He didn’t even hesitate. “Unbutton your shorts and push them down.”
I slowly pulled the button open on my shorts but stopped there. I wasn’t about to give him all of me by discarding my clothing simply because he asked. “This will have to do, Cade,” I snarked, and then I shoved my hand into my panties and moaned, feeling the nerves on my clit singing from receiving attention so quickly. This was me. I wanted it fast, raw, and with my clothes still on, like I could get it anywhere just thinking about it. He’d see how fast I could barrel into an emotion, into an orgasm, how fast I could be consumed. My eyes rolled back as I rolled my hips, but Cade didn’t let me get lost that quickly.
“Open your eyes, Izzy. And slow down.”
My eyes shot open, but I didn’t slow down. I went faster, my breath, my heartbeat, the heat rising on my body. “I’m taking it how I want it, Cade.”
I worked my clit, rolling it between my fingertips, and I watched as he fisted his hands at his sides, as his neck tensed, as he licked his lips. He was holding back, not coming to me, leaving me to chase the orgasm on my own. I loved how he stared at me with desire, how he wore those glasses still—like he was researching me, analyzing me, decoding me.
I slid a finger inside and moaned. There was no lasting when he watched me like this, when I felt like I was doing everything wrong, but it felt so right. I screamed his name when I orgasmed, and my whole body convulsed as I saw stars.
He pushed himself from the doorway and strode over to his side of the bed where he sat before grabbing the wrist at my shorts. He pulled my hand from my panties and sucked my fingers clean. “Jesus Christ, you taste so damn good when you’re being bad, baby doll.”
And before I knew what he was doing, he stuck his phone in my face and snapped a picture. “What the hell, Cade?”
“One for one, doll. You took mine, and now I took yours.” He slid his phone back into his pocket, and then his dark eyes, warm as molasses, roved over me.
“Oh no.” I shoved him back. “Stay on your side. We have a team-building exercise in twenty minutes. Heather said we’ll be doing a paddleboard relay race before I assign teams to work on the different parts of JUNIPER.”
“Well, you can be late.”
“No. You and I are not going to be late.” I poked him in the chest. “You have to come.”
“For what?”
“For people to see you and trust you and want to work with you,” I said as I grabbed my pink bikini.
He eyed it. “You’re wearing that for a paddleboard relay?”
“Yep. And I’m hoping it falls all the way off,” I threw back because I knew he was going to say something about it being too skimpy.
He groaned, padded over to his suitcase, and grabbed swim trunks, surprisingly without saying a word. Then, he went to his bathroom to change. I thought I was winning as I threw on my bathing suit and sucked on a candy cane in the living room, waiting for him.
My plan went completely off the rails when he walked down the hallway in nothing but dark swim trunks. I’d never seen the way his tattoos wrapped around his chest, how the black snaked over his skin. When he moved, each of his muscles flexed.
Caden Armanelli hid that perfect body under those tailored suits he wore, but not today. He had two towels hanging off one arm, and he grabbed some sunglasses from the counter to put on before he said, “You ready?”
The answer was no.
I leaned against the table for support. I knew I was drooling too.
How had I never considered that he’d look so good without a shirt on in the sunlight? “I don’t think . . .” How was I going to get around this? “Why don’t you have a shirt on?”
His brow furrowed. “What? Why don’t you have a shirt on, dollface?”
I glanced down at myself, completely forgetting what I had on. “I have a bathing suit on.”
“So do I.”
“But you are . . . You look . . . You’re the boss.”
“I don’t care what I am. If you’re getting in that water wearing a swimsuit you might lose, I’m getting in it with you. Now, let’s go.”
“Instead of focusing on what might be happening with my swimsuit, focus on being the boss, Cade. The team needs to see you.” I was telling him as much myself, goddamn it.
“The team has a boss. Me. Whether they like me or not doesn’t matter.”
“It always matters. Respect makes a person work harder. Just because you’re their boss and they might fear losing their jobs doesn’t mean they are going to do the job well. Haven’t you ever heard that?”
He stared at me for a second too long, and his eyes changed. “I used to think the same about my father, about my family. We didn’t need fear; we needed respect. My brother and I made friends rather than enemies.”
“See?” I pointed out and shrugged as I walked past him through the doorway. At least maybe now we’d get somewhere, even if I had to look at how hot my boss was throughout the whole day.
I stomped out to the paddleboard relay and tried to hide my frown and irritation when basically every girl swarmed Cade. Lucas was by my side in a hot second, too, telling me exactly what he would do if he got Cade alone. It definitely wasn’t subtle, or professional, but I didn’t blame him. That body and those tattoos had everyone drooling.
Then, I was even more frustrated when Cade did exactly what he was supposed to do. He freaking interacted and swam and engaged with everyone on the team. He joked with them. He laughed. An outsider would assume he belonged there, like he was a part of us, like he wasn’t the callous boss everyone made him out to be.
The fucker won the paddleboard relay for his team too. All of a sudden, the billionaire tech mogul was an avid paddleboarder? I swear I almost shoved him off the damn thing.
And after, everyone was more than willing to accept job tasks for JUNIPER. They even complimented us on a great team retreat, as if I had something to do with it.
Cade nearly knocked me off my feet when he told everyone that none of it would have been possible had I not built the system.
I went to bed that night hoping he would roll over onto my side of the spray-painted line and tell me it was all overrated, that we should screw until the sun came up.
He didn’t.
Suddenly, he was the perfect boss, and I was the one who wanted to step over the line.
16
Cade
A week in, I was still showing Izzy what a good boss looked like. Her words had stuck with me, made me realize I’d neglected a large part of my job. I’d treated the teams I’d worked with like employees rather than family.
My team was a part of my family, in a way. They protected the world I wanted to keep living in. One where I was in charge, where the president trusted me, where my brother and my family were safe. JUNIPER and this team helped with that. Sure, I could do it alone, but with people I trusted, it was much easier.
And over the past few days, Izzy had taught seamless sessions at the luxury private conference center down the road. I particularly enjoyed how it looked like a large log cabin on the outside but the inside was equipped with every high-end piece of technology we needed.
Izzy stood at the podium, answering questions about how each voting system could be handled in different states and explaining what to do in the event of a security breach. She didn’t falter when they questioned whether our setup was good enough to hold against other countries.
She spoke with confidence, with passion, and with a respect for all of them. She believed in her team, and I think that’s why they believed in her.
The lesson she was teaching me shined through in the way she portrayed herself. I found a higher respect for her and everyone there.
Well, everyone except Rodney.
Rodney would eye her up and try to help her onto her paddleboard or tell her a joke that she would laugh at. There were moments I thought I was going to drag her back to the cabin to have my way with her.
I didn’t but, damn, I’d considered it.
I couldn’t continue down the road of purity much longer even if I tried, and for some reason, she was holding out too. When I’d put on my swim trunks, I’d thought she was going to claw her way up my body, but she hadn’t.