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He remembered that she would start at MBS next day. So he had to be well slept. He went back to sleep.
Chapter IV
Amy Holt had become the best professional at the HR department, only after three months. She was enjoying her job as if she had done this all her life. And now the HR manager was going on childbirth leave and the department was supposed to elect a substitute. She naturally volunteered as candidate. Mark would have to approve of it in the end.
After what happened in her room the day she arrived from Oxford, Mark and she were keeping careful distance from each other. They got down to strictly professional relationship and it felt comfortable to her. As things fell into a routine, they had little time left for anything else. A fast growing company as MBS was not lacking work overload. Every effort of hers was being directed to her job. The nights weren’t so peaceful though. Her body claimed for him and the waves of sensation that tightened her womb when he touched her came back at its memory.
Mark watched as Amy and her colleagues interacted in the coffee lounge. She was doing very well in the company and he was proud of her. He concluded it was a wise decision to sponsor her degree. But keeping a distance from her was proving to be a deadly painful task. Working and sleeping under the same roof meant the whole day under needy strain. He felt as if he was sleeping on a bed of nails. If he could call that sleep. The only way he had to channel this energy was by training or... Well, his present mistress wasn’t very happy with him. He didn’t give her as much attention as he had before, if any at all. And before meant three months ago. Besides he had yet to clarify Amy’s father issue, which he could never bring himself to, day in, day out. He’d have to focus on it sooner or later. Better, sooner then.
As predictable, Amy was elected to substitute the HR manager. She was exultant. It’d be the perfect opportunity to put in practice what she had learned about leadership. After their president’s approval, Travis McDougal, her direct colleague came to wish her luck. He was a very warm person and seemed to be rather fond of her, as a friend.
“Amy, I am very happy for you! We all are, I believe.” He said smiling. Everybody in the department knew that Mark Benton had been her guardian, but nobody appeared to care too much about it.
“Thank you so much, Travis!” She saw him coming close and he held her hand lengthily in a congratulation gesture.
The HR manager occupied a glass-walled room. Mark was passing by and watched the scene. His piercing eyes narrowed as he felt the now familiar cold, evil claws squeeze his heart as it was a rotten orange. This Travis guy was going about her a trifle too much, he deemed. Mark could hardly breath, but he struggled to keep his composure. As calmly as he could manage, he strode to the room, put his head through the door and addressed her in low, velvety voice: “A word in my room?” And walked away, expecting her to follow.
As she came in his top-luxury office and closed the door, she saw him leaning at the edge of his desk, long legs stretched and crossed at his ankles. He looked at her, his stare eyes impenetrable. His powerfully muscled arms were folded over his hard-muscled chest. He looked like a panther ready to jump at its prey.
She observed him and her body responded shamefully against her will.
“I don’t think that flirting in the office is a very ethical attitude.” His deep male voice low and with a menacing ring. He distanced from the table and went to the ample window overlooking the fancy London district, hands in his pockets.
A slow far-reaching annoyance dominated her. She was fed up of his will to control her. She wouldn’t spare him, not this time. “Do you think I am still an innocent girl out of school?” She spat icy.
He turned to her in one economic movement and frowned. He never dared think what could have been her love life away from London. The boy-friends she might have met at the college. He had asked her, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
She grinned and it came dripping with contempt. “I was nearly engaged to Andrew. He attended Oxford too.” She crossed her arms and watched him coldly.
The information threw him in a red boiling sea of rage and he was drowning, falling deeper and deeper. His face went ghost-white, his guts froze. He prowled quickly to her, trapping her between the desk and him. He laced her firmly by her narrow waist and pulled her roughly to his muscled body. “Then maybe I can have a taste of you as well!” And his mouth fell on hers.
As soon as he laced her waist, a hot shot of fire reaped through her and she had to hold his trained biceps to avoid losing balance. She had looked up at him in shock as her lips parted. It was when he invaded her mouth ruthlessly. His tongue searched and touched her sensitive spots, melting her, giving her no choice but to open to him, lick his tongue in response.
He went wild with her kissing him back. All the desire he had repressed through these years surfaced in one ball of fire. One of his hands shoved the table’s contents, spreading it in disarray on the floor. His body pressed her to lie on the table and he insinuated his middle in between her thighs.
Instantly he
r arms surrounded his neck and her feet, his hips. Any thought she might have had, vanished from her mind. Only pheromones and sensation remained. He provoked a massive attack in her nerves, her guts, her brain. Even her wildest fantasies couldn’t have prepared her for that mind-blowing reality.
He entangled his fingers in her silky cinnamon ringlets and kissed her deeper, making her mouth open wider. Her body arched to feel more of his as her tongue circled his in an erotic dance. He reacted holding her tighter. His hand left her hair to open her chemise, where it found her full breast, under the bra. He rolled her pebbled nipple between his thumb and forefinger, leading her to total madness. The faint timid voice telling him that he was not supposed to be doing this was crushed under the passion which ran like lave through him.
An urge to taste what his hand touched drove him from her rich sweet mouth, grazing her neck on its wake, to her breast, where he feasted freely. She gasped, a mass of excitement, her hand merged in his smooth dark hair to lengthen the caress. Her head fell back in pleasure.
His remarkably hard erection tempted her as he pressed it between her thighs. And she wanted it, all of it. She moved her hips in a plea.
As if remembering where they were, he raised his head, dishevelled hair, ragged breath and dived his green stare in her enormous stare. They were both in a complete disordered state. Red-hot passion emanating from them both.
“So much for flirting in the office, right?” She assembled her sarcasm with difficulty.
With nothing to answer, he went away from her, turning to the window once more. She buttoned herself up in rapid clumsy movements and left his office in quick strides.
Match. This was his key-word. They matched. She matched him in passion. Her body matched his: To the borders of perfection. For these last three months he had been cooking. Cooking in slow fire. Not even his mistress, or must he say ex-mistress now, could appease the flames that burned inside him for Amy. Sleeping next door to her had been feeling like purgatory. And sleep was too far-fetched a word, actually. Bits of sleep, bits of dreams, bits of fantasies, tossing and turning. He had to get out of this before it became an obsession.
Amy stomped to her office. Damn! Damn! Damn! A thousand times damn! How could she be so weak? All he had to do was look at her with those panther-like eyes for her to melt like butter on a pan! And, God help her, she was burning. It had been going on for a long, long time now. She could deny, or rather try to deny, her feelings to him, but not to herself. She was afraid she’d become obsessed soon enough.
That evening, at dinner, Mrs Smith served them oblivious to the charged atmosphere in the dining room. A silence made of wiring energy hovered around the table. Neither Amy nor Mark made any effort to break it. As soon as the meal was over, Amy excused herself and retired to her room, to try a book of which she didn’t remember a single word.
First thing Amy did as the temporary HR manager was to subsidise healthy food in the company canteen. She had gone through reports, data and spread-sheets and concluded that it was perfectly feasible. So she prepared the project to send to Mark for approval.
