Billionaire Romance Boxed Set 2(104)

My heart skipped a beat, my pulse soared, and my stomach fluttered. My knees grew weak and I almost couldn’t stand to look at him anymore, like I needed sunglasses to stare at him head on. I tried to step forward and apologize but one of my high heels caught on a bevel in the tiled floor and I toppled forward.

Asher swooped forward and caught me. This isn’t happening, I told myself. This is too strange, too unknown. I must have fallen asleep, or become delirious in his office.

No, I wasn’t. No sooner than he caught me, the collector’s copy of Dante’s Inferno fell from the shelf I’d tossed it on. I watched it hit the floor, cover and pages splitting open as it descended, and then… crack!

The book’s binding broke, spilling its contents all over the floor. Pages, separated, completely out of order, lay scattered around the bookcase alcove in his office. One of them, another dogeared page, escaped from the rest and landed at Asher’s feet. He set me aside like a bag of groceries and bent to pick up the page.

“One ought to fear those things only that have the power of doing harm,” he said, reading a passage from the page. “The others not, for they are not dreadful.”

Poignant, I thought, and absolutely correct. It was as if Dante had seen into the future, noticed this situation, and thought it amusing to write about it.

Amusing for Dante, and horrifying for me.

“I’m so sorry, sir. Mr. Landseer, I apologize. I don’t know what came over me. I…”

He turned to me, rage in his eyes. I could almost see a tiny spark of red lighting up the very center of his icy blue irises. Tossing the page aside, he grabbed my wrist and dragged me through the open glass door into his private meeting room.

“Sir, I—”

Without listening, he tossed me onto his meeting room table and glared at me. I wasn’t sure what to do, wasn’t sure what to think. What was going on? I inched away from him, my hands pressed into the smooth, alder wood table as I tried to get away. He would accept none of that.

Grabbing my foot, he pulled me back towards him. My skirt bunched up behind me, sliding towards my rear as he pulled me, leaving my pantyhose-covered crotch exposed to him. He gazed at me. His eyes seemed to revel in the surprised look on my face, the sight of my breasts heaving up and down as my breath quickened, and the tantalizing view of my exposed underwear. His hand traveled up my leg, caressing my pantyhose, exploring my thigh and moving towards my sex.

This was not happening, I told myself. But no matter what I told myself, it continued to happen. And, despite the fact that I was scared out of my mind, I was also uncontrollably aroused. There was a little part of me, that small heart-skipping pulse in my veins, that had never fully left. Upon seeing just what Asher Landseer was capable of, that part grew, stretched, until it was all-encompassing and demanding.

Asher smiled, watching me wriggle on the table, unable to escape him. He looped a finger into my pantyhose and peeled them down to my knees.

“Sir!” I screamed. “Asher! What are you—?”

This was not proper business protocol! But he didn’t seem to care much about that at the moment. He focused on me entirely, his steady, watchful gaze never leaving my eyes as I looked back at him.

“You destroyed my book,” he said, his voice full of anger and passion. “Everything is a mess. Pages scattered on the floor and the binding undone. I believe it’s only fair that I do the same to you.”

At the time, I had no idea what he meant. I only knew that there was a strong and powerful man standing before me who commanded attention.

No longer fully wearing my pantyhose, my smooth, arousal-slick folds grew cool, exposed to the chill, central air-conditioned air. Asher paid that no mind, though. He flipped me around, grabbed at my skirt with one hand, unzipped the back with the other, then pulled the entire thing off of me. Tossing it to the ground, he did much the same to my heels, and then flipped me over once more.

With one arm, he wrenched me towards him and pulled my pantyhose even lower, towards my ankles, forcing me to spread my legs so that my crotch was pressed hard against his business suit. His hands sought the buttons of my blouse, undoing them. When I tried to stop him, he frowned at me and then ripped the whole thing off. The buttons that had remained done flew into the air and scattered around his private meeting room.

The idea struck me, some out of context thought, that I should clean those up for him, but then my mind snapped back to the reality of the situation. I was laying on his table, legs spread around his hips, wearing only my bra and partially wearing my pantyhose. A quick glance to the side showed my blouse, skirt and heels scattered on the floor, much like the loose pages of his expensive book.