His presence loomed behind me, towering over my five-foot, three-inch frame. A shiver rolled down my spine, my skin prickling with goosebumps. His coffee-laden breath heated my neck, my entire being on high alert. My reaction to him took me by surprise, confusing me. It certainly wasn’t the first time we had been alone together. But today, my body buzzed with anticipation and hunger.
Perhaps it was because I’d spent my weekend reading a trashy insta-love romance where the main characters probably spent more time naked than they did clothed. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t had an orgasm at the hand of another person in what seemed like an eternity. Perhaps it was because I missed the touch of a man, my boyfriend of nearly four years having recently broken up with me because I was always working. Regardless of the reason, I found myself inexplicably turned on by this complete asshole.
I continued staring at Mr. Price’s immaculate desk. Fantasies of his rippling body bending me over it as he had his way with me seeped into my subconscious. I imagined he would be as demanding and assertive as he was in his professional life. He would take what he wanted and teach me things I never thought possible.
“Pity.” His deep, sensual voice broke through my perverse thoughts. I tried to shove them deep down and forget they ever crossed my mind. This man was my boss.
His hand swept aside my blonde hair, exposing the back of my neck. I swallowed hard, a delicious tremor overtaking me as his breath drew closer and closer to my skin. When his heated lips landed with delicate ease on my flesh, fireworks erupted in my core. It was confusing, wrong, and desperately wanted all at the same time.
My desire for him grew with each flick of his tongue on my milky skin. A voice in my head whispered this was a bad idea. I knew it was, but damn, it felt good, as if he had an Avery Rollins instruction manual and knew precisely what to do to drive me insane with lust.
His strong hand skimmed the front of my blouse. The sensation of the silky material against my bare flesh heightened my awareness. He clutched my hips, forcing me against his hard stomach. His cock pushed against my back, the reality of the situation snapping me out of my erotic daydream.
I spun around, meeting his blue eyes, my mouth agape. “Wha—”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t fantasized about this,” he said coolly. He ran his fingers through my hair, tugging, forcing my head back. “I have been since the day I hired you. You had everything I was looking for in an assistant. Beautiful. Smart. Sarcastic. But most of all, subservient.”
“I’m not—”
“You are, Avery. You may think you’re a strong woman, and I’d be inclined to agree, but you have a submissive side to you. A side I’m interested in exploring deeper.”
Did he have a point? Did I have a submissive side? I didn’t know, but the image of this man tying me up, blindfolding me, leaving me completely at his mercy didn’t turn me cold. In fact, it excited me.
He ran his tongue from my ear to my collarbone, leaving a trail of fire across my flesh. I whimpered, my eyes nearly rolling into the back of my head. The forbidden nature of what we were doing made my hunger for him grow with each nip of his teeth on my skin.
His hands found their way back to my hips. With incredible ease, he picked me up and pinned me against the wall. Hiking up my skirt, he forced my legs around his waist. I closed my eyes, an unexpected moan leaving my throat when I felt what could only be his enormous erection pushing against me. A slave to my libido, I no longer cared that this man was my boss. That this was wrong on every level. That this could jeopardize everything I had worked hard for since my freshman year at NYU. All I knew was we were both wearing far too much clothing than necessary.
Greedily, I clutched his face in my hands and forced his lips to mine, trying to prove I wasn’t the submissive little girl he thought me to be. A sexy rumble fell from his chest, the kiss growing deeper. His tongue swept against mine with alarming expertise. Hands were everywhere — pinching, pulling, tugging. His teeth nipped my lips, sending a jolt straight to my core.
“Avery,” he groaned, pulling away, his breath dancing on my mouth. It smelled like a combination of peppermint, coffee…and raw sewage.
Sewage?
I snapped out of the trance I was in, staring at the laptop screen in front of me, a perplexed look on my face. An abhorrent stench wafted to my nostrils.
“Oh, Pee Wee! What the hell did you eat?” I shot my gaze to the slightly overweight Labrador retriever curled up beside me on my large sectional, his snores loud enough to rattle even the deepest sleeper. He ignored me, his large paws moving as if he were chasing something in his sleep. I covered my nose with my shirt long enough for the offending stench to dissipate, then returned my eyes to my laptop, trying to get back into the groove.
I stared at the words I’d just written over the course of the past few hours, trying to figure out where to take the scene, but I no longer felt it. It was all the same. Girl meets boy. Girl has no interest in boy. Boy is sexy, perhaps a bit of a player. Girl lands on boy’s dick and miraculously falls in love with boy. Boy says he doesn’t do romance, but something about girl, perhaps her gold-plated vagina, makes him change his player ways. Then they live happily ever after and fuck like bunnies well into their eighties.
I wasn’t ungrateful. I’d made a career using this formula, with a few variations to spice things up. My readers loved steam and angst, coupled with a hot alpha male, but this felt like every other book. I didn’t know how many new words I could come up with for penis…dick, cock, shaft, love stick, man meat, beef thermometer, anaconda, bologna pony, meat popsicle, Mr. Winky. I’d been known to be very creative, but there were only so many words in the English language to describe these yogurt slingers that were the cause of the most pleasurable orgasms my heroines had ever experienced.
It was pure fantasy on every level. Based on my experience, the feat of multiple orgasms was nothing more than an urban legend, a tale men told women so they’d keep their legs spread a little longer. It was no more real than the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot, yet all the pocket rockets I described in my books were able to deliver not just one or two orgasms a night, but sometimes bordering on double digits. They were the Olympic gold medalists of pork swords. When did it become commonplace to orgasm that much? Who would want to have that much sex? I didn’t care if you possessed the tallywacker of tallywackers. No sane woman would want her legs spread that much, unless she was getting paid.
Frustrated, I closed my laptop and glanced at the clock in my darkened living room to see it was just before six in the morning. Grabbing an oversized wool sweater draped on the back of the couch, I pulled it over my head. I smoothed my wavy blonde hair into a messy bun, then snagged a canister of M&M’s off the coffee table, heading toward a pair of French doors. Opening them, I emerged onto my balcony overlooking a narrow public alley in Boston’s North End, the famous Italian section of town where people from across the world came to sample some of the best cuisine there was.
I climbed on top of a small wooden table and sat facing the window just a few yards away. The moon was still out, stars twinkling in the cloudless April sky. It was cold enough to see my breath in front of me.
I loved this time of day when the city was mostly still asleep, apart from delivery trucks beginning their morning routes. The bars had closed, drunk college students had passed out somewhere, and I could just sit and enjoy the peacefulness surrounding me before our small slice of heaven was infiltrated with tourists who thought Olive Garden served authentic cuisine.