His to Dominate

Book 1 (of 3) in the Smoke & Curves series

Plus-size secretary Mia James doesn't consider her resume's omission of the last two years of undergrad and her master's degree a lie. It's more like a failure to elaborate.

Too bad her billionaire boss disagrees.

Ex-Army interrogator and Chief Executive Bad Ass of a private military company, Collin Stark needs to know his new junior secretary isn't spying on Stark International. Trust the wrong woman with his heart and someone could wind up dead.

To convince Collin she's only guilty of being overqualified and desperate, Mia must consent to a private interrogation in which he will deploy all his tricks, starting with his favorite game.

Arousal Up.

Inhibition Down.

**********

Copyright © 2012 by Christa Wick (under Spanked by the Billionaire, writing as Ava Joy)

Cover art © DiamantisSeitanidis@dreamstime. All persons and entities are fictional. Not for sale to libraries. No lending outside distributor (e.g. Kindle/Nook) terms of service. Otherwise, re-distributing, lending, or reading this e-book without first purchasing a license to do so is illegal and subject to heavy fines.

HIS TO DOMINATE (SMOKE & CURVES #1)

Returning from the mail room with the day's last post, I froze in front of Janice Green's desk. In her late fifties, with a six-year history as the senior executive secretary to the CEO of Stark International, Janice exemplifies grace under pressure. Right then, however, she looked like a heavily sedated deer facing an oncoming freight train. Something was wrong, something the building wasn't buzzing about. That meant it was either a very personal problem or still restricted to the CEO's office.

We both reported to Collin Stark, the CEO and sole shareholder of the company he founded a decade ago. Looking at the building's façade and understated logo, few would suspect that the company is responsible for the safety of heads of state the world over or that Stark isn't above donning tactical gear for a hostage rescue. With so much at stake, he holds each employee to the highest standards. Retribution for fucking up comes quickly.

Since Janice wasn't loading her personal belongings into a cardboard box with building security watching over her shoulder, the fuck-up -- if there was one -- had to be me. The new kid on the block, I was promoted to working below Janice in the CEO's office a month ago. All total, I had less than half a year under my belt at Stark International and had just that week finally brought my monthly student loan payments current.

I did a quick mental inventory of my projects, searching for anything I might have missed or misdirected. Nothing suggested itself. Janice only entrusted the most menial tasks to me during my training phase. If the quality of my work wasn't at issue, then there was only one thing left.

My resume.

I started to roll my lips together, a bad habit I have when I'm nervous. My blink rate went up, too, and I could feel a flush heating my cheeks. I swallowed, trying to center my energy while telling myself I had nothing to worry about. It's not like I lied on my resume! I didn't make up any jobs, any education or inflate any grades or academic honors. I just omitted the fact I had finished my undergraduate degree and master's.

Too bad for me Stark likely would view an omission as deception. He seemed every inch the kind of man who values honesty and loyalty above all else. Fail him on one or the other and an arctic fury would be unleashed, his wrath cold, calculated, and obliterating.

I went from rolling my lips to chewing at them. I glanced to my right where polished steel doors led into Stark's inner sanctum. "What's wrong?"

Janice offered a little half shake of her head and reached for her purse. She usually worked from seven in the morning until five at night. It was exactly twenty minutes to six. She had been heading into Stark's office when I went for my last mail run.

She also had been on the secretive side all day. Now I knew why. They were discussing me.

Standing, Janice shouldered her bag and gave me a tight smile. "Mr. Stark wants to see you in his office."

"Me?" My stomach dropped, threatening to surge back up just as quickly and splatter the contents of a late lunch across Janice's tidy desk top. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Don't make him wait." Her lips pressed tightly together, the smile thinning. "Good luck, dear."

She stepped around her desk and quickly left me to my fate. Still holding the mail, I moved to the double doors, my hand up to knock when I heard the lock disengage. Stark had most of the building wired with security cameras. Only a few rooms, like his inner office, were private. From his desk, he could monitor every camera at Stark International, as well as live feeds from operations around the world.

My stomach did another flip as I pushed against the heavy steel. I stopped just inside the doors. With Stark's attention focused on his computer screen, I had a few seconds to study his expression for clues.

He didn't appear ready to blow a gasket. Maybe I was over-reacting, letting my fertile imagination run away with me. It could be a late fax or a dropped email, something relatively small for which I could plead for mercy.

His laser-like focus directed at his work, there was no hint of mercy in the way he held himself. If he hadn't just let me into the room, I would have sworn he had no idea I was there. Of course, that was part of his game and he was a master at it. A former military interrogator assigned to special operations, he had carved out a billion dollar company at the tip of a long, sharp knife after leaving active duty.

Volumes on military strategies, psychological warfare and interrogation techniques crowded the wall-to-wall bookshelf behind his desk. Cleaning crews weren't allowed in his office. As the junior secretary, that task fell to me, so I had read the title of every book in his office. I also borrowed copies of a few from my neighborhood library and had just finished reading the
Kubark Counterintelligence Manual
last night.

I counted up all the tactics Stark had already employed -- making me wait, letting me squirm in my own skin while I imagined the worst, acting like I didn't exist. We were at Confidence Down/Fear Up if I was correctly remembering last night's reading. If I hadn't felt sick to my stomach, I would have smiled or laughed. As it was, knowing a little about the techniques he had mastered long ago only made me worry more.

"Do you like your job, Mia?"

He still stared at his work, not me. One finger moved along his touch pad and then he clicked on something. I thought I detected a slight stiffening of his jaw as I delayed answering, but I was a good twenty feet away from him and his face usually looks hard as granite, so I couldn't be sure.

When his gaze cut in my direction, I quickly answered. "Yes, Mr. Stark."

He looked away, his attention re-focusing on his work. "Then put the mail down and stand in the corner."

Was he fucking serious? Stand in the corner like a little kid caught sneaking a slice of cake or refusing to do homework? I was twenty-six years old, not six! My grip on the mail tightened, my cheeks heating as my attitude slowly moved from worried to angry.

He looked at me again, the dark blue eyes like burnished steel, their thin edges slicing at my skin. "I don't like liars, Mia. Do it now or security will help you pack your things."

I looked around the room, not sure if I was contemplating obeying him or stalling.

"The table by the couch will do."

Shit. I closed my eyes, realizing I had been looking for someplace to put the mail, lying to myself that there was no way in hell I would actually obey such a ridiculous, demeaning order.

"Now, Mia."

I put the mail down and walked to the only corner that didn't have any furniture near it. As my fingers touched the cool surface of the wall, I heard the lock on his office door engage. I winced but managed to hold deep inside me all the little sounds that wanted to escape.

I heard the mechanical slide of the heavy drapes being shut. As with the building's cameras and the drapes, Stark can control the lamps in the room from his desk. They switched off one by one until the room's illumination was no better than twilight, everything doused in shades of gray.

I waited in that near darkness for what seemed at least fifteen minutes, the room completely silent except for my breathing. Whatever work he had been doing, he stopped. Whether he watched me or not, I felt like he did.

Face turned to the corner, I grimaced at the idea of Stark studying my body. It didn't matter that he was looking for indicators of nervousness, guilt, and a dozen other things -- he had to carefully observe my body to do that. My body -- the thick hips, wide ass, plump thighs, and bountiful breasts. The heels and too snug skirt I had selected that morning only increased my self-consciousness as my shoulders twitched and my hips and thighs flexed.

The skirt and heels magnified even the smallest movement of my body, making me feel like I had ballooned to three times my size.

The sensation made me want to cry -- and curse at him! He had me right where he wanted. The discomfort inflicted on me was by my own choice. That made it all the worse. Even if he had locked the doors, I was choosing to stand in the corner in a dark room filled with silence. Another play straight from Kubark's manual.

At last I heard the creak of his chair and the slide of a drawer. My whole body tightened. My hands, which I had placed palms flat against the wall, curled into fists and I started to shake. Five more minutes passed before I heard another sound.

His footsteps echoed loudly in the large office as he approached me. He didn't stop a respectable distance away when he reached me. His hips pressed against my enlarged backside, the sudden heat of his flesh making me realize my skin had grown cold.

"Don't jump, Mia."

I hadn't moved and the command confused me until his hands came up around my head and a folded band of fabric brushed against my face. I drew a sharp breath in as the blindfold tightened and his fingers worked to tie a knot. His hips pressed against my backside, my bottom molding around a hard center bulge that made my knees weak.

"You left something off your resume, didn't you?"

"Y-yes."

His hands dropped to cradle my hips. When he spoke again, his mouth was right next to my ear, his breath curling warm against my flesh. He had to lean into me to do it, the size of my ass making it impossible otherwise. Feeling the hard press of his rigid flesh between my cheeks, I reflexively squeezed -- and wanted to die on the spot.

"A master's degree in data analytics and you take a job in the secretarial pool of a security company?"

I rested my head against the wall, the earlier tremble back and infecting my entire body. Stark circled one arm around my waist, his palm flat against my stomach to contain or control me. His other hand gripped my hip a little tighter as he cinched me to him.

"Who are you really working for?"

"You." I released the word with a sob as I realized my panties were slowly soaking through. He had me face forward in a corner, blindfolded, my job on the line and I was wet, so turned on that the muscles deep inside my cunt had started to flex and roll, my ass moving with them to cup and fondle his dick.

This wasn't right, wasn't anything like me.

His palm slid over the curve of my stomach, coming to a stop just above my mound. I arched slightly, my ass pressing more insistently against his groin, but my arousal was wasted on Stark. His calm voice and continued interrogation proved this was nothing more than business.

"You lied, Mia. Spies and moles lie. You're not just working for me."

"Please." I couldn't stop the wiggle of my ass and I wasn't sure what I was pleading for -- my job or his touch. "I'm telling the truth. I omitted it because I couldn't get hired anywhere. I had no money left…"

"You had six months to come clean, a whole month in this office." His voice hardened and he crushed me tightly between the corner and his body. "You sat in front of me and smiled, saying more education was on your agenda when I commented on your having only an associate's degree. You lied to my face and smiled, all lovely and innocent."

I closed my eyes, fighting tears. In the month I've spent working around Stark, I have learned how calculating he is with the words he employs.
Lovely
wasn't his actual opinion, but something he thought he could manipulate me with. It worked, if only to make me hate myself a little bit more knowing how most men viewed my body -- a grotesquerie of overlapping curves.

I bit hard at my bottom lip. I had enough shit to handle right now without my traitorous brain bringing up my last discussion with my now ex-boyfriend. I couldn't defend myself against Stark's accusation while the memory of Wilson crowing about how disgusting I was played inside my head.

"Admit it, Mia." Stark eased the hard press of his body against mine for a second, just long enough for me to relax before he increased the tension another notch. "You lied to my face."

Shame heated my skin. He wasn't wrong. I had rehearsed my interview answers for hours in front of the mirror, had practiced finding a fixed point on Stark's face close enough to his eyes without actually having to stare into his all-knowing gaze. Now I was going to pay for it. I'd be fired, but only after he had humiliated me to his satisfaction, ensuring that I was nothing more than a loser who couldn't get a job without lying and not some kind of corporate or foreign agent.