‘Can you get her to change her mind?’
‘I think I might be able to. But I’ll need a little time to talk to her, to reason with her.’
Dee shrugged. ‘I can’t make any promises, but I’ll speak to Ellis. He’s very impressed with Keller.’
‘That’s all I can ask. It’s clear Ellis trusts you.’ Jason leaned so far over the table his nose was nearly touching hers. ‘And you and I have both worked too hard to let this deal slip away.’
‘Like I said, I’ll talk to him, but I’m new on the job. I’m still trying to earn my keep.’
He took her hand. ‘I have no doubt you’ve already made yourself indispensable to the man.’
She pulled away and straightened her jacket. ‘No one’s indispensable.’ Just then her BlackBerry rang, and Ellis spoke into her ear.
‘Time’s up. The limo’s out front.’
It hadn’t been an hour, but she’d had all the time she needed. ‘I’m on my way.’ She shoved the BlackBerry back in her pocket and turned her attention back to Jason. ‘That was Ellis. I have to go.’
Jason slapped a couple of euro down on the table and stood. ‘Dee …’ He was silent for a moment, lost in thought, then he squared his shoulders and tugged at his tie. ‘If you think this Keller is really a threat to Trouvères’ interests, I’ll pass the word on to Yvette. I think she should know.’
‘Please do that, Jason. We all need to know where we stand.’
Chapter Fourteen
Just as promised, the limo was waiting outside the restaurant. To her surprise, Ellis opened the back door and practically yanked her inside.
‘That wasn’t an hour.’
‘It was all the time I was willing to trust you to Daniels.’ He wasn’t smiling.
She ignored his insinuation; in fact, she barely heard it as focused as she was on the meeting she’d just had. ‘He suspects the bluff, but he knows the deal with Pneuma Inc. is exactly what Trouvères needs. He’ll push for the alliance.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he will.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Don’t be so naïve, Dee. You’re the only one in Paris who can’t see the man would do anything for you.’
‘That’s ridiculous. He’s a businessman wanting what’s best for his company. I’m getting really sick of your –’
He was across the seat before she knew it, pulling her to him, stopping her words with the press of his lips and a light flick of his tongue. ‘The man wants you. That’s all I’m saying.’
She breathed in the earthy tang of maleness just beneath the smell of soap and shampoo. In spite of her indignation, which she was having trouble maintaining, she shifted against him, closer to the scent.
He responded by altering his position just enough to make sure any space between them was filled with him. Each breath, that came a little more rapidly than the last, warmed her earlobe and the nape of her neck.
‘Ellis, Jason is –’
Just then the driver braked to avoid a car that pulled unexpectedly into his lane, and they were both thrown forward. Ellis grabbed for her before she was launched onto the floor. When the limo was moving again at normal speed, he closed the privacy window. He still held her crushed against him. His gaze was locked on hers, and his voice was a strained whisper forcing its way between efforts to breathe. ‘Dee, at the moment, I don’t care about Daniels. I don’t care about Trouvères either.’
‘But I thought –’
He kissed her again, this time with more tongue in all the right places. ‘Don’t think.’ He spoke against her mouth. ‘We’ll think later. Right now we have unfinished business.’
She gave in. After all, he was the boss.
Once he’d conquered her mouth, he kissed down her jaw onto her neck, where her pulse fluttered wildly against the velvet humidity of his breath. His lips left what she was sure would be scorch marks along her throat and collarbone. He quickly dispensed with the buttons of her blouse and teased her breasts up over the cups of her bra, caressing her nipples and areolas to hard, heavy erections, empathetic to the rub and shift of the straining front of his trousers against her thigh. The delicious assault was well coordinated, far from the awkward fumbling of their earlier encounter. She lifted her bottom enough to allow him to slip the sheath of her skirt up over her hips. He caressed her thighs along the tops of her stockings and ran a thumb over the garter belt before he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her panties and shimmied them down over her ankles, easing one leg free, forcing one grey leather pump to drop to the floor in the process.
He nipped and kissed and suckled his way down over her sternum, blazing a steamy trail onto the flat plane of her belly, where progress was temporarily halted at the waistband of her skirt. She was too busy trying to breathe to tell him what she liked – though she wasn’t sure that would be appropriate under the circumstances. But as he ran a hand up the inside of her thigh and insinuated warm fingers into anxious, slippery places, it was almost as though he had secretly watched her touching herself, and he knew. He knew exactly what she liked.
While she was busy appreciating his manual dexterity, he slid up the seat next to her to pay further obeisance to her breasts, watching her face while he suckled her nipples to impossible, aching buds.
‘That look of pleasure; it suits you,’ he said. ‘You’re too serious most of the time.’
‘You should talk.’ She arched against his face and gasped as he nipped her, an act that sent aftershocks all the way to the tips of her toes.
‘I suppose we should both work on it then, shouldn’t we? No time like the present.’ He slid back down the seat, pausing to kiss her navel where it peeked just above her waistband, then he kissed and nibbled a ticklish trail along the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, around the edge of her garter belt and above the tops of her stockings.
Dee’s heart went into overdrive; a wave of panic shot up her spine. This was her boss, these were her fantasies, and this was intimacy she wasn’t sure she was ready for. The cost for the intimacy they had shared four months ago had been high. She wasn’t sure she could go through that again. ‘Ellis, this is too much.’ She struggled to push him away. ‘I don’t think I can … I don’t think we should –’
He relaxed his hold on her and rose to plant a gentle kiss on her lips. ‘Dee, I’ll stop if you want me to.’ His dark eyes held her in a gaze that was deeply earnest, and somehow moving in ways she couldn’t quite figure out, especially not in her state of confused arousal. ‘But I would prefer not to. I would prefer to pleasure you if you’ll let me.’ He kissed her again, gently, slowly, deeply, his tongue caressing her hard palate, the inside of her cheek, the edge of her teeth. For a second, she felt as though she would cry. She wasn’t sure why.
He cupped her face in his hand and spoke against her lips. ‘Shall I continue?’
She nodded, unable to speak, unable to quite get her mind around what was about to happen, what she was allowing to happen. Before, what they had done in the hotel room had been under stress, what they had done in his office four months ago even more so, but this … This was planned, this was deliberate. From this there could be no turning back, no pretending they hadn’t overstepped the boundaries of all proper business protocol. But then he lowered his mouth to her clit where she was hard and straining with need. A long, slow circle and press of his tongue and a hard tug between pursed lips and she came, spasming and jerking, fist pressed to her mouth to hold back the guttural growl rolling up through her chest.
He gave her a little time, knowing almost instinctively how sensitive she would be, how she would need to work her way through the aftershocks. How she would need to breathe for a second. He kissed and caressed the inside of her thigh, and she could feel him shifting on the floor, shoving at his trousers and boxers. She heard the rattle of a condom wrapper. There was more shifting, then he kissed up the length of her body, positioned himself and entered her, pulling her onto him like a glove. Sudde
nly, the animal took control again. Several split seams and a broken zipper later, they convulsed against each other in a rush of white heat and oxygen deprivation.
Time came back into focus with a discreet knock on the glass of the privacy window, and the realisation that they were no longer moving. In a wave of panic, she grabbed for clothes.
‘Shshsh.’ Ellis covered her mouth with a sex-scented hand. ‘Relax, we’re back at the hotel.’
Her legs trembled from the gymnastics of making love in the back of a moving vehicle. She straightened and peered out the tinted glass. Ellis moved next to her and stroked her belly.
‘We can’t go in looking like this,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry. We’ll use the service entrance and be back in our suite before anyone notices.’ He helped her on with her panties, then nuzzled each of her breasts as she settled them back into her bra. Every move he made seemed carefully calculated to keep the level of arousal just enough beneath a hard sizzle that they could function.
The fascinating sight of her boss trying to restrain his enthusiastic equipment back into rumpled business attire did little to hold the situation in check.
They didn’t even solicit a suspicious glance from the cleaning staff as they tiptoed up the back stairs. It wouldn’t have taken much of a brain to figure out what they had been up to – shirts untucked; hair mussed; smelling of more than just the Paris heat. At the top of the stairs, he led her in a near jog across the polished marble floor, and unlocked the door to their suites. Inside, he pushed her up against the cool stucco of the wall and took her mouth like a starving man, the intriguing taste of herself still strong on his lips. He was pressed up tight against her, hands kneading and exploring, when his BlackBerry rang into the charged atmosphere of heavy breathing.
He cursed out loud, jerked it from his pocket, and nearly dropped it before he shot Dee a quick glance. ‘It’s Yvette Rousseau.’ He stepped back, struggling to sound like business as usual. He barely got “hello” out before the conversation became a serious of blinks and nods on his part.
‘I see … Of course … Of course we will.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Of course we’ll be ready.’ He shoved the BlackBerry back in his pocket, ran a hand through the mussed spikes of his hair, and looked at Dee. ‘She called me a silly man for thinking she was serious about not wanting to deal with Pneuma Inc.’
‘The meeting’s back on then?’
He shook his head. ‘She says there’s no need to meet until after the lawyers finalise the contracts, then we can get together to sign. Sounds like she’s agreed to pretty much everything we proposed. She’s sending a car to pick us up in an hour for a celebration. Apparently she’s rented a yacht on the Seine.’
The next morning, to the unexpected praises of Yvette Rousseau, the alliance was agreed upon without a hitch, and later that afternoon, they were off to catch a plane back to Portland. They only caught a glimpse or two of the Eiffel Tower.
Chapter Fifteen
They had been in the air long enough to finish dinner. Most of the other passengers in first class were either watching the film of their choice or already sleeping. Ellis cleared his throat and loosened his tie. ‘After the events of the past few days, I feel now would be a good time to remind you that you do have a clothing allowance. It’s something I should have told you earlier, but it just slipped my mind. All of the executive team does, though Wade certainly never uses his. It’s important you always look sharp. There’s certainly nothing wrong with the way you dress. In fact, I’m impressed, but I wager you’ll find what you have won’t be nearly enough for the demanding schedule you’ll be keeping. Then there’s travel damage and – that sort of thing.’
She thought about the mounting loss of buttons and ripped zippers from their sexual encounters and could very definitely see the benefit of a clothing allowance.
‘I have to say, I never would have thought we could pull off this deal so quickly,’ he said. ‘Things like this just don’t happen. I didn’t want to discourage you back before we left Portland, but I never imagined we’d close the deal on our first visit. Beverly would be proud.’
‘You really think so?’ Dee was surprised at the sudden tightness of her throat. She was always a bit emotional when she was tipsy. She wasn’t much of a drinker, and she was halfway through her second glass of champagne.
‘I know so.’ He downed the contents of his champagne flute, and stroked the stem, avoiding her gaze. ‘You don’t suppose …’
‘Suppose what?’ Suddenly it was hard to breathe.
He fidgeted in his seat, trying to get comfortable, and she pretended not to notice. At last he spoke. ‘Dee, we have to talk about what happened. You don’t think what happened had … Well, you know … Anything to do with Beverly’s theory.’
‘You mean her Executive Sex Clause?’
He winced, glancing around to make sure no one else was in earshot. ‘Yes, the Sex Clause.’ He leaned closer. ‘What all did she tell you about it?’
‘She just said that if an executive had a reliable source of stress-free sex available when she needed it, she’d be more relaxed, more focused. More productive.’
Ellis nodded. ‘She told me it could reduce sick days.’
‘I’m never sick,’ Dee said.
‘I don’t need the sick days I’ve got,’ he agreed. ‘She was also sure there’d be an increase in productivity and that an executive would be more creative if he could have sex –’ he shoved the word between barely parted lips ‘– whenever he needed it.’ He nearly dropped his glass. ‘Dee, I know our situation has been ambiguous with what happened at my office back before we knew – before we knew we’d lost Beverly.’ He held her in an earnest gaze. ‘But the other evening in the hotel, when we were – when we were together, I hope you didn’t think I’d actually…’
‘That you’d implemented the Executive Sex Clause?’
He seemed relieved that she’d said it, but then his face darkened and he jerked at his tie as though it choked him. ‘Because I didn’t. I mean, I wouldn’t.’
‘No, of course I didn’t think that.’ She fidgeted with her own champagne flute. ‘I mean, I figured if you were going to, you would have done it by now.’
For a minute, he sat staring into his empty glass. Then he spoke, avoiding her gaze. ‘Do you think you could have come up with that bluff if we hadn’t just – been on the bed together?’
She waited for the flight attendant to stop fussing over the passenger across from them and move back to the galley. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
‘Something certainly happened,’ he said.
There was another long silence. The tension in her stomach ached along with muscles still tender from more real sex than she’d had in ages.
Ellis gave up tugging at his tie and yanked it off completely, stuffing it down in the pocket of the seat. ‘You realise what we’re talking about, what we did, is against every rule. It’s insane. I can’t believe we’re even thinking about it.’
‘But we are.’ Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘In fact, we’ve done a lot more than think about it.’
He straightened his shoulders and looked up at her, eyes dark and urgent. ‘I’m not superstitious, but good things seem to happen whenever we – get together. I’m less stressed, I’m more focused, and I seem more able to think outside the box. And you … You were brilliant in Paris. Surely I’m not the only one, surely you felt it too.’
‘Of course I felt it. How could I not? And ever since it first happened I can’t help thinking that …’
‘That maybe Beverly was right?’
She nodded, still locked in his gaze. ‘Yeah, that maybe Beverly was right.’
He leaned closer to her, then looked around again, noting everyone else in the cabin was asleep. ‘No one would ever need to know except us,’ he whispered.
She nodded slowly. ‘Business strategy is always a secret anyway, isn’t it? And if it makes us both better at our jobs �
�’
‘And eases the stress we’re constantly under,’ he added. ‘Well what could be wrong with that?’
‘Yeah, what could be wrong?’
‘Good! Good. I’m glad we cleared that up.’ The tension drained from his shoulders and his face relaxed back to neutrality.
‘I’m curious. If we’re really going through with this, does this clothing allowance of mine –’ She sipped at her champagne. ‘Does it include sexy lingerie, then?’ She couldn’t believe she’d been so brazen. Her cheeks felt like they’d burst into flame any second, and he looked positively crimson.
He poured them both another glass of champagne, drizzling a trail across their laps with his clumsy effort. ‘Certainly. Of course. I like lingerie – on women, I mean. You should buy some … If you’d like.’
They both laughed a little louder than intended, then quickly looked around. When they were convinced no one was listening, Dee continued. ‘And what about rules?’
‘Rules?’ he asked.
‘Yes. You know, rules you’ll want me to follow for when you need sex.’ They were now both doing a fine job of carrying on a stealthy conversation through barely parted lips. ‘If we’re really going to go through with this, then I need to know in advance what to expect so things will be a little more comfortable when it happens next time. Don’t you think?’
‘Yes, of course. Good point. Rules. Now let me think.’ His voice sounded as though he’d swallowed a sheet of sandpaper. ‘I don’t like pantyhose.’
He seemed to have a hard time getting comfortable in his chair, and the sandpaper effect in his voice was not washed away by the gulp of champagne that he nearly choked on. ‘Time’s a luxury I don’t often have. I don’t want to waste it fighting my way through pantyhose.’
An Executive Decision Page 10
