Everything You Want: Everything For You Trilogy 2 (33 page)

“As you can see, I’m in a meeting with my new Business Manager. You and I will have a meeting of our own at four o’clock. In my office. I strongly advise you not to miss that one.” I take a deep breath, ignoring Libby’s shock.

His lip curls in a snarl. “Business Manager?” He throws a look of contempt in Libby’s direction which makes my blood boil. “She’s a glorified file clerk.”

Now I’m angry. I stand and draw myself up to my full height, glad of my heels. Ignoring Libby’s look of confusion at my instant decision to promote her role in the company from PA to Business Manager, I focus on Brent. Here, I’m the boss.

“You’ve already had one official verbal warning about your manner and attitude to other members of staff. It seems you’ve chosen to ignore it. You give me no alternative but to issue a formal written warning about your position here.”

Brent Tapper isn’t easily intimidated. He moves around my desk, completely oblivious now to Libby sitting inches away from him. His face is almost white with rage.

“Warn me all you like, you little bitch. I’m warning you. You’re on your way out.” He points a finger at me and stabs it in the air. My shock is palpable. He really seems capable of violence. Libby stands but backs up a pace. It’s a sensible move. “Do your worst. I’ll enjoy watching you swivel in the wind.”

He storms out the door. To hell with having a final friendly word about his car. When he’s gone, Libby rushes to close the door behind him. We need the illusion of solid wood to protect us from the danger beyond, shocked by the viciousness in Brent’s manner.

Having an enemy on the inside will make Amanda’s job to destroy me a whole lot easier if I allow it. It takes a while for my breathing to return to anywhere near approaching normal.

“Business Manager?” Libby breaks the silence.

I expel air from my lungs forcibly. “You witnessed all that and all you can think about is your new job title?”

We smile gingerly at each other. It breaks the tension.

“No seriously. Did you mean what you said about me being Business Manager?”

“I did, Libby. You’re under-rated in your current role. You do far more for this company than any PA. I want future development in this business to go hand-in-hand with your professional development. Besides, I’m expecting to have a senior vacancy imminently.” I glance towards the door.

Libby gets up. “I’ll draft that written warning.”

“Make sure he gets it today. Outline his aggressive and intimidating behaviour, his refusal to follow reasonable instructions or attend meetings and send that memo about vacating my parking space forthwith.” I hurl everything off my chest at once.

“He’ll have it on his desk in fifteen minutes.”

As she leaves, I stop her. “Oh and start planning the redecoration of his office. Order a plaque with your name on it. As soon as Brent Tapper leaves, it’s yours.”

“It will be my pleasure, Tabitha.”

Brent doesn’t hang about for long. I hear his Range Rover fire up about half an hour later and watch from my window as he swings out of the car park. I suspect he stormed out just as soon as he read the signed official warning, hand delivered by an exultant Libby, but not before he’d picked the brains of the staff who did turn up to listen to my future plans.

On a hunch I go to his office and check the last number he dialled and the time the call was made. It’s Amanda’s personal line again. He’s been in touch with her since realising the score here which confirms all my suspicions. The sooner I get Brent out, the safer I’ll feel. That won’t stop him trying to steal my existing clients though. Only I can do that. I want the wheels of my new company turning as soon as possible.

Libby and I discuss in more detail, plans to recruit some bright young graduates and to kick-start the internship programme immediately. Despite Brent and Amanda, I feel optimistic.

Jack and the Bentley arrive on the dot of six-thirty which sends me warm and fuzzy inside. As the last person here I lock up and set the alarms before leaving. Jack welcomes me with a kiss as soon as I settle in beside him.

He pulls back and stares at me. “Are you sure there isn’t anything you want to tell me?” he repeats, frowning, like today never happened.

“Should there be?”

“You tell me.” He waits.

I expect he senses the fire I feel inside. Things are moving in a very good direction. Jack and I seem to have settled into some sort of temporary understanding and the only blots on the horizon – Brent and Amanda – haven’t managed to spoil the rest.

“I just feel positive about the way my life is heading.”

I catch Jack looking to see if I’m wearing the ring. It feels so comfortable there I haven’t given it a thought. Perhaps I’m being naïve to imagine it doesn’t feel quite as temporary as it did before. I put my arms around Jack’s neck and kiss him properly. I want to tell him I love him but just can’t spoil the slow tentative steps we’re taking towards one another.

“I’m picking you up from work every day, if you’re going to be this pleased to see me.”

I rest my head on his shoulder and he holds my hand all the way back to Belvedere. For once, I feel like I belong there.

Lenuta has gone before we get back. I get the feeling it’s a new arrangement so Jack can be alone with me. She leaves something for dinner with instructions on when to turn off the oven and how to finish things off. After we’ve changed, I automatically take over from Jack’s attempts and realise he likes watching me as I potter around his kitchen. It’s a little echo of happy times at Lassec.

“What?” I ask when I see him looking my way again with a bemused grin on his face.

“Nothing.” He shakes his head.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” I mimic his regular enquiry.

My words bring a serious expression to his features. “It makes me happy having you here.”

This unexpected comment fills me with confidence enough to act coquettishly. “Happy enough to put dinner on hold for an hour?” He’s not the only one who can’t get enough.

His eyes burn through me until I no longer care if dinner spoils. He stalks round the central counter, removes the fork from my hand, placing it down and spins me to face him.

“What do you have in mind?” Without waiting for any reply, his hands lift the cotton dress I’m wearing so I know exactly what is going through his mind. His hands stroke up my thighs, run over the edges of my panties at my hips, twanging the elastic against my skin and making me jump.

He draws my panties tightly up between my buttocks and kneads the exposed flesh there. “Did I make you sore last night?”

Remembering the spanking we indulged in makes me blush. I wonder if he’s been thinking about it. Replaying it in his head, as much as I have mine? I shake my head.

“Do you want me to make you sore?”

I quickly shake my head again. He slides closer and nuzzles my neck as I writhe my hips against his body feeling the rapid changes taking place there.

“Pity,” he murmurs against my skin.

I stiffen. At first I think he’s telling me that’s too bad; he intends to anyway. But I relax as soon as I realise he’s just expressing a preference. We’re still learning each other in that way.

I push my fingers through the thickness of his dark hair feeling unusually brave. “How come your attitude towards me has changed so much?”

He studies me. “What do you mean?”

“A few years ago you wouldn’t make love to me at all.”

“Even when you asked me to?” He’s not the type to skirt around an issue.

I nod and chew at my lip as I wait for him to reply. At least he was tactful enough to put it like that. We both know I begged him.

The memory seems to make him smile. “Things were different then.”

“How?”

“First of all you took me by complete surprise.”

“Did I?”

“You did. It came straight out of the great blue yonder,” he says, smirking. “Like a guided missile.”

So the feelings were all one-sided then too. Everything I imagined about us was in my head but not in his. It’s a warning.

“I may have been a tad abrupt,” I admit, smiling shyly. Actually, I’d jumped on him and blurted it out of nowhere, unable to keep my raging teenaged hormonal desires to myself a second longer. He laughs at my coyness.

“More than a tad but you were always brave, like that.”

“Or impulsive.” He’d said so himself.

“You were barely eighteen. Practically a child still. I was a bit older.”

“A bit?” I joke.

He goes to swat my exposed behind but I leap away from his hand. “Okay. Quite a lot older. And much more experienced.”

The thought disquiets me.

“I still am much more experienced and you’d do well to remember that, kitten.” He draws me back to him and massages me until I purr with pleasure and relax my body against his again. “Besides Harry would have thrown me out the nearest window if he thought I’d ruined his favourite niece.”

Ruined? I’d imagined the taking of my virginity by Jack to have been the pinnacle of my young womanhood. The start of something beautiful between us. Not the ruination of me. Shows what I know.

“So now you’ve settled for ruining my backside instead.” I don’t want any regretful thoughts tonight.

“Well it is a peachy little backside.”

“Peachy?” I laugh.

“So peachy I’m salivating to sink my teeth into it.”

“Do it,” I challenge him in a quiet whisper.

He looks at me as if wondering where this confident little creature has emerged from. But, ever decisive, in three seconds flat he has me turned, lifted and lying face down over the central island counter with my legs dangling. He bares my backside, pressing the scanty fabric of my panties well up out of his way and leans over until I feel hot breath skating across my skin.

“I might have been joking,” I protest.

“I wasn’t.”

I hold my breath as he plants gentle little kisses all over my derriere. As I relax more his lips part and he begins to suck firmly using lots of saliva and a muscular tongue to work at the flesh there.

His first bite comes as a complete surprise. I didn’t think he’d really do it. I stiffen but have nowhere to go. I’m fixed against the surface with his hand in the small of my back. The edges of his teeth grip and build pressure slowly until I reach the bare threshold of pain. As I haul in a shocked breath, he eases off, lapping and nuzzling at me instead.

“Delicious. Warm, soft, peachy. One bite isn’t going to be enough though.” He makes me giggle with embarrassment. The breath from his mouth as he whispers over my dampened skin shivers up the entire length of my spine.

He runs fingers lightly over the damp gusset of my panties until I arch my bottom upwards and part my legs just a little more. Pushing them apart, he moves between them.

“Let’s get rid of these.” Pulling an adjacent drawer open, he snatches up a pair of scissors. To my shock he cuts the panties from me and draws them over my flesh until a waft of cool air teases my dampness and I suddenly feel horribly exposed.

“Jack, please.”

“Shush, baby. Let me.”

I know what he wants to do. “I’ve never –”

“Then I’d like to be the one.” He massages, soothes, tries to relax me.

It’s a surrendering of my virginity to Jack, of sorts, I suppose. “Will it hurt?”

“Not if you’re prepared. Let me teach you how good it can be. Tabby?” His voice is gentle. He’s asking permission, settling me. His hand caresses lightly. “God, I so want this with you. But if you’re not ready –”

“Okay.” I’m far from convinced but he wants my trust and what better way to give it. “Please don’t hurt me.” I’m nervous enough to tremble.

“I’d never hurt you, kitten, trust me.” He reaches for a bottle of olive oil sitting on the counter and unscrews the top.

Despite his reassurances, if I was any tenser I’d splinter into a million little shards. Each movement terrifies me. “Go slower.”

“Very slow, baby. So slow.” His voice softens, grows measured, but I can still sense the sexual tension crackling through his body. Will he be able to control himself enough when the moment arrives?

I feel the gentle drip, drip of warm oil and the slow slide as it rolls unhurriedly over my tailbone and down the valley between my buttocks. Jack’s fingers slide through it, spreading the viscous drops lower and wider until he skims my entrance but doesn’t pause there.

He brushes my sex until I’m caught in a rising action of erotic desire. It’s almost as if he’s forgotten his original intention. His fingers push up inside, invading me. I’m comfortable with this and relax into a restless sort of throbbing.

He gathers up the bottle again and I twist to watch him drop his shorts and boxers. He kicks them away and shucks off his t-shirt until he’s completely naked and gorgeous. I suppose he doesn’t want to get oil on his clothing. I’m fascinated and charged as I watch him dripping oil down his body and holding himself, massaging the slickness over the whole of his erect length. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so hard.

But I fixate on the girth and length of his erect manhood and I tense more. My fingers curl around the edges of the kitchen counter. “I don’t think this will work.” My tone reveals a mild degree of panic building.