Leashes & Lace Books 1-3: MM Romance Boxed Set

by Shaw Montgomery

  Tossing my phone down on the bed, I started stripping off the sweatpants I’d been lounging in and began getting ready. It felt more like I was putting on armor and less like jeans and a nice button-down. But with Eli around, it always felt like I needed one more layer to keep him away.

  Not that he’d ever done anything overtly sexual to me specifically. While he hung on the rest of the guys and flirted, no matter what he was wearing, with me he kept his distance physically. I still had to watch everything else he was doing, but it was nothing I could complain about.

  Preston, I need you to make Eli stop flirting. Yeah, that would go over well. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t realized how they dealt with each other or the total lack of inhibition, so I couldn’t really complain. It was maddening.

  He was unprofessional.

  He was annoying.

  He thought he knew better about everything.

  He had opinions on everything.

  He wouldn’t shut up.

  He was constantly turned on and loved to rub it in my face—well, not exactly rub. But the constant arousal and general level of desire coming from him was frustrating. How was I supposed to concentrate with his dick waving everywhere?

  A certain level of professionalism should be expected in a workplace.

  It didn’t matter what the hell they sold. None of the other guys I’d photographed had given me the same level of insanity. Some were more cautious than others and some seemed to have settled on Eli’s side things, but they’d all done their best to make the shoots go smoothly.

  By the time I was ready to go, even I could feel my stress level rising. Heading out the door, I tried to take a deep breath, but all I could focus on was the impending drama. Even I had to admit the photos would turn out incredible, no matter what he was wearing, but I wasn’t sure if it was worth it.

  The constant temptation and failure that the brat represented was too much.

  * * * * *

  “I’m not doing this with you today. Just take the goddamned picture like I tell you to so we can get this done. Some of us have better things to do than argue with your sorry ass all day!” Eli’s anger would have touched me more if he hadn’t been hard and naked.

  Nearly naked.

  Somehow the panties, stretched out with his erection straining the fabric, made it harder to take him seriously.

  That was the only reason I could think of why the crazy shit popped out of my mouth. That, and he made me want to shout at him to put some fucking clothes on. “I’m sorry if you have a street corner to go prowl, but some of us have actual work. If you could get your dick under control and look more like a professional model and less like a hooker, we could’ve been done with this an hour ago!”

  Eli’s heaving chest, flushed with frustration and anger, should have made the lingerie look even more absurd; instead, somehow the contrast made me want to stare at him. Continuing to take pictures, because that’s what I was there for, I couldn’t help trying to capture the unique look.

  All while silently damning the man for looking so hot.

  Why couldn’t brats be ugly? Hell, I’d even take plain. No, brats always had to have a fire inside them that pulled people in. Eli didn’t see the comparison as well as I did because he just started screeching at me again, stalking toward me with those long stocking-clad legs and the high heels making sharp sounds on the wood floor.

  “We’ll be done with this when I say we are. It’s my blog, remember, asshole? My readers want to see the things I liked from the new line, and that’s what I’m going to show them.” He reached down and traced his fingers over his erection. “And I’m not going to hide what I like.”

  The implied “unlike some people” was clear in his voice.

  “Hiding and being a goddamned professional are two different things.” The camera was going crazy as I tried to capture every movement and flash of anger. I wasn’t hiding a damn thing. Just because I wouldn’t give in didn’t mean I was denying anything.

  It really was too bad he wouldn’t let his face be on the site. He was an ass, but I knew the full pictures would be even better.

  “Not in this business, baby. When there’s nothing to hide behind, you have to be honest with people!” He stalked across the set, glancing around for something to throw at me, more than likely. “Unlike some people with a stick up their ass who can’t manage to do their fucking job!”

  “Well, I’ve done my fucking job for today! You have enough slutty pictures to post all over the internet if you want. This was supposed to have been a short shoot to see how the new clothes looked, not an excuse for you to prance around naked all day!” Storming over to the table where all my stuff was laid out, I set my camera down, trying to ignore the flood of emotion running through me.

  “I don’t need an excuse around here to do that! It’s a goddamned fetish and lingerie company, moron!” Eli’s anger echoed throughout the room, making our audience pull in a breath.

  They weren’t helping the situation.

  I wasn’t sure if it was a quirk of the company, or just my luck, but everyone in the building would walk through the room at least once during a photo shoot. There was no concept of privacy or modesty. They changed clothes in front of one another, and Eli would run up to almost all of them stark naked and give them a hug.

  It was enough to make anyone insane.

  Packing everything up, I turned to give him another piece of my mind but stopped as Preston entered the studio. He came in once in a while, usually right before a shoot to point out something or give me a direction he was thinking about for the photos, but usually, he left the studio portion of the building alone.

  “Eli, when you have a moment I need to see you.” Preston gave Eli a long look but didn’t say anything more before he started heading over for me.

  Gripping my bags tighter, I tried not to look as nervous as I felt. I needed the job, and even if Eli made me crazy, I needed to learn to keep more of it inside, or I was going to end up fired. I thought he’d say something about the argument, but he either ignored it or hadn’t heard it. No matter the reason, I was relieved.

  “I’d like to see how these turn out as soon as you get some of the edits done. The company is breathing down my neck, and I want to be able to give them an answer soon. I like the quality that they’ve sent, but I need to know how it shows up on camera.” Preston’s even tone made it hard to stay angry.

  “I think they’ll look good. I’m not sure about selfies with a few of the fabrics, but with the right lighting, the colors are going to pop.” I wasn’t sure how well they’d sell or even if the shades they came in were something people would buy, but the photos were going to be amazing.

  “Great. I’m going to talk to Eli about the actual pieces, but once you have some of the photos done, if you could send them to me and to Eli I’d appreciate it.” Preston nodded and started to head toward the door, his business casual look at odds with the eclectic looks the models and staff were wearing.

  In any other office, I would have expected some kind of comment about getting back to their jobs or wasting time, but Preston smiled and shook his head. He said something quietly to several models that were heading out the door with him, but they just nodded and gave him beaming smiles, so it couldn’t have been anything about work.

  As I turned to go, I caught Eli out of the corner of my eye as he started to strip off the clothing. Watching him peel down the thigh-high hose wasn’t something I was willing to do, so I started walking away. Brats were my drug of choice, but I knew how bad they were for me, and I wasn’t willing to crash again. I was in recovery and I was going to stay that way.

  No matter what it took.

  Chapter 4

  Eli

  Before I could even slam the door, Preston started to speak. He took the fun out of everything. “Business is up ten percent, traffic to the site has increased dramatically, we’ve already sold out of the panties you posted about yesterday, and your rant last nigh
t about him almost caused the site to crash.”

  Taking the wind out of my sails wasn’t fair.

  “He’s an ass.”

  Preston nodded. “I’m not going to argue about that.”

  “He’s judgmental.” And he thinks I’m a slut. I didn’t say that part, though. For some reason, I didn’t think I could voice the words without it hurting more than it should.

  I had a lot of people in my life who judged, and a lot of trolls online who made stupid comments, but coming from Roman it just made me angry. For someone who took photos for a living, he certainly couldn’t see very clearly.

  “You’re right. He’s already caused enough havoc to justify firing him.” Preston gave me a look. “In fact, I tried to do that last week when I walked in on you two screaming at each other. You made it dramatically clear that you didn’t want him gone.”

  I’d vetoed him—on the mouth.

  Preston had been frustrated with me, but it’d sent Roman right over the edge, so it’d been worth it at the time. “The pictures are good.”

  Preston couldn’t argue about that. “You’re right.”

  And my blog had never been busier. From the posts to the comments from my fans, it was going nuts. “The panties sold out in twenty-four hours?”

  “Yes.” Then Preston finally cracked a smile. “And Merrick immediately stormed in and said that someone else would have to take over the computers or the marketing department was going to revolt.”

  “Three people can’t stage a coup.” It had to be at least five.

  “They can if they’re the only ones who can run the servers and whatever magic actually runs the website.” Preston and I had both given up when the site had moved past the basic five dollars a month plan that we’d initially signed up for to host the damned thing.

  At first, trying to do it ourselves had seemed like a good idea, but as the company had grown, we’d both thrown our hands in the air and said we didn’t care. He could make sense of the spreadsheets and data, and I understood the clothes and the marketing side of things, but the computers were Greek to us both.

  It’d made me feel better in the beginning when I’d realized I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like them and didn’t really want to learn how to run the actual website, but I was starting to wish I was more help. However, taking anything else on my plate was impossible, and Preston had even said that if I looked at one more responsibility, he’d send me on a vacation—to my mother’s house.

  The threat still sent shivers through me.

  Plopping down in my chair, trying to ignore how good it felt to sit, I shrugged. “We knew it was coming soon. You started putting out feelers when he started saying the same thing the last time sales went up.”

  Preston nodded. “This time he’s serious. There are evidently some upgrades that need to be done, and I sadly had no idea what a lot of it meant. But the basic threat was that it’s all going to explode if we don’t get a full-time IT guy.”

  Letting my head rest against the back of the chair, I tried not to close my eyes. It wasn’t late enough in the day for me to even think about sleep. “You wanted to wait until the numbers looked good enough to support the additional payroll. IT doesn’t come cheap. Can we actually afford the new position and the money that’s going to go into whatever he does with the computers?”

  “Yes.” Preston answered without having to think. “We started planning for this last year when we hit our goals so early. Don’t you remember that conversation?”

  “No.” I lifted my head enough to give him a you’re-insane look. “I start tuning you out after about twenty minutes in those budget meetings.”

  Sighing, he shook his head. “Eli.”

  “You know better than to complain about that.” I was doing a lot better than I had when we’d first started the company.

  He chuckled. “It was in the same conversation where I made you start taking your salary.”

  “Oh.” It was starting to ring a bell now. “Yeah, okay. Didn’t we say we needed the new IT position set up a few months ago, then? You set a new goal and said that once we met it that it was a priority. Right?”

  “Yes, we just never did it.” Preston propped his feet up on his desk and leaned back. “It’s one of the to-do list things that kept getting pushed back because we got such terrible people applying.”

  “Ohhh, that’s right.” Preston had handled the initial interviews a few months back, but then had decided to pull the position. “You said none of them would work.”

  That was code that they were all too boring to tolerate us for long.

  We were a colorful bunch, and even Preston with his conservative look and business clothes didn’t want to change it. He might look boring on the outside, but inside, he was just as interesting as the rest of us. He’d always said that it was to give a professional look to the company since I’d made him say he was the owner, but I’d always thought it was some kind of armor for him.

  “I’m going to start looking again. Hopefully, we’ll have a few people to interview by next week.” Preston didn’t seem any more excited by the prospect than I was. He was the king of staying cool under pressure, and if he’d gotten frustrated with the IT guys, it had to have been bad.

  Which was why I tried to stay out of the hiring process until he’d found someone he thought was halfway decent.

  “If they could work off-site it would be easier, but they have to fit in, or it’s just going to be weird.” Occasionally, we’d hired people who hadn’t fit.

  Most of the time, it had been easy to see before they were actually hired, but a few had slipped through. They usually started to panic and quit after the first day or two, which was why we didn’t really go easy on newbies, because I wanted to know right off the bat if they were going to bail.

  “I agree, but we have to get someone in here. At the rate we’re growing, I think we’re going to have problems on the site in a few months with the amount of traffic that’s coming through it. And Merrick was serious about the upgrades.” Preston stretched and then looked at me, and I could see the conversation building in his head.

  “What?” Might as well make him say it so we could move on.

  “He’s not nice to you.” Preston winced. “Okay, that sounded like we’re in kindergarten again. Let me rephrase that. He’s polite to everyone but you. With you, he loses his marbles. We’d never let anyone talk to one of our employees this way. Why are you putting up with it?”

  That was a damned good question. One I didn’t have the answer to.

  Shrugging, I went back to leaning against the chair. “No fuckin’ clue.”

  Something about the asshole just made me want to needle him to death. To flirt and tease until his head exploded. Roman was so easy to rile up, and it was like a bad TV show that I couldn’t stop watching. “The photos are good?”

  “That’s not a good enough reason…although yeah…they’re fabulous.” Preston sighed, and I knew he was giving me one of those looks where he was trying to figure something out…it was usually me.

  “I rub people the wrong way sometimes—it’s a special talent.” I sat up and gave him a teasing look, refusing to seem pathetic.

  Preston lifted an eyebrow. “I’m not sure your brand of special should be called a talent.”

  I laughed. He was probably right. “It will be fine.”

  We’d either explode the building, or I was going to kill him, but giving him the satisfaction of saying he’d been fired…not a chance.

  “We’ll give it a little while longer.” Preston seemed ready to switch gears, because he grabbed some papers off his desk. “What did you think about the new clothes?”

  So we were pretending the screaming match about hookers hadn’t happened? I was okay with that.

  Mentally shrugging and throwing off the stress of the shoot, I tried to shove my brain back in business mode. “Overall, I like the quality and the fit seems good. I want to see what some of the other guys think,
though. The stockings are fun, but I don’t know how practical they’d be for most men, and I’m not sure about the sales potential; something that delicate doesn’t always hold up under jeans and men’s outerwear.”

  I liked sexy things that were fun to wear for someone as much as the next guy, but I wanted clothing on the site that guys could wear all the time. Not just items that were for special occasions. It was too easy to put them away and never actually wear them if they weren’t for using all the time.

  “I agree. But we’ll see how everyone else feels. I told the company that we’re liking things so far, but something about Roman’s comments on the colors has me thinking. Run them through the laundry in the next day or two. I’m going to have several people do the same thing so we see how the colors hold up.” Preston gave me a questioning look.

  “Yeah, it’s probably a good idea. Normally, their things wear well, but I think they must have new manufacturing facilities because their new ‘lower prices and new lines’ came with really varied quality. I don’t want our name associated with something that’s just going to fade or fall apart.” We’d spent the last couple of years building the company into something that was not only sexy and fun, but also had quality merchandise.

  “Agreed.” Preston looked up from the spreadsheets. “And I think I’m going to make some calls and find out what’s going on over there.”

  “Call that guy in the marketing department, the one who thought you were cute. I’m sure he’ll share…information with you.” I couldn’t resist needling him.

  Reps from the company had come to visit about a year ago, bringing samples and some of their employees. One had been a cute little thing from the marketing department who clearly hadn’t been into the panties—but had been into Preston. It was too bad he hadn’t realized that while Preston looked conservative, he was really a kinky shit who wanted a sweet little twink he could play dress up with.

  Preston moaned. “It took weeks to get him to stop calling. That’s a terrible idea.”