Page 13 of Vivacity

‘It’s fine. I’m in the interview with Ethan and he wants to proceed to the audition round while I’m here.’ Hopefully that’s a classy way to tell my colleague that my potential future boss wants to bang me on his desk post-haste.

‘Oh.’ She falters. ‘Are you sure everything’s going well? Are you comfortable with this?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine. Honestly.’

‘Well, as long as you’re happy and comfortable, you should go ahead. We’ve already received his funds.’

‘That’s all I needed to know. Thanks.’

I disconnect the call and drop the phone back into my handbag, luxuriating in the heat of Ethan’s gaze, in the warmth of his rapt attention.

‘So. How do you want me?’

CHAPTER 7

Sophia

His grip on the edge of his creepily minimalist desk turns white-knuckled as he surveys me, and I lounge back a little further in my chair. I know Eight here is going to want to call every shot, and I intend to let him have his way. Once I’ve wound him up a little, that is. Let’s just say I have an inkling that pushing his buttons will make everything even hotter—for both of us. And he’s far too uptight. It would be a shame not to have some fun with him.

Which is why I reach for the top button of my dress and slide it out of its buttonhole.

He pushes off the desk. Before I know it, he’s towering over me, a strong hand wrapped around each of my wrists, holding them rigidly away from my dress as if I’ve been in danger of pressing adetonatebutton—which doesn’t feel too far from the truth. I gaze up at him. He’s fuming, and I don’t hate it. His lovely mouth is pressed into a thin line.

‘I call the shots. What part of that do you not understand?’

I smile at him. ‘Just trying to help.’

‘Well don’t. Not without my authorisation.’

I shrug. ‘Got it.’

He reluctantly releases me and collapses back against the desk. ‘Do you have a safeword?’ he barks. He resembles someone in the midst of a major sugar crash surveying a dessert buffet—like he doesn’t know where to start. Like I’m breaking his brain.

‘EBITDA,’ I say sweetly. It has the desired effect of stopping him in his tracks.

He frowns. ‘EBITDA, as in Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Why on earth?’

‘Because it’s deliberately unsexy. It breaks the moment.’

‘I don’t know about that. I happen to think a figure that represents my company’s underlying profitability, without all the noise of financial fees and accounting adjustments and intangibles, is actually pretty sexy.’

He says it with a straight face, and I reward his deadpan delivery with my biggest, most seductive smile. It’s as if I’ve shot a stun gun between his eyes. He stares at me like he’s never seen anything like it.

‘I don’t disagree. I may have to rethink it. Not that I’ve ever used my safeword,’ I add, just to break his brain a little more.

‘You’ve never safed out? Ever?’

‘Nope. I can handle a lot.’

‘I bet you can,’ he drawls. He slaps the desk suddenly, aggressively, and it makes me jump. ‘Now swap places with me and do exactly as I say. You hear me?’

With a little nod of acquiescence, I rise to my feet and pass him, my mostly bare arm brushing against the cotton of his shirt as I do. God, I love this state of anticipation, of putting myself wholly in the hands of a man I know will command me to perfection.

When I was doing my MBA, I fucked a guy on the Stanford swim team for a few months. He was the epitome of physicalperfection—not a subcutaneous fat cell on his body—but the sex wasmeh. He was far too easygoing.