Bedded By The Boss: The Boss's Demand / Something about the Boss... / Beguiling the Boss

“Great, thanks.” Another honor she probably didn’t deserve. She settled herself in the soft leather and propped the papers up in front of her eyes, the better to block out any distracting view of her boss.

The more they worked together, the more she was bedeviled by the urge to touch him. Electricity crackled in the air when she came within inches of him, which was often as she worked closely with him throughout the day. But the tiny distance between them was an unbridgeable chasm whose howling depths threatened to engulf her if she were foolish enough to act.

Perhaps a little touch would be enough, a casual brush of the hand.

She couldn’t jump off that cliff. This job was too important. And not just for the badly needed money it provided; Elan was giving her a chance to prove herself in the business world, to build a career that would be the foundation for a secure life.

With a successful career she’d never be stuck depending on a man to support her. She’d never have to suffer the way her mother had, trapped in a loveless marriage because she had too many hungry mouths to feed.

But something about the ridge of Elan’s cheekbone made her long to bite it gently. Something about his ear called her to trace its delicate curve with a soft fingertip and suck the tender, unpierced lobe. Something about his mouth made her want to part his unsmiling lips with her tongue and plunge into the warm depths.

“What are you looking at?”

She jumped in her seat, totally busted as Elan stared at her, one eyebrow slightly lifted. She blinked, eyelids darting over her lust-dilated pupils. He’d seen her gawking at him over the top of his speech, desire written all over her face.

“I’m sorry, just thinking.”

“I can see that.” He settled back against the black leather of his chair. His eyes narrowed slightly and the barest shadow of a smile played over his lips.

He knew she wanted him. Just like all those other women had wanted him. She struggled to hold his black gaze, trying not to flinch as he stared, unblinking, taunting her with her own unspoken desires.

He raised one hand, extended a single long finger and brought it slowly to his lips. A thoughtful, deliberate, unbearably sensual gesture. A surge of warmth heated Sara’s body, pleasurable and uncomfortable at the same time.

Her suit felt tight, constricting, holding in a body that longed to break free, to give rein to all the crazy impulses jarring her nerves and sending suggestions to her muscles that made her strain to hold her limbs still.

A knock on the door startled her, and she leaped to her feet, dropping Elan’s speech unceremoniously in the chair.

“You’re jumpy,” he murmured.

“Come in,” she said sharply, trying to regain the air of prim efficiency she used to pride herself on.

“I’ve got the samples you requested from the Davis field.” Dora entered, her coral mouth pursed in a polite smile. The office gossip, she took far too much pleasure in regaling Sara with tales of her predecessors’ downfall.

Dora carried a rectangular metal basket filled with vials of a black substance.

“I’ll take them.” Sara, lifted the heavy basket by its handles. She looked at Elan for instructions.

“On the desk.”

She lowered the basket and put it right on top of the scattered papers as he’d indicated. He picked up one of the vials.

“Thank you, Dora.” Elan dismissed her with a nod. She exited with a slight smirk on her face that made Sara’s insides twist with affront. Could Dora see into her mind? Know she was tempted down the same path to self-destruction that had tripped up so many women before her?

“Do you know what this is?” He swirled it and the dark liquid clung to the sides of the glass, viscous, slightly metallic.

“Oil?”

“Yes. The reason we’re all here.” He watched the liquid settle back down into the bottom of the vial. “Black gold.”

He removed the lid and lifted the vial to his nostrils. He held it under his nose for a moment, then let out a little grunt of satisfaction. “I never grow tired of this smell.” He rose and moved around the desk toward her. “Have you ever handled crude oil?”

“Can’t say I have,” said Sara. Awareness of his physical presence made her palms tingle.

Elan dipped one of his long fingers into the neck of the jar, plunged it into the thin, black liquid and withdrew it. “Here.” He extended his finger under her nose, invited her to sample its bouquet. She wrinkled her nose and suppressed a sudden urge to laugh. The strong crude-oil smell assaulted her senses, a little intoxicating.

Elan lifted his finger to his own nose. On errant impulse, she reached up and pushed his finger gently, so the oil smudged on his upper lip. She’d touched him! She drew her hand back, horrified, her finger quivering. He looked at her in astonishment.

A roiling mass of emotions bubbled up into laughter. “You look like Charlie Chaplin.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied her face, and her stomach tightened.

“Perhaps I’m his famous character, the Great Dictator?”

A glint of humor sparked in his eyes and his mouth threatened to curve into a smile. The idea of Elan smiling caused a strange sensation deep in her belly, and she groped mentally for a quick comeback.

“You’re a benevolent dictator.” She gave him a mocking salute and, slowly, a grin lit his face like the sun bursting out above the horizon.

“I consider that a compliment.” The sensual curve of his lips revealed rows of perfectly straight white teeth. His eyes twinkled with amusement as he studied her. The warmth of his smile and the intensity of his gaze combined to seriously undermine her sanity.

“Let me get a tissue for you.”

She retrieved one from the box on his desk and raised it to wipe the black smudge from his upper lip. Her fingertips brushed against the skin of his cheek—not rough, yet not soft, either—as she pressed the tissue to his mouth. For a moment she thought she might close her eyes in shameful bliss at finally fulfilling her fantasies of touching Elan.

She bit her lip hard, tried to distract herself from the unsettling physical sensations coursing through her body.

He watched her curiously as she wiped the oil from his lip. It didn’t come off particularly easily and she managed to accidentally smudge more of it on his cheek with the dirty tissue.

“Hold on, let me get another.” Her heart pounded as she got to touch him again, cleaning the last trace from the crease of his smile.

Deliberate throat-clearing drew their attention as Dora reentered with a second tray of samples. Her face twisted into an expression of amusement concealed with considerable effort. Sara realized it might well look as if she was wiping her own lipstick from the lips and cheek of her boss.

What a thought.

She shoved the oily tissue into her pocket and snatched the second tray of samples. She half expected Elan to make it brusquely clear that nothing had happened. Nothing had happened. But he stood, languid in the center of the room, challenging his employee to make what she would of the scene.

Sara made a fuss of rearranging the papers on the desk to make room for the second basket. “Thank you, Dora.” The woman nodded and turned for the door, lips primly pressed together.

The door closed behind Dora. Sara turned to Elan and saw a smile glittering in his eyes.

“She believes we were kissing,” he said. The throaty rumble of his voice, and the suggestion in his words, made her body tremble slightly. She was perilously close to the edge of the cliff.

“No danger of that,” she replied quickly. “Would you like a tissue to clean your finger?”

“Thanks.”

She retrieved the tissue, but as she went to hand it to him he merely extended his finger. His gaze met hers and she read a challenge in it.

She wrapped the tissue around his finger, then took hold of his wrist in her other hand to hold it steady. Currents of dangerous energy snaked up her arm from where her fingers circled around his pulse point.