Wild in the Highlands Page 4
Cassandra took small steps down the quiet hall, not quite dragging her feet. She barely glanced to either side, trying to calm her rapid breathing. On one hand, she was excited by the idea of working with someone new. Mr. Stebbins, the Senior VP of Acquisitions, was bad-tempered, flighty, and hopelessly disorganized. Being his assistant was exhausting.
There were rumors he was going to retire soon, and Cassandra had been praying they were true. She’d rather work for anyone other than Mark Stebbins. She’d said as much to Marquesa just last week.
“Be careful what you wish for, poppet,” her Granddad used to say when she was little. “The gods have a funny way giving it to you.”
Back then, she couldn’t possibly fathom how getting your wish would be bad. Now, mere feet from the enormous closed door of the corner office on the hundredth floor, Cassandra understood well.
She’d wished to work for anyone but her aggravating boss, and now he she was about to step into the dragon’s lair.
***
Rhys smelled her as soon as she stepped through the doors from reception. Ripe, sweet peaches first. Then, under that, the warm, creamy smell of skin. Just the faintest hint of salt. Sweat. Not just nerves, though there was that. Her fear was electric on his tongue, like the scent of the atmosphere before a storm. Martine Amici continued to ramble in his ear about the benefits of owning another international shipping conglomerate, but he was no longer paying attention.
His hearing tuned to the panicked flutter of her pulse, the rapid, shallow, soft breaths.
His own heartbeat sped, sending blood thundering through his veins. The fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end, vibrating with each tiny, tentative step closer she took.
Rhys felt the lazy stretch of his other form beneath his skin. His vision wavered, flickering between normal and the extra sharp, color-saturated way he saw the world as a dragon.
“I’ll call you back.”
He hung up on Martine without another word, his hands curling into fists on the arms of his chair. His nail beds stung with the prick of phantom claws pushing forth. Rhys surged to his feet and strode to the balcony, shoving open the sliding glass door with a stiff hand. Through his nose, he drew in the crisp fall air drenched in the asphalt and gasoline aroma of the city, letting it overwhelm the delicate fragrance of the woman’s body… and her fear.
It wasn’t like him to almost lose control like that. He was no hatchling.
He’d flown just this morning, his massive wingspan eating up the distance between his palatial home in the Catskills and his office in the city, so that wasn’t it. The restlessness that was making his skin twitch even as the cool breeze swept over him had nothing to do with needing to stretch his wings.
It was that scent. Peaches and cream and heat and prey. It made him want to hunt.
Not that he actually ate humans. Not like that. No, he preferred to hunt prey of a different kind. And when he caught them… Blood pooled in his groin as he thought of the many entertaining nights and days he’d spent with his varied prey, the glide of slick skin and the gasps of pleasure, the wet, mineral and musk scent of sex.
But still, that smell, the smell of fear, triggered something primal within him.
It was clearly time to purge some of the names from his Contacts list. The same old hook-ups weren’t doing it for him anymore if the faintest whiff of some Nervous Nelly courier got his spine up. Time to hit one of the clubs and make a new acquaintance. Maybe several. Dragons were covetous creatures, by nature.
A soft rap on the outer door caught his ear, even over the noise of the traffic below.
Rhys stiffened as a fresh wave of that enticing aroma wafted to him and the quick thumping of his visitor’s heart filled his head. Not a courier then, or Ursula would have buzzed him.
Who, then, would she send back?
Fuck. Why had Bridget decided to elope with her CPA boyfriend out of the blue? Crazy shit like that was why Rhys didn’t do relationships. They made you insane.
“Enter!”
He didn’t quite bellow, but he raised his voice loud enough to be heard by human ears through the thick metal door. The soft ‘eep!’ that sounded on the other side made his lips twitch.
The doors swung open with a soft shush over the thick carpet. Then, she stepped inside.
Rhys bit back a groan at the sight of her. She was tall, maybe five foot ten, with thick, honey blonde hair pulled back in a loose chignon from a heart-shaped face. Pink cheeks; a pointed chin; wide, hazel-green eyes; and a plump, pink, quivering mouth.
And that was just her face. The body beneath was equally as enticing. Ripe, with full breasts pressing against her silk blouse, rounded hips and a fleshy ass stretching her black skirt. Her arms and legs were soft and pale and round as well. Even her stomach was a faint swell that begged the caress of a palm, or lips.
She scanned the office, delicate blonde brows crinkled, long-fingered hands twisting in front of her.
“H-hello?”
That shake in her voice went straight to his cock. He pushed the welling desire down and cleared his throat. She whipped her head around at the sound, eyes going impossibly wider, mouth falling open. Rhys lifted a single brow.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my office?”
Her heart beat hummingbird fast. He could see it in her pale throat, even from across the room. Her body temperature rose as well, filling the open space with the rich peaches and cream and ozone scent of her.
A wet pink tongue peeked out to swipe her lips.
“M-mr. Maddox? Mr. Blackfeather s-sent me?”
Warren. Shit, that meant… He swallowed a chuckle at the irony of it.
“You’re Ms. O’Hare?”
She twitched when he spoke her name and Rhys couldn’t help the sideways tug of his mouth. Quite the jumpy one indeed, this little rabbit.
“Y-yes, sir. Cassandra O’H-hare.”
Rhys moved slowly so as not to spook her, sliding around in front of her. Her eyes followed him, though she remained still as a stone. Well, except for the trembling. Her entire body vibrated like a tuning fork. It made his blood rage through his veins.
“Relax, Ms. O’Hare, I’ve already had my breakfast.” He flashed her a toothy grin.
He hadn’t thought her jewel-like eyes could get any rounder, but he was wrong. Her long, dark lashes fluttered and he watched her creamy throat work as she swallowed. It was all he could do not to leap over his desk and latch his teeth onto that tender skin.
Rhys curled his fingers over the back of his leather chair, his nails biting into the buttery soft fabric. He remained still, waiting to see what Cassandra — he resisted thinking of her as his little rabbit — would do.
As enticing as her trembling mix of fear and arousal was, if she couldn’t manage to pull herself together at least a little bit, there was no way they could work together.
She obviously had no problems with shifters in general, if she worked for Chimera. So it was either dragons, or him in particular that had her so afraid. Normally, that kind of reaction in anyone annoyed him. Rhys wasn’t quite sure what made her fear so attractive.
Perhaps it was just that when she stared at him like that, it was clear every cell, every fiber of her was focused on him and aware of him in a way he hadn’t felt before. He wouldn’t have thought it would be such a turn-on. Rhys didn’t do intense. All his relationships, if you could really call them that, were casual. If one of the women he was sleeping with began to get too into him, they immediately became someone he no longer slept with.
So, why was Cassandra O’Hare’s quivering, bone-deep regard of him turning him rock hard and aching?
She squared her shoulders, drawing his gaze to the soft, bare slope of them. When she spoke, her voice was firmer, though it still carried an edge of breathiness.
“I apologize for my unprofessional behavior, Mr. Maddox. I was a bit surprised that I was going to be working for you but that’s no excuse. If yo
u’d like me to return downstairs and ask Mr. Blackfeather to send you someone else —”
“No.”
She jumped at the whip-crack of his voice, and then her cheeks turned a darker shade of pink. But she held his gaze, pointed chin up, even though he could see her eyelids twitching. Her instinct was to drop her eyes. The fact that she didn’t made his already half-hard cock twitch.
She was still scared, but she was no coward, his little rabbit.
Rhys smiled, flashing his dimples and his straight, white teeth, trying to soften the barked response.
“Don’t worry about it, Ms. O’Hare. I’m aware of the effect my name can have.”
Her pulse jumped, he heard it. The flush spread from just her cheeks to her throat and upper chest as well. He wondered how far down it went. He pictured that soft, round, pale belly edged with delicate rose pink.
The leather gave under his nails.
He shoved the thought hastily away. She was going to be his assistant for at least a week, probably several, as he looked for someone to fill Bridget’s position. Warren said Ms. O’Hare was his best, aside from Marquesa, and Rhys needed the best. His dick would just have to deal. There were plenty of other hot women in the city.
Cassandra scraped her teeth over her lower lip, dropped her eyes, and gave a short nod. He lifted a brow, surprised she would acknowledge his arrogant assertion. His little rabbit had a bit of sass to her. Her spine remained stiff, and when she spoke this time her voice was even and inflectionless.
“Of course, sir.”
Rhys let the twist of his lips relax into something less predatory.
“I think you’ll do just fine, Ms. O’Hare. Just fine.”
If only Rhys could stop thinking about how she’d look bent over his desk with that cute little skirt hiked up over her plump ass...
***
Working for Rhys Maddox was surprisingly easy, and also one of the hardest things she’d ever done. He was a demanding and exacting task master, for sure, but no more so than her boss at Chimera. And Rhys — Mr. Maddox — was less prone to random fits of temper. He didn’t blame her for his own screw ups (not that she’d seen him make any in the last week and a half) and he wasn’t completely unreasonable. He trusted her to know what she was doing once she got the hang of things, and he didn’t micro-manage her either, which had been a surprise.
In fact, it would have been an absolute dream job, if not for one thing.
Cassandra pulled her gaze away from the door that connected her office to her temporary boss’s. For the first couple of days, it had remained firmly closed unless she was passing through it to go over his daily schedule, or bring him his lunch, or get his approval on paperwork.
This morning, however, he’d strode into her office before entering his own in order to inquire about the status of a project she hadn’t even been aware existed. It had only taken her a few seconds to pull up the information (she’d spent a good deal of her first two days just submerging herself in his former assistants filing systems), only to realize that Bridget’s impending elopement had apparently left her less careful than usual.
As in, she had completely dropped the ball on this particular project.
Rhys — Mr. Maddox — snapped at her to get it done and then shoved through the nearly hidden (when closed) connecting door to his office without another word. But he left the door open.
Not that it meant anything. Not that Cassandra cared.
Only, it made her even more aware of him than she had been for the previous week and a half, which shouldn’t have been possible.
The minute she’d heard that smoky-throated ‘Enter!’ on her first day, she’d known she was in trouble. And then seeing his face…
He was all dangerously sculpted cheekbones; strong, square chin; long, slightly pointed nose; full, wide mouth; eyes that glittered like cut obsidian; dark, waving brown hair; and skin the color of polished teak.
It wasn’t just that he was a dragon, though that had her knees knocking well enough on its own. No, it was that he was Rhys Maddox. Poster boy for bad boy billionaire shifters. She’d never imagined in a million years that the person Mr. Blackfeather had sent her to work with was Rhys Maddox.
Apart from being the CEO of the multinational business powerhouse that was BurningStone Holdings and effectively richer than the next five people on Forbes 500 list put together, he was also the public face of the North American dragon clans. All of them.
He wasn’t just a dragon, he was the dragon. That’s what the media called him. As in, ‘The Dragon Flying High at New Club Opening!’
That particular headline had accompanied a picture of Rhys flanked by two sculptures of female perfection — a redhead and a brunette that could have been a matching set with Ursula, the pale blond receptionist — on the front page of the Life & Style section of Sunday’s paper. It had made Cassandra’s heart race and her stomach hurt at the same time.
She couldn’t understand her body’s reaction to the man. From the moment he’d first strode off the wide balcony that ran around the outside of his office (the better for him to shift and take flight from, she’d learned on Tuesday), it was as if some wiring in her brain had short-circuited.
The instinct to freeze, to not draw his attention, to drop her eyes to the floor and only watch him out of the corner of her eye, that, she understood. Her racing heart every time he stepped within twenty feet of her was perfectly natural.
He was, after all, a predator. When he shifted, he could swallow her whole in one single bite.
Cassandra’s fingers slowed fractionally on her keyboard as the memory of her very first encounter with a dragon shifter flooded her mind.
She’d been six years old. The barbecue was boring, all the adults talking and talking and there was no one to play with. She wandered away from the edge of the lake, unafraid of the thick forest. The bright yellow sunlight cut through the overhanging leaves, turning everything green and gold.
When she found the wide clearing, she gave a cry of delight and dashed into the carpet of sweet-smelling purple blossoms as fast as her chubby little legs could carry her. Cassie loved flowers.
She had no idea how long she sat there plucking the pretty little purple blooms, trying to weave them together with clumsy fingers, and ignoring the faint cries of her name drifting through the trees but the darkening of the sky above was sudden and startling.
Cassie glanced up… and froze.
Her mommy had read her plenty of stories about dragons, but she’d never said they were so big! The one above her blotted out the whole sky. Sunlight flashed off the bronze scales on its back as its massive wings whooshed through the air with a sound like a storm.
The wind it generated made the grass bend and tickle her face. She brushed it away with a shaking hand, giggling breathlessly, heart hammering, unable to pull her eyes away.
Its belly scales were pale and iridescent, like the pearls her mommy wore for special.
She could no longer hear the cries from the woods over the sound of her own heart in her ears as it turned a head that was bigger than her back over its shoulder. It looked right at her!
Cassie’s mouth fell open. She shivered despite the heat of the day. And then, she shrieked as it banked and swooped toward her. Its great jaws opened, revealing long, sharp teeth.
The wind from its wings intensified, ruffling her pink sundress and the thick blonde curls of her hair. The beast drew in a loud breath through the dark holes of its nostrils. It was getting closer, so close she could smell the smoke and stone scent of it as it washed over her in a warm wind.
CRUNCH!
Cassandra jerked in her plush office chair at the remembered sound of bones breaking between those massive jaws.
Of course, the dragon had not eaten her that day. It hadn’t even been trying to, its intended prey the scrawny, yellow-eyed wolf (an actual wolf, not the shifter kind) that had been stalking her from the edge of the forest. The dragon had saved her.
Or, it had been. Until Rhys Maddox.
She’d seen plenty of pictures of him before. It was hard to live in the modern world and avoid his image. But the pictures of his savagely gorgeous face and tall, muscular body were nothing compared to sharing an office with the real thing.
All the fear symptoms were still there: the pulse fluttering so fast a doctor with a stethoscope probably wouldn’t be able to distinguish individual beats, the trembling muscles, the electric saliva that flooded her mouth.
It was the other responses that were troubling.
Rhys Maddox made her nipples hard. Standing (or sitting) in the same room as him made her breasts feel heavy and aching and desperate to be touched. Her blood raced beneath her skin until she felt as if the lightest caress would make her knees give out.
And her pussy… Cassandra didn’t know it was possible to be so constantly aroused without anyone even laying a finger on her. Well, apart from herself every day after she got home. Repeatedly.
It was, honestly, the only way she could make it through the day. And the worst part was, she knew he wasn’t even trying. After that first day, he didn’t even flirt.
She snorted to herself. Of course he didn’t flirt. The idea that Rhys Maddox, who could have anyone he wanted (and often did, according to the papers and gossip sites) would want a plump little nobody like her was ridiculous.
But that didn’t stop Cassandra from going all warm and wet and needy whenever he was in the room. Even when he was growling at her to, “Handle it, Ms. O’Hare,” like he had that morning.
Honestly, even with his occasional flare of temper, if it wasn’t for her stupid, confusing, and totally pointless attraction, she would never want to return to her position at Chimera.
He was extra grumpy today, for some reason. She could practically feel his ire emanating through the open door like waves of heat. Cassandra had resolved to focus on the fixing his last assistant’s mistake and keep her head down as much as possible.