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She was supposed to be discussing the complexities and intricacies of a situation that could very well turn into a hostile takeover with these three men. Undoubtedly, it was the most significant and delicate position of her entire career, and here she'd had an incendiary sexual, BDSM relationship with one, which hadn't ended anywhere close to well, an intimate and, to most minds, probably perverted relationship with another, when he had been involved in their scenes as a third, and the last man clearly had intimate knowledge of all of those things. How on earth was she going to maintain any kind of professionalism here? How was she going to be able to look any one of them in the eye and talk business? How was she going to get any of them to take her seriously? They each knew her as a completely different person from a completely different world.
Panic started to bubble up stealthily underneath her surface calm and she felt the layers of her poise and control traitorously start to spin away.
And then it occurred to her—what they knew of her, she also knew of them.
With a relieved inner sigh, her mental scales rebalanced. Funny how that one small realisation finally made her feel empowered and restored her equilibrium. It also led to another recollection; in the world of BDSM, there was no judgement. Everybody accepted each other's kinks. With that, the shroud of despair that had been threatening to envelope her finally lifted. She could do this. It was time to show this lot exactly what she was made of.
Chapter Eight
Several hours later, Joel was looking at Desirae with renewed respect. The woman obviously knew her stuff. She had a mind like a steel trap and the ability to view everything from a unique perspective. He guessed that was the secret of her success. It was difficult to articulate, but she didn't quite approach things in the same way as the rest of them would and that difference...made a difference.
Damn, if her brain didn't turn him on, and that was something completely new to him. Usually, his only lure was BDSM and the occasional business women that he met through his work were unknown quantities in that area and thereby didn't interest him.
He'd always known that Daisy was intelligent, but she had never used her intellect the way she did now and it was fascinating.
Of course, she had always turned him on, but just watching her work, listening to her reasoning, added a new dimension to that attraction.
Maybe because he already knew her to be a submissive…but that didn't make sense, either. There were plenty of subs at the club who were professional women. The difference was, at the club, they didn't talk business. The two were separate. So, the answer must be that here he was talking business with Desirae, his kind of business specifically, layered with the fact that he knew her to be submissive—his perfect submissive.
Not just his perfect submissive, but his perfect woman, and it occurred to Joel that maybe, just maybe, with Desirae Harper, he could have everything.
A business associate he could respect, a partner who understood his work, a woman his father approved of and a submissive who could fulfil all his needs.
The idea had his blood rushing south at warp speed until he shifted uncomfortably, trying to adjust the wood he was now sporting that was suddenly hard enough to pound nails. And that was another first. Never in his life had his libido spilled over into the boardroom. The two had always been entirely separate, but right now, he found himself backing unification on that front. He just wondered if it was even remotely possible to get Desirae on board or if she would be as receptive to him as she was to the idea of a company takeover.
Since they had sat down around the table, she had cast off any vulnerabilities she might have been feeling at coming face to face with Jake and himself. If, indeed, the situation had caused any vulnerabilities. It was damn near impossible to tell, she remained so freaking impassive. For the past two hours, she had been reserved and detached. Her voice had remained modulated and calm. Her attention focussed. None of the arguments they put forward to back the takeover plan had her becoming heated or flustered. Her demeanour remained cool and composed, even under pressure. In fact, nothing at all seemed to ruffle her icy control, a control that Joel had always prized above all else. That had become his benchmark in his search for a submissive. His control over his submissive and their control over themselves, but perversely, all he wanted to do right now was find a way to make her lose that vaunted control.
He'd spent a decade searching for a sub who didn't top from the bottom, who was quiet when he demanded quiet, who was still when he demanded still, no matter how uncomfortable, no matter the provocation, no matter how hard he pushed. Now that he had that in his sights, now that she sat before him, all calm and restrained and disciplined, he was overwhelmed with the desire to see her blow. To make her scream and watch her sweat, to have her flail and thrash about, to hear her plead and implore and beg him. To witness all hell let loose.
As if she sensed that his mind was on her personally and not on business, she chose that moment to glance over at him. Joel held her gaze, and as she returned his blistering stare with a remote and frosty look of her own, he knew he would have his work cut out for him. But he was damn well going to try, and he really couldn't wait to get her alone because he was planning to demolish each and every one of her barriers until they crumbled at her feet and nothing was left but the quintessential woman.
Desirae battled hard to suppress the profound, bone deep shudder that threatened to shake her to the core.
So far, Joel hadn't set a foot out of place. Despite her own hyperawareness of his presence, nothing he said or did could be even remotely construed to be unseemly, indecent or inappropriate. He had behaved like a perfect gentleman. He hadn't touched her, hadn't rebuked her, hadn't dismissed her input. He hadn't betrayed any kind of personal interest, never alluded to their previous relationship. In fact, he had been all business. Focused and attentive, listening to her arguments, countering with his own reasoning. He treated her as an equal and respected her opinions, even if they were counter to his own. They might almost have been exactly what they appeared on the surface, business acquaintances who had met fleetingly and insignificantly sometime in the distant past.
It was all so very proper and yet, with that last look, Desirae had felt exposed and defenceless, as if her very essence of self was in jeopardy.
The hairs stood up on the back of her neck and adrenaline poured through her veins, reinforcing her fight or flight response, and an indefinable perception in the corners of her consciousness warned her that if she valued the woman she'd become, she needed to stay the hell away from Joel Blackwood.
Chapter Nine
Desirae sighed audibly, the sound loud in the quiet of the room, and gave in to the desire to kick off her shoes and wiggle her toes in the soft carpet under her feet. She was back in the relative sanctuary of her own office after a mentally tiring day of corporate boardroom Ping-Pong, and her brain was still being bombarded with all the different arguments an hour after they'd wrapped everything up and she was preparing to go home.
Stretching her neck from side to side, she reached back and kneaded at the tight muscles there and rolled her shoulders against the tension that had set in. She was oh-so-very tempted to remove the pins confining her hair so that she could massage her scalp, but that would have to wait until she had left the building.
Nothing had really been accomplished. The Blackwood Corporation was resolute about going ahead with the takeover plan and it had become clear during their negotiations that that decision lay squarely on the shoulders of the senior CEO, Joseph Blackwood. Since it was obvious that neither Jake, nor even Joel, was in a position to overrule his executive ruling, it had been agreed, reluctantly on her part, that both parties would prepare their considerations for a formal meeting of the board of directors at the end of the week.
Desirae felt bone weary, not just from the threat to the company, but from the all-encompassing bombardment to her senses at being in such close proximity to Joel Blackwood. Somehow, whenever she had imagined this encounter, this day when she was forced to come face to face with him, because, let's face it, there was no way she would have done it voluntarily, she had always imagined that the years would have extinguished his power over her and curbed her reaction to him. Time heals all wounds and all that garbage.
While she understood that Joel had irrevocably changed her, her appearance, her outlook, her future goals, she had truly believed that her feelings towards him had also changed. That her pain and outrage and humiliation had diluted the love and adoration she had once felt and that time had finally rinsed away any residual sentiment until nothing was left except an understandable trepidation at the prospect that their paths might cross.
She had been prepared for the possibility of animosity and the probability of awkwardness, but she had honestly never expected the visceral desire that had slammed through her at the mere sight of him or the way that goose bumps had shivered down her spine at the resonant sound of his voice as it stroked over her senses.
Even seeing Jake had triggered a yearning in her soul, dear, sweet Jake, who had become one of her closest friends. Where Joel had been her contrast, always serious and brooding, Jake had been her counterpart, the cheerful, fun loving guy. They had constantly laughed and joked together like a pair of mischievous children. It had always made her giggle that he had been the one to take up the whip as his speciality kink. She'd frequently tease him that he'd only done it in an attempt to get people to take him more seriously. God, she'd missed him. If she was honest, she had never admitted, even to herself, quite how much. Their easy relationship had become collateral damage during the fallout of that awful night over a decade ago.
Without warning, her office door flew open and the object of her lustful thoughts strode in. God, he looked good enough to eat in his perfectly tailored charcoal grey suit, the understated dove grey shirt and a Windsor knotted tie in a shade of grey exactly in between the two.
Joel had filled out over the last ten years. His shoulders a little broader, the planes of his face a little sharper. It made the overall package even more tempting than she remembered, if that was even possible, and she felt a jolting pang of lust, a sensation that had been sadly missing from her life and her libido for a decade, just from looking at his delicious form.
