Zander's Firecracker

by Ember Flint

  I almost want to ask if he means other plans for us, but that’d be crazy, right?

  “So about perchlorate…”

  I huff out a breath. “There’s no perchlorate in our compositions, no charcoal, no sulphur… we use a clean burning, zero-smoke, nitrogen-based fuel.”

  “Good, that’s what I was hoping for. And what about the different colors? I’m especially concerned with the green fireworks, though they are my favorite…”

  I smile despite myself. This fucker. “Don’t worry: our nitrogen-filled formula also helps us use fewer chemicals in our colorants.”

  Mr. Markos simply stares at me and I sigh, knowing he won’t be happy until I give him the particulars.

  “We use a boron-based formula for green, a modified iodide of copper for the blue and we use a lithium-based formula for our reds.” I explain, trying to keep the bigger chemical names out.

  “But you still use black powder to launch the fireworks.”

  Did he eat our brochure for breakfast or something?

  “We do, Mr. Markos, yes, but we patented a technology and a formula that allows us to detonate our products with about ninety percent less black powder than you’d find in any traditional pyro.”

  He seems finally happy and goes back to look at me, saying nothing, his grey eyes looking through me until my heart goes pitter-patter again.

  “Okay, good.”

  “Really? Good? Is the Spanish Inquisition over? Don’t you have something hot you won’t to poke me with, hiding somewhere, Mr. Markos?”

  His eyes grow wide and he shifts uncomfortably in his chair and that’s when I realize what I just actually said.

  Oh, boy.

  He’s gentleman enough to simply chuckle to himself and let the matter drop.

  “Zander, please. Call me Zander,” he asks softly.

  Now, this, I didn’t expect: he doesn’t strike me like the type of guy that would forgo the ‘Mr.’ label with someone he doesn’t deem an equal.

  Zander…

  Even his name kinda bugs me, it rubs me the wrong way.

  Or maybe the problem is that it rubs me the right way.

  Zander…

  It’s kind of a sexy name.

  Imposing, commanding, the perfect name for someone like him.

  Therefor I have to hate it, along with his other —many— distracting attributes.

  Challenge accepted.

  “So, Zander, what else do you want to know exactly?” I ask, my voice is kind of squeaky, but I’ll make it work.

  “All of it.” He shrugs, opening his arms, the light-blue polo he’s wearing over his slacks, tightening across the muscular expanse of his chest.

  I look away. “All of it?”

  “Well, if I can’t have the simulation I’ve asked for, then I’m gonna need you to walk me through the whole thing, step by step.”

  My eyebrows knit together. Not the stupid freaking simulation again!

  I huff out a breath and I’m about to speak when he interrupts me.

  “What’s with all this mess?” he asks, pointing at the papers I scattered on his conference table.

  “Those are my notes and my sketches. I made you a kind of storyboard that you can peruse in lieu of the digital rendition.”

  Zander nods and starts to look the stack of drawing over. “On actual paper?” he asks, visibly horrified.

  I giggle, shaking my head, for once finding his heavy-handedness endearing.

  This guy really does care about the environment.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not real paper: it’s a recycled polymer and you can get the ink off of it with a sweep of a special sponge and use it over and over again.”

  There’s a touch of a smile on his face, it’s just confined to his eyes and never reaches his mouth, but it’s enough to make me realize maybe it’s a good thing that this man keeps a straight face most of the time, the merest hint of contentment made him look even more devastatingly handsome right now.

  I don’t think I could survive seeing an all-lights-on, full smile on his face.

  He touches my sketches with a new-found reverence, his squared thumbs caressing the material in a way that makes me feel almost envious. Okay, envious sans ‘almost’ to be honest.

  “That’s great, and these are really pretty good, Alexa,” he tells me; his voice, the way he says my name, making me tremble all over.

  “They sure are,” I tell him. They’d better be: I didn’t sleep for days to make them for him.

  For a while Zander says nothing, going over my notes and my drawings intently, a pensive look on his face, I can clearly see a shadow of sadness in his eyes.

  I don’t know what it is, but something makes me want to reassure him. “Don’t worry, Mr. Mark—, I mean, Zander: I know what this display means to all of you. I know that you don’t trust me, but my firm won’t let you down. I won’t let you down.”

  “I appreciate it,” he mumbles. “And it’s not that I don’t trust you, per se, you know… I’m not exactly the trusting type in general.”

  “That must be such a pleasant way to go through life,” I tease.

  “Let’s get something out of the way, okay?” I ask, feeling a little like my old self.

  “By all means,” he says noncommittally, putting my papers back on the table.

  I take a breath. “You don’t like me, I don’t like you. But… it’s only five days to July 4th, Zander.”

  “I never said I didn’t like you,” he retorts, frowning.

  I laugh. “You never needed to. You don’t like that I’m young, right? But can I ask you a question?”

  He shrugs. “Shoot,” he answers, his hands resting on the table, palm-up.

  “What are you, twenty-eight, thirty?”

  “Thirty-four, actually,” he says, one hand rubbing over that sexy bearded chin of his.

  Man, he even looks younger than his age, he’s that yummy. Not that thirty-four is old by any means.

  Focus, Alexa, focus, you were going so well.

  “And how long have you been the micromanaging force behind Markos Inc?”

  He gives me what I can call a quarter of a smirk.

  It looks sexy as hell and makes me squirm uncomfortably on my chair.

  Eyes on the ball, girl.

  “What’s this? Twenty questions?” he asks.

  The freaking irony!

  “Just humor me, Zander.”

  I level him with the best unrelenting stare I can muster.

  He’s still the one true pro in the room, when it comes to them, but judging from his sudden intake of breath I guess I fudged my way through it pretty good.

  Zander looks straight at me and his lips twitch in a little curve that wants to be a smile, and I feel its power down to my very soul.

  Oh… holy shit.

  “Alright. I’d say about fourteen, fifteen years,” he says.

  “So when you started your climb to the top you were about twenty?”

  He grumbles something under his breath.

  I smile innocently at him. “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. What did you say?”

  Zander groans; the deep sound coming from his chest doing strange things to my insides.

  “I said, yes…”

  I nod primly. “And you’re also some kind of lawyer right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then I can only say, I rest my case.”

  He looks at me in silence for a moment and then he starts to chuckle, the sound so rich and warm, I feel it into my bones and… other decidedly more fleshy parts.

  “You got me,” he says, throwing his hands up.

  “I know I did.”

  He blinks. “No, I don’t really think you do,” he mutters, and for the life of me, I have no idea what he means, so I just escape his gaze and go back on the offense.

  “Now, the other thing you don’t like about me, I can’t do much for, but
I hope you can move past it.”

  Zander looks at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. “What other thing? What are you talking about?”

  “The whole ‘I have ovaries’ thing,” I tell him. “I mean, they’re there, can’t change it, but they’re round like your balls, so we’re equal as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Boss-man.”

  For a moment he looks shocked and flustered and then the asshole actually starts to laugh at me. “You are one crazy little scrapper, you know…”

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  I look at him defiantly. “Why? Because I tell it like it is, Mr. Bossy-Pants?”

  He snickers, shaking his head. “No, because you’re implying I’m a male-chauvinist who doesn’t think women can be trusted to do a good job.”

  “Okay, my mistake: so your problem isn’t with women, just with other people who aren’t yourself? Like you’re the only one who knows how to do a good job and if you’re not doing it, then whoever’s on it is gonna mess it up? Arrogant, much!”

  “It’s not being arrogant when it’s the truth…”

  My mouth hangs open, I mean there’s cocky, and then there’s… whatever he is.

  How can I feel this damn attracted to him, while at the same time finding him infuriating as hell?

  “Are you for real?” I ask.

  He points at my T-shirt, the little smirk still in place. “Are you? Who comes to a work meeting wearing something so… outrageous?”

  I look down at myself. “It’s not outrageous if it’s true.”

  “And it is right now?” Zander asks, eyebrows raised.

  “Do you really need to ask?”

  “Maybe not,” he murmurs and abruptly gets up from his seat at the head of the table, walking around it until he’s standing in front of me; his intense eyes looking down at me.

  I jump up from my chair and face him the best I can with our height-difference.

  Zander moves closer still, so close that I can smell his manly scent of sandalwood all around me.

  He bends over me, his face tilted down until we are almost touching, and I can feel his minty breath on my forehead and cheeks.

  I’m so damn short compared to him, his large frame practically dwarfs me, and I feel my legs starting to buckle under the weight of a sudden rush of lust.

  Is he going to kiss me?

  And more importantly: am I going to really allow this?

  God, I really, really wanna say yes.

  Crap, I’m so in trouble right now!

  My breathing speeds up and my mind goes blank as he leans even closer.

  I feel heat pooling and tingling between my legs and for a moment I look down at myself.

  Come on, pink bit, you’ve been playing dead for so long, don’t do this to me now!

  Chapter 3

  ZANDER

  I move some more toward her, feeling an invisible force pulling me closer.

  God, what the fuck am I doing here?

  My eyes fall on the front of her tight black tee, deliciously stretched over her big tits and I feel myself respond again.

  The sparkly pink annoyed unicorn printed over it keeps giving me the finger.

  The glittery words embossed under it still mocking me: ‘And yet, despite the look on my face you’re still talking.’

  It’s like she said: she has balls. I don’t think a grown man would have the nuts to wear something like this with a Markos in the room.

  I can’t do this. Just can’t.

  I mean, for one thing I’m technically her boss and this has work-place-sexual-harassment-suit written all over it, for another I’m pretty sure one or all of her brothers would come find me and bury me in the desert if I touch her and for yet another one —the most important one— I’m not supposed to like her.

  She’s smart, she’s so fucking beautiful, my chest hurts when I look at her, she smells so damn sweet, like fresh apples and honey, I’m already addicted, but she’s younger, a total mess and so, so fucking dangerous to me.

  This little slip of a girl could bring me low, could bring me to my knees.

  I can already tell even if I’ve spent less than forty minutes in her presence.

  Fuck, less than five minutes in, I already wanted to say fuck it, pick her up, throw her over my shoulder fireman-style and take her upstairs and to my bed.

  I could actually see myself doing it in a loop.

  My eyes devouring her petite curvy body and those lips of hers, so soft-looking, so plump, fuck I don’t know what I would give —or rather, what I wouldn’t give— to bend over her, grab that silky mane of dark blonde hair and kiss her deep and fast, letting my tongue do to her sassy mouth what my hard cock wants to do to the tiny pussy she hides under all of that bravado and that blatant disrespect.

  She turned my conference room in a disaster zone, papers all over the fucking place in messy heaps. She called me arrogant and Mr. Bossy-Pants to my fucking face, I should be pissed all the fucking way off, not turned the fuck on!

  And what’s with all the cussing?!

  I don’t ever curse so much, not even to myself, but with her around me it feels like every three syllables I utter, I wanna use the word ‘fuck’ in my sentence for fuck’s sake.

  It doesn’t take a genius to understand the subtext here: I wanna fuck her. I wanna fuck her so good and hard, we’d both end up sore and unable to walk for a week.

  My cock used to not give two-fucks about the little attention he has gotten over the years and one look, one word from this impertinent little scrapper and suddenly it’s like I’m about to explode: I don’t think I’ve ever been this hard in my life, it can’t be healthy, and the rush is such I’m almost lightheaded.

  I kept the little firecracker talking about every single aspect of their firm and the display, I just couldn’t get enough of looking at her, of hearing her sweet voice.

  Fuck, she’s so fucking my type apparently!

  I didn’t even know I had a type, I do now: I’m an Alexa Tinley kind of guy.

  Her spunky attitude, her plush-looking curves, her warm eyes, that mouth, those golden strands and those black-rimmed glasses perched on her little button nose.

  I wanna kiss her all over.

  I wanna sink myself deep inside her and never find my way out.

  God, help me: I wanna fucking cuddle her.

  I don’t cuddle. It’s not my fucking thing.

  I work. I sleep. I work some more, and I make money, that’s what I do. Period.

  And now this little pretty spitfire has managed to turn me inside out and I want to have ‘things’ with her.

  Naked things, hot things, important things, family things, happy things, forever kind of things.

  She’s ruining me in real time, and I can’t seem to find it in myself to stop her.

  It’s like I was waiting for this very thing to happen, for her to come and mess up my perfect, but lonely world. She’s the spark I was missing. The spark I didn’t know I was needed.

  She’s like all my wet-dreams wrapped up into one powerful lust-induced, wide-awake coma of arousal.

  The more I pushed, the more confrontational she grew, the hotter she got in my eyes.

  Chemistry has never sounded sexier to me than when it drops from her pouty, sassy mouth.

  She hasn’t backed down, not once.

  She went on the offensive even.

  And all the while there I was, pleasantly surprised that she had chosen to do so, and even more astonished that the realization was pleasing to me in the first place.

  I like that she has fire, I don’t care if it burns me in the end.

  I feel my dick stiffen further and grow down the leg of my slacks, it’s a miracle she hasn’t noted it yet, I’m by no means a small guy.

  And whatever this is, it’s not just physical either: I don’t feel this simply in my cock, I feel it in my blood, in my heart, in my very soul and breath.

 
I didn’t even know you could be so sure of something intangible, invisible.

  But I am sure.

  This woman, this little firecracker, this tiny person so strong and yet so fragile, with such fire in her eyes and behind her every word, she’s mine and she needs me to take care of her, to love her, to protect her, always.

  And I love the thought of it, I love it.

  What the fuck?

  I can’t believe what I’m thinking!

  I’m not this type of man, I don’t do this, I don’t chase skirts, I’ve got no time for it, but her…

  Damn, her I would chase to the end of the earth and back.

  How can I feel this way this fucking fast?

  My brother’s words from only a few days ago echo in my head.

  ‘If you had a wife like mine—'

  Stop right the fuck there!

  I so don’t like where this is going.

  And she’s looking up at me now, her lips moist and inviting, her big hazel eyes so sweet, so confused.

  I lick my lips, resisting the temptation posed by hers and reach down to take off her glasses instead.