Senior Advisor to the Boss: Billionaire Obsession Dark Romance (Managing the Bosses Series Book 9) (8 page)

Christine’s eyebrows shot upward. “You’re going to propose to her?”

“That was the plan,” Mark said. “Maybe not right after this fight, but sometime in the not too distant future, I think.”

“That’s great!” She laughed. “Jamie will be thrilled, I’m sure.”

“You can’t tell her yet. This is just between you and me for now.”

Christine smiled. “It’s our secret.” She took another drink of root beer and then turned to look at him again, her expression thoughtful.

Mark waited for her answer to his question.

“As far as finding out her ring size, your best bet is probably taking it off a ring that she already wears. You could also try getting Jamie or someone to chat with her about rings, but that might be kind of obvious, and sometimes those conversations don’t go exactly as planned.”

“I’ve never seen her wearing a ring.” Mark sighed. Then he paused. “You could talk to her about it.”

“Me?” Christine’s eyes widened. “In case you hadn’t missed it, I’m not exactly the greatest conversationalist.”

“What do you mean? You’re a great conversationalist. I’ve heard you on the phone.”

“That’s different.” Christine looked down at the bar. “I just don’t have a lot of experience talking to people without upsetting them. At least not in a non-professional setting.” Her eyes lifted to his face. “When I’m working here it’s like a script. I feel like someone else. So it’s easier. As myself I’m not always sure what to say, because the things I would have said before aren’t things I can say now.”

It was Mark’s turn to reach out and take Christine’s hand. “I didn’t know you before, so I don’t really know what you were like. But I know you now, and the you I know is a good person.”

The smile she gave him was a little unsteady, her eyes a little wet. “That really means a lot to hear someone say.” Her voice caught. “Thank you, Mark.”

He smiled back at her. “What are brothers-in-law for?”

With Emelie on leave, Jamie ended up carrying a heavier workload than she’d been used to since she started back at Reid Enterprises, and it was wearing on her more than she would have expected.

Back before the twins were born it hadn’t seemed like so much, she was sure. Or maybe it had and she’d just forgotten. She did remember her early days on the job and how hectic they’d felt, the day that she’d fainted in Alex’s office. At least this time it was only work she had to deal with and not her family trying to drag her into every bit of drama they could manage to stir up. That was one positive. The other was that, unless she was the embezzler, Emelie would be back soon and Jamie would be able to go back to three days a week at work and four off. Back to having enough time with her children.

Children who were currently, thankfully, asleep. As much as Jamie missed them during the day, she was tired enough to be grateful that they had an early bedtime. It meant that she could enjoy a little time curled up next to Alex on the couch, only half watching the television.

“Do you have the information from Emelie’s laptop yet?” she asked as the show transitioned into a commercial.

Alex shook his head. “We’ve got the check on her cell phone back, and there’s nothing, but the laptop will be one more day.”

“So do you think she did it?” Jamie shifted back a little so that she could look up at Alex, his perfect features sending a thrill of heat through her the way they always did. The way she hoped they always would. “If they didn’t find anything on her phone?”

“I think that it’s less possible than it was before I knew that, but I’m not ruling it out completely until we know if there’s anything in the laptop. And even then… There’s a chance she could be outwitting us and the techs.”

“Maybe I’m biased, since I kind of like her,” Jamie said, “but I don’t think Emelie did it.”

“What makes you believe it isn’t her?”

“She just doesn’t seem like the type.”

Alex laughed. “I don’t think that really counts as evidence, baby.”

“Well, no,” Jamie agreed. “But when the evidence comes back you’re going to find out that I’m right anyway.”

“Is that so?”

The mood was shifting, and Jamie smiled to match it, not wanting it to go back to the kind of depressing subject of whether or not Emelie was stealing from them. Neither of them were paying any attention any more to the murmur of the TV in the background.

“Just wait. That laptop is going to come back clean, too, and then you’ll have to admit that I knew what I was talking about.”

“I think I kind of like it when you get all arrogant at me.” Alex shifted suddenly, and Jamie found herself on her back on the couch, looking up at Alex’s face, his weight resting over her. She could feel the heat of his body through the layers of fabric separating them, and her heart beat a little faster, warmth pooling in her center. “It’s kind of hot, actually.”

“You’re biased,” Jamie informed him. “You think that everything I do is hot.”

“That’s because you’re sexy as hell,” Alex countered, rocking his hips down against her so that she could feel the hard length of him. Both of them gasped.

His lips claimed hers, and she wrapped an arm around him, holding him close to her as they kissed. When he pulled back, he kissed his way along her jawline and down the curve of her throat, pausing occasionally to nip at the thin skin before soothing the slight sting with his tongue. Jamie let her head fall back against the arm of the couch and her eyes slide shut, a moan slipping from her.

“Your mouth is amazing,” she said, a little breathless with the pleasure of it. “Have I told you that lately?”

Alex chuckled against her collarbone, his breath washing warm over the place his mouth touched. Jamie let her thighs fall open, one leg sliding off the couch, and he rolled his hips again, sliding against her where she wanted him most. He groaned, and she made a sound that might have almost been a purr.

“You drive me crazy, woman,” he growled, yanking her shirt up over her head as she lifted up to let him do it and tossing it to the side. “I think about you all the time. How much I want you. Never get anything done.”

He was unfastening her bra as he spoke, dipping his head down so that he could take one of her nipples into his mouth. His tongue flicked over the tip of it, making it pull tighter, and Jamie moaned again, Alex’s name escaping her lips.

“People kept telling me the fun was going to end if I got married,” he pulled back to say, his tone conversational like he wasn’t driving her wild, all of her nerve endings longing for his touch. “But I really don’t think that’s going to happen to us.”

He kissed his way down her body, pausing to dip his tongue into her navel.

“No?” Jamie gasped. Unlike Alex, she wasn’t so composed, her voice giving away how much his touch was affecting her. “Why not?”

“Because,” Alex said as his hand slipped under the waistband of the sweats she’d put on when she got home from work, “as far as I can tell, it’s just gotten more and more fun every time.”

He punctuated that sentence with two fingers sliding inside of her, and Jamie rocked down onto the stretch of them, biting her lip to keep from crying out when his thumb pressed against her clit.

“Still so tight,” Alex said, his voice finally as wrecked as hers. “Fuck, Jamie. How are you so fucking perfect?”

She didn’t have the words to answer. Could only groan low in her throat, hips bucking as those long fingers stroked across the place inside her that made pleasure light up her nerves. She reached up with uncoordinated hands to unfasten the buttons of his shirt, wanting his glorious body naked against her own. Wanting to feel his skin.

Alex caught her wrists in one of his and lifted her hands above her head, pressing them down firmly. “Stay,” he said, and Jamie shuddered all the way to her toes.

He didn’t undress her any further. Just worked his fingers in and out of her, thumb rocking against her clit while she writhed and whimpered and clutched at the couch.

“Going to make you come for me, right here like this, and then I’m going to take you upstairs and fill you up with my cock. What do you think of that, baby?”

Jamie nodded, panting out a “Yes, Alex. Please.”

She was already close. He knew her too well, his fingers familiar with every spot that brought her pleasure. Every place that made her gasp and moan. Before Alex, she hadn’t known that anything could feel so amazing. Now she couldn’t ever get enough.

“Going to—” The words caught in her throat, but Alex understood them.

He pressed a third finger inside her, working her hard and fast with them, and Jamie spasmed around them, crying out as pleasure burst in her belly, rushing outward through her veins.

Alex gentled his touch, stroking her through the crest of it until she was limp and panting against the couch, and then he slid his fingers free and leaned down to kiss her.

“You may have to carry me up the stairs,” Jamie said when he pulled back for air. “I don’t think my legs work.”

The confession prompted a laugh, and Alex scooped her up in his arms to take her up to the bedroom. He laid her out on the bed, and then stripped out of his own clothing. Jamie leaned up on her elbows to watch, wanting him all over again as he revealed his muscled abs and broad shoulders. When he got down to his boxer-briefs, she stopped him.

“I want to take those off you,” she said, pushing up to her knees and crawling across the bed toward him.

She made sure to take her time, watching his face as he watched her move, loving the desire written so clearly there. No other man had ever wanted her the way Alex did, and every time he looked at her like that—like he couldn’t stand another second without his hands on her skin—she was so grateful that she’d found him. He made her feel beautiful in a way that she hadn’t thought she could after everything that her family and Stephen had put her through about her body.

But she didn’t want to think about that. She was thinking about Alex. About the way the ripples of his abs would feel under her lips and her tongue.

When she reached the end of the bed, Jamie slid her palms up Alex's thighs, feeling the shift of the muscle under the touch, and hooked her fingers into the waistband of his boxer-briefs. Slowly, she pulled them down, freeing the thick length of his cock. She licked her lips as it was bared, and then leaned in and pressed a kiss to the head of it, feeling a little smug when Alex groaned and shuddered under the touch.

“Damn, woman. You're going to be the death of me.”

“Never,” Jamie said, and wrapped her hand around him, stroking slowly upward.

His hips rocked into the touch, and she stroked him again, loving the way that he felt, so hot and hard. So obviously wanting her. She tugged just enough to draw him closer, and he laughed, settling one knee on the bed and then the other. He crawled forward, pressing his body against hers from chest to thigh, and wrapped his hands around the curves of her backside.

“You feel so good,” he groaned. “Can't believe how good you always feel.”

He pulled her close, rubbing against her through the sweats she hadn't gotten around to taking off yet, and then he moved his hands up and pulled them down. Jamie shifted enough to let him get them off, and then she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into another kiss. His cock slid between her thighs, rubbing up against her sex where she was slick and hot with wanting. Both of them groaned.

“Fuck, Jamie,” he breathed against her lips.

She closed her thighs around him, rolling her hips so that the head of his cock bumped against her clit with the motion, teasing them both. He let her get away with it for a minute, his hands wrapping around the place where her thighs met her buttocks. Then he growled, and swept her legs out from under her, dropping her to the mattress with her hair spilled across the pillows. Jamie looked up at him, her heart beating fast in her chest and her nipples tightening into tight little peaks, her clit aching.

Alex pushed her thighs open, and settled himself between them, and then he was sliding into her with one long thrust, opening her the way only he could. Filling her up just like he’d promised.

He started moving, grunting with the thrusts, and Jamie wrapped one leg around his thigh, lips parted and eyelids dropping shut only to flutter open again so that she could watch his face as he moved inside her. The rhythm was driving her toward a second orgasm, taking her breath away.

Abruptly, Alex ran his hands up the backs of her thighs, bending her legs back so that she was folded under him, filling her deeper. Jamie arched, moaning from deep behind her ribs, her hands catching at his shoulders. Her nails left faint marks behind in his skin.

His mouth was against the curve where her neck met her shoulder, and she could feel him panting, his lips moving over her skin.

“So beautiful,” Alex groaned. “So perfect.”

Jamie wanted him closer. Deeper. She hooked her legs around his waist and rose to meet him with every thrust, felt the need coiling itself into the promise of release. He must have felt it, too, because he was moving faster, the rhythm faltering as he neared the edge.

She sobbed his name and pleasure rushed through her for the second time that night, washing over her until she thought she might drown in it. An instant later, Alex was shouting his climax, coming inside her.

His motions slowed, and then stilled, and Jamie’s legs fell back to the mattress. He pulled out, and collapsed onto the bed, chest rising and falling with the heave of his breath. Both of them were slick with sweat, breathing hard. Jamie reached out and tangled her fingers with Alex’s.

“You know what?” Alex said, voice lazy with afterglow. “No matter what else happens, I’m the luckiest man alive.”

Jamie turned her head enough to look at him. “I’m that good, huh?”

Alex sat up just long enough to pull the blankets up for them, then pulled her in close with an arm wrapped around her so that she could lay her head against his shoulder.

“That good and more,” Alex said, brushing a kiss against the top of her head. “But that’s not the only reason. You’re amazing. You’re a wonderful mother. You’re the best PA ever to walk the earth. And you’re fucking gorgeous on top of that.”

“You know you don’t have to flatter me to get into my pants,” Jamie pointed out, teasing. “You’re already there.”

“It’s not flattery.” Alex caught her chin in his hand and tipped it up for a kiss. “It’s just the truth.”

He kissed her again. And then again. Jamie let the kisses coax her eyes to close and her lips to part.

“I love you,” Alex said, low and earnest.

“I love you, too,” Jamie answered. “Absolutely.”

Wrapped around each other, they slept.