Chapter 12 #2
“Unwise but noted.”
Callum reached my desk and I stood up because every instinct I had told me to.
Up close, he looked worse, more tired than yesterday with shadows beneath his eyes and tension at the corners of his mouth.
But that only made him seem more dangerous somehow, like the day had worn away everything decorative and left the hard structure beneath.
His gaze did not drop to the skirt this time. It stayed on my face.
“Miss Hale,” he said.
“Mr. Rowe, good morning.”
“Come with me.”
It was not a question. Then, after one beat, because he was still Callum, because even now some part of him insisted on giving me a choice, his voice lowered.
“If you want to.”
The whole office continued working around us, a thousand small sounds pretending this was an ordinary exchange between a CEO and his new employee.
I looked at Callum, swallowing hard before I lifted my chin.
“I want to,” I answered quietly.
His eyes darkened and only then did he reach out for me.
He took my arm lightly, just above the elbow, a touch that could pass for guidance if anyone looked too quickly, his fingers warm through the sleeve of my blouse.
It was professional enough to survive witnesses, yet it was firm enough that my body understood it as anything but.
He led me away from my desk. My tote remained beneath it. My computer stayed awake. The operations guide lay open to page twenty-eight as if document routing could continue being relevant in a universe where Callum Rowe had just come to my desk to fetch me for a private meeting in his office.
We moved through the operations floor. People noticed, but they didn’t make a thing of it.
Rowe Structural seemed to employ people trained in advanced peripheral vision.
Eyes flicked up and away while a conversation paused for perhaps a heartbeat too long.
Dana, standing near the conference room, watched us with an expression that gave away nothing and probably recorded everything.
Benjamin walked several paces behind us, already speaking into a phone.
“Yes,” he said crisply. “Move it to eleven-thirty. No, not cancel. Shift. Tell Marcus to breathe into a bag if necessary. No, not literally. Actually, perhaps literally.”
Callum’s hand remained on my arm until we reached the quieter hallway leading toward his office. Then his hand slid from my arm to the small of my back and I nearly stumbled.
His palm settled there, warm and broad and certain, right above the tight line of the pencil skirt. He did not press hard. He did not need to. The touch went through the blouse, straight down my spine and into the bare, aching awareness beneath the skirt.
“Steady,” he murmured.
My breath caught, his fingers flexed once at my back, and then we were at his office doors.
Benjamin reached his desk just ahead of us, still on the phone rattling something off. “No, his 11:00 is not a crisis; his 10:45 was. Adjust accordingly.”
Callum shot him a look.
Benjamin covered the receiver. “I am rescheduling with discretion.”
“You are narrating with malice.”
“I multitask.”
Callum opened one of the black doors. The office beyond was all glass and city and bright sunlight.
Files lay open on his desk. A conference call blinked muted on his laptop.
Three legal pads had been filled and pushed aside.
The room looked like a man had been holding a company together by sheer force of will and a concerning amount of coffee.
I stepped inside and Callum followed. The door closed behind us and the disappearance of the office noise into a soft, sealed hush swept over me. My pulse beat everywhere.
He did not touch me, at least not yet.
He stood behind me, close enough that I could feel the heat of him at my back.
I could hear the regulated drag of his breathing.
I looked out through the glass at the city far below, all bright roofs and moving traffic and people who had no idea that my entire life had narrowed to the space between a closed door and the man behind me.
Then I heard the lock turn. The sound was quiet, but it moved through me like a living thing.
I turned around to see him standing there, watching me, not too close, certainly not far, hands loose at his sides, his eyes darker than I’d ever seen them.
The city moved behind us, light sliding over his suit, his shoulders, the angular line of his jaw.
He looked like a man who was used to being in complete control, who had spent the last several days exercising that control, but who had woken up this morning and chosen to ignore it.
There was no sign of the man who had kissed me yesterday, no trace of softness, no visible surrender.
Only a promise in his eyes that made me shiver.
For a long moment, we said nothing. The air felt thick and tense. Then he spoke, low and firm.
“Unbutton your blouse.”
I swallowed, my throat dry.
“Three buttons,” he specified, his voice dropping lower. “I want to see you.”
My fingers moved before my courage could fail.
I fumbled the first button, then steadied my shaking hands.
The ivory fabric parted, revealing the lace-lined nude bra I had worn because it was practical and because I had not dared wear anything else.
I undid the second button, then the third.
Cool air touched my skin. I left the blouse hanging open, my chest rising and falling faster now.
“Good girl.”
The words shot straight to my core. It took all my self-control to convince my knees not to buckle.
He moved forward then, unhurried, still watching me like he was taking inventory of every detail.
When he reached me, he did not stop. He stepped close, lifting one hand to the collar of my blouse, tugging it aside to expose more of my shoulder, the curve of my neck, and the delicate strap of the bra.
His thumb brushed the hollow above my collarbone, and I shuddered. His eyes dropped to my mouth.
“Yesterday, you said yes to this.”
“Yes.” My eyes watched his mouth.
“You can say no today. Right here. Right now.”
I shook my head.
The corners of his mouth tightened with what looked like satisfaction and restraint fighting each other.
“You rolled your eyes at me yesterday, young lady.” His voice scraped roughly over the words.
“I did.”
“Did you think I would let that go?”
I looked up at him, feeling the blush rise in my cheeks.
“No,” I whispered.
“No, what?”
“No, I didn’t think you’d let that go, sir.”
He smiled then, just a small, dangerous curve of his mouth.
“Good,” he replied. “Because I won’t.”
Then he leaned in, locking eyes with mine. My gaze flicked down to his mouth and back up to his darkened eyes and my core fluttered with need.
“You want me to kiss you, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I whispered so softly that my voice was hardly audible.
“I want to kiss you too, but I’m going to punish you first,” he growled.
Then his hand slid into my hair, and he yanked my head back, making me gasp.
“Bend over my desk,” he ordered, keeping his hand fisted in my hair as he guided me forward. “Now.”
He walked me around his desk to the smooth, polished wood surface, nudging me forward until my hips pressed against the edge. With firm hands on my waist, he bent me over it and my chest landed flat against the cool surface.
I felt him step back, his eyes devouring the sight of me bent over his desk, my black skirt stretched tight across my ass.
“Jesus Christ, Avery,” he breathed, his voice rough with desire. “You actually came to work like this.”
His hand moved to the hem of my skirt, and with deliberate slowness, he began to lift it, exposing inch after inch of my calves and thighs, but pencil skirts were not easy to lift over your hips and the narrow fabric bunched around my upper thighs.
“It will be hard to get it over my hips,” I said, my face burning with shame and arousal. “It’s meant to be taken off downwards, not up.”
“Good,” he growled. “Because I want to ruin it.”
He yanked it up roughly over my hips, the sound of fabric tearing filling the office as he exposed my bare ass to his view.
Each stitch he ripped through thundered through the office until the fabric fell away and then I was completely bare from the waist down.
I heard his shocked intake of breath when he realized I had obeyed him completely.
I shifted from one foot to the other, shamefully aware that my godfather’s eyes were on my bare ass and my boss was looking at my bare pussy.
My shameful arousal spiraled up through me like a category five tornado.
“Fuck me,” he muttered, one big hand coming to rest on my exposed cheek. “You’re soaked, aren’t you?”
I whimpered in response, too embarrassed to answer.
“Answer me,” he commanded, his hand squeezing my ass firmly.
“Yes,” I gasped. “I’m wet… for you.”
His hand moved between my thighs, fingers finding my dripping pussy with shocking ease. He groaned when he felt how ready I was.
“Spread your legs.”
I did as I was told.
“You’re dripping down your thighs,” he observed, sliding one finger through my wetness. “Did you sit through your training like this? Were you sitting at your desk with your bare pussy thinking about what I was going to do to you in this office?”
“Yes,” I admitted, my face burning hotter. “I couldn’t focus on anything else.”
“That’s because you’re a dirty girl who needs her ass spanked hard,” he murmured, removing his hand from between my legs. I heard him inhale, groan, and then the sound of him sucking my juices off his fingers. I wanted to disintegrate with shame.
“You’re going to spank me?” I whimpered.
“You rolled your eyes at your boss and then came to work without panties like a little slut,” he retorted, his voice low and commanding. “What did you think was going to happen?”