Bedded by the Boss
By: Lynda Chance
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KINDLE EDITION
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Bedded by the Boss: Book Three of Louisiana Liaisons
When Renee Guillot starts her new job with better pay and benefits, she thinks her only worry will be a lack of job security. Little does she know she will be working for the Devil Incarnate. Suddenly, she is tossed into a world of sexual coercion and dangerous temptation.
Robert Thibodeaux can't be bothered with the mundane details of hiring his own secretary. So when his new employee shows up for work, one look is enough to know it will never work out. Getting her out of his office and into his bed isn't an easy maneuver. But that is exactly what he wants, and it is only a matter of time before he makes it happen.
Bedded by the Boss
Copyright © 2011 by Lynda Chance
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.
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Dedication
To Clayton:
Thanks for Galveston County; home at last
Chapter One
Renee Guillot balanced one high heel on the chair and one knee on the counter while reaching up and digging through the top cabinet looking for a box of manila folders. She clutched a cordless phone in one hand as she precariously reached up higher with the other. Her calf muscles flexed and strained as the heel of her shoe came off the chair as she lifted onto her tiptoes.
As soon as her ninety-day trial period was over, she swore the first thing she was going to do was reorganize the whole office. The filing system was backwards, the ordering process was antiquated, and the damn storage system was ridiculous. Mrs. Argenot was extremely kind-hearted, but she was getting very old.
"Get off that damn chair before you kill yourself." Renee heard the bark and grabbed the cabinet door. Her nerves shot to hell when she recognized the voice. She didn't even know he was in the city, let alone the building. Damn it! He was supposed to be in New Orleans all week.
There was ferocious intensity in his command and Renee decided not to antagonize him further. She tossed the box down and carefully placed her other foot on the chair. Great. Now she was leaning over with her butt in the air pointed toward him. She continued down and off the chair as gracefully as she could with four-inch heels and a pencil skirt that ended five inches above her knees. It was one of her favorite outfits, but she had only worn it because he was not supposed to be in Baton Rouge this week.
Robert Thibodeaux savagely controlled the primal emotions gripping him. Renee Guillot was a serious mistake and he had realized it the first time he met her five weeks before. Her physical perfection was bad enough, but the earthiness that pulsed from her body had a provocative effect on him that wouldn't let up. The woman was sexy, no question about it. Sexy in a way that was giving him no respite, day or night.
As Renee slowly turned to face him, she admonished herself for letting him get to her. He was like any other man. Any other boss. She absolutely refused to think about his astounding good looks. He had no impact on her. Absolutely none. She wouldn't allow it.
She was just about to speak when the phone in her hand started ringing. Thank God. She needed something to occupy her for a few moments while she tried to regain control. She pressed the talk button and lifted the phone to her ear. "Thibodeaux Construction. Renee speaking."
"This is Jane Thibodeaux. I need to speak to my husband, please." The voice on the other end of the line was breathy and held not a trace of Louisiana accent. Renee knew she was talking to East Coast upper crust.
Renee forced good cheer into her voice. "Just one moment please, Mrs. Thibodeaux. I'll get him for you."
She looked back at her boss, standing quietly watching her with displeasure on his face. She cleared her throat and looked away. "Your wife needs to speak to you." She lifted the phone in his direction.
His face darkened with irritation. He crossed his arms over his chest and made no move to pick up the phone. "My ex-wife. I'm not married. I haven't been married for five years." The words were both accusing and menacing.
Renee suddenly heard a roaring sound in her ears and she started to shake. Both relief and distress consumed her.
She slowly lifted her eyes back to his and was immediately caught by the impact of his stare. She sucked in a breath. His eyes held hers. One second, two seconds, three seconds, four--
She lowered her lashes as tension continued to grip her.
There would be repercussions for this knowledge.
The phone was taken from her hand. Renee felt mild hysteria clawing its way up her throat. She leaned against the supply cabinet.
Robert's deep voice intruded into the maelstrom of emotions rushing through her. "What do you want, Jane?" His voice was sharp, punctuated with impatience. His eyes were still on Renee, moving slowing up and down her length. "You'll get the damn check on the first of the month, and not a day before. You have a problem with that, call your lawyer." He ended the call.
Robert turned his full attention back to his new secretary. She was standing still in front of the storage cabinet and looked like she might snap in two. "You thought I was married." It was a statement. "Why?"
Renee was dismayed to be feeling so much confusion. Her nerves were stretched to the breaking point. She tried to form an answer. "When you hired me, Mrs. Argenot said--"
He cut her off. "Let's get one thing straight. I didn't hire you. Mrs. Argenot hired you."
Renee watched him with trepidation. What did he mean by that? Why the distinction? "O-Okay. When sh-she hired me, she explained about your phone calls. Which ones are urgent, and which are n-not." She finished in a rush. "She said you always wanted to know when Mrs. Thibodeaux called."
"Yeah. I like to stay one step ahead of the greedy bitch." As Robert answered, a flash of understanding came to him.
The way Renee had treated him Friday night when he ran into her at the Ninth Street Wine Grotto. The encounter had struck a nerve. He had consumed one too many, and the fierce restraint he always imposed in her presence had slipped a notch.
He remembered feeling a stroke of luck at finding her alone in the bar where she was waiting for her friends to show up. The silkiness of her hair when he reached out and stroked it. The distress on her face when he bought her a drink.
And the accusation in her eyes just before she jumped up and ran from him. Like he was lower than slime. A despicable human being. Like he wanted to have a ménage with her mother. Or make her watch him masturbate in the men's room. Or like he was…married.
Shit.
Two things were clear to him. She couldn't continue to work for him, and he had to have sex with her. In that order.
He had to run her off. Make her leave his employ. And when that was accomplished, she would become the starring attraction in his bed.
He considered the ways he could reach his goal. The situation could blow up into a major catastrophe if he wasn't careful. He could simply terminate her employment. She still had about eight more weeks of her ninety day probation period. He could just tell her it wasn't working out and that would be that. He had that right as her employer. But he wanted it to be her decision. That would make a smoother segue into his bed. A vision of w
hat she would look like, naked, with that blonde hair loose all around her came to him. Wearing those come fuck me heels and nothing else. Blood rushed to his groin. Fuck. He had been in a state of constant arousal for five weeks.
What the hell had Mrs. Argenot been thinking? He never would have hired somebody that looked like her. Never in a million fucking years. He liked to think of himself as a fair and responsible employer. But Jesus Christ, he wasn't a saint. Having her in the same office, having to work with her side by side, and never getting to touch her was never going to work for the long term. Short term was killing him.
The woman was fine, no question about it. She was five or six inches over five feet, and she wore those CFM's all the time. They brought her height up to a very respectable level. She was slender and toned, and the picture of her calf muscles was still in his head from a few moments before. Her hair was long and blonde and came half way down her back, and her face could stop traffic.
She was a femme fatale. A siren. A vamp, a witch. His gut was tied in knots, and there was no way in hell he was moving on with his life before the ink was dried on this deal. He was going to screw her, and the only question was when.
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A week later, Renee thought she was quietly going insane. The first five weeks of this job had been bad, but the last week had been agony. Her boss snapped at her constantly. He told her she was late when she wasn't. He complained that her work was sloppy, when she knew it was impeccable.
If she didn't need the extra money and benefits so badly, she would have quit and gone back to her old position. They still wanted her. Her old boss called her like clockwork every Monday morning to check up on her and tell her that her job was still hers if she wanted it.
It was a safety net in a highly volatile situation. Things had gotten so bad here that on Monday she had actually hinted to her old boss that it might not be working out. It probably wasn't fair to keep them hanging, but a girl had to think of herself first. God knows she didn't have anybody else to take care of her. Her daughter, Brittany, was in her first year at LSU. College was expensive. Thank goodness, her kid was smart and had won a TOPS award from the state for tuition. But room and board were killing her! Brittany wanted the full college experience and that included living on campus. Renee wanted her to have it since she deserved it for all her hard work, and Renee didn't want her to miss out on what she herself had never gotten to have.
Getting pregnant and having her daughter before the age of twenty had been rough, and the small amount of child support she had received from her ex-husband had been sporadic at best. It had completely dried up the day Brittany graduated from high school. They were on their own now.
Renee heard the click of a door and looked up into the menacing face of Robert Thibodeaux. His impact on her senses was no less disturbing than the first day she met him.
Scratch that. At least then, she thought there was the barrier of a wife to separate them. Now she knew better. She felt like she was tip-toeing around an explosive keg of dynamite.
He stood in the threshold leading to his office, holding a coffee cup in his hand. "What do you call this?" His words were insolent.
"Coffee?" This was how their conversations had gone for the last week. Biting questions. Hesitant, respectful replies. She was handling the situation the only way she knew how. Forty-eight more days. Forty-eight more days. She would beat him at this. But Christ, if she made it through her ninety days, is this how her working life would be? Side-stepping him, trying to ignore the fact he wanted to sleep with her? If she wasn't sure about that before, the night at the Ninth Street Wine Grotto had underlined the fact. He wanted her. But his arrogance was over the top. Was he always such a dick? Or was it just her? She never heard him being anything less than respectful to Mrs. Argenot. What the hell was she setting herself up for? Fighting his lust? Fighting hers?
"How long have you lived in Louisiana?" The scathing question came back and hit her.
Where was this going?
"All my life." She couldn't suppress a small shudder as tension gripped her.
"Obviously you haven't figured out we like our coffee strong. This tastes like water." He walked over to his private restroom and she watched through the open door as he poured the liquid down the sink. He left the cup there and turned around and came back to her.
He put both hands flat on her desk and leaned over toward her. His size was meant to intimidate. "I know this is going to be difficult for you, but do you think you could possibly learn how to make a decent cup of coffee?"
"Y-yes, sir. I'll t-try again." He was so close Renee could smell the hot blend of male muskiness and aggression radiating from him in tangible waves. What the hell was wrong with her that she was so attracted to him? He was an asshole. An impossibly good-looking asshole. Her eyes ran over him. Six feet, four inches of seething testosterone stood over her. He rarely wore a business suit, preferring jeans and casual short sleeve button downs. The tails of his shirt hung over the waistband of his jeans in a disheveled style. He looked and dressed exactly like the man she knew him to be. A blue-collar worker with astute intelligence and a keen sense of business who had taken risks and struck it rich. Renee knew his story. Mrs. Argenot was as proud of him as she would have been of her own son.
Her eyes continued to catalog his good looks. His hair was thick and dark, and badly in need of a trim. The thick wisps of hair falling against his forehead did nothing to detract from his masculinity. They only highlighted a face pulsing with intensity. A face that radiated power and an inherent ruthlessness. His eyes were dark, a chocolate brown with grey irises that glittered whenever they fell on her. His nose dominated his features in a blatantly male way. His mouth was generous, twin grooves bracketing his lips. She pushed her chair back an inch but continued to sit and watch him in agitation.
"What are you waiting for? Permission?" he barked at her.
Renee's body jerked from the impact as his voice lacerated her nerves. Forty-eight more days. She stood up and sidestepped away from him toward the coffee bar. He turned and followed her and stood watching, his hands fisted at his sides. Her fingers shook as she made coffee by rote. She stood with her back toward him while the machine perked.
Robert saw the steel in the slim line of her back and his fisted hands clenched involuntarily. He had to physically stop himself from reaching out and touching her. It had been like this for every hour of the forty-two godforsaken days she had worked for him.
His life until forty-two days ago had been smooth, on an even keel. He worked hard building custom homes and office buildings, and made a lot of money doing it. He lived alone, the way he liked it, and by necessity usually had a woman in the background.
Unfortunately, he had been forced to get rid of the current woman in his bed when she began making impossible demands. Which made this situation all the more volatile, because he didn't have a ready outlet for all the fucking testosterone building up inside of him.
And Renee Guillot was more potent than most women. She was fucking with him from every angle.
Renee felt his eyes on her back like a physical touch. Her hands shook as she poured coffee from the carafe into a clean cup. The betraying tremor upset her more than anything. Slowly she turned and faced him and started to hand him the cup. Her nervousness increased and the hot liquid spilled over onto her hand. She let out a small shriek of pain, and the coffee started wobbling more.
"Fuck." Robert reached out and took the cup from her and placed it on the counter. Turning her around, he reached over and turned the cold water on and picked up her hand and held it under the running water.
Renee felt assaulted on all fronts. Her hand was burning from the hot liquid, and Robert was crowding her from behind, his arms wrapped completely around her as he held her hand still under the flow of cold water.
She began shaking more violently.
"Jesus Christ, calm down. You're okay. It can't have hurt that bad." Robert snaked one arm all th
e way around her waist and pulled her back into him. It didn't help and the shaking continued.
Lust hit Robert all at once as he inhaled her scent and felt her body warm and soft against his. The picture of her spread out on his bed assailed his senses. His grip tightened on her.
He came back to awareness as he felt her pulling away.
Renee turned off the water and moved back from him. She picked up a dishcloth to steady her nerves and wiped her wet hand. She turned to face him and straightened her shoulders.
She motioned to the coffee. "Try it." She took a deep breath and crossed her arms protectively in front of herself.
He picked up the coffee, took a sip and grunted. "Better. I knew you could learn." He gave her one, all encompassing glare and walked back to his office.
Renee slowly let out the breath she had been holding.
The coffee was exactly the same as the first time she made it.
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