by Marian Tee
Looking over my shoulder to make sure I was backing my way to the door, I glanced back at him.
“Call me by my name,” he commanded.
I gulped at the smoldering look in his gaze but said stubbornly, “Mr. Kas-tein!” I ended up shrieking the last syllable when his hand suddenly shot out, taking me by surprise as he grabbed hold of me.
Suddenly I was locked in the circle of his arms, his breath fanning my face, and Constantijin was staring down at me in satisfaction.
“You’re the only woman I know who’s not dying to obey me,” he whispered.
“Then I think you must have been dating dogs, not women.”
He chuckled, but his tone was dead serious when he murmured, “I’m going to kiss you now.”
My eyes widened in panic. I knew without a single doubt that my life would change completely if he did. “No---”
Constantijin had already bent his head down, his lips conquering mine.
I slapped his face without thinking.
He released me with a muttered curse, something in Dutch, but the way he said it made a literal translation unnecessary.
“Why the fuck did you slap me?”
“You kissed me!” My voice was shaking as hard as my body was. I couldn’t believe how just that soft ephemeral touch of his lips had made me so incredibly wet.
He raised a brow. “So? We both want it.”
His mocking gaze moved down to my chest. I gasped, crossing my arms over it right away when I realized how my nipples had once again betrayed me.
Constantijin drawled, “In fact, I think I can go as far as saying you want more than my kiss. You want me to touch you, too.” His voice lowered. “You want me to fuck you right this very moment.”
“I don’t,” I lied even as my body yearned even more for skin-to-skin contact with his. The maelstrom of emotions erupting inside of me made me want to weep. All of them boiled down to one thing. I did want him to fuck me, right this very moment.
He hauled me back to his arms. “Let me prove to you what a delectable liar you are,” he murmured just before his lips were back where I so desperately wanted and feared them to be.
This time, he didn’t let go even as I struggled as hard as I could. When I tried to twist away, he retaliated by forcing me back, his brute strength easily winning over mine. He pushed me back until my hips hit something from behind.
I suddenly found myself half sprawled on the conference table, Constantijin kicking the chair blocking his way. It hit the wall with a loud thud as he pushed me down, deepening the kiss, lips pushing harder into mine until I finally gasped out my surrender.
His tongue snaked in without hesitation, tasting me like my mouth was the sweetest and rarest candy. His lips and tongue moved with a mix of gentleness and possessiveness, seducing me further away from all the sexual inhibitions I had grown up with. His hardness bore down on me heavily, but it was a weight I was eager to feel, and I couldn’t stop my legs from wrapping around his. We groaned at the same time, the new position of our bodies allowing his erection to press against me, a force of seduction that blew away every bit of common sense remaining inside my brain.
When he pulled away slightly, I could only gaze back at him in a daze. “Say my name,” he demanded, his voice even more guttural.
Unable to resist him now, I whispered, “Constantijin.”
He groaned, kissing me again, this time letting my wrists go so he could cup both my breasts, his hands completely covering them.
“Constantijin.” I cried it out this time, head whirling at the sensations battering my body.
“Constantijin.” I couldn’t stop chanting it now, not when he was caressing my breasts with a delicious mixture of roughness and desperation. When he started kneading them the same time his fingers tweaked my nipples, my head fell back against the table as I arched into him, offering my whole body to him. At that moment, I was his.
“You’re so fucking sexy,” he groaned, and I opened my eyes to see him staring at me with such hunger that I gasped at it. He looked like he wanted to devour me. And – I realized with shock – I wanted to be devoured by him.
“Say you want to fuck me, Yanna.”
Even though my head was a mess and my body no longer belonged to me, I couldn’t quite make myself say the words. They were just too foreign – too strange for someone who grew up thinking in terms of “making love” instead of just plain “fucking”.
His eyes darkened, and I realized he saw my resistance as a challenge.
“Constantijin, no---”
“I won’t let you go until you say the words,” he muttered at the same time.
He deftly lifted my blouse up, pushing my bra up with it, and then he was gazing at my bared breasts. Flushing, I hastily tried to cover them even though I could feel myself getting wetter at the heat of his gaze.
“No!” Constantijin had lifted my arms back over my head again. He used his other hand to cup my buttocks and I gasped as his fingers squeezed around the curves, just before he pulled me close.
He bent his head down and took one nipple into his mouth.
He started to suck.
“Constantijin.”
He sucked harder.
“Constantijin.”
He pulled away and looked up at me, a feral and possessive look in his eyes as he demanded, “Say it. Say you want to fuck me, Yanna.”
I shook my head.
He took my other nipple into his mouth, sucking even more roughly. I nearly sobbed at the sensual torture, and I couldn’t help arching myself toward him even more, silently begging him to suck harder and longer.
Constantijin did, and when he bit my nipple, I let out a sob.
He pulled away again. “Say you want to fuck me, Yanna. Say it!”
I cried, “I want to fuck you.”
He released my arms so he could pinch both my nipples, rasping out, “Say you want to fuck me - Constantijin.”
I found myself grasping his hair and his nape, shamelessly pushing his head back towards my breasts. “I want you to fuck me, Constantijin.”
He pinched my nipples harder. “Beg me for it.”
“Please fuck---”
Someone knocked at the door briefly before it was pushed open, a tiny gray-haired woman stepping into the room. “Constantijin, we have an emer---” Her sharp voice abruptly died when she saw us, Constantijin still pinching my nipples, my breasts bared to her sight.
Tears stung my eyes at the shame and horror of being caught like this, and I tore myself away from Constantijin, scrambling off the table while covering my breasts with my arms. As I hurriedly pulled my bra and blouse back down, I heard the older woman murmur a brisk apology before closing the door. I started crying at that. She sounded so…so used to this. Did he do this to every girl he fancied?
Nearly tottering in my heels as I spun around, I ignored Constantijin calling my name as I rushed out of the room, blinded by my tears.
I half-expected him to run after me, but he didn’t. Well, that was telling, right? The tears fell from my eyes more furiously at the thought.
Alyx jumped to her feet when she saw me. “What the hell---are you all right? What happened?”
I almost gave my virginity to the Netherland’s #1 Playboy, that’s what. And now I was paying the price for it.
Nodding jerkily, I stammered, “Nothing.”
But it was everything, and I woke up every morning, crying because I dreamt of him, of it, and I hated myself for being such a slut.
Then I received a call.
“Hello, Ms. Everleigh. This is Megan from Kastein, Inc. I am pleased to let you know that you have been selected as part of the new marketing department. If you are still interested in the job, we would love to have you here tomorrow at nine in the morning. Your supervisor, Ms. Charli, will be waiting to give you a quick orientation.”
Lesson #2
Don’t make excuses.
If you decide to work for any of the companie
s that your billionaire owns –
You might as well say, “Seduce me, undress me, I’m yours.”
Alyx and I went shopping for clothes for mourning – I mean, corporate outfits. If my job interview was anything to go by, my rainbow assortment of dresses and three-pieces would have no place in Kastein, Inc.
“Are you sure the last skirt you bought won’t violate your workplace’s dress code?” Alyx asked laughingly after over two hours of boutique hopping.
I sniffed. “I already gave up my colorful outfits. They can’t take away my minis, too.” Hampered by paper bags, I turned to my side, intending to push the glass door of Luigi’s open with my hips. Just as I swung my hips in full force, someone from the other side opened the door at the same time.
“Oh!” My heart jumped in fear as I felt myself crashing down, but a pair of hands immediately held me by the waist. I glanced up, an embarrassed smile on my lips.
My savior grinned down at me, his eyes twinkling as he carefully set me back on my feet. “Anytime,” he responded to my silent apology. He was casually dressed in a shirt and jeans and looked extremely delicious. Or at least that was what Daria would have said, since she liked the tall, dark, and handsome type.
I blushed at the unconcealed admiration in his eyes, flattered and uncomfortable at the same time. My parents sent me to an all-girls high school and persuaded me to enroll in a ladies’ college as well. It was the same setup in our company, with me being surrounded by lady pharmacists and researchers from R&D. So trust me when I say all I knew of guys was what I got to watch from The Bachelor and The Vampire Diaries, which – if you thought about it – didn’t exactly make great reference material. I could end up with a vampire willing to trade me in for a million dollars if I wasn’t careful.
“Thanks,” I said with a little nod. I quickly sidestepped him, dragging a smirking Alyx behind me.
“He wanted to ask for your number, you know,” Alyx said after giving our orders to the waiter. She had ordered salad and coffee. I had asked for the same – together with a small plate of fettuccine. Diet had never been a valid word in my dictionary. As far as I was concerned, it was a word made up by evil anti-pleasure monsters.
“Hmm.” I made the noncommittal sound, busy snipping price tags so I could have an easier time calculating my expenses later at home. Both my grandfather and Alyx’s were ex-military with Quaker backgrounds, and they figured very strongly in our childhoods. Add those two elements together and you got girls more comfortable shopping off the rack even though our credit card limits could afford a lot more than that.
While waiting for the appetizers, I told Alyx about the two other job offers I received from companies that were just as well-known as Kastein, Inc. “One of them even offered me a thousand dollars on the spot as a signing bonus.”
Alyx choked. “And you didn’t take it?”
I chewed on my lip. “I really want the job at Kastein. It’s my dream job---”
She smirked. “Plus your dream boss, too, with his dream dick---”
I choked on my coffee. “That has nothing to do with it.”
But Alyx just crowed, “So you do think his dick is a---”
“No, I do not.” Alyx still didn’t know what happened or almost happened to us and how I totally had my walk of shame after my one-on-one with the Netherland’s #1 Playboy.
Last night, I stayed up late just so I could Google everything there was to know about Constantijin. Wikipedia told me he was an Eton and Cambridge graduate and an only child. His father had long retired, but his mother was Chairman of the Board while he had taken on the mantle of CEO a few years back, personally spearheading the company’s entry into the American market.
At thirty-two years old, what he had accomplished for Kastein, Inc. was mind-boggling. But what really filled me with shock and not a little self-disgust was how the names of his former lovers, hook-ups, and floozies could easily fill up a phone directory.
“Just be warned, Yanna,” Alyx murmured. “Office romances never end right.”
I let out an unladylike snort at that, unable to help it. Romance was definitely not something in Constantijin Kastein’s vocabulary. Mind-blowingly hot sex, yes, but a grand sweeping romance?
He might have given me my first (mini) orgasm, and he might keep me awake with consecutive wet dreams, but he was not the Mr. Right I had been waiting for.
Lesson #3
Focus on looking for Mr. Right –
And not Mr. Fuck.
If your billionaire finds out, he won’t let you go until he has you.
I am not going to look for Constantijin Kastein.
It was a mantra I repeated in my mind continuously when I made my way to the 34/F reception area of the executive offices of Kastein, Inc. The girl behind the front desk, Megan, smiled at me warmly. She looked young and bubbly, but she, too, was dressed in black, and it was proof that I had made the right decision to shop for an all-black corporate wardrobe. In this office, any other color would probably get me tagged as Al-Qaeda or something equally horrible and to be avoided at all costs.
“Ms. Everleigh?”
“That’s me. Is Ms. Charli in already?”
“Yes. She’ll appreciate that you’re early. Let me take you to her now.” Megan escorted me to the very same conference room that I had the highest-lowest point of my life. I was already blushing the moment I entered the room, the same sense of shame attacking me when I recalled the older woman’s look of shock upon seeing me in her boss’s arms.
God. The memory made me feel like a slut.
Constantijin was nowhere in sight – not that I was looking or anything. Only one woman was inside the room, and boy, did she look scary! She made Vogue’s Anna Wintour look positively warm.
She stood up the moment I entered, looking svelte in her black buttoned up polo, which was worn over a black-and-white striped turtleneck and paired with a leather-belted mini and black stockings.
The overall impact was phenomenal.
Wow was all I could think.
“Hello, Yanna. My name is Charli – without an E – and you will be reporting to me.” Her voice was very, very cultured, with the slightest hint of a French accent.
She was terrifying. I was tempted to run away, and only the prospect of keeping my dream job kept me in place. I shook her hand gingerly and winced at the tiny tremble in my voice as I said, “Hello, Ms. Charli. I’d just like you to know how excited I am to work for you and the company.”
“Just Charli, ma belle.”
I nodded dumbly and gratefully took the seat she indicated with a wave of her well-manicured hand.
“Now, you know what Kastein Company is?”
“Yes.” I recited what I learned from the Web, which was pretty much everything since I had a photographic memory. “It’s one of the fastest growing companies in Europe and North America. It specializes in real estate and entertainment. Mr. Erik Kastein concentrates on real estate while his son Constantijin Kastein concentrates on turning books and mangas into blockbuster movies and TV series.” I didn’t want to sound like I was trying to impress her or anything, even though I really was. I just wanted to make sure she knew I wasn’t taking this interview lightly.
“That’s right. Magnifique,” she murmured with a beautiful smile. “Now, we’ve hired you to be our marketing specialist.”
I blinked. “I thought you were just looking for a researcher.”
“True,” Charli replied. “But your research will be both textual and on-field. The thing is, we’re not really interested in where you’ve graduated, what your degree is, or even where you worked previously.”
I straightened at her words, now even more confused.
“What we were really interested in was your ability to meet business talents with your main passion. And that’s reading, no?”
It took me a while to adjust to her French, umm, verbal peculiarities. She said ‘no’, but what she really meant was ‘yes’…yes?
&nb
sp; I finally nodded. “Err, yes, I love to read.”
Her face remained unsmiling as she asked, “But you can’t write to save your life, no?”
The way Charli said it made me wince, but it was true. “Yes.”
“And that’s why we need you. We are not interested in hiring writers. They are often biased and egoistical, often unable to appreciate anyone else’s writing over theirs. But you - you know how to judge books and writing without being a writer yourself, and that’s why we need you.”
“I see.” But I didn’t.
“This is what you’d call a dream job, ma belle.”
I jerked in my seat at her words.
The words sounded eerie, more like a curse than a blessing.
Charli leaned close. “Your main job is to know and if you can, predict, what the trend in the market is right now regarding these materials. You need to look for projects worthy of international viewership. You have a blog, no?”
The sudden switch of subjects made my head whirl a bit, but I nodded again.
“And you review works there, no?”
“Yes.” Did she Google me too? How did she know so much about me?
“So I want you to do the same here, but only this time, you get heard.” She leaned backin her chair and looked at me with her naturally green and incredibly sharp eyes. “You will take the job, no?”
“I’d be crazy not to,” was all I could say.
Afterwards, Charli told me that I, along with the two other applicants called back for a second interview yesterday, had the same jobs. We would work as a team and individually, depending on necessity. The salary she quoted was standard pay in the industry, but she told me this could go higher in a short time based on my performance. On the bright side, she did say I’d get free meals at work, excellent overtime pay when required, and transportation allowance.
Mondays to Thursdays, I was required to report in office attire. Fridays were anything-goes. My work schedule would be from 8am to 5pm. No grace period. Oh, and one thing else, Charli reminded me as a post script — office romances were not allowed.
