Forbidden Fix (Executive Toy Book 6) Read online

  Shock roots me in place.

  This one is full of information about my parents.

  It’s all there. Where they were born, how they met. There’s even a copy of the adoption certificate my dad signed after marrying my mom.

  It’s an unsettling thing to see the details of their lives like this, their names written in block letters on the forms. Since I ran away from home, I haven’t written their names once. Not on a job application, or a dentist’s form, or any of the other places where a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old needs to include parental information.

  I close the folder and slide it back into place, then hurry to the door and peek out.

  No Tamara.

  But she’ll be returning any second now… So I pull the keys out of the lock and return them to the magnet under her desk.

  Then I slip back into the conference room, close the door and lock it from the inside.

  ~ ~ ~

  The third folder has details about my grandfather.

  I knew my bosses were collecting this, but there’s information included that I didn’t know.

  For example, he was married four times. David was his only child, which I knew, but Grandfather was never married to David’s mom.

  It’s not interesting in the grand scheme of things, but because it tells me more about my father, I keep reading. And it’s not just for me. Layla might want to know these things one day.

  There’s a summary of our grandfather’s ridiculous lawsuits. I hope it’s not supposed to be a complete list, because lots of them are missing.

  However, there are also a few lawsuits that predate Grandfather’s appearance on our doorstep. I shouldn’t be surprised… and after a moment, I realize I’m not, not really.

  Still, it’s nice to have confirmation that he was always a sleaze despite his claims of having been driven to desperation because he had to provide for two kids.

  At the bottom of the stack of papers is a handwritten sheet. It’s a list of notes and conjectures, and I soon realize that it’s compiled from four separate investigators.

  Four. Very thorough of my bosses.

  Gambling, fake lawsuits, concern with appearances (whoever wrote the list misspelled appearances).

  And there’s a question. David Jr. also involved in the schemes??? The sentence is underlined.

  “No,” I say. “No way.” If I had a pen, I’d scratch it out.

  There’s speculation about additional offshore bank accounts. It seems several have already been located, and I wonder how they managed that.

  I read to the bottom and flip the paper over.

  There’s only one more paragraph, but it makes my blood run cold.

  Fatal accident was a mistake—David died instead of Lindsay?

  I stare at the question mark, my mouth so dry that my throat feels raw.

  It’s just someone’s conjecture, but I wonder how many of the investigators reached that conclusion.

  Maybe only one of them. Maybe it’s nothing but a wild theory.

  The thick, sour taste of bile rises to the back of my tongue. Despite Grandfather’s claims to the contrary, he didn’t like my mother. He liked her money, though.

  Would he have killed her for it? I’ve long thought so, but I never considered that I was a target, too.

  I shake my head. It doesn’t matter what his intentions were or who was supposed to be in the SUV when it crashed. He rigged the driver’s seat to jam against the steering wheel.

  Something pulls my attention away from that damning paragraph. I glance at the door, and I think I can hear Slade’s voice.

  I put the folders back how I found them and dive under the table.

  My timing is perfect because a moment later, a key scrapes in the lock and the door pushes open.

  “Who left the light on?” Slade asks. “We need to put these on a timer.”

  “The offices coming empty in my building are energy efficient,” Hawthorne says. “I’m just putting that out there.”

  I stare at their shiny shoes, the crisp creases in their pants. They haven’t sat, so I guess they’re not planning on staying. Someone is stacking the folders, it sounds like.

  “This is a clusterfuck,” Hawthorne says. “It would be so much easier to hire a hit man. Setting him up is taking longer than I expected.”

  “Well, he has the money now,” Slade says. “Things will move fast.”

  Neither one sounds like he’s joking, and a slow shiver tiptoes down my spine.

  “We’re going to have to tell her about this morning,” Romeo says. “It’s going to come out eventually, and we’re supposed to be setting an example by being open and honest.”

  Someone sighs. I decide it’s Hawthorne.

  “None of us are in disagreement about that,” Slade says. “The question is when. I’m worried about her.”

  “We’re all worried about her,” Romeo says. “But I think we should tell her anyway. She’s strong. She can handle it.”

  I open my fingers. Tell me what? I almost say aloud.

  “At dinner tonight,” Hawthorne says. “She’s not going to be happy.”

  “No,” Romeo says. “But she’ll understand why we had to do it.”

  I hear them gathering up the folders.

  They leave the room, turning out the light behind them.

  Thank goodness, they don’t close the door.

  As I crawl out from under the table, I wonder what would happen if I suggested we eat dinner early… like right now. What would happen if I stormed into their offices and demanded to know what’s going on?

  Actually, I can predict what they’d say. Nothing. Later. Tonight. Don’t worry.

  Tonight, then.

  Chapter 7

  Somehow I manage to calm the agitation in my brain and work hard the rest of the afternoon… Even when I’m not hiding under conference room tables, it’s challenging to squeeze a full day of work into five hours.

  If I don’t keep up, my bosses might end the morning training sessions.

  Theoretically, the morning exercises are supposed to be about trust. They’re setting rules that I have to follow.

  By submitting to them, I’m learning to put my fate in their hands.

  I’ll be the first to admit that I had problems with intimacy, but the very first day of training changed something. It was with Hawthorne, and it was a disaster.

  But after, when Hawthorne took me to the tennis courts, when Slade told me he loved me, when Romeo stayed with us instead of rushing back to the office…

  Something shifted.

  And it hasn’t changed back.

  However, we’re in a strange limbo. Things with Slade are perfect. But the others? I have… let’s say strong feelings for Romeo, who seems to merely like me. I don’t know how to frame my tumultuous feelings about Hawthorne.

  I’m not the same person I was even two weeks ago, and compared to who I was when I first met Hawthorne…

  I don’t even recognize myself. That’s a good thing. I think.

  Hawthorne seems to appear out of nowhere. “Come to my office,” he says when I notice him. He turns on his heel and walks away.

  “Hawthorne, you dick,” I murmur. It’s hard to reconcile his office persona with the man who spanked me, then fucked me almost tenderly yesterday morning.

  A glance around reveals that all my coworkers have gone home for the day. I’ve been so engrossed in work, and in my thoughts, that I didn’t even notice.

  Does this mean we’re heading out soon? We often all work late. I pick up the phone and dial Hawthorne’s extension.

  “If you’re calling from your desk, you’re not here,” he says, sounding irritated.

  My own irritation flares in response, but I keep it out of my voice. “Should I shut down for the night?”

  “Did I ask you to?”

  My fingers clench around the phone. “I used to think you were just aloof, but now I realize you’re a rude man who doesn’t know how to treat others
with respect.”

  “You’re only now figuring this out?”

  I slam down the receiver.

  Obviously he wants me to come straight to his office, but it’s after work hours, so I shut down my computer.

  Next I tidy up my workstation. It’s hardly urgent, but… Hawthorne! Tamara once said that Hawthorne and I have made antagonizing each other into an Olympic sport. Maybe she’s right.

  But it feels good to challenge him, and really, he brings it on himself.

  I’m turning over the pens and pencils in the coffee cup I keep them in. I like for the tips and points to be facing down. It’s safer that way. Plus it looks better.

  My hand freezes. Tamara also said that if my life were a romantic comedy, Hawthorne and I would end up married by the end. End of what? In a situation like ours, you know the couple is in for a long and quarrelsome life.

  I sense Hawthorne approaching but I refuse to look at him.

  “Did you misunderstand my instructions?” He doesn’t sound amused. This has gone way beyond that. He’s pissed.

  Well, so am I. “You never did give me an answer about whether I should shut down for the night, so I decided to use my judgment. After all, my judgment is what you pay me for,” I say as I rotate the coffee cup ten degrees so that the handle is parallel to the back edge of the desk.

  I start to stand, but instead I sit down again, take out a tissue and begin polishing the framed photo of me and Layla at a lake with our parents.

  “Get your ass into my office now,” Hawthorne growls.

  I move the photo out of harm’s way and look up at him. “Or what? You’ll give me a negative performance evaluation?”

  “Do not test me,” he says. Warning flashes in his eyes; I’m heading into dangerous territory.

  But I press my fingers to my lips. “Test? Is there a test? Shall I bring a pencil?”

  He grabs my wrist and jerks me to my feet. “What the fuck is your problem?”

  I try to yank away from him, but he’s too strong.

  The dynamic between me and Hawthorne has always been… a little fucked up. But all the antagonism fans the sparks between us into an inferno.

  In fact, I’m willing to bet that his cock is hard enough to cut steel. Heaven knows my pussy is wet for him. I love how he fucks me when he’s angry.

  Not that I’ll ever admit that to him.

  Not that I need to. He’s an observant man, and he’s been dominating women for a long time. I’m sure he knows exactly how I feel about him.

  We’re both quiet, both breathing heavily.

  “You wanna fuck me?” I ask.

  “You don’t deserve my cock,” he sneers, but he’s already spinning me around, shoving me flat on my desk.

  His belt whips free of his pants, and he drops it onto the desktop next to me, where I can’t help staring at it. He roughly jerks up the bottom of my dress, flipping it over my hips.

  My panties get yanked down.

  “You need to watch your tone,” he says. “You might be my girlfriend, you might be my lover, but in here, I’m the boss. Do you understand that?”

  Without waiting for me to nod, he grabs the belt.

  He takes his time, building up anticipation for the first blow.

  My breathing is fast and shallow. I lick my lips and try to keep my muscles taut so that the punishment won’t hurt too much.

  The belt whistles through the air.

  It cracks as it connects with my ass, and my back arches. My gasp turns into a throaty groan as stars explode.

  Not the good kind of stars. The bad kind. The kind usually followed by someone asking how many fingers they’re holding up and what year it is.

  But Hawthorne follows up by applying the belt even more vigorously.

  In fact, he makes sure that every inch of my upper thighs and butt become intimately acquainted with the belt’s biting length.

  It’s moments like this that safe words were made for.

  But I love it. He wanted me in his office for whatever reason, but instead we’re here, I’m bent over my desk, and he’s got all his attention focused on me, on punishing me.

  He drops the belt and steps close.

  Even though the fabric of his pants is silky soft, it burns when he rubs against my punished flesh, and I gasp.

  “Is that what you were begging for?” he asks. The words are a little breathless, and not because it’s physically exhausting for him to spank me.

  I don’t answer.

  “Or did you want something else?” His hand slides down between our bodies, his knuckles jabbing into my tender ass, and I whimper despite myself.

  But he doesn’t move away. There’s only one way out of this mess I created for myself, and I don’t plan to take it.

  The sound of his zipper lowering is followed by his pants rustling open.

  I’m going to get fucked.

  Right here, at my desk, by the boss.

  I can’t repress my smile any more than I could control my whimper.

  Hawthorne pulls my head around, forces my unsuspecting mouth onto his erection. My entire body tingles, and I moan.

  He pumps me once, twice, three times… then pushes me back the way I was before, my chest and face in the desk.

  The head of his cock nudges my slit.

  Just that small touch is enough to send tremors through my pussy, and I bite my lip as I wait for him to penetrate me.

  Hawthorne laughs. “You don’t deserve my cock,” he says.

  I start to answer back, but before I get a chance, he spits right onto my asshole.

  “No,” I protest, but he’s already pressing his cock against the clenched pucker.

  “Let me in,” he says. “Or use your safe word.”

  Oh, I want to tell him to fuck himself, but is that wise? He’s well over six feet tall and wrapped in muscle. His cock is big and very, very hard, and I’ve spent the last ten minutes deliberately provoking him.

  At some point, self-preservation wins out… and I do want sex.

  He uses a foot to shove my feet farther apart, underscoring just how helpless I am in this position.

  “At the end of the day, this is how it will always turn out,” he says as he begins to shove himself into me—apparently he can’t be bothered to wait for me to relax.

  Futilely, my fingers try to dig into the desk’s hard surface.

  “You see, Lindsay, I’m dominant, and while you like to deny it, you’re submissive. But you don’t know how to ask for what you need.” He thrusts his hips forward, and his cock presses into my ass.

  Just the head is in the opening, but the head is the most painful part.

  He rests there.

  He knows what he’s doing.

  “I don’t need this,” I say.

  That makes him laugh. “Yes, you do. But instead of coming to me and showing, through submissive gestures, that you’d like me to dominate you, to take control of your body and give you pleasure…”

  My pussy clenches when he says this. He must feel it, somehow, because he laughs cruelly.

  “This is exactly what you wanted.” He leans over me and brushes my hair out of my face. When he speaks, his voice is low, intimate. “Look, baby, I know you have needs. I’m happy to dominate you just the way you like, but you can’t start a war whenever you’re feeling horny. That’s not how we do things.”

  “Funny how it only happens with you,” I growl.

  This makes him pull out of me… only to press back in again. Everything burns: my asshole, my ass, my thighs. Even the hard desk under my stomach, chest and face is getting incredibly uncomfortable.

  “You’re welcome to keep trying it your way,” he says. “But it’s always going to end like this. Painfully. In the end, you’ll submit because you want to. It’s up to you if you get there in a pleasant way.”

  He shoves the entire length of his stiff erection into my ass, and then I learn what stars really look like.

  I try to breathe thro
ugh it, and I’m struggling to hold onto my composure.

  Because if I can’t, Hawthorne will win.

  Worse, he’ll know he won, and I’ll have to see it every time I look into his mocking blue eyes.

  He leans over me, and his cock presses even deeper. My body is stretched full with him, and my pussy is clenching desperately. If only Romeo or Slade were fucking my pussy, this would all feel so much better.

  “Maybe you do this because you like it when I hurt you,” he says. “And it goes against the narrative in your head about how you’re not really submissive, about how you’re only doing this because you like all the cocks in you. But I know the truth. My cock knows the truth.”

  “Fuck you!” I growl.

  He pulls out, and not gently.

  That’s the problem with cocks in asses. They can hurt even more coming out than going in.

  He flips me onto my back.

  “Don’t,” I gasp, my hands covering my pussy.

  “Now I’m offended,” he says. “After all this time, do you really think I’d be so careless…” Shaking his head, he trails off. “Like I said, you don’t deserve to feel my cock in your pussy. Not until you learn to ask for it properly.”

  I start to relax, exhaling, but he’s pushing my legs open.

  Then I realize what he’s really about to do.

  My eyes go wide, but it does no good to struggle against him. He gets my legs over his shoulders and he claims my ass again.

  His fingers squeeze my jaw. “Look at me,” he growls, and I’m forced to stare into his cold blue eyes while he inflicts this unbearable pain on me.

  In fact, this is exactly the fucking I needed, but I’ll never tell him how grateful I am. My pussy is drenched. I feel it dripping down, coating his veiny cock as he pounds hard into my rear.

  His body is curled over mine. His tie jerks with each of his thrusts, and my gaze drops to stare at the blurring navy dots.

  He slams into me, harder than before.

  The entire desk shudders.

  “I said eyes on me,” he growls, and I raise them to his.

  When I do, he stops moving. He’s buried deep inside me, so it’s not exactly a break, but it’s better than being fucked so brutally.