Forbidden Pleasures (NSC Industries Book 11) (3 page)

Looking up from the paperwork I’d been glued to all
afternoon when Fran, my PA, walked into my office, I frowned at her. “What the
hell’s going on?”

She shook her head and quickly shut the door, drowning
out the ruckus from the other end of the department. “Something to do with
Malik’s wife and his girlfriend.”

My eyes widened but I snorted. Malik had been screwing
around ever since I’d worked at NSC. His girlfriend would turn up daily with
his lunch. Looked like his wife had had the same idea.

“You see, this is why relationships are bad.”

Fran rolled her eyes. “Only if one of the couple is a
dick and cheats.”

“They all cheat Fran. It’s a given.”

“No it’s really not,” she argued. “Tony and I have been
together for eight years and he’s never dipped his wick anywhere but in me.”

“That you know of,” I retorted, my eyes widening when I
realised what I’d said.

Fran stared at me. “Why would you say that?”

“Shit Fran, I didn’t mean that. You know what my filter’s
like.”

“What filter?”

“Exactly,” I answered back as I picked up my bag and
slung the strap around my neck so I could carry the paperwork without my bag
sliding off my shoulder and taking the files with it.

Opening the door, I stared at all the company’s security
men rushing down the corridor. Fran called me back and I turned to look at her.
“Are you going to the awards ceremony on Saturday?”

“Shit, is that this weekend. Oh god, do I have to?” I
grumbled.

“There’s a free bar.”

“Of course I’m going,” I nodded firmly. “Been looking
forward to it.”

Fran laughed and waved me off for my lunch.

Not realising my bag strap had caught on the door handle,
I took a step out. I was yanked back with a force that lifted my feet off the ground
but because of the short length, my back didn’t touch the floor. My bag became
a hammock as my body swung precariously in mid-air.

And as if that wasn’t mortifying enough, Jay Carter stood
in the corridor outside my door, staring at me with wide eyes.

“Hi,” I grinned as humiliation heated my cheeks. My strap
snapped with my weight and my arse hit the floor with a heavy thud.

“Christ Bea,” Fran exclaimed as she rushed over to me.
“Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh,” I murmured, blushing furiously as I waved at
Jay. “See, I always seem to be falling for you.”

He sucked in his lips, his eyes watering as he tried to
control his hysterics. “And you swore you’d never be horizontal in my presence.”
His eyes laughed as he crouched beside me and heaped up the scattered files as Fran
helped me up off the floor - I would have preferred her to push me through it
but life was a bitch.

Shaking my head in dismay, I sighed and straightened my
dress. “I’ll try again.”

Both Fran and Jay watched me silently as I teetered to
the lift and dived inside. “Jesus bloody Christ, Bea!” I scolded myself as the
doors started to close.

I jumped when a hand slammed in the middle, the doors
sliding back open. Jay smirked at me as he handed me the files he’d picked up
for me. I blew out a breath and smiled tiredly. “Thank you.”

He smiled and winked. “No trouble.”

I cringed when he stepped inside with me, my cheeks
flushing when he grinned at me. “I’m going up,” I told him as I pressed the
button for the top floor and waited for him to reveal which floor he wanted.

He chuckled and I frowned. “Make’s a change,” he
sniggered. “You’re usually going down on me.” Both our eyes widened when the
context of his words were taken the wrong way. “Well,” he smirked harder. “What
I meant was you’re always falling down when I’m around but the thought’s nice.”

My jaw dropped but I chuckled when he beamed at me and
waggled his eyebrows. “The best thing is,” I scoffed, “is that I’m never really
clumsy. Dunno what the heck is going off lately.”

He shrugged but his eyes fixed on me, the intensity of
his sudden dark look making my heart beat a little quicker. “It must be just
when I’m about then.”

I stared back, my mouth unable to form the words my brain
was telling it to say. The air in the small cubicle seemed to be forced out
through the four walls and my throat tightened with the lack of oxygen to my
lungs. I couldn’t tell what the hell he was thinking, his expression serious
and almost foreboding but a heat radiated from the brightness of his pure blue
gaze.

We both stood quiet and still for the remainder of the
journey up but I jumped when the doors slid back open on the fourteenth floor.
“This is me,” I said stupidly.

He blinked and smiled as he turned his head to look out
of the doors into the corridor when someone stood waiting. I frowned when Jay’s
eyes widened and I turned to look at the man waiting to enter the elevator.

“Fuck!” Jay hissed under his breath just before the guy
launched himself inside with us and swung for Jay. His fist caught him straight
in his left eye, the crack echoing around the small area. I winced and stepped
back, pressing my back into the wall as the doors closed once again and we
started to descend the shaft.

“What the hell!” I blurted, my voice a high squeal when
Jay tackled his attacker to the floor, the front of his body squashed against
the cold floor tiles as Jay straddled his back and held him down.

“You bastard!” the man screamed. “You fucked her! You
fucked her!”

I narrowed my eyes when Jay leaned forward and brought
his mouth to the man’s ear. “No, you twat.
She fucked me
!”

“You think this is funny?” the man raged as he struggled
beneath Jay’s strength. I was still pressed as far back as possible, my eyes flicking
between both men as they spat and growled at one another. “She’s my wife, you
cunt!”

Jay winced and as if just realising I was there, he
turned to look at me just as the doors opened again. “Ground floor,” the
mechanical voice advised.

“Get out Beatrice,” Jay ordered.

I looked at him. I didn’t understand why I was
disappointed in him. I knew he’d be the type to fuck married women but having
it confirmed strangely hurt as well as saddened me.

A mass of shocked gasps brought my attention to the people
stood waiting for the lift. Jay still held my gaze, his sombre expression
showing his guilt as his shameful gaze apologised to me.

I shook my head. “Don’t apologise to me, Jay. For one,
it’s none of my business and two,” I looked at the man on the floor, his
devastation raw and clear. “He should have hit you harder.”

Leaving Jay closing his eyes, I walked out of the lift
and took the other one back up to the fourteenth floor.

Saturday night, I sensed her as soon as she walked into
the huge ballroom. Her delicious body was encased in a knee-length pale blue
dress, the light material skimming over her curves almost torturously. Her long
blonde waves fell down her shoulders and framed her tits and the huge dip in
the back of her dress, the groove of her spine a path for my tongue to worship.
My dick hardened, again. I couldn’t understand my need for her. Yes, she was a
looker, her body made for my specific requirement, slim but with the soft
suppleness of flesh I liked to dig my fingers into. Her steel grey eyes showed
every single emotion and whenever she smiled her eyes lit up, turning the dull
grey to a glint of silver. I could almost taste her, the image of her thighs
wrapped around my shoulders making my gut twist painfully. But it was the
vision of her body tied and hung, her wrists bound in leather, her pretty neck
adorned in a lace collar, her breasts swollen from my abuse and her cunt wet
from each and every orgasm I could give her that made my heart stutter inside
my chest.

Yet now I’d fucked it all up.

She was surrounded by people as soon as she entered, the
mass of folk around her making my chest growl. I needed to get her alone to
apologise. Fuck that damn prick and his big mouth. His wife, Katherine, had
been a whore in the bedroom. I knew she was married but that didn’t stop her
opening her legs for me, so why the fuck should it stop me giving her what she
had so desperately needed. If her husband had put out in the first place and
given his wife the pain she needed then she wouldn’t have strayed from his bed.
Ignorant bastard.

I made my way across the room when Beatrice leaned on the
bar and ordered a drink. She smiled at the barman when he handed her a glass of
wine.

“I’ll get this,” I told the barman when Beatrice rummaged
in her bag.

She snapped her face to me. “I don’t think so, thank
you.”

The tone of her voice made my blood heat with anger and
my mouth dry with arousal. “Don’t judge when you don’t know, Bea.”

She scoffed and shoved the ten pounds at the confused
barman as he glanced from me to Bea. He pushed it back, “Free bar, love.”

She nodded firmly at him then glared back at me. “Did you
bed that man’s wife?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“No buts, Jay, no excuses for stooping that low.” She
snatched her drink from the now gawping barman and spun around. “Thanks for the
offer but I know I’d choke on it.”

My jaw dropped and I watched her walk away. The barman
lifted a brow and grimaced. “Feisty one there. Can I get you a drink, sir?”

I shouldn’t have been so bloody angry but her condescending
remarks had me squeezing my eyes closed and picturing her tears as I whipped
the fucking rudeness out of her. “Whisky, treble.”

He stared for a second then shrugged and fixed my drink.
I was still staring at Beatrice as she glided gracefully around the room, her
ignorance of me making my dick harder and harder as I imagined more and more
punishments for her behaviour.

“Another!” I barked as I slammed the empty glass on the
bar.

The barman sighed but refilled my glass. I stood at the
bar for an hour, drinking whisky and watching the stubborn woman grace everyone
else with her stunning smile. By the point it was time to take seats for the
awards ceremony, I was pretty fucked up. I turned to the barman and refilled
for the sixth time then went to find a seat.

I smirked when I quickly snatched the seat beside
Beatrice. She glared at me, shuffled around and gave me the back of her head as
she grinned at a bloke to the other side of her. The poncy twat had hair that
must have taken him six fucking hours to style, the slicked back brown strands
making me groan.

“Hey Beatrice,” the bastard preened, “I haven’t seen you
around for some time. Must have been your wedding the last time I saw you.”

“WHAT THE FUCK!” All heads spun round and every single
eye in the vicinity stared at me. I didn’t see them as I gawped at Bea. “What
the fuck did he just say?”

Her face heated, a deep crimson blush creeping over her
skin as she stared back. Then blinking, she coughed and turned back to the prim
fucker. “Yes, it’s been a while.”

“You’re married?” I butt in. She winced when my fingers
curled around the top of her arm but she didn’t ask me to let go, which
surprised me. I knew I was bruising her but she stared me out.

Calmly, she sighed and looked at me. “I was married, I’m
not now.”

“Is that why you’re angry with me?” I couldn’t stop my
mouth vomiting stupid questions but my mind was twisting and spinning. I was
relieved she was divorced but my mouth dried at the thought of what was to be
mine had previously been held by someone else. Some mad bastard who had let her
go.

“You think I’m only disappointed in your need to screw
married women because I was once one?”

I nodded. Everyone was staring at us, the room silent but
I didn’t care.

She scoffed and shook her head. “So you don’t see what is
exactly wrong in doing that?”

I huffed and narrowed my eyes on her. “I don’t understand
why you’re so emotional about it.”

“Emotional?” she gasped. “Emotional! Jesus Christ.” She
turned to the guy beside her. “Excuse me, Ben.” Then she shot upright and
pushed past everyone, each person shuffling their feet back as she hastily made
her escape.

“Oh no you don’t!”

Following her just as quickly, I shoved my way through,
gaining more attention. Fuck, the arseholes. They obviously had boring lives if
they found mine so damn interesting.

Beatrice quickly rushed across the room and then down the
corridor towards the toilets. She ignored the many people trying to stop her
and talk, giving them polite smiles but pushing past them rudely. She was such
a contradiction.

She gasped and spun round when the toilet door banged on
the wall with my forceful entry. “This is the ladies!” she growled at me as a
couple of women tutted and scurried out.

“Then you’re in the wrong place, sugar.”

Her jaw dropped and I cringed inwardly. “What the hell is
your problem?”

I stalked towards her, frantically trying to control the
anger inside me that was becoming a problem and spiralling out of control. “My
problem?” I growled as she backed away from me. “I don’t actually know what the
fuck my problem is with you!” I grit my teeth when her back hit the wall and
she had nowhere else to go but face me out.

“Well I sure have a problem with you!” she spat angrily.

“I fucking noticed. Care to tell me why?”

She shook her head angrily. “You’re rude. You’re
arrogant. Your head is so far up your own damn arse that you must be able to
lick the insides of your nostrils.” Okay, that was a new one. “You’re
self-centred,” she carried on. “You think because you have a fine body that it
gives you the right to just bed anyone!” Her little hands shoved at my chest.
“Do you have any idea how much it hurts to find you married a whore? That your
husband has been screwing your best friend for years? That you were never good
enough in bed to keep them there?” My heart rate slowed as her words forced
tears down her face, her upset visibly potent. She sobbed loudly then shook her
head. “Move, please!”

“Is that what he told you?”

“Jay,” she snarled, “I swear to god, if you don’t move,
your knob will be kissing my kneecap.”

“Is – that – what – he – told – you?”

She blinked at my firmness, my hands coming up to frame
her face as I attempted to soothe her distress. Her husband was a fucking
prick. What the fuck had he done to her? Her anger evaporated as she lowered
her gaze and nodded. “Yes. Now please move. You got what you wanted, so leave
me alone.”

“This is so far away from what I want.”

“Sorry?”

I stroked my thumbs across her cheeks, wiping at the hot
tears that seemed to scar her face as they rolled down the flush of her skin.
“What I want is you, Bea. I want to fuck you so hard that my cock will be
engraved in your cunt for weeks. I want to watch as you come over and over
again, your tears because you can’t cope with the pleasure not because of your
distress.” Her eyes widened more and more with every single truth I told her.
“I
can
promise that you won’t be inadequate or bored with me and I
will
promise that you’ll have me begging for more and that my mouth and fingers will
worship every perfect inch of you over and over again.”

“W-What?” she stuttered as she stared at me with her
mouth wide open. “I… you don’t want me. Not
me
.”

“Yes,” I whispered as I leaned closer to her. “I want
you
,
Beatrice Vine. My hands want you, my mouth wants you and my cock definitely
wants you.”

“But,” she panted as my mouth closed in on her soft lips,
my tongue thrusting inside her mouth to quieten her disagreements. She groaned
and gave in to me instantly, her body pushing into mine as her hands slid up my
arms and she clung on for dear life. Her lips moved with mine, her soft kiss
becoming more urgent with every second the kiss went on. Her hands moved from
my arms and ventured up my neck slowly until she threaded her fingers through
my hair and grabbed hold.

I pushed her back against the wall, giving us both
support as my fingers moved from her face. One hand found the front of her
throat, my fingers curling instinctively around her throat as the other pressed
into the back of her neck.

Immediately, she stiffened beneath me, her little body
freezing. Fear radiated from her as she appeared to stop breathing. I’d lost
her. I’d lost myself.

Her head shook from side to side as she started to
tremble. Quickly I pulled away. “Hey.”

“Don’t hurt me,” she choked out as her wide eyes stared
at me with terror. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

“What the hell?” Tears filled her eyes again as she
physically shook before me. “Beatrice.” I brought my hands back to her face,
softly encouraging her to leave the nightmare she had slipped into. “Beatrice,
I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

“I’m sorry,” she wept. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey.” I reached for her but she shook her head.

“No. No.” Pushing past me with a strength that surprised
me she raced out of the bathroom leaving me stood shocked and confused.

What the hell had happened? I was sure I hadn’t gone too
far and took control of her breathing. Yet she had both physically and emotionally
been somewhere else than in that bathroom with me.

I closed my eyes and shivered as a memory forced its way
into my head.

‘
I’m sorry, James. I’m sorry.”

“You’re a lying bitch, Olivia! You’re not sorry,
you’re just frightened to take the punishment. If you were sorry you wouldn’t
have done it.”

My mother’s screams pained my head as I pressed myself
further into the wardrobe and covered my ears with my hands, my sobs loud in my
head now they had nowhere to escape to.

Snapping back to reality, I flung back a cubicle door and
puked into the toilet, my heaves as distressing as Beatrice’s sobs had just
been. The smell of whisky hit my nostrils and I grabbed hold of the wall.

“Bloody hell!” a woman screeched. “This is the ladies!”

“Really,” I huffed as I wiped my mouth. “I hadn’t
noticed!”

She stared after me as I stormed from the room and went
in search of Bea but as I suspected, she’d gone.