An Executive Decision (Executive Decisions Trilogy)

by Grace Marshall

  ‘Dee, I’m sorry.’ He took a knee to the upper inside of one thigh, dangerously close to his cock, before he finally rolled with her and subdued dangerous arms and legs beneath the weight of his body. ‘Christ, Dee,’ he gasped. ‘This is not the way I planned our reunion to be.’

  ‘Is that what you think of me, that because I fuck you, I’ll fuck anybody? You might as well have called me a whore, goddamn it.’ She bucked beneath him, nearly unseating him in her rage, but he held her.

  ‘Dee I didn’t mean it, I would never call you … I fucked up. I’m sorry. I was … I was jealous, OK. I was so damned jealous. I know how badly he wants you, and I couldn’t stand the thought that you might want him back.’

  For a brittle moment, he sat astraddle her, both of them freeze-framed against the gloom, both struggling to catch their breath.

  ‘I didn’t fuck Jason,’ she breathed. ‘How the hell could I fuck Jason when I couldn’t get you out of my head?’ Suddenly, she was ripping at his fly like it was on fire, and he was hard enough that he was certain he could have burst the zipper without her help. He caught his breath at the none-too-gentle raking of her nails along the sides of his hips as she yanked at his boxers and jeans. She slapped his hands away from his efforts at her clothes. Then she wriggled and shifted until she’d shoved her skirt up and tore the crotch of her panties aside. ‘I fuck you, Ellis. You and nobody else. Surely you can’t be too stupid to figure that out.’

  And Jesus, it was like she’d given his life back. The outrageous relief of it translated into raw animal need. He pushed and shoved his way inside her. Even in her rage she was slick; she yielded to him grudgingly, sheathing him in a grip that felt tighter than his own skin. He was furious at himself that he’d driven her to this, yet she was stunning in her anger. He didn’t have much time to contemplate before she rolled on top of him, ripped open his shirt, and bit him hard just above his left nipple. And fuck, it nearly made him come. When she bit him again on the soft pulse point of his neck, his brain engaged enough for him to realise that this was shaping up to be a very dangerous fuck.

  He caught the driving force of her hips pressing him back against the ground, forcing his tender ass cheeks into an abrasive mix of grass and pebbles at the edge of the road, forcing the oxygen from his lungs in a startled gasp, which she swallowed back hungrily in a hard kiss. She savaged his mouth, the tension in her body tightening her like a fist around his cock, making him sure he would either die or come, or maybe both. He fought to focus on the fire of her anger, anger which he fully deserved, even wanted; anger so thoroughly infused with passion that it sizzled between them like heat lightning. Dee Henning making him pay, Dee Henning devouring him in her rage, Dee Henning inflicting punishment this exquisite was well worth dying for.

  ‘What I’ve given to you, do you really think I’d give to anyone else? The Sex Clause puts my career on the line. It’s bad enough that it’s not just between you and me. And then there’s your fiancée back in the picture.’

  ‘Ex-fiancée.’ He cried out as she rode him until bones jarred and joints wrenched. ‘And she’s not back in the picture.’

  ‘I didn’t sign on for a part in a damned soap opera, Ellis! And I didn’t sign on to be abused.’ He was certain if she were any closer, she’d be inside his pelvic girdle. ‘If you ever, ever pull that stunt again, I’m gone. Do you understand? Gone!’

  ‘Dee.’ He choked the words out from under another fierce, driving thrust. ‘I was jealous. I was stupid. I’m sorry …Oh my God!’ He was sure by now there must be gravel embedded in his ass, but it didn’t matter; he couldn’t get enough and he thrust up into her hard.

  ‘Sorry? You’re sorry?’ She gripped his shoulders hard enough to bruise, and her whole anatomy clenched. He held his breath – what little he had left to hold. ‘People will nudge you in the hall and pat you on the back for coming up with the Sex Clause.’

  ‘Dee –’ That was as far as he got before her tongue lapped up the rest of his words and emptied his head of all rational thought with another kiss that was delectably near fatal.

  Then she pulled away, fists clenching tight at the open lapels of his shirt, her breath coming fast and furious. ‘But me, they’ll say I’m a slut.’ Her words were humid against his mouth. She bit his lip, then tongued his hard palate, making him squirm in the vice of her anger. ‘All the hours of sweat and research and hard work when I wasn’t fucking you.’ She thrust again, driving the breath from his lungs. ‘The hours that are already making Pneuma Inc. richer – they won’t give a second thought to.’ She fought back a sob. ‘All they’ll say is I fucked the boss and my career’s over.’

  ‘Dee, Dee! That’s not going to happen.’ He pulled her down to him and held her close, taking back as much control as physical strength would allow. For a second, he caught his breath and found himself moved by the glisten of tears on her cheeks.

  ‘I’m sorry about Garrett and Stacie, and I’m really sorry I’ve ruined our reunion by being such an asshole, but you have to believe me, I would never betray you, Dee, and no one could ever doubt your reputation.’ He took her face in his hands, and forced her to meet his gaze. ‘And if I’m jealous of you with Daniels, how can you really blame me for that? No one knows better than I do why he wants you so badly. And I don’t want him to have that, Dee. I don’t want him to have what you give to me. I want it. I want you all to myself.’

  This time he took her mouth and she let him. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. There was too much passion between them for gentleness, but he felt her anger dissipate, and her body softened and conformed to the contours of his own as she moved, riding the tenuous edge between arousal and release. The next time she stiffened it was in orgasm, tightening and rocking against him until the friction and the tension sent him over the edge and he came too.

  When they could breathe again, they found a more comfortable place not far off the rutted jeep trail, where the moss was soft and their view of the night sky was unobscured. There, they sat side by side. Ellis slipped his arm around her, and pulled her down onto the moss, cradling her head in the crook of his shoulder. ‘I was planning to invite you home to watch the Perseids with me when Stacie so rudely interrupted us, but we don’t need meteors to enjoy the view.’ He kissed the top of her ear and pulled her closer. ‘In fact, I’d say the view is breathtaking.’

  For a long time, they watched the sky, silently clinging to each other with the smell of evergreens and wild flowers adding a rich background to the scent of pheromones and sex. Eventually, she became aware of his gaze. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

  She nestled in closer. ‘I’m better than I was.’

  ‘That’s a start, at least.’ He slid an arm down to stroke her hip. ‘Garrett told you about Stacie, about the three of us?’

  ‘He told me, yes. And about Jamison.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Pretty much.’ She rose on one elbow, looked down into his eyes. ‘Are you all right?’

  His breath shuddered in a deep groan and he covered his face with his forearm. ‘All the things I didn’t want you to know about me, all the tender spots, all the ugly bits.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘I like you anyway.’

  He threw his arm aside with a burst of laughter, and pulled her on top of him. ‘You have no idea how glad I am to hear that.’

  Resting against the warmth of his chest, she studied him in the darkness.

  ‘What is it, Dee?’ He eased a hand up under her shirt to stroke the small of her back. ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘I can’t keep from wondering, Ellis, after everything that’s happened, all you’ve been through because of the two of them, why are you seeing Stacie again?’

  He closed his eyes. For a long time he was silent, and she wondered if maybe she shouldn’t have asked. But at last she felt his chest expand against her in a deep sigh, and he spoke.

  ‘After everything that’s happened between Garrett and Stacie and me, the bond
runs pretty deep. We’ve known each other for a long time, and in spite of all the pain that’s passed between us, there’s still some weird sense of loyalty. Whenever Garrett’s between relationships, if Stacie’s free, they get together.’

  ‘So now you’re between relationships, and she’s in town.’ Dee tried to pull away, not wanting him to sense how difficult this was for her, and not sure she could hide it. But he held her close and lifted her chin, forcing her to look him in the eye.

  ‘I’m not between relationships, Dee. I’m never in a relationship; I haven’t been in ages. And before Marston’s party, I hadn’t spoken to Stacie in three years.’

  ‘So, it was a reunion, then.’ She forced her voice to remain calm.

  ‘Nothing happened.’

  ‘Ellis, I’m sorry, this is none of my business.’ She tried again to pull away, but he held her.

  ‘Nothing happened, Dee. I meant it when I said things weren’t how they looked at Marston’s party. I didn’t fuck her – not Friday night and not at Marston’s. I know how it looked, but I swear to you, I didn’t. I didn’t want to be with her. I wanted to be with you.’ The moist heat of his breath brushed her throat, then her ear. ‘To be with you is all I ever seem to want these days and it scares the hell out of me.’

  In spite of the late-night nature romp with Ellis, Dee was at Pneuma Inc. by seven. They had a breakfast meeting with Wade in the Dungeon. Harris was already in Wade’s boudoir, setting up to show some of his Valderian photos on Wade’s big scream. He swept Dee off her feet into a bear hug. ‘You got a little sun,’ she said, touching his face as he sat her down.

  ‘And you didn’t.’ he said, kissing her cheek.

  ‘My jungle was concrete and air conditioned,’ she said, stealing a glance at the new supply of freckles across Ellis’s cheeks from his time in Valderia. They made him look outdoorsy and even more Celtic. She fought back a wave of desire. Those sexy freckles had been pressed up tight between her legs just a few hours ago. The thought made her giddy and weak-kneed.

  Against a backdrop of Harris’s stunning rainforest scenes, many of which included Ellis looking as relaxed in khakis and hiking boots as he did in Armani, Ellis’s debriefing sounded more like an adventure story. The Valderian people would benefit from the technology for new eco-friendly desalination plants to deal with water shortages. Pneuma Inc. would send engineering teams to work with their own engineers in the construction of the plants. In addition, the chance to develop the lucrative eco-tourism industry at someone else’s expense had sweetened the government toward Ellis and Pneuma Inc. even further, and at the end of the day, the sale of all of the access territory surrounding Jamison’s forest was a done deal, closed, sealed and delivered before Ellis and Harris landed on the tarmac at PDX. By 8.30, Dee had filled Ellis in on the details of the New York trip, and by 9 she settled in to her office to go over her Trouvères presentation one last time.

  She was finishing up when Ellis rang and summoned her to his office. She grabbed up her BlackBerry and a note pad, wondering what it was that they hadn’t already discussed.

  As she entered his office, he gave her a distracted nod from behind his laptop. ‘Lock the door, please.’

  She did as he asked, feeling a frisson of excitement low in her belly, but when she started to sit down in front of his desk he looked up and shook his head. ‘No, not there. Come here, and you won’t need those.’ He nodded to her BlackBerry and the pad. She sat them on the chair and came around the edge of his desk. Standing beside him looking down at him felt awkward until he took off his glasses and smiled up at her. ‘You know, I’ve been trying to set up a meeting with Blankenship over at Defoe for almost a year, and he can see me this afternoon. I’ve got to go. I’d hoped to be there for the Trouvères kick-off meeting, but I won’t be back in time. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry. The Trouvères meeting will practically run itself. We all did our homework in New York, you know. I’ll fill you in when you get back.’

  ‘Thanks, Dee. I’d hoped it wouldn’t be so hectic, but then it always is, isn’t it?’ He palmed his laptop shut and pushed it to one side. Then he took her hand and pulled her toward him, rolling his chair back until she stood between his legs with her upper thighs pressed tight against his desk. ‘Maybe this weekend you can come out to my place for dinner, and then we’ll have some time.’

  ‘I’d like that, Ellis.’ She curled her fingers around his.

  ‘Good.’ He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a warm kiss to her knuckles, but his eyes were locked on hers. ‘In the meantime, I’ve been admiring that skirt you’ve got on. It’s my favourite shade of blue.’ He scooted closer until she was trapped between the spread of his legs and the desk. He made no attempt to hide the hard-on beneath his trousers; in fact, it was pretty obvious he wanted her to see it. Then he ran his hands up the outside of her thighs, stroking the fabric, easing it up with each caress. ‘It’s soft too. I thought it might be. I’ve been wondering what one wears beneath a skirt just that shade of blue.’

  ‘Shall I show you?’ She placed the flat of her hand low against her belly, then curled her fingers, scrunching the fabric until the tops of her stockings, caught up in the crème lace of the garter belt, peeked from beneath the skirt. With her hand splayed low across her mons, she scrunched until he sighed his approval at the sight.

  ‘Leopard print,’ he breathed. ‘Yes, I think that’s a perfect match.’ He looked up at her, his eyes bright with humour and something more. ‘I seem to recall you saying once that you liked animals.’ Before she could respond, he pushed in close with his chair, forcing her to sit back on his desk with a little gasp of surprise. ‘I don’t know about leopards,’ he said, shoving her skirt up further until her bottom rested fully on the cool, smooth oak of his desk, ‘but I bet your McAlister and O’Kelly mark their territory by rubbing their faces against what belongs to them.’ He rubbed his cheek against the inside of her knee in a very feline gesture that ended with the press of his lips and a soft flick of his tongue. ‘They probably mark your sofa.’ He moved up the inside of her thigh and repeated the gesture, this time with a little nip of his front teeth. ‘And maybe your bed too.’ He did the same to the other thigh, lingering to rub his cheek and the soft ruff of his hair before he nipped her just above where her stocking was attached to the garter belt. The heat of his breath brushed the crotch of her panties and she squirmed with the sheer tactile pleasure of it. ‘And no doubt your leg.’ He cupped her bottom and brought her mons against his cheek, nuzzling and sniffing and nipping until the blissed-out sounds coming from her throat weren’t unlike those she’d heard McAlister and O’Kelly make. ‘Right now, I feel the need to mark my territory, Dee, one animal to another.’

  She couldn’t hold back the little whimper of pleasure as he kissed and nipped down to the apex of her, where she could feel her clit pushing tight and tetchy against the leopard print. There, he inhaled deeply and began to press and lick and circle with his tongue until she would have bucked and wriggled off the desk if he hadn’t held her firmly.

  He worked his way lower, lapping and nibbling and kissing through the fabric, tugging at the swell of her labia, no doubt now fully displayed through the combined wet of his saliva and her arousal. He pressed his tongue up from her perineum along the full length of her slit until he found her hole, gripping hungrily. He thrust his tongue into her, pressing the leopard print crotch up into the yield and clench, yield and clench. Then he settled to suckle her still clothed clit, as though he were a nursing infant. And she flooded herself in the pleasure of it, causing him to gasp and suckle all the harder. The room smelled of her damp heat and the scent of Ellison Thorne aroused, the animal in rut, woodland damp and desert heat slicked with his sweat, and his insatiable need. It was the best smell ever; she breathed it into herself in great, heaving gulps, lifting her feet, still in their dove-grey stilettos, onto the arms of his chair and bearing down to press closer to him.

  She heard the
zip of his fly and the rustle of his trousers. Then he shoved aside the ruined strip of leopard print and pulled her onto the deliciously familiar length of him with a grunt. He held her there, impaled, while he ran a hand over his glistening face. ‘Look, Dee, you marked me too.’ Then, holding her gaze, he unbuttoned the top several buttons of his shirt and wiped her juices down his sternum.

  ‘You can’t go to Blankenship smelling like my cunt,’ she said, both embarrassed and moved at the same time.

  ‘I’ll take a shower before I go, Dee, but I’ll still go wearing your mark. I’ve worn your mark since the day I saw you. That can’t be washed away.’ Then he pulled her to him, guided her to wrap her legs around him, and began to thrust, filling her in ways that were tight and frightening and stunning, that had nothing whatsoever to do with his penis inside her.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  ‘What do you want?’

  Dee assumed Sandra must have stepped away from her desk because the secretary knew Tally Barnes was not welcome anywhere near Dee’s office. But here she was, closing the door behind her, marching in as though she owned the place. Clutched between her mauve lacquered fingernails, she held a battered manila envelope. She maintained the pretence of politeness.

  ‘How was New York? I understand it was mostly wrap-up stuff, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Mostly wrap-up, yes. Now, what are you here for? Have you come to offer more invaluable ideas on the alliance?’ Dee looked down at her watch. ‘Because now’s a little late. The meeting’s about to begin.’

  ‘Don’t worry. This won’t take long, Dee. I just have something I thought you might like to see before the big kick-off meeting.’ Tally sat down in the chair in front of Dee’s desk without being invited, and slid the envelope across to her. ‘I’ve been puzzling over this secret weapon, this ESC, ever since Beverly’s death. Have you heard of it? Of course you have.’