by Nina Lane
He’s incapable of focusing on anything.
Classic case of nepotism.
Luke needs to cut him loose.
Of course, no one said anything like that if one of the other Stone brothers was nearby—in the short time I’d been working here, I’d figured out how close-knit and protective the Stones were. I assumed that was why Luke and Jake were still trying to help Ryan find a place at Sugar Daddy.
The problem was that no one else seemed to believe he’d ever be an asset to the company. I wasn’t even sure his brothers believed that. I wasn’t sure Ryan believed that.
Not that it was any of my business, even though I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him all night. And even though those thoughts were inappropriately sensual.
I set a plate of food down for my cat, Mr. Wiggles, and finished getting dressed for work. I slithered into my lingerie, glancing at myself in the mirror with a pang of longing. The little scraps of lace hugging my breasts and hips made me feel good—and secretly I thought I looked good too—but no one else knew about my penchant for silk and lace. I tried not to think about what it would feel like if Ryan Stone ever found out.
I put on my armor of a straight wool skirt, white shirt, blue jacket, scraping my hair back into a tight knot. After applying just enough makeup to add color to my face, I headed to the Sugar Daddy offices. As usual, I arrived early and spent the next few hours organizing files, setting up appointments, and ensuring everything was ready for the board meeting.
“Jane.” Luke Stone strode down the hall from his office, like a military general preparing to strategize for battle.
I stood at his approach, feeling like I should salute. “Yes, Mr. Stone?”
“Board meeting in ten minutes,” he said, as if I hadn’t been preparing for it all morning.
“Yes, sir.” I grabbed my tablet, notepad, and three pens, hurrying after him to the boardroom. “Everything is set up with the promo materials for the chocolate wafer campaign and the presentation agenda.”
He nodded, which was enough approval for me. In the few weeks I’d been working for him, I’d learned that a nod from Luke Stone was like a beatification.
“I also want to speak to you about my brother Ryan,” Mr. Stone said, glancing at his watch. “I gave him a new project to work on, and he could use help staying on task. Given your efficiency, I’d appreciate it if you could assist him.”
I swallowed, apprehension prickling my skin at the idea of assisting Ryan Stone.
“Jane?” Mr. Stone prodded. “Will that be a problem?”
“N-no, sir. No problem.”
“Good. You and Ryan can come to my office after the board meeting, and I’ll give you the project details so you can get started.”
He held open the conference room door for me. The room hummed with conversation from the board of directors, all of whom were crowded around the long conference table. I’d put the agenda items and binders at each seat, along with water glasses, extra pens, and paper.
I took my place at Mr. Stone’s side, compartmentalizing the idea of working with Ryan Stone into another part of my brain. I’d deal with that later. Maybe “assisting” him would mean I’d just need to do some market research.
As Mr. Stone called the meeting to order, I started taking notes as he reviewed the agenda items. When he reached the point where Ryan Stone was listed as the presenter of the sales reports, he stopped and looked at the single empty chair on the other side of the table.
“Where is he?” Mr. Stone asked.
Jake Stone, who was the CFO and also appeared to be Luke’s right-hand man, reached for his cell phone. “I texted him ten minutes ago to remind him.”
Luke frowned. A couple of other board members rolled their eyes and shook their heads, like Ryan’s tardiness was nothing new.
Irritation nipped at me. Though I prided myself on punctuality at all times, I couldn’t help feeling like these people might have at least given Ryan a chance to explain. What if he was stuck in traffic?
The door opened. Ryan strolled in, his suit wrinkled, his tie askew, and a lollipop sticking out of his mouth. Everyone turned to look at him with disapproval. He smiled.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, not looking sorry at all as he sank into the empty chair.
Luke’s frown deepened, carving brackets around his mouth. “Nice of you to join us, Ryan.”
“No problem, bro.”
The other board members rustled with exasperation. I tried not to smile. Clearly Ryan Stone was an expert at his role of naughty kid brother, though I suspected there was much more beneath the surface of his rakish charm. I was increasingly curious about what he was hiding…and why.
Luke cleared his throat and turned back to the agenda. “As I was saying, the relaunch of the classic candy line…”
The meeting droned on. I kept my head down and took extensive, detailed notes, which I would later compile into a meeting report.
When Jake Stone strode to the front of the room to deliver a financial presentation, I took the opportunity to glance at Ryan.
He was shifting his chair back and forth and tapping a pen on his notepad, looking for all the world as if he’d much rather be doing anything but sitting in a boardroom. Not that he was really sitting, given his constant restlessness.
He glanced up suddenly, as if he felt my gaze on him. Our eyes met with a crackling, tangible force that ignited little sparks through me. Ryan winked, his beautiful mouth curving into a smile.
Oh, I could picture kissing that mouth. I could picture a lot more than that. Unbidden images flashed through my mind, quick as shooting stars—me with my hair loose and messy, my skirt hiked up to my waist, and my legs spread. I saw Ryan Stone above me, his muscular body damp with sweat and strain as he drove his cock in and out of me while I moaned and begged for more and more…
I suppressed a groan, squeezing my thighs together. I’d never felt such a hot, intense pull toward a man before. I’d certainly never wanted a man to just take me with wild, hot abandon and…
“The marketing surveys, Miss Smith.” Luke Stone’s voice broke into my heated thoughts.
“Uh…yes, sir. The surveys.” Swiftly gathering my composure, I passed a pile of laminated folders around the table.
“And Ryan has been working on a revised financial outlook report that he’d like to share,” Jake Stone said, moving to sit back at his seat.
Ryan blinked. Jake narrowed his eyes.
“You do have the report, don’t you?” Jake asked.
“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Ryan pushed back from the table and sauntered to the front of the room. “I did the…uh, quarterly sales reports are done. Blue for the first quarter. We had… uh, we had an increase in…in revenue of 2.7%.”
He stopped, shoving his hands into his pockets as he rocked back on his heels. Everyone waited in silence.
“Mr. Stone, I’m so sorry!” Without thinking, I stood and grabbed the fiscal report folder I’d brought with me.
“I forgot to give you the details you asked me to compile,” I said quickly, then addressed the other board members. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll look in your binders, you’ll see a summary of the financial outlook report that Mr. Stone…Mr. Ryan Stone wrote, which shows an estimated 2.5 to 3.5% increase in net sales for the upcoming year. This includes a net benefit from acquisitions and divestitures of about 1.5 percentage points, with solid gains in the North American market predicted to result in a reported gross margin of…”
I continued speaking in as much detail as I could about the company’s financial future, which I’d learned from all the data and reports that both Luke and Jake Stone had asked me to organize.
By the time I finished, almost everyone was murmuring under their breath and making notes on the margins of their papers and on their tablets. Ryan sank into his chair, looking relieved. When he caught my eye, he mouthed the words thank you, which sparked a little glow beneath my heart.
Danger Zone
, indeed. I’d do well to heed that warning sign, much as I wished I had the courage to change my own sign to Enter Here.
*
He smelled like chocolate and peppermint. And though it was true I avoided sweets, the scent of him was like a sugar rush, filling my blood with the craving for more. Because he was sitting beside me, I couldn’t look at him without being obvious about it, but we were close enough that his sleeve brushed against my arm, and my entire body hummed with awareness of his presence.
“Unit sales of hard candy are down almost five percent from previous…”
Luke Stone’s voice droned on as he sat behind his desk, leafing through some papers. He’d called Ryan and me into his office to discuss the hard candy project he wanted us to collaborate on, though he was making it sound insanely boring.
Ryan shifted, all loose-limbed and muscular, one foot propped on the edge of Luke’s desk. I wondered what it felt like to be so at home in your own skin.
“Go ahead and get started,” Luke said, glancing at the clock. “I’m heading down to the factory floor, but I’ll be back soon.”
He picked up a clipboard and strode out the door. The air itself seemed to relax once he was gone. I tightened my fingers on my notepad and turned to face Ryan Stone.
My heart thumped. He was already looking at me, his eyes blue as the sky. A shadow of whiskers darkened his cut-glass jaw. I suspected he was the only man in the world who could seduce a woman with a peppermint stick. Come to think of it, he’d probably done that more than once.
It was an intriguing thought. Sexually experienced men didn’t come on to me. Heck, very few men had been interested in me since I’d started dressing like an old schoolmarm. For a long time, I’d preferred it that way…until Ryan Stone had stopped by my desk and asked me to suck on a peppermint stick.
No. Ordered me to suck on a peppermint stick.
I shivered. I hadn’t been able to resist his command. Again the thought flashed through my mind of how much more I wanted him to order me to do. Certainly it involved more than me sucking on candy.
“Jane Smith,” he murmured.
God. His voice alone made me tingle. He made my name sound delicious, like a marshmallow enrobed in dark chocolate.
“There’s more to you than meets the eye,” he said.
“What you see is what you get,” I replied, somehow managing to sound brisk and business-like.
“I don’t think so. Why the ugly clothes?”
Even though I knew quite well my clothes were ugly, his remark still stung. It had been a long time since I’d wanted to be attractive to a man—and with every passing minute, I wished that man was Ryan Stone.
“I’m a professional,” I said weakly. “I wear business clothes.”
“You wear clothes that hide your body,” he replied. “The question is why.”
He slid his gaze down to my breasts. Warmth pooled in my core. I’d taken off my jacket after the board meeting, and now I felt as if I were half-naked.
I suddenly wished I could tell him the truth—embarrassing as it was. Despite his arrogant, aggressive charm, I suspected Ryan Stone knew far more about hiding than he wanted to let on.
“This… um, we should get to work,” I said, tapping my pen on my notepad. “Your brother assigned us a project, and since he’s my boss, I intend to carry it through.”
“I’m your boss now,” Mr. Stone reminded me pointedly. “And I can be pretty demanding.”
And often inappropriate, I thought. Which I was beginning to love, even though I knew I shouldn’t.
“Mr. Stone.” I straightened my shoulders. “I’ve compiled a report about the recent innovations from your competitors. There are some interesting new novelty items, like games of candy poker and slot machines with jelly beans—”
“Why did you save my ass in the board meeting?” he interrupted.
Because it’s a very fine ass, I thought.
“I believe in being punctual,” I replied coolly. “And the meeting was already running late. I wanted to stick to the agenda.”
“You broke a rule, you know.”
“I most certainly did not.”
“You did,” Mr. Stone said, narrowing his eyes. “Rules of order. You’re supposed to obtain the floor only after the first person has finished speaking, which you didn’t do.”
“Well, considering you were stammering and not speaking, I believe the Chair would excuse me from that policy.”
“The Chair might,” he agreed, a frown creasing his forehead. “I wouldn’t. See that you don’t break any other rules or policies, Miss Smith, or I might have to punish you.”
Oh, my Lord. A thrill raced through me, centering in the increasing throb in my sex. I shifted in my chair, trying not to let images of Mr. Stone punishing me fill my head and compound my earlier thoughts of raw, intense fucking.
“Mr. Stone, we really need to work,” I said rather breathlessly.
“Yeah, let’s think about the qualities of hard candy.” He leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. “It’s hard, obviously. Sticky. Tasty. It gets wet when you lick it and makes your mouth water. You can suck it for a long time and roll your tongue around and around it.”
I squirmed again, trying to focus on my notepad. Mr. Stone glanced at me.
“Are you writing all this down?” he asked.
I shot him a reprimanding look. “Yes, sir.”
“Hmm. I like you calling me sir.” He turned to face me again, his eyes darkening like a twilight sky. “No one around here does that.”
I remembered the rumblings I’d heard about him from other employees. A twinge of protectiveness went through me.
“Why don’t you have a real job title at Sugar Daddy?” I asked.
He blinked at the suddenness of the question. “What?”
“Your brother told me you gave yourself the title of VP of Miscellaneous Stuff,” I said. “You go from department to department, sometimes working in R&D or finances, sometimes even going to the factory floor or gift shop. Why don’t you have a single job like everyone else around here?”
A shadow passed across his face, darkening his eyes. My heart clenched. I knew it. I’d known from the start he was more like me than appearances would initially suggest.
Mr. Stone didn’t respond. For a moment, we just looked at each other, the air almost crackling with the challenge of secrets.
“Tell me,” I said, my heart thumping against my ribs. “Or your brother might somehow find out that you never wrote any financial outlook report.”
He frowned. “You’re coercing me?”
“I’m asking you to trust me. After all, I sucked on your peppermint stick.”
He laughed. The tension eased from my shoulders, a responding smile tugging at my mouth.
“Please,” I added.
He looked at me, his eyes still glowing with amusement.
“I find it very hard to resist your begging, Miss Smith,” he said, his voice a low rumble over my skin.
I didn’t respond, but held his gaze steadily. An arc of energy passed between us, something bright and shimmering.
“I have attention deficit disorder,” Mr. Stone finally admitted. “I’ve had it since I was a kid. Never went away. I’ve tried therapy, meds, whatever… but nothing has ever really worked. My brothers humor me by sending me from job to job. That’s why Luke made you my assistant—he knew I’d never get anything done on the project if I had to do it alone.”
“Well,” I murmured. “You don’t have to do it alone.”
Something flashed across his expression that I couldn’t define, but it warmed the tender area around my heart.
“Is part of the problem that you haven’t found something you love to do?” I asked gently.
Mr. Stone shrugged. He took a wooden pyramid puzzle off the desk and started working it, his fingers strong and capable.
“Some things I don’t have trouble focusing on,” he continued. “Puzzles. Some games.
Sex.”
The word sex twisted through me like a flame. Yes, he’d know exactly what he was doing.
My gaze wandered to the column of his throat, which was exposed above the loose knot of his gray-and-blue striped tie. His white shirt contrasted strikingly with his tanned skin. A pulse beat against the side of his throat. I imagined putting my tongue there, licking him. He would taste like sun-warmed citrus and salt.
I exhaled a sigh, pressing my thighs together. I was so tired of my Plain Jane armor. I wanted to strip off my ugly clothes and be as uninhibited as Ryan Stone was.
He wasn’t defective. He was like a pinball firing from spot to spot, lighting up the world with dazzling flashes of color and sound.
“Why… um, why sex?” I asked.
“I’m creative,” he replied, shooting me a sideways glance. “Coming up with different ways to do things keeps both me and my partner very stimulated.”
My mouth was getting dry. “What… what kind of things?”
He didn’t respond, though that mischievous twinkle flashed in his eyes.
“Why, Miss Smith,” he murmured. “Do you want to know about my dirty mind?”
Oh, yes, please, Mr. Stone.
“I’m just… curious,” I managed to say. “Sir.”
“First tell me why you dress like you’re eighty,” he said.
A burn of embarrassment scorched my cheeks. I shook my head.
He frowned. “Are you disobeying me, Miss Smith?”
I wasn’t even sure what the right answer was.
“No?” I finally said.
“Pity.” He gave me a devastating grin that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. “Then let’s play a guessing game.”
“I told you I don’t play games,” I reminded him.
“Time for you to start,” he replied. “You dress like that because you’re planning to be a nun.”
“No.”
“You’re joining a cult.”
“No.”
“You’re channeling a parochial school teacher.”
“No.”
“So what have you come up with?” Luke’s voice broke through the tense, hot air like an icicle.
I jerked my attention away from Ryan Stone, trying to breathe evenly.
