Page 3 of Bourbon Wishes (Wine Country Alphas #3)

Bastian

C onstance is doing it again, tempting me toward the precipice of madness.

Every fucking time she wraps her pouty lips around her straw and takes a sip, another bead of sweat rolls between my shoulder blades.

My knuckles are already white where I'm gripping the edges of my desk in a desperate bid to keep myself in my chair instead of pushing her to her knees to wrap her lips around something else.

She's your employee, you sick fuck.

You'd think after three months, my cock would have gotten that memo by now. No dice.

He knows what he wants. And what he wants is Constance Maverick.

He isn't the only one. The petite little minx has my goddamn mind twisted in knots. When I should be working, I'm stalking her on the fucking cameras, just to see what she's doing. When she's in her office, I'm thinking up excuses to interrupt her workday, just so she has to speak to me.

My obsession is quickly spiraling out of control. That's a problem.

She's my employee. Even if I had time to date—which I don't—it wouldn't be someone whose livelihood I hold in the palm of my hand. I may be an asshole, but even I have integrity.

She's seriously fucking testing it.

Every damn time she gives me attitude, I want her long brown hair wrapped around my fist while she's begging me to let her come. When she growls at me, I want my handprint turning her round ass red. And when she smiles? I want to fall to my knees and worship at her feet.

Nothing and no one has ever tested me like our new social media manager does on a daily basis. My life has always been this vineyard, and ensuring we don't fuck it up, that we're leaving something for the next generation, the same way our parents left it to us.

If the long hours and sleepless nights mean my siblings and cousins get to have lives outside of the vineyard, I've always been content with that. Right up until Constance strolled in, anyway. Now, I find myself craving something entirely new.

Specifically, her on her knees with my dick down her throat and her makeup ruined. Or her on her back, screaming the roof down while I fuck my kid into her.

I want her claw marks in my shoulders and the indentations from her heels in my back.

And I'm reasonably certain she'd rather pour gasoline on me and light the match than give me the time of day. She's sunshine and rainbows to my cousins. To me, she's sass and venom.

It keeps my fucking cock hard and eats me alive at the same time.

"Are you even listening to me?" she grumbles, her blue eyes narrowed like I'm pissing her off again. It's not a surprise. I've managed to piss her off every damn day since she waltzed her curvy ass through the door and turned my office upside down.

I'm used to pissing my cousins off. Keeping them on task is like trying to herd feral cats. They all mean well, but they do what they want and let someone else figure out the mechanics. A business can't work that way, so I make it work.

They bitch about it, but they know they can't do what I do, either.

I'm not saying they aren't capable. They are.

But Jax prefers working the fields. Haven would rather work in the winery.

Trystan is focused on the restaurant. Oliver and Gabe prefer spending their time crafting the wine.

Jareth is currently in Tennessee, and Ridley only just got home after years of managing the vineyard in Italy.

Everyone else has their own little thing they'd rather be doing, and dealing with the everyday minutiae of running the business isn't it.

They need someone pissing them off to get shit done, or they find nine reasons to do something else instead.

Constance is different. Smart. Motivated. Dedicated. Driven.

She's fucking fascinating.

"Bastian!"

"What?" I growl, resisting the urge to squeeze my cock through my pants. If Constance doesn't stab me with the very-pointy heel of her fuck-me shoe for doing it, Haven absolutely will when she finds out. My cousin is already threatening to maim me if Constance quits.

I guess they've become good friends.

"Did you hear anything I said?"

"I heard everything." I've never missed a word from her lips.

"Oh, really?" She arches a brow, her expression all cool disbelief and boiling frustration. "Then what did I say?"

"Engagement with our content is up six percentage points across apps, but we need to reevaluate advertising assets as our CPC is on the rise," I recite.

"You'd like to see it inch back down, particularly on lead generation advertisements.

And then you launched into a rant about one of the apps changing all of their targeted reach options yet again. "

"Fine, so you were listening," she says, her tone begrudging.

"But you do realize that conversations require participation, right?

Otherwise, it's just me giving a monologue, and I did enough of that in college.

I'd rather not repeat the experience because you're in your feelings about not being able to browbeat that wrinkle out of your tie this morning. "

"Browbeat the wrinkle out of my tie?" I quirk a brow at her.

She just shrugs. "Seems like something you'd get off on."

"You have no idea what I get off on, Constance."

"I can guess," she sniffs, rolling her eyes at me. "I've worked under you for three months. I've learned plenty."

I should not entertain this conversation. I need to shut it down. But…curiosity is a motherfucker, and I'm dying to know what she thinks I'm into.

"Like what?"

"Probably all kinds of things you can't write home about."

"Humor me," I growl, motioning for her to share her—sure to be colorful—thoughts on what gets me off. "What have you learned about me that makes you think you know what gets me off?"

She eyes me levelly for a moment, almost as if she's waiting for me to change my mind.

I absolutely should, let's just be clear about that.

I'm crossing all kinds of lines here. But at this point, I don't care about that anymore.

She's talking about what gets me off, and I'm just desperate enough to want to hear her thoughts on the subject.

I'm sure I'll replay this conversation when I'm jerking off to the memory later.

"Fine," she finally says, sitting up straight.

"I know you get off on control. If you aren't in charge, you can't stand it.

It makes you twitchy. You need to be the one calling the shots.

You're probably like that…well, everywhere.

You definitely aren't crawling for anyone or asking permission.

You could be a sadist, but I don't think you actually enjoy causing pain or humiliation.

It does nothing for you. I think you're just… "

"Just what?" I growl, leaning forward in my chair, intrigued by what she thinks.

Fascinated that she's pegged me so fucking well.

I want to be the one who decides when and how she comes.

I want to be the reason she gasps and quivers.

I want her weak for me, quivering on the edge because I drove her there.

I don't want her humiliated or in pain. I want her broken with pleasure.

"A complicated grouch with no soul," she says, smirking at me.

I shouldn't ask. I fucking know I shouldn't…

"What about you?" The question rasps from my lips anyway, more desperate need than passing curiosity. I'm rabid to know what makes her tick and what makes her sweat.

"Oh, I have a soul," she says, teasing me by purposefully misunderstanding the question.

My hands tighten around the edge of the desk because she's right about me. I need control. It's probably why I've never even bothered trying to date. I'm self-aware enough to know no one should be stuck dealing with an autocratic asshole all day, every day.

But…I want her to deal with it. Right now, I want to force her to give me what I want. I want her to spill her secrets and tell me what makes her tick. What does she want? What does she crave? What makes her thrust those fingers into her panties to get herself off?

"You like to see how far you can push before you're forced to obey," I rasp, pushing the boundaries to the breaking point. Ha. Who am I kidding? This is so far outside the bounds of appropriate workplace conversation, it's laughable. Except, I'm not laughing, and neither is she.

She's staring at me with a flush to her cheeks and the pulse in her throat fluttering. She doesn't tell me to stop, though. So I don't.

"But you don't get off on disobedience."

Her tongue darts out, whetting her bottom lip. "W-what do I like?"

"Being made to submit."

She won't bow to just anyone, though. Hell no.

Constance is too goddamn smart for that.

Unless a motherfucker can prove he's worthy of her, she won't give him the time of day simply because she knows her worth.

She knows what she deserves, and she won't settle for a single iota less.

She's not a delicate little flower, willing to jump into bed with the first man who comes along.

She wants real and raw. She wants a man willing to work for her.

I want to work like a fucking dog to please her.

She stares at me silently for a long time, her nipples hard points in her thin silk blouse. And then she gives her head a sharp shake, as if she's trying to pull herself back together or dispel the thick layer of tension coating every fucking inch of my office.

"Well, at least one of us is right," she says, her lips quirking into a grin as she rises gracefully to her feet. "And it isn't you." She tries to laugh off what I've said, but it comes out a little breathless and unsteady. "There isn't a submissive bone in my body."