Total pages in book: 183
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Slowly, so very slowly, and yet too quickly, the introductions lead my direction until there is only the very large man in the seat next to me, who until this point has been a shield that kept me hidden. “Michael Nortan,” he states, while I remain blocked by his big body. “Attorney, recent Yale graduate, joined the firm six months ago. And my biggest asset is I too like to win and win with integrity.”
And that’s it. It’s now my turn to declare myself. I inhale and lean forward on the exhale, and I say, “Lori Havens.” My eyes meet Cole’s. His meet mine, and there is a punch of electricity between us that I pray no one else feels. I dread what comes next, the admission I avoided in that hotel room. “Merrick Foundation recipient,” I say, and then, “Intern.” I pause a moment on my best asset, and then I decide I’m here, I’m me, and I can’t be anything else, and that means I don’t take the safe route. “I know how to size people up with incredible accuracy.” In other words, I sized him up. “I never quit,” I add, “and I know how to set priorities and limits with great discipline. For myself and those around me.” The message in those additional comments: I’m not leaving unless he fires me. I can’t. I won’t. But I also won’t be bending over his lap again.
He doesn’t immediately speak. He just looks at me, his eyes an unreadable ice blue, seconds tick by before he cuts his stare, and speaks to the masses. “That’s all for today. I’ll be in touch with each of you individually over the next two weeks. Lori. Come with me.”
Chapter eighteen
Cole
Side-by-side, Lori and I walk down the hallway toward my office. Neither of us speak, but the charge between us is combustible, a fuse slowly burning to the moment of imminent explosion. I want her. No. I’m obsessed with this woman, like I have never been obsessed with anything but winning. A part of me had thought that was about losing with her, but I now know it’s not. It was about her, just as it was the night I fucked her; about how different she is in ways definable in her beauty and spirit, and others not definable at all. My interest, our attraction which sparked off the damn walls in that room back there, is now complicated by the fact that my company represents her dreams and her future. More so, I’m not only the man she dared submit to, when she doesn’t submit, but I’m now her boss, and regardless of reality, the man she’s certain to believe controls that destiny.
Which means that I can’t just shut her in my office, pull up her skirt, and fuck her the way I’ve wanted to fuck her since the moment I met her, no matter how hard and hot I am for her. And that’s damn painful right about now.
We reach the executive offices and I hold the door open for her. She doesn’t look at me, but there is a moment before she passes, a moment neither of us move, where we are right back in that hotel, the air crackling with sexual tension. Her chin lifts slightly, defiance in the act that tells me she intends to push me away. That defiance does nothing to derail my appreciation of her perky little ass hugged by her skirt, and soon to be hugged by my hands, again.
She pauses just inside the lobby area to wait on me. And I’m damn glad Maria isn’t present, while her and my secretary’s desk remain unoccupied since I have yet to find one that comes close to filling Ashley’s shoes. I turn toward my office, and Lori doesn’t miss a beat, keeping pace with me, but again when I open my door for her she doesn’t look at me. She enters, and I follow her inside expecting that explosion, and the minute I shut us inside she’s whirled on me. “I didn’t know,” she says.
“And yet you left.” I don’t wait for her reply. I walk around her before I walk right to her, and I do it before I pull her to me and lick my way to her submission again when that would be highly inappropriate of me, at least at this very moment.
I’m not willing to put the desk between us, so as I walk toward it, I turn to lean on the wooden surface, between the visitor’s chairs. “That had nothing to do with the here and now,” she says, facing me now, and dogmatic enough about her response to close several steps between us. “I didn’t know,” she repeats, grabbing the back of the chair just to my right. “I had nothing to gain by sleeping with you,” she adds. “The scholarship program is independent of you. As for leaving, I’m not leaving now. I need this opportunity. I deserve it.”