Power Play: A Black & White Collection Story (4 page)

He laughed. “If I’m not mistaken, I’m the one who picked you up.”

“Nope, hate to disappoint you, but I was about five seconds away from approaching your table when you walked over to the bar. Last night was going to happen regardless of your lame pick-up lines.”

He leaned back against the wall of the elevator and crossed his arms over his chest. He was enjoying this easy banter. “There’s nothing lame about pick-up lines that get you laid, sweetheart.”

“You aren’t paying attention, Reed. I’d decided long before you came over to that bar that I was going to issue my invitation. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have cared if you’d opened your mouth and spoken in Pig Latin.”

“Ah. Oo-yay av-hay ice-nay its-tay.”

She looked down with a mischievous grin, then unbuttoned the top button on her blouse. She studied her breasts for just a moment, before refastening and grinning. “You’re right. My tits are
very
nice.”

His cock moved from mild interest to full-blown infatuation at her teasing words. The longer they spoke, the more enthralled he was becoming with her.

“By the way, I’m not giving up this job.”

Her change of subject caught him off-guard. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Last night was a one-night deal. We both knew that going in. I’d like to suggest we put it behind us.”

Her response was the one he’d been waiting for. He hit the button to their floor, letting the silence between them build. He knew she wanted to finish the conversation, but the elevator doors slid open before she could say more.

“Jessica,” he said, leading her over to the woman seated in the reception area. “I’d like you to meet Mitchell’s replacement. This is Frankie Carlyle.”

The two women exchanged handshakes and pleasantries as Reed allowed the seed of an idea take root in his brain. When he’d seen Frankie in Brian’s office, all he could think about was seducing her again. Now that he’d spoken to her, taken stock of her character, he decided mere seduction wasn’t going to be enough.

“If you’ll follow me this way, Frankie, I’ll show you your office.” She followed and he waited as she studied the new space she would be calling home for ten to twelve hours a day.

“Very nice.”

He pointed out her private bathroom and then led her to the door on the opposite wall that connected to his office. She stepped over the threshold and again, he watched as she quickly assessed everything. She had a sharp mind and he wondered what she saw when she looked at his office.

“Did you decorate this office yourself?”

He nodded.

“You’re certainly putting it all out there, aren’t you?”

He frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“This office screams of masculinity and power.” She pointed at his dark oak desk. “Couldn’t find a larger desk? Brian’s wasn’t even this big.”

He grinned. “Big man, big desk.” He wiggled his eyebrows to accentuate just what he considered big and she scoffed.

“Don’t forget, babe. I took the tour last night. You could’ve downsized a bit.”

He grinned at her taunt. “I didn’t hear you complaining when I was pounding inside your body. If I’m not mistaken, you were begging for more.”

“I don’t beg.”

He took a step closer. Moved her two steps back until her thighs hit his
too-large
desk. “I could make you beg.”

He expected her to launch into a million arguments about why she wouldn’t continue their affair. Instead, she reached down and pressed firmly against his erection. The unexpected touch caught him off-guard.

“You’d be the one begging.”

“Is that a dare?” he said, raising his hands to engulf her hips, pulling her lower body against him.

“No, it’s the truth.” As she spoke, she began to rub his cock through his pants. “You want to put your cock inside me again. Say it. Maybe if you ask real nice, I’ll even let you.”

Her words were tough and sexy as shit. He reached up and tweaked her nipple through her blouse and bra. If he had one regret about the previous night, it was that he hadn’t taken the time to enjoy her tits. They were large, firm, the perfect size for his hands. “Such nice, hard nipples. I bet you want me to suck on them, don’t you? You want me to strip that shirt off, yank that bra down and take you in my mouth. All you have to do is say please.”

She moved her hand from his cock, using her hands to lift herself onto his desk. Before he could process her motions, she had her skirt hiked up to mid-thigh and she was pulling his lower body toward her with her legs as they wrapped around his waist. She kept applying pressure until he could feel the heat of her pussy against his clad cock. “I bet you dreamed about fucking me all night, didn’t you, Reed? Bet you imagined how much you wanted to pound inside me some more. My pussy’s hot and wet and ready. All you have to do is beg for it.”

He grasped her hands, pulling them behind her, holding them at the small of her back with one hand. Her eyes darkened with arousal and he could sense how much the idea of being captured turned her on. He reached between them with his other hand, dragged it along her silk panties. She wasn’t lying about being wet. The material was more than damp. “Ask for my fingers, Frankie. Ask me to put them inside you. Beg for two, three of them to fuck you hard. Beg me.”

Their faces were close now, both of them gasping for breath. Somewhere along the line this game had gotten out of control. Her set, though pained, face proved she’d never say the words and even though his cock was reading him the riot act, he knew he wouldn’t either. He recognized the moment she came to the same realization.

Her legs loosened around his hips, then lowered back to the floor. He released his grip on her hands, swallowing heavily when she slowly rose and pushed her skirt back down.

The silence hovered in the air for only a few moments before she cleared her throat. “It would seem we are evenly matched.”

For once in his life, he had to agree. Carter had warned him last night. Told him approaching Francesca was sheer stupidity. He’d done it anyway. And now he was facing years of his life, sitting in an office next door to the one woman on the planet who could drive him insane with sexual frustration.

Just desserts for years of being a player? Maybe. Carter would call it karma. He walked around to his desk chair and tried not to wince as he sat down with the world’s largest erection fighting the rough material of his slacks for release.

She dropped into the chair across from him and he tried not to show his annoyance at how quickly she’d managed to compose herself. Then he noticed her turgid nipples through her blouse and watched her squirm. He hid his smile behind his hand. At least, she was suffering too.

He looked at the files on his desk and thought perhaps now was a good time for diversion. “As Brian said in his office, there are three big clients looking for marketing representation. The Golf Connection, an online golf catalog, will be listening to our presentation early next week. That’s the one we need to focus on immediately. After that, we have two weeks before we need to have an ad campaign created for Simply Lovely, a chain of boutiques that cater to women. Finally, at the beginning of next month, we’re bidding to represent Wedded Bliss, a new wedding chapel, that’s sort of an all-in-one deal. They take care of the flowers, clothing, reception, even help make the honeymoon arrangements.”

“Fantastic. The Walmart of weddings. Whatever happened to planning your own damn special day?”

Reed shrugged. “Today’s couple obviously doesn’t have the time. As senior partner in this team, I’ve already sketched out our approach for each bid.”

“What do you mean
our
approach?”

“I mean, I have the angles ready to roll. All I need you to do is start to put together the materials together for the—”

“Excuse me. By angles, you mean…?” She gestured with her hand for him to fill in the blanks.

He sighed. He knew this was going to happen. This is why his partnership with Mitchell worked. Regardless of his attraction to Frankie, she needed to understand her role in the company. In this arena, he would call the shots. “I mean I’ve already decided the details of our campaign pitch. I need you to help me create the presentation.”

“Forgive me, Reed, but I think Brian specifically said we would be working together on these pitches as partners. What you’ve described sounds more like you intend for me to be your personal assistant.”

“I don’t think there’s any denying that in this area I’m simply more experienced than you. Why don’t we play it this way for the first few bids and then maybe, somewhere down the line, when you’re ready, we’ll talk about—”

“Ready?” She rose angrily from the chair and he was reminded of his own actions in Brian’s office. “I was offered this job by your uncle because I’m ready now. In case you failed to notice, I’m the one who landed the last two bids for The Wilkerson Team because you couldn’t bring it.”

“I was in London. Surely you know that. If I’d been here, I think it’s a fairly safe bet you wouldn’t have landed anything.”

She shook her head. “You cocky son of bitch. Now I understand your big desk. You need something to support that oversized ego of yours.”

“I think you’re mistaking ego for confidence.”

“You’re an arrogant prick. There’s no mistaking that. We’re a team. And since it’s clear to me you don’t have a clue what that word means I’ll put it in simple terms. You and I will confer on the pitches and we will decide together what our campaign will be. I actually already have some good ideas for at least two of those companies.”

“No.”

She stood up straighter, clearly shocked by his response. “No?”

“It’s not going to happen that way.”

Her face reflected her anger, but he refused to back down on this. Then, an idea emerged. A compromise that would get him everything he wanted…and then some.

“I see. Well, perhaps Brian would like to—”

“I propose a unique sort of arrangement and a wager.”

She narrowed her eyes and he knew she was trying to determine what he was up to. She had a suspicious nature. Good for her. It would bode well for her in this fucked up career.

“A unique arrangement?”

“By hiring you, Brian sort of ensured we’d never be competitors. I have to admit I’m sorry about that.”

She released a heavy breath and nodded. “I am too. I would have loved to wipe up the floor with you.”

He grinned. “We’ll both make bids to these three clients.”

“We can’t do that.”

He stood and leaned forward. “I think we can. I challenge you to a bid-off. We’ll each make a presentation to the clients and let them decide which campaign they want.”

She frowned. “We’re supposed to be working together on the campaigns, not creating different ones.”

“I can sell the idea of giving the clients more choices, don’t worry about that.”

“Maybe so, but can you sell it to Brian? He’s the one who demanded a partnership.”

He respected how quickly she’d caught on to the workings of the company. Brian would be the wrench in the works, but Reed didn’t intend to lose this fight. “Leave Brian to me.”

“So we’re still competitors.”

“In a sense.”

“What if the clients don’t buy either of our campaigns?”

He snorted and she joined him in laughter. “Do I really need to answer that?”

“No,” she replied smugly. “I know they’ll buy mine.”

He’d never considered arrogance in a woman attractive, but he had to admit, he admired the hell out of her confidence.

“You mentioned a wager.”

“I’ve been thinking about last night. And your
sex with a stranger
fantasy.” His voice dropped as he added the last part and he watched her take a deep breath. Oh yeah. She’d definitely been thinking about it too.

“What about it?”

“I think you were on to something with that fantasy idea.”

Her face proved she wasn’t comfortable with their current conversation. The devil in him enjoyed picking at her.

“I have no idea what you’re getting at.”

He walked around his desk and took one of the two chairs in front of his desk, gesturing for her to sit in the other. She looked like she wanted to refuse. Obviously she preferred the safety of standing, lest she needed to make a quick escape.

“Sit down, Frankie.”

“Listen, Reed, I don’t—”

“Dammit. Everything isn’t a fight. Sit down. I want to talk to you and I refuse to do it while you stand there glowering at me.”

She sat, leaning back against the chair, with her arms crossed over her chest. “Say it fast. Time is money.”

“You indulged in a fantasy with me last night. I think regardless of the adversarial working relationship we now find ourselves in, we proved ourselves compatible in the dream realm.”

“Maybe so, but as I told you last night, my objective was achieved. I got the fantasy so now I’m moving on. You served your purpose.”

“And you mean to tell me that was your only sexual fantasy.”

She looked at his quizzically. “Of course it wasn’t.”

Now they were getting to the heart of the matter. “If the client picks my ad campaign over yours, you owe me a sexual fantasy of my choosing. One interlude where you are completely at my disposal, available to make my wet dreams a reality. You will do anything and everything I say.”

“And when I win?”

She was a spunky thing. “Should such an unlikely event occur, you get the same reward.”

“You have to do anything I want in bed?”

He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair. “I don’t remember saying anything about a bed. The fantasy can be anything.”

She relaxed her pose and he could see she was seriously considering his proposition. He wasn’t sure what was prompting him to suggest such a thing. He just knew that he had to have her again and he’d do whatever it took to make that happen. Making the fantasies part of a game kept them on a level playing field and eliminated the commitment concern. Neither of them would enter the relationship with any expectations apart from nonstop, multiple orgasms.

“If I agree to this, I have one condition.”

He nodded slowly. He hated conditions, limits. With her, he knew he wanted no-holds-barred sex. “What condition?”