Beautiful Bastard (Beautiful Bastard 1)

Heat bloomed between my legs and I reached for the hem of my skirt, sliding the fabric up my thighs, exposing my skin to the cool air in his office, and to the hungry eyes across the desk from me.

“Yes, I see,” he said, but his voice was deeper even still, hoarse now.

My fingertips trailed over the lines of the garters, along skin and to the satin of my underwear. Nothing—and no one—had ever made me feel as sexy as he did. It was as if he took all my thoughts of my job, my life, and my goals and said, “These are all well and good, but look at this other thing I’m offering you. It will be twisted and very dangerous but you’ll crave it. You’ll crave me.”

And if he’d said that out loud, he would have been right.

“Yes,” he said again. “I think that’s the ideal path forward.”

You do, do you? I smiled at him, chewing my lip, and he gave me a devilish half smile in return. The fingers of one hand traveled higher, cupping my breast and squeezing. With my other hand, I pushed the center of my panties aside and ran two fingers across my wet skin.

Mr. Ryan coughed and fumbled for his water glass. “That’s fine, George. We’ll take that over when we receive it. We can handle that timeline.”

I began moving my hand, thinking of his long fingers rolling the pen, those very hands grabbing my hips and waist and thighs when he drove into me in the lingerie store.

I moved faster, my eyes falling closed and head dropping back against the chair. I tried to be quiet, biting down on my lip when a tiny moan escaped. I imagined his hands and taut forearms, muscles tensing beneath skin as his fingers moved inside me. His legs in front of my face the night in the conference room, tight and sculpted, struggling to keep from thrusting.

Those eyes, on me, dark and pleading.

I looked up to see them exactly as I imagined, not watching my hand but seeing his hungry expression trained on my face as I fell and fell and fell. My climax was both overwhelming and unsatisfying: I wanted it to be his touch doing this to me instead of my own.

At some point, his call had ended, and my breath sounded too loud in the silent room. He sat across from me, sweat beading his brow, his hands gripping the arms of his desk chair as if he’d been thrown into the wind.

“What are you doing to me?” he asked quietly.

I grinned, blowing my bangs out of my eyes. “I’m pretty sure I just did that to myself.”

His brow lifted. “Indeed.”

I stood, smoothing my skirt back down my thighs. “If that will be all, Mr. Ryan, I’ll get back to work.”

By the time I returned from freshening up in the restroom, I had a text message from Mr. Ryan, informing me that he would meet me in the parking garage to head downtown. Thank God the other executives and their assistants would be going to the Red Hawk meeting. I knew from our history that if I had to sit in a limo with that man alone for twenty minutes—especially after what I just did—there were only two possible outcomes. And only one of them ended with his balls intact.

The limo was waiting right outside, and as I made my way to it our driver smiled widely to me and opened the door. “Hey, Chloe, how’s work?”

“Busy, fun, never-ending. How’s school?” I smiled back. Stuart was my favorite driver, and although he had a tendency to be a bit of a flirt, he always made me smile.

“If I could drop physics and still graduate with a degree in biology, I would. Too bad you aren’t a scientist or you could tutor me,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“If you two are finished, we actually have somewhere important to be. Maybe you can flirt with Miss Mills on your own time.” Mr. Ryan was apparently already inside waiting for me, and he glared at the two of us as he retreated back into the car. I grinned and rolled my eyes at Stuart before stepping inside.

Aside from Mr. Ryan, the car was empty. “Where are the others?” I asked, confused, as we pulled away.

“They have a dinner meeting later this evening and decided to drive separately.” He busied himself with his printouts. I couldn’t help but notice the way he was nervously tapping his fancy Italian oxfords.

I eyed him suspiciously. He didn’t look any different. In fact, he looked sexier than hell. His hair was its usual perfect mess. As he absentmindedly lifted his gold pen to his lips, just as he had in his office earlier, I actually had to shift in my seat to ease my discomfort.

When he looked up, the smirk on his face let me know I had been caught ogling him. “See something you like?” he asked.

“Not back here,” I replied with a smirk of my own. And just because I knew it would get to him, I purposely recrossed my legs, making sure my skirt rode up a bit more than was appropriate. Maybe he needed to remember who could win at this game. The scowl was back in an instant. Mission accomplished.

The eighteen and a half minutes left of our twenty-minute drive were spent trading dirty looks across the car while I tried to pretend I wasn’t fantasizing about having his pretty head between my legs.

Needless to say, by the time we got there, I was in a bad mood.

The next three hours passed at a snail’s pace. The other executives arrived and introductions were made all around. A particularly striking woman named Lila seemed to take an immediate interest in my boss. She was in her early thirties with thick red hair, luminous dark eyes, and a body to die for. And of course, the panty-dropping smile was in full force as he nearly charmed her unconscious the entire afternoon.

Asshole.

When we walked into the office at the end of the day, after an even more tense drive back, it still seemed like Mr. Ryan had something to say. And if he didn’t do it soon, I was going to explode. When I wanted him to be quiet, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. But when I needed him to say something, he became a mute.