No Excuses

by Nikky Kaye

  She put her hand on my mouth as I let out a harsh sigh and bit back my thoughts. “Time to scream, sir.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “We’re not done with this, Madeline.”

  “I’m sure we’re not.” She pulled away from me, put in her earplugs, and turned toward the ridgeline.

  After watching her take several deep breaths in preparation, but no sounds coming out of her mouth, I was worried she was about to hyperventilate. Her shoulders sagged as I came up behind her and touched her back.

  She swore. “I’m not good at screaming. I don’t like to yell like that.”

  I wondered how much screaming she’d done as a child—a lonely, abandoned, scared little girl. My stomach twisted at the thought. I understood her reluctance; I didn’t like screaming either. It seemed so…out of control.

  My hand slipped into hers. “I’ll make you a deal,” I said. She tilted her head at me, while I squeezed her fingers together. “Instead of a ‘primal scream,’ pretend you’re coming harder than you’ve ever come before.”

  The wind lifted her hair off her burning cheeks as she stared at me. “What?”

  I leaned in so she could hear me through the earplugs. I sure as hell didn’t want anyone else overhearing. “Scream like I’m plunging my rock hard cock into you. Scream like you are so wet and so hot you’ll die if I don’t touch you. Like I have you tied down, spread-eagled and blindfolded, your body on display and mine to take however and whenever I want—and I’ve already been eating you out for hours. You can’t take any more. Imagine that my dick is stretching your pussy to the point of pain and bottoming out deeper than anyone has ever been inside you.” Inwardly I winced at the thought of anyone else inside her, regardless.

  Her pupils dilated at my words. If I touched her through her yoga pants right then, she might go off like a rocket. It was so tempting…

  I brushed my lips against hers, drawing more feelings out of her. I wanted to make her squirm, wanted her to be so turned on that she might even find a true release as she let it all out. Keenly, I wished I could control all her orgasms.

  “Scream like you’ve never come before, and your body and soul are completely mine.”

  Now she almost was hyperventilating, and I moved my palms to her chest. It just so happened that her tits were in the way; I couldn’t help that. I kissed her again, deep and slow, my thumbs brushing against her raised nipples. She shuddered and gasped into my mouth.

  “Gage! Fuck!”

  “Exactly, baby.”

  Dropping my hands, I stepped back a little and turned her toward the trees. I stood close to her but a little behind, so she wouldn’t be puncturing my eardrums. Her chest rose and fell, her eyes screwed shut against the magnificent scenery.

  “Let it go.” I drew my thumb up the back seam of her tight pants, deeply tracing her crack from her thighs to her sacrum. In response, she inhaled sharply then filled her lungs completely, ready to scream.

  As she opened her mouth, her arm shot back and she grabbed me through my pants—hard.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MADDIE

  I tried not to laugh at the pained, offended look on Gage’s face as we returned to our suite. Yeah, I knew that what I did was stupid, but it was spontaneous. Really, he’d brought it on himself for trying to manipulate me.

  He wanted me to commit to the exercise, right? Well, I committed.

  He threw a glare over his shoulder at me when we arrived at our door, and he reached in his pocket for his keycard. I blinked at him, oh so innocently, and then did stupid thing number two.

  “So, how do you think the staff retreat went?” I asked.

  He shoved open the door. Only a few steps after I followed him in, he spun me around and hauled me up against the closing door.

  With his thigh wedged between my legs and his nose nudging mine, he flattened his hands around my skull above my ears. I was held completely still by the strength of his body and his gaze. Oh shit. Maybe I had gone too far in teasing him.

  “Too soon?” I offered him a timid smile.

  His response was to lower his mouth to mine, consuming me in a toe-curling kiss. When he thrust against me, boosting me up so I was off-balance and riding his leg, it was possible that my toes really did curl.

  “Tell me, Madeline, when my assertiveness becomes aggression.”

  He slanted his mouth forcefully over mine until my teeth bit into my lips, and then he licked any soreness away with surprising tenderness. The pressure he was putting on my aching core made me dizzy, and far too close to actually coming for my comfort.

  That silly primal scream seemed to bring out the primitive in us, for sure. With a kiss he swallowed his own name as I tried to cry it out, and I clung to his shoulders for security.

  The passion in his kiss was almost frighteningly fierce. I’d shown my trust in him the night before, but he still unnerved me at every turn. Was I crazy for thinking about getting involved with this man? Even if he wasn’t my boss, he was, well, bossy. But I couldn’t help the shiver that ran up the back of my knees at the thought of him commanding me to come, and how helpless I was against his dominance.

  In every way, this was a bad idea. I was his assistant. I was nearly ten years younger than him. I flew by the seat of my pants while he probably organized his sock drawer. He was rich and I was, well, not. If this were a smutty book, he’d be pulling out a contract and introducing me to his playroom.

  Yeah, right. I was a recent college graduate too, and even I knew better than to sign anything like that without a lawyer. Then again, that chick also managed to get through college without a computer—which made the book fantasy, not fiction.

  The twirling sensation in the pit of my stomach wove through my spine like a needle and thread. His hands moved from my head to under my arms and clamped on the back of my neck like a collar. I tried to wrench my head back to catch my breath, but I was flat against the door. I jerked my head to the right, and his lips landed on my ear.

  “Gage, stop! Red light! Red light!”

  Like a switch had been flipped, he lowered me to the floor gently and released me. I missed his arms around me, but savored the breathing room. My heart thumped like a lab rat at the sight of a white coat, and slowly my feet recognized the floor underneath them. Brian Gage didn’t need to do much to unsettle me—or make me his fucking slave.

  It should have scared me how ready I was to throw my inhibitions out, to let him do anything and everything to me. Like I’d told him, I’d try anything once. Well, except autoerotic asphyxiation. I wasn’t too crazy about that idea. I rubbed at my throat, still feeling his touch there.

  He stumbled back until he hit the couch, breathing heavily. His gaze was square on my trembling lips, and he swiped the back of his hand over his own.

  “Jesus, Madeline. What you do to me…” He shook his head, at a loss for words. Me? What I did to him?

  “Ditto.” I glanced over to my bedroom. “Uh, we should pack. Are we heading home soon?”

  He’d insisted that I ride with him. At the time, the idea made me nervous. Now it excited me—and made me nervous. Oh god. Four hours in the car with him—alone, in that fucking sexy car. Maybe I should try to get a ride with Susan, I thought to myself.

  He exhaled heavily then stood straight and tall, calm and collected—if not totally cool. His mouth twisted as he glanced down at the noticeable bulge at the front of his slacks.

  “Yes, go ahead and pack up. We’ll have a quick roundtable discussion downstairs with lunch.” As I stepped toward my room, he said, “Don’t worry about packing for me.”

  “I wasn’t going to! You can handle your own dirty underwear, sir.”

  When I looked back he was trying to discreetly adjust himself, muttering something about his dirty underwear that I didn’t quite catch—and wasn’t about to investigate. Something told me I’d already pushed my luck enough today poking the bear.

  I
closed the bedroom door just as he looked up at me. I’d never seen that expression on his face before—confused, almost bereft, and downright voracious. He looked like a starving man in front of a steak dinner, but finding it behind glass.

  Well, I thought as I stuffed my own soiled panties into the front pocket of my suitcase, glass wasn’t that hard to break. You just had to be careful not to get all sliced up in the process.

  A second, completely unnecessary hot shower and an hour later, I rolled my bag down to the lobby. Bobbie waggled her fingers at me and, unlike upon arrival, this time I smiled at her easily across the front desk.

  “It was so nice to meet you!” she gushed.

  I shook her hand with genuine pleasure. We’d gotten along the night before like the proverbial house on fire, at least before I returned to the hotel and her big brother practically set me on fire. The way she grinned reminded me of Gage, and the memory of his talented lips made me blush.

  “I’ll be coming to town more often on my off weekends to, uh, get out and see stuff,” she said, her own cheeks darkening.

  “You mean see Aaron and get off,” I needled her. Two glasses of red wine the night before and we had turned into over-sharing goofballs. Thankfully, I didn’t have much to over-share… then. Now I would have to watch myself around her a little. She was a few years older than me but I saw the potential for a friendship, which pleased me. It also made me nervous, as it was one more way to be entangled in Gage’s life.

  “You have a wicked swing.” She laughed and mimicked my stance with the foam bat. “You want to take it back to the office with you?”

  A snort escaped me. “Yeah, I don’t see that going over well. What was it like growing up with him?” I had a hard time imagining him as a kid. A brooding emo adolescent, maybe, but not as a small child.

  “When I was about twelve I called him Keyser Söze for almost a whole year.” I burst out laughing at her reference to a mysterious fictional titan of tyranny. She spread her hands out on the desk. “No, I’m serious. It drove him up the wall.”

  “I’ll bet.” We exchanged numbers, and she promised she’d call me for coffee when she was next in town. I wouldn’t expect it and I wouldn’t hold her to it; but, as I wheeled my suitcase over to the conference center, I realized that I hoped she’d be in touch.

  I was the last one to arrive, missing lunch, since my bathroom indulgence made me later than I’d planned. Hovering at the back, I tried to ignore Gage’s long pause and X-ray vision.

  “As I was saying, since we’re all here now—”

  My eyes rolled up so fast I almost got vertigo. Seriously? If he didn’t want me to take a second shower, he shouldn’t have gotten me so… dirty.

  “It’s been pointed out to me,” Gage continued, “that a group assessment of this weekend is not the most expedient idea. What I will do, then, is compile a list of questions about the retreat and your experiences here, then distribute it to you at the office. You are free to print out your answers instead of email, if you want to stay anonymous.”

  Thank god, I thought. Despite the fact I would probably end up in charge of this, at least Gage was starting to understand that keeping the staff happy meant not putting them on the spot all the time and expecting spotlessness. There were a few people who refused to make eye contact with him as he glanced around the room.

  “If you have any further suggestions on how to improve our productivity and creativity, I’m open to hearing them. Each one of you is valuable to this company, but together we are worth a fortune.”

  Not bad. He looked to me for help with a big finish, to which I shrugged. I was better at bullshitting onto a keyboard, not verbally. Well, okay, maybe a little.

  Gage cleared his throat and stepped forward, trying to look casual as he leaned against a table. “In any case, thank you for coming this weekend,” he said in a surprisingly humble tone. “I know that you all have other things you’d rather be doing.” Again he looked over at me, but again I was helpless—and blushing at the knowledge that he would probably rather be doing me this weekend. “I appreciate your commitment.”

  The room was silent.

  “And you have tomorrow off,” he added.

  The room was no longer silent. There were a few tepid cheers, but only Aaron had the balls to clap the boss on the back in thanks. As the room emptied and Gage’s lips pressed together in a flat line, I felt a little sad.

  If he just relaxed a little, he’d probably get to know his staff better, and they’d work harder for him. All for one and one for all, that kind of thing. Right now Gage’s benevolent dictatorship was limiting his reach and ability to connect with his team—and me, if I was honest.

  My attraction to my boss had been physical at first, and who could blame me? Week by week, I’d started to fall for his intelligence and dry humor as well. He had high expectations, but that was because he actually thought the best of people’s abilities to achieve them. He had a lot of confidence in us, in me—way more than I did. That’s why I felt so rotten when I disappointed him.

  While shrugging his coat on, he walked over to where I leaned against the wall. When he looked at me, I didn’t see the fire that I’d grown accustomed to that weekend, only a kind of defeated look. It broke my heart.

  Brian Gage had so much to give, if only he’d stop taking.

  With only the two of us left in the room, I slipped my hand into his. Susan had already left, but I’d resigned myself to the prospect of driving home with Gage anyhow. He glanced out the open doorway to the empty hall, then bent down to kiss me.

  “Thanks,” he murmured against my lips.

  “No problem, sir.”

  The way our lips curved against each other in smiles felt strange, but not bad, like kissing with braces.

  He sighed then gallantly grabbed my suitcase. “Shall we?”

  It was more than just the question of hitting the road. Invested in it were also the questions of “Can we date now? Do you want to try to be together? Do you want me like I want you? Can we manage to be boss and employee and lovers at the same time, without fucking everything up?” It was a lot to take in with two little words.

  Why did the shortest statements always seem to hold the heaviest meaning?

  Gage flinched in surprise as I stood on my tippy toes and kissed his cheek. I reveled in the feel of his coal-black scruff against my tender lips, since he hadn’t shaved that morning.

  With his leather bomber jacket on and the shadow on his jaw, he looked like an ordinary man—a ridiculously handsome, virile, driven, intense ordinary man. I had my suspicions that he was, in fact, extraordinary. And I couldn’t wait to find out.

  After a quick goodbye to Bobbie and thanks to her staff, we made our way out to his sexy, low-slung car. As we pulled away from the lodge and headed to the curvy ribbon of road going down the mountain, he visibly relaxed, sinking into the leather seat with a sigh.

  “Mister Gage, have you ever had road head?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  GAGE

  Madeline Jones should come with a warning label: Do not operate heavy machinery while under the influence. My hands tightened on the leather-wrapped steering wheel.

  After a pause, I replied easily, “Yes, I have had road head, Madeline.”

  “Oh.”

  “Have you?”

  “It’s a little harder for women,” she said. “Logistically speaking.”

  I tilted my head to consider the angle, the seat, the center console, and figured she was right. And then shifted in my seat, cursing my stupidly responsive dick. “I meant, have you given, not received.”

  “Oh.”

  I didn’t have to look over again to tell that she was blushing. But she didn’t answer the question, and I didn’t press her. Instead, we decided to try working.

  I’d dictated to her for the first hour, all of which of course she rearranged and paraphrased and repeated back to me, as she usually did. The edge of her laptop dug into her belly a
s she tried to work in the low-slung seat, and she had to hold her elbows at a strange angle in order to type.

  On my right side, her hair bobbed back in forth like a candle’s flame as she worked, then asked me a question, and continued. It was nice to have company for the drive, and in my peripheral vision, I caught the smiles she thought she was so secretly aiming my way.

  “Music?” I asked.

  She glanced at my phone in the cup holder. “Anything good on there?”

  When she reached for it I wrapped my hand around her wrist, stopping her. Call me paranoid, but I didn’t let anyone touch my phone except me. My whole life was on that thing. She inhaled sharply, but didn’t jerk her hand back right away. The slim bones of her wrist felt birdlike in my grasp.

  “What do you like?” I asked, clearing my throat and peeling my fingers free. “I’ve got lots of stuff.”

  She shook back her hair and pressed her fist to her chest. “I totally heart Scandinavian death metal.”

  Quickly I brought the car back under control before it veered into the other lane. “Uh, I don’t have that.”

  Her laughter filled the small space, and her hand drifted over to touch mine on the wheel. “I’m just joking.”

  This time I took my vision off the road just long enough to see her trying in vain to suppress her giggle. The smug twinkle in her eye made me chuckle with her.

  “I almost had you,” she said.

  “Yeah, you’re an expert in persuasion, remember?”

  “Not always,” she reminded me. She bent over the phone, her fingers scrolling through playlists. “Jazz?”

  I shrugged, wrinkling my nose automatically. “Anything newer?” She named a few bands I’d never heard, making me feel unbelievably old and uncool. “Okay, not that new.”

  “You want retro as in my parents’ CDs or retro as in those big record things?” she teased me.