Owned: An Alpha Anthology (10 page)

DEBONAIR: PART 1 BY JANI KAY

7 - Brooklyn

Oh my fucking God.
It’s him
. The man who’d invaded my dreams the last few nights, making it impossible to sleep, even though I’d tried to lay the blame on jetlag.

I couldn’t lie; I’d replayed the scene over and over in my head, and wished to God that I'd gone with the flow and at least spoken to him, rather than chickening out and trying to ignore him. A thousand ‘what ifs’ had swarmed my mind, distracting me.

At first I was speechless when I came into his office, not believing how fate had thrown us together again.
So this is where he disappeared too
. . .

I knew he hadn’t recognized me when he hardly looked at me and made me sit in the chair across from him, ignoring me. Even though he was brash and arrogant, I was in seventh heaven, because it gave me more than enough time to stare at him openly and drink in every feature of his handsome face. Mesmerized, I admired his strong, square jaw that at some point must’ve been clean-shaven but was already showing signs of a five o’clock shadow. His thick brows furrowed, Angry-Bird style, while his nimble fingers flew cross the keyboard.

But then he opened his damn mouth and smashed it all to pieces. His cocky attitude was one I was used to. Men never gave me the credit I deserved for my brain. Although I wasn’t a
true
blonde—my hair was honey-colored—they treated me as if I were dumb. As if hair color determined one’s intelligence.

Fact: I was smart, and I was born this way. Since I couldn’t change it, I owned it. I’d accepted and decided to be grateful for it, and use my gift to my advantage. Why bury my talents because it made other people feel insecure? That would be such a waste.

He smirked. "Oh, make no mistake, I'm going to work you, alright. By the end of this you’ll be a different person, of that I can assure you."

I wanted to smack the self-assured grin off his face.

"Is that another threat, sir?" My stomach dropped. He was staring at my cleavage, and I had the distinct impression he wasn’t talking about financial investments. An awkward throb had settled between my legs, but the pencil skirt I wore was too tight for me to cross them over and squeeze my thighs together without it riding up too high.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I despised people who used their position to intimidate their subordinates. I wouldn’t have a bar of it, but here I was, wet and turned on by the gleam in his eyes.

"It's a promise, Miss Bennett." Thick dark lashes framed impossibly green eyes.

Dammit. How could the way he looked at me, like a predatory lion, make me want to strip my clothes and let him have his way with me? I wasn’t an impulsive kind of girl. I planned everything, down to my dates and nights of sex. I left nothing to chance. But this man . . . I wanted to throw caution to the wind and beg him to do things to me with that wicked mouth.

He walked around the desk and came to stand directly in front of me. He leaned his ass against the desktop and folded his arms over his broad chest so that his shirtsleeves tightened over his muscular arms. His cologne—no doubt expensive—snaked its way to my nostrils and messed with my concentration.

"Your training starts this minute. A few ground rules first. You will arrive at six a.m. every morning, and have my coffee on my desk by six-fifteen. You will have lunch at your desk and limit personal calls to one minute. Overtime is a given—don’t expect to get out of here during daylight hours." He watched my face as if he were waiting for me to object. "Oh, and that includes Saturdays. Sundays I suggest you catch up on sleep so that you are fresh for the next week. Any problems with this, Miss Bennett?"

Cocky bastard. If he was expecting me to back down or run away, he was sorely mistaken. I was a fucking ninja—work was my savior, and I could outpace the best of them.

"I only have one problem," I replied, sucking in a breath.

"Let’s hear it," he commanded. 

"Get your own coffee. I'm here to learn about investing. If I wanted a job as a barista, I wouldn’t be here." My eyes locked with his, neither of us backing down an inch.

A vein in his jaw ticked as he stared me down. "Miss Bennett, if I asked you to suck my dick, would you tell me you aren’t looking for a job as a whore? The career you chose is about sucking a lot of dick, you know. We all fuck our way to the top."

"Mr. Sinclair, if you asked me to suck your dick, I'd tell you to kiss my ass. I’m fussy about whose dick I suck—"

He narrowed his eyes and glared down at me. "Jesus, you insist on challenging me, don’t you? Let me warn you—no woman has ever won this battle."

The heat in my belly rose up to my neck, slowly spreading to my cheeks. "I may be a woman, but I’m not a pushover. I've had to fight for what I wanted all my life, so nobody is going to throw me off my goals. Especially not my
temporary
boss. I've survived a lot worse than anything you can throw at me, so give it your best shot."

"Christ. I could throw you over this desk and fuck you into submission."

"Do you solve all your problems with sex and threats, sir? I doubt I’d be learning much from you in that case." There was no way in hell I’d let him see how badly I'd like him to take me from behind on the large mahogany desk, slapping his balls against my naked ass. It had been a fantasy of mine for years, and . . . the desk looked brand new and uninitiated.
I’d love to be the one to change that
.

Shocked by my own thoughts, I caught myself, stunned that I could have these flights of imagination about a stranger. I’d sworn off sexual encounters, and had managed pretty damn fine for the last fifteen months.
Now this
.

From the first moment I’d laid eyes on him in the street, I knew there was something about him that intrigued the hell out of me. And I hadn’t stopped fantasizing about him since, picturing him all over me with his hands, mouth and cock until I had to bring myself to orgasm without making a noise in the bed next to a sleeping Cassidy. But I never imagined that I'd actually meet him face to face and have him talk dirty to me. After all, New York was a gigantic city—what were the chances of us crossing paths again?

"You will be getting more than you bargained for, that I guarantee you. I always make good on my promises. And I promise you’re going to be begging for my dick, Miss Bennett. I'm going to punish you severely for your obstinacy." 

Good Lord. That dirty mouth was soaking my new lace panties. I squirmed in the chair, pinned by his watchful gaze.

"P . . . punish?" I whispered. He made it sound like something to look forward to. Oh God, I was so screwed.

He leaned forward so that our noses were mere inches from touching. I closed my eyes, blocking him from reading my desire in their depths.  

"Yes. I plan to put you over my knee and spank that ass for being a bad girl." His warm breath caressed over my skin, causing me to shiver. "I know who you are, Miss Bennett. Don’t try to hide it."

Stunned, my eyes snapped open. What the hell did that mean?

DEBONAIR: PART 1 BY JANI KAY

8 - Tyler

Unaccustomed to being rattled like this by a woman—one I hardly knew—I moved away from her chair and turned my back to her, gazing out of the large window and adjusting my cock in my pants that had grown too tight. Christ almighty, this was inappropriate, even for me.
I've never reacted to a woman like I'm reacting to her.
I was thinking with my dick, all blood drained from my brain and throbbing in my other head.

Not only was she challenging my professionalism, I was having a hard time reining myself in, and not behaving like an animal who just wanted to fuck.

She could place everything I’d worked for in jeopardy just by the way she looked at me with those big brown eyes. Fuck, how was I going to concentrate on anything other than wanting to touch her?

After a few moments, I managed to get my dick under control. I walked over to my desk and pressed the intercom buzzer. "Ms. Oaks, please arrange for a desk and chair to be delivered to my office for Miss Bennett."

"Oh, Mr. Spencer already has an office for the intern down the passage adjoining his own office—"

"I don’t really give a fuck what Mr. Spencer has. Get the furniture moved here this afternoon." I didn’t wait for her reply. Two women giving me a hard time and questioning everything I said wasn’t working for me. Since I'd moved to this new office, I’d had nothing but trouble with women. Had I lost my fucking mojo?

"I’m going to be sharing an office with you?" My new intern’s voice sounded incredulous—as if that were the last thing she expected or wanted.

"Well how the hell else am I supposed to train you, if you’re in another damn office? It's easier if you’re right here where I can keep an eye on you."

Even behind her glasses I could see that her eyes had widened. "But . . . don’t you require privacy? I mean . . . surely you wouldn’t want me to hear every telephone conversation, and—"

"Don’t look so frightened. I won’t do anything that’s not related to work while you’re in this office." I gave her a half smile, trying to settle her mind, but even I was questioning my own sanity. Usually I was deliberate and logical in making assessments. I rationalized every decision, even who I was going to fuck. It had served me well over the years, keeping me from disastrous mistakes.

However, it was following my gut instincts that gave me the edge over every other motherfucker in this game. While they were still toying with ideas, I went with my gut and jumped in where others feared to tread. It had earned me the respect of my peers and was directly responsible for me getting this office and the attention of my ruthless boss, his pushy wife, and their promiscuous daughter.

The intern straightened her shoulders and glared at me. "Not that I need a babysitter, but if that’s how you want to do it, I guess three weeks isn’t that long to . . . share an office." Her expression said she thought otherwise, and was probably on the verge of telling me as much. But I liked that she realized that I was in charge here, and that she was literally at my mercy.

Yeah, sometimes I was an asshole. Shoot me.

"Good. I barely leave my desk unless necessary, but today I’m going to make an exception and take you to lunch so we can get better acquainted." I grabbed the jacket off the hook and slid it on. "Come, let’s go," I commanded as I reached for the door handle.

I looked back to see if she was following. She wasn’t. She sat in the chair, her legs crossed and her arms folded across her chest. She had a really deep frown between her brows that reminded me of the stubborn look Heather had given me in grade school when she didn’t want to do something I suggested and thought she knew better.

Fuck. Really? Here I was, trying to be nice and apologize for how I’d treated her since she’d arrived, and all I was getting was a cold stare.

"Coming?" I barked.

She raised her dainty nose. "I really don’t see the point. You’ll be rid of me soon enough. In the mean time, can we get on with work, since I already have to catch up?"

I grimaced. "Suit yourself." I closed the door and shrugged out of the jacket, placing it back on the hook. The truth was that I needed time to think. I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do with the intern. Since I’d never wanted one, I couldn’t care less what the protocol was. How the hell was I going to keep her occupied for three full weeks?

I rounded my desk and sat down. Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on the smooth mahogany and made a steeple with my hands, staring intently at the inconvenient intruder. I really didn’t have time for this shit. Some stock prices were going up, while others were plummeting. Some of my clients had made a small fortune and others were possibly on the verge of bankruptcy in the space of the time I’d been idle.

We sat in silence for a few moments before I broke it. "Look, Miss Bennett, I'm going to be brutally honest with you here. I'm not exactly sure what the hell I’m supposed to be teaching you."

At first she glared at me, her eyes unwavering as she tilted her head to listen. I could tell she felt rejected and understandably peeved that she’d travelled all this way just to be dumped on me.

I cleared my throat and continued. "Spencer didn’t leave an itinerary, and the truth is . . . I didn’t get to this position the same way he did, through an Ivy League qualification." Her interest was definitely piqued. She leaned forward in her chair, mirroring my actions and nodding slightly to encourage me to continue.

"I worked my way up the ranks the hard way since I left school. In fact, I don’t even have a formal qualification. I'm what they call a natural—born with trading instincts. I didn’t go the internship route Spencer and you have. So I'm really at a loss as to what to do with you." Her intelligent eyes widened and then went soft.

Ah, Miss Bennett has a sensitive side I haven’t seen yet.

I leaned closer. Our eyes locked over the desk. "I'm going to suggest that you fall in with whatever I’m doing. Hence, the desk in my office. It gets insanely busy most days, so I don’t have time to run to another office to check on you. I'll probably become so engrossed in what I'm doing that I'll forget you’re there. So it's best if you’re right under my nose. Make sense?"

What I saw next took my breath away. A smile spread across her pretty and somewhat stern features, completely transforming her face. My gaze was glued to her lips. She’d either been pursing or biting them since she’d entered my office, but now that she was smiling, the fullness of those lips mesmerized me.
Just like Golden Girl’s lips.

"Yes, I get that." Her grin widened, as if she were amused by the idea that I'd forget her.
Damn, those lips . . . the soft eyes .

"Miss Bennett, I know we’ve been over this . . . I can't shake the feeling that we’ve made contact before."

"I have a girl-next-door kind of face. Many people think they know me. But they don’t."

I shook my head. There was something about her.

Every time I’d scrolled to the pictures of Golden Girl, I castigated myself that I’d walk away instead of approaching her.

"You look like my gold—" Luckily I stopped before I made a complete idiot of myself. Who went around making up names for a stranger they’d
stolen
pictures of? And who kept looking at those pictures and fantasized about somebody they didn’t even know? I was losing my fucking mind. From tomorrow, I needed to run an extra fifteen minutes on the treadmill to clear my foggy brain. This was going to get me in trouble. If I explained myself to Miss Bennett, she’d think I’d lost the fucking plot. It was time I deleted the pictures and got on with real life, instead of imagining a perfect life with someone who didn’t exist except in my mind.

Golden Girl isn’t real. You made her up based on a picture and an idyllic moment stuck in your memory.