Chapter One
Elle Olsen was either going to strangle him with his pine-colored silk tie or drag him into a dressing room and fuck his brains out. Too bad both options would get her fired right before her rent was due. Life was such a buzzkill that way.
The him in question was Dominick Rasmussen, one of the world’s most eligible bachelors and the bane of her existence if she wanted to keep her job as head stylist at Dylan’s. He’d walked onto the exclusive floor of the luxury department store accompanied by store CEO Devin Harris, who had told her to clear her calendar for the day and take very special care of an old friend in from London who needed a new winter wardrobe and then told her to enjoy her week in the sun—whatever that meant. The result had been several hours of trying to talk the sexy billionaire out of his black suit. Literally. The guy wouldn’t try on anything that couldn’t be accessorized by a Windsor knot.
“That is very—” He paused for a second, pursing his thick Tom Hardy–style lips together as he looked at the latest offering she held up, a soft wool fisherman’s sweater in an indigo that would play off the icy Nordic hotness of his arctic-blue eyes and ash-blond hair, not to mention highlight his broad shoulders and superhero-level biceps. “Casual. I don’t do casual.”
Really? She totally hadn’t been able to figure that out after his reaction when she showed him a pair of eight-hundred-dollar denim jeans. But a man couldn’t live in only suits and the occasional tux—not even an international financier who spent as much time in the society pages as he did the boardroom. A wardrobe needed variety, it needed color, it needed to adapt. “Do you sleep in your suits, too?”
He dragged his gaze from the sweater she held up to her and completed a slow perusal starting at her totally reasonable three-and-a-half-inch metallic silver heels, up her bare calves, across the fitted pear-green pencil skirt, over her winter-white cashmere sweater and stopping briefly on her lips before reaching her eyes. She’d been stark naked, pressed up against a sixteenth-floor window, having one of the best orgasms of her life from a lover’s tongue and hadn’t been as turned on as she was at that moment. Fire licked its way across her skin, flicking at all of her sensitive spots until her entire body vibrated.
“Do I sleep in my suits? Do you really want to know?” he asked, his voice low with just enough dominating arrogance in it to make her shiver.
Electricity sparked in the air around them, obvious enough she could practically smell smoke in the air. She bit her bottom lip. Hard. Moaning out loud would be so bad right now. Fucking a Dylan’s personal shopping client would be out of bounds. Spontaneously combusting from lust would be a total no-no. Of course, none of that made her want to do it any less. But what she needed was to not get fired from her job because she’d schtupped a client in full view of the discreet video cameras placed around the showroom.
“I’m sorry, that was an inappropriate question.” Inhaling a deep breath, Elle forced her face into a mask of subservient neutrality so distant from her true nature. “It won’t happen again, Mr. Rasmussen.”
“Not Mr. Rasmussen. Call me Dom. I really think we should be on a first-name basis, since you know that I strip off my suit every night and get into bed wearing nothing at all.”
Just like that, her panties became a lost cause. He grinned as if he knew she was picturing his muscular body sliding between crisp, white sheets. Tall, hard, and—like the Viking raiders she grew up hearing stories about—dangerous. It radiated from him like a tractor beam pulling her closer.
“Now tell me what you sleep in,” he teased. “It’s only fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.” Especially not when the cool dismissal she’d meant to project got hijacked by that breathy I’m-so-frickin’-turned-on lilt to her voice.
“No, it’s not.” He reached out and twisted a strand of her wavy strawberry blond hair around his long finger. “That’s why you have to make it bend to your will.”
According to the tabloids, he liked to bend women over any available surface and fuck them brainless. Considering she’d lost about a gazillion IQ points from spending thirty minutes with him while completely dressed, she could imagine how many she’d lose if they were both naked. The image to accompany that thought flashed into her head, and her knees almost buckled. She had to get out of here before she said fuck the cameras and yanked him to the nearest horizontal surface.
“If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll go find a few more options for you to consider.” Elle hustled out of the showroom as fast as possible without looking like she was running for cover, whi
ch she totally was.
The staff-only area on the exclusive eighth floor of Dylan’s didn’t have the chandeliers, plush sitting area, chilled champagne, and floor-to-ceiling mirrors the personal shopping showroom did, but she wouldn’t have traded a single plastic chair or cup of hours-old coffee at that point for all that luxury. Instead, she sucked in the Dom pheromone–free air like a woman who’d just finished a triathlon while wearing one of those fake pregnancy bellies. Insta-lust had her by the metaphorical balls, and she needed a moment to get a hold of herself.
“Come on, girlie,” Elle said to herself. “He’s only a guy.”
“Hey, Elle.” Jaqui Shardwell, the only other personal shopper working on a Monday afternoon, peeked her head of her office. “You okay?”
Nope. Not even a little. “I’m good, just dealing with a client who doesn’t like anything.”
“Ugh. I feel your pain.” She rolled her eyes in commiseration. “Remember that socialite who only wanted to wear puce retro sexy secretary dresses and fishnets?”
The memory of Carla Silbretti’s brownish-purple phase had Elle giggling, relieving the tension stringing her body tight.
Jaqui’s lips twisted, and she clasped her hands together. “Hey, I got a call from Halston’s school. He threw up in the middle of class. I hate to ask, but…”
“Don’t even think about it.” She waved her colleague off. “Go get the little guy. We don’t have any other clients scheduled for today, and if it gets crazy, I’ll call in Rebecca from lingerie. She’s been dying to audition for a spot up here since she earned her fashion degree.”
Jaqui grabbed her purse, and they both headed toward the special elevator that led straight to the parking lot for the personal shopping customers who liked their anonymity. They were the same ones who decreed there could be no cameras near the elevators and got management to turn off the security cameras in the showroom so that no leaked photos of them wearing an unflattering outfit could ever get out.
“You are the best, thank you.” Jacqui gave her a quick air kiss before the elevator doors closed.
Not for the first time, a pang of loneliness hit her. Mr. Icy Hot would be gone soon, and then it would be her in the showroom until closing…alone. Then she’d go home to her cute little one-bedroom apartment, where she’d binge on Netflix…alone. Finally she’d curl up for the night under a mountain of blankets…alone.
Friends hadn’t been a possibility since she’d been abandoned in Harbor City at the ripe old age of seventeen. She couldn’t risk letting anyone get close enough to discover her secret, so she’d compensated by working as much as possible, which allowed her to get her people fix and socialize, if only in a limited way. Boyfriends had been out, too, but she alleviated that need with her battery-operated boyfriend and infrequent, short-term lovers who never got the chance to know the real her. It wasn’t the life she’d chosen, it wasn’t the life her father would have chosen for her, but neither of them had been given a choice. When her world had blown up, the only option had been to run, to hide, to survive, so that’s what she’d done.
“Elle,” Dom said from behind her.
She whipped around to face him. What was he doing in the employee-only area? What do you think, dumb ass? Parcheesi?
He stood so close that the now-familiar tingling attraction snapped across her skin. He held one hand behind him, and the other reached for her, cupping the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her long hair. Oh, God, he was going to kiss her, and damn her mutinous body, she wanted him to. This was bad, but she’d lost her ability to care.
“Dom—”
The rest of the sentence was smothered by the white cotton cloth he held in his free hand and forced against her nose and mouth. Shock froze her to the spot. She couldn’t blink. She couldn’t breathe. All she could do was feel the banging of her heart as panic sent it into overdrive. The people who killed her family had found her.
“This is for your own good,” he said as he looked down at her. “I couldn’t take the chance you’d fight me, and there isn’t time to explain.”
Too damn bad for him, because her fight-or-flight response zinged into action. Whatever was in the cloth, she didn’t want to breathe it in. Adrenaline clawed at her, demanding life-giving oxygen, but she refused to give in. They might have murdered everyone she loved and sent her into hiding, but she wouldn’t go down without a fight. She grabbed his arms, yanking and stabbing her nails into the sliver of his wrists not covered by his shirt. He didn’t flinch.
Dom kept his cold gaze on her, a icy determination making them even bluer somehow. “Just relax and breathe.”
Fat fucking chance. Holding on to his forearms for leverage, she slammed her knee upward, aiming for his most vulnerable spot. He deflected the move with an ease of a natural athlete or a man trained to do whatever it took to force the world to do his bidding.