Page 3 of Summoned by the CEO (Curvy for Keeps)

I take a slow breath, my eyes narrowing as I see Angie’s face go flush with color. It isn’t just fear or shock, I realize as a wild idea starts to take form in my swirling head. Fuck, no. The way she’s touching her hair without realizing it, stroking her neck like she can’t help it, shifting in her seat like she’s wet and sticky between those thunderous thighs . . .

Yeah, her body is telling me things that her lips aren’t. Things she might not even know yet. Things she might not even understand yet.

She feels it too, doesn’t she . . .

She feels it too.

This raw attraction.

This need to be with each other.

This need to be mine.

“You ever read those romance novels where the boss calls his secretary into the office and asks her to pretend to be his fiancée to save his reputation or close a big deal or whatever?” I say as that crazy idea forms into words and pushes its way out my mouth.

Her brown eyes open wide and her red lips open wider. She blinks like she’s trying to wake herself up from a dream or something. Then she takes a breath and smiles hesitantly. “I stopped reading romance novels years ago. But I think you’ve got two different romance tropes mixed up here. The fake-fiancée and boss-secretary themes are totally different. The boss-secretary dynamic is about the forbidden, the inappropriate, the power differential between a man in authority and a woman who’s put in a vulnerable position where her livelihood and career might be in jeopardy if she doesn’t submit.”

“Submit to him?” I whisper. “Or to her own desire?”

There’s a moment of sexual tension so thick that I almost explode in my pants, and I swear Angie gasps and tightens her thighs like she’s as wet as I am hard.

“Well,” she says softly. “That’s the conflict. In the story the woman is torn between her desire to submit and her sense of independence, her ambition, her need to make her way in the world on her own, to build a career on the merits of her intelligence and not her neckline.”

I steal a glance at her neckline like I can’t help it, and when I look back into her eyes I can see the sparkle, the spirit, the blazing intelligence.

But I also see something else.

The desire to submit.

A desire that scares her as much as it arouses me.

“Have you heard the rumors about me?” I say softly, my breath catching in my throat as I clench my fists to hold back my ferocious need to claim Angie, a need that’s been held in check for what feels like forever, a need that I know is making her nipples stiffen, making her hot and wet beneath that black skirt.

“The only rumor about you is that it’s weird as hell that thereareno rumors,” she says, blinking and glancing down as I stand before her like a statue, my cock so hard there’s no point in even trying to hide my erection. A tiny gasp escapes her perfectly pouty red lips, and I almost groan as I imagine those lips wrapped around my shaft, her thick thighs spread as she squats before me and takes me into her mouth while massaging my balls, coaxing me to climax as she sucks me to heaven and back, maybe hell and back . . .

I whip my body around, turning to the window and groaning like I’m losing my mind. The images are so fucking clear it’s like I’m hallucinating, going insane. I wonder if this woman is a curvy little witch casting a spell on my cock, and then I almost laugh when I imagine whatCosmowould say if I claimed that I’d lost control of my body because a woman used magic on me and therefore I wasn’t responsible for how hard I fucked her, how deep I rammed her, how much semen I poured into her warm, tight—

“Are you all right, Mister Archer?” she says from behind me, and I realize I’m rubbing my temples while muttering to myself and shaking my head.

“No, Miss Angie,” I say, still with my back to her as my black curtains move in a breeze that seems to be coming from nowhere and everywhere. “I am most certainlynotfucking OK.” Then I turn around, knowing I have no choice but to spill it all, to just her how I feel, tell her what I feel, what I want. What I want now. Now and forever. “And I won’t be OK until I have you. I won’t be OK until you’re mine. Until you’re my woman. Until you’re my wife. Until you’re my forever.”

Angie swoons in her seat, and I wonder if she’s going to pass out. Maybe she’ll just fucking die of shock and that’ll be the end of our story. I can see the headlines now:Enigmatic CEO turns out to be a psycho killer after all. What a fucking surprise. He is who we suspected he was. The End.

“I . . . I don’t even know what to . . . to . . . I mean, Mister Archer, you realize that you sound so . . . so . . .” she stammers, staring at me with a mixture of shock and wonder, like she’s still wondering if this is a dream, a trick, a prank for the cameras.

“So crazy?” I say, putting my hands on my hips and shrugging as I decide to just fuckingownit, own my madness, own my need, own whatever I’m feeling, no matter what the consequences. “I know it’s crazy. But I swear I knew you were mine when I saw you a month ago, Angie. I thought it was just lust and loneliness, but after watching you for a month I know it’s more than that. It’s love, Angie. It’s love.”

“Wait, you noticed me a month ago?” she says, frowning and biting her lip. “And you’ve been . . . beenwatchingme?!” She shoots a glance at those cameras, the color rushing to her face again like she’s both creeped out and turned on at the same time. “OK, this meeting is gettingwayabove my pay grade. I don’t completely understand what’s happening here, but I do understand that it’s not normal. This isn’t normal, Mister Archer. I think maybe we need to—”

“Fucknormal,” I snap, narrowing my eyes as I loom above her. I spread my thick arms out wide and grin, turning slowly in my big, empty office on the top floor of my dark tower. “Whatisnormal, anyway? A million years ago a normal courtship would be me grabbing you by the hair, flipping you over, and taking you hard, fast, and deep. Then I’d toss you in my cave, protect you from the other beastlike men who want to claim you, and watch you get pregnant with my caveman babies. Then I’d do it again the next year. And the next. There was a time whenthatwas normal. Then we evolved to arranged marriages, and now we’ve graduated to men and women swiping through photographs of each other on their fucking phones to decide who’s going to make a suitable mate. Isanyof that normal? Is me seeing you in the flesh and deciding you were mine somehow worse than seeing a posed photograph of you on some online dating site?”

Angie bursts out laughing, her big, beautiful body shivering with mirth as she covers her mouth and laughs some more. “Oh, my God,” she says, shaking her head and sighing. “Did you just summarize the entire history of dating in one crazy rant?! Yeah, this iswaybeyond my pay grade. Way beyond my job description. You either need a shrink or need to be on stage doing stand-up comedy or something.”

I can’t help but smile when I see how her face lights up with surprise and delight. “Everything I just said is accurate. Seriously, Angie. Think about how people meet these days. It’s all photographs and images and poses and . . . and . . . fakeness. Pure fuckingfakeness! There’s nothing real about staring at a bunch of photographs on your damned phone and deciding yeah, this person is kinda hot or whatever. That’s no way to meet someone.”

“Andthisis?!” she says, rubbing her eyes and shaking her head. “Wait, isthatwhat this is? Are you . . . are you asking me out, Mister Archer?”

I pause and scratch my head. I rub my jawline. I raise an eyebrow. In the past ten minutes I’ve just blurted out that she’s mine, just insisted I love her, just told her I wanted her as my wife. Then I went off on some tirade about how I want to drag her to my cave and knock her up. Finally I delivered a PhD-level lecture on the sorry state of online dating. This woman should be screaming and running for the hills, but she’s not. Nope, she’s sitting right here in all her curvy glory. Sitting here with something in her eyes that tells me that maybe I’m not that crazy after all.

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