by Sylvia Fox
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Take Me, Boss
A Billionaire Boss Obsession
Sylvia Fox
Contents
Front Matter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Drill Me, Sergeant
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Front Matter
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Chapter One
Nate
Three years. Three fascinating, sexually frustrated years. That’s how long I’ve worked with the enigmatic Domino Thorne and not acted on my impulse to make her mine. She obliterates my thoughts every time she walks into a room. I want to unravel her. Chip away at her practiced exterior of strength and confidence and expose the soft femininity hiding underneath. I want her open to me. Her thighs. Her body. Her mind. I want her writhing and shivering in front of me while her deepest secrets are out on display.
But a torrid office affair is the last thing I need. Not when the eyes of the world are on me and my company.
“Mr. Wellington?” Dom’s low voice interrupts my thoughts—warm and rich, like bourbon and chocolate drizzled in caramel and bound in silk.
I stand near the floor to ceiling windows in my conference room, hands in my pockets, attention on the street below rather than the room full of people waiting for me to speak. Snow filters down from gray skies. Pedestrians march down the sidewalks, chins tucked into their coat collars and scarves. Yellow cabs clog the street. A mess of people in a hurry to be late. Smartphones in hands. Importance on their faces.
When I started my company—a startup I called Technocrat—I was young and optimistic. Determined to run my business as a collaboration of great minds doing great things. I envisioned us sitting at a huge round table throwing ideas around with wild eyes and frantic hair. Hands gesturing. People pacing. Spewing brilliance like sunshine from the horizon at dawn.
Reality proved different from fantasy, as it tends to do. As the years progressed, I realized people prefer to be told what to do—which works for me because I prefer to be the one giving orders. I gave up my roundtable idea in favor of a weekly Monday Meeting of Minds, inviting only the people whose quick wit and intellect intrigue me the most. Some people have waited a decade for an invitation. Dom got hers after her first month with the company, at the age of twenty-four.
“Let’s get started.” I give my focus to the people waiting for my attention. Most of them are fidgeting, uncomfortable in the quiet. Not Dom. She meets my gaze head on. Chin lifted, eyes focused. Impenetrable.
“Give it to me straight,” I say with a smile. “I want the good, the bad, and all the possible ways to get better.” I pull out my chair and sit. “Notice I didn’t ask to hear about the ugly because we all know there’s no room for that here.” People chuckle and shuffle papers. “It’s a new year. Let’s dominate.”
The meeting passes in a slew of data and numbers and ideas ranging from impressive to ridiculous. Throughout it all, I never once lose awareness of Dom. Even when she’s not speaking, I keep tabs on what she’s doing, noticing tiny shifts in her posture or attentiveness. She’s in everything I do now. A portion of my thoughts are always allocated to her. My desire for her has blossomed into an obsession, a war between my need to have her and my need to avoid scandal, but she’s the only thing I can remember wanting and not taking.
“Mr. Wellington.” Dom squares her shoulders and lifts her chin. “I have a thought.” She licks her lips and her gaze drifts to my mouth.
What I would do with my mouth on that body…
“Hit me with it.” I lean back in my seat and tuck my hands behind my head. The leather creaks beneath my weight.
Dom waits until all eyes are on her. “Devices are our future.” She smiles, showing a neat row of white teeth. “Phones. Tablets.” Her pale blue eyes light up and she sits even straighter. “Technocrat has dominated the online space for years now, but there’s no growth opportunity for us there anymore. But.” She holds up a finger. “If we take the elements you’ve implemented in your browser and search engine—anonymity, control, and simplicity—into handheld devices? You’ve demonstrated there’s a market there. People are tired of sacrificing their privacy and personal data to big corporations. Just imagine how they would react to an entire line of devices built around the same principles.” She flares her hands, a question on her face, and waits for the information to sink in.
Conversation buzzes around the table, some of it positive, some of it uncertain, but all of it surprised.
“Devices,” I say. The table quiets as I purse my lips and steeple my fingers, mulling the thought over in my head. “Interesting.”
It’s more than interesting. I had the idea myself six months ago and haven’t been able to get the thought out of my head since. It’s fucking brilliant.
The corner of Dom’s lips curl into a smile. “It’s the next logical step. And one we can make without too much effort.” Her gaze sharpens. She leans back, letting her hands drape over the arms of her chair.
She looks at me like she can see through me to all the wicked thoughts in my head. Thoughts of her lips parting, her body quivering. My mouth at her neck, my teeth on her skin. The woman exudes sensuality and wears confidence like a perfume. Even leaning back in her chair, her posture is straight and confident, her head delicately balanced over her shoulders. Her dress is perfectly appropriate, the neckline meeting her collarbones and covering her shoulders, but she wears it like lingerie.
The meeting ends and she stands, towering over everyone but me in her four-inch heels. She gathers her things as people meander out of the conference room. Taking her time. Stalling until we’re the only ones in the room.
“Mr. Wellington.” She stands close enough that I’m aware of the space between us as if it has a life of its own.
“Ms. Thorne.”
“My idea is good. It is our next logical step.” She smiles again, confidence and composure oozing from every pore. “I want to spearhead the project.”
I smile as I fight images of that blonde hair tumbling free from her tight updo. Of it spread across my pillow as her lips part around a moan and her back arches while I bury myself in her. We’d come undone together. Bodies raging like the sea against the rocks.
I nod. “It is a good idea. One worth considering. Well done, Dom.”
She beams and I’d do anything to keep that look on her face all the time. “Thank you. I have data and ideas if you’d like to take a look at them. We can create a game plan and have things moving sooner than you think.”
“Wonderful. Get a meeting set up and we’ll discuss things.” My phone pings for the hundredth time this hour. I ignore it.
Dom raises an eyebrow. “Already done. We have a meeting at nine am next Monday.”
As if that wasn’t bold enough, Dom turns on her heel
and walks away without waiting for me to respond. I stare after her, my gaze traveling down her back to her swaying hips and straight to the seams traveling up the back of her tights. Tights I just know are held up by garters.
Dom’s sexuality is a power play, a way to control the people around her. It’s the same reason I keep my suits impeccably tailored, my hair gelled to perfection, and just the right amount of five o’clock shadow peppering my face. Everything in this world comes down to sex. Except sex. That’s all about power.
I’ve built my whole world around that idea. Obviously, Domino has, too.
The two of us will be explosive together.
Denying myself the things I want is against my nature. The fact that I’ve wanted Dom for three years and not done anything about it confounds me. It’s time to put my worries about work and scandal aside. Life gets boring when you play by the rules.
Chapter Two
Dom
“You just told your boss—the owner of the whole damn company—that you put a meeting on his schedule and then had the balls to walk away?” Jacki leans in to be heard over the throbbing bass and many conversations in Cadillac Jack’s, our favorite bar for girl’s night out.
“Sure did.” I hold up my dirty martini and lift my eyebrows before taking a drink. “How else should I have done it?” I run my thumb under my bottom lip.
“Oh, I don’t know. Cleared it with him first? Waited for him to say he was okay with it?” Jacki sips her strawberry margarita.
I scrunch up my face in confusion. “Why would I wait for him to say he was okay with it? Of course he’s okay with it. It’s a damn good idea and it’s going to make him tons of money.”
“What I wouldn’t do for just one sliver of your confidence.” Jacki licks her lips and stares over my shoulder. “There’s a hottie behind you. Want him?”
I turn and study the guy. He catches my eye and lifts his chin, pursing his lips. I give my attention back to Jacki. “Nope. Total d-bag. Too full of himself to be worth sleeping with.”
“You’re picky.”
“You’re not.” I raise an eyebrow.
Jacki gapes at me. “Hey…” She tosses her so-dark-it’s-almost-black hair over her shoulder and sighs. “Okay. Maybe I’m not all that picky. But it works for me. While I’m in the middle of a sexual revolution, you’re over their shriveling up. You’re turning into an old maid right before my eyes, D.”
“Nothing about me is shriveling up. I can promise you that.”
My tastes are just a little different than Jacki’s is all. While she’s interested in anything with a dick that will give her the time of day, I’m looking for a very specific kind of man. Someone willing to let me take the reins. Someone who’s comfortable giving up control. Because there’s really only one thing in life that matters to me, and that’s control.
Everything I do is built around it. I work my ass off to get promoted into places of power so I have more control at work. This gives me more financial freedom to have more control at home. I never have more than one drink so I never lose control while I’m out. I’m training for a marathon for the control it gives me over my body. And I never enter a relationship where I have to give up one ounce of control over who I am and what I want.
It’s magical.
I’ve never been hurt and at twenty-seven, I’ve accomplished more than some people will in their entire lives. I’m a force to be reckoned with and that’s just the way I like it. I’ve not met any man anywhere who’s strong enough to handle me.
“How did he react?” Jacki looks past my shoulders and smiles, dropping a wink, probably at the d-bag who will leave her unsatisfied, embarrassed, and unfulfilled.
“Huh?”
She meets my eyes and frowns. “Your boss. How did he react?”
I think back to the look on Mr. Wellington’s face. “He was surprised.”
“Look at you grin.” Jacki pulls her straw out of her margarita and sucks a strawberry out of the bottom. “You’re such an asshole.”
“I am not.”
“But you kind of are.” Jacki swirls her straw in her glass. “And I can say that because I love you.”
I sip my martini. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You can’t even ask the question without laughing.” Jacki smiles, rolling her eyes at me. “You have to be careful, putting your boss in his place. Because his place is above you.” She makes a slicing motion with her hand just over her head.
“Ahh. That’s the thing.” I flare my hands. “No one’s place is above me.”
Jacki shakes her head. “You’re something else.” Her gaze shifts over my shoulder again.
“I’m telling you, Jack. That guy’s a fuck and dump. He’ll come and you won’t and you’ll swear you’ll never pick up guys in bars ever again.”
“No. Not him. There’s another one.” She leans closer, eyes wide and mouth open. “Holy shit, Dom. This guy is…” She licks her lips. “Edible.”
Our girl’s nights used to be about the two of us getting together and hanging out. Decompressing after a long week of pushing and shoving through our careers. The closer we get to thirty, the more obsessed Jacki gets with finding a man. I’m not a fan and have cut our nights short more than once over it.
“Jacki…”
She senses the rattlesnake warning in my voice. “I’m serious, Dom. You gotta look.”
“I don’t ‘gotta’ do anything.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. Be stubborn. But you’re gonna miss a once in a lifetime kind of man. I don’t even have it in me to make eye contact. He’s that far out of my league.”
I laugh. “No one’s out of your league and you know it, even if you do set your standards too low. Admit it, you’ve already made eye contact, given him the come hither, and he’s on his way over.”
“You know me too well.” She tosses her hair. “Prepare to be amazed.” She glances up, smiles, and then leans in to whisper. “Just remember, I saw him first.”
“No worries there, I’m sure.”
“No worries about what?” A familiar voice captures my attention and I glance at the man helping himself to a seat at our table.
Well, I’ll be damned. If it isn’t Nathaniel Wellington. The only man I haven’t been able to get into bed, even with concerted effort. Every move I make has been calculated to make him give in to me. Three years later and I still haven’t tasted him. He must be made of steel and stone.
“Mr. Wellington.” I cross my legs and moisten my lips. “Fancy meeting you here.”
He looks surprised but wipes away the look with a wide grin. “We’re not at work. Call me Nate.”
Jacki’s wide eyes aren’t doing me any favors. “This is your boss?” She runs a finger along her collarbone, about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
“Uh-oh.” Nate looks pleased. “Does my reputation precede me?”
While I smile and gather myself, Jacki goes into full-on flirt mode. I’ll blame it on her freshly refilled margarita because she should know better than to go after my boss, a man I laid claim on years ago. Nate answers her questions easily, enjoying the attention, but his gaze keeps darting to me. He wants me, but this is a man who thrives on control as much as I do and for whatever reason, he’s decided I am off limits.
Except tonight feels different.
“So,” he says, grazing my hand with just the tip of his finger. I want to shiver but don’t. “Domino is such an unusual name. Is there a story behind it?”
I hate to say I’m disappointed, but I thought for sure he’d go with something more unique for a conversation starter. How many times in my life have I had to answer this question? I lean my elbow on the table and rest a finger against my chin.
“It means lord and master.” I let my lips part and hold his gaze, turning my head ever so slightly, watching his reaction. “I guess my parents knew me well enough before I was even born to name me appropriately.” I shrug. “It’s also my dad’s favorite Bond girl.”
Jacki rolls her eyes and laughs. “I think your dad just really likes James Bond.”
“Or that.” I shrug and finish off my martini.
Nate studies me and I study him right back. His dark hair, which is usually gelled back off his face at the office, is loose and long, giving him a brooding look that works very well with those vibrant blue eyes of his.
Jacki clears her throat. “I sure could go for another drink.” She looks at me, lost in the sexual tension and begging for help. “What about you guys?”
Nate lifts his glass. “It’s Friday. I’m game. This round’s on me.” He studies my finger as I run it along the stem of my glass. “Another martini?”
“No, but thank you. And I’ll get this round.” No one buys me drinks. No one. It’s a display of dominance. A way of putting someone in your debt. Not a place I like to be.
Nate looks perplexed and Jacki looks appalled while I flag down a waitress and place an order. And, just to add to my level of mystery, it’s time to make a quick disappearance.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I say as I stand and head towards the bathroom, fully aware that Nate has a perfect view of my ass the whole way.
A man like Nate? He’s not prepared for a woman like me. He wants someone to bend to his well. Someone eager to please him and desperate for rules and direction. I’m not like that. In fact, I’m the exact opposite of that. If we get together, sparks will fly. Things will catch fire. That should scare the hell out of me but it only makes me want him more. Am I really ready to put my career on the line just so I can sleep with my boss?
I study my face in the mirror, dabbing at a bit of errant eyeliner. All I can think about is how he’ll taste, what he’ll feel like sliding inside me, how he’ll look underneath me, rolling and thrusting his hips while his hands grip my waist.
When I step out of the restroom, Nate’s leaning against the wall. Waiting for me. I can’t say I’m surprised. Men do love the chase.
