Leather and Lace Read online

  I barely listen to him. I’m practically melting and these photos aren’t even that risqué. I would literally be a puddle on the floor if they were. The feeling of his hard body, even through our clothes, has me so turned on, but at the same time, I’m terrified, too afraid I’ll start moaning when he grabs my lower back and pulls me in close. I’m not complaining. I’d do this every day, but what the hell business magazine is this? And what kind of job is this?

  Francois notices, scowling. “For God’s sake, girl, look like you’re enjoying it! I’m sure there’s plenty of others around here who’d take your spot in a second!”

  Oh, hell no. He’s mine. All mine. And equally important, this opportunity is mine, and I’m not going to blow it over some silly school-girl nerves. I’ve played this part a million times, fooled people better than Francois, and I can do it now if that’s what it takes.

  So I smile and look up at Mr. Blackstone as innocently as I can despite what’s going on inside my head or the desire that’s coursing through my body.

  “Perfect!” Francois yells. “Now put your hand on his chest!”

  My heart pounds, but I play my part, placing my hand on his chest. Oh, my God. Just as hard as I imagined. I want to roam my hand up and down, feel every ridge in his muscles. But he grabs around my wrist, holding me in place, still in charge even though I’m touching him.

  There’s another series of shutter clicks.

  Mr. Blackstone looks down at me. “Put your hand on my thigh.”

  It seemed different when the photographer was telling me what to do, less personal. But when the demand is from Mr. Blackstone himself, it feels intimate. I hesitate a fraction of a second but obey.

  He smirks, giving me a ‘good girl’ nod.

  Oh. My. God. My hand is mere inches from my boss’s junk! And I swear . . . no way! He’s hard!

  “Relax, doll,” he whispers, the name between the two of us. “You’re about to fall to pieces. I won’t bite.”

  The words pop out before I can think to stop them, flirty and full of my character’s sass. “Too bad.” His brows lift in surprise at my quick response. Hell, I’m surprised at my comeback too. I try to temper my words and find some semblance of professionalism. “I’m not scared,” I protest, faking it if I can’t really be sure what the hell I’m doing. “Just not what I thought my work duties were going to entail today.”

  Mr. Blackstone’s grin fades a little and he lowers his lips to just an inch from my ear, his breath sending hot chills down my spine as he whispers, “Your work today involves doing what you’re told.”

  “Hold his belt!” Francois quips, as if he heard Mr. Blackstone’s words.

  Determined to prove I’m not a scared little girl, I grab his leather belt and give it a tug. I want to look down and get a peek, but I’m not quite that bold. I can feel him, hot and hard, just a fraction of an inch from my hand, so close I can almost feel him.

  Francois’s murmurs of ‘yes’ and ‘just like that’ are getting to me, making me feel like maybe I’m doing okay with this crazy situation, and I find myself starting to get into it, so I swing my foot up, my skirt stretching tight across my ass and thighs, to show off my stiletto heels. Instinctively, Mr. Blackstone reaches down and catches me under the knee, gazing at me with lust in his eyes. I can see the promise of heat in their depths, of things I don’t understand, don’t know, but I can fake it. I always have. And with him, it’s oddly easy to let the desire wash through me, more real than my usual imitation.

  We do a couple more shots, but just like that, it’s over.

  “And we’re a wrap! Thank you both!” he yells, clapping his hands. “Now let’s get cleaned up and out of Mr. Blackstone’s space.”

  We pull apart, our bodies beginning to get a bit hot and sweaty. My pulse is pounding, and my pussy throbs with every beat of my heart, screaming to be taken. No more waiting. Right now. Mr. Blackstone is the one. Fuck, I’ve never felt like this. I’m always the one in control of myself, my body, my image. But I feel oddly swept away with him right now, filled with a wild lust I’ve always scoffed at, but suddenly, it’s happening to me.

  His eyes are slightly dilated, his cock tenting his slacks as he looks at me, but before we can say anything, I’m ushered away to change out of the magazine’s wardrobe.

  I’m approached and given a check, two hundred dollars, but right now, I don’t care about the money. I just want to get back to Mr. Blackstone. I want . . . more. More of that magnetism, that connection I felt, the look in his eyes when my hand was on his chest or when he cupped the back of my head and stared down at me. I’ve never felt that rush of attraction, not like that, not that real.

  But it must’ve been one-sided because Mr. Blackstone, for his part, seems to quickly forget about me as he’s surrounded by crew. Other than casually reaching down to adjust his cock and get it pointing somewhere other than straight out, I could have disappeared and never existed.

  Before I can do anything, I’m quickly shown to the elevator door. I look back, and I see him talking on his phone while directing two other people, and I’m left with a feeling of surrealness. Did this really just happen?

  Chapter 2

  Liam

  Fucking beautiful.

  Naughty perfection.

  The angel next door with a dollop of the devil inside.

  There are so many ways I could describe the little minx who just left my arms. At first, she seemed so uncertain and innocent, unaware of how my eyes were already tracking her sexy curves from across the room. I’d even had a flash of possessiveness when she’d been speaking to Jacob, who thankfully ignored her. But her nervousness faded away when I took control, and she reared back, rising to the challenge. Feisty minx. That only makes me want more.

  Fuck. I’d love to show her what taking control is all about. I want to be the voice in her ear, whispering to the devil inside her that she wants it, even as her better nature is telling her she should run from me. She could run, but the chase sounds exciting, definitely more so than the women who usually throw themselves at me. No, something tells me that Arianna isn’t one of those types. She’d make me work for it, earn it, and in return, I’d make her beg.

  I was about to ask her more about her time here at Morgan until everyone surrounded me, shoving water in my face, kissing my ass, and generally wasting my precious time. In the few moments it took for me to get rid of them, she disappeared nearly as quickly as she came. Like a mirage, an oasis of beautiful reality in this vast desert of brown-nosing fakers. If not for my hard cock and the pictures Francois is flipping through, I’d wonder if I’d imagined her.

  “Do you like this shot?” Francois asks, showing me the initial downloaded shots on his tablet. “I need you to tell me which ones you prefer.”

  I glance down at the tablet, sighing inwardly because I know my opinion isn’t going to matter for shit when Helen gets the images. She’ll pick what she wants, my preferences be damned. Not that I care. They’re all good shots. “Yeah, go with that.”

  I still swipe through the rest of them, remembering how she felt so close to me. In each shot, my eyes are drawn to Arianna, the fire in her eyes and the naughty sexuality oozing from her. I tower over her, but she’s still powerful, and I have to swallow when I see the image of me holding her leg up. I can actually see a flash of baby blue between her legs. My God, was I that close to her little pussy that her panties could be seen?

  “This one,” I say, pointing to the shot but covering the space between her legs with my finger. Francois looks over, an evaluative eye scanning the shot as he hums. “Send it to my email now. And then delete it.”

  He tilts his head. “That’s not . . . I can’t . . .” He tries to argue, and I’m sure there’s some photography code or magazine clause I’m asking him to break, but under the weight of my glare, he starts tapping on the screen. “Done, Mr. Blackstone. Sent and deleted.” He looks at me curiously, but I don’t have a single shred of intention of explaining
myself to him.

  I flip through the rest and Francois nods. “Great. I’ll get the photo editors on these right away. They might want to have Cassie’s head Photoshopped on her body—”

  “The fuck? No,” I growl, cutting him off. “She stays.”

  “But—”

  I give him a look that says I’m not fucking around, and he goes pale, like he wants to argue but doesn’t. “Yes, sir,” he agrees, then walks off.

  The crew is clearing out, all the fancy equipment that’s been cluttering my office disappearing faster than you’d think possible. I’m eager to have my space back to myself so I can get some actual work done today.

  Jacob approaches, perching next to me on my desk. He’s probably the only person I’d let get away with that. “Hey,” Jacob whispers, trying to keep his voice low, “The magazine specifically wanted you with that Cassie chick. She’s Instagram famous or some shit, so I don’t know if they’re going to run it with some random intern on the cover, even if she is hot as sin.”

  I cut my eyes at him. I want to say something, but Jacob has been my friend and confidant since college and he doesn’t mean anything. He’s my right-hand man who followed me to Morgan as a package deal. He’s the slow and steady brains to my risk-taking gut-following. We’re a good team. But right now, I want to knock the shit out of him for even noticing Arianna.

  I remind myself to cool it. He’s just giving me a heads-up, and Arianna’s beauty was apparent to everyone in the room. She’s got the looks that make guys want her and girls want to be her, even though she wasn’t showy or flashy about it at all. In fact, she might’ve been trying to disguise it to some degree, her skirt fitting but not too tight, her shirt buttoned over her lush cleavage to be professional, her makeup daytime subtle. It wasn’t until the photo crew fixed her up that her bad-girl fuck-goddess was so readily obvious. But I’d noticed her before they’d sexed her up, had already seen beneath the polished surface.

  “They’d better, or there won’t be a cover. See to it. Arianna’s on the cover with me or no deal,” I say crisply.

  Jacob looks at me in shock but quickly scans my face, reading me like an open book. “Whatever you say. Consider it done.” He narrows his eyes, his curiosity piqued, and that’s never a good thing. I wait for the interrogation, knowing it’s coming. “Anything we need to discuss, Liam?”

  “No,” I say, not leaving room for further questions. “But I do need one more thing.”

  “What’s that?” Jacob asks, lowering his phone where he’s probably already emailing Helen about my stipulations since he’s so damn good at his job.

  “Find out who Arianna reports to and get back to me.”

  He’s got that look on his face that tells me I’m doing something that he calls ‘fuck stupid’, but I don’t care. “Dude, are you trying to—”

  My look silences him, and he sighs. “I’m going on the record now that I’m against this, whatever this is. Man, you can’t chase pussy around the office. ‘Don’t shit where you eat’ is a saying for a good fucking reason. And an intern? Really, Liam? I can see the HR nightmare coming already.”

  I glare at him, letting his argument roll right off me. I do what I want and we both damn well know it.

  He clenches his jaw, and I know I’ll hear more on this, but for now, he gives in. “All right, I’ll get that for you as soon as possible. You put me in charge of the interns anyway. It’s in my office somewhere.”

  “Good. And tell them to hurry up and clean this place up. I want work back to normal here in an hour.”

  Jacob leaves, and I settle in my chair, one thing and one thing only on my mind.

  Getting Arianna in my arms again.

  * * *

  After the photoshoot is over, whirlwind only begins to describe the rest of the day. I quickly get bogged down by work and two conference calls, and I temporarily forget about what happened earlier.

  Temporarily.

  Now, as the last glow from the setting sun fades to deep purple in the west, I can’t stop thinking about her as I sit in my office, my back turned to the door while I watch the city from the floor-to-ceiling windows that give me a commanding view of downtown.

  Those brown eyes. That smile. The way her tits felt pressed against me . . .

  My thoughts of Arianna are interrupted by my phone ringing, and I turn away from the skyline, my cock yet again hard in my slacks. It’s probably the worst time for a stiffie, considering whose customized ringtone, Avicii’s “Hey Brother”, is playing on my phone.

  “Hey, big bro!” my little sister, Norma Jean, chirps sweetly. Just turning twenty this year, she’s the most important person in my life, even if she does push all my buttons sometimes. It’s not her fault she’s still wearing little girl blinders about our asshole of a father—although he’s admittedly been a kinder parent to her than he ever was to me, something I think Norma Jean’s mother had a heavy hand in. Maybe if my own mother had been stronger, I would’ve had a different father-son relationship with him too. But that ship sailed long ago.

  “Hey, NJ!” I say. “What’s up? I’m a little busy.”

  “Oh, please.” Norma laughs. “I know your schedule. You’re almost done with work and were probably looking out the window while considering your kingdom and coming up with your next plan to take over the world.”

  Damn, she’s good. Still, I can’t let her know she pegged me exactly right. “I’m never done with work. You know that. And my kingdom is everything the light touches . . . everything,” I say in a wise voice. I must’ve watched The Lion King with her a hundred times when she was young, and I’d wager that she still watches it pretty often, even if we don’t sit down and marathon watch movies together anymore.

  “Slick quote usage, Liam.” I can hear the smile in her voice as she remembers those nights curled up on the couch too. Back then, I’d been barely a teenager and she’d been the toddler little sister my father had sprung on me with his new wife, my stepmom. I’d never felt like I was being replaced simply because I’d never felt like I’d had a place in my dad’s heart to begin with. But Norma Jean did then and still does. Her sweet laughs and strong will had let her worm her way into my heart all too easily back then. “So, Mr. Busy, what did you do today?”

  I secretly love when she does this, call just to catch up. Everyone else wants something from me. She just wants to chat. It’s a rare treat for me. “Oh, a bit of this, some of that, some conference calls, a photoshoot and interview, a few contracts. The usual.”

  Just as I gleefully expected, she screams, “A photoshoot and interview?!? What the hell, Liam? Tell me all about it. You know I live for that stuff.”

  “I know. But it’s hush-hush, top-secret, okay?” She hums her agreement, so I tell her all about the interview with Cutting Edge, making sure to give all the details I know she wants.

  She sighs blissfully. “One day, that’s going to be me. I’m going to be sitting in penthouse offices, interviewing bigwigs, and finding out what makes them tick. I’ll get all the low-down dirt on the country’s biggest companies. And then maybe politicians too—that’s where the real gritty stuff is.”

  I can hear her excitement, her passion, and I smile at how similar to me she sounds. We’re both driven to the point of near-obsession, and we get what we want ninety-nine percent of the time. “You’ll do it too. Get your degree, work your ass off, and you can do anything, Norma.”

  “I did apply for a job at the university newspaper. It’s really competitive, and they mostly only hire seniors, but my interview went really well. Even if I get it, it’ll probably be small human-interest stories for a while, but it’s a start. Cross your fingers for me.”

  I recognize that this is a big deal for her, a reach for something she really wants but isn’t sure she’s ready for. But I know she can handle it. “You don’t need crossed fingers or luck, Sister. You are ballsy and brave and have more brains than just about anyone I know. You’d be a perfect journalist for a hell of
a lot more than puppy adoption stories, and they’ll see that. So swallow those nerves and go get what you want.”

  It’s my version of a pep talk, more ‘work for it’ and less ‘you deserve it’ because I’m well aware we don’t always get what we deserve, but we damn sure get what we work for.

  “Thanks, Liam. That means a lot, especially from you. I tell you what. When I get hired, I’m going to interview you and do an insider’s look at the country’s hottest CEO.”

  I notice she didn’t ask but rather told me, and I smirk at her assumption. Big clanging balls on that girl. Nobody tells me what to do, except her . . . and sometimes Jacob.

  As if my thoughts conjured him, Jacob steps in, and I hold up a finger, having him pause. “Listen, gotta go. Keep working hard and nothing’s going to stop you. Love ya.”

  She responds in kind, and I hang up, turning my attention to Jacob.

  “She’s a college student. Summer internship,” Jacob says quickly, setting a file on my desk. I run my thumb along the label . . . Arianna Hunnington. “She’ll be gone in two weeks until next semester . . . assuming we bring her back.”

  I tap my fingers on the file, quickly fingering out a quick little rap beat as I think. Two weeks to make her mine.

  Or to make her stay.

  Either way . . . I’ll have my way.

  “I can almost see the dirty thoughts running across your face and I’d like to reiterate my stance that this is a bad fucking idea. A human. Resources. Nightmare. With a side serving of PR shit show for the company you’re supposed to be taking into the next market wave. Liam?” Jacob asks harshly as I finish my beat.

  “I want her moved up here,” I declare, turning to him and completely tuning out his reasoning. He’s right, he almost always is, but I don’t care this time. “Starting tomorrow, she’ll be my secretary.”