The CEO's Fantasy (The Billionaire Bachelors Series) Page 3

  He was clearly as out of her league as he was out of her tax bracket. Men who looked as if they’d stepped out of a GQ magazine rarely went out with anything less than a Victoria’s Secret or the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition—and Sara didn’t rank any higher than the TV Guide.

  She could have sworn that once or twice she’d seen something in his expression that reminded her of interest. Desire. But even if she had, as the owner of the company, he was off limits as well. Officially and unequivocally forbidden.

  It was a trigger word for her. Anybody who knew Sara knew that, while she had some wonderful qualities, she had a hard time resisting a dare, keeping her thoughts to herself and staying away from things that were forbidden. But she was a professional. About this anyway. Even if it weren’t against company policy, it was a personal line she’d always promised herself she wouldn’t cross.

  Don’t lie. If he offered, you would cross it in a second, and you’d be naked while twirling flaming batons and singing the national anthem.

  Dean Warren was the signature at the bottom of her paychecks, she reminded herself firmly, ignoring the graphic image. And now, he wasn’t even that. If his wickedly talented and sadly imaginary doppelganger visited her in the shower until the hot water ran out, or slipped under the covers with her to personally deliver her monthly bonus until she begged for mercy… Well, that was between her and her overworked vibrator. Oh, and her other new favorite toy—the one that had been worth the week’s worth of groceries she’d paid for it to take some of the pressure off her old faithful.

  Just thinking about that oral sex simulating gadget made her squirm, now in even more of a hurry to get home than before. It was exactly what she needed to forget this day. She would spend the weekend with it, extra batteries and her favorite ice cream, putting herself into a self-induced sugar/climax coma. And now that she had time, she might take her friends up on their repeated offers to go out dancing. She needed an outlet for all this career-enforced sexual repression. In other words, she needed the S word.

  She shifted again and it was one time too many. A stream of swear words started escaping from between her lips as the bottom of her box opened up and everything in it landed on her feet. “Fuck.” She dropped to her knees, her skirt tightening around her thighs as she lunged for her stress ball and scooped up a handful of dirt from the potted plant. “Son of a dog, mother fucking bit—”

  Ding.

  Don’t let him be there, she silently begged the universe. I’ll never kill a clown again.

  Sara looked up and sighed in relief as the doors opened on the forty-first floor. In the space of a racing heartbeat she noted the fact that the front desk was unmanned and no one was waiting to step in. That was strange. Good but strange. Could she be this lucky? Or did someone up there just really love porcelain figurines?

  And then she saw Mrs. Grandholm walking out of his office, Mr. Warren right beside her.

  Nope. The universe hated clowns as much as she did.

  The doors started to close and Sara willed them to move faster, giving her the ride down to stuff her things back into the wilting box and retain what was left of her pride.

  He looked up suddenly and shattered her hopes with three words. “Hold the elevator!”

  Office manners too deeply ingrained to resist, she put out her free hand and stopped the doors from closing. She closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing. She could do this. It was just like any other day she had to share the elevator with the sexiest tycoon alive.

  Sure it was.

  Mrs. Grandholm’s voice sounded closer and seemed to agree with her silent sarcasm. “Ms. Charles? What on earth are you doing on the floor? And what happened to your blouse?”

  She felt him kneel beside her. She hadn’t opened her eyes but she knew it was him because of the way he smelled. Delicious. Memories of all the times she’d stood behind the lean, six-foot-two CEO when the elevator was full filled her mind. While she enjoyed those rare moments when it was just the two of them and he’d say good morning or ask about the weather, she had to admit she liked a full elevator even better. She didn’t get to hear his sensual baritone, but if it was crowded, she’d move closer to him than she would ever dare if they were alone. How many times had she leaned in and breathed in that clean scent that reminded her of the forest and sex and him?

  And sex with him in the forest…or anywhere he wanted.

  God, she was a stalker in the making. She needed to rein in her imagination and inappropriately overactive libido.

  “Ms. Charles?” His voice was low, deep, soothing and sexual at the same time. Concerned. “Can you open your eyes? Are you hurt?”

  She opened her eyes, embarrassment tightening her throat. She could open her eyes—she’d just been hoping she wouldn’t have to. “I’m not hurt, sir, I was just saying a few last words over the box. I’m not sure he’ll ever recover, but I hear he was old and lived a full life.”

  He laughed and she found herself riveted to his sparkling hazel eyes. She hadn’t realized there were so many flecks of gold mixed in with the brown and green. Or that his laugh would make her think of sex again.

  Big surprise.

  His gaze lowered to her lips. “Do you need any help?”

  Mrs. Grandholm made a noise of frustration. “Of course she needs help, Dean Warren. She’s on the floor covered in dirt and…what are you covered in, dear?”

  “Raspberry soda, Mrs. Grandholm,” she mumbled, wishing she could disappear. “And shame,” she added in a whisper to herself.

  Mr. Warren laughed softly again as he grabbed a handful of dirt and one of her fuzzy slippers. He’d heard her. “Will you tell us what happened or should we guess?”

  The phone rang at the secretary’s desk and Mrs. Grandholm turned and headed away from them to answer it. Sara bit her lip. “I made the wrong turn in the elevator. I was trying to get to the parking garage. Now Mindy will hate me for leaving dirt all over her perfect floor.”

  “Mindy?”

  “Mindy is the reason your lobby, bathrooms and elevators are always so shiny. And don’t try bribing her with chocolate. She’ll never tell you her secret.”

  He nodded absently, staring at her postcards. “So you’re leaving early then? Big plans for the weekend?”

  She couldn’t help but notice that his some of his hair had fallen onto his forehead, making him look younger. Touchable. The golden strands seemed so soft, she wanted to reach up and brush them back. To tangle her fingers in it and pull him closer.

  Instead she forced out a chuckle. “No, sir. My only plan is to run into as few people as possible until I can strip naked and shower. I think I have raspberry soda in my cleavage.”

  She probably could have worded that differently, she thought when she saw his jaw tighten. He didn’t want to hear about her cleavage. “As Mrs. Grandholm pointed out, I’m a mess.”

  “What about clowns?” The secretary raised her voice and Sara flinched. “Well have security escort her out.” She paused. “The building isn’t that big. Find her. She’s an accountant not a child, and these things simply do not happen at Warren Industries. Not on my watch.”

  Security? Find her? Shit. “Mr. Warren, I appreciate your help, but if you could just wait for the next elevator…I really need to get to my car.”

  Bossy McHotpants, who’d been listening to his secretary as well, turned his head to snare her gaze. “What exactly did you do today, Ms. Charles?”

  She sent him a pleading look. “Nothing illegal, I swear. I just…I quit.”

  “You quit?” He stared at her for what felt like an eternity. “Mrs. Grandholm?” he spoke without taking his eyes off Sara. “I’m going up and I don’t wish to be disturbed for the rest of the afternoon.”

  His secretary covered the phone with her hand and nodded distractedly. “Of course, Mr. Warren.” Then her voice hardened when she returned to her call. “Young man, you do not want me to come down there. I’m old, my feet hurt and I can’t
promise not to send you packing as well.”

  Sara watched as the man she’d just been daydreaming about stood, allowing the doors to close while opening a small panel on the bottom and punching in a code.

  There was only one reason to do that. The forty second floor. Employees weren’t allowed in his private suite. It was…well, it was private.

  “Mr. Warren, don’t let me keep you from wherever it was you were going. I assure you I didn’t do anything wrong.” Her voice was breathless. “Nothing that security needs to be concerned about. Not really. At least, I didn’t start it.”

  Had Terry Anne decided to press charges as soon as she left?

  “Can I help you off the floor, Ms. Charles? That can’t be comfortable.”

  He held out his hand without acknowledging her comments and she shook her head ruefully at his cool. “Have you ever been embarrassed, sir? In your life?”

  A cynical smile hardened his handsome features momentarily. “Don’t you read the tabloids?”

  The door opened with a soft whoosh and Sara struggled to her feet without him, clutching her plant and the remnants of the box to her chest. “I meant fly undone, food in your teeth, raspberry soda and plant parts all over you in front of your boss embarrassed. It’s not the same thing as an article expounding on your limitless sexual prowess, no offense.”

  He took the box from her, his lips twitching subtly. “I suppose it isn’t. Come inside.” He headed into the penthouse without waiting to see if she’d follow.

  She held the doors open and swallowed hard. “I‘d rather not.”

  …if I’m going to be arrested, was how she wanted to finish that sentence. She barely held her tongue.

  He looked over his shoulder as he set the mess of box on his glass coffee table in front of the oversized black leather couch. “I’m surprised, Ms. Charles. You never struck me as a woman who’s easily intimidated. Or prone to criminal activities.”

  “Oh, I can be intimidated,” she corrected him. “And wary of most law enforcement, though I’ve never even gotten a parking ticket and my cousin’s husband is a…” She noticed him smiling and stepped inside, all too aware of the elevator closing behind her with a disturbing finality. “I am guilty of talking too much when I’m nervous. I suppose you could arrest me for that.”

  “There’s nothing for you to be nervous about. I have no intention of calling security. At the moment. We’re reasonable adults, you and I, and I believe we can discover the truth and deal with this situation on our own.”

  What did that mean? Did he actually think her leaving in such a hurry had to do with her duties in accounting? Maybe. She was acting like a guilty party of one, mostly due to embarrassment. But she’d rather be embarrassed than have him think she was capable of something criminal. “This situation consists of a girl on girl slap fight, some spilled soda and a clown fetish. It has nothing to do with my job performance at Warren Industries. Does that satisfy your reasonable curiosity, sir?”

  “Hardly.” When he headed to the kitchen, she found herself momentarily distracted by the beautiful wall of windows that gave her a view of the entire city. Her fantasies would now have the perfect backdrop. She could easily imagine Dean Warren pressing her against the glass, lifting her skirt and taking her like a man possessed while she moaned and begged for more.

  A shiver raced through her.

  She should turn around and go home before she asked him the question that instantly came to mind. How sturdy are those windows, Mr. Warren? Want to get naked and test them out?

  She was a brazen harlot…an archaic terminology, but she preferred it to dirty whore. She needed to get out of this situation as soon as possible.

  He was walking toward her again, a glass full of amber liquid in his hand. “Drink, Ms. Charles, and tell me about this girl fight of yours. I regret having missed it. Start from the beginning.”

  She took the glass, lifting it to her lips because, what the hell, she needed a drink. The whiskey burned her throat and sent a tingling warmth through her limbs. The good stuff. How could it be anything else? “I…it’s not really an interesting story, Mr. Warren.”

  “Not to disagree, but I’m already fascinated. Indulge me, Sara. Why now? Why this week? What changed?”

  She studied him over the rim of her glass. He was more than curious. What did he care about one accountant on one floor he’d rarely set foot in? And what reason could she give him when there were so many? Today was the last straw, but she’d been dreaming about leaving for a while.

  “Nothing changed,” she answered instead. “It was time for a new challenge.”

  “A challenge? Interesting choice of words.” He licked his full lower lip and stepped closer, so close she could feel the heat coming off of his body. “You’re not going to admit it easily, are you?”

  She frowned at the way he’d worded that. “Admit what?”

  Dean Warren sent her a look so heated that Sara felt like she might have a stroke, then he left her, walking around her and toward the hallway. She turned to watch him walk away, admiring his long stride and the lean muscles flexing beneath his gray pants.

  He didn’t have a body that belonged in an office. Though his suits had obviously been tailored to perfection, she never thought they were right for him. It was a tragedy to button and tie that much man. She’d seen a picture of him in the tabloids once, taken at a hotel pool as he was getting out after a morning swim in nothing but a pair of short, wet swim trunks. She’d felt dirty and cheap and a little disloyal as an employee when she purchased it in the checkout line, but she couldn’t resist the impulse. She’d needed a longer look at those abs.

  He raised his voice so she could hear him from wherever he’d disappeared to and she jumped guiltily. “Let me get you a shirt to change into. After your shower, you’ll want to be comfortable.”

  Her shower? What? “Sir? I thought—”

  He reappeared, a white t-shirt bunched in one hand, his other loosening his tie. “That you were going to wash up, slip into this while your clothes were being cleaned and eat the early dinner I’ll be ordering for us to make up for the late lunch I wanted to skip anyway? I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

  So he wasn’t calling security and he wasn’t upset that she was quitting… He was inviting her to eat with him and telling her to take off her clothes?

  Maybe Terry Anne had knocked her unconscious and she was dreaming on her way to the hospital.

  He took the glass out of her hand, setting it down on the table before wrapping his fingers around her wrist—gently but firmly—and guiding her to the bathroom door. This was no dream. Electric sparks of awareness were traveling from his hand up her arm and spreading throughout her body. The man packed a punch.

  “Mr. Warren?”

  “Dean.” He pushed open a door in the hallway and handed her the shirt. “If I’m not your boss anymore, Sara, you can call me Dean.”

  She wasn’t sure she could.

  But her day had been horrible and now one of the hottest men she’d ever seen in real life was demanding she get naked…not in the way she would’ve liked him to, but it still counted as a highlight.

  “Thank you…Dean.”

  He placed his palm on her lower back, gently nudging her inside the room. “The towels are on the top shelf and I’ll be here if you need anything.”

  His words were completely innocent, but they made Sara’s thighs tremble anyway. She could think of a million things she needed from him. None of them acceptable for polite conversation.

  She stepped inside and he closed the door behind her with a silent groan. This was not how she’d expected the rest of her day to go. A long ride through afternoon traffic, her shirt sticky and clinging to her skin in a continuous reminder of the day’s events, was more what she’d had in mind. Instead, she was standing in the lavish penthouse bathroom, gratefully wriggling out of her straight-off-the-sales-rack skirt and blouse to use his shower.

  Dean Warren’s sho
wer.

  Sara turned the faucet and dared a glance in the mirror while the water heated. She couldn’t stop the momentary grimace. She looked exactly the way she felt—done to the point of overcooked. Her loud, curly red hair, usually restrained with pins in a professional chignon, was a mass of loose strands coiling damply around her flushed face. Her lipstick had been worried off hours ago and her body…well, it was still there in all its abundant glory.

  On a good day she’d call herself lush. Large hipped and big breasted and…healthy. Nothing like any of the women she’d seen on the arm of McHotpants in the tabloids, but she had her moments.

  Sara didn’t hate her body. Far from it. She didn’t starve herself—if she had a craving she indulged it—but she also went to yoga twice a week and rode her bike in the park every weekend the weather allowed. She knew herself and had no illusions that she would ever be one of those airbrushed Vogue models. But she was aware that she could stand to lose a few pounds before she felt comfortable in a bikini. Or naked in front of a man like Dean.

  It was temporary vanity or insanity that she was even thinking about her figure right now. He wasn’t going to see her naked. He was a good man who didn’t want someone leaving his building looking like this.

  He was ordering her dinner.

  She shook her head as she peeled off her damp bra. A very good, very thorough man who may or may not still suspect her of nefarious accounting activities. And she definitely needed to scrub her breasts. They were covered. “Lovely.”

  She dropped the sticky restraint in a heap on the tile floor and studied herself in the mirror. These, at least, she was proud of. They hadn’t lost their fight with gravity, despite their impressive size. Had Dean noticed them when he studied her stained blouse?

  He usually dated slender brunettes with decidedly smaller cup sizes. Would he enjoy the chance to fill his hands with more?

  She cupped them and shivered, imagining his hot, large hands on her instead. Imagining that this was exactly what he wanted. Her fingers squeezed her nipples and Sara gasped, feeling the rise of her arousal and knowing it was his proximity that was turning her on. The idea that he could open the bathroom door at any time and see her standing naked in front of the mirror, touching herself.