She pushed herself harder against me where our bodies joined, and I lifted my own hips in response, giving her as much stimulation as she could take.
I lessened my grip on her hair and she responded by sinking her own mouth to my neck, returning the favor as her long brunette locks formed a curtain around us.
The bra no longer a barrier, I finally took possession of her breasts, palming them and lifting them together as I brushed lightly along the edges of her areolas. Her body’s responses urged me on; I took the nipples between my thumbs and fingertips, rolling them with a gentle twist.
“Fuck, yes.” Kat pulled me back into a deep kiss, picking up where we’d left off. She broke it off long enough to issue a set of instructions. “Keep doing that, just like that.”
The way she moaned into my mouth signaled her approaching climax. I continued my ministrations, eager to see the beauty have her first orgasm at my hands—something I’d fantasized about for far too long.
“Sparky!” A strange voice echoed along the hidden path to our private nook. A loud bark followed the call, and the jingle of a collar paired with light footsteps rapidly approached.
“Shit,” Kat said as she scrambled off me. She pulled at her clothes, trying to rearrange everything that was out of place. She couldn’t do much about her bra and after a few seconds she ripped it off and stuck it behind her.
I shifted as best I could to hide the monstrous erection in my pants, to only moderate success. Kat looked down at it and bit her lip before she giggled.
A black lab ran up the path and stopped beside us as though he’d been looking for us.
Moments later an older man with silvery hair and running gear followed.
“Sparky! Don’t run off like that,” the man admonished. He spotted us next to his dog. “And don’t bother those people. Sorry about that.”
“Not to worry,” I replied, unable to keep the grin off my face. “Dogs will be dogs.”
He gave us a nod and jogged down the path, Sparky at his side.
After he turned the corner and disappeared, Kat burst out laughing. Her laughter was as contagious as it ever was, and I couldn’t resist joining. The tension, sexual and otherwise, drained away under the mirth.
“Of course that would happen,” she said as she wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. “Why wouldn’t it?”
“It seems obvious, doesn’t it?” I agreed.
I put my hand on her shoulder to turn her so we could pick up where we’d been before the interruption. Her hand on my chest stopped me.
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea to keep going at it out in public like this,” Kat said. “I’m not that type of girl—I don’t know what came over me.”
Unfortunately, not me. Not yet.
“Let’s go back to my place,” I said. “It’s got great views, and I have impeccable taste in music and wine. We can make things classier than sitting in the sand.”
Her eyes held mine, looking from one to the other as she bit her lip. “I shouldn’t. I can’t. I enjoyed this, but I have to go home and prepare for work tomorrow. We shouldn’t let this go any further. Not tonight.”
Half my mind and all my cock screamed in frustration, but the other half kept it together enough to give the proper response.
“As you wish.” I stood and offered her my hand. “Shall we?”
It was no accident that my remarkable bulge was at her eye height when standing. She couldn’t have possibly missed it and the long pause before she took my hand was telling.
CHAPTER 5
~ KAT ~
The date had gone so much better than I’d expected. The gliding, the talking… the making out! It was enough to make a sexually frustrated and stressed-out career woman smile all morning.
Dreams the night before had comprised long periods of weightlessness and soaring in James’ arms. Once awake, it seemed so stupid, but while caught in their web it had been the most comforting sensation in the world. Even if it made me feel like a desperate spinster.
They’re just stupid dreams. They mean nothing.
The initial warnings I’d felt about James hadn’t been justified yet, but they were still there, nagging at the back of my mind that something didn’t feel quite right. Sure, he could be crass, but there was no sign he would turn into the controlling, cheating, entitled asshole that so many of my exes had morphed into.
Maybe he’s safe to date. Maybe.
Part of me yearned for what he offered. And what he had offered, yesterday. All it would have taken was a little three-letter word and I could have been wined and shown whether James could back up all the confident, sexual swagger he exuded. Based on what I felt when grinding up on him and saw afterward, size wouldn’t be an issue.
Involuntary visions overcame me of lying back and feeling his strong body above mine, filling me, driving me crazy with lust and passion. He would be dominant and overwhelming in bed—there was no doubt in my mind. Fantasies about what he might do floated through my mind like scenes on a projector. Just the thought of finally getting action flooded my panties with need.
I shook my head. Daydreaming about it wouldn’t turn things around in my work life, and that demanded my focus and attention. Otherwise I’d find myself out of a job with a black mark on my reference sheet. It was a good thing I’d turned him down—I couldn’t afford to waste too much time chasing a relationship that would undoubtedly end in heartbreak.
As a high-level manager within the startup, I was one of only five employees with an actual office that had full walls and a door. The rest sat in a large open-concept working space to promote teamwork and cohesiveness according to the latest office design paradigm. It did nothing to help endear me to my colleagues.
My desk phone rang with the interoffice chime, and I didn’t need to look to see who it was. There was only one person in the small office who used the phone to call instead of simply walking to the intended recipient’s desk.
“Yes, Nick?”
“Katherine. I hope you’ve had a productive morning. Could you please come and see me when you get a chance?”
Hard-won experience had taught me that “when I got a chance” always meant immediately. Nothing was more important than answering Nick’s questions and concerns.
“Sure, I’ll be right there.”
I sighed and gathered myself for another encounter with my boss, the CEO of ARCANE. Even short meetings were exhausting with the man who insisted on micromanaging every detail of the company and radiated an extraordinary level of sleaze.
Gathering my notebook and pen, I locked the computer and left my office. Nick’s was in the corner, only three offices away and twenty steps total.
I knocked once on the door before I cracked it open. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yes, Katherine, come in. And shut the door behind you.”
The door settled into place with a quiet click, and the general office noise outside faded away. I’d noticed how well soundproofed Nick’s office was the first time I’d entered it. There was something odd about it. His windows always had the curtains drawn.
“Take a seat,” Nick said. He gestured to the round meeting table in the corner of the office and stood up from his desk to join me there.
There wasn’t anything off about Nick’s appearance, but there were several subtle behavioral things that made me uncomfortable. It took a while to notice—I had noticed none of it the first time I’d met him and he offered me the job.
He had an unpleasant sneer when someone said something he didn’t like. It wasn’t obvious, and it only appeared for a split second. It was easy to blink and miss it.
Then there was the way he held himself. It was clear he thought he was above everyone else—his employees, his customers, even his investors. He always wore a haughty expression, and every time someone else spoke in his presence he could barely wait for them to finish before pointing out the ways they were wrong.
“The quarterly results have been compil
ed,” Nick said.
Bile rose at the back of my throat. I’d dreaded the numbers—they couldn’t be good. Not with the metrics I had access to.
“It’s safe to say you’ve had a disastrous start here at ARCANE. Would you mind telling me what the fuck you think you’re doing?”
“Uh…” I struggled to frame the explanations I’d spent half the week preparing for when this inevitable moment came. “To be fair, Nick, I only just got here three weeks ago. And it’s taken a lot of time to get a feel for the company, the systems, the team. I don’t think the numbers accurately reflect what I can do for ARCANE. The marketing team suffered under no clear direction for two months before I arrived; it’s impossible to turn things around immediately.”
They were important points. Salient, even. That didn’t mean Nick had to be reasonable about it. The micromanaging prick.
“I don’t fucking care if the position was empty for a day or a year before you got here,” he said. He leaned forward as if he had to be even more threatening than he already was. “This is your mess, and you are responsible for what happens under your watch. Is that understood?”
I swallowed my tongue. “Yes, Nick.”
His expression softened, something I’d never seen before and didn’t know how to read. “All that matters is that everything comes out okay in the end. Do you know what I mean?”
“Of course. I’ll do everything I can to turn things around. I’m going to make sure that this is the best quarter ever.”
I wasn’t sure if I could keep that promise, but I would say anything to get out of the office with my job intact.
“Either the numbers turn around, or you do.” His eyes bored into mine.
“Excuse me?”
“Come on, Katherine. Why do you think I hired you? You have no experience, but you have a great ass and maybe the best dick-sucking lips I’ve seen since college.” Nick leaned forward and grabbed my hand to put it on his thigh. “So long as you keep me happy one way or the other, we don’t have a problem here.”
I stood up and backed away, almost knocking over the chair. The taste of bile was back, but this time for a different reason.
He wants me to fuck him to keep my job!
“I’m not that kind of woman,” I said. “I don’t sleep with men to get ahead in my career.”
Nick’s jaw jutted out. “Is that right? Maybe you should start, Katherine. You’re on thin ice, and this is the easiest path to success you’ll find.”
I shuddered at the thought. It wasn’t worth it, especially with Nick. The repulsion I’d felt for him before doubled now that this side of his character had revealed itself.
“I can’t do that. I won’t do that. It’s degrading.”
I wanted to slap him, but he had a dangerous look in his eye that told me I didn’t want to find out what his response would be.
“If you won't get on your knees like the office slut I hired you to be, then you better hope you have one fucking hell of an amazing quarter,” he said. “If it’s anything less than the best quarter ARCANE’s ever had, you’re gone and I’ll find someone for the position who’s more… flexible.”
It sounded enough like a dismissal that I took the excuse to flee, almost forgetting to grab my notebook. I scooped it up on my way out of the office.
A barrage of sound greeted me as I opened the door.
Now I know why that creep has his office soundproofed.
I couldn’t help but wonder what went on behind that door when closed with the curtains drawn. Had any of the women at the office fallen into his trap and submitted to him to keep their jobs? It was a disgusting thought.
On shaky legs, I retreated to my office and closed the door. Unlike in Nick’s, I could still hear the buzz of the active office. The embrace of the cushy leather desk chair was the only thing that offered any comfort.
I have to increase our numbers from the worst quarter ARCANE’s ever recorded to the best. That’s a tall order.
If only I had questionable ethics. It was times like this that forced women to compromise their morals in the office. Men never had to worry that one day their job would depend on whether they were willing to take a load from their boss. The disparity was stupid, archaic, but all too real.
Fuck.
CHAPTER 6
~ JAMES ~
Major in business with a focus on marketing from Berkeley.
Kat had followed her plan to become a business major. We’d talked about the future a lot as kids, and some of those convictions had obviously stuck.
And some hadn’t.
Several of her public Facebook photos showed her with beer in hand, face flushed from the alcohol, surrounded by many people at what appeared to be a massive college party. So much for the pledge to never take up drinking we’d made at twelve years old, when I’d struggled to support her through her mother’s alcoholism.
Not that I kept my half of that pledge, either.
After knowing Kat so intimately for the first sixteen years of her life, it was strange watching the time since like a voyeur, an outsider to hundreds of stories she may not even recall the details to anymore.
Kat’s Instagram curated her favorite moments from the past four years. Beaches were a constant theme, along with the occasional gym selfie. There were a slew of pictures of a sail boat trip somewhere with stunning blue waters and clear skies.
I’d avoided the urge to look her up for so long—breaching that dam flooded parched earth in my soul. Hours passed as I flicked through every piece of online presence she had.
“You’re fucked.”
I jumped at the voice behind me. Addison leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest and luxurious, dark red tresses curling around her elfin face.
“I am not. How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to see you unable to do anything but stare at her.” Addison pointed her chin at the computer screen. Kat held a tiny monkey no bigger than her fist in her palm, a wide grin splitting her face as she gave a thumbs-up to the camera.
I slammed the lid of the laptop closed. “I’m just researching her. Finding out what makes her tick these days.”
“Bullshit. You’re satisfying a teenage fantasy you’ve held onto for over a decade.”
I let all expression fade away and cocked my head—the benefit of long practice at hiding my feelings. I could present whatever face was most beneficial to my goal at the moment.
“That comes later. The plan hasn’t changed, Addison. Kat means nothing to me—she hasn’t for a very long time. She hasn’t even recognized me yet, and she won’t.”
Addison pursed her lips. “I still don’t like it. You don’t have to fuck her, you know. We can pull the con without that.”
The suggestion almost made me lose my composure. Part of the reason for doing this job was the opportunity to finally fuck Kat and prove I was more than man enough for her. And then get the satisfaction of humiliating her the way she’d humiliated me.
“It’s central to the plan. If I don’t have that piece, then I won’t have the access we need to ARCANE.”
Addison rolled her eyes. “You’d find a way. Hell, you could talk a snake into befriending a mongoose. You could talk to Nick directly and persuade him to hand you the keys to his kingdom.”
I nodded to acknowledge the compliment, but it didn’t change my mind. “This is how it’s happening, Addison. Everything is laid out how it needs to go, we just have to follow the strategy and the jackpot is ours.”
She shrugged. “Fine. Have it your way. It’s your job. I’m just here for my cut. If you want to fuck the girl, then fuck the girl. Just don’t let it fuck up the plan.”
Addison turned on her heel and left the room. I couldn’t resist watching her go. We’d met through mutual acquaintances a few years ago, and what started as a torrid affair turned into a platonic working relationship. We were each the best at what we did and made a natural duo.
I need to call
Kat.
The timing was just about right—she should still be riding off the endorphin rush from the date the night before, and the associated brain chemicals would make her susceptible to influence.
Manipulating people was an art, and I was Michelangelo.
The phone rang twice before she answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Kat.” I let my voice rumble more than the norm, a little deeper to help stimulate her memories of the date and the way she’d felt grinding on me. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Oh, James. It’s good to hear from you.” Her voice was shaky, as though she’d just learned her dog died.
I winced and changed my strategy. “Are you all right, Kat? You sound like you haven’t had the best day.”
She laughed—a short and humorless acknowledgement of the truth. “That’s a mild way of putting it.”
I burned to know, but asking her about it wouldn’t serve my purposes. I didn’t want her to think of me as a confidant. She had to view me as the antidote. Given the things she’d told me already, it was almost guaranteed to be work-related.
“Why don’t you let me take you out on the town tonight and get your mind off it? I have a few friends that could set us up with excellent reservations at a new wine bar. A classy evening for you to unwind.”
“That… that actually sounds nice,” Kat admitted. “I feel bad using you as a distraction from my regular life.”
Trust me, I’m using you far more than you’re using me.
I injected heat into my voice. “You can use me however you wish. Don’t be surprised if I use you in return.”
Her lip bite was almost audible, and I could picture it clearly as I waited for her response.
“Damn. Okay, you win. Want me to meet you somewhere?”
“No need,” I said. “I’ll pick you up around seven.”
“That sounds great. I’m looking forward to it, James.”
It sounded like a promise.
I hung up the phone and leaned back in the chair, eyes on the ceiling.
Damnit.
Her shaken voice had gotten to me—I wanted to hold her until the pain went away. That was bad—very bad.
Steal: A Bad Boy Romance Page 3
