“Twenty percent?” Harrison looks downright scandalized. “You’re talking millions at that rate.” Others murmur to themselves. I didn’t get to be as successful as I am today without having the balls to play in the big leagues.
“Let them wonder why we’re suddenly undervaluing them. They’ll sweat, counteroffer, and if it’s not in the direction we want, that’s when we let them know we’re on to them.”
“You don’t think they’ll push back?” Marcus asks, narrowing his eyes at me. Any other day, it’d piss me off when someone second-guessed my opinion on the matter. As it is, Seraphina being close, the scent of her perfume driving me insane yet somehow keeping me calm, it’s working in their favor. For now.
“If they push back and demand to know why we’re undercutting them, we’ll tell them exactly what we found.” Seraphina pauses in her writing, pen hovering, but she doesn’t look up. She’s listening with intent, analyzing my play and, knowing her, learning my patterns to keep in her back pocket. “We frame it as a goodwill gesture,” I go on to further explain. “Tell them we discovered an anomaly, and while we’d like to keep it between us, it could become public. Nobody with that name wants bad publicity.” Seraphina underlines thewordlowballandcontingency disclosure.Silence falls over the conference room as they digest my strategy. Harrison slowly nods, his initial thoughts changing from panic to approval.
“It covers our tracks and protects the timeline. It’ll also buy us a few months to quietly audit the system and fire whoever did this before the takeover. If they fight it, the truth becomes our shield.” Harrison gets it.
“Exactly. So, are we in agreement?” A chorus of nods and hums is heard through the room. “Good, Harrison will adjust the financial terms to reflect the twenty-percent drop. Marcus will amend the contracts and have both on my desk by tomorrow morning.” I close the portfolio as their cue to leave the boardroom. Chairs scrape against the floor as the team stands up, gathering their tablets, the portfolios, and whatever else they brought to the table.
I remain seated. Seraphina stands, keeping her eyes down while methodically organizing her notes, but the rapid rise and fall of her breasts beneath her loose blouse betrays her calm exterior. The minute the last person walks out of the boardroom, I make my move. My hand touches the back of her leg, then I drag my fingers upward and beneath her tight skirt.
“Rafe.” She drops the items in her hand and presses her palms to the wooden tabletop.
“You distracted me today. It’s only fair I return the favor.” Her eyes are wide and shimmering with a mix of defiance and desire.
“I was just doing my job.” She spreads her legs. Whether she realizes it or not, it’s all the answer I need as I glide a path upward, until my hand cups the inside of her thigh as my thumb sweeps dangerously close to her hot little cunt.
“The skirt, the blouse, you biting your lip only made me want to finish the meeting as fast as possible.” Another inch upward, and I’d be at the lace of her panties. Her skirt was hiked all theway up around her hips in the bathroom, the clear view nearly did me in.
“I should write up these minutes,” she teases.
“No, you should lock the door and then come back to me. Plant your pretty little ass on the table and let me taste you. That’s what you should do.” I’d had plans for this to happen in my office, in my boardroom will have to do for the time being.
“Rafe.”
“It’s up to you, Seraphina, to get what you’ve been after all along and finally let me fucking taste you.” She pulls away from me with reluctance. I watch as she doesn’t bother to fix her clothing. What she does is exactly what we both need and want.
9
SERAPHINA
There’s no way I’m going to deny Rafe Montero, my boss, billionaire real estate investment broker, grumpy to my sunshine, when he’s finally giving in. When I lock the door, my breathing changes. I’m not nervous. I’m excited, and with each step I take back towards the man I’ve wanted ever since I laid eyes on him, I see the hunger in his own.
“Right here, Sera.” Rafe pushes back from the table, spreads his thigh, and it’s then I notice that he’s already discarded his suit jacket, rolled his sleeves up, and unbuttoned his shirt even more than when he dressed in my presence earlier this morning.
“Is this spot taken?” I say with a tease. His green eyes change color. Gone are the small flecks of yellow interspersed with green. Now they’re dark, raw, and burn with an unmasked intensity.
“Not at fucking all.” My hands rest on the table behind me and his grip my hips, pushing my backward until I’m sitting down. I yield to him. At the unspoken command in his gaze when he nods at my legs, I spread them open, opening my thighs. My tight pencil skirt barely gives way, and when he drags his hands down the outside of my thighs, going straight to thehem, his calloused fingers push the fabric up, and I lift my hips up until it’s bunched around my waist.
“Rafe.” There’s nothing left between us except his scorching gaze and the delicate, damp barrier of my lace panties. He has me right where he wants me, pinned to the edge of the conference table, completely open to him and whatever he wants.
A choked sob full of pure, unadulterated lust escapes my lips and shatters the silence in the boardroom. Rafe bends his head, squeezing the insides of my thighs with his fingers, and licks me through the lace. Never in my life could I have imagined how it would feel to have him between my thighs. My hopes and dreams are coming to life. My grumpy, wounded billionaire boss is finally giving in.
He sucks my clit through the fabric, groaning and causing a shiver to slide through my nervous system. His hands move from my thighs to wrench my blouse from the waistband of my skirt, large fingers fumbling with a sudden maddening urgency to find his way beneath. A hear a button hit the polished wood right before he pushes under the lace of my bra. Big warm palms cup my full breasts, his thumbs sweeping over my aching, sensitive nipple.
“Rafe.” A jolt of pure electricity is sent straight to my core. He breathes me in, deep, intoxicating, muttering a curse against my aching core.
Another whimper leaves my lips. My fingers find purchase in his shoulder, gripping the white fabric of his button-down shirt, wrinkling the tailored perfection. Rafe keeps licking over my wet center, twirling his tongue around my clit. The friction of the wet lace has me on the brink of delirium. He doesn’t stop there. He traces the sensitive lines of my inner thighs, teasing the edge of my panties. I wish like hell he’d tear the dumb thing off my body.
“Please,” I gasp, my voice coming out broken. The tips of my fingers dig in and my heels press into his back in an attempt to spur him on. It doesn’t work. I arch my back, nearly levitating off the mahogany table as the sensation rolls through me in waves, and still, he takes his time.
“Fuck. Need to taste you right from the source.” His voice is a low, possessive growl that vibrates against my skin. I’m nearly crying in relief when he finally relents, and a finger hooks into the damp lace to push it to the side.
And heeats.
The man laps at my bare, aching center in one long fluid stroke, from my entrance to my clit, going back and forth, fluttering along the way, sucking, licking, pulling. Every stroke is deliberate, a masterpiece in pleasure that’s leaving me breathless and weeping his name in the otherwise quiet room.
