11. Rhaim

11

RHAIM

Did Nero Ferreo's little girl just crawl across the floor to greet me like a cat?

Yes.

Did it make me want to fuck her?

Do you even have to ask?

T he second Lia was gone I let myself into the bottle of whiskey I'd pretended was so important.

I'd only come into the offices early to beat traffic and go to the gym, after staying away for as long as I could. I'd had no intention of leaving Corvo Enterprises in anything but a casket—but when I'd seen her in the hall unexpectedly, I wanted to see what she was made of.

Because I'd spent the rest of my weekend at the farm trying to figure her out, rolling ideas around like dice in my mind, and I'd only come up with snake-eyes.

Somehow Lia Ferrero had been flipped.

The FBI or the ATF or any number of three lettered agencies, had gotten ahold of Nero Ferreo's daughter and turned her—pulled her back from her jet-setting life in Europe and told her she had to get in here, to weasel in good and tight.

I imagined she had a boyfriend over there, from back wherever it was her Lambo was being shipped home from. Maybe he'd gotten popped for possession and then once they realized they had her through him, they were waterboarding him in some Eastern European jail until she promised to return with fresher meat.

And while her dear old Daddy might be too busy to pay attention to her, making abrupt business decisions during the day and whoring it up with girls slightly younger than she was at night—there I was, vulnerable to attack.

I was like a stately great white, swimming through the ocean—and she was like a lamprey.

It was the only thing that made sense, and her little game of crawling right now, like I'd told her I'd wanted her to at the club, had sealed it.

I poured myself two shots and knocked them back, but the fire burning in my throat in no way compared to the way I felt after seeing her.

Lia, on her hands and knees, her long dark hair up in that ponytail that now drove me wild, her ass held high as she bent down to?—

I'd only barely remembered my boots were stable boots in time to stop her.

I'd been so mesmerized by the spectacle, I'd almost let her go through with it—just to see what she would've done next when she was through.

And she had to have known that. She wasn't a stupid woman.

She knew what she did to men—to me.

It wasn't like I could hide it.

But I was still in control of myself, and the thought of her having a wire on her underneath those overalls was just as good as dousing my dick in an ice bucket.

If I was right—and I had to be, it was the only situation that even began to make any sense—I couldn't go to Nero without incontrovertible proof. He was already prone to shooting the messenger as it was. I'd practically need a signed confession from her in triplicate to stop him from literally shooting me.

But I supposed it was better that she'd decided to joust with me than anyone else at the company.

I poured another shot for myself and downed it, guzzling sixteen-hundred-dollar whiskey like it was red cup college beer, knowing that it represented the last moments of freedom I'd be allowing myself until I'd figured her out—which agency she was with, who her handlers were, and just how susceptible to bribes or blackmail they'd be.

Dear little Lia might think she could pull one over on me because I was almost twice her age—but the FBI and I had done this dance more than once before, and I was willing to get dirty.

I swiped open my phone and sent off a series of coded texts.

The next morning, Lia had beaten me to my office. She was making herself comfortable on the wide leather couch across from Mrs. Armstrong's desk, and Mrs. Armstrong was giving her a dour stare.

Why?

Because she had on a slinky white top, with sleeves longer than the dark blue miniskirt she was wearing, which was so high the leather of the couch was practically groping her.

"Could you give us a moment, Char? Go get me a coffee and take your time," I said, after taking one look at the situation. My assistant appeared relieved, giving Lia one last glare before heading out the door, and once we were alone I turned to her. I had half a mind to send her down to facilities, to put a janitorial uniform on again.

"So it's like this, is it?" I asked her, frowning.

One of her hands played nervously with her skirt's hem—somehow she'd managed to find time in her busy schedule to go get her nails redone after I told her to go home yesterday. They were painted a faint pastel pink, and they were riding a pattern against her thigh that I wished I could follow with my tongue.

"I...was hoping?" she guessed, her eyes searching mine for the right answer before she had to give one.

"Hoping," I said flatly. Hoping that I'd fuck her right here on that couch like I wanted to, and that afterward I'd breathlessly disclose trade secrets in her ear. "That I was going to teach you how to run some small fraction of a multimillion-dollar corporation wearing an outfit that makes me want to burn other men's eyes out with car cigarette lighters?"

Her full lips parted and her already pink cheeks blushed.

"Go home and come back when you have some common sense," I told her, waving my hand at her, indicating that she should leave. "If you want people to take you seriously, you're going to need to literally cover your ass."

Her amber eyes lit on mine. "You were really going to teach me?"

I couldn't fuck her without Nero killing me.

I couldn't send her away without courting Nero's wrath again.

And I couldn't figure out what the FBI was doing with her if she wasn't under my thumb right here.

"Did you really want to learn?" I asked her, suddenly curious.

I knew I could drown her in busywork and give her the death of a thousand papercuts before I'd slip up—but ideas for lessons I was actually interested in teaching her blossomed in my mind. Her, in my bed, wearing nothing but a collar and the leash I'd use to tie her wrists together behind her...

Which was surely exactly what she wanted, especially in that get-up.

But rather than doubling down and spending her sexuality like a chip at a casino, her entire bearing perked up innocently instead. She stood quickly with excitement, then swooped down to pick up the clutch she'd brought with her, giving me a flash of a hot pink thong wedged between her thighs, saying "I'll be right back!" before she scurried out the door.

I was unsure what to make of our interaction after that—and my very interested dick reported that it had no idea where she could've been possibly hiding a wire under that outfit.

Down, boy.