Enough of sneaking to the fifth floor every lunch break to spend time with Grayson and Ava, because Célian invited everyone in the newsroom to the conference room to eat lunch every day. Every. One. But. Me.
I darted out of the restroom. My eyes found him like that’s what they’d been trained to do. He was in his office, the door thrown open, typing away and ignoring the hustle and bustle in the hallway. I knocked on his door loudly, my anger climbing up my throat and balling into a scream. I walked in without permission.
“Yes?” he said without looking up.
“I need to talk to you.” I was surprised at how heated and cross my voice sounded, like liquid lava slithering between my lips.
“I beg to fucking differ. You’re reporting to Steve, Jessica, and Kate. In that order. Think of this place as a church, Judith. When you make a confession, you go to a priest. You don’t have a direct line to God.”
Did he just…? Surely, he didn’t…
“Did you just compare yourself to God?” I tried to wrap my head around this.
But of course he did. He had his PA monitoring his dry cleaners. The guy was obviously more bananas than a tropical island.
And he was still typing away and staring at the screen. I slammed the door behind me to get his attention. Finally, he looked up. I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth. His crisp white dress shirt rolled up his elbows, his tan and muscular forearms with the veins snaking down to his big hands, and the carved, severe expression on his face—so sharp it could nick and make me bleed to death with a glare alone.
“You’re making Brianna sit at your dry cleaner’s for hours on end and watch them clean your clothes?” I seethed.
A toxic grin spread over his face. “I’m guessing by your reaction that you inherited the vexing task.”
“A task I will not do.”
“A task you will do, unless you want to get fired, gray or not.”
“Huh?” I seethed.
His eyes dropped to my Chucks. He noticed.
“Just because you’re in a shitty mood doesn’t mean you get to boss your boss around. Learn your place, Chucks.”
“Chucks?”
His eyes traveled down to my feet, and he raised one lonely eyebrow.
Whatever. I stomped my foot, seething. “You’re being unreasonable! You need to stop walking so fast, too. Brianna is running after you, and her feet are all banged up.”
“Miss Humphry, hell will freeze over before you dictate my movements, in or out of my newsroom.”
I threw my hands up. “I give up. Please transfer me back to Couture. Making news was my life’s ambition, but self-fulfillment is not worth working with you.”
What was I saying? Why was I saying that? I didn’t want to go back to Couture. I loved Ava and Gray, but I wanted to stay here and make news. I just wanted him not to treat me like I didn’t exist and cut Brianna some slack.
“You like the news? Here’s a newsflash for you: you don’t always get what you want. Are we done here?”
No. We were definitely not done. But I couldn’t jeopardize my job, so I turned around and was about to storm straight to Grayson’s office when I crashed into something hard. I looked up. It was Mathias Laurent, and he was smiling back at me like a cunning cat who’d just eaten a canary, a few yellow feathers still sticking out of his mouth.
“Hello,” he said in the same French accent Célian had faked the other day.
Unease slinked down my spine. “Sir.” I nodded, making way for him to enter his son’s office. In my periphery, I caught Célian perking up, drinking the two of us in.
“Mathias Laurent. Please, call me Matt.”
He offered his hand. I shook it. Well, at least Laurent Senior wasn’t a douchebag. I gave him my name, and he took a step toward me, still at the threshold.
“We didn’t get to properly meet last week, Miss Humphry, but I always try my best to get to know everyone in the LBC family, no matter the position.”
“Could have sworn horizontal is your favorite position,” Célian snapped, standing up and grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair.
Mathias continued, ignoring him, “I would love to have you come to my office to discuss what you are seeing and experiencing in my newsroom. Monday at ten?”
I smiled, opening my mouth to accept the invitation, when Célian’s hand locked around my wrist and dragged me out of his office and down the hallway. I stumbled over my own feet. What the hell was his problem? I must have uttered the question out loud, because he let out a frustrated growl more fitting for felines in the wild. He pushed open a door leading to a dim, empty room I’d never been in before and slammed it behind us.
The power room.
I grunted as my back hit rough buttons and cold metal. Célian was pressed so close, I could feel his hot, male presence squeezing the lust out of me, which made a very different groan escape my lips. He took a step back, as if my touch was lethal.
“Stay away from him.” His voice was so low and menacing, I felt it in my stomach.
“Hmm…” I grinned, swiping my tongue across my bottom lip and staring at him through hooded eyes. “I think I just talked to the real God around here, and Jesus got pissed.”
Inwardly, I could hear Jesus rumbling, “Yup. She’s throwing me under the bus again.” I made a mental note to visit my local church on Sunday.
“I’m not in the business of repeating myself,” he seethed, ignoring my jab, and if I knew one thing about Célian, it was that he never passed an opportunity to outwit you once you threw a jab at him. “And I don’t want you near him. His intentions aren’t pure.”
“And yours are?” I huffed. “Look, I can’t—and won’t—ignore my boss. My real boss. The man who pays my salary.”
He bent down to bite my ear. “I’m the man who fucked you senseless and you can’t stop thinking about. I’m the asshole you masturbate to in order to get off. I’m the guy who will destroy my competition, especially when it comes to Mathias Laurent. So, do yourself a favor and keep your pussy—my pussy—as far away from him as possible. Compris?”
His tight chest and hard abs against my soft body. His tall, commanding figure enveloping my small one into submission. He was touching me without really touching me, and I wanted him to swallow me whole, like a Venus flytrap—clamp his jaw and absorb every inch of me.
Touch me.
Fill me.
Drown me in your poisonous kisses.
Let me die from your venom, buried under your sinful skin.
“I hate you.”
“Would you like to test that theory?” He chuckled, forever standoffish, even when it felt like thunder cracked between us in the dark room.
I should have said no, but something else slid from my mouth breathlessly. “Yeah. Fact-checking is your craft, isn’t it?”
Without looking back, he reached behind him, locking us in. My heart pitter-pattered into submission, no longer lonely and resentful. Célian grabbed my jaw and crashed our lips together in an animalistic kiss that somehow started from the middle, with tongues battling, fingers unbuttoning clothes, and hands roaming, searching, squeezing, and twisting every inch of flesh and fabric. I was out of breath before my dress hit the floor, and out of my mind the minute his cock pressed against my stomach.
“Haven’t had the chance to read the employee manual of LBC yet. Is this an official part of our one-on-one meetings?” I laughed, my heart threatening to burst out of my skin and fall at his Italian-loafered feet.
“Am I doing anything you don’t want me to do?”
“You’re doing less than I want you to do,” I admitted.
“Then no talking, Humphry. I like you better that way.”
“Still hate you,” I mumbled into his mouth, clawing at his shirt. He was dressed, so very dressed, and I’d never wanted anyone more naked in my life.
“Still don’t care,” he hissed and hoisted me up against the door, slamming his groin into mine.
“Condom,” I ordered.
No matter how sexy Célian was, he still gave me the vibe of someone who’d been around the block, and this was Manhattan, so there were plenty of dubious blocks to choose from.
“Fuck.” He bit down on my lip punishingly, pulling away from me, plastering his forehead against mine, and rolling it from side to side. “I’m clean.”