Chapter 8 8

Of course, now, I don’t have to imagine what she’d sound like if I were to pin her to the wall and run my fingers between her thighs.

I’ve listened to that damn voicemail twice already. Any more replays and I’m in danger of doing something stupid.

Like masturbating while I think about all the different ways I’d ravage her body.

Undressing, I walk to the leather recliner set up in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.. I manage to resist my phone for a full three minutes before picking it back up once again.

This time, when I start playing the voicemail, I put it on speaker.

Her moans fill what was supposed to be a blissful Zen silence. My cock braces against my pants, but I refuse to touch myself. I’m happy with the idea that I’m the star of her spank bank material, but I certainly don’t want her in mine.

But the way she cries out my name as she touches herself… Fucking hell, it’s the most erotic thing I’ve heard in my entire goddamn life. That and the sound of her fingers making contact with her pussy. The slippery wetness thrums just underneath her moans, getting faster and faster as she delves deeper into the fantasy.

“It sounds so fucking good, sir. Please do that. Please, please.”

“Blyat’!” I pause the voicemail mid-moan.

I need to fucking delete it. That’s the right move; I know that. But even as my finger hovers over the delete button, I can’t bring myself to pull the trigger.

I should fucking punish her for this. Impaling her on my cock seems like a pretty fitting punishment right about now.

I fast forward almost to the end of the message and press play again. She’s well past moaning now. She’s practically screaming. I can easily imagine her tight little body shuddering as the orgasm rips through her. It gives me a perverse sense of satisfaction to know that I’m responsible for that orgasm, no matter how indirectly.

Her breathing flutters a little and then it hitches up again just at the very end. A thump. A shocked gasp. Muffled static—then, two seconds later, the message ends.

I’m willing to bet that my prim and proper little secretary had no intention of sending me that voice message. Hell, she probably had no idea she even called me in the first place.

What an irreversible mistake.

I wonder what else that mouth is capable of.

Leaving my phone on the recliner, I head to the en suite bathroom in the master. I strip off my boxers and get into the shower, cranking the water as cold as possible. I force myself to freeze beneath the hailstorm for ten long minutes, until my erection finally gives up the fight and eases.

There’s no way I can avoid addressing this little slip-up tomorrow morning. Which leaves me with only two options: fire her or fuck her.

My cock likes the second option a little too much. “Down, boy,” I growl, unwilling to endure another fifteen-minute ice bath.

Ignoring my bed, I sit down at the sleek black desk. The light from my personal laptop illuminates the room with an eerie silver glow. A quick search is all it takes to find Emma’s file in my employee database. Her photo gleams at the top of the page. Innocent-looking. White blouse, red lipstick, a selfconscious smile.

But it’s impossible to look at her and see her the same way anymore.

Not when I know how it sounds when she comes undone.

Each file includes a full background check on all my employees. Everyone has skeletons in their closet; I just prefer to know how many before I put them on the payroll.

As it turns out, Emma Carson was practically a Girl Scout up until about three and a half years ago, when she abruptly inherited a ton of debt. I give the file a quick scan. The debt is innocent enough, just run-of-the-mill life bullshit. Mortgage. Student loans. Inflation. Funeral home. The kind of shit normal people have to deal with if they don’t have rich spouses or rich daddies.

But it gives me an idea.

After all, there’s nothing sexier than the air-tight boundaries of a mutually beneficial arrangement. It’s like Sergey’s lab—nothing can go wrong if you keep it contained. Bottle dangerous shit up in a test tube and it becomes a tool, a weapon, a product.

It’s when you let the chemistry explode on its own that shit goes wrong.

I pick up my phone once again and scroll through the contacts. My lawyer Isay’s voice is cracked with sleep when he picks up. “Boss?”

I don’t bother apologizing for waking him up. I pay my people enough to be able to demand twentyfour-hour attention whenever I need it.

“I need you to draw up a contract for me. Immediately.”

6

EMMA

“It’s over. My life as I know it is over. R.I.P. to me.”

“I’m sorry, who is this?”

“Pheebs!”

She chuckles while I stare at my reflection in the mirror and try not to throw up. My phone is lying on the bathroom counter on speakerphone, mostly because my palms have been sweating since I saw the meeting invite in my calendar for today.

9:00 A.M. – 09:07:32 A.M.: Emma Carson 1-on-1 with Ruslan Oryolov.

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Anyway, rewind, take a deep breath, then tell me what’s going on in your big girl voice. Unburden yourself. Take all the time you need. Just make it quick because I have a 9 o’clock appointment.”

I’m bouncing on the balls of my feet now, the same way that Reagan does when she needs to pee really bad. “Yeah, so do I. With him.”

“Ah. Oh, wait—oh.”

I first called Phoebe last night right after realizing what I’d done. Her reaction was a dizzying mixture of pride and horror. I believe her exact words were, “Sure, it’s mortifying, but I’m glad you got your rocks off. Knew you had it in you.”

She’s a little more reassuring now that things are escalating out of control. “That doesn’t necessarily mean he heard the voicemail, Em. Maybe this is just a standard, no-big-deal, super-boring-businessstuff Thursday morning meeting.”

“It’s scheduled for seven minutes and thirty-two seconds. Precisely.”

“Hm.” There’s a beat of silence. “Doesn’t look good, does it?”

“Seriously? That’s all you’ve got for me? I’m gonna lose my job, Phoebe!”

“You don’t know that for sure. Just take a deep breath and go in there, see what he wants. Play it cool, y’know?”

“And what if what he wants is to kick my ass to the curb with a recommendation letter that claims I’m a dirty whore with mediocre phone sex skills?”