Page 73 of Work: Strictly Professional

I’d better make sure I put it to good use.

“Well,” I say thoughtfully, “you could do with a little edge, a little bite, a little something…” Oh fuck, don’t tell me I can’t say this. Don’t tell me I’ve spent years getting off to the thought of it, but now that my opportunity to get what I want—from the very man I want it from—is here, I’m going to choke. Please, God, no. “Hard.” My voice cracks horrifically.

Derek, understandably, looks very confused. He leans forward, one side of his top lip inching up. “Hard?”

“Rough,” I squeak.

He leans his head back slightly as if to get a better vantage of me. His lip, curled in confusion a second ago, curls in something completely different now.

Now, I know rough isn’t a clear instruction. It isn’t even a full sentence. I’m going to have to say more. There’s no doubt about it. Obviously, I’m going to have to say more. And I will. Any minute now, I will.

“I, you, I want you to, to, to take me.” Oooh, there’s that squeak again. “To just, like, grab me and like, push me around, and, and do what you want with me. I want you to, to…”

“Own you?” he finishes for me. A blend of red-hot humiliation and arousal tears through me. Own me. Fuck yes. I couldn’t have put it better myself. That’s what I want. Derek’s eyes darken and dance. Shadows shimmer. Tiny cracks appear where there used to be pain. They quickly light up and turn to heat. They start to burn. “But, bunny,” he says reasonably, casting his gaze around his office, at the LA skyline, at my desk in reception, and then back to me, “I do own you.”

A terrible, vicious spike of lust hits me right in the chest. The sensation heats and expands, flowing forcefully down to my dick.

“How much?” he asks. “How much to show you who you belong to?”

I can’t vouch for my voice, so I do a little shoulder shiver and blink a lot.

“A thousand?”

I shake my head.

“One five?”

I shake my head and swallow hard.

“Two thousand.”

I don’t shake or swallow, but my jaw clicks loudly.

“Two five?”

I’m at serious risk of hyperventilating or possibly fainting, so I give a sharp, single nod.

“Two thousand five hundred dollars.” He lets out a low whistle. “Damn, boy, that’s a lot of money.”

He has his negotiation face on. His eyes are laser-focused, his lips curled in a slight snarl. When he looks like this in meetings, he’s about to start negotiating in earnest.

“Take it or leave it,” I say shakily. I know I look like a wreck. I can feel it. To disguise it and add an air of professionalism to the whole business, I attempt a careless, one-shoulder shrug.

He doesn’t reply.

He simply stands and moves toward me at lightning speed. He has me by the upper arm before I’ve gathered my thoughts and pulls me to standing, kicking the chair I was sitting on back several feet. The space around me feels cavernous and too small at the same time. His chest is so close to me, I could lean down and rest my head on it if circumstances were different. He takes my jaw in one hand and holds it firmly, forcing me to look at him as he tugs my bow tie. When it’s loose, he drops it onto his desk and starts working on my shirt. He’s rough. The buttons are tiny, his hands are huge. If they don’t give way easily, he makes them. Ripping and sending them flying into the air. Each time it happens, my desire doubles and doubles again.

He relieves me of my pants in the same way. The fabric is yanked off me, chaffing my skin as he pulls.

I’m naked in seconds. Shaking like a leaf as he takes me in. He looks at me exactly the way he looked at his office and the reception area earlier. Like a man surveying his property.

Like I’m his.

It feels right to be looked at like this by him. More than right. It feels right and wrong. Wrong in the very best way.

Exactly as wrong as I’ve always wanted to feel.

I watch, shivering, as he drops his jacket onto the floor. It slides off his shoulders and drops and lands on timber with a soft sigh, quickly followed by his shirt. His hands move down, drawing my eye to the solid mass of his chest. Dark hair. Hard muscle. Strong man. Big man. I stand, helpless and frozen, burning, as he pulls back the tail of his belt and loosens the prong from the punch hole.

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