Total pages in book: 224
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
It’s after six when I enter the West offices, fully committed to pushing Carrie. She needs to be pushed. She needs to feel this pain, and I will make sure she damn sure learns from this. Sallie’s desk is empty, giving me a clear path. I walk to Carrie’s door, open it, and enter to find her on the phone, her perfect ivory skin flushing at the sight of me. “Yes, Joe,” she says quickly on the phone. “It all sounds interesting, but I’ll need to call you back. Yes. Thanks. Bye.”
By the time she hangs up, I’m in front of her, my hands on her desk, and I’m staring into her stunned, emerald green eyes. “Joe Michaels, Rick Smith, and Kent Moore,” I state. “They will not return tomorrow. Fire them.” I push off the desk and walk toward the door.
“What’s going on?” she demands.
I turn to look at her. “For once, prove you can do something I want without making me fight you on it.” I turn and leave.
I exit her office and cross the expanse of the lobby before entering my temporary office and it is temporary. I’ve barely made it in the door before Carrie is behind me and I snap. I shut the door before she can, lock it, and shackle her wrist, pulling her to me. “Do not chase me down after I tell you to do something. Just fucking do what I say for once.”
She grabs my tie and not gently, her voice a low rasp of anger. “I’m not calling three employees in here while you’re in a temper tantrum without knowing why.”
“If I wanted you to know it in advance,” I bite out, “I’d tell you.”
“Why am I firing them?” she demands. “They’re all long-term employees.”
“Who’ve been stealing from the company?”
She pales. “What does that mean?”
“It means prospect lists, proposals, and everything in between. You should have known. Your job—”
“I suggested cybersecurity and my father rejected it as an unnecessary expense. I didn’t have control and you know it.”
“Now you’re just making excuses.” I release her before I fuck her the way I want to fuck her, and walk away, taking up a spot at the window, giving her my back, telling her to leave. Telling her to get her ass to her office and do what I’ve told her to do, but I should know by now that’s not Carrie.
“Now you’re just going to extra efforts to be an ass,” she says, her voice right behind me.
I rotate to find her close, so damn close that I could pull her right back to me and inhale that floral scent of hers perpetually scenting the air around her.
“Why, Reid?” she presses. “Because you think I see you a little too clearly? Because you think I saw something about you last night that you don’t want me to know?”
“You see nothing I don’t let you see.”
“Liar,” she accuses, the word a taunt on her tongue.
Worse, she’s right, and I’m pissed all over again, more pissed than I’ve ever been, and it’s all aimed at this woman. My hand snakes out and I catch her hip, dragging her to me, my fingers tangling into her hair.
“What are you doing, Reid?”
“What you wanted when you dared to charge over here and get in my face.”
“I don’t want—”
“Liar,” I say, and I don’t wait for her denial that will be another lie. “You know what I want?”
“To fuck me so you can try to control me? It won’t work.”
“I was thinking I’d like to shut you up for once and I know exactly how.” My mouth closes down on hers.
Chapter fourteen
Reid
Iwant this woman.
I want her in a bad way, and my tongue licks hungrily into her mouth even as I tighten my grip on her hair. Her hand is warm on my chest, but her elbow is stiff, her entire body is stiff, and I don’t accept this from her. I want her submission. I want her to admit she wants like I want, so I deepen the kiss, my hand settling between her shoulder blades, molding her close.
She moans into my mouth, a sexy, aroused sound, but she still fights me. She still shoves weakly at my chest, and her eyes meet mine. “This is just—”
“Hate sex,” I supply. “Works for me.” My mouth slants over hers again, and this time, she doesn’t hold back. She kisses me like she did in that hotel room, her hands sliding under my jacket, over my shirt, and I am hot and hard and ready to be inside her.
I reach up and skim her jacket off her shoulders, my mouth barely leaving hers. I cannot get enough of how she tastes, I damn sure can’t get enough of how she feels, and my hands are all over her, caressing her breasts, my finger ripping away a button of her silk blouse.