She opened the door to the gym and inwardly groaned at the sight of Dallas punching a speed bag—it looked like one of their prototype designs—while wearing a pair of silky black workout shorts with splashes of red and orange along the legs, another one of their new designs. While Dallas was a completely disorganized mess as far as business was concerned, he was also brilliant when it came to designing innovative new clothing and training gear for fighters. And he was so sexy it made her nipples ache and her panties instantly dampen.
Damn him.
He wasn’t aware that she’d come in yet, intent on working the speed bag with his thick muscles flexing along his shoulders, chest, arms, and oh-so-tight abdominals. His short black hair was already wet with sweat and the gleam of his naturally dark tan skin in the sunlight coming through the windows was awe inspiring. A tribal tattoo flowed from his shoulder, over his chest, and down one side of his torso before disappearing into his shorts. She knew the tattoo extended down over his hip and left buttock and her fingers twitched with the need to jerk those shorts down and trace the pattern with her tongue. Earlier this year Dallas had done a photo shoot for one of their new products, a super absorbent towel, with said towel only hiding his groin as he gave the camera an unabashedly arrogant smile. While he sucked at the day-to-day tasks of running a business, the man had enough charisma and good looks to sell a ketchup popsicle to a lady wearing white gloves.
Before he could spot her drooling over him, she schooled her features into a professional mask and made her way over to the small desk Dallas had installed in the gym for her. He really did get some of his best ideas while working out and she usually spent at least a portion of every day that Dallas was in the office down here with him. He’d retired from the UFC over a year ago, but he still trained like he was an active fighter. By the time she’d set up her laptop the sound of him punching the bag had stopped and when she looked up she found him watching her with an odd expression on his chiseled features.
“Good morning, Mr. Ortega,” she said in her best cool, professional tone.
“Good morning, Amanda,” he replied in his husky voice with just a trace of his Spanish accent seeping through.
The way he said her name, like he was relishing the words on his tongue, never failed to send her pulse racing, but she ignored it as best she could. There was no way she would let him know how much he affected her. Not anymore. When she’d first started working for him she’d briefly entertained the fantasy that he wanted her, but now she knew he just liked to flirt with anything female. Even if she made the terribly stupid move of sleeping with her boss, she’d be just another notch in his belt and she had too much self-respect to for that. Especially considering she really liked him. Being discarded after he tired of her would hurt too much.
She took a seat and looked up at him expectantly. “What would you like to work on today?”
His gaze darkened and the sexual heat he gave off would have melted a normal woman’s clothes right off her body, but she’d been around him long enough to give her a tiny bit of immunity to his natural animal magnetism. “Can you pull up the test shots for the new women’s line? I need to send the outfit choices to Donna so she can start fitting the models.”
“Of course.”
As she began to open the folders containing the different designs she couldn’t help but wonder how many of their models he’d charm into bed with him. On Saturday night they were unveiling their new women’s wear line and Dallas had rented out one of the hottest clubs in Miami for the reveal party. Amanda would be there as his PA and she did not look forward to a night spent trailing behind him as he both did business and selected which woman from his hordes of groupies he’d fuck that night. Her heart ached and she clenched her jaw, reminding herself yet again that she had absolutely no reason to be jealous, and that if she couldn’t get over it she’d be screwing herself out of a really well-paying job that she actually enjoyed.
Pretending she didn’t see Dallas approaching her out of the corner of her eye, she pulled up the designs he’d asked for. When she looked up he was toweling himself down, his hands moving in what was almost a slow caress over his thick arms, then across the perfectly sectioned squares of his abdomen. He approached her with a slow, stalking gait that had her fair trembling with need. Then she caught a whiff of him and had to look back at the screen, to tear her eyes from his perfect body before she tore off what little clothes he wore.
One of her recurring fantasies was to lick the V of his lower abdominals all the way to his big dick. When she’d first started working for him she’d done an Internet search on Dallas and had stumbled across some nude pictures the paparazzi had taken of him a few years back. He’d been swimming in a pool at what had been at the time his home, naked as the day he was born. There was an especially memorable photo of him climbing out of the pool and even at rest, his dick had been big enough to forever earn a starring role in her sexual fantasies.
Dallas shifted next to her and she swallowed hard. He smelled so damn good. It wasn’t any cologne he wore, but the scent he gave off when he worked out. The potent blend of pheromones always sent her body into heat for him, and it had only gotten worse after she’d masturbated in his office. God, as if he wasn’t a temptation already, to find those nipple clamps in his drawer had sent her over the edge. Of course he could have just had them there to play with, something pretty for one of his endless parade of gorgeous women to wear, but she somehow knew it was more than that. Dallas was about as dominant as they came and the hidden, submissive side of her nature cried out in longing to kneel at his feet.
An image of doing just that, clad only in those beautiful nipple clamps, flashed through her mind and she imagined nuzzling her face against the crease where his balls met his leg and drowning in his scent while he gripped her hair hard enough to hurt.
“Amanda?”
Startled, she glanced up and found he now stood right next to her, his abdominals within licking distance. “What?”
His full lips, marred here and there with small scars from his time spent as a professional fighter, curved into a grin. “You seem distracted.”
Trying to ignore the flush no doubt making her pale cheeks red, she returned her attention to the screen. “Here are the designs you asked for.”
To her horror, and delight, he placed one hand on the back of her chair and the other on the desk, leaning forward so that he was effectively caging her with his body. His scent overwhelmed her and she moved her hands off the keyboard then hid them beneath the desk, hoping he didn’t notice how they trembled. He was close enough that his heat bathed her and she squeezed her thighs together, trying to relieve the never-ending ache he started in her body.
For what seemed like hours he stared at the screen, then looked down at her. “What do you think?”
“Of what?”
His deep chuckle made her whole body tingle. “You seem distracted today, carina.”
Flushing, she tried to keep her pleasure at being called his “sweetheart” off her face. He’d been doing that a lot, probably because he liked making her blush. He must find her reaction to him funny. Bastard. “Sorry, I was up late last night working.”
Immediately he straightened, then crouched next to her. To her shock he turned her chair until he was kneeling almost between her legs. His hard chest pressed against her knees and sent her hormones into a frenzy. “I’m sorry I’m such a pain in the ass to work for. I didn’t realize how many hours of overtime you’re putting in.”
She shrugged, trying to ease back as much as she could from him in her chair without being obvious. He didn’t need to know how deeply his mere presence affected her. “It’s all part of the job.”
Shaking his head, he frowned, then reached up and ever so lightly traced his fingers along her chin. “A beautiful woman like you has better things to do with her evening than clean up my messes.”
She froze beneath his feather-light touch, her breath coming in short pants as if he were stroking something much more intimate than her jaw. While he always flirted with her, he’d never been this brazen about it before. His gaze darkened and he stared into her eyes, refusing to let her look away, holding her in place with his dominance as he continued to trace along her jaw until he reached her chin. Her pussy pulsed to the beat of her heart and she almost moaned when he brushed his rough thumb over her lower lip. The need to draw his thumb into her mouth, to suck on it, to nibble at the tip and taste him tempted her to the point where she parted her lips and a needy little whimper escaped.
“Good girl,” he murmured and she jerked back, his words a splash of cold water in her face.
With a clumsy, abrupt move she shoved away from him, almost falling as her shaking legs refused to hold her. “Don’t touch me.”
He remained crouching, then tilted his head to the side and examined her. “Why? You obviously like my touch.”
“You’re my boss,” she hissed and crossed her arms over her chest, hoping he couldn’t see how hard her nipples were.
“Good point.” He stood and motioned to her. “Come on.”