Dangerous Obsessions

  Dangerous Obsessions

  Dangerous Desires

  Book Two

  An Alpha Billionaire Romance

  By Kira Matthison

  - Dominick -

  I stared at the words on my screen, trying to assess the report for a solid fifteen minutes before giving up. I had read the words ten times, and I couldn’t remember a single one of them. With a groan, I dropped my head into my hands and clenched my fingers against my skull. I wasn’t one to give up easily, but I knew I was not going to get a single thing done while she was somewhere in the same damned building.

  Catriona Wright. I mouthed the name silently. Catriona. A woman who should know by now that she was mine, but who was no doubt flaunting herself in another one of those tight skirts that showed off her perfectly ass, and with her round tits bouncing with every step. The thought of them, creamy, filling my hands, was enough to make me groan aloud again.

  “Mr. Ellison?” The door opened and Sarah stuck her head into the office. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” I knew my voice came out as a growl and made an attempt to soften it. “Thank you, Sarah.”

  “Can I get you anything?” The words were awkward, and she flushed as she said them. Sarah was an absolute innocent. There was nothing corruptible about her at all. Even she, however, could sense the energy in the room, and she was clearly regretting her offer.

  “You know, some coffee would be wonderful.” I kept my voice level.

  “Right. Of course.” She almost ran in an effort to get out of the room and I tipped my head back with a rueful smile. I smiled when she placed the coffee in front of me. “That’ll be all, Sarah, thank you.”

  She whisked away with a blush and I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair as I considered my options. I could go into the financial district, out to a bar, and find one of the thousands of willing women who would go home with me, no questions asked. I could slake my lust in an unfamiliar body and send her home, preferably without ever knowing her name. It was the smart option; it was what I had done for years. Handcuffs, blindfolds, whips… I stood and strolled to the window. Whatever I wanted, there was a woman out there who would do what I asked, and not ask any questions of her own. And until now, that had been enough. I let my forehead rest against the cool glass, feeling my hands clench in my pockets.

  Catriona.

  I returned to my desk and typed out an email, brusque and impersonal: Come to my office. A command. Let her try to refuse; I almost hoped she did. It would be unwise to storm down to whatever floor PR was on and bend her over a desk in front of everyone, but it was just about all I could think of doing. My cock was rock hard and I dug my nails into my palm to keep myself from making a sound.

  Ten minutes. She had ten minutes, and then I was going down there to find her.

  - Catriona -

  Come to my office. That was it. He didn’t use my name—though I supposed, he must have had to remember it, in order to email me—and he didn’t waste his time with words like ‘please.’ I felt a surge of something that might have been anger and might have been desire. I wasn’t sure anymore. Thinking of Dominick made my breath come short, and the pound of my heart seemed to make it impossible for me to tell just what I thought of him. I took a deep breath and scanned the email again.

  Come to my office.

  Same as the first time. What, did I think I was going to find a hidden message in there? If I rearranged the letters enough times, would it come out to a confession that he was engaging in forbidden human testing?

  It was never going to be that easy. I dropped my head into her hands with a sigh, and a few seconds later gave a whimper of protest as another stack of paperwork thumped down on the desk beside of me. I tried to refrain from saying something regrettable. I had only barely finished the first stack by the time the second came along, and I’d been five requests behind by the time the third set came in. This was the fourth set, I was not even halfway through the third, and I hadn’t left my chair all morning.

  And this was only reading the media requests, not responding to them. I looked up in mute appeal, and my manager laughed. From her no-nonsense bun to her plain black suit, Emma DiMarco was someone who looked as though she wasted no time and brooked no slacking off. Unexpectedly, she also had the most infectious laugh I had ever heard.

  “So.” She perched on the edge of my desk, her gaze direct. “What have you noticed about these requests we’re receiving?”

  “Um…” I tried to marshal my thoughts. I brushed the papers to one side, scanning the words distractedly. Somewhere around 10AM, the requests had begun to blend together into one big morass. “They’re all... using assumptive language around guilt and scandal?”

  “Yes.” Emma nodded decisively. “That is exactly it. Well, I’m glad you’re a quick study. So, now you know what comes into this department. And can you guess how we address it?”

  “Creative misdirection?” I joked. I smiled and shook my head at Emma’s pained expression. “I didn’t mean that.” I really had, but that was a conversation for another day. Or possibly never. “Uh…well, I’d guess we just explain the facts and make it clear there’s no scandal.”

  That was precisely the opposite of what I thought they did, but I was pretty sure it was better to play the innocent.

  “Half right.” Emma folded her arms and frowned, staring off into the distance. “You know how they say all press is good press?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not true at all. We already have all the contracts we’ll ever need. We don’t need to be in the news—so the long and short of it is that our team wants to make Ellison Corp sound as boring as humanly possible.”

  “Oh?” I reached for my coffee and tried not to look at where the email was still up on my screen. Come to my office. My cheeks flamed. I didn’t think I could minimize it without the other woman noticing, but what if Emma looked over and saw it? It was a clear sign of something inappropriate.

  Something like the CEO of Ellison Corp bending me over his secretary’s desk to slide his fingers inside me, and then taking me against the wall in his office after having known me for all of fifteen minutes? I caught my breath, feeling warmth building between my legs, and squirmed, crossing one knee over the other.

  “Everything okay?” Emma’s voice was concerned.

  “I…yes, of course.” I nodded. “I’m so sorry. You were saying to be boring.”

  “Yes. Just enough facts that we aren’t accused of hiding things, but try to make the facts as boring to wade through as humanly possible.” A mischievous grin light came into the other woman’s eyes. “When possible, get your facts straight from the scientists. They think they’re being fascinating, but…” She shook her head with a laugh.

  “Oh, right. And, uh…where would I find them?” I hoped my face didn’t betray my sudden flash of interest. This was important. If only I wasn’t thinking of Dominick—of the look I would see in those blue eyes when I went upstairs—

  I was not going upstairs to his office. That would be ridiculous.

  “You know, I’m not even sure.” Emma frowned. “They’re somewhere down…” Her fingers waved at the floor. “And actually, a lot of our labs aren’t even here. There’s one in Singapore, I think, and another in…Kansas somewhere? Ohio? West. But you really don’t need to go find them. You can just call them up here. Here, I’ll show you how to use the directory to find the scientists on a relevant project. So, pick a question there.”

  “Okay.” I picked one of the packets from the unread stacks at random. “It’s about Sebastian Ellison—”

  “I’ll take that.” Emma twitched it out of my hands with alacrity.

  “He’s Dominick’s—I mean, the c
urrent CEO’s—brother, right?” I kept her voice calm, as if I didn’t much care. As if I hadn’t spent the past months tracking down every piece of information I could find on Ellison Corp and its ruling family. “Family takeover, bad feeling?” I lifted one shoulder, hoping my acting was better than it felt.

  “It’s, uh…a little more than that.” Emma rubbed one of her temples, and then looked at me, as if assessing my tendency to gossip. She took a deep breath and considered. “Well, it’s nothing you couldn’t find in an internet search, anyway. When Sebastian left the company, there were rumors—from very high up in the organization, not from the media—that Sebastian had been forced out. He was the one their father had wanted to take over. Harold handed over the reins a few years before his death. And Dominick made his move about one month after their father died.”

  “One month?” I felt my voice squeak. I knew the takeover had been brutal, though the articles had been so reliant on hearsay and gossip that I’d discounted most of what I read. But now that I remembered it, there had been a few snide mentions of the younger brother’s poor taste in pursuing the matter so soon after his father’s death. A brother that I, of course, had not yet met. A brother whose penchant for ruthlessness was something I should remember. I nodded, feeling a chill go down my spine. “I remember that. A few of them said he’d—”

  “Never have tried it when their father was alive, yes.” Emma was nodding. “I never met the man, thankfully.” Her voice dropped. “That’s heresy around here, you know. But he doesn’t sound like a nice guy. Anyway.” She dropped the folder back onto the desk. “Look, I’ll teach you how to use the search function in a bit. You’re looking a bit twitchy, and you’ve been working all morning. Go get some lunch, hmm?”

  “Right. Any suggestions?” Since, after all, I was going to get lunch. Not going to see Dominick.

  Mr. Ellison.

  Come to my office.

  I shivered, and tried to focus on Emma, who was pondering.

  “There’s a good banh mi food truck that’s usually on Fulton,” she suggested.

  “Right. Thanks.” I smiled and grabbed my purse. “I’ll be back in 20 minutes.”

  “Take your time. We work late in the evenings a lot—and it’s hard to do that if you never take breaks.”

  I headed out, wishing the woman were not quite so likable. In my head, Ellison Corp had been full of people who knowingly put corporate profits ahead of human interest, and the PR team had been staffed entirely by rude men and snobbish women. They would sneer at my body and tell me to lie on press releases. And instead, there were people like Emma, who offered to get me coffee and encouraged me to tell people facts. What was going on with this place?

  I was distracted enough not to realize that instead of pressing L to go to the lobby, I had pressed 5-8. The floors ticked by, 55, 56, 57, and I jabbed at the stop button hastily. What if the door opened and his secretary saw me? Worse, what if the door opened and—

  The door opened, and he was there. Him. Dominick Ellison, in all of his suited, blue-eyed, sharp-jawed glory, staring at me like he was going to pin me against the back wall of the elevator and rip my blouse off right there. I stared at him, and a moment later gave a little panicked gasp for hair, having apparently forgotten how to breathe in the meantime. I swallowed.

  “Hello. I was just—” Something told me going was the wrong way to end that statement.

  “And I was coming to get you.” His voice was soft, a threat that made my nipples tighten and my lips part longingly, even as my rational mind screamed for me to turn and run. Dominick was a businessman, he wasn’t going to follow me into the elevator if I ran away.

  Except, of course, that he was going to follow me in, and he was going to undress me and kiss me senseless, and I knew I wasn’t going to struggle. I was going to like it. I was going to love it. I was going to melt into his arms and let him do whatever he wanted. Everyone was going to see, and a part of me wanted them too, even while the rest of me wanted to sink through the floor with embarrassment.

  “You were?” I managed.

  “Yes.” He blocked the elevator doors with his arm as they started to close, and then he just waited, staring me down until I stepped out of the elevator. With his hand in the small of my back, burning like a brand, I made my way down the long glass hallway and into the reception area.

  The brunette receptionist looked at the two of us so blandly that for a moment I doubted the heat in the air. Then I felt the familiar rush of anger and shame. She might be able to see Dominick’s interest, and she still didn’t believe it. No girls ever seemed to believe that guys went out with me, and even the guys who did go out with me tended to make me feel like my body was something to be ashamed of, that I’d just be pretty if I…

  The door to Dominick’s office closed behind us and the sound jerked me back to reality. I stared at him, swallowing hard as he stalked toward me. He didn’t stop until he was barely an inch away and I could feel the heat of him. At the traitorous stab of lust, I took a shuddering breath.

  “You kept me waiting,” Dominick said.

  What are you going to do, spank me? But I was too afraid to find out what he’d do if I said that.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What was that?” His eyes hardened.

  “I’m sorry…sir.” Oh, God, what was happening to me? The words came out as a moan, and all I wanted was to have his fingers sliding into me again, or to kneel and take his cock in my mouth. I wanted him to call me his good girl. My head swam as he leaned in close and kissed me with surprising gentleness.

  “Good girl,” he breathed against my mouth. And then, as I swayed against him, his hand came up to clench my hair and jerk me against him, and his mouth came down on mine again, hard.

  He kissed me without any pretense of kindness, and I found my lips parting eagerly for his tongue, my hands on his chest, my back arched to be closer to him. His hand slid over my ass and I whimpered, gasping when his fingers clenched. He backed me up against the desk, his fingers dragging my head back so he could set his lips to my throat. I felt his teeth graze the soft skin and he growled possessively.

  “Take off your shirt. And your skirt.”

  It was the command that did it. My fingers were at the buttons of my blouse and the part of me that was rational, that was a professional and a smart one at that, demanded to know just what the hell I thought I was doing. I was here to control him.

  I was here to destroy him. I dropped my hands down to my sides and clenched one of them behind my back to steady me. I could not afford to do this until I could control what was between us.

  “No,” I said simply.

  “’No?’” he repeated. His eyes were heavy-lidded with desire. “Don’t try my patience, Catriona. You might not like your punishment.”

  I shivered. His voice made it very, very clear that I was going to enjoy my punishment—and that he was going to make me beg for it. I felt my knees go weak, and summoned all my self-control.

  “I’m not trying your patience. I’m saying no.”

  His eyebrows went up, but he said nothing.

  “I’m one of your employees, Mr. Ellison.” My voice was trembling, but there was nothing for it except to forge onward. “This is your office. It is a place of business.” He was beginning to smile now, and I felt a surge of anger and embarrassment. My cheeks flushed. How dare he smile at me like I was being ridiculous? I was being the only sane one here. “It would be completely inappropriate for me to do what you asked me to do, given the circumstances.”

  “Given the circumstances,” he agreed. His smile widened, and he stepped close again. I saw the flash of amusement in his eyes when I tried, instinctively, to back up and had nowhere to go. “So come to dinner with me tonight.”

  “So we can—” My voice almost squeaked. “I’ll still be your employee.”

  “But we won’t be in a place of business,” he said, as if he were being eminently reasonable instead of pigheaded
ly stubborn. His smile grew, and his voice dropped to its threatening caress. “I can be very reasonable, Catriona. Very reasonable. But don’t push me too far.”

  “This is ridiculous.” I squirmed out from between him and the desk, and checked to make sure the buttons on my blouse were all still in place. “I’m not going to dinner with you.” I was going to run far, far away from this man.

  “I’ll send a car to pick you up at your house at eight.” He’d taken a seat in his office chair and gave me only a passing glance.

  “I’m not going to dinner with you.”

  He looked up, and this time his gaze raked over me. I flinched away; if anyone could tear someone’s clothes off with their eyes, it would be Dominick. I felt myself blushing. “Wear something that highlights those gorgeous tits of yours,” he said finally, the command coming out in a growl.

  “I’m not—” I gave up. It was useless. He’d get the message when I didn’t go out to the car. I turned on my heel and left, clenched set my teeth as I felt his amusement follow me down the hall.

  - Dominick -

  I shouldn’t have invited her to dinner. That was breaking the rules—the ones I set for myself that said I could do whatever the hell I wanted with my cock as long as I never got attached. Women had been trying to sink their hooks into me for years to get their hands on Ellison Corp money. They couldn’t care less where that money came from. I used them without regret, the same way they were intending to use me, and I won at that game just like I won at everything else. And everyone, from those women to the Ellison Corp board members, thought I was a bastard without a conscience—hell, without a soul. I let them think it.

  I believed it, too.

  I realized I was staring down the hall after her and looked back at the computer, clenching my hands. Every single email in my inbox showed what I was: a man to be feared, a man without any shred of mercy. I was doing this because she was hiding something, and when I had her tied to my bed, begging for my fingers and my cock and the slap of my hand against that perfect, round ass, she was going to tell me every single thing I wanted to know.