Page 10 of Think Outside the Boss

“Not my nickname,” I tell him, and he grins. I cover it with my lips and we’re lost once more to the chemistry between us, to whatever magic happens when his lips and mine meet. My desire pounds in tune to the beat of the music, hypnotic and sensual. Beneath me, the hard length of him is evidence of his own. The surprise makes me break away.

He doesn’t skip a beat, shifting to my neck instead. A large hand cups my breast and smooths a thumb through the fabric, finding the tight point of my nipple without effort. “I want you,” he says, lips against my skin. “Do you want to find an unoccupied room?”

I swallow against the dryness in my throat. “There’s still a third performance. I heard there will be pyrotechnics.”

“I think,” he murmurs, “that we have all the fire we need right here.”

3

Freddie

His arm is strong around my waist as we walk through the party. We pass the naked woman on the couch kept busy by the two men pleasuring her. She catches me watching and gives me a wide, smug smile. Look what I caught.

I lean into the stranger at my side. “Not for you?” he murmurs.

I shake my head. “I think that requires more hedonism than I have in me.”

“You know what they say,” he says. “Under the right circumstances, anyone will do anything.”

“See, it’s you saying things like that that chalks you up in the mafia column.” Turning the corner to a dark corridor, we pass the open door to a hotel room… only it’s not unoccupied. I avert my eyes immediately from the naked bodies writhing on the bed. “Oh my God.”

I can make out his smile in the dim lighting. “Not everyone enjoys it like that. A lot of the doors here are closed, after all.”

“That’s good.”

“But this one isn’t,” he says, stopping at a door that’s slightly ajar. The bedroom inside is bland and tastefully decorated. But most importantly? It’s empty.

I walk past him into the room. The bed looks massive behind me, decked in innocuous-looking hotel linens. “I wonder what the Gilded Room tell the hotels they rent. Do they know what’s going on?”

He has a hand on the half-open door, a wry smile to his lips. “Oh, they know. What do you think, Strait-laced? Door open or closed?”

I sink down onto the bed. “Just us, I think.”

He shuts it with a decisive click, but the smile on his face lets me know he hadn’t expected another answer. “Absolutely fine by me, gorgeous.”

We stare at each other for a few long breaths. No words, just eyes, and with each passing moment the nerves and desire in my stomach grows sharper.

“Do you need to get used to me again?” he asks.

I lean back on my hands and give a simple nod. Lips quirked in wry humor, he shrugs out of his suit jacket and tosses it back. Large hands reach up to undo the buttons of his shirt. I watch as inch after inch of broad, olive-skinned chest comes on display, muscular and smattered with hair.

He stops when the shirt hangs off him. “Keep looking at me like that.”

“Not difficult to,” I breathe.

His shirt joins the jacket behind him, and my eyes follow the grooves of his abs down to the leather belt. His wide chest rises with every breath. I feel like I’ve accidentally wandered into one of my deepest, darkest fantasies. Because everything about him, from the dark, commanding eyes to the square jaw and broad shoulders, conveys power. He might not be mafia, but he is something, this man, and here he is with me, looking like he can’t wait to have me. But waiting he is, because for as much power as he usually commands, in here women are the ones calling the shots.

I’ve never felt so empowered in my life. The thrill of it runs like a second pulse beneath my skin. “You’re too far away,” I tell him. “I want to touch you.”

“Then touch me.”

His words are soft and silky, but the challenge underneath them is unmistakable. I close the distance between us and reach out, my fingers trailing across his chest. He sucks in a breath as I trace the faint V of his hipbones. Strong grooves of muscle move beneath the skin.

“You still haven’t asked the question,” he murmurs.

My hands come to rest on the leather belt, my eyes finding his. “Will you sleep with me?”

“Not hypothetically?”

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