One Night with the Boss (One Night Series) Read online

  ONE NIGHT WITH THE BOSS

  A sexy short story

  by Natalie Pratt

  Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved by the author

  Published by Lowe Interactive Media, LLC

  1

  Kathryn Ross never did things like this. Never.

  Sure, she'd had her share of one-night stands and forgettable boyfriends; she'd tangled with more than one man who’d tried to break her heart, but she never did things like this. And by this, she meant sleeping with her boss.

  Chris Masterson.

  She hated him. Well, up until this work trip, she’d thought she did. If you'd asked her just one day ago what she hated the most about him, she could have given you ten different reasons, all of which would have vied for the top spot on the list. Too much arrogance. Suits that tried too hard. One of those grins that promised you were always on shaky ground. A terrible, abrupt manner in e-mails. Cold stares. Her deep suspicion that he got his job by taking credit for other people's work.

  Oh, and then there was that layoff—the one Chris conducted two months after he took over the social media side of KRM Public Relations—the layoff that shed five jobs in one afternoon and left their department with half the staff it had before he started. He'd handled that layoff poorly. Very poorly. That day, Kathryn had burned in her mind. The stricken, pale looks on the faces of those who'd lost their jobs gave her five more reasons to hate Chris Masterson.

  Asshole. Worse than that. Entitled asshole.

  Even so, here she was, standing outside his hotel room at The Colony Hotel in Palm Beach, with her left hand inches from the door at 12:04AM on a Friday night. And naturally, this was their last night in Palm Beach after four regrettable days at the hotel learning social media trends during a conference she knew he pitched to the bosses at KRM as a cover for a vacation in Florida during February. She could have—should have—turned around and walked back to her own hotel room on the fourth floor of the hotel. She could have—should have—been in bed.

  Alone.

  But that wouldn't have been any fun, now, would it? Perhaps more than anything else, Kathryn Ross wanted to have fun. She'd missed fun; she needed fun. And she hadn't slept with a man in two months.

  Plus, what had happened in the hotel bar a half hour earlier had promised her that this one night with Chris Masterson would be fun. In fact, it would probably be more than just fun. It would be dangerous. Sexy. Cross all lines.

  Perfect.

  A few more deep breaths. A yank on the hem of her black wrap dress. A lick of her lips.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  The door flew open and Chris stood behind it with a wide, satisfied grin on his face. His teeth gleamed and she smelled fresh, musky cologne. And, of course, he stood behind the door in nothing but a pair of dark-blue track pants.

  "Miss Ross," Chris said. "Nice to see you again."

  "Nice to see you, too," she said. "It's been so . . . very . . . long."

  "I thought for a moment you might not come." Chris moved out of the way of the door and gestured for her to come inside. She did, never taking her eyes off him or his chest, which hadn't surprised her with its sculpted pecks, six-pack abs, and light tan. Chris had always seemed like the kind of person who spent hours working on himself in the gym. She loved being right about things like that.

  "No need to worry," she said as he shut the hotel door and locked it. "I couldn't resist."

  She turned around just as he reached her, and when he did, he tossed aside any pretense of chivalry or polite conversation. Instead, Chris wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and drew her toward him. His rough, persistent lips forced open her mouth, and as she melted against him, she tasted a hint of mint mouthwash. It only added to the total picture—Chris Masterson, a man who, as she had discovered in the hotel bar, liked to jump over lines and forget rules just as much as she did.

  "Well, there's a welcome," she said as she broke away breathless. He still held onto her with one arm, and behind him loomed a large king-size bed with perfect white sheets and seven pillows. Like a silent observer it watched them, and she knew soon enough she'd find herself on it, naked and spread-eagled.

  "Welcomes are my specialty," Chris said, and smiled. "Among other things."

  2

  Kathryn's toes curled in her nude pumps. For four days, they'd danced around each other at this conference. Maybe she should blame Florida, maybe she should blame the sheer boredom of the presentations, but ever since she and Chris had boarded the plane at the Cincinnati airport, there had been a change in the air around them, a change she could almost taste and feel. Crisp. Magnified. Different.

  Almost as if the boss/employee relationship hadn't made it onto the flight.

  "Good at welcomes?" she said.

  "Yes. One of my talents. And I have a few."

  "Your little display down in the hotel bar proved that," she told Chris, her breaths still hard and deliberate as Chris showed no signs of releasing her.

  "You liked that, right? Kinda naughty?" His hand crept up her neck and buried itself in her meticulously-arranged blond curls. Kathryn prided herself on her hair. All her life, people had told her she had the kind of hair people paid hundreds of dollars to get. She never went anywhere without it perfectly coifed, and the trip to Chris's hotel room was no exception. In between the bar and his room, she’d stopped in her own to run a curling iron through it and give it one more spritz of shine spray.

  "Naughty," she said. "There's a word."

  "I choose my words carefully, Miss Ross." He leaned a little closer to her. "But you didn't answer me. Did you like it?"

  "Yes," she said. "I did."

  Who wouldn't like what had happened? Finally, after days of increasing momentum in the Florida sun, Chris popped the bubble on the sexual tension between them.

  And he did it in a big way down in the hotel's bar.

  For more than two hours, the two of them had sat dangerously close to one another in a booth facing the mahogany bar as they listened to a schmuck named Gerald with bad taste in toupees try to pitch their company on a new social media analysis software. Chris and Kathryn had managed to avoid him for the majority of the conference, but then, during the closing dinner, he'd pegged them, pleading for "fifteen minutes" of their time. Chris insisted Kathryn join them, and so she followed her boss's orders, despite her reluctance.

  Kathryn just flat out wasn't sure she'd be able to contain herself if she sat next to someone who both repelled and attracted her at the same time.

  Over a few glasses of wine and a spicy nut mix, she'd been tested. As Chris laughed at Gerald's jokes and made small-talk only prep-school graduates could appreciate, Kathryn had prayed for the wine to take hold. If she got drunk, or at least tipsy, that might take the edge away from the unspoken attraction she felt toward Chris.

  Might.

  Chris listened with skilled interest as Gerald pitched the software, something he did only after a long chat about everything but social media. But as Kathryn sat there, all she heard was a soft buzz coming from Gerald's mouth. No matter what she did, she couldn't concentrate on the conversation. She smiled, nodded, and interjected with a "yes" or an "oh" when necessary, but she only paid attention to Chris's hand.

  A hand that, halfway through the trio's second round of wine, started sliding up her left leg.

  The two fingers started at her knee. She hadn't worn any pantyhose all week, and this touch jolted her. She bit the inside of her lip as Gerald droned on, and when he looked away, she snuck a glance at Chris. He didn't look at her at all. Instead, his relaxed expression and easy smile gave nothing away anything about was going
on beneath the white tablecloth.

  As the seconds turned into minutes, his index and middle fingers slowly traveled from her knee to the middle of her outer thigh. When they reached it, they made a sharp turn and crossed over to the inside. For just a moment, they paused, and she caught her breath. Then, when Chris's fingers reached the top of her inner thigh, she did something she didn't expect.

  She spread her legs, inviting them to travel further up to her pussy, where she knew she didn't wear any underwear.

  Chris probably didn't need the invitation, though. Something told Kathryn that he would have taken the liberty even if she hadn't adjusted her legs. Still, she did it to let him know—she wanted this, too.

  Funny how a trip to Florida could do that to two people. Take them out of the office, put them in a new environment, and everything changed. Old annoyances and disgust faded away as fast as retreating waves. What she had once seen as cold-hearted, unflinching stoicism, she now saw as the armor Chris wore to hide a complex personality. Just from the way he touched her under the table, Kathryn knew Chris was the type of man who took things once he decided he wanted them.

  The type of man who got most of what he desired.

  Sitting there, listening to Gerald, Kathryn had to stifle her emotions and bite back more than one groan as his fingers stroked her folds, then her clit, and finally plunged inside of her. As the three of them discussed Facebook actuals, Kathryn struggled not to cry out and tell everyone in the swanky hotel bar just what Chris was doing to her. She also wondered how Gerald hadn't noticed just where Chris had traveled. Part of her wanted to cry out, to let him know the pleasure going on under the table, and the other part of her wanted to conceal it all, keep it secret, because that made it better.

  It had been a battle.

  No, more like a war. One she fought gallantly. Also, one she almost lost.

  Almost. When Kathryn could take it no longer, she closed her legs and smiled at Gerald.

  "I hate to do this," she said. "But I just remembered that I have a client waiting on an e-mail from our company. I need to head upstairs." She glanced at Chris. He stayed stoic, unflinching.

  Unruffled.

  "So late?" Gerald said. "It's almost midnight."

  "I know." She grabbed her gray snakeskin purse. "But it's a client overseas. Germany."

  Germany sounded good. Prestigious. No one would question Germany, least of all a man who favored ties with busy checkered patterns that should have been retired in the 1980s.

  "Germany?" As predicted, Gerald sounded impressed. "We've been trying to get the software to clients in Germany."

  "I'll remember that," she said, and stood up from the booth. Chris had a wide smirk on his face as he placed his right hand on the table—the same hand with the same fingers that had been inside her moments before. "Goodnight, gentlemen."

  "Good night, Miss Ross," Chris said. Then he cocked his head in thought. "And about that email. I'll need to go over it with you before you send it. Why don't you stop by my room in a few so we can talk more?"

  "Of course, Mr. Masterson," Kathryn replied, knowing full well the loaded invitation behind his words. He knew she didn't have any underwear on beneath her dress. He had just violated her under the table in front of another man, and she hadn't uttered a word of protest. Once she got up to his room, she wouldn't leave until she'd been fucked, and fucked hard.

  That much she knew.

  3

  "I have to hand it to you," Chris said. "Most women wouldn't let me get away with something like that in public."

  He took a step away from Kathryn, and as he did his eyes roamed over her, starting at her nude pumps and ending at her hairline. A simple black dress stood between him and her naked body. He'd have it off her in less than a second once he pulled the long tie that held it together. Hopefully, she hadn't added any underwear in between the hotel bar and his room.

  "Maybe I'm not most women."

  "Oh, I'm sure you're not." He laughed. "But I think I knew that already."

  "Really?" She sounded a bit panicked. "How so?"

  "Your HR file at the office." He paused, his eyes still drinking in the heavenly valley between her breasts. The dress hugged them in such a way that showed she didn't have a bra on, either.

  Naughty girl.

  And why hadn't he noticed this before? He was slipping; he found that unacceptable. Chris Masterson didn't achieve things by "slipping." He achieved them through cold and precise calculation. Sex with women had never been any different.

  "My HR file." The heavy tan purse she’d brought with her to his room made a thud as it hit the carpeted floor. "You've seen my HR file?"

  "Of course I have, Kathryn. I'm the boss, remember?"

  "How could I forget?"

  When she narrowed her eyes and tucked her chin, he instinctively reached out and grabbed it. He'd always liked Kathryn Ross's chin, ever since the first time he saw her. She had a sharp one that enhanced her thin but seductive mouth. And Kathryn's mouth was the kind of mouth that should spend its days spilling secrets. Well, when it wasn't wrapped around his cock, of course. He would have bet thousands in Vegas that she gave fantastic head.

  Good thing that tonight would give him the chance to find out.

  "Don't ever forget that I'm the boss," Chris said, still holding her chin. "I'm the boss, and I like it that way."

  "I won't forget."

  "Say it," he said, holding himself back from pulling the tie on her dress. God, he wanted her naked—he really did—but he also wanted to savor this night. They might not have it again.

  At least, they might not have a four-star hotel room in Palm Beach, again.

  "Say what?"

  "Say I'm the boss." Chris raised his finger and traced the neckline of her dress. "Now. Say it now."

  "You're the boss."

  "Good." His hand moved back and forth in a fluid motion underneath the hem and just above her breasts. "And what does that mean?"

  "It means you get what you want," she said between shaky breaths.

  "Very good." He stopped feeling her dress and settled his hand on her shoulder. "So, Kathryn. Tell me. Are you going to give me what I want?"

  The implication hung in the air around them. She wouldn't have come to his hotel room for any other reason, and he knew that, but Chris also knew that after this weekend, after this night, things would never be the same between them. Now, instead of the typical boss/employee relationship—one full of disgust on her part—they'd have subtext and secrets between them. He liked that idea, though. In all the years of his career, he'd never fucked a coworker. Usually, he preferred trashy bar hookups and random women on the Cincinnati social scene.

  Fucking Kathryn would be so much more than just fucking. It would be a sexual adventure.

  "Yes," she said after a moment. "I want to give you what you want."

  "Good." Chris drew one long breath through his nose. "Now that we have that settled, what I want is you. Naked."

  With that, he reached down and pulled the long black tie that held her flimsy wrap dress together. Her dress broke open and her breasts spilled out—loose, plump, and waiting for his hands. Below them she still didn't wear any underwear, and he saw a small of a rose on her hip, just above her shaved and supple pussy.

  "Exquisite," he said. "Miss Ross, you are exquisite."

  "I'm glad you like it," she said, and she kissed him.

  It was enough for them both to lose control. Roughly, they pushed together as their tongues entwined. His hands found her ribcage and snaked underneath her dress as she moaned against his lips. As their kissing intensified, his lips traveled to her jawline, and then her neck, one right after the other. He wanted to claim her, mark her. He wanted to taste every part of her curvy, well-defined body—a body that had enticed him more than once over the last few months at the office. Soon, her dress lay in a small pile on the floor.

  "I'm going to fuck you hard," he whispered in her ear. "I'm going to fuck you
so hard you won't be able to stand up tomorrow morning."

  "Good," she said. "I'll hold you responsible if you don't."

  She shifted her weight closer to him. As his lips found her collarbone he lifted her up and moved her to the large bed behind him. The comforter fanned out underneath her as her body hit the mattress, and she had a small smile on her face. He stood above her, still clad in his pants, and his eyes traced over every section of her body once again. How he enjoyed looking her over. She had such a perfect body, as if she'd been made just for him. Hell, if he'd known what really lay under her conservative black pencil skirts and fashionable suits, he would have had her naked long before now. He was already halfway hard.

  But he knew of a surefire way to get harder—something he liked a lot. And he wanted to watch her do it.

  "Aren't you going to join me?" she said when he made no move to join her on the bed. "It's lonely down here. I want you with me."

  "No," he said. "Not yet."

  "Why not?" She pouted at him. "I want you."

  "I want you, too." Then a devilish grin spread across his face. "But before I join you, I want you to do something."

  "Which is?"

  "Touch yourself, Kathryn. I want to watch you make yourself cum."

  4

  Kathryn had always been something of a secret exhibitionist.

  More than once on a lonely night, for example, she'd fantasized about being a stripper. She liked the idea of being on stage and in control of an audience as men watched her dancing topless and then nude, writhing in pleasure to the music. Sometimes, in her deepest fantasies, she masturbated on stage and brought herself to climax in front of a crazed audience. She liked the idea of someone watching her do things to herself that others would want to keep private.

  So of course, when Chris demanded that she finger and please herself, she salivated at the idea. She just didn't comply with his orders fast enough.

  "Now," Chris said from above her as he narrowed his eyes. "Do it now."

  "Yes sir," she said, and she smiled as the index and middle fingers of her right hand found the soft folds of flesh around her vagina. She was already wet, and she'd been that way since the incident at the hotel bar, so she knew it wouldn't take long for her to climax. Not long at all. Her fingers slipped in and out of her vagina and around her clit at she stared at him.