The Boss' Proposal (Book 4) (Callahan's Secretary) (3 page)

ANTHONY arrived at his friend’s home bearing a bottle of Scotch and a box of cigars.  Considering his recent absence from the weekly game, a peace offering had seemed appropriate. 

“Hello, stranger!  Where the hell have you been hiding?”

“With his new girlfriend.  They’re like rabbits from what I hear.”

Anthony took the ribbing in the manner it was intended, but seeing no point in delaying the inevitable, he replied, “Keep in mind, gentleman, that’s my future wife you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, right!”

Anthony glanced back at the other man at the table, “Yes.  Grace and I are getting married.”

The announcement, once it was taken seriously, left the occupants of the room in stunned silence.  It was Paul, the host of the game and one of Anthony’s oldest friends, who finally broke the uncomfortable quiet.  “Congratulations.   I’ve always thought the world of Grace.  Sweetest woman in the world.”

“This is Grace the secretary, right?” one of the other men asked.  “Isn’t she a little—”

Anthony tensed, waiting for one of them to say something crude.  

“What he’s getting at, you perv,” another voice chimed in from the door behind him, “Is that you’re robbing the damn cradle.”

Anthony looked behind him to see Mick Halloran walk in.  Mick was the investigator he’d hired to follow up on Beatty, but with the background work done and Beatty holed up somewhere, there was little work left to be done.  “She’s younger than me,” he agreed.  “But I’m not exactly ready to be put out to pasture.”

“None of us are.  That’s why pharmaceutical companies make the big bucks with those little blue pills.”

The humor worked to diffuse what might have been an otherwise tense situation.  The men took to the table and the talk turned serious about the card game.  With the haze of cigar smoke and the smell of whiskey, Anthony really had no desire to be there.  Looking at the pathetic hand of cards in front of him, he wished in that moment that he was at home, in his bed with Grace.  It wasn’t even sex, though it never failed to cross his mind when she was around.  Or when she wasn’t, for that matter.  He simply felt more complete when Grace was with him. 

“Quit pining and play,” Mick said. 

Anthony started to respond, but the buzzing of Mick’s phone stopped him.  He watched as Mick scanned the screen, his expression growing serious.  When Mick looked at him, Anthony knew immediately that something was horribly wrong.  “I just got a hit on that burner phone Beatty’s been using… He finally turned the damn thing back on and we could get a GPS location on it.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” someone asked, but the question was ignored. 

“Where?” Anthony demanded. 

“It’s in Grace’s apartment,” Mick replied. 

GRACE awoke slowly.  She could tell that it was full dark outside and realized that she’d slept far longer than she intended.  As she moved to sit up, her head felt heavy and there was a dull thumping behind her eyes, almost like a hangover.  Her stomach was none too thrilled either. 

“You might want to take that a bit slow.  That little sedative I paid the barista to slip into your mocha chai latte this afternoon should be wearing off now.  I hear it can make you a bit woozy.”

Grace looked over her shoulder and a cold frisson of fear traveled up her spine.   Richard Beatty was leaning nonchalantly against the counter between her kitchen and living room.  He looked a bit worse for wear.  His hair was disheveled and he didn’t appear to have shaved in the past week.  Grace didn’t bother to ask how he got in.  It didn’t matter.  Knowing that her opportunities were limited, she tossed the blanket back and bolted for the door.  Whether it was the aftereffects of the drug or Beatty was really that fast, she didn’t know, but he was on her in seconds.  He shoved her to the floor, pinning her there. 

“This is what’s going to happen, Grace,” he sneered.  “I’m going to have my revenge, as petty as it may sound.  Anthony Callahan took something from me, and now I’m going to take something from him!”

Grace struggled against him, but he’d come prepared.  Even as she kicked and clawed she felt the loop of the zip tie sliding over her hands and the rasp as he pulled it closed.  She struggled anew, managing to push him off of her somehow.  But as she clawed her way to the door, his hand fisted in her hair, yanking her back.  She screamed, her scalp burning with pain as he hauled her to her knees.  “This is crazy, Richard.  You’ll never get away with this!”

“I don’t want to get away with it, Grace.  I don’t care if I get caught.  I want him to know… How long will it last, Grace?  Every time he looks at you, he’ll think of this moment.  What do you think that will do for your fairytale ending?”

Grace brought her hands up quickly, the blow catching him off guard.  Her closed hands made contact just below his right eye and he fell backwards.  She used that moment to scramble towards the door again.  With the sedative still making her woozy, getting to her feet was a struggle.  He caught her again, quickly.  When his hand snagged in her hair the second time, she let out a strangled sob, knowing there wouldn’t be another opportunity for escape.  The blow was  staggering, the back of his hand connecting brutally with her cheek.  Tears stung her eyes and her ears rang from the impact that had sent her tumbling once again to the floor. 

“Fucking bitch!” he said. 

Grace kicked and screamed as he dragged her across the floor and with another of the zip ties, tethered her bound wrists to the radiator.  She screamed again as his hands twisted in the fabric of her blouse, rending it easily.  Grace thrashed against him, the hard plastic ties digging painfully into her wrists.   One of her knees caught his hip, and he struck her again. 

“Cunt!” he snapped at her. 

Grace was still struggling but she could feel herself weakening.  Then he was on top of her pinning her to the floor.  Grace turned her head when he retrieved the cell phone from his pocket and began snapping pictures.  She knew what those pictures would be used for.  There was no doubt that he would send them to Anthony and the very thought horrified her. 

“Smile for the camera, Grace!  We want your lover to see your pretty face in the photos.”

“Bastard!”

He closed his hand on her lower jaw, the grip bruising.  Lifting the phone, he snapped several photos in quick succession.  Then his hand moved lower, squeezing her breast roughly.  Before he could snap more photos, the door crashed inward. 

ANTHONY stepped into the living room.  From the state of Grace’s torn clothing and the bruises already forming on her delicate skin, there was little question as to what Beatty’s intent had been.    Without hesitating he moved towards them and grabbed the stunned Beatty by the neck.  The other man’s surprise didn’t last long.  Anthony landed several punches before Beatty recovered enough to throw one or two of his own.  Still, Anthony had several inches on him in height and at least twenty pounds in weight.  He was also in better shape.  A final punch sent Beatty to the floor, but when he came up, there was a gun in his hand.  

“Maybe it was coming to this all along,” Beatty said, his breathing ragged.  “This isn’t the same gun my father used to kill himself, but it’s identical.  You did that, Callahan.  You and your goddamned father.”

“Your father was mismanaging that company and running it into the ground…. But we offered him a deal, Beatty.  It was a demotion and a pay cut, be he could have stayed on.  He’s the one who chose to walk away from everything… and when he lost everything and put a bullet in his head, that was his choice to.”

Beatty lifted the gun, pointing it not at Anthony, but at Grace.  “Then this is your choice.”

Anthony didn’t hesitate.  He was closer to Grace than he was to Beatty, so he threw himself between her and the gun.  When he heard the crack of gunfire, he braced for the pain but it never came.  Glancing toward the open door, he saw Mick standing there, a gun in his hand.  He didn’t have to look behind him to know that Beatty was down.  He could heard the other man screaming and moaning about his hand. 

“Let’s get you loose from there,” he said. 

“How did you know?” she asked. 

“Beatty was using the same burner phone he had sent the pictures from…when he turned it on, Mick got the GPS reading from it,” Anthony said as he pulled a knife from his pocket and popped the clasps on the zip tie that bound her wrists.  The skin beneath was raw and angry, bleeding in places, and the bruises on her face already turning an ugly purple. 

With her hands freed, Grace tugged the tattered remnants of her shirt about her and buried her face against Anthony’s chest.  “He had me drugged.  He bribed someone to drug my latte this afternoon so that I would leave work early.”

“Never again,” Anthony promised.  “You and me stick together from now on.”

She gave a watery chuckle, “That’s fine by me.”

Anthony held her and listened to the wailing sirens grow closer.  He refused to think about what almost happened, and instead focused on the fact that she was safe in his arms. 

CHAPTER FIVE

Anthony watched Grace moving across the room.  The deep red of her form fitting dress highlighted her lush curves.  It bared her shoulders almost entirely and displayed a tantalizing amount of cleavage before nipping in at her waist and then clinging to her hips, then flaring out into a slightly fuller skirt.  She’d called it a trumpet style.  He had no idea what that meant.  He just knew she looked sexy as hell.  Her dark hair had been swept up into a confection of loose curls.  It gave the impression that the slightest tug would send it tumbling over her bared shoulders.  One curl had escaped already and brushed against the soft skin of her neck, only adding to the illusion. 

“Have I told you, Mrs. Callahan, how beautiful you look tonight?” he asked when she reached him. 

“Yes, husband.  You did tell me that…in the elevator and in the car on the way here.  You might have even mentioned it when you were trying to talk me into canceling on your stepmother’s party and staying home with you.”

Bringing her hand to his face, he pressed a kiss against the inside of her wrist.  “Marianne would have understood.”

“We’ve been married for less than a week.  I will not make the mistake of alienating my stepmother-in-law right off the bat,” she said.  The words were reproving but the smile that curved her lips and the gleam in her eyes was impossible to mistake.  “But now that we’re here, we’ve made our appearance, I see no reason we couldn’t sneak off somewhere for a moment alone.”

Anthony nodded his agreement.  “We’re newlyweds.  It’s expected.”

“Precisely,” she said.   “But since you know the house, you have to lead the way.”

“Not inside… Outside.”

Grace allowed him to lead her through a set of French doors and onto the large veranda that surrounded the house.  They went down a few steps and then followed a path toward a small gazebo that overlooked the lake.  It was October in New York, and far from warm, but the cold air was strangely invigorating.  “Well, now that you have me alone, what do you plan to do with me?” she asked. 

“First, I’m going to figure out how to get you out of that dress.”

Grace chuckled as she reached for the side zipper of her gown.  With the gown loosened, she pushed Anthony back onto one of the padded benches. She tugged her skirt up and out of the way as she climbed onto his lap, straddling his muscular thighs.  “If you get me out of it, I’ll never get back into it, but this should give us enough room to maneuver.”

Reaching beneath her skirt, Anthony found that she wore nothing beneath it.  He encountered damp bare skin and groaned at the contact.  Sliding one finger between the slick folds, he traced tight circles around her clit.  Her answering moan went straight to his already hardening cock.   “I love the way you feel,” he said.  “Soft, warm…wet.  Nothing feels as good as being inside you, Grace.”

She smiled at him, and the expression on her face was perfectly, beautifully carnal.  “Nothing feels as good as having you hot and hard inside me…filling me up.  Driving into me over and over again.”

“Take me in, Grace.  Show me what you want,” he urged.  He felt the slight tremor of her hands as she opened his pants.  When she grasped his cock in her hand, her skin was cool against his fevered flesh.  Then she was rising up onto her knees, guiding his cock into her slick heat.  He closed his arms around her, pressing her breasts to his chest as she moved on him, circling her hips against him.  “So fucking good.”

“Yes… Oh my god, yes,” she said, moving her hips faster, lifting up only to sink down on him once again, taking him deep, impaling herself on his thick length.  Tugging at her dress, she freed her breasts and gasped when Anthony’s mouth closed over one nipple.  The contrast of his heated mouth and the cool air, coupled with the exquisite sensation of having him moving inside her was simply too much.  Tossing her head back, her breath rasping out, she felt the first flutterings of her orgasm.  Those small ripples built, spreading outward until she was awash with the pleasure.

“Fuck, Grace.  I can’t wait,” he hissed.

“Don’t,” she said.  “Don’t wait.  I want to feel you cum inside me.”

Anthony gripped her hips, driving up, deeper inside her, the slick heat of her body and the perfect friction of her inner muscles rippling around him and he couldn’t hold back.  He gasped her name as he came, spilling himself into her welcoming sheath.  “Grace,” he panted.  “I am too fucking old for this.”

She laughed, and the small contractions created by that had them both groaning again.  “I think I might be too old for it.”

“We’ll retire together,” he said with a smile. 

“Nope.  I plan on retiring very soon.  I want to focus all of my energy on being a wife…and a mother.”

He’d just regained is breath, but the air rushed out again.  “Grace?”

“Not yet.  But I want to.  Soon.  Don’t you?”

Able to breath again, he sighed.  “Of course, I do.  More than anything in this world.”

Grace smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him with all the overwhelming emotions that he evoked in her.  “I wish there was a way to show you how much I love you.”