ROMANCE: BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: The CEO's Game (CEO Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance) (New Adult Romance Short Stories) (3 page)

Chapter 5

“The trick is to plop the tempura into the wasabi ginger sauce,” she said.

“So you like it spicy?”

“Some things,” Kathleen continued. “I make a mean diavolo sauce. Maybe when this is over, I can return the favor.”

“That sounds nice.”

Adam set his plate aside, sadness wafting off of him in heady waves, and she reached across the cartons and took his hand.

“Do you really want to know more about me?” she asked.

As soon as he nodded, Kathleen moved closer to his side and loosened her braid. Her dark hair cascaded over her shoulders, and he pressed his fingers into her locks as he rolled her face around his hands.

“I already know that you’re pretty,” he said. She tried to look away, Adam held her face fast and kept her gaze focused on him.

“Thought you didn’t do flattery,” she reminded him.

“Only when it’s warranted,” he said. “And you’ve more than earned it.”

Kathleen’s lips parted to accept his kiss when he simply rested his mouth to her cheek and snuggled closer to her shoulder.

“But what about before?” he asked. “Before you made your way to my desk.”

“Adam, you summoned me,” she reminded him. “Or are we going to rewrite history?”

He laughed and kept her close, pulling her back to the rug and the warmth of the roaring flames. As Kathleen fell to his side, she focused on his smile and waited for his words.

“Point taken,” he said. “So who is Kate Bedford?”

“Didn’t you do you research before---?”

“Just don’t get cute,” he said. “Just tell me the truth.”

Feeling as if she was beaten and wanting to submit to his demands, Kathleen turned her head into the plush rug and let her gaze move towards the window.

“I didn’t grow up like you,” she started. “Not like dirt poor or anything. But scraping by.”

“You don’t make it sound so bad,” Adam said.

“It really wasn’t. But I wanted something more. Do you how many essays I had to write to cobble the scholarship money for school?”

“I never would have guessed,” he said.

“So you’re not impressed by my work on the brief?” she asked.

“Of course I am. It’s just that your fingers are still so soft, all of you is soft, and I like it.”

Adam kissed her hand, and she watched what looked like admiration flash across his eyes as he relinquished her hands and laid his head to her shoulder.

“Looks like you made a go of it,” he said. “You’ve come this far.”

“Is it… is it wrong that I want more?”

“No,” he said. “I’m pretty sure we’re on the same page.”

Kissing her again, Adam started to ease her blouse from her arms, the shared taste of ginger on their breath when Kathleen drew back.

“Is this… isn’t this why the others were shown the door?” she asked. “Once you got what you want, you had to make them scarce?”

“Is that what you really think, Kate?”

Having to nod in the wake of all she had heard, Kathleen turned away  and hoped that she could make her way back to her desk when he drew her close.

“That’s not the whole story,” he said. “Not by a million miles.

“Then what is---?”

“Stop talking,” he pleaded. “Just come closer.”

Adam pulled her deeper into his arms, his lips bathing her cheeks before her stripped the blouse from her body. He seemed to hesitate as he hovered over her, and Kathleen traced the line of his mouth and longed for him to mirror her smile.

“I’m right here, Mr. Torrance,” she said. “Now what?”

“Now…”

He raised her hands to his shirt sleeves and bowed his head as he burrowed into her ample round breasts.

“Take off my clothes,” he muttered. “I need… I need you to touch me, Kate.”

“I think I can manage that,” Kathleen said. “Even if it’s not on my resume.”

She unveiled his chest and grazed her nails down his torso. Her fingers came to rest against his belt, and she started to unspool the leather from the loops when her touch came to a sudden stop.

“You’re not going to cast me off when this is said and done, right?” she asked.

“I really don’t want to, Kate.”

“And I’m going to hold you to that.”

Straining forward to meet his mouth, Kathleen kissed him hard and pushed her hand down his pants. The force of his hardness elicited a gasp, and she steadied their bodies back to the rug.

“Are you going to hold me there, too?” he asked.

“Do you want me to?”

“Kate, I…”

His hand met hers, and Kathleen smiled as he fell into her stroke, his shaft growing even harder as she kissed the hair on the nape of his neck.

“Look at me,” she whispered. “Do as I say.”

Adam quickly honored her request, and Kathleen kissed his lids shut as she dragged her lips down his chest and found the precipice of his glittering tip. Thinking it would taste tarter than ginger and sweeter than rose wood, Kathleen was ready to wrap her wanting lips around his piece when he steadied her shoulders under his hard hands.

“Let me… let me feel the best part of you,” he said.

Lifting her skirt to meet his lust, she rested on the point of needing more of him, all of him, and her flesh started to encase his when she touched his quivering hips and hung her head.

“Don’t stop,” he said. “I want you, Kate.”

“Even now that you see me in the flesh?”

She could artfully hide her rolls with the right outfit but now she felt exposed, even vulnerable under his stare.

“I know I’m not that much to look at,” she confessed.

“You never let it stop you before.”

“No,” she continued. “But if… if you’re going to laugh at me then… then just get it over with right now and let’s call it a night.”

Because some things never changed. Thinking back she thought they might as she left the cold halls of high school and found herself on the enlightened quad of a campus. The boys were a bit kinder in college, but they never looked at her as anything but a funny friend that was good for a couple of beers and a quick laugh. Those that drank enough took her to bed, and she let herself believe that she could pull the reverse Cinderella, none of it ever having to change back into pumpkin. But with daylight, the mice and the tattered dress always came home to roost.

“I won’t laugh at you, Kate,” he promised. “Just stay with me. Please.”

Pushing up and into her, Kathleen reeled back, and she heard no laugher, nothing but the sound of his moan hitting his ears as they met her own. Kathleen clutched at his arms and writhed against him, her body growing warm and wet as Adam kept her poised above him and he pumped harder, faster.

“Is it… am I close enough?” she asked.

“More,” he said. “God I want you.”

“Adam, I want…”

Unable to finish the thought, she found his lips again and started to sink into his kiss when he filled the longing between her thighs and sent her head back.

“Tell me you believe that,” he moaned. “I need to hear that---”

“I believe you,” Kathleen murmured. “I want this to be real.”

“Kate…”

With a final thrust, he exploded in her, and she began to ease her sweaty body away from him when Adam gathered her in his arms and forced her to focus on his brimming eyes.

“I can make it real,” he said. “This time… it can be so different.”

She started to ask him what he meant by that when Adam silenced her with a fresh kiss, and they fell as one back to the rug. He stroked her arms and nipped at her breasts as he softened inside her. But Kathleen kept him close and clenched her thighs as she reached for his face and smoothed a few stands of fallen hair from his face.

“Why am I different?” she asked. “What makes me so special?”

“You don’t have to ask that, Kate.”

His next kiss nearly assuaged her fears, and she stared to settle into his embrace when she slightly pushed back and peered at him hard.

“I would still like some kind of an answer,” she said. “Can’t you give me that?”

“Wasn’t this enough?”

Adam started to grow hard inside her again, and Kathleen whimpered with want, hoping to have him again when she grabbed his hands and made him focus on her gaze.

“It’s a start,” she said. “A real start. But does it end here?”

“We still have the meeting with Hotchkiss,” he teased.

“And after that?”

Adam hesitated, and her heart started to fall to the pit of her stomach when he pulled her closer and caressed her hair.

“I… I want us to make it work.”

“That doesn’t sound so sure, Adam.”

“I…”

He groaned as he lowered his head to her breasts and kissed his way towards her neck.

“Then how about I just show you again.”              

Adam started to consume her, and Kathleen longed for him all over again when she pried her body from his and curled her legs close to her chest.

“Kate, please don’t---”

“Say the words, Adam,” she said. “Or send me on my way.”

Stretching to his feet, Adam stepped towards her and brought her face to his.

“I … I just like being with you,” he said.

“Is that the best you can do?”

“Kate, I am trying here.”

She moved to meet him and touched her hands to his arms as the fire flickered at their backs.

“And you’re okay with the view?” she asked.

“Much more than that.”

His kissed her hair and pulled her close. Listening to the beating of his heart, Kathleen nodded into his neck and released a heavy sigh.

“So we take the meeting,” she said. “And I’m going to hope that you’ll give me more. But right now…”             

She wrapped his fallen shirt around her body and nibbled of a piece of sushi.

“I worked up an appetite. You?”

Adam laughed and sat next to her as she pushed a piece of raw fish into his mouth. Licking the ginger sauce away from her fingers with her tongue, Kathleen held his hand and sighed.

“We’ll eat,” she started. “Then we’ll go over the contract. And then we’ll see.”

“And hope, Kate. Don’t forget about that.”

Chapter 6

“Tell me again.”

Riding in the back of his town car, Kathleen watched Adam page through an entire steno pad’s worth of notes, his fingers flailing frantically as he whipped from one set of scrawl to another and then another.

“It’s all right there on the page, Adam,” she reminded him. “If you’d only listened to me.”

“Didn’t I?” he insisted.

“You made that a little hard,” she teased. “Hope it’s not going to show.”

Adam wordlessly pointed his pen to her out of order blouse buttons with a smirk on his face.

“Last time I let you put my clothes back on,” she said. A dark cloud spread over his face, and Kathleen started to reach for his hand when he held back and turned his total attention back to the notes.

“Kate, I need you to run it by me one more time.”

“You just want to hear me talk.”

“Added bonus,” Adam said. “But humor me, Kate.”

Rolling her eyes with a sharp groan, Kathleen eased her body closer to his side and tapped her fingers to the page.

“Hotchkiss isn’t the fool that Walters took him for,” she started.

“Or me for that matter.”

“Don’t want to think of you as anyone’s fool.”

Their eyes locked, and she moved to kiss him when Adam suddenly turned his head away.

“Fine,” she conceded. “Sure Hotchkiss drafted this. And eventually he realized that Walters would remember.”

“So why the brief?”

“Because of this little shred of sunshine.”

Adam focused on her notes, and a smile spread across his face as he asked for the first contract again. Kathleen unzipped his leather briefcase and flipped to the third page with a proud smile.

“Who said impulses were a bad thing?” Adam asked.

“You never did.”

He tenderly kissed her cheek and leaned back with a contented sigh.

“This is going to be short and sweet,” he said. “Thanks to you.”

“Me?” she nervously asked.

Adam started to shake his head when the town car screeched to a stop. Straightening his tie, Adam left her side, and he swept around to the passenger’s door, cracking it open as he took hold of her hand.

“Stick with me, and we’ll make this happen.”

Together they walked down a long white corridor, and Kathleen recognized Hotchkiss as soon as they opened the door. He smiled under a head of snowy white hair, and Kathleen held back a wink as Adam sat by his side and she started to hang at the back.

“No,” he said. “Take your seat at the table.”

“Adam, I don’t---”

“You’ve earned it, Kate. Come on.”

Assuming the chair at Hotchkiss’ other side, the three of them stared down Walters’ team. A pair of lawyers with slicked back hair and bronzed faces seemed sure that the sky would turn pink if they only stated as much, and Kathleen took a deep breath as Adam laid out their case.

“Now no one could ever accuse Mr. Hotchkiss here of a lack of enthusiasm,” Adam started.

“Good thing for me,” Walters said. Kathleen hadn’t liked him from the first meeting in Adam’s office, so smug and sure of.

“Of course he tried to correct the mistake before he got it too deep.”

“Mr. Torrance, this thing is binding,” Walters said. “My boys have gone over it until their eyes bled. And what? Your…
girl
caught something that we missed?”

Kathleen bristled at the insult, and Hotchkiss started to speak up for her when Adam held them both back and flipped to the third page.

“I hear that my client was a few sheets to the wind when you guys laid this all out,” Adam continued.

“My head was on straight.”

“Was it, Mr. Walters?” Adam asked.

Walters didn’t flinch when Adam brought Kathleen’s hand to the bottom of the page.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“You found it,” Adam said. “Take your moment, Kate.”

She swallowed and started to tremble, but the feel of his hand pushing into her skin brought her body at ease, and Kathleen fixed her lips into a tight smirk.

“Even if Mr. Hotchkiss was… not in control of his faculties as you say.”

“Had my own hangover to prove it!” Walters said as he slapped his lawyer’s back and looked at her like a pig happy to writhe in mud stained with his own shit.

“So you failed to notice that Mr. Torrance’s client added this little nugget to the fine print.”

Right on cue, Adam offered a magnifying glass, and as Walters’ eyes strained to read the small letters, Kathleen rose to her feet and cracked her knuckles.

“Hard to see, Mr. Walters?” she asked. “I’ve committed it to memory. And if we’re going to call this the binding contract, then you should be more than happy with your .5 percent of whatever comes next.”

The color drained from Walters face, and Kathleen took some pleasure in the sight of the man fuming when Hotchkiss turned his head to Adam, his jaw going slack as he started to speak.

“Did I… did I really know to do that?” Hotchkiss asked.

“It appears so,” Adam said. “Now let’s just say we---”

“It’s not the binding contract!” Walters wailed as he pushed to his feet and started to move across the conference table. “And if it wasn’t for this fat bitch---”

The man’s hands were nearly at her neck when Adam batted him back with a jabbing punch to the jaw and sent the man flying back to his chair.

“You will watch your words when it comes to my associate,” Adam warned. “I hear that there are other individuals who question your so-called legitimate deals. And Miss Bedford will come after all of you if you don’t take a walk right now.”

Walters seethed as his lawyers helped him from his seat, and Kathleen couldn’t help but shudder as she watched them go. But Adam’s arm around her shoulders set her mind and her body at ease.

“Oh well done, Miss!” Hotchkiss said as he shook her hand. “Even I didn’t remember that I---”

“Good thing that she thought to look then,” Adam said.

Hotchkiss grinned from ear to ear, and he pocketed the contract.

“I’ll send you my bill,” he said. “Maybe put in a little extra for your pretty partner.”

Kathleen started to tell him that she was far from that, yet, when Adam simply nodded his head.

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” Adam said. “Do you need a ride or---?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “And from here on out I’m staying on the wagon.”

The man left with a skip in his step, and as soon as the door closed behind him, Adam turned his attention to Kathleen and lifted her up into his arms.

“Think I will make you a full partner soon enough.”

Squealing as he swirled her around the room, Kathleen moved down the length of his body, and she flattened her palms to his chest as she looked into his eyes.

“I told you that I was the girl for the job,” she said.

“Something so special.”

He kissed her quickly, and she was tempted to let him take her on the space of the abandoned table when Kathleen held him back and took hold of his collar.

“Not here,” she said. “Let’s go back to your office.”

“I’m not about to say no to you now, Kate.”             

She stayed in his arms as the town car drove them back to his building, and as soon as they hit the twelfth floor and the edge of his office, Kathleen started to tear his clothes and bite down on his neck when a shrill laugh broke their bodies apart.

“Who is…? Who are you?”

The unfamiliar woman clapped her gloved hands together, and Kathleen stuck close to Adam’s side even as his body started to wilt.

“Becca, don’t,” he said. “She’s not like the others.”

“Of course she is. Now let’s have some fun with her.”