The Boss (25 page)

He wiped at his mouth with the back of his
hand. "There's a powder room through there."

I took notice of my surroundings for the
first time. The checked marble from the vestibule continued into
the larger interior foyer, but the walls here were painted linen
white. A half-bath stood open to the right, and I stepped in just
long enough to check my lipstick in the mirror. When I turned back,
Neil had hung up my coat. He gestured to the other doors. "Let me
show you around. I should do at least that much before I rip that
dress off you."

"You can't rip it, it's Holli's, and it’s her
favorite," I told him sternly as I followed him further into the
apartment. There was a hallway to the left of the front door. I
realized the elevator must run through the center of the
apartment.

"Three bedrooms that way, media room, gym,
and service." He waved it off as though those details were
unimportant. "And fine, I won't rip the dress."

"Service?" The word seemed utterly foreign to
me as I tried to place exactly what type of room would be
considered a service room. Then it snapped into place. "Oh, like a
maid?"

"A housekeeper, but I've given her the night
off. She doesn't live here, anyway. I use those rooms mostly for
storage." He motioned toward the other side of the foyer, where a
short L-shaped hallway bent out of sight. "That way is the master
suite- we had better leave that part until after dinner, I think-
and there is the library."

"Library?" I let him guide me with his hand
on my back. He reached through the door and flipped the light
switch, and it seemed far too casual a motion to herald the
revelation of French Empire style furnishings and a
floor-to-ceiling collection of gorgeous, leather bound books.

I scrutinized the shelves from the door. "You
don't really read these, do you? They all match."

"I've read some," he defended himself. "But
you're right; the books for reading are in my bedroom. These are
just a shamelessly showy collection.”

I walked with him to the living room, a huge
space with high ceilings and a monstrously large stone fireplace.
The furniture - a couch, a backless sofa, a few chairs and a low,
blocky mahogany table - were all modern, but flavored by classic
styles. All the upholstery was a shade of pale eggshell that highly
discouraged eating or drinking near them. Overhead, dark wood beams
crossed the ceiling, and the largest embroidered rug I'd ever seen
concealed the wood parquet that wouldn't have matched the
furnishing.

Okay. Deep breaths. Neil was really, really,
really super rich. I guess it had been easy enough to ignore when
he was living in a hotel room. A swanky hotel room, but still,
technically homeless. Yeah, he rode around in a Maybach, that
should have clued me in, but to see the place he actually called
home? Well, my reality was significantly adjusted.

"The kitchen is this way," he led me through
the arched glass double doors at the other end of the living room.
We moved through the dining room, past the long table and its
fourteen chairs, and we passed through another door into the
kitchen.

"I was just cooking dinner," Neil explained,
moving away from me to the huge marble-topped island in the center
of the room. There were tall wrought-iron chairs positioned on the
side opposite the stove, and I took a seat as gracefully as I could
in the world’s tightest dress. On the other side of the island was
a cutting board heaped with bok choy and sliced mushrooms.

"You gave your housekeeper the night off so
you could cook for me?" That was very sweet, and it put me more at
ease. I watched as Neil expertly cut a pepper into thin slices, his
forearms flexing subtly beneath his rolled back sleeves.

He smiled and scraped the slices aside,
reaching for a clove of garlic. "I gave my housekeeper the night
off so I could fuck you in any room I wanted."

My pulse sped up.

"And to impress you with my culinary skill,
of course." He looked up, winked at me, and turned his attention
back to mincing the garlic. "There's water in the cooler, or white
wine, if it won't make you too tipsy."

"What's wrong with tipsy?" I slid off the
chair and peeked around the corner of the island. There was a
built-in, glass-front cooler beneath the island's bar sink, and it
was fully stocked with bottled water. Two bottles of wine rested on
their side, and I was reaching for one when Neil explained exactly
what was wrong with tipsy.

"I’m not comfortable playing with a sub who’s
drunk.”

I grabbed a bottled water. "Sounds like you
have plans, Sir."

There was that half-smile again, the one that
made me weak all over. I leaned against the counter beside him,
willing him to stop chopping up vegetables and just touch me
already. Somewhere, anywhere, it didn't matter.

We were on more comfortable ground now, I
realized. There was no talk about missing anyone, nothing even
vaguely sentimental. I was there to be fucked, to continue our
purely sexual relationship with a side of unthreatening friendship.
This, I could handle.

He laid the kitchen knife aside and wiped his
hands on a towel, looking down at me with amused heat in his eyes.
He seemed to loom over me; I always forgot how tall he was,
compared to five-foot-four me. I felt tiny next to him, strangely
vulnerable, but not afraid, even when he caressed the back of my
neck and exerted gentle pressure to bend me over the counter.

"I like these stockings," he murmured close
to my ear, bending down to trace his fingers up the dark back seam
from my knee to the thick black band at the top. His fingers skated
along the curve of one bare cheek, and he whispered in approval,
"Naughty girl."

He hitched my skirt up high, exposing my
naked lower half to his gaze. His palm smoothed over my skin and I
shivered, waiting for the slap that I knew would come. Eventually.
My pussy clenched with the anticipation, but when he lifted his
hand, it was to reach for something on the counter, not to spank
me.

I raised my head. He held a wooden spoon, and
he slapped it hard against his open palm.

"Oh fuck yes,” I moaned. My toes curled in my
shoes. I didn't have to wait long for the first blow, which
surprised me and jerked a ragged cry from my lips. It was
definitely more intense than his hand, more of a surface pain on my
skin than the deep, bruising burn of a hard slap.

“What should you say, Sophie?”

“Thank you, Sir.” And I was grateful with
every scorching hot cell in my body.

His other hand slipped around the front of my
throat, up to cover my mouth, two fingers forcing past my lips. I
sucked on them, tasting the garlic and the peppers he had cut up. I
almost laughed at that, at the absurdity of being spanked over a
kitchen counter in the middle of dinner prep.

"You'll pardon me if I don't really give this
my all." He smacked me with the spoon again, and I jumped. "But I
have plans for more... intense activity later. I wouldn't want you
to be too sore to enjoy it."

I moaned and swirled my tongue around his
fingers. My clit ached to be touched, but I had no doubt he was
going to make me wait an eternity before I could come.

Honestly, that didn't bother me as much as it
would have in the past. I liked the idea of waiting. I knew that
the entire time he was teasing me, making me die from anticipation,
I was as much the focus of his attention as he was mine.

He gave me another whack with the wooden
spoon, then jerked my skirt back down and pulled his fingers from
my mouth. He turned away and washed his hands at the bar sink as I
stood up, my head spinning. Then he went casually back to the
cutting board to grate some ginger with the edge of his knife.

I stumbled to the chair I'd been in, and he
passed me the bottle of water I'd forgotten, smiling pleasantly as
though nothing had just happened. "I hope you like sea bass."

Damn him. He knew exactly what he was doing
to me. He was torturing himself, as well; I could tell from the
slight tremor in his hands as he worked.

Still, he hadn't been kidding about showing
off his culinary prowess. I'd been somewhat concerned that the
whole cooking-me-dinner thing had been for show, to display how
"normal" he was despite living in a Fifth freaking Avenue palace.
But he was actually a really good cook, whipping up an amazing meal
of grilled sea bass on a bed of peppers, bok choy, and shiitake
mushrooms in a ginger and chili sauce. We settled down at the nook
in the kitchen.

"The formal dining room is a bit... formal, I
think," he suggested, and I heartily agreed.

We talked, mostly about work and how things
were going there. It was a safe topic, one that wasn't too personal
for friendly chatter, nothing that would push us into real "getting
to know you" territory.

Unfortunately, some personal details were
unavoidable. There were pictures on the wall, of his daughter I
presumed. I tried not to look at those.

He must have known that I’d been rattled by
his demeanor in my apartment the night before, because near the end
of the meal he said, "Sophie, I want to apologize if I've...
crossed any boundaries with you. Last night I wasn't myself."

"It's okay. I just... you said something." I
stopped myself. "Maybe this isn't the right time to talk about
it."

He smiled sadly. "I've learned my lesson when
it comes to relationships. If there's anything you can't talk
about, that's likely the thing you should be talking about."

"I bow to your painful experience," I said,
trying to make light of the situation and feeling it fall flat
between us. So clearly, joking about his divorce was a bad choice.
"When you were... high on Klonopin last night, you said that you
missed me, and you weren't talking about the trip."

He nodded, and he didn't meet my eyes. It was
a defense mechanism, I realized, and my stomach dropped. When he
answered, his voice was uncharacteristically quiet and serious,
without any hint of the playful teasing I was used to. "I wish
things had happened differently between us. As I've gotten to know
you over these past few weeks, I can't help but think that we
missed an amazing opportunity with each other."

"Or not." I dabbed the corner of my mouth
with my napkin. "I don't think I'm a fully formed person yet,
imagine me six years ago."

"True. And perhaps we wouldn't be sitting
here now." He regarded me with his unreadable half-smile that I
will probably never figure out.

My heart was racing, and for entirely
different reasons than my earlier excitement. This was heavier than
I'd imagined the night would be. I was caught between being afraid
of what I was feeling and being afraid of what
he
was
feeling. The lack of control was unsettling.

He reached across the table and took my hand
in his. I felt like I might get up and bolt, until he linked our
little fingers together in the classic pinkie-swear pose. "Let's
make a pact. No matter what happens with our current arrangement,
we remain on friendly terms. I don't ever want to go six years
without seeing you again."

There was that sneaky knot in my chest again,
the one I never realized was there until it eased slightly at
something he said or did. "I can live with that."

There was a long moment between us, one that
had begun in comfortable silence then ended with an awkward
clearing of the throat on Neil's part.

The mood needed a reset button. "So, any big
after dinner plans?" I slipped my shoe off under the table and ran
my silk-covered toes up his ankle.

He raised an eyebrow. "As a matter of fact, I
have to give you your present."

I pushed back my plate. "I am always ready
for presents."

* * * *

We didn’t clear the
table before he led me to the master bedroom. He turned up the
dimmer switch, bathing the walls in a soft golden glow from the
inset lights.

"Wow." His bedroom that was arguably as large
as my apartment.

Huge windows displayed a spectacular view of
Central Park. One wall was entirely dominated by dark wood
shelving. This was clearly where all the books that didn't have
matching leather bound covers lived, and in the middle of them was
the biggest bed I'd ever seen in my entire life.

"Some headboard." I whistled to signify how
impressed I was as I walked toward the shelves. I spied a biography
of John Adams beside a copy of Hugo's
Les Miserables
. They
both had creases in their spines.

I may have felt a swoon coming on.

"I told you I read," he said defensively as
he moved through the seating area in front of the marble fireplace.
It was definitely a smaller hearth than the one in the living room,
but still... the man had a fireplace in his bedroom. And couches
and chairs that I was pretty sure were antiques. He disappeared
through a door that was the same dark wood as everything else in
the room, and called for me to follow him.

It was a walk-in closet. Wait, strike that.
It was an honest-to-god dressing room. Suit jackets and shirts hung
in order of color and texture. There were drawers everywhere,
cedar-lined, judging by the crisp scent in the air. Illuminated
glass shelves displayed watches and cufflinks that each probably
cost more than a year of my salary. Further back was a collection
of shoes that cemented my opinion of Neil as some kind of male
Carrie Bradshaw, and a doorway that led to the master bath. The
floor in here was herringbone patterned wood parquet, but forced
air vents heated it at foot level. For bare feet.

Okay, the guy I was having sex with was rich
enough that he had special heaters for walking barefoot in his
closet. I may have been in over my head.

A nearly full-length trifold mirror was built
in between the jackets and pants, and lit from above with can
lights. He stopped me from going any further, and sat down in the
delicate white wing chair in front of it. No shit, he really had
room for an honest-to-god chair in his closet.