Mixing business with pleasure...

...is a dangerous game!

Party girl Maya Darlington-Hume feels an illicit thrill when a gorgeous man walks in on her naked. When she discovers the sexy stranger is her father’s business associate and her new boss, she naughtily decides to turn up the heat—and Benedict Chivers can’t resist her for long. Maya could lose everything if her controlling father finds out, but each encounter leaves her begging for more!

“DARE is Harlequin’s hottest line yet. Every book should come with a free fan. I dare you to try them!”

—Tiffany Reisz, international bestselling author

Formerly a video and radio producer, CHRISTY McKELLEN now spends her time writing provocative, passionate, seductive romance. When she’s not writing she can be found enjoying life with her husband and three children, walking for pleasure, and researching other people’s deepest secrets and desires. Christy loves to hear from readers. You can get hold of her at christymckellen.com.

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Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Wild Child

Christy McKellen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07146-8

WILD CHILD

© 2018 Christy McKellen

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Tom, you’re the boss.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Maya

THE FIRST TIME I laid eyes on Benedict Chivers I was on the brink of orgasm.

It had been a long, gruelling day at the office—my arsehole of a father’s office, to be precise—and I’d been yearning to step into a hot, soothing bubble bath from the moment I’d escaped that hellhole.

Luxuriating in a bath has always been a turn-on for me. It’s something about the heat swirling between my thighs, and the way the soapy water makes my skin so slick and touchable, so I was right in the middle of one of my favourite sexual fantasies when a powerfully built, mouth-wateringly handsome man strode in through the unlocked bathroom door and caught me with my fingers working my clit and my body primed for much-needed release.

I must point out here that he hadn’t just randomly wandered in off the street and into my flat. I was staying at my father’s house in Kensington for a couple of weeks, while I was having the shonky old electrics overhauled at my place. I’d planned to crash with my friend Bella, but my father had insisted I stay with him instead—and when he insists on something, you damn well do it.

I swear it was a genuine mistake, forgetting to lock that door—but I can’t say I was sorry that I had right at that moment.

The expression in the stranger’s piercing pewter-grey eyes when they locked with mine was mesmerising, making my breath stutter in my throat and my heart-rate soar, flooding my body with dopamine as I gazed back at him.

He just stood there, with his firm lips slightly parted and his striking eyes narrowed and looked at me. Really looked at me. Like there was nothing else on earth but me, naked in that bath.

Spurred on by the captivation I saw in his face, I began to move my stilled fingers again, bathing in his intense, penetrating gaze, feeling the heat of his wanton attention right down to my bones.

Over the gentle splash of the water I could hear his breath as it scythed in and out of his throat, and through the haze of my need to finish what I’d started I saw his shoulders tense and his hands bunch rigidly at his sides, as if he was fighting to keep them there—to stop himself from reaching down into the water and touching me.

That thought took me right to the edge, and as I began to hit my peak, greedy, unconcealed desire flashed across his face, tipping me over. I came in intense waves, a loud groan of pleasure rasping through my throat as my release rushed to my head, blurring my vision.

My noisy declaration of pleasure seemed to shock him out of his shameless voyeurism, and as my world came back to rights I saw him take a step backwards, his brow furrowed into a deep frown, blinking as if he’d just come to his senses.

As I caught my breath and fought past the lingering waves of ecstasy that gripped me all I could do was laugh.

It was a pretty ridiculous situation after all.

‘Nice to meet you. Thanks for the visual stimulation,’ I managed to say through my giggles.

But instead of finding the humour of the situation too, he gave me a cool stare that made the laugher die in my throat, then turned on his heel and strode quickly out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Shrugging off my discomfort, I smiled to myself, replaying the expression in his eyes right before I’d climaxed. He’d wanted to see me come. He hadn’t been able to look away—even though he was clearly frustrated with himself for not doing so now.

The pleasure for me hadn’t been about the illicit thrill of him catching me masturbating, though, it was the knowledge that he could have turned and walked away immediately but he hadn’t. He’d stood there and watched—as if he hadn’t been able to help himself.

I loved the thought of that—of having that kind of power over him. This handsome, beguiling stranger.

I wondered who he was and what he was doing here in my father’s house at six o’clock in the evening. My father never came home before seven, and most nights it was more like nine o’clock before he made an appearance. This guy had to be someone special for my father to come back early and meet him here in his home.

Getting out of the bath, I dried my still tingling skin with one of the soft fluffy towels the housekeeper provides in abundance and went back to my room to get dressed, half hoping to bump into the mysterious dark-eyed visitor on the way.

But it was not to be. The sound of muffled voices floated up from downstairs—two men, I thought, and almost certainly one of them was my father, judging by the deep timbre of his voice—so it seemed likely that my mystery man had returned to whatever kind of meeting they were having down there.

I dressed quickly, pulling on a vest top and my oldest, most comfortable jeans, and made my way downstairs.

‘Maya—come in here, please,’ my father barked as I tiptoed past the sitting room door in an attempt to make it to the kitchen undetected and knock back a large glass of wine before suppertime.

While I was staying here he insisted I join him to eat, and I definitely needed to be tipsy before facing him over a meal, when it would be just the two of us avoiding each other’s eyes in silence.

Reluctantly, I turned back and approached the sitting room doorway, wondering what the hell I was about to walk into. My father rarely introduced me to his associates. It was always my older sister, April, the golden child of the family, whom he touted in front of them. I was merely the shady black sheep against her pristine white pedigree.

Had the guy told my father what had just happened upstairs?

Surely not.

He’d come out of it looking just as bad as me, if not worse, and my father was not a man to mess with in regards to his family. I’d heard of him destroying men—in a business sense, that is—for far less than walking in on one of his daughters in the bath.

I sauntered into the room with my head held high, determined not to be cowed by either of the intense, powerfully present men, and gave my father the kind of subservient smile that clearly made him suspicious, if his return scowl was anything to go by.

‘This is Benedict Chivers. He’s agreed to let you work for him at his company, Ergo-i Software, for the next few weeks while I’m away in New York.’

He gestured towards the man who had been watching me make myself come not ten minutes ago, who was now standing ramrod-straight in my father’s sitting room, with a large glass of ten-year-old Scotch clutched in his large hand.

It struck me with force once again what an attractive man he was, with a square-jawed, dark-eyed handsomeness that was impossible to tear my gaze away from.

There was no grey in his thick jet-black hair, which he wore swept away from his angular, high-cheekboned face, so I guessed he was pretty young to be company director. I put him in his early thirties. He was big too. The guy must have been at least six foot four, and with a broad-shouldered, long limbed body that made me want to climb up it and rub myself against him, just to experience his visceral power up close and personal.

‘You’ll be there to help out with whatever he needs,’ my father continued, clearly oblivious of what had gone on right under his nose upstairs—thank God. It would be such a shame to ruin the sexily enigmatic Mr Chivers at this point.

‘Taking notes, organising his schedule—that sort of thing—while his executive assistant is recovering from an operation. He’ll have other PAs looking after him too, so they’ll be able to help you if you have any questions.’

I turned back from staring intently at Benedict Chivers—who, I was irked to note, was looking back at me as if he’d never laid eyes on me before in his life—and offered my father a demure smile.

‘It’ll be good for you to see how another company runs its day-to-day business,’ he said, ignoring what must have seemed like abnormally respectable behaviour coming from me. ‘Especially if you really are determined to establish your own enterprise.’

He said ‘enterprise’ as if I was planning on setting up a seedy brothel or a gun-running cartel.

Irritation clawed up my spine.

In actual fact, my plan is to grow a custom-made jewellery business—an idea I’ve toyed with for ages. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve not exactly been focussed before this point in my life, and have perhaps spent a bit too much time partying, but I had an epiphany after my twenty-third birthday, when I realised my friends were all moving on with their lives and I wasn’t, and I’ve worked hard to refocus my goals since then.

Trouble is, a start-up jewellery business is going to need a hell of a lot of capital to get it off the ground and a lot of commercial savvy to run it profitably—the latter of which I’ve been working on, with the help of a night school class for the past year. My tutor thinks I’ll do well, but I know my business skills are still somewhat lacking.

My father has finally agreed to give me control of my trust fund if I can prove I can be business-minded, so I can invest that money in getting my venture off the ground—precious stones and metals don’t come cheap, after all. Despite the fact he’s a billionaire, he’s always been incredibly tight with the allowance he gives me and my two sisters, wanting us to ‘learn the real value of money’.

He’s particularly hard on me about it after the designer knickers debacle. But that’s another story.

So, in exchange for this benevolence, I’ve promised him six months of my life learning the ropes from the bottom up at the family business. Not that he’s entrusted me with anything important so far. All I’ve done is fetch endless cups of coffee and scan, then shred, about a million old files full of papers from ten years ago which have been languishing in some dusty basement. I’m pretty sure it’s not actually a necessary job and he’s only invented it to try and kill my spirit.

And now it seemed he wanted this guy to babysit me while he was off in the States—as if he didn’t trust me to keep my promise to work hard and curb my partying when he’s not around.

I decided I’d be happy for Benedict Chivers to boss me around, though. In fact, I could imagine rather enjoying it. But I wasn’t going to just take it lying down—unless he suggested the sort of lying down I’d be happy to partake in, of course. It had definitely seemed as if he’d be into that when he was standing there, watching me pleasure myself in the bathroom. Even if he was pretending it hadn’t happened now.

I decided, on balance, that it might actually prove to be quite entertaining to have a bit of fun with this guy, so I forced my face into a bland, respectful expression and turned to face my new boss—who knew what I looked like when I orgasmed.

‘It’s lovely to meet you, Mr Chivers. I’m looking forward to coming for you.’ I shook my head and wrinkled my nose, pretending I’d misspoken by accident. ‘Coming to work for you.’

I flashed him my most innocent smile, popping my dimple, but I could tell from the way his scowl deepened and an expression of wry acuity ghosted across his face that he knew exactly what I was doing. I got the feeling he’d make me pay for it later. At least I hoped he would.

‘Good to meet you too, Maya. I look forward to having you on board,’ he said smoothly.

Even though he was careful to keep any hint of innuendo out of his voice, the sound of his deep, husky voice saying those words sent a delicious shiver across my skin, and I swear I nearly came again on the spot.

Maintaining my cool in front of this guy was clearly going to be a challenge.

‘I hope you’ll find your time at Ergo-i rewarding. We run a tight ship, but from what your father’s told me you’ll be able to handle it once you’ve been shown the ropes,’ he said, the expression in his eyes as hard as the hundred-and-fifty-million-year-old fossil on my father’s mantelpiece.

A shiver of frustration ran through me. Was that really how they both saw me? As someone who needed instructions on how to make hot drinks and shuffle paper around?

‘Okay...well, if that’s all you need from me, there’s a glass of wine with my name on it waiting for me in the kitchen,’ I said coolly, feeling a sudden urge to get out of there. Being around this guy was seriously disturbing my equilibrium.

I gave them both a nod, then quickly scarpered out of the room, rushing down the hallway towards the safety of the kitchen.

Before I could reach my safe haven I heard heavy footsteps behind me and felt my father’s vice-like fingers wrap around my arm, bringing me to an abrupt halt. Reluctantly, I turned back to face him, wondering what further humiliation I was to be subjected to this evening.

‘I expect to hear from Benedict that you’re displaying exemplary behaviour while you’re working for him,’ he murmured in that icy-cold tone he uses when he wants people to pay attention to what he’s saying.

Not that anyone would ever dare do otherwise.

‘I’d like to hope that he and April will hit it off once she gets back from China. He’s a very smart and ambitious man and his company is going places. Amalgamating the two families would be very good for business. So please, for the love of God, don’t do anything to put our family’s reputation in jeopardy while you’re working there.’

The herd of elephants that is always in the room whenever my father and I are together stamped their feet.

I hate the way he always talks to me like I’m fourteen, instead of twenty-four. Mind you, it’s a miracle he talks to me at all, after the way the fourteen-year-old me behaved... Behaviour that changed all our lives irrevocably. Particularly my mother’s.

I pushed away the sting of guilt-threaded grief that’s plagued me ever since that horrific day and pasted on my carefree smile. I’m a master at conjuring it at will now—even when I feel like I’m dying inside.

‘I won’t be dining with you this evening,’ he added. ‘I’m taking Benedict round the corner to the club.’

He was talking about the men-only, elitist old boys’ private club where he’s on the board. A place I wouldn’t be seen dead in even if I wasn’t the proud owner of a vagina.

‘Have a marvellous time,’ I muttered, shaking off my father’s hold on me and giving him a cursory nod.

Then I turned away and headed back towards the kitchen, the need for that numbing glass of wine stronger than ever now.

Perhaps it’ll actually be a good experience working for Benedict Chivers, I told myself as I took down the largest wine glass I could find from the cupboard and filled it to the brim with Sancerre from the industrial-sized fridge. It would certainly brighten up my day having him around to look at. Maybe if we got close one evening, while we were working late and everyone else had gone home, something might spark between us and melt the wall of ice he appeared to have so hastily thrown up.

Something good. Something exciting and illicit.

The best kind of something.

It would be so damn satisfying to stick it to my perfect sister too—knowing I’ve already had the man she’s destined for. She’s almost as bad as my father some days, with her judgement about the way I choose to live my life.

According to her, our family would have been better off if I’d never been born. She actually said that to me when we were younger. To my face. I laughed it off, but a small part of me died inside. Even now she still treats me as if I’m scum on her shoe, and she and my father are always on my back about something.

It’s like being tag-teamed by the fun police.

If it weren’t for my little sister, Juno, whom my father barely acknowledges exists most of the time—probably because she keeps her head down and hardly says a word when he’s around—I’d avoid all family gatherings.

Juno’s very different from the rest of the Darlington-Hume family, though—sensitive and studious, as opposed to worldly-wise and bullish—and I’ve always had an innate instinct to protect her because of it. She has a tendency to stand with her shoulders pulled in a little towards her chest and her head slightly bowed, as if she’s constantly ducking people’s attention.

I think that started in her tweens, when she suddenly put on a lot of weight and got acne. I know she was bullied for it at school—until I stepped in and put those bitches right, that was.

No one treats the people I care about badly.

No one.

So, anyway, that’s the story of how I’ve come to find myself now staring at Benedict Chivers’s smug, handsome face over a highly polished meeting room table at his multi-million-pound software company, while everyone talks numbers and he steadfastly ignores me.

I’ve been here nearly a week now, and he’s barely said a word to me, scarcely even looked my way, getting one of his other PAs to instruct me in what he wants instead of connecting with me directly.

Yes, it fucking rankles.

I hate being treated like I’m beneath someone’s notice. I’ve had to put up with enough of that over the years from my father, and I don’t intend to take it from Benedict Chivers as well.

It wasn’t as if I planned to masturbate in front of him, but from the cool way he’s acted towards me since I’ve arrived here you’d think I did it deliberately to embarrass him. But then I suppose I do have a reputation for being a little wild.

The only reason I’m putting up with this torture for the next few months is so I can prove to the world that I’m more than just a party girl. That I’m someone who deserves respect. All the drudgery and sucking up will be worth it if I get to be my own boss one day. Maybe I’ll even impress my father by making a success of my life.

Stranger things have happened.

I’m not banking on it, of course. The man has an emotional wall so high it’s impossible to see the top, let alone scale it. I should know—I’ve tried hard enough over the years.

But enough of that. I’ve never been one to feel sorry for myself and I don’t intend to start now. I’m the master of my own destiny and I’m going to bloody well make it a good one.

I watch my new boss now, as he leads the meeting with hypnotising control, garnering the full attention and respect of his minions as he determinedly works through every point on the agenda. He conducts himself beautifully, with a grace and confidence that sends little thrills of awe chasing around my body. They collect together in an erotic thrum at the juncture of my thighs, making my skin prickle with awareness.

Despite the fact that he acts as if he’s got a dildo permanently shoved up his behind whenever he’s around me—or maybe because of it—I find him fascinating.

‘Would you like me to fetch you anything, Mr Chivers? A cup of tea, perhaps?’ I ask him, to make sure he has to look me directly in the eye during a short pause in the meeting. We’ve not made full eye contact since I started here, and I’ll be damned if I don’t at least get a couple of seconds’ worth of attention from him before we break for the weekend.

‘No, thank you, Maya,’ he says, and I hold my breath, waiting for those dark, sensual eyes to lock onto mine.

But they don’t. Instead he looks down at his tablet with the meeting notes on it that I so painstakingly prepared for him, as if my presence here doesn’t have any impact on him whatsoever.

Well, fuck that.

I excuse myself, going the long way round the table, past where he sits at the head, and making sure to bump my hip gently against his shoulder as I pretend to squeeze past him, and stride off to the bathroom.

Once in there, I stare at myself in the mirror, wondering whether I’m really brave enough to do the thing that’s been racing round my mind since I realised I’d be forced to endure the whole meeting being patronised by Benedict and his fawning associates. They’re talking about company pensions and I have to take what must be entirely pointless notes.

It seems Benedict Chivers is following my father’s lead and trying to subdue my life force by subjecting me to endless spreadsheets and slide presentations.

I’ll be lucky if I even get to the point of setting up my own business at this point. There’s a good chance I’ll have died of boredom before then.

So hell, yes, I have got the guts to do this, I tell myself, reaching up under my skirt and sliding down my knickers, then stepping out of them and hiding them in the small utility cupboard under the sink. After smoothing my skirt down, I give myself one last daring smile in the mirror, then exit the bathroom.

I return to the meeting room, feeling the cool air from the air-con unit swirling around my pussy, which only adds to the thrum of arousal that started as soon as the idea shimmied into my head.

Let’s see how easy it is to ignore me now, Mr Chivers.

I go back to a different place at the table, right next to Benedict, and subtly shift my chair as I sit down so he’ll have a full view of me—but no one else will—when he looks directly my way. I cross my legs primly and try not to smile as I see his gaze dart quickly towards the movement I make, then away again, as if he’s training himself not to look.

I don’t do it straight away. I wait until one of the associates is droning on about hybrid schemes and then make a bit of a show of shifting in my chair. Then I sigh gently, so the others won’t be alerted to what I’m doing but Benedict will, and raise my foot, propping the heel of my shoe on the front bar of my chair so my knee is in the air, which forces my legs to open a little, parting my skirt.

In my peripheral vision I see Benedict’s head turn and hear his sharp intake of breath as he clearly spots my ‘accidental’ indiscretion. I’m full-on flashing him now, and as I turn my head to look at him our gazes finally lock and I see exactly what I’ve been waiting for since that moment when he couldn’t tear his eyes away from me in the bathroom.

Desire.

Hot, fierce need.

But before I can even smile he looks away again and asks his colleague a question, as if nothing has happened.

As if I don’t exist.

He’s ignoring me again.

A wave of burning frustration floods through me and I drop my foot from the chair and cross my legs again, determinedly keeping a blank expression on my face in case he looks at me again. No way will I ever show Benedict Chivers how much he’s hurting me with his disregard.

The meeting seems to go on for another couple of hours—though according to my watch, when I check it at the end, it’s only eighteen minutes. Eighteen pain-filled, life-sucking minutes.

The others get up from their chairs on Benedict’s say-so, and I gather my pad and pen together and make to stand up, smoothing my skirt down over my legs.

‘Maya, come with me. I want to see you in my office. Right now.’

The vehemence in Benedict’s last two words leaves me in no doubt that I’m in for it. It just remains to be seen exactly what he has in mind by way of punishment.

The thought of that breaks through my aggravation and wet heat floods between my thighs as I follow him to his office on trembling legs, hearing him call to his other PAs that he’s not to be disturbed.

I shut the door behind me with a shaky hand and turn to face him, my breath coming quickly but my head held high.

I am not going to let this guy get the better of me.

CHAPTER TWO

Benedict

MAYA DARLINGTON-HUME IS bad news. Everybody knows that.

Like everyone, I’ve seen the gossip articles showing her falling out of nightclubs on the arm of the latest It Boy and giving the finger to the camera, both of them clearly drunk or high, as well as those grainy long-lensed shots of her slouching around Primrose Hill in the late afternoon, wearing dark glasses and with a takeaway coffee clutched in her hand, after a reportedly wild party at her place the night before.

The whole thing churns my stomach. Not because women shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy themselves, but because I’ve had a lot of experience with spoilt, bored, rich girls throughout my life, so I know one when I see one.

In my teens I worked as a maintenance guy at Tinderly, the most famous and moneyed of all the private girls’ schools in the country. It was only a few miles away from where I grew up, in a rundown post-war prefab house on a rough estate on the edge of Oxford, but those girls’ lives were a million miles away from my own tough upbringing.

I worked at that school throughout my late teens, saving every penny I could so I’d finally be able escape the life I’d been desperate to leave behind since I was old enough to realise that I had a waste of space, sociopathic drunk for a father and that I needed to earn enough money to rescue and rehouse my mother so we’d never have to see that piece of shit again.

That’s how I was able to stick it out at Tinderly—carefully navigating my way through a dangerous minefield of adolescent girls’ boredom and lust. I swear to God, I never met a single pupil there I believed would go on to make any meaningful contribution to society. It was clear they’d all end up living off either their parents’ vast fortunes or their self-satisfied aristocratic future spouses’.

From my inferior position of servitude I experienced it all from those girls: abuse from the privileged, the occasional veiled but thankfully not acted upon threats to have me fired when I wouldn’t give in to their sexual demands—as if I was just some plaything put there for their entertainment—and their cruelty and scorn when I refused to engage with them on any kind of level.

That school was a terrifying microcosm of a pampered, obtuse and corrupt society that I’ve tried hard to avoid during my working life.

Unfortunately, in order to maintain my software company’s position as market leader, I now find myself having to associate with exactly those sorts of people. Including, it seems, Maya Darlington-Hume, who personifies everything I’ve come to hate about rich people: the petulant, entitled behaviour, the narcissism and, most of all, the goddamn self-indulgence.

She might be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, with a charisma that makes it virtually impossible to keep my eyes from being drawn to her, but I’m no fool. As hard as it is to ignore her after that intensely erotic moment we shared in her father’s bathroom the other week, I know I have to.

The trouble is I’ve not been able to stop thinking about her ever since I unashamedly watched her beautiful body writhing in the water as she brought herself to orgasm.

Fuck.

I’ve thought about it a thousand times since then, even though I’ve told myself not to.

The expression in her eyes as she came in front of me, seeming to see inside my mind and know that I couldn’t bring myself to look away, has haunted me ever since.

I’ve spent more time in the gym since she’s been working here than I normally would in a whole month, battling to drain the energy out of my sexual urges, trying not to picture what it would be like to have her lying writhing and needy beneath me as I thrust into her, teasing that beautiful, spirited face into the same expression of ecstasy I saw that day.

And now here she is in the flesh, looking at me with those defiant, perceptive eyes, waiting to see how I’m going to punish her for deliberately flashing me.

It’s as if she senses it in me—the urge to dominate her and to take pleasure in it that I’ve fought against since she first started working here.

But I can’t let myself do it. I can’t get involved with her.

I need to keep her father sweet if I’m going to use his influence to get what I want: his agreement to sit on my executive board and exert his not insubstantial influence over the money men, so that the business I’ve strived so hard to build from scratch has a real chance of survival in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

We’re getting our biggest product—a piece of Customer Relations Management software, or CRM as it’s more commonly known, which organises and logs client contacts—into a lot of key British companies, but there’s another supplier on our tail who’s starting to win some of the business we’ve pitched for recently. Trouble is, this competitor is run by a guy who comes from one of London’s most powerful society families, and he’s getting a lot of help from the Old Boy Network.

Which is where Maxim Darlington-Hume comes in. I may not have a rich and powerful family of my own to call on, but Maxim’s backing is as good as, if not better than, the next best thing. Word of mouth and personal recommendation are powerful beasts, and if Maxim will agree to play his part in convincing the majority of companies to go with us the rest will hopefully follow.

So, much as I hate it, Maxim Darlington-Hume has the ability to make or break the company I’ve built with my blood, sweat and tears over the last ten years, and I need to play the game in order to gain his benevolence.

That’s the only reason I agreed to let Maya work here for the next few weeks—not that I’ll be trusting her with anything important.

Unfortunately, it seems she’s determined to make it impossible for me to ignore her until her time’s up, and deciding how best to deal with her obvious cry for attention now puts me in a real quandary.

I know what I’d like to do—put her over my knee and give her a wake-up call she won’t forget in a hurry—but of course I’m not going to do that.

I scowl at the tall, willowy temptress standing before me in my office, who gazes back coolly, her full lips pursed and her bright blue eyes meeting mine with a fortitude I feel all the way down to my cock—which twitches disobediently. She’s clipped back her long, chocolate-brown hair today, and is wearing a sky-blue skirt, which skims the edge of decency with its mid-thigh hemline, and an almost see-through silk blouse under a figure-hugging jacket.

She’s the very picture of an executive’s wet dream.

I was acutely aware of the tense, sexually charged atmosphere between us in the room earlier—how could I not be?—and it had become glaringly apparent to me that she was going to be a real distraction whenever she was around. She has a palpable presence—a disrespectful, carelessly sexy confidence that I seem to be innately drawn to.

I’m going to have to use every reserve I have at my disposal if I’m going to keep this woman from causing me trouble I really don’t need.

‘Do you think that’s an appropriate way to behave in a business setting?’ I ask her calmly, folding my arms and frowning, determined not to let her deliberate ploy to get a rise out of me work as she backs slowly up against the desk in the middle of my office.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Chivers, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

She’s all innocence and big eyes, and the sheer bloody audacity of it makes my cock twitch again. She knows damn well I understand what she’s up to. The woman is clearly a pro at getting what she wants and has a lust for trouble.

An awe-inspiring combination, but also a dangerous one.

‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Maya,’ I say quietly, imbuing my voice with terse authority.

She just blinks at me, but I sense the smile behind her mask of naivety.

‘You were sitting in an inappropriate way in that meeting,’ I say, keeping any expression in my voice to a minimum. I don’t want her to know how much this chemistry between us affects me.

‘You mean like this?’

Without a second’s pause she sits down on my desk and raises her right leg, propping her foot on the back of one of the visitor chairs in front of it. The movement forces her legs open and her skirt to ride up her thighs, exposing her pussy to me again.

I try not to look.

Really fucking hard.

‘You should wear underwear to the office.’ I force the words past my suddenly dry, constricted throat. A pulse beats hard in my head and my vision swims as she gives me a wide, secretive smile.

‘But I don’t like wearing underwear,’ she whispers huskily. ‘Is it an office rule, or something?’

‘No,’ I say, wishing at that moment that it was, so I’d know exactly how to deal with this brain-melting situation. ‘But it’s indecent,’ I add, which unfortunately sounds ridiculously inane when said out loud.

I silently curse myself for letting her see my obvious stumble from dispassion into prudishness.

Her eyebrows shoot up. ‘Indecent? Well, perhaps you should punish me for it, then,’ she suggests, with amusement in her voice.

She’s laughing at me—and the knowledge makes me drag in a ragged, incensed breath.

Something wicked flares in her eyes and I feel the control I’ve been determinedly clinging on to for the last week start to slip.

‘What are you expecting to happen here?’ I ask her, fighting for nonchalance.

She shrugs, completely unapologetic. ‘I have no idea. I just wondered what you’d do if I misbehaved. Perhaps you’ll just stare meaningfully at me again. You seemed to enjoy doing that the last time my pussy was on show.’

I swallow hard, but don’t rise to her teasing provocation. I just continue to look at her steadily. This woman has danger written all over her. I’m going to have to be firm here—let her know I’m not going to put up with her shit.

As if she’s read my mind she says, ‘Perhaps you should discipline me so I don’t do it again.’

I raise an eyebrow, determined not to give her the pleasure of an emotional response to that. ‘Discipline you how?’

Her chest is rising and falling rapidly now, as if the idea of it thrills her. Which, of course, thrills me right back.

‘I don’t know. How would you like to do it?’ she says, as if she’s asking me how I take my coffee.

Clearly she’s enjoying playing with me. Like a cat would play with a mouse.

I can imagine how sharp her claws might be if she got me cornered, though, so I say, ‘Perhaps I should send you home for the day. To think about the consequences of your actions.’

Surprise and disappointment flash in her eyes. She doesn’t like it that I’m not playing the game.

‘But I’ll just come back tomorrow and do it again.’ Her mouth lifts in a crooked smile, her bright, intelligent eyes boring into mine. ‘Perhaps you should take your frustration out on the thing that’s most disturbing you.’

She lifts her other leg, putting her foot onto the chair to her left, and her skirt rides further up her thighs, fully exposing her beautiful pussy, glistening with arousal. She has to brace both hands on the surface of my desk to keep upright.

‘Right here,’ she says roughly, narrowing her eyes.

Something dark and compelling takes over me, and before I can check myself I take two deliberate steps forward so I’m standing between her spread legs.

I could touch her right now if I let myself. My right hand is hovering only inches away, as if magnetically drawn. My heartbeat thuds in my ears as I breathe in the sweet, arousing scent of her. I wonder fleetingly how she’d taste and feel against my tongue, but push the idea away. I can’t go down on her here in my office.

I can’t.

‘You know I deserve to be taught a lesson. Otherwise it’s probably not going to stop.’ She smiles, her full, rosy-pink lips pulled tightly across her perfect white teeth. ‘And you don’t have to worry...nobody will hear anything about it from me,’ she murmurs. ‘It’ll be our sexy little secret.’

She flashes me such a provocative look my insides rush with heat.

I swallow past my parched throat. ‘I don’t get involved with people I work with.’

‘That’s a shame,’ she says, shaking her head sadly. ‘Because it would make my time here a lot more entertaining—for both of us.’

I can’t help but let out a snort of mirth at her audacity.

‘Anyway, we’re not getting involved,’ she says. ‘You’re just disciplining me for my terrible behaviour earlier—as any good boss would,’ she murmurs.

I open my mouth to tell her it’s not going to happen, but for some reason the words won’t come. They’re stuck at the back of my throat.

Seeming to sense my weakness, she slides forward on the desk, her eyes flashing with mischief, pushing herself against my hand. I feel the slickness of her arousal coat my fingertips and the heat of her on my palm. I drag in a frustrated breath, knowing I should pull my hand away, but finding I can’t do it. That I don’t want to.

All the reasons why I shouldn’t be letting this happen fly around my head at a dizzying rate—then completely vanish as she lets out a husky breath of satisfaction and rocks her hips a little, rubbing her slick folds against my fingers, groaning with pleasure as the tip of my middle finger slides over her clitoris.

‘I think you like naughty women,’ she rasps, lowering herself back onto her elbows, so she’s practically lying across my desk. ‘Women who like to touch themselves in front of you and who know how to make you come so hard your eyes roll back in your head.’

‘You’re enjoying taunting me, aren’t you?’ I growl back at her. ‘You’re getting off on it.’

I’m completely captivated by her determination to get what she wants. I’ve never met anyone with so much pluck.

‘Yessss,’ she hisses as I push my hand harder against her, my fingers pressing into her hot flesh.

‘I should punish you for that,’ I say, totally losing the last vestige of my control. But I don’t care. In fact I’m so far beyond caring it’s ridiculous. I seem to be on autopilot, my craving for her driving me on without my brain needing to engage.

‘Yes...’ she says again, her voice shaking as she nods her head.

She’s so wet it’s easy for my finger to slip inside her. I draw it back and forth, just inside the entrance to her vagina, and she gives me the response I’m looking for, dragging in a stuttering kind of breath as if I’ve hit a sensitive spot.

My cock, which is as hard as a rock now, presses distractingly against my trousers—as if it has a life of its own and is trying to escape its confines. But there’s no way I’m getting it out right now. I want to feel power over her, like she had over me that day at her father’s house, but I also need to see her come again so badly it’s blurring all other thoughts in my head.

I slip another finger inside her, pushing them both deep and feeling her slick arousal run down my hand. Finding the rough pad of her G-spot, I curl my fingers and make a beckoning motion against it, seeing her twitch and jerk in response to the pressure I put there.

‘Oh, fuck!’ she whispers, scratching her nails against the polished surface of my desk, her breasts heaving beneath the thin material of her blouse.

I brace my other hand on the edge of the desk and lean in towards her, taking care to keep my body from touching her. I sense if my cock gets any kind of friction against it right now I’m going to lose my mind.

‘More...give me more,’ she begs, writhing against my hand.

After taking a moment to tease her, pretending I’m deciding whether or not to give her what she needs, I thrust another finger inside her, feeling her stretch to take it.

‘Ungh!’ she moans, her beautiful face contracted in a concentrated frown.

But she obviously likes what I’m doing to her because she bucks her hips, pressing herself harder into my hand. Lifting her head, she looks me directly in the eyes, her expression intensely challenging and such a turn-on I nearly come without her even touching me.

‘Is that all you’ve got?’ she mutters in a voice broken with need.

So I add another finger and see a pleasure-pain-tinged frown flash across her face, quickly followed by an ecstatic widening of her eyes as she stretches more to take my intrusion. Her mouth drops open and a long, low sigh of pleasure whispers out of her throat as I push in deeper.

Sensing she’s close now, I bring my thumb into play, sliding it over her clit in tight circles, taking immense pleasure in seeing her legs tremble on either side of me.

‘Yes, I’m so close...make me come,’ she gasps, her spine arching away from the desk.

But I’m not going to let her call the shots. I’m in control here, and I need her to understand that. I didn’t get to the position I’m in today by letting other people dictate the play.

I still the motion of my hand, drawing my fingers out of her a little way.

She lets out a shout of distress. ‘No—no! Don’t stop now. Please! Keep going!’

I smile to myself, a sense of power surging through me. ‘Only if you promise not to act up at work again. And you have to wear underwear to the office from now on.’

She nods wildly, trying to push herself onto my hand again, seemingly desperate. ‘Okay, okay—I promise.’

‘And don’t make any noise when you come,’ I demand—partly because I don’t want the people on the other side of the door to hear her, but mostly because I want to own this orgasm. I want her to do as I fucking well say in order to get it.

She nods again, seemingly unable to form any words in her state of frantic need, and I begin the deep push-pull of my fingers inside her again, increasing the pressure on her clit with my thumb with each stroke.

I half expect her to defy me, and groan out loud when she orgasms, but I’m surprised and elated when I see her jerk beneath me, biting down hard on her bottom lip and screwing her eyes shut as she starts to come around my hand. I feel her internal muscles spasming, squeezing me hard, and I experience a sort of brain orgasm at the sight of her losing herself but obeying my command.

My whole body heats at the sight of it, sending a wave of profound satisfaction through me as she keeps on jerking against my fingers, as if the greedy sensations have her entirely in their grip and are refusing to let go.

It takes a long time for her to stop moving and sink heavily against the table, as though her bones have melted, and when she does I’m finally able to tear my eyes away from the most erotic sight I’ve ever experienced and breathe again.

And that’s when it hits me—what I’ve just done.

I withdraw my hand, hearing her drag in a breath of surprise as if we’ve become one and I’ve torn away a part of her. I want to get the hell out of there, away from her compelling presence, but I know I can’t do that. I won’t do that. So instead I lift her feet off the chairs and tug down her skirt to cover her.

She sits up, propping her hands on either side of her. ‘Thanks, I needed that,’ she murmurs.

I don’t look at her. I can’t. If I do I think I might say something I’ll regret later. Instead I nod, then walk away, skirting the desk, and sit down in my chair.

She slides off the table and turns to look at me, her head held high as if nothing untoward has happened. As if I haven’t just taken advantage of her in the most lewd way possible.

‘You can leave now. Remember what you promised me,’ I say to her, determinedly keeping my voice steady.

I fold my arms again, so she doesn’t see how much my hands are shaking. I’m sure she’s going to get angry, tell me I’m a monster to dismiss her so coldly after what has just happened between us, but she doesn’t. Instead she pushes back her shoulders and gives me an obedient nod.

‘Yes, sir, Mr Chivers,’ she breathes in that delicious husky voice of hers.

Turning gracefully on the spot, she heads for the door—but before she leaves she turns back and flashes me one last guileful smile, letting me know that this thing isn’t over between us, then lets herself out of my office, closing the door quietly behind her.

I drop my head into my hands and let out a low groan.

Well, that didn’t exactly go as I planned.

Fuck!

I’m supposed to be looking out for her while her father’s in New York. He specifically warned me not to let her get into my head and twist me around her little finger and I laughed, telling him there was no way that would happen, thinking I could handle her.

Well, I guess I did handle her. Just not in the way I intended.

We’ve crossed a line now, though, and I know there’s no going back. But at least I know what I’m up against.

Anyway, she won’t be working here for long, and judging by her reputation for short, sharp relationships she isn’t looking for anything serious from me.

I certainly don’t want a serious relationship right now—not that she’s the type of woman I’d expect to settle down with anyway...if I ever do.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy what just happened between us. She certainly is a fascinating woman...

I rub my hands over my scalp, feeling frustration flood through me.

She’s the very last person I should be letting get under my skin right now. It’s okay for her—playing at working here, then swanning off to fritter away her trust fund on some vanity project—but it’s my career and reputation at stake and I have to put my business first.

If she thinks I’m going to carry on playing her sexy little power games she can bloody well think again.

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