Submitting to the Boss (15 page)

When she was done, she sipped her champagne,
enjoying the sizzle and sweetness on her tongue. That might be fun,
a gulp of cold, fizzy champagne, then taking Holt’s cock in her
mouth to let him feel it. Or a strong mint under her tongue as she
sucked him. Ruby knew all the tricks. She had so many things to try
on him as soon as he got home.

Her cell rang. She quickly dried off her
hands with a washcloth she’d placed on the edge of the tub.

“Hi, sweetie.” She didn’t have to look; she
knew it was him.

“Do you miss me?”

Ruby purred. It was so romantic. “Of course I
miss you. I’m in the tub waiting for you.”

“No phone sex tonight, baby.”

Ruby pouted. “Why?”

“A lot of schmoozing going on here in the
evenings. I won’t be back to the room until late.”

He could call her anytime. Ruby didn’t care.
Then her stomach sank. Had he met some smart, sexy executive babe
he wanted to do the nasty with? No, not after the way he’d kissed
her at the airport in front of Clay. He’d been making a statement.
Even she knew that. Except that he hadn’t invited her for dinner
with his daughter. So just what kind of statement had he been
making with that kiss?

But she wasn’t going to get snarky about it.
Been there, done that before he left. “That’s too bad. Does that
mean I have permission to take care of myself for the
duration?”

“Hell, no.” Then he laughed. “I want you
crazy by the time I get home. No playing.”

“Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir.” She was
already crazy. She’d gotten too used to sex with him, too
dependent. Now she wanted it all the time.

“Good girl.”

“By the way, I’m still driving your car. I
didn’t feel like going all the way back up to your place after I
finished work today. Is that okay?” Driving back from the airport,
she’d smelled his scent in the car. The expensive leather had
formed to his butt. She liked the sensations, the reminders.

“That’s fine. I can get Cassandra to drive me
to work on Monday. All right, gotta go, baby. Duty calls.”

She tried not to let it prick her bubble that
he
still
didn’t offer a dinner invitation. Instead, she blew
him a kiss she didn’t think he could hear, then said good-bye. If
Cassandra drove him to work on Monday, that meant Ruby and Holt
would have to go home together. There were definite possibilities
in that.

The only problem was that Ruby wasn’t good at
being on her own. Holt phoned a few times on Thursday and Friday
while she was at work, having her check this or that for him, but
the calls were brief and hardly personal enough to satisfy her. The
only satisfaction she did get was the fact that she hadn’t seen
Jessica Murphy at all, not one time.

But Holt didn’t call her at night either.
Spending time with the blonde executive babe of Ruby’s imagination?
Jesus, she had to stop with this crazy fear thing. Where had all
her self-confidence gone?

Not only was she ridiculously jealous over
nothing, she was going crazy without an orgasm. He’d wanted her
horny, and she was. Her skin felt tight, her body needy. She
couldn’t stop thinking about all the things she wanted him to do to
her, and everything she wanted to do to him. God, she was a mess of
crazy emotions, up, down, all around.

Saturday she made an effort to put the
apartment in order, or at least make a big dent in it. She’d been
at Holt’s so much that most of her belongings were still in
boxes.

After hours of unpacking, she took a much
needed bath. It didn’t relax her nearly enough, and she’d gone back
to unpacking, wearing an old robe she didn’t care about getting
dirty with all the dust on the boxes. God, there were still two
more nights before she saw Holt. How would she make it?

Maybe she should have retracted her bitchy
little comment about making him take a taxi from the airport. She
could have seen him for a little while before he spent the rest of
the weekend with his daughter.

Damn, didn’t that sound pathetic. But she
wanted him to touch her. She wanted to taste him. She wanted to
look in his eyes and make sure he hadn’t been...

The doorbell rang, a strident buzz she wasn’t
used to yet. It was almost seven. Holt’s plane was supposed to
arrive at seven, but maybe it had been a little early. Maybe it was
him.

Oh my God, the robe! It was old, grubby, and
so not sexy. Whatever. She couldn’t keep Holt waiting. What if he
went away? Ruby jumped up from the box of kitchen utensils—ones she
rarely used—and ran to the door.

She almost screamed in frustration to find
none other than Bradley Palmer on her doorstep.

“How the hell do you know where I live?” she
snapped.

Bradley Palmer, the bane of her existence,
smiled sheepishly. She really hated that kind of wimpy smile. His
hair appeared a much more nondescript shade of brown than before,
and really, couldn’t he shave? The stubble look was out, in her
opinion. She preferred Holt’s clean-shaven jaw line.

“Can I come in?” Bradley asked.

“No you may not. Are you stalking me?”

“No,” he said, a whiny pout to his lips.

Though Bradley topped six feet, Ruby was
taller than average, and despite being in her bare feet, she stared
him
down
.

“One of the guys on the baseball team said
you were driving Holt Montgomery’s car, and they thought maybe you
two were doing the do, so he followed you to see where you
went.”

“Oh for God’s sake.” The baseball team that
West Coast sponsored had several employees on it. Except that
Bradley was no longer an employee. He’d quit. “Holt’s out of town,
and I took him to the airport. And I can’t believe one of those
airheads followed me. Who was it?”

“I can’t tell, Ruby.”

She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside,
then slammed the door. She could wheedle it out of him. “Tell. Me,”
she stated more emphatically.

“No, Ruby.”

Bradley had never said no to her. She glared
at him. Then decided to go at it another way, by disarming him with
sweetness. “I thought you were going back home to work at your
dad’s accounting firm.”

He sagged onto her couch, his shoulders
slumped. “He decided that with this economy his business has fallen
off too much, and he can’t afford to take me on.”

He looked so hangdog, she felt a bit sorry
for him. He was twenty-nine years old, he’d screwed up his job, and
now he couldn’t even run home to Daddy. To be honest, she couldn’t
assign all the blame to Bradley for what happened with Clay. She
was the one who’d broken the rules. Perhaps, too, she’d given
Bradley expectations. Really, what was the point in being mad at
him?

“I’m sorry about that.” She sat beside him,
patted his knee. “But that doesn’t mean you can have people spy on
me and just show up at my apartment like this. We’re done, Bradley.
You need to move on.”

“Couldn’t you talk to Clay for me, tell him
I’m sorry, and ask him to take me back?”

He had to be joking. “If you really want your
job back, talk to Greg yourself and see what he says.” Greg Stevens
was head of Finance and Bradley’s former boss. With Jessica
quitting, Accounting would be in a bind. She still didn’t think
Greg would rehire Bradley, but that wasn’t her call.

“I guess I could try.” He glanced up at her.
“How about one last screw for the road? You were always the best
there ever was, Ruby.”

She should have gotten mad all over again,
but he was still a handsome boy, and Ruby enjoyed being
appreciated, especially with those debilitating thoughts about
Holt’s executive babe. She was jealous, she was bored, she was
horny. And Holt had left her on her own for three days, five by the
time she finally saw him again on Monday. Her ego needed a little
stroking, and her body needed a little male pampering—no, a
lot
of male pampering. Bradley was just the ticket. She
could do him; Holt would never know. It would take the edge
off.

Her thoughts echoed all the rationalizations
she’d used for breaking Clay’s rules. What she’d done wasn’t just
about screwing Bradley on Clay’s desk or in his bed; it was that
she had a total disregard for his rules, for
him
. She wanted
what she wanted when she wanted it. She’d been bored, and she’d
used spicing up their sex life as an excuse to take what she wanted
without regard to Clay’s feelings. She’d tested his rules, to see
what she could get away with. She’d been a selfish bitch. Not a
nice thought, but true. She’d been so into herself that she thought
she could do whatever she wanted without any consequences.

She would
not
jeopardize her new
relationship with Holt. She couldn’t bear it if he left her now.
He’d given her a new chance. She wouldn’t break a single one of his
rules, and she knew in return, he’d make their sex too exciting to
resist. She might be replaceable, but Holt wasn’t.

Come to think of it, she
wanted
to be
completely, totally, absolutely crazy horny for Holt when he got
home. She wanted him to call her into his office on Monday and
spank her, or do anything else he wanted.

She smiled at Bradley almost fondly. His
visit had made her see things clearly. “You’re such a schmoozer,
Bradley. But the answer is no, N-O. And now it’s time for you to
get out.” She didn’t even care anymore who at West Coast had spied
on her. It was a blessing in disguise, as the old saying went.

Bradley rose. She did, too. He
was
handsome, but next to Holt, Bradley Palmer was a mere boy.
No
one
compared to Holt.

She strode to the front entry, Bradley
dragging his feet behind her. Twisting the handle, she opened the
door wide to usher him out.

Holt stood on the landing. He looked at her
in her robe. Then he looked at Bradley standing right behind
her.

Chapter Sixteen

Words, explanations, everything failed Ruby.
It wasn’t possible. It just was
not
possible. She’d had her
epiphany too late. She should never have let Bradley over her
threshold.

Holt’s expression was flat, unreadable, his
gaze a gray puff of smoke. Though a couple of inches shorter than
Bradley, he was wider and more powerful beneath the polo shirt and
black jeans, infinitely more masculine.

“Are you wearing panties?” he asked.

The question, so completely out of the blue,
caught Ruby off guard, and she answered as if Bradley weren’t
standing close enough for her to catch a faint whiff of his overly
sweet aftershave. “No, sir.”

“Good.” He pointed a finger at Bradley. “You.
Get out.”

“Are you going to hurt her?” Bradley said
with the most backbone he’d ever shown.

Holt merely rolled his eyes heavenward.
“Spare me the melodrama.”

When Bradley still didn’t move, Ruby grabbed
his arm and shoved him toward the door. “Go.”

“But—”

High time for him to get all chivalrous.
“Don’t make me throw you out,” she said with gritted teeth.

Holt shifted aside to let him through, and
Bradley backed down the landing a slow step at a time. Then Holt
muscled through the door and closed it behind him.

Ruby started with: “Holt, I didn’t—”

He put his hand over her mouth. “I don’t care
what you did.”

She tried again, lips against his palm.
“But—”

He laid his other hand across her nape,
pressing harder to quiet her. “You disobey, you get punished.
Action and reaction. It’s as simple as that.”

Muffled as she was, she couldn’t say she
hadn’t broken any rules. Then again, it didn’t matter. Unlike Clay,
Holt wasn’t dumping her. Yet.

“I’ll take my hand away, and you’ll say...”
He raised one eyebrow prompting an answer.

“Yes, sir,” she whispered. Her heart beat
frantically in her chest, with anticipation, desire, relief.

“Assume the position,” he commanded.

“Umm...which position?”

He gazed heavenward just as he had with
Bradley. “All fours and pull your robe up over your ass.”

Ah, a spanking. “Yes, sir,” she said eagerly,
stepping into the living room. Falling quickly to her hands and
knees, she bunched the robe at her waist.

She couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t mad—well,
not really, really mad, not enough to cut her off.

Then he blanketed her with his body, lips to
her ear. “I’m going to fuck you, Ruby. No kissing, no touching, no
tenderness, just fucking. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” she said softly, reverently. Oh
God, yes. She was wet, she was ready. She had been for three days
and nights.

“I’m not even going to remove my clothes. I’m
just going to take you like a slut gets taken.”

Yes, yes, please.
She didn’t say the words aloud. She didn’t want to break the
moment.

He made quick work of his zipper, and in the
next instant, she felt the blunt tip of his cock pressing against
her, parting the lips of her pussy, pushing within her folds.

He stopped. “You’re already wet from your
lover, you slut.”

“I’m wet because of my lover,” she couldn’t
resist saying. “And my lover is you, only you.”

He secured her with an arm beneath her
abdomen and hauled her back against his body, sliding deep inside
her. Ruby closed her eyes, relished the sense of being filled
completely.

“I told you this pussy was mine.” His breath
came harsh against her ear.

“It’s yours, Master.” She didn’t use the
title mockingly, as she had in the past.

He withdrew, thrust deep, pulled out, then
short-stroked, hitting her G-spot and turning her almost mindless.
Almost, but not quite. “I didn’t fuck him, Master.”

“I don’t care if you did. You’re still mine
to punish.” He began a relentless, exquisite rhythm.

“I did it all wrong with Clay.” She gasped
when he suddenly hauled her hips higher for an even deeper
penetration.