Читать книгу A Sinful Little Christmas - J. Margot Critch - Страница 12

ALANA RUBBED HER temples and rolled her neck. Another tension headache had taken up residence in the back of her brain, neck and shoulders. Her head pounded and she closed her eyes, trying to make the pain dissipate. She’d taken her pill—as prescribed—and a couple over-the-counter painkillers, but no amount of medication would make her feel better. When she felt like this, when the stress and tightness wouldn’t let up, she knew there was only one way to relax—sex.

It had been a day. Not only had her best friends gone over her head and, without her knowing, brought in a guy to manage her club, but Alana blew out a breath as she admitted she was wildly attracted to the arrogant, gorgeous man they’d hired. Feeling the temperature in the room rise, she pulled back her hair into a loose bun. She was due for a little fun—it had been so long since she’d had any. Heading down to Di Terrestres would be a good cap to a crappy day. She called downstairs to the suite host, Andre.

“Hi, Andre, is my room ready?”

Over the phone, she heard his fingers tap on his tablet. “Yes, ma’am, it’s been a while since you’ve used it.”

“Don’t remind me,” she told him. “I’ll be down shortly.”

“See you soon.”

Alana disconnected the call and quickly texted Eric, an acquaintance of hers who was always ready to hook up. Not many men were okay with lying down and letting a woman take control, but he never seemed to mind.

Finished working for the day, Alana cleared away her desk, and shut her laptop. She stood and picked up her purse, glancing at her phone to see that Eric had responded to her message almost immediately and told her he was on his way. Perfect.

Alana made her way downstairs. Sure, Eric was a good-looking guy, and always showed her a fun time, but as she used the private elevator from her top-floor office down to Di Terrestres, she couldn’t stop herself from wishing that it was Michael Paul meeting her in her suite. But that was a thought she couldn’t afford to entertain. She’d stared him down, had won the first confrontation, but she knew it wasn’t over. He didn’t even flinch when she gave him her best Head Bitch in Charge stare, and threatened to put his balls in her purse. That showed he was tenacious, sure. But there was no way she was handing over the reins to Di Terrestres—her baby—to just any random guy her idiot friends brought in, no matter how qualified. She pictured the shock on his face when she handed over her dry cleaning stubs, and chuckled as she remembered his outrage at being treated like an errand boy.

She bypassed the crowd of regulars on the main floor of the club, not even looking up to the Brotherhood’s usual table to see if they were up there, because she didn’t care. She made her way to the suites and smiled at Andre, who stood at the host table at the bottom of the staircase.

“Eric is on his way, Ms. Carter. You can head on up,” he said, presenting her with the electronic key fob to open the door to her preferred room. Once inside, she went to the small, fully stocked bar, and poured a finger of white tequila into a small glass, and followed it up with a splash of soda water. She took a swallow, and walked into the small en suite bathroom. The liquor warmed her from the inside, and soothed her frayed nerves, and succeeded in loosening her up a little, shaking off her confrontation with Michael.

In front of the full-length mirror, she shook off her blazer and unbuttoned her shirt then pushed her skirt over her thighs. The need for physical release pulsed through her and she didn’t want to waste any time getting naked once Eric showed up. In her matching black bra and panties, and favorite pair of black stilettos, she liked what she saw.

She brushed her hair back with her fingers, and did a shimmy in her bra to push her already-ample breasts higher. Checking the time, she guessed Eric would be there soon. She knew he looked forward to their infrequent encounters. She checked out her figure in the mirror as she reapplied her cherry-red lipstick, and she smiled. Hell, can you blame him?

Michael’s face was set in a frustrated frown as he crossed the floor of Di Terrestres. He’d come to Vegas ready to get to work, to put everything in his past behind him and put down roots in a new city. To start a new successful life. But as he slung the plastic dry cleaning bags over his forearm, he shook his head. There was one thing standing in his way of that. Alana.

So far, his first day had included pissing off his new boss, then hitting on her, then being sent to pick up her dry cleaning. But he wanted to do more work than that. He was restless.

Normally, there was a way for him to ease his restlessness—sex. It was plenty available in Vegas, especially at Di Terrestres, but he wasn’t interested in taking part in the activities at the club. He had to focus his time and energy on work, to make a good first impression on his new bosses. He’d already blown that to hell with Alana, he knew. But he had to be on his best behavior going forward.

Whether she knew it or not, she’d kicked his ass all over her office. But the thing was, he’d kind of liked it. He was a dominant type, he liked control—in every aspect of his life—and he’d identified the same traits in Alana. She ran one of the most well-known erotic clubs in the country, and was known internationally. He knew from experience that it wasn’t an easy job, and he respected that. It couldn’t have been easy being her—and that was most likely the reason for the walls she had erected around her—he could see them, felt them. But even though she was his boss, he was confident that with a little persistence, he could break them down.

He recalled the way she narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips at him. Standing face-to-face with her had stiffened his dick, and he’d wanted to reach out and kiss her. But he didn’t. As well as being a sucker for punishment, he was a professional. He needed the fresh start that she and her friends had given him. And keeping it in his pants to do the job was imperative.

He scanned Di Terrestres as he headed for the private suites. They had put him up in a room there until he could find a suitable place of his own. His room was well equipped but on the small side, and he knew he would need to find something bigger once he got settled in the city. Looking around the club, during peak hours, he was able to see the crowds that flocked to Di Terrestres. The people who gathered for the drinks and conversation that preluded a night at an erotic club. The energy felt so close to that of his own place, and he felt it snap and sizzle through his blood. He couldn’t wait to get down to work. Pull his weight and show Gabe, Alana and the others that they had made the best decision in bringing him aboard.

He came to the staircase, and, nodding at Andre, the host he’d met earlier, Michael bounded up the stairs, removing the electronic fob from his pocket. He stopped outside his room, and held the key over the pad to unlock the door. Shifting Alana’s dry cleaning to his other arm, he entered his suite.

His bags were still packed, sitting by the door, the room still neat and unlived-in, but there was something out of place. A black patent leather purse was left on the small table. The bottle of tequila had been taken from its place in the wet bar and left out of place.

“It’s about time you got here,” someone called from the bathroom. He knew the feminine voice, even though it was tinged with a bit of humor, and not the anger he’d heard in it earlier. But he waited, shocked and silent by the door, still holding the plastic bags of clothing as he heard the click of stilettos on the tile floor as she got closer, and he could picture the red soles on the bottom of her shoes. He knew exactly who would turn the corner to enter the room, but nothing prepared him for the vision of Alana Carter—his new boss—standing before him in her bra and panties and expensive high heel shoes.

Her smile faltered when she saw him, and not the person she’d been expecting. They stood several feet apart, watching each other. She finally spoke, making no effort to cover herself. He was grateful for that. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Alana might have looked amazing in her suit earlier that day, but wearing nothing but her undergarments and high heels, she was something else. “This is my room,” Michael told her. “Gabe arranged it. I’m staying here until I can find a place of my own. What are you doing here?”

“This is my private suite,” she told him. As if she had just realized she was nearly naked in front of him, she whipped the top blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her perfect body. She shook her head. “You need to get out of here.”

Michael made no move to leave. “Where am I supposed to stay?” he challenged. “All of my things are here. And I have a key,” he said, dangling the fob from his fingers.

She shook her head. “There must have been some kind of mistake. A mix-up. This sort of thing shouldn’t happen here.”

For once, they were on the same page. A mistake like that could be dangerous, and costly for the club, and for more than one reason he was grateful that it had been him and Alana who’d been the unwitting victims of the blunder. “I don’t know what happened, maybe Gabe put me here so I wouldn’t be using a room for guests.” He let his eyes run up and down her partially covered body. His heart stuttered in his chest as it pumped all of his blood southward. “But we can deal with it later.”

There was a knock on the door. Michael inclined his head in the direction of the door. “You expecting someone else?”

“As a matter of fact, I was.”

Michael chuckled, enjoying seeing the unflappable Alana off her game again. He headed to the door and opened it. On the other side he saw a man, just as tall as he was, just as built. The anticipation in his smile dropped as did the corners of his lips when he saw Michael standing there.

“Who are you?” the other man asked.

“I’m Michael,” he explained. “You should probably leave, though, mate. I don’t know about you, but I’m not quite looking for a three-way tonight.”

The man looked over Michael’s shoulder to Alana. “Everything okay?”

Alana, still wrapped in the blanket, inserted herself between them. “Everything is fine, Eric. I’m sorry about this, but you should leave.”

Eric took one last look at Alana, still wrapped in her blanket. “All right. If you’re sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

Eric nodded, having lost the battle. Michael understood the disappointment the other man must have been feeling, to have such a promising night with this woman snatched away from his grasp.

Alana shut the door and headed back to the bathroom, and Michael knew that she was going to get dressed.

“Is this why I had to pick up your dry cleaning?” he teased, and she stopped and turned to face him. “So you could find the time to get fucked by some bloke named Eric?”

“It’s really none of your business,” she insisted, grabbing the dry cleaning bags from the dresser.

Michael cracked a smile. “Although I must say, you’re sending me some mixed messages. Telling me you’ll put my balls in your purse and then asking me to pick up your lingerie.” Her eyes widened as she flipped through the items. She must have forgotten the delicate nature of the things she’d directed him to pick up. “I have to tell you, though, you look good in black—” he nodded at the bra and panties she was wearing under the blanket “—but I really like the red thing.”

Alana huffed out a breath. Michael laughed, and he knew that just made her angrier. He was having fun, and it gave him a sick kind of thrill to know that he frustrated her so much.

“Don’t worry, my dry cleaning will never again be on your to-do list.”

“Too bad,” he said with a shrug and a deep chuckle.

“I’m getting dressed,” she told him, heading again for the bathroom.

“Stop,” he commanded her, his voice just above a whisper. She did as he said and turned. He couldn’t tell if the flare of her nostrils was from fury or desire. He would put his money on a combination of both. He took a step closer. “You know, this might have been a mix-up, us ending up in the same room, but there’s no reason we should squander this opportunity.”

As he stood in front of her, she tilted her head upward, looking him in the eye. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe we were both thrown together in here for a reason. Like fate.”

“You believe in fate?”

If he believed in fate, he considered it a fickle bitch, given his recent past. Especially since the first woman he’d had a sexual interest in in the past couple of months, the one standing in front of him almost naked, was his boss.

He took a step closer. The blanket she’d wrapped around herself brushed against his chest. The contact made him tense up. “I can feel the sexual tension between us, and I know you can, too.”

“Oh, you really think so?”

“I know so.” He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and raised her face to meet his. “I don’t know the reasons why, but I know you don’t want me here. But I am here, and I’m not going anywhere, so no matter how cold you are to me, or how many meaningless tasks you give me, I’m going to stick it out and do my job, and that’s to run this club like I know how.”

“This is my club,” she told him. “You’ll do exactly what I say, when I say it, and you’ll thank me for the orders.” Her voice was firm, but the tremble of her lip told him that she was unsure.

But he took a deep breath, and inhaled her scent. Light, citrusy, breezy, playful—so unlike the woman who wore it. “Sure, but you have to know that I’m not a man who takes orders.” He hooked his finger underneath the blanket she’d wrapped around her body and it fell to the ground, again leaving her in only her bra and panties.

She gasped, but made no movement to cover herself. “That’s too bad,” she told him, pulling back from his touch. “I’m your boss. And I give orders.”

“I’m just asking for a chance to do my job without you micromanaging me.”

She cleared her throat. “We’ll see how it goes. I expect to have complete oversight. But I’m sure we can come to some sort of an understanding.”

“Would that understanding include both of us staying in this room tonight? We can work out whatever this tension is between us? You’re a beautiful, sensual woman, and I want you. I know you like what you see when you look at me. Let’s explore this. See where it goes.”

She hesitated, and he wondered if she might agree. He hoped to God that she would because the desire that racked his body was bound to snap him in two.

“No,” she said firmly. Michael stepped back from her, giving her space—that was the magic word, and he took it very seriously. “You work for me.” She now looked perfectly lucid and waved her hands between them. “This can’t happen.” Pushing past him, she walked back into the bathroom.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I’m getting dressed,” she told him, slamming the door after her. Michael went to the wet bar and picked up the bottle of tequila she’d moved earlier and drank straight from the bottle in an attempt to quiet his raging hormones. In a couple of minutes, she came back into the room, fully dressed and holding her dry cleaning bags. She was once again the unflappable businesswoman. “Listen, Michael,” she said, pointing a finger in his face. “Nothing is going to happen between us. This was all a horrible mistake.”

She left the room and slammed the door behind her. Already Michael had had two encounters with his new boss. Even though he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another woman, he knew that she was right. They shared an intense connection, and he knew that they would have an amazing night together, but maybe it would be best for them to remain professional. He looked down and saw the way his dick had tented his slacks. Tell that to his body.