The Pleasure Chest Box Set(34)

He opens the folder and gives me the extra copies, which I walk to the other side of the table and give to Jason and the others. Then Chris is off talking about the budget, and I’m along for the ride.





4





Scarlett





Two hours later, the meeting is wrapping up, and it’s not going well. Everything Chris has said is solid, but The Pleasure Chest team doesn’t seem to be responding to it. They’ve been very stoic, asking the bare minimum of questions, and even Jason—who seemed jovial and outgoing, has seemed almost bored while Chris has outlined his plan of attack for media saturation across the company. I think it a really good plan. Sure, it’s not the most interesting topic, but we’ll get to the fun stuff tomorrow. I’m not sure what’s making them so hesitant and hostile. I hope this reaction doesn’t mean we have no chance to land their business.

I’ve tried to assist Chris as best I can, supplying him with extra numbers from the material Maureen sent with me, taking notes about the questions and concerns, and always giving him a positive face when he hasn’t had any from across the table. Chris draws my attention back to him. “I think that’s all I have for today. Tomorrow we’ll have art samples for you, and you’ll get a better taste of the fun style we’re going for with this campaign.”

I swear I see the three of them relax a little. “Thank you,” Jason says. “That was very informative. We’re scheduled for the same time tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Chris says. “I look forward to it.”

They shake hands, and the mood in the room seems thick and tense. Chris attempts a smile. “You wouldn’t mind pointing me towards the bathroom before we get out of your hair?”

“Down that hall, to the left,” Jason says.

Chris disappears, and I gather up the papers he left on the table, shuffling them into the folder and into his briefcase. There’s whispering at the other end of the table, and they clearly don’t mean for me to hear, but I do. It’s the woman speaking. “It seems like he’d benefit more from using some of our toys instead of selling them. He’s got some sort of stick up his ass.”

I’m careful to remain interested in the papers in front of me as Jason responds. “The conversations I’ve had with him have been way less tense and uptight.”

“Well, they’d better have one hell of a marketing plan to overcome that. If we’re going to work closely with him, he has to understand the vibe of the company. That’s not it.”

Chris comes back into the room, and I hand him his briefcase. “Thanks,” he says, taking it from me. We say one more round of goodbyes, and bundle up into our coats. There’s a small amount of snow falling onto our heads while we call a cab.

“That went well,” Chris mutters, and I can tell from his voice that he’s not expecting me to respond. His face is dark, and he’s retreating inward, probably reliving the last twenty minutes of awkward agony. He addresses our cab driver in a curt voice, ordering him back to the hotel. I decide to at least try to engage him in conversation. “Do you know where dinner is tonight?” I ask.

He shrugs. “The Colson rep decided. It’s in my phone. They’ll send a car at seven.”

There’s finality in his words, and I back off. I already have to be in close quarters with him for the rest of the trip, I don’t want to make it worse. The car ride is painfully silent, and he stalks up to the room like an angry bear, all quiet energy and barely contained rage. He tosses his coat onto his bed and heads straight for the wet bar. This brooding silence suits him. I must be crazy for finding him even more attractive like this, but seeing him vibrating with contained strength, makes me wonder what it would be like for him to choose to unleash it. To take control of whatever is in front of him and bend it to his will. I shudder, flashes of carnal commands and his hands on me race through my mind.

I head into my room, shedding my coat and my shoes. I hear him sink onto the couch, glass rattling with ice cubes. I turn my TV on low, prepared to wait out his storm. But as an hour passes, and then two, and three, I get tired of waiting. Sighing, I turn off the television from the self-help reality show I was barely absorbing, and I head into the main room. I lean against the doorway. Chris is sunken into the couch, his glass empty, his face dark.

“How many of those have you had?” I ask.

“Just the one,” he says. “I needed to take the edge off.”

I nod. “Then tell me what’s going through your head. Because if you don’t I think you’re going to explode and take the entire hotel with you.”

His glare strays to me for just a moment, and I meet him stare for stare. He maybe intimidating and sexy as hell, but I told him I was going to be helpful, and this is the way I’m going to do it. I’m going to get him out of his head so he can actually focus. He sighs. “I just don’t know what I did wrong. I’ve had half a dozen phone calls with Jason Childs, and they all went well. They went fantastically. But none of that came across in the meeting today. I expected them to be happy, to be impressed. But they seemed like they were barely invested. I’ve spent a lot of time on this proposal, and I don’t want it to fall apart. Especially if I don’t know why it’s falling apart.” He sighs again, reaching out to put his empty glass on the coffee table.

I weigh my options. I can sympathize with him and tell him it’s going to be okay. Or, I can tell him the truth that he doesn’t want to hear—that I wasn’t supposed to hear. I look at him, his hair messed up just enough to make him look like he rolled out of bed, his entire being dissolved enough to look out of control. It makes me think of the ways I would have rather he gotten that way, and I have to shake my head to get the images of us rolling together, sweating and panting out of my head. “I know what went wrong,” I say, even though I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do.

His head snaps up to look at me, but I keep going. “I’m not supposed to know, but they didn’t whisper quietly enough when you stepped out of the room.”

Chris stares at me, waiting, but I’m still on the fence about how to say it. “Well?” he demands.

“They think you have a stick up your ass,” I say, opting for the blunt delivery. “They think that you’re too tense, and because of that you don’t understand the vibe of the company.” He leans back, scrubbing his hands over his face, and I continue. “They’re not wrong,” I say. “You need to blow off some steam. You need to relax. You’ve been tighter than a drum since I got here, and maybe if you just chilled a little bit, you’d be more likable.”

I bite my lip, not intending to go that far, but he huffs a laugh. “You want to help me blow off some steam?”

“Sure. However you want to blow it off,” I shrug.

His eyes suddenly focus on me, sharp and searching. “Is that an innuendo?”

My mouth falls open at what he’s suggesting, and I close it quickly because as mortified as I am, my mouth is watering at the thought. I blink. He didn’t really suggest that. I’ve gotten caught up in my imagination again. This gorgeous man in front of me isn’t actually suggesting that I put my mouth on him. His voice is rough. “If you want to help out so badly,” he says, “I’ve tried everything else.”

Heat shoots through me straight to my core, and I already know that there’s nothing I want more than to let this man do whatever he wants to me, but there are other things to consider. This is my job. What happens when we go back to Seattle if we do this? I take a step forward and stop myself, suddenly seeing what I missed before—Chris is hard. His pants do nothing to hide that fact, and he’s hard because of me.

Shit. Maybe I’m not actually imagining this.





5





Chris





I’m not drunk. Not even close. But I still can’t believe what I just suggested. I must be utterly and totally out of my mind. I’m not sure what it is about Scarlett that gets under my skin, but seeing her stand in the doorway, hair messily pinned back with a pen, feet only in stockings…

I’ve totally lost control. I can’t stop thinking about this morning when I walked in on her dressing. It wasn’t even that revealing, but now the memory of her skin is taunting me, and I keep imagining what it would look like under my hands, under my body. And damn it all to hell, she was right. She was more helpful than I thought she would be in that meeting. She saved me from looking like an ass by forgetting that budget folder, and she seamlessly filled in the gaps when I stumbled.

I look at her now, and she looks like walking sin to me, those conservative office clothes hiding what I know now is a body that could wake a dead man. I’ve been half-hard since she walked in the door yesterday, and even last night in the shower hadn’t been enough to take care of my desire. I’m fully hard now, and she can see it. The words were out of my mouth before I could even think to stop myself, but in this moment, I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want to see those sweet berry lips wrapped around my cock.

I’ll show those corporate pricks at The Pleasure Chest just how much a stick is up my ass. I know how to let loose. I know how to be wild.