“Then fuck me again,” he says, his voice doing strange things to me in places low.
“We didn't fuck, Lex. You just sort of … sampled me.” His laughter draws my gaze back up, so I can glare at him properly. “Don't waste anymore time here. Go find the woman of your dreams. Just a hint, she might not be wearing a leather suit and carrying a whip when you see her. Sometimes, the person you think looks the weakest is really the strongest. Strength, real true inner strength like you're looking for, that's something you can't see. Now get the fuck out of my house.” I turn away without waiting for a response and head for the stairs. When I hear the front door open, I pause with my hand on the railing. “Don't forget to lock it behind you.”
And then I head up to my room and drop straight into bed.
“You son of a bitch!”
I hear the voice long before I see the person attached to it. That raucous caterwauling can belong to none other than the illustrious Miss Olivia Ashcraft. And after we parted on such sweet and simple terms, too?
I rise from my chair and wait behind my desk. I wish I could say I was surprised to see her here so bright and early on a Monday morning, but I'm not. There are certain things that can't be undone and our little tryst in the elevator was one of them. If Lara Caliper hasn't already sold the film to the highest bidder, I'd be surprised. Thank God there was no audio on those tapes. Unfortunately for Olivia, audio wasn't what made the CEO of Oceanstar Capital Group purse her lips at me as soon as I walked in her office doors. It's not what caused her to throw a legal pad at my face and it certainly isn't what brought tears of frustration to her eyes.
I'm almost positive they were fake, but who knows? Maybe the thought of a possible merger between our companies was enough to start the waterworks? All I know is that the security guard immediately alerted her to the situation – and my subsequent masturbation in the elevator car after Miss Ashcraft left – and now there's no dinner date for me and no job for Olivia.
“What did you do?” she snarls, walking straight into my office, through the doors I left propped open for her. Claudia looked at me like I was insane when I told her to keep them that way. She even inquired if I might be interested in visiting a doctor. I am this close to firing that woman. “Tell me, Lex. Why wasn't it enough? You weren't satisfied with humiliating me, offending me, pissing me off? You had to take it one step further. Just … ” Olivia growls low in her throat and spins in a circle, putting the heel of her hand to her forehead. “Just … wow. I can't believe after I … ” She glances at me over her shoulder, breath leaving her glossy pink lips in a rush. I notice her makeup is much thicker today – a slash of darkness around the eyes, rosy cheeks, foundation. She never bothered to wear much beyond a dot of lip color when she was here, so why amp up her style for Oceanstar? I feel my mouth tighten in irritation. “After I opened up to you, tried to help you.” She drops her arm by her side and turns to face my desk fully. In her left hand is a piece of paper. I'm not sure what it says exactly, but I can take a guess.
Your services will no longer be required.
That's about as much as Lara Caliper ground out before booting me from her office with a tearful goodbye and an upturned nose. I still firmly believe it was all an act, but who knows what my father or grandfather told her? Whatever they insinuated, I can't even begin to imagine, and I won't apologize for it.
“I appreciated the candor, Miss Ashcraft, but by the time I arrived at your house on Friday, this series of events had already been set into action.” I want to say something else like, if I could've changed Lara's decision, I would have. But it's not true. After careful consideration, I've decided I want Olivia Ashcraft back under my roof. It's as simple as that.
“What are you even talking about?” she asks, moving up to my desk and tossing the page down in front of me. I don't bother to look at it, keeping my eyes locked on hers. Eye contact. It's now become my favorite form of communication with Olivia – with Oli. She doesn't say much with her mouth, but her eyes tell an entire story.
I sigh.
“The elevator, Olivia.” It's all I have to say, and she gets it, narrowing her eyes on me, hands quivering by her sides in rage. I notice that she's wearing another skirt suit. Either she liked the easy access she discovered with me last week, or she simply wanted to dress up for her new job. I'm betting on the latter, but it's always nice to pretend that the former's even an option.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me?” she whispers, still staring at me, red hair twisted up on the back of her head in a perfect bun, slick and professional but with a few small hairs escaping the concoction, waving like flags in the gentle breeze from the ceiling vent.
“I'm sorry, Olivia,” I say, and I'm sure she can tell the words aren't exactly my most truthful. She grits her teeth and then just stands there, like she isn't sure what exactly it is she wants to do. Scream at me? Storm out of my office? Kiss me?
I smile.
I spent all weekend thinking about the things Olivia said on Friday. Her words seemed to enlighten at the same time they infuriated me. She wanted me to … ask her on a date? I can't believe the thought never even occurred to me. I just assumed I could find a woman, throw money in her face and find out what it'd be like to surrender control to someone that actually deserved that sort of reckless abandonment. I suppose I didn't think any sort of personal relationship would be able to sustain that kind of trust. A business arrangement was the only situation that seemed to make any sense.
Now that Olivia has suggested otherwise, however, I can't seem to get the thoughts to leave my head. It all seems so simple now. I want to be dominated, Olivia wants to dominate me, and I get what I want. There shouldn't be a problem here.
“I want to give you your job back,” I tell her as she continues to stare at me, fury flooding through her veins. I love the way her jaw clenches tight and her throat works while she tries to think up something to say. In all honesty, I never did get around to relaying her job status to HR. As far as the paperwork is concerned, Olivia still works here. But I don't have to tell her that, do I? “I'd also like,” I say, taking a step forward and moving around the front of the desk, “to take you out tonight.” My hands come down and touch her hips, taking in the svelte lines of her suit jacket, the gentle trickle of cream colored lace that frames her breasts. My eyes catch on Olivia's lips while my own mouth curves up in a smile. I'm leaning down for what I presume will be some sort of make up kiss between us when Olivia hits me with an open palm, right in the stomach.
I grunt, but refuse to back up or release her, not until Claudia chimes in anyway.
“Mr. Lyndon, there's a Laura Caterpillar here to see you?” Both my and Olivia's heads snap up and turn to look at my secretary. A quick step back and a brush of my hands down my shirt is all I have time for before the CEO of Oceanstar appears in the hallway in front of my office – a one Lara Caliper. Maybe it really is time to fire that woman?
“Lex,” she says, moving into my office on swift feet, a gold purse clutched by her side, a red skirt suit on. She spares Olivia only a passing glance before turning her attention back to me. Either she doesn't notice the tension between me and my employee or she doesn't care.
I look over at her, brunette hair upswept into a stiff bun, brown eyes highlighted with all the right makeup, lips curved in a gentle smile. She adjusts her red suit jacket and levels a look my way that scares the shit out of me, to be quite blunt. Like a lioness that's just spotted her prey. I narrow my eyes in response but by the time I do, her expression has already cleared and she's smiling at me again, face as sweet as a cherubic gumdrop. I don't buy it for a second.
“If you'll excuse me,” Olivia says, backing away and turning towards the doors. I move to go after her when Lara's soft voice catches me by surprise.
“Off for a second round in the elevator are we?” I pause and turn to look at her, staring back at me with that angelic face of hers. The woman is several years older than me, but you'd neve
r know by looking at her. She has a timeless look that gives her the illusion of immovability, like no matter what, Lara Caliper will always be around, will always be the same. Believe it or not, it's a powerful tool for a CEO to possess.
“We hardly had a round one,” I say, feeling the strain in my body from so many close encounters, so many almost but not quite moments. I want Olivia so badly now that it truly is bordering on the obsessive. I wonder what she'd think if she knew that? “If you'll excuse me, Lara, I have pressing business matters to attend to.”
“I am your pressing business matter for the day, Lex.” Again with the soft smile, completely at odds with her words. “I know things didn't go so well last week, but that's okay. It doesn't matter. I know you're not interested in me.” I raise my eyebrow as Lara moves behind my desk and looks out the window, at the view that's just slightly better than hers, but only because my family snagged this building generations ago for a rock bottom price, improving the Lyndon family name the same way I'm expected to. “Yet,” she coos with a small laugh. I try not to sigh and turn to face her back, waiting for the punchline to today's visit. “A little birdie told me that you like it rough.”
It takes me a moment to process that information.
“Excuse me?” I ask, clasping my hands together in front of me, hoping that I've misheard Lara's words. When she spins around to smile at me, her lips twisting into a rictus grin, I realize that I've only just heard the beginning of what she wants to say. “Claudia!” I snap, listening for the sound of heels on the carpet. “The doors, please.”
“The doors?” she asks, her voice an infuriating question mark. I grit my teeth and keep my focus on Lara. She takes a step forward and settles herself in my chair, letting her skirt ride up high enough that I catch the tops of her thigh highs. Lara notices the path of my gaze and laughs, crossing her arms over her ample breasts.
“This morning, I received a phone call about,” she looks up at me through her long lashes, “a certain Lyndon man who takes his coffee with a whole lot of cream, if you catch my drift.”
I grit my teeth and glare down at Lara, at the curved 'V' shape of her brows, her thick wide lips, the heart shaped curve of her face. She's not an unattractive woman, but she's not my type. Too pretty, too perfect, her gaze too calculating, constantly trying to figure out what she can get out of me and how she can get it. This is exactly the reason I went after Olivia instead.
“I know about the contract,” Lara continues, rising to her feet and coming around the desk to stand next to me. Her fingernails brush against the sleeve of my suit jacket as she waits for a response. I stay still, the picture of calm. I refuse to react to her statement, refuse to lend it any validity. Olivia. How could she have done this? Why? To get back at me for firing her?
I feel the vein in my forehead start to throb.
“If that's what you were looking for all along, you should've told me.” Lara wraps her fingers around my bicep and leans up to whisper in my ear. “Because I can deliver, Lex.” I jerk my arm from her grip and take a step back, hearing Olivia's words replay in my head. Strength, real true inner strength like you're looking for, that's something you can't see. This is certainly a side of Lara I haven't seen, from pussy cat to wild cat. But that doesn't necessarily mean she's strong. “And I can also appreciate what a strong man you are on the outside just as I'm sure,” Lara runs her hand down her skirt and pauses with her fingers curling around the hem, “you can appreciate what a strong woman I am on the inside.” She looks down at my slacks, at the bulge in my crotch and mistakes it as being for her. In all reality, this was brewing far before Lara ever set foot in my office.
I take a step back.
Lara doesn't seem surprised, shrugging her shoulders and switching her expression back to a slightlt less sultry, slightly more neutral half-smile.
“Don't get upset, Lex. If you need to, go ahead and run to that little redhead of yours. I don't mind.” Lara lets her lips peel back, so I can stare at her perfectly white teeth. “Don't take this personally. You were willing to make a business decision to get what you wanted, and I'm willing to do the same. This time though, you won't have to worry about paying out millions of dollars to get it. This time, you'll be making billions when we merge our companies and combine our assets. I'll get the husband my family's so desperate to see me with, and you'll get the wife. We'll make beautiful babies, and I'll rock your world so hard in the bedroom that that girl, Olivia was it, fades from your mind like a bad, bad dream.”
Lara sweeps past me, pausing at the door with her gold purse dangling from her shoulder.
“I'm thirty-seven years old, Lex. I'm done playing around, and I'm ready to take my life to the next level.” She glances over her shoulder at me, smiling softly. “Think about it. Not with your heart but with your mind, with your wallet, with your,” she gives my crotch another scalding look, “with your cock.”
Lara winks at me, turns away, and pushes through my office doors, leaving me alone in my office with a migraine, and a rapidly dwindling hard-on.
God-fucking-damn it.
I storm past Claudia, waving my hand dismissively when she tries to intercept me on my warpath towards Olivia's office. I feel betrayed somehow and not just because of that fucking agreement she signed, but because for whatever reason, I felt like I could trust her after that conversation we had, the one where she readily admitted that all she really wanted out of me was a proper date.
I'm both surprised and pleased to find that she's actually in her office, sitting in her chair, typing away on her computer. I sweep into the room and immediately draw the blinds.
“Like that's not going to stir up any suspicions,” she says, rising to her feet as I turn the dead bolt and then just stand there, staring at my hand resting on the silver lock. “Excuse me? Mr. Lyndon?” I whip around to face her, nostrils flaring, that withering hard-on flaring back to life with a vengeance. I can't stop my mind from thinking about that pile of condoms near Olivia's front door, how I should've grabbed one and put it on, slammed her into the wall of her townhouse and fucked her while I had the chance.
“Oh? So we're back to assuming a pretense of formality then? Seems a little ridiculous considering the stunt you just pulled.” Olivia gives me a look like she's now thoroughly convinced I'm insane. One of her red brows lifts up in confusion and I hate how goddamn attractive I find the motion.
“Stunt?” She's blinking rapidly, trying to put the pieces together. She moves around to the front of the desk, ready to face me in a showdown if need be. “What the hell are you talking about? You fire me from my old job, inadvertently get me fired from my new job, hire me back. Jesus, Lex, you're the most hot-cold person I've ever met. I don't even know what to expect from you anymore. One minute you're an asshole, the next you're … ” She neglects to finish that sentence, shaking her head and moistening her lower lip with her tongue. “The next, you're just an asshole again.” She stares straight at and through me, like my anger is a veil that only her eyes are capable of piercing. “What is it now?”
“You sold me out, Olivia.” I take a few steps towards her, but she doesn't back down. Olivia Olsen Ashcraft never backs down, and it's one of the reasons I'm starting to like her. “You sold me out to that bitch, Lara. You told her about the contract.” I move forward again, but even when I invade Olivia's space, she doesn't crouch back, doesn't press her thighs against the edge of the desk. She lets me bump my shoes with hers. When she says nothing, I feel my jaw clench with anger, reaching out and grabbing her around her upper arms.
“I didn't tell Lara about the contract, Lex,” she says, shoving my hands off her and glaring into my face. Her voice is rough and husky with a righteous anger of her own. I love it. And I hate it. It's hard to explain.
“Well, somebody did. If it wasn't you then who?” I snap back at her. “You had to have told somebody.” I watch Olivia's face shift, almost indiscernibly so, but enough that I have my answer. She did tell someone. Maybe n
ot Lara, but someone who told Lara. “If that bitch decides to spill my secret, do you understand what that could mean for me?”
Olivia rolls her eyes at me, actually rolls her eyes. The audacity of the move infuriates me. I said I was looking for a rose with thorns, but maybe I wasn't ready to get pricked?
“So you'd prefer to have a woman on top. You want to experiment with some dirty talk in the bedroom. Who fucking cares, Lex? Look, I get not wanting your personal business spread to the wind, but it's actually not that big of a deal.”
“I could lose my job as CEO!” I find my voice rising to dangerous levels. The last thing I need is some busybody putting their ear to the door and listening in on this conversation. I take a breath that burns my lungs and helps bring my pulse down a notch.
“First off,” she snaps, keeping her gaze raised to mine, “that makes no sense at all. What does wanting a woman on top have to do with running a company? Second – and this may come as a shock to you, Lex – this job isn't everything. Losing your job doesn't even mean losing your money, does it? You've got to have a trust fund or something, don't you?” I wrinkle my nose at her but say nothing. “If working here means you can't be yourself, then fuck it.”
“That doesn't excuse your loose tongue,” I growl at her, trying to ignore the stark sense in her words. The world isn't as uncomplicated as she'd like it to be. Things aren't always what they seem. Right? I find myself questioning principles I've never dared touch, not even on the fringes of my mind. Olivia doesn't know what it's like to be a Lyndon. Her family is a far cry from mine – they don't seem to care what anyone thinks about them. Mine, on the other hand, that's all they care about.
Olivia sighs and tries to turn away, like she's already over this conversation, but I won't let her go, grabbing onto her arm and snarling in her ear. My words stem from a strange sense of betrayal, and I don't exactly mean them, but there they are regardless. I've never bothered to tone myself down to speak to anyone. Why should Olivia be any different? She might be strong, but if I push, she'll fall back in line like everyone else, won't she? I'm sure Lara Caliper – as blatant as she was in her offer – will fall back in line, too. People always do.
Taming Her Boss Page 11
