Because He Watches Me (Because He Owns Me, Book Nine) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (11 page)

She did so. It was dry and strong and she flinched a little from the taste.

“It’s very good,” she lied. “Thanks.”

He just stood there staring at her. “What?”

“I said—“ she stopped cold. She’d forgotten to call him sir. “I said it’s very good…sir.”

“I don’t think you like it.”

“I do, sir, very much.”

He stood over her. She was suddenly aware that his belt buckle (and below that, his zipper) was at mouth level. She pictured herself reaching out and touching that zipper.

“If you like it so much, then drink it all. Now.”

“Right now?”

His expression darkened. “If you forget to call me sir one more time, you’ll force me to do something very unpleasant, Nicole.”

She didn’t have a clue what that meant, but she didn’t want to find out. “I’m so sorry sir.”

“Drink up.”

“Should you really be making me drink alcohol at work, sir?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

“I’m not making you. I’m telling you.”

Her nipples stiffened when Nicole saw how he was looking at her.

She took a deep breath through her nose and exhaled out of her mouth. The very air in his office had changed; taken on a heavy, still quality. All of Nicole’s senses were engaged now, and she could smell not only Red and his cologne, but the scent of paper and leather and perfume from women who’d been in here earlier today.

She could see the small wrinkles in the fabric of Red’s steel gray shirt, the stitching in his trousers. Even the oil on his shoes.

She threw back her head and drank the martini as quickly as possible. Halfway through it she nearly gagged, but somehow was able to get it all down. When she was done, she held back a large belch. Her throat burned and her eyes were tearing.

Red watched her, a small smile playing on his lips. He took the empty glass from her hand, and his fingers seemed to linger on hers when he did so. “I should make you drink another, but I won’t…this time.” He turned and brought her glass back to the bar.

She was lightheaded and loose now. This meeting had turned into something else altogether, something dangerous and strange and…wrong. She knew it was wrong in her gut. And yet it also felt oddly right. This game was familiar to her in a way that she couldn’t have explained to anybody, not even herself.

“You can’t make me do anything…sir. You can only tell me,” she said, using his own words against him.

He spun and walked towards her, dark eyes burning. “I can’t?”

She met his gaze from her chair. “No, sir. You can’t.”

“If I ask you to, you’ll parade naked through these halls.”

She snorted a laugh. “Don’t be silly, sir.”

He crossed his arms and sat on the edge of his desk. “I have another meeting in just a few minutes,” he said.

A ripple of disappointment ran through her body.

“But I’m going to give you an assignment,” he finished.

She cocked her head at him. “Like homework?” Before he could get angry, she tagged on a sir.

“Yes, exactly like homework,” he smiled. “I want you to go home tonight and write an essay on how you plan to serve my interests.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“Figure it out.” He checked his watch. “You’re dismissed.” And then he went back behind his desk and sat down.

Nicole picked up her purse and stood, wobbling for a second. Her face was burning with shame at his casual and abrupt dismissal of her, as if she were a second grader and he the teacher. How dare he? How dare he try and humiliate her this way? She was an intern and he was making her into something dirty and pathetic.

She was growing more furious by the second. Of course, deep in the back of her mind, Nicole knew the real reason she was upset. She was hurt that he was sending her away—she wanted more time with him. She wanted more of everything.

Instead of admitting that to herself or him, she had a tantrum. “This is bullshit,” she said.

Red looked up from his papers. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me.” She glared at him. A sheen of sweat covered her body.

He smirked, as if disgusted by her presence. “You’re free to go, Miss Masters.” Now he was becoming even more formal. Her heart pounded in her chest and her stomach tightened.

“I know I’m free to go.”

“Did you forget where the door was?”

“I just want you to know that I’m not going to stand for this.” She tossed her hair and adjusted her purse strap as his gaze met hers.

“Stand for what?”

“The way you’re treating me. It’s harassment. I don’t need this job that badly, I can get another one.”

His smile widened, as if he expected this very reaction from her and welcomed it. “Oh, you’re very sure of yourself,” he said, leaning back and appraising her.

“Sure enough,” she lied.

“Well, don’t be.” He put a hand on the receiver of his phone. “I can pick up this phone and make a series of calls that will guarantee you never work in this industry again. It would take me all of about ten minutes to end your career entirely.”

The comment chilled her, as did the deadly serious look in his eyes.

“Why would you do that to me? I’m not important enough for you to waste your time on.”

“Because I can.”

The tears burned in her eyes. “I haven’t done anything to you. I don’t understand why you’re being so mean.”

He sighed. For the first time, he looked troubled. “I didn’t want to hire you.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll leave immediately. Thank you…for…the opportunity.” She turned and started to walk out of the room. Actually, it was more like a sprint to get away from her shame and embarrassment and defeat.

But before she could exit, he was behind her. One of his hands gripped her shoulder and stopped her. “Wait,” he said. His breath was hot on her neck.

His hand felt warm and strong on her shoulder and he kept it there as she stood, still facing the door. Tears were streaming down her face and she didn’t want him to see her this way. “If you didn’t want to hire me, then why? Why did you?”

“You don’t understand,” he whispered. “The moment I first laid eyes on you I knew. I knew that I had to have you.”

A thrill ran up her legs and directly pulsated into her most private places. “Don’t lie to me,” she moaned.

“It’s not a lie.”

“Then why are you so cruel to me?”

“I’ve already answered that question.” He stepped closer to her. She could feel his body heat radiating against her buttocks and back and neck. He was like a furnace. She wanted more than anything for him to hold her tightly, to push himself up against her, force her towards the wall. His hands to cup her breasts from behind. His warm lips to kiss her exposed neck.

Neither of them spoke for a long time.

“I can’t control this,” he said.

His hand stroked her hair lightly, sending chills up and down her spine. And then he pulled her hair. As her head tilted back, he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to her ear. “Do you understand now?”

Nicole moaned. She didn’t really, but in another way she did. Her body understood him in a way that her intellect could not. Her pussy was soaking wet, throbbing. She’d never felt this in her life. This want, this need, this aching. Every fiber of her wanted his hands to touch her bare skin. He could throw her to the floor and enter her right here, right now.

“Please,” she moaned. “I…I want you.”

He tugged more insistently on her hair. “It’s not so simple,” he warned.

“I don’t care. I don’t care,” she said. She was dizzy and hot and in need.

“If you agree to this relationship,” he whispered, “there’s no going back. Walk out now and I won’t do a thing. I won’t pick up that phone, nobody will know a thing. You can get a job somewhere else, be a nice little worker bee at a safe, boring little advertising firm.”

“No,” she said. “I want this.”

I want you. I want all of you inside me.

“You think you want this,” he said, again tugging her hair. This time, there was some pain in her scalp. She hissed. He released the pressure and brushed his lips against her neck, so briefly she wasn’t sure it had even happened. “But I’m a difficult man to please. Do you want to please me?”

“Yes.”

Another pull of her hair, harder this time. “Yes
sir
.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tonight, you’ll go home and write me an essay. You’ll tell me in detail how you intend to please me.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to—“

This time his other hand gripped her neck. “I gave you an order. Didn’t I?”

“Yes. Yes, sir.”

“Then do as I command.”

“Yes, sir.” He released her completely and moved quickly away. She wished he would return. She wanted to feel his hands everywhere on her body. Even the pain when he pulled her hair was sensual, and she wanted more of that too. If she could just feel those lips against her neck for even one more moment, it would all be worth it.

“You can turn around now,” he said as he sat back down at his desk.

Nicole turned, seeing him as if for the first time. In the last few minutes, it seemed as if her entire life had changed. Like she was a different person, a package that had been unwrapped for the very first time. She was raw, naked, vulnerable. If he asked her to, she’d take off her pants, her blouse, her panties. She’d stand in front of him nude, play with herself, show him how wet she was. If that’s what he desired.

“Should I leave, sir?”

“I don’t want to cause you any harm,” he said softly. “That’s why I didn’t want to hire you. I know myself well enough to know that our relationship can only be difficult. Difficult, complicated, and ultimately destructive…You deserve more than that.”

“I’ll do anything you need,” she said. “Anything, sir.”

“Yes,” he nodded, lost in thought. “I just hope you’ll feel the same way when it’s all over.”

“I will, sir.”

He nodded again but his expression was troubled. “Go home, Nicole.”

And she did.

***

T
he next day was awful
.

She’d been up all night writing the essay Red had assigned, fearing that Danielle would barge in her room at any moment and tear the paper out of her grasp, read it and laugh and laugh. Call their mutual friends and read it aloud to them as well.

Writing it had been excruciating. She wanted to turn him on, wanted more than anything to please him. This was Red Jameson, after all, the man who could have any woman he wanted. He’d been seen with starlets, models, the most famous and beautiful girls on the planet.

And now, inexplicably, impossibly, he wanted her. And worst of all, he wanted her to tell him how she would please him.

What did that even mean? It was a riddle.

That was part of the anxiety of it all. She couldn’t know what he really wanted her to write because he hadn’t been clear in his instructions.

Eyes bleary, she woke at six-thirty after only a couple of hours of fitful sleep and sat down with the paper in front of her. She had smudges of blue ink on her fingers.

She looked at the three pages in front of her, filled with line after line of neatly handwritten script. There were other pages in the wastebasket, crumpled up because she’d needed to cross something out or change a word. She refused to let Red see anything resembling a mistake.

At first, she’d started writing the essay on her computer, but it hadn’t felt intimate enough. She convinced herself that it should be more like a letter than a book report.

Now she reread her work with growing horror.

I will make it my duty to show you my devotion.

Another line further down the page.

Pleasing you in every way will be my greatest accomplishment, I will dedicate myself to the task night and day. Every waking moment will be spent thinking only of your needs.

And on the next page…

My body is yours. My mind is yours. My soul is yours. Do with me as you please.

She recoiled from the words as she read them. They were utter garbage, and Red would be disgusted when he saw what she’d come up with. He’d want nothing more to do with her, knowing the vapid quality of her thoughts, the sheer banality of her creativity.

But then she told herself that the quality of her writing wasn’t what counted in this task he’d given her. What counted was how well she was able to communicate her willingness to please him. And from that perspective, she’d certainly succeeded.

At least, that’s what she told herself.

Nicole folded up her three-page essay and put it at the very bottom of her purse, then went to the bathroom for a quick shower. She dressed in another skirt, this one baby blue, with a white sleeveless blouse that had a low-cut neckline. She also wore a necklace that she hoped would draw Red’s eye to her cleavage, letting him know that both his gaze and his hands were welcome there if he saw fit.

She was wet again, which seemed to be a permanent situation since meeting Red Jameson. Last night when she’d undressed, her panties had been soaked and the scent of her sex had been so strong she’d had an uneasy moment where she wondered if Red had actually
smelled
her in his office.

Now, after just getting dressed for the day, she was already getting wet again. It was like a disease, an affliction. She wanted to touch herself, wanted that orgasm, but she also wanted to savor this wanting him.

And so she went to work, hoping and waiting for him to call her to his office. Nicole sat down at her desk, wondering if his request would take the form of a phone call, an email—would he possibly even swing by her desk?

The morning dragged on. Nobody gave her any work to do, so she continued to page through the stupid binder and read useless company policies. She laughed a little when she came to the sexual harassment policy. How easy it would be for her to turn Red’s overtures into a multi-million dollar lawsuit.

But she had no real thought of doing that. She wanted his touch far more than any amount of money