I’m glad you liked it. If there isn’t anything else, I’ll go back to my office.”
“Charlie, I’ll talk to you later. Quin, stay right where you are. We have some unfinished business.” Joaquin smirked, daring her to say something to contrary. “Did you think you’d be able to leave without giving me an answer?” he asked after Charlie left the room.
Did he believe she had one? “Well, I—”
“Don’t lie.”
Quin closed her tablet. “I don’t have an answer for you yet, Joaquin.”
“Is that why you were late this morning?” His tone gentled and he moved to the chair beside her. “Talk to me, Quin.”
“Yes,” she snapped. “I couldn’t decide. I-I tried. I got scared.”
“There is no need to be scared.” His voice became a soft rumble. “You were meant for this, Quin.” Her heart clenched at the sheer confidence in his voice.
“I’ll let you down,” she cried.
“You’ll let me down if you don’t try.”
The situation had the potential to blow up in their faces. No freaking pressure here. “I can’t, Joaquin.” Her lip trembling, she glanced away. “I don’t want to see disdain and disappointment in your eyes.”
“You’ve already set your mind for failure. Why don’t you let me take on some of your worries and fears for now? If they aren’t there for you to hold onto, then you don’t have to fret about them happening. We’ll do this one day at a time.” She hadn’t realized he’d laid his hand on hers until his fingers threaded with hers. His warm palm chased away the cold and a glimmer of what if filled her.
“If you see me starting to slide and I’m not what you need, you have to promise to let me go, okay? It’ll be my only stipulation.” She gazed at him, unable to gauge what he thought or felt in those all too brief seconds.
“Done.”
“Just like that?” She snapped her fingers.
“Of course.” He grinned. “I happened to bring your contract with me. Would you like to read it over?”
“Okay.”
“So, your hard limits are extreme pain play and needle play. What about a whip?” Joaquin folded the pages of the contract.. She bit her lip, and shook her head. “No, you don’t like it used on you or no, you’ve never experienced it?”
“No, it’s not something I have experienced,” she murmured.
“Would you like to?”
“I’m not sure. Can we put it in the maybe column for now and come back to it?” How did she learn anything?
“All right.” He set the contract on the table and laid his pen beside it. “Quin, when you tried this last, did you have a contract?”
She shook her head. “I wore a collar, and I did what he wanted.”
“So, you never got any type of pleasure from it, or earned rewards?” It sounded like the dumbass hadn’t been Dom at all.
“It’s complicated, like I told you.”
“No, sweetheart, it’s not complicated.” He settled back in his chair. “Let’s start with the basics. Did he ever get you off? Make you so wet, you could feel the sweet cream of your pussy run down your leg? Did he make you yearn for his touch? Make you want to please him because you knew in the end he would bring you so much pleasure, so much love you’d burst if you didn’t have him one more time?”
Quin swallowed hard. “I suppose not in those exact words, but—”
“There are no buts on this, preciósa. None. As your Dom, I need to know what you need and how you need it. I want you to trust me enough to give me your problems. To lean on me during tough times. When you greet me at the club, you should be kneeling for me, because the desire to please me overrides all your doubts. Most of all, I want you to be proud of yourself, Quin, because I already am. ”
“Wow,” she whispered.
“What?”
“There is so much conviction in what you say. It’s almost like you’re breathing life into the words—desperate to make them true so I will trust in them. It’s amazing.” She flipped the page of her contract. “Can we take the whole section on impact play and mark it as ‘will try in small increments’?”
And, in an instant they were back on track. For the next hour, they went back and forth on her limits, whether they were hard or soft. In those few moments of telling her what he expected for both of them, he figured out he craved her submission. Just as she craved his form of dominance. “Let’s try something, since we’re almost done here.” His lunch had been brought to him at noon while they worked on the contract. His stomach growled as the tantalizing scent wafted around the room.
“What did you have in mind?”
“First, I want you to close the window blinds, and then I want you to lock the door.” When she opened her mouth, he held up a finger. “No questions.”
Quin squared her shoulders and lifted her chin before she stood and did as he asked. When she came back to sit down, he stopped her.
“Come here and sit in my lap.” He couldn’t put her on the floor. He didn’t have a pillow to cushion her knees. Besides, having her in his arms would do him some good. He missed holding her after she left the club. He could see the wheels of her mind turning as indecision warred with her desire to please.
“Do you think it’s proper for me to do this…you know here? What happened to not mingling business with pleasure?” He narrowed his eyes at her, and her brows raised. “Right, you’re in charge. I locked the door and closed the windows. Nothing to see here, folks.”
He wanted to chuckle. He made her nervous, and Joaquin enjoyed the hell out of it. A rough snarl passed his lips when she sat down on his lap. Her back stiffened. “Relax. We’re going to eat some lunch, nothing else, I promise.” She relaxed against him, curling up almost as she had the other night. “Have you ever been fed before?”
“As in someone else put the food in my mouth? No, not since I was a baby, why?”
“Because, I fully intend to feed you today. I hope you’re hungry.”
She stilled in his arms as he dabbed a tortilla into juices from the meat.
“Open.”
Quin hesitated for a second, and then her lips parted and she took a bite. Joaquin growled when a drop of the juice landed on her bottom lip. He turned her head and ran his tongue along her bottom lip and groaned. “Decadent.”
She swallowed and leaned in, pressing her lips to his. The spice of the meat hit his tongue and he deepened the kiss. Fuck, she tied him in knots and she didn’t even know it. His hand cupped her cheek, holding her in place while he feasted on her lips. Her nipples brushed across his chest and his dick grew stiff behind the zipper of his pants. What he wouldn’t give to rip her panties off, hike up her skirt, and fuck her right there, right now.
Lust pounded through his veins, leaving him light-headed and needy. He craved her more than his next breath. Her sweet whimper had his dick jumping and a drop of precum forming on his tip. He should pull back. He should stop her. But he pulled her closer until the space between them closed. She shifted, straddling his lap. Her pussy fit against his cock, and he almost came in his pants. “Joaquin,” she whimpered.
“Yes, my preciósa?”
Her hips rolled over his as she kissed him again. This time she nipped at his bottom lip before laving the sting away.
“Fuck, Quin.”
“I’ve never done this before,” she murmured, cupping his face in her trembling hands. “I feel as though if I don’t continue, it’ll all be a dream, and I’ll never get to experience this with you again.�
�� She kissed him once more and dropped her hands to his chest. His shirt buttons lost their mooring as she exposed his flesh to her touch.
Joaquin hissed and pulled her tight to his groin, grinding up into her. He should be slowing this down, but he didn’t have the willpower. He’d figured out Friday night, he would never have the ability to deny her anything. “God, leave me some control, my preciósa.” The heat from her pussy along with the slickness of her cream soaked through the crotch of his pants and seeped into his boxers, driving him insane. Reaching down between them, he pushed her panties aside and fingered her distended clit.
Quin cried out and rocked her hips. She worked the knot of his tie, pulling it apart until she leaned in and brushed kisses over his exposed throat. He groaned. He needed inside her. He finger fucked her in long, slow pulls, drawing out her pleasure. She writhed against him, murmuring his name.
“Please.” Her breathy tone went straight to his dick and caused it to flex behind its confines.
“What do you want, Quin? Be specific. Be brave. Tell me how I can make my little submissive happy.” His words were spoken low, almost inaudible. She opened her mouth to answer him, but the shrill sound of his phone ringing cut her off. With his fingers still lodged deep inside her tight channel, he picked it up and answered, “Fuente.”
“Joaquin, it’s Charlie. We have a problem.”
Chapter Five
Joaquin led Quin down the long hallway. The phone call from Charlie had interrupted their lunch, leaving him pissed off, and aching for Quin. As it was, the scent of her arousal clung to his senses and so close to her, he couldn’t think straight. Try as he might to not dwell on the moment they shared, he couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d milked his fingers. Her pussy had clenched around him, causing his dick to throb in the confines of his slacks.
“Okay, Charlie, what did you find?” He came to a stop inside Charlie’s office. Several files lay open on his desk, and he appeared disheveled. His weary gaze lit on both of them as he dropped a highlighter on the desk.
“A major fucking headache?” Charlie pushed the files away. “Sorry to take you away from your lunch, but this can’t wait.” Joaquin nodded and took a seat.
“What is it?” Joaquin patted the seat next to him, and Quin sat down. “What did you find out for me?”
He picked up one of the financial reports, pointing to the printed out figures. “Your brother is good. I’ll give you that much.”
“It says utility expense,” Joaquin said. “What’s the issue?”
“Look at the side note.”
“Cable? We don’t use cable.” Confusion filled his voice. “How did we miss this?”
“How many times a year do you open the books?” Quin interjected.
“When the quarterly taxes go out or when we get into a mess like this, which isn’t often.” Charlie pulled the statement back.
“There’s your answer,” she said. “Your brother knows you don’t pay attention. So if he takes a little here or there and marks it as a utility expense, you won’t think twice about it. Who in your company runs this arm of your business?”
“My brother did until about six months ago when this branch of the company almost went bankrupt,” Joaquin replied. “When I came in with Charlie, I let him go with a sizable retirement and told him never to come back.”
“Well, it seems he has someone on the inside still,” Charlie murmured. “He took another lump sum three weeks ago.”
“What?” Joaquin grabbed the file. “Call everyone in from accounting. We’re going to get to the bottom of this. If I have to fire the whole damn department and find someone else to do the job, I will. I’ll be damned if my selfish asshole brother takes my company down.”
An hour later, the accounting department filed into the large conference room. Finding the culprit would be like finding a needle in a haystack. All of his employees were loyal to him…or had been before Rafael took over.
Joaquin gazed at everyone, hoping beyond hope someone would stick out like a sore thumb so he could end this madness and go back to saving his company. However, no one stood out for him. Damn it.
Charlie closed the door behind Gloria, who scooted in at the last moment, and Joaquin took his position at the front of the room. The late arrival scurried over to the last empty chair and sat down, hefting a pile of accounting reports onto the table.
Once everyone settled in he began. “It has come to my attention that someone has been helping Rafael siphon funds from our accounts. I’d hate to believe it is anyone in here, but the facts don’t lie.”
“We are just now finding the missing money while going through the reports that I gathered this morning,” Charlie said. “Someone has been marking his withdrawals as utility expenses.”
Seventeen sets of eyes stared back at Joaquin, some filled with surprise others without an ounce of regret or recognition. “As you all know, if I call in a forensic accountant to take a look at our books, he or she will find out who is doing the stealing and helping my brother. It took a few hours to find this little discrepancy; imagine what we’ll find when they dig a little deeper,” he added, turning the screws a bit more.
A few shifted their positions. The brunette who came in late bit the corner of her lip, and cut her gaze to the books on the table. Hmm. “Gloria, do you have something you’d like to add to this conversation?”
Her head snapped up. “Uh, no, sir?”
“You keep looking at your report as if it’ll grow legs and saunter away.” Joaquin clasped his hands behind his back and strode to her chair. “What’s in there?”
“N-nothing. Really. Just busy, busy.” She gave the books a fleeting look.
“I see.”
“Well, maybe something,” she relented. “I found it this morning. I didn’t know what it was, so I thought I would show you.” She swallowed hard and picked up the top accounting binder. She flipped through it and pointed to a page halfway through. “Right here.”
After he looked over the entry, she pointed to other items in each of the binders.
“Come look at these, Charlie,” said Joaquin. Another check had been written for a maintenance expense in the same amount as the one Quin had found. When his best friend joined him, he showed Charlie the statements.
“I’ll be damned. Well, at least he is consistent.” Charlie scrubbed his chin. “The bastard probably thought you would be concentrating on one aspect, you wouldn’t see the other.” ”
“But he thinks I am.” He turned his attention back to the woman sitting in front of him. “Thank you, Gloria.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
“I want you to go through the rest of the binders for your division. If you find anything else, please let Charlie know.” Joaquin returned to the front of the conference room. “If any of you find the same irregularities in your divisions and books, please come to us.”
When Charlie opened the doors, they filed out one after the other. They weren’t any closer to finding the thief. However, now they had another lead. He hadn’t given his brother enough credit.
“Well, that was interesting,” Charlie said, sitting down in the chair close to Joaquin. “He’s slick. I’ll give him that much.”
“Yes. Sloppy, though.”
“Very much so,” Charlie agreed.
“Unless you have help, which he did.”
“Well, at least it’s a pattern now. We can go through everything and find it. At least he could have been creative,” Charlie grumbled. “Were you serious about the forensic accountant?”
“Yes. I need to find all the money. When I get back to my office I’ll make a couple of calls. We have a thief in our midst, and they think they’re good. We have to be better than them.”
***
“What were you doing for lunch? You know, I waited for you in the break room. I thought we could grab something together.” Harley’s question broke Quin’s concentration as she skimmed the accounting reports.
/> The memories of straddling her boss’s lap while whimpering his name and kissing him filled her mind. “I ate lunch with Mr. Fuente.”
Harley squealed. “Dish. All of it. I don’t want even the minutest of details left out,” she said, closing the door to Quin’s brand-new office. “Make me feel as though I were there with both of you.”
“We worked while we ate. You know, finding the files and…stuff.”
“Okay, the bullshit has been established. Now, spill all the juicy details,” Harley prodded.
“Okay, we were going over contracts and stuff. You know,” she hedged. “Because I’m thinking about being his sub for about six weeks, give or take a week.”
“What?” Harley exclaimed. “Wh-when? H-how?” She started to stammer and had Quinn not been embarrassed, she would have laughed at her friend.
“Friday night. We watched a scene together. He gave me till this morning and—”
“And that’s why you were late,” she squealed again, bouncing in her chair. “But there’s more, isn’t there?”
“Things got a little heated.” Okay, she could do this. Quin would tell her friend a little bit of the truth. “We might have kissed.”
“Oh my God! You kissed him? Is he a good kisser? Wait, don’t tell me. Charlie might get jealous.” She paused. “Fuck it, tell me. What’s it like, kissing Joaquin de la Fuente?”
Quin winced. What were they, sixteen? “Yes, he’s a good kisser. No, I won’t tell you any more, because I don’t think he’d want me to. So, now you know what I did on my lunch break. I’ve got to tell you, your Dom has very bad fucking timing.”
Harley giggled and covered her mouth. She looked as though she were about to bust. “Charlie wouldn’t have interrupted if he knew. I promise,” she said. “This is just the best news ever.”
