Crossing the Line Read online

  “Yes, I saw it. Yep. Okay. Sure, no problem,” Caite was saying as she turned to stare at him when he burst through her door and shut it behind him. Her eyebrows rose, but she ended the call quickly and before he could say a word, she said, “How rude.”

  His mouth had opened to let out all the words he’d imagined, but at that simple truth from her, Jamison shut up immediately. He’d never met a woman who could do that to him with little more than an arch of her brow. He clenched his fists.

  “Sit down,” Caite said calmly, pointing to the chair in front of her desk.

  He did.

  She came around the front to sit on the desk’s edge, and, oh, fuck him, her plain dark skirt rode up just enough to show off the lacy edge of a pair of thigh-high stockings. How had he never noticed her in all these months? Jamison glowered.

  “You look like you have something to say to me, Jamison.”

  “Oh, I have a lot to say to you.”

  Caite laughed, damn her. Laughed and shook her head as though he were a naughty schoolboy brought into the principal’s office for pulling a girl’s pigtails. Her dark eyes twinkled when she looked back at him.

  “You’re angry with me?”

  He...was. And wasn’t. If anything, he was furious with himself for allowing her to do what she’d done. “I’m your boss.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t want me to call you that,” she teased.

  He drew in a breath, then another to calm himself. “I’m not in the habit of fucking around with my employees.”

  “I see.” Caite crossed her arms and tilted her head to study him.

  He waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t. “We can’t do that again.”

  “I see,” she repeated, and shifted a little on the desk, revealing a bit more bare thigh he did his best to ignore. “Let me ask you something. Why are you so angry about it?”

  He took in another breath but had no words. Being left speechless made him angry. So did the calm way she stared him down. But ultimately, he couldn’t articulate an answer.

  “I think I know,” she said quietly. “It’s because you’re a man who’s always in charge. Right? Always in control. You’re used to getting what you want when you want it and how. And you don’t really trust someone else to get it right.”

  “If you want to make sure something’s done right, you have to do it yourself.”

  “You like to take care of people.”

  He had to think about that. His anger had faded in the face of her continued calm. She was like Elise in that way, a foil to his easily ignited fury. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You made sure I got home safe. You didn’t have to.”

  “Of course I did. You’re mine.... You’re my employee. It would’ve been irresponsible of me to just dump you off in that neighborhood at that time of night.” He didn’t miss the way his stumbled words had made her smile.

  Caite studied him a little longer. “Let me ask you a question, Jamison. Don’t you ever get...tired?”

  He did. Oh, God, did he ever. Not of things in the office, not of being on top of things there. He thrived on that stuff. But in the rest of his life...the never-ending parade of dinner reservations that didn’t please women who didn’t like to eat, the flowers for others who’d rather have chocolate. The concerts of bands he loved and they’d never heard of and hated.

  “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

  Caite resettled herself on the edge of the desk, uncrossing her legs. Her fingers curled into the hem of her skirt, inching it higher while Jamison could only sit there like an idiot, watching. “I dreamed about you. What we did. Kissing you. I dreamed about your kiss, Jamison.”

  His mouth went dry. His cock, hard. His heart pounded.

  Higher, higher, she eased the fabric over her thighs, exposing the sexy-as-hell gartered stockings he’d already glimpsed. He’d never been with a woman who wore stockings like that outside the bedroom and not as part of a costume. He wanted to look away from the promise being revealed between her legs and had to force himself to meet her eyes.

  “You’re going to get on your knees for me,” Caite whispered. “You’re going to put your mouth on me, right here. And make me come with that delicious mouth of yours. Now.”

  Everything about it screamed wrong. The office setting, her place in the company. The fact that she was the one telling him what to do. And still, Jamison slid from his chair to kneel in front of her, his hands already skimming up the backs of her legs, his mouth already seeking her heat. No thought. No resistance.

  Only desire.

  She shuddered when he mouthed the softness of her inner thigh just above the stocking. The soft growl of her moan sent another bolt of desire straight through him, tightening his balls and making his dick throb in time to his quickening pulse. When her hand came to rest on top of his head, fingers tangling in his hair, he nipped at her flesh a little harder than he’d intended.

  “Fuck, yes,” Caite cried, jerking. “Oh. God.”

  She wore filmy white panties and he hooked a finger in them to pull them aside to get at her pussy. His head spun at the scent of her, but when he got his mouth on her hot flesh, everything else faded away. There was nothing but this. Her heat, the slickness of her pussy on his lips and then fingers when he pushed them inside her. The tight knot of her clit tempted him to suckle gently and, when she cried out again, hips bucking, a little harder.

  This was crazy stupid, and not only because they were at work. Because she worked for him, under him...beneath... Shit, he was nowhere near on top of things right now. And he had no idea how he’d ended up here or why it was making him so insane.

  From down the hall came the sound of ringing phones. The murmur of voices. Shit, he thought, moving away from her. The office door. Not locked. And Bobby...

  “The door,” Jamison said against her.

  Caite’s fingers tightened in his hair, keeping him close to her. He could pull away if he wanted to. He didn’t want to.

  “Keep going.”

  He paused despite the command, picturing Bobby opening the door and catching his boss going down on the junior assistant. Caite laughed, the full, throaty and rich sound of it making him even harder, if that were possible. Her hand came down to cup his chin, fingers pinching slightly.

  “Keep going,” Caite said, her gaze bright. Cheeks flushed. Her mouth was wet, as if she’d licked it. “I didn’t say you could stop.”

  He’d brought her to orgasm once already by barely doing a thing. He could make her come again, this time with his tongue, in another few minutes. If he wanted to. If he did as she said. If he obeyed.

  From behind him, the doorknob rattled. Caite let go of his face. He could’ve moved away but did not.

  “Make me come, Jamison,” Caite whispered, her gaze going over his shoulder as both of them waited for the door to open. It didn’t. She looked down at him. “Now.”

  He feasted on her, a starving man who hadn’t even known he was hungry. She rocked against him. Her clit, tight and hard under his lips and tongue, tempted him to suck it again. He slid a finger inside her. Then another. Stroking upward, slow and easy, not too hard. He wanted to touch himself but did not, masochistically satisfied with the pressure of his cock against the front of his pants making him even crazier.

  When her pussy tightened around his fingers, she cried out, low and hoarse. Then again. His name. A framed picture on her desk fell over, and her thighs clamped hard against his head, blocking out the light for a moment. Blocking out sound. All he could see or hear, all he could smell and taste, was Caite’s sweet cunt, and in that moment, he’d have happily died with her flavor the last thing he ever tasted.

  She leaned back on the desk, her knees falling open to release him. He sat back on his heels. Caite looked down at
him, her eyes glazed and face flushed. She swallowed hard and swept her lips with her tongue. Then she took a deep sighing breath.

  “Wow,” she said.

  She shook herself a little, then sat up straight, pulling down her skirt. She passed a hand over her hair, which had become only a tiny bit disheveled. She smiled at him, saying nothing, and he was glad for it, because that meant he didn’t have to answer. He got to his feet, his cock thick with arousal, his balls heavy and aching. He adjusted himself, but it gave little relief. He wanted to be inside her. Or have her mouth on him, her hands. He’d spill himself between her breasts if she let him. All he could think about, really, was getting off....

  Her doorknob rattled again, and this time she looked over his shoulder. “Come in. Hi, Bobby.”

  “There’s a delivery for you. Flowers,” Bobby said. “They came from Tommy.”

  Caite looked surprised. “Okay. Thanks.”

  When Bobby left the office, she looked at Jamison, still saying nothing. He cleared his throat and unfisted his hands, unaware that he’d been clenching them until she gave them a pointed stare. His fingers ached. He kept himself from holding his hand to his face to breathe her in.

  “Was there something else you needed? Boss?”

  Dammit, she was teasing him again, though her expression was completely innocent and her tone neutral. Jamison shook his head, backing up a step. If she let her gaze fall to the front of his pants, he thought, he would lock her office door and spin her around, hands on the desk.... She kept her eyes on his, that faint smile never twisting or fading.

  “No,” Jamison said. “Nothing.”

  * * *

  Caite had visited a movie set once, back in college when she’d hung out with all the artsy types who wanted to be directors. Her boyfriend’s boyfriend—it had been complicated, yeah—had been hired as an intern on a movie shooting in New York City over the summer, and Caite and Leo had been invited up for the day. It had been hot, the city had smelled like urine, and she’d ended up with food poisoning from the craft services table. The movie had gone straight to rental, and she’d never even seen it.

  Treasure House was an entirely different matter. Tommy had invited her to come to the site after work on Friday to live-tweet during their final filming of the week, a series of teasers that would air to promote the next week’s show.

  “It’s for what we filmed two weeks ago but will air next week,” he explained. “But the network wants us to start getting the word out now. Teasing. You know.”

  She did. And that was what she was being paid for, to decide what and how and where to put out the message about this show and its three stars. While the three got set up, each filming an individual teaser for several different markets, then group teasers, Caite set up and sent out short video clips and updates to all the social media outlets she could. It wasn’t exhausting work by any means, but even so it was long past five o’clock on a Friday night. And even fun work was still work.

  “You coming out with us tonight?” Nellie used a makeup-remover cloth to swipe at the thick foundation she’d worn for the filming. She eyed Caite. “Tommy says he refuses to go clubbing. Says he wants to have dinner in a nice place with tablecloths and then...God, go to some art exhibit. I said we could go clubbing after, but he’s telling us we got to pick last weekend. Maybe you can change his mind.”

  Caite looked up from her phone, where she’d been typing in a final update to a fan page. “What makes you think I could do that?”

  “He likes you.” Nellie simpered. Not a good look for her. “I bet if you said you’d go clubbing, he’d come so he could spend time with you.”

  Faintly surprised, but only faintly, Caite looked across the room to where Tommy was tucking some things into a messenger bag. He looked good. Faded jeans that hit him in all the right places. Black T-shirt that hugged his slim body and revealed strong arms patterned with colorful tattoos. He was not only her type as if he’d seen a checklist of what she liked and made himself over to fit it, but he was also surprisingly charming, something she’d never have guessed from watching the show, where he was most often the angry one, yelling at the others to get their shit together.

  Shit, she thought, thinking of Jamison. She really did have a type.

  Still, what had happened with her boss had been a delicious but definite mistake. He’d barely spoken to her since it had happened and had been keeping his office door closed. There’d been hours of work and little of it completed by the end of the week, even though she’d thrown herself into all of it in order to forget. She got the hint and was sort of glad, too, that he was avoiding her rather than making all of it into something bigger than it had to be. Except...wasn’t it? Bigger than it should’ve been, Caite thought, watching Tommy head toward her with a broad smile on his face. Because she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Jamison’s mouth and hands, the look on his face. The sound of his moans.

  She was so fucked.

  Jamison had blown into her office and then gone down on her as if cunnilingus were about to be outlawed and he needed to stock up so he could supply the black market. Yes, she’d basically ordered him to, and yes, she’d made it out as though she were totally in charge, but the truth was, every part of what had happened had shaken her to the core. After he’d made her come with his mouth, her climax so explosive she swore she’d almost lost consciousness for half a minute, he’d gotten to his feet and stared down at her as though waiting for her to say something. Do something. And she’d messed it up, hadn’t she? Uncertain of what to say, her knees still weak and her mind awhirl with the fact he’d even done it. Again. That he’d given himself up to her. Again. And without getting him off, no reciprocity, nothing for him but a rock-hard dick and probably a set of blue balls. He’d left her office without a word, shutting the door firmly behind him.

  But fucking around with her boss was one thing. Doing it with a client could only lead to worse trouble. Jamison could fire her for what they’d done, but if she screwed this up, it would not only affect her job with Wolfe and Baron but any job she had in the future. If there was one thing she’d learned fast about working in the media business, it was that fucking celebrities never led to the kind of reputation that did anyone any good.

  “Hi,” she said, pushing thoughts of her hot-as-hell boss and her future career to the side for a moment. “What’s up?”

  “Want to come out with us? Dinner at L’Etoile. My treat. Then I’m dragging those yahoos over to the Scott Church gallery show.”

  “And after that?” she asked, curious. Nellie had gone over to linger with Pax, the two of them doing that annoying whispering thing again.

  Tommy looked at his partners. “They want to go clubbing. But shit, I’m tired. Long week, lots of shit went down....”

  “Like what?”

  He laughed and wagged a finger. “Ah, ah, ah. Can’t tell you. You have to tune in.”

  “Is that where you got the shiner?” Caite touched his cheekbone gently.

  Tommy leaned a little closer. “Maybe I got that from my domina.”

  Caite blinked. Blinked again. She had no idea what to say to that; all she knew was that the idea of Tommy having a domina made her tingle in all the right places. Maybe for the wrong reasons, though.

  “Relax, cupcake. It’s from running into a door in the dark. At least, that’s what I need to tweet, right?” Tommy grinned. Caite laughed. He took her hand, squeezing lightly. “Come with us. It’ll be fun.”

  “What the hell,” Caite said. “Sure. Why not?”

  Chapter Six

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Jamison tossed a sheaf of printed pages onto the conference room table. Bobby’d printed out all the latest media updates. They scattered, but he didn’t bother to pick them up.

  Caite didn’t, either. She sat with her hands folde
d neatly on the tabletop. Today she wore a crisp white shirt and a black skirt. Black pumps. Her honey-blond hair had been pulled into a neat French twist, and in her ears were creamy pearl studs. Her bare throat, uncollared by any jewelry, taunted him.

  So did her mouth.

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” she said.

  “All of these pictures. The video.” Jamison tilted the conference room’s laptop toward her to show off the screen, which showed a picture of Caite and that asshole Tommy whatever-the-fuck-his-name-was doing shots. And dancing. And laughing. Not kissing, but there was the suggestion of that, too. And lots of commentary about it.

  “Treasure House Tommy’s new gal pal,” he said, reading one of the comments.

  Caite snorted. “Oh, brother.”

  Jamison was as far from laughing as the sun from Pluto. “This isn’t what we pay you for.”

  Caite’s laughter cut off abruptly. She sat up higher in her chair, shoulders squaring. One eyebrow lifted, but her fingers didn’t even twitch. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that your job’s to keep these forons in the public view in a positive light, not...not...” He stopped himself before his voice could rise into a shout, though he wanted it to.

  “Not...have fun? Not mix business with pleasure? Not get the buzz going about them? You are aware that last night’s Buzzvid clip was rebuzzed more than a thousand times, and that the Wolfe and Baron account got more than five hundred new followers? I don’t know how many each of the three Treasure House accounts got, but the comments were in the thousands, too.” Her chin went up a little bit. “Compared to the night Nellie got arrested, I’m pretty sure we got a lot more positive growth from a few pictures of us all having a good time.”