ARROGANT PLAYBOY (46 page)

DANE

“Hate me yet, Randy?”

I lean back in my chair, my
free hand gripping the leather armrest as I spin around to take in the foggy
morning view of the city. Randy Mutchler wheezes on the other end of the phone.
Being a larger man has never stopped him from nailing his fair share of
beautiful women on a regular basis, especially women who find money particularly
arousing.

I may have swiped his newest
conquest out from under him, but the way I look at it, I was doing her a favor.

She’ll thank me someday.

“Every single day,” Randy
puffs, his voice rattling. He really should lay off the cigars.

“I’m sure you’ll find another.”
I insert a smile into my voice that to anyone else might seem lighthearted, but
to me, it’s victorious. “She’ll be better off with me. I get the impression
she’s slightly green. Breaking them in is what I do best. You know that.”

“No clue what you’re talking
about, Dane.” I hear papers rustling around in the background. As per usual,
Randy is attempting to multitask and failing miserably. He’s not listening.

“The girl,” I say, sitting up.
I glance at my watch. She should be here any minute. My H.R. department
contacted her last week and gave her strict orders, but it seems as though
timeliness might have to be our first lesson. “The blonde with the pouty pink
lips and the clear blue eyes?”

“You’re describing two-thirds
of the girls who frequent the Crystal Swan.”

We’re clearly not on the same
page.

“I’m not talking about the
club, Randy. I’m talking about Bellamy Miller.” I say her name out loud for the
first time since last week.

“Not ringing a bell.”

My smile evaporates, and the
room heats.

She lied.

The girl with the fuck-me mouth
and the tight, candy ass. The girl with the hips that flare out just enough to
send me into a desperate state of craving the warmth of her stinging flesh
under my palm
.

I fucking hate liars.

“I met her last week. She said
you’d just hired her, and she couldn’t discuss the terms. I assumed she was
your new concierge.” I massage my left temple.

Randy’s laughter whistles
through the receiver. “I hired a bunch of college grads recently for some
cubicle grunt work. Maybe she was one of them? I don’t know. Name doesn’t sound
familiar. Still looking for that perfect concierge. You know how that is.”

Yes. I know exactly how that
is. I’ve had three failed parings this year alone. Two of them were too
experienced, bringing in unfavorable habits from their previous Doms, and one
was too stupid to live.

Line two rings. My assistant’s
name flashes on the caller I.D.

“Randy, I’m letting you go.”

More like I’ll see him at the
Crystal Swan. That’s how I first met the horny bastard. He was a premier member
of a local sexual sanctuary. We were locked in a bidding war over spending one
night with a charming twenty-five-year-old with flawless teardrop breasts, the
kind that look perfect when strapped between a complex rope arrangement.

I hang up with Randy and take
Marlene’s call.

“Your new assistant is here,”
she says. “Shall I send her in?”

I slick my thumb across my brow
bone before adjusting my tie. She’s four minutes late. “Send her back. Then
tell Laurie Madsen in H.R. she’ll be there soon. I’d like to have a quick word
with her before I send her down.”

“Yes, sir.”

A sharp breath drags past my
lips as I wait for my new “concierge.” My mind fills with a million punishments
I’d thoroughly enjoy bestowing upon her right now, but we need to get a few
things out of the way first.

The door swings open a second
later. I expect her to freeze in my doorway, to wait for my command or
permission to enter. Instead, she shuts the door behind her and struts to my
desk, taking a seat across from me.

Bellamy has no idea what she’s
agreed to.

She’s perfectly at ease around
me. Confident. Buoyant and much too self-assured in the presence of a man who’d
break her in ways she’d never imagine.

We’ll need to fix that soon.

That is…if I decide I’m going
to keep her.

“How’s your morning?” Her voice
is breathy in the most tantalizing of ways. A soft sigh leaves her mouth before
it curls into a sweet smile.

“It could be better.”

She doesn’t frown or wince or
pry. If she wants to stand a chance around here, she’s going to have to learn
to read me. And fast.

“Sorry to hear that,” she says.

“It’s always disappointing when
my employees fail to show up on time their first day.”

Her lips form a circular shape
as her eyes widen. A manicured hand flies to the tiny hint of cleavage peeking
from her white blouse. She looks like she should be in church and not
executively assisting a man who’ll fully expect her on all fours at some point
in the near future.

“Am I late?” She glances around
the room in search of a clock.

I reach for the antique pewter
desk clock and flip it around to face her. “Yes.”

“I didn’t realize the walk from
the parking garage to your building would take this long. I’ll plan ahead going
forward.”

Her apology lacks a certain
respect, like a glaring typo in a hastily written email.

“I don’t tolerate much, Miss
Miller.” I fold my hands across my desk, pinning her down with a scrutinizing
stare. “Shall we go over my expectations?”

A wisp of platinum blonde hair
falls across her shoulder, splaying over the spot above her cleavage, which I
now see is rising and falling in quick succession. She’s nervous. Her face may
not show it. Her words may not show it. But the rest of her says it all.

I’m going to take great
pleasure in watching her bullshit her way through the next several minutes with
me given what revelation came to light this morning.

“I do hope your expectations
are realistic.” There’s a hint of a laugh injected into her tone like she
thinks this is funny.

It’s not.

Not to me.

“Expectations.” I let the word
linger. “Tardiness is not tolerated. Excessive lateness will go on your
employee record, Miss Miller. And reprimands will be assigned as I see fit.”

“I won’t be late again, sir.”

 
“Second,” I continue, “Lying is a
fire-able offense.”

“Shouldn’t we be going over job
duties first?” She almost interrupts me. I can only assume she’s trying to
change the subject, knowing full well she lied to get this job.

“You’ll be doing for me the same
things you were going to do for Mr. Mutchler.” My fingers form a peak as I
await her response. “The duties you said you couldn’t discuss with me.”

I fully expect her to slink
back in her seat, exhale loudly, hang her head, and admit that she’s a filthy
liar.

“I’d like to tailor this
relationship, Mr. Townsend.”

This girl is good.

“Working relationship,” she
disclaims. “Tell me exactly what you need from me, and I’ll deliver. That’s the
way I operate. I’m grateful for this opportunity, and I’ll do anything in my
power to ensure it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

My mouth curls into a devilish
leer. I’ve approached a fork in the road, and I could easily take this in a
completely different direction if I were in a tortuous mood today.

She’s lucky I’m not.

“Well, then, we should discuss
limits.” I exhale and hide the secret pleasure I receive as I wait for her
reaction.

“Limits? Can you be more
specific?”

“Hard limits. Soft limits,” I
say, teasing her with a trail of breadcrumbs that will eventually lead her to
her final destination. “Things you will and won’t do.”

“I can’t imagine there’s much I
wouldn’t do.”

God, she sounds like a fucking
college graduate at a job interview.

“Don’t tell me what you think I
want to hear.” My mouth hardens. “That’s the last thing you should ever do
around me, Miss Miller.”

Her eyes snap toward the desk
where my hands are clasped hard, my thumb grazing over the curve of my opposite
hand. My patience wears thinner by the minute, and if we could fast-forward a
bit, I’d be yanking those pearls from around her neck and pressing her against
the wall, two seconds from claiming every inch of her nubile body as my own.

But seeing as how she has
absolutely no idea what she’s agreed to, taking her pretty pink mouth right now
would completely disrupt our dynamic.

“Absolutely.” An agreeable
smile accompanies her affirmation.

Bellamy is different. The
subtle dominance I’ve injected into our light conversation doesn’t seem to have
an effect on her. She’s immune to it. They say if you watch too much violence
on T.V. or in the movies, little by little it doesn’t affect you as much.

That’s how she is.

Another man has already
dominated her.

Another man has owned her.

A heat sears through my body
from head to toe at the thought of her kneeling before another master. I knew
from the moment I saw her, Bellamy’s milky white flesh belonged in my grip.

I wanted to be the one to break
her in, to own every inch of her succulent physique.

“I spoke to Randy Mutchler this
morning,” I said, my impatience searing through me hot and uncontrollable. My
fists clench, fighting the urge to bend her over my knee and teach her not to
lie to me again.

A white pallor fills her
cheeks. “Oh. Y-yes?”

There we go. She’s stammering.
I’m cracking her like the thin sheet of ice that wraps around her underhanded
intentions.

“He’d never heard of you.”

Her brows arch before they
furrow.

Still, she says nothing.

“Isn’t that odd?” I scratch the
spot just above my right brow. “He offered you a very important job with secret
terms, but he’d never heard of you before.”

Silence.

“You understand that back at
the bar, when I offered you this position, you had ascertained that you’d just
been hired by Randy Mutchler as his concierge.” My arms fold. “Do you know what
a concierge does?”

“They’re like a personal
assistant.”

“Yes, Bellamy. That would be
the standard definition of a concierge.” I drag in a breath and cock my head.
“But if you knew Randy Mutchler, and if you ran in our circles, you’d know that
the kinds of concierges we hire are sexually submissive in nature.”

Her lips purse as she stares in
her lap at her fidgeting hands.

“I don’t know how you know
Randy or why on earth you would lie about something like that.”

She brushes hair from her face,
running her teeth across her lower lip. Her eyes drag slowly until they fall
into mine. “You want the truth?”

 
“Only if it’s the actual truth. Don’t
tell me another lie to cover up the ones you’ve already spoken.”

I lean back, thinking about how
perfect my hand would look clenched under the soft spot of her jaw, her mouth
pressed open just enough that I could steal a ghost of a kiss from those
fuckable lips.

I’ve never been so sexually
aroused by a woman who’s found a way to crawl under my skin and check off a
whole host of my personal red flags.

Her silence concerns me.

“I haven’t got all day,
Bellamy.” I tug my sleeve up and check the time once more. This woman has
wasted a half hour of my morning, and I still haven’t prepped for my nine
o’clock conference call with New York. “Fine. I can ask questions. I’ll extract
this information from you the best way I know how.”

Bellamy’s hand drags down her
pencil skirt and then hooks on her crossed knee. “I am a liar. I lied to you.
There’s no other way to put it. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

Her mouth parts once more, as
if she’s going to speak, but she hesitates. Instead, she rises, gathering her
things, and turns to leave. Before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve met her at
the door, slamming my open palm against it before she has a chance to escape.

And that’s what it is really.

She’s escaping.

Escaping her consequences.

“You can’t just offer a quick
apology and dash out the door, Bellamy.”

I startle her, forcing her to
take a step back as she clutches her bag across her chest. I fully expect to
find fear in her angelic face. Instead, the slight flare of her nostrils and
her refusal to look me in the eye suggest she’s packed full of an impressive
amount of ire.

“What are you doing?” Her eyes
give in, daring to meet mine.

She doesn’t fight or struggle.
She doesn’t try to pull away from me, grab the door handle, or run down the
hall like she’s just escaped a serial killer.