Taking Control (27 page)

“Consider it done. Pull in Jake. Let’s review all the information. I’ve got their debts. I want to start placing pressure at every point. Call in the mortgage, repossess their boat. I want their credit denied all over the city. Let’s topple this motherfucker once and for all.” I slam down my phone and throw open my office door.

Outside is Frank, his assistant Lucy, and two racks of clothes. Shit.

“Rose,” I bark. “I need a bandage.” I hold up my hand for her to see and she jumps up, scurrying out of the office. Turning back to Frank, I ask, “What the hell are you doing here with all that shit?”

Frank ignores my question but instead just wheels in his two racks of dresses. Inside the office, he turns, places his hands on his hips and says, “We have an appointment.”

“I don’t care,” I shake my head. “I don’t have time for this. Get out. Please,” I add to soften the blow.

Rose rushes in with a washcloth, tape, and a big bandage. I let her fix me up with one hand while I use the other to scroll through my messages. More are coming in by the minute. I halt at one and reply back to the interview request.

Yes. Will talk. Call office for appt.

I copy Gabe on the email and press send. Frank is still standing there.

“What?” I ask sharply. “I told you I don’t have time.”

He puts up his palm to me. “The Frick Ball is this weekend. You’ve put me off for two weeks now. You either see me now or Tiny goes to her first public event looking like a castaway. Is that really the image you want to be portraying right now?”

“Who’s this?” I jerk my head toward his male companion who can’t be more than twenty something.

“He’s my assistant.” Frank frowns.

“He can’t go in.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re it, and I tell you it takes a superhuman effort to be okay with that.”

“He’s gay. Gayer than the rainbow. He probably farts glitter, don’t you, Phillip?”

Phillip looks wide-eyed and nods in agreement.

“No.” I’m implacable.

“I can’t work under these conditions.” Frank turns and rattles the metal clothes rack.

“Then I guess well be hiring a new stylist.”

“Oh for god’s sake, Ian. She’s got the same bits as anyone else.”

“Her bits belong to me, and no other man than you and me is ever going to be looking at them without clothes on.”

“Fine. Fine.” He waves Phillip into a chair and hauls the racks and other shit into the office.

I shut the door when the phone rings again. It’s one of my board members, Paul Tazo. Paul has been on the board since Kerr Inc. started. I owe that man a lot, and if there’s anyone I respect and look up to, it’s him. He owned a small brokerage business in New Jersey and took a chance on me when I was hustling small time illegal shit. Now he’s rolling in cash, in large part because of my success, but I still listen when he talks.

“Kerr, my boy.” His voice is subdued. “We’re going to have to call an emergency meeting. I have no doubt you have an answer for what is happening, but the others are anxious.”

Jake, who has been recently appointed, and Kaga sit on the board. With me, that’s three votes. There are nine board members. I’ll need to swing two to my side. I’d like to think that one vote will be Paul’s, but I’m not going to count on it.

“Of course. Thank you for calling. Get with Rose and we’ll schedule something this week.”

“I knew you would respond this way. I told the others you would, but they were concerned you would try to delay it.”

“There’s no need to delay,” I lie. A delay would be great. I’m bleeding money now. First to buy up shares of Kerr Inc. Then exerting the financial pressure to make sure that the Howes are denied credit. And now I’m going to have to buy out at least two—if not more—board members in order to salvage my own company.

But first things first. I need to call Tiny to tell her that she needs to shuttle her ass downtown to try on dresses. I’m sure she’ll love that.

TWENTY-ONE

“Y
OU
WANT
ME
TO
WHAT
?”
Tiny’s outraged voice carries well beyond the screen that Frank has set up at the far end of my office in front of the ornate fireplace and two midcentury modern lounge chairs.

“It’s nothing I’ve never seen before,” Frank says with bored impatience. “Strip so we can get on with it.”

“You may have seen lots of bodies before but not mine.” Despite the screen blocking my view, I can visualize her crossed arms and mulish expression.

“We aren’t Victorians. It’s okay to show your lady parts.”

“I’ve never met a gay man so anxious to get a chick out of her clothes before.”

Marcie sits thumbing through her emails on the sofa while I alert Rose to the impending board meeting, but my interest is being drawn away by the activities behind the curtain.

“What is this?” Tiny asks.

“Underwear.”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

My curiosity is piqued. I’m watching the trade price for Kerr Inc. and listening to the conversation at the same time. The share price is fluctuating wildly. Every time I buy a block it shoots up, but then it drops again on the heels of some whispered report. It’s like playing whack-a-mole, and it requires every bit of my attention. Yet…

“Seriously. This isn’t underwear.”

“Are you the fashion consultant now? I thought you were a bike messenger.”

“Emphasis on
were
,” she replies, and I wince. She’s still bitter about that.

I get up to wander back behind the screen and stop short. Tiny is wearing a diaphanous undershirt and a pair of pants that stop just below her knees. The fabric is sheer and matches her skin color almost exactly. Board members, accusations of embezzlement, an imperiled business, all of it recedes under the flood of red-hot heat.

Tiny’s young, athletic body needs no shaping garments or corsets. Her waist naturally curves in, and her plum-shaped breasts sit high on her chest without support. I stare in appreciation at how her beautiful body is framed in the sheer silk.

The filmy cloth clings to the points of her breasts, her nipples pebbling under my gaze. The rise and fall of the fabric becomes more rapid with every breath. Slowly my gaze drifts downward. Her navel and flat stomach are shrouded by the gauze, but it clings to her hips and the soft curls between her legs. Is it my imagination or is she getting wet? Is the sheer fabric darkening from her arousal? I want to fall to my knees and bury my face in her pussy.

Embarrassed by her response to me, she lifts her arms to cover her breasts

“Get out,” I order.

There’s no movement. I repeat myself, louder and with more force. “Out. Now.” The sheer violence in my voice sends Frank and his assistant scurrying out of the room. The door closes.

“You as well, Marcie.”

She sighs but leaves. And then we’re alone.

“What is this?” I ask in wonderment. Circling Tiny, I note how the shadow between her buttocks seems all the more enticing, like a forbidden valley, under the fabric.

“Frank says it’s underwear.” She holds out her arms, which lifts the soft swells of her breasts.

“We’re buying a dozen sets.” I drop into one of the chairs. I need this. I need
her
to remind me of all the good that I have in my life. I’m not the twelve-year-old whose beloved father has died or the bitter fifteen-year-old whose mother committed suicide. I am a man loved by this amazing woman. “You need to come over here right now.”

When she nears, her expression changes to tender understanding. She senses my need. “I’m here, Ian. I will always be here, no matter what.”

Emotion tightens my throat. “Show me,” I say hoarsely.

“There’s a slit here,” she says, knowing what I require. Pulling aside the material between her legs, she displays the clever, hidden design.

If my head could have exploded, it might have. I pull her to me, enjoying the feel of the wispy fabric against my hand. The barely-there undergarments are intended to inflame the flesh, rather than support or cover. Knowing that Frank and his assistant have seen her like this makes me want to mark her. If she walks into the Frick Museum wearing this under her dress, there is simply no way that I will be able to resist taking her into a corridor and feasting on her.

My cock is so hard I fear it will break. “Look at me,” I command. I stretch the wool of my suit pants taut across my erection. “See how hard you’ve made me? I can’t wait.”

“I’ll take care of it,” she says, bending low.

“No,” I stop her. “I need you. Put your feet right here.” I pat the slim wooden slats.

“I’ll break that chair.”

“If you don’t climb up here, something else is going to break.”

She doesn’t resist when I lift one foot on an armrest. The movement causes the fabric to separate and bares her cunt to my gaze and touch.

I roll a nipple between my fingers, the stiff bud getting harder with my attention. She stifles a moan and pushes her breasts closer to my face.

My ability to think shuts down, and I fumble with the clothes, nearly tearing the delicate fabric in my haste to get inside her. I find the opening between her legs and slide my thick, long arousal inside her sweetness.

Eyes closed, I savor the sensation of her walls closing around me. Gripping her waist in my firm hands, I lower her until I’m fully seated. The position is awkward for her, and she must rely on me to hold her tight.

She’s loud, and I revel in it. Everyone outside the office can hear, and it makes my blood pound even harder. I want to come all over her body. I’d rub it into every pore until she sweated me. Until everyone knew that she was mine.

I want to be soaked into her essence until she can’t breathe without knowing that I possess her.

TWENTY-TWO

A
S
I
HOLD
HER
AND
she comes down off her orgasmic high, I tell Tiny my plans. About Richard. About the company. About the impending board meeting.

“The company can just vote you out? It’s your company.” Tiny is outraged.

“It’s publicly held, which means I answer to the shareholders. Everything I do must be measured in terms of the fiduciary duty I owe those who own stock in Kerr Inc.—from the janitors who invest their retirement funds in my company to the traders who buy and sell the stock for a living. Things are going to change. I’m done playing around with Howe.”

“Because of the article this morning about your father?”

Jake must have told her.

“Yes, and I want to protect you. Which means we need to do a couple of things. Are you with me?”

“Always.”

“For the next week or so, I’d like you take a leave of absence from Jake’s.”

She protests but ultimately agrees for my own piece of mind. Her dislike of the job may also have played a role in her decision-making process.

I clean us both up and let Frank back in. No one says a word about the interruption, although I’m sure that’s more for Tiny’s sake than it is mine.

The board meeting gets scheduled for this Friday, the day before the Frick Ball. It’s perfect timing, in my opinion. By the end of the weekend, this should all be put to rest.

I spend the next few days contacting major stockholders and offering to buy their shares at a price higher than Louis is offering. His pockets are finite, and given that it’s Howe behind him, they simply don’t have the money to jeopardize me. The stockholders are easy to maneuver. The real danger will be if I can’t swing at least two of the board members my way.

O
N
F
RIDAY
MORNING
, T
INY
SELECTS
my most severe suit.

“I think today calls for a vest,” she says, pulling out a black wool three-piece suit. I allow her to dress me, my mind running over the course of events that will follow. A red power tie and my father’s mother-of-pearl cufflinks complete the ensemble.

“You look very powerful,” she says, brushing imaginary lint off my shoulders.

“You
did
call me God repeatedly last night. That goes to a man’s head.” I wink.

“As if your head isn’t big enough.”

“Stop with all the compliments.”

When we get downstairs, I see the car pull up. Steve is ready to take me to my office.

“Are you okay with the direction we’re going?”

“Yes,” she says impatiently. “It’s your business, Ian.”

“It has my name on it, but everything I do affects you now, so it’s our business.”

Her face softens. She’s finally getting it, I think. How much she means to me. How I’ll do anything she asks. How all of my decisions start and end with whether they will make her happy.

“Ian, I love you. I’m going to love you if you’re the head of a huge corporation or a guy who wears board shorts and eats street tacos every night.”

“I like those street tacos. I think anyone with functioning taste buds do, but I draw the line at board shorts.”

She reaches up to place a soft kiss on my jaw and hug me; the warmth of her love settles into my bones.

“No matter what happens today or tomorrow, I’ve already won.” I tighten my arms around her briefly and then release her.

“After today, I might not be able to afford you, Steve,” I say as I climb into the car.

“You’ll work it out,” he says.

“You’re so confident?”

“You’re not?”

An image of Tiny leaning against the doorframe dressed only in one of my T-shirts flickers to mind. “I’m not fully invested in either outcome. Tiny and I will be happy regardless, so yes, I guess I am confident.”

Kaga, Jake, and Gabe are waiting for me at my office on the day of the vote.

“You going to tell us the plan or make us go in blind?” Jake asks.

“It hinges on Paul and one more board member,” I tell him. “If Paul doesn’t vote with me, then it becomes problematic.”

“You mean us. Vote with us,” Kaga corrects.

I look at him blankly.

Kaga sighs. “You’re not an island, Kerr. We’re here to back you with our bank accounts, if necessary.”

I glance at Jake and Gabe, who nod their heads in agreement. The three of them could easily bail Kerr Inc. out of the deep end. Jake and Kaga have family money. Gabe is one of the wealthiest lawyers in the city. The bone-deep heat in my chest generated by Tiny’s love spreads a little farther. I told her that I was fully prepared for the meeting this morning, but clearly I lied.