Chapter 16 #2
“As cute as you look, being bold and begging for my cock, I’ve still got meetings, Princess.” Although the temptation to clear my schedule grows stronger by the second. “And you still have work to finish so I can convince you to come home with me tonight.”
She chuckles at the thinly veiled demand and leans up to straighten my tie. I let her steal a kiss, savoring the quiet moan when she tastes herself on my tongue.
“Get dressed,” I growl, pulling away. “Before you get us both in trouble.”
She pouts at me but reaches down to situate her skirt before she notices something is missing.
“My—where are my panties?” she asks, looking around the room.
I grin at her, leaning back in the chair as I pat my pocket.
“Safe and sound with me,” I say easily. “You don’t need them.”
“But I’m at work,” she says, scandalized.
I arch a brow, looking down at her with a smug twist of my lips. “Unless there’s someone else looking up your skirt, I hardly see how anyone will notice. You don’t need them.”
Her face goes bright red, but she bites her lip and doesn’t argue with me.
“Yes, sir,” she whispers.
God, I’m going to die if she keeps being this good. Or maybe I’m already in heaven.
“Good girl.”
She stands up and tugs her skirt back into place, shivering at the way I watch every movement hungrily. As soon as she’s decent, I tug her back down for one last kiss, savoring the way she melts right into me.
We spring apart when a knock sounds on the door, seconds away from being caught when Sloane walks right in without waiting for permission. Riley’s lips are red and kissed raw, and she’s blushing up a storm, but I glare furiously as Sloane saunters into the room, perfume clogging my nostrils.
Riley clears her throat, not meeting my eyes as she gathers her laptop and notepad.
“I’ll leave the files that you wanted to review on your desk!” she says, a hair too loud and far too normal to be anything but forced. “Let me know if you have any questions, Mr. D’Amico.”
She slips out of the room before I even have a chance to scowl at hearing her call me that, even if I know it’s necessary.
Her nerves over getting caught are understandable, but I would never let anything happen to her.
I want her to know that as much as I want everyone else to know.
The territorial part of me would be thrilled if Sloane had walked in while I still had Riley on her knees begging for me, just to watch her face pale when she realized who Riley belongs to, but I know Riley would be mortified.
It’s best left to fantasy, even if I wish I could mark her as mine for everyone to see.
I’m growing steadily more possessive of her by the day, territorial enough that I want to snap my teeth at Sloane like a dog for daring to intrude.
Sloane turns a smarmy smile toward me, red-painted lips curving upwards as she takes a seat in the chair Riley was in just minutes ago.
“Mr. D’Amico—”
“Get up,” I snap, the protective part of me that wants to ream Sloane for every horrible thing she’s ever done to Riley preening at the way she jumps straight out of the chair like it electrocuted her. “You’re not going to be here long enough to get comfortable.”
She laughs awkwardly, her smile straining. “Sir?”
It’s almost funny how much I hate hearing that word from her mouth when hearing it from Riley makes me melt.
I pluck a stack of papers out of the stack of files to my left and toss it onto the table in front of her.
“This is the single worst risk analysis that’s ever crossed my desk,” I say harshly, sneering at both her and the papers.
I hold a hand up to stop her when she opens her mouth.
“I’m not interested in excuses. Redo it by the end of the day. Properly this time.”
Sloane blusters, her face going an unattractive shade of red beneath her heavy makeup.
“Sir, this isn’t even my work. Tracy must have accidentally—”
“I said I wasn’t interested in excuses,” I cut her off coldly, anger bubbling in my gut at the shameless attempt to push the blame onto her colleagues. “This isn’t a discussion, Sloane. I tell you what to do, and you say yes. Understood?”
The way her emotions flit across her face is laughably pathetic, fury slipping into embarrassment before a spark of curiosity lights in her blue eyes. I grit my teeth against a groan when she props her hip against the conference table and peers down at me with a sad attempt at a sultry smile.
“I understand, sir,” she purrs, somehow managing to miss the way I cringe in disgust. “I’ll always say yes to whatever you ask.”
I glare at her coolly, not hiding the annoyed sneer that curls my lip. She doesn’t seem deterred by it, instead leaning forward to push her tits halfway out of her shirt as she places one palm on the glossy top of the conference table.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s got you so stressed?” she murmurs, tapping her nails on the table and tilting her head to the side invitingly. “Maybe you just need a massage, huh? I’m good with my hands, sir. I’m sure you remember.”
Disgust rolls in my gut even as the blurry memory of the single, unfortunate time I fucked her rolls around in my head.
She was barely adequate, and the only reason I hadn’t kicked her out was because I hadn’t fucked anyone in months.
I didn’t find out she was my employee until months afterward, and I’ve regretted that night more and more with every pathetic pass she makes at me.
Instead of laying into her and saying all that out loud like I want to, I simply push my chair further away from her and arch my brow in disdain.
“Do you have a resume printed?” I ask, disgust rolling off my tongue along with my words.
Sloane laughs like I made a joke, the sound tapering off when I blink, unamused. She stutters out a few syllables before managing a confused, “What?”
I smile coldly at her, all ice and teeth.
“If you keep up with this pathetic, disgusting act, you’re going to be looking for a new job,” I drawl, relishing in the look of horror that crosses her features.
Not only will she be out of a job, but she’ll be shit out of luck finding a new one too. My name holds too much weight to let Sloane worm her way into another firm with her father’s connections. I’ll drive her career straight into the grave if she lays so much as a finger on me.
She blusters in fury, huffing out a laugh full of rage and embarrassment as she snaps upright.
“It’ll be done by five, Mr. D’Amico,” she snips, glaring down her nose at me.
“You’ll do it by five,” I clarify sharply with a raised brow. “Ensure you do your own work, Sloane, or I’ll be taking every mistake I find in the analysis department directly out of your paycheck.”
She looks spitting mad when she snatches the paperwork off the desk and storms out without answering me. A cloud of her perfume lingers after she slams the door, and I scowl at the empty air.
It felt good to knock her down a peg—God knows she deserves it—but it’s not enough.
If Riley hadn’t told me flat out that she didn’t want Sloane fired, I’d have sent the bitch packing the second I found out how long Riley’s been doing Sloane’s work for her.
The last thing I want to do is upset Riley.
If I piss my princess off, she might leave me to survive off the women I used to pick up at Thomas’s club. Just the thought makes me shudder.
My instinctive reaction to the thought of someone other than Riley touching me feels so foreign that it snaps me into an entirely new train of thought, discomfort curling in my gut. I hum in thought as the realization slides uncomfortably into place.
I’ve never cared like this before.
I was faithful in the few past relationships I bothered with, but I’ve never been one to gravitate toward anything serious.
I didn’t cheat, but when something other than my partner snagged my attention, I didn’t stick around either.
Riley and I haven’t really discussed a label for what we are aside from the way I call her mine.
It didn’t occur to me, but not because it doesn’t matter.
No, it never occurred to me because whatever I have with Riley is already more serious than anything I’ve ever had before.
Riley belongs to me—belongs to me like I’m not even willing to consider letting her go sometime down the road. My obsession with Riley has been so one-sided until recently that I never considered how deeply my feelings for her run.
Before I spent much time around her, I assumed we’d go for a roll in the hay and I’d get her out of my system. Over the year and a half that she’s worked here, that assumption slowly faded away, and I didn’t even realize what started to take its place.
Longing. Affection. Hope.
It catches me off guard how much her belonging to me means to me, my heart tripping over itself in my chest at the answering desire echoing through my mind. I want to be hers just as much as I want her to be mine.
Maybe I already am hers.
I’ve never thought about what it would be like to belong to someone like this, and it’s more overwhelming than I could ever put into words.
I’m not prone to nerves, but I can’t deny that I’m anxious at the thought of having something serious. It’s overshadowed by excitement at the thought of having something serious with Riley.
My phone chimes on the desk, and I exhale harshly as I’m yanked back to the present.
I snag my phone from the table and force myself to focus as I skim through the email Marcus’s assistant sent. It’s just the meeting notes, nothing I don’t already know, but it’s mundane enough to keep me from slipping back into my earlier train of thought.
That’s not something to figure out in the middle of the conference room at work. I’ll give myself some time to think about it when I get home. Or tomorrow.
Whenever, just not now.
I stand and make my way out of the conference room, typing up a list of things for Marcus to focus on as I make my way down the hallway toward my office.
A few files are waiting for me on my desk when I shoulder my way in, and I send the email off just as I settle down into my chair. Tucking my phone back into my pocket, I leaf through the files Riley left for me idly, debating which is going to be the biggest pain in the ass.
The files slip as I reach the bottom, falling aside like they’re tipped up a bit by something smaller resting beneath them.
I move them out of the way and hum curiously at the worn leather journal sitting innocuously atop the very last file.
Riley must have gotten it mixed up with the files and accidentally left it for me.
Or she intentionally left it.
I crack it open and flip through until stopping on a random page, my brows arching in pleased surprise as I read the first few sentences that cause a filthy grin to spread across my lips.
Well, what do we have here?