Play Thing

Hell.

Alex had intended on coming clean but not this soon. He’d wanted to smooth the way, reassure her that what had happened wouldn’t interfere with their working relationship at all. But one look at her mouth twisting in disgust told him he’d be fighting a monstrous battle to convince her to stay, let alone listen.

‘Charlie, look—’

‘Don’t call me that,’ she growled. ‘Don’t you dare call me that.’

She shook her head, sending a sleek fall of hair over one shoulder. He preferred the way she’d looked yesterday, tousled and make-up–free, and the fact she’d gone to so much trouble today to impress her new boss made him feel bad anew.

‘Let me explain.’ He laid out his hands, palms up, like he had nothing to hide. Yeah, like that would placate her. ‘I know I should have said something yesterday. I’m a businessman and I’m good at what I do, so I researched this company before taking on the job.’

Her eyes narrowed, fiery slate slits pinning him with a disdain he deserved. ‘What do you want, a medal?’

He bit back his first instinct to laugh. Good to know she had a sense of humour beneath that austere front. Along with lingerie designed to make a man lose his mind.

‘What I’m trying to say is, I didn’t recognise you when I set foot in that warehouse. You had your hair down and glasses off and were wearing that lingerie...’

Crap, how could he explain the next bit without sounding like a total sleaze?

‘And?’ Disgust had given way to audible animosity. He hoped it was an improvement.

‘You blew me away and I couldn’t control my baser instincts. We had phenomenal sex, but it wasn’t until you said something afterward that I realised who you were.’

He could have sworn her upper lip curled in derision. ‘And what was that?’

‘You said “I really need to get this tidied up now”, referring to your aunt’s merchandise in the warehouse, but it’s a phrase you’ve used often in reference to tasks I’ve set you over the last few weeks.’

Her frosty expression didn’t change, as if she was unsure whether to believe him or not, but she gave a begrudging nod and he pinched the bridge of his nose, searching for the right words to make her understand. ‘I was honest about one thing yesterday. I don’t do things like that, meet women and have sex with them in under ten minutes. But seeing you like that...it blew my mind.’

At last, a breakthrough, when her rigid shoulders relaxed a tad. Not a complete thaw but he’d work on it, whatever it took. He needed Charlotte on board for his revamp of this company. And if having to work alongside this intriguing woman while he did it was a side benefit, he was all for it.

‘You seriously couldn’t control yourself around me?’

Out of all the responses he’d imagined, that wasn’t it. She sounded hesitant, slightly awed, as if she couldn’t believe he’d want her.

Some asshole must have really done a number on her for her confidence to be that low. It made him want to vault the desk, sweep her into his arms and show her exactly how sexy she was.

‘You’re incredible, and when I saw you I wanted you.’ He shrugged, hoping the simple truth would appease more than an apology. ‘And at the risk of having you fling that tablet at my head, seeing you strut in here only reinforces that snap judgement I made yesterday. But I know we have to work together and we’re professionals. So let’s chalk up yesterday to what it was—phenomenal, impulsive, amazing sex between consulting adults—and move on to business.’

She stared at him, dazed, but the faint pink in her cheeks indicated he’d hit the mark by articulating just how incredible it had been between them.

‘You expect us to work together and pretend like nothing happened?’

She’d lost the biting, sarcastic edge and it gave him hope.

‘I don’t know about you, but I’m not that good a pretender.’ He steepled his fingers together and rested them on the desk, trying to project a professional picture, when forgetting what they’d done in that warehouse was the furthest thing from his mind.

Seeing her again, sitting opposite him in her conservative work attire, only made him want to see what was under it all the more. Would she be wearing lace? Satin? Or that risqué leather again?

Damn, not helping the hard-on situation.

‘But doing the best job I can for this company is important to me and I want you to work alongside me to achieve that goal. Can you do it?’

He half expected her to tell him to stick his offer. To tender her resignation and sue the pants off him.

Instead, after a long pause where she studied him with disconcerting intensity, she nodded.

‘I can do this if you can.’

Hot damn, that almost sounded like a challenge.

As if she thought he couldn’t work with her without reverting to the horny caveman he’d been yesterday. He’d show her.

But in agreeing to keep this all business, he’d be deprived of some serious pleasure.

Their first encounter had been colossal.

What would prim Charlotte be like if she really let go?

CHAPTER SEVEN (#u6982bd65-25ed-5fe4-a87d-3cbee9cbe4a2)

CHARLOTTE LEFT THE office in a daze. She couldn’t return to her desk to focus on work and pretend her carefully ordered world hadn’t just been tipped on its head.

She’d had sex with her new boss.

Not just sex. Amazing, stupendous, multi-orgasmic sex. The kind of sex she’d only ever read about but never dreamed could happen for real.

As she walked aimlessly in the bright Sydney sunshine, she remembered one of the last things she’d said to her flatmate Mak before she’d left to take Broadway by storm.

‘I need a bad boy. Some big, bold, annoying, arrogant guy to rattle my cage.’

Well, she’d got her wish and then some.

In what weird alternate universe, in what giant cosmic twist of fate, did she have the best sex of her life only to discover she’d have to work alongside the hot guy who’d rocked her world? The guy who held her dream of owning her perfect house in the palm of his hand and had the power to make or break it with a snap of his talented fingers?

It didn’t seem possible. But it was and now Alexander Bronson expected her to work with him and act like he hadn’t been inside her in the most intimate way?

Impossible. Improbable. Improper.

Because Charlotte couldn’t forget, despite what she’d told him.

She blamed him, for saying all that stuff about how badly he’d wanted her and how he couldn’t control himself around her. As if she were some glamorous femme fatale who inspired that kind of passion in a man. She wished.

There’d been a moment when she’d first seen him behind his desk, an infinitesimal moment, where she’d seen hunger in his eyes. As if he still wanted her. It should have sent her running. It didn’t.

For the simple fact she liked feeling wanted.

Men didn’t turn their heads to stare as she walked down the street. She didn’t inspire sexist wolf whistles or lewd comments. And the one and only time she’d succumbed to searching for a date online, she’d taken down her profile from the app after a day when she’d received a mortifying two less-than-stellar requests.