forget.
He watched her mouth curve into a smile and his dick twitched in immediate response. Something flared low and sharp in his gut. It was a sensation he didn’t think he’d ever felt before, at least without some form of specific and intentional stimulation.
“Who’s that?” he demanded.
“Who?”
He heard rather than saw Duncan’s puzzlement. He motioned across the expanse of the elegant lobby. “The woman there. Slim, dark hair, black suit. Talking to the blonde.”
“I thought you didn’t fuck around with the staff?”
Sam’s balls tightened in a rush. The explicit image he got was shocking. Not just because it was of her —on her knees in front of him while he fucked her from behind—but because he hadn’t been able to censor it, or control his body’s reaction to it. Sam shot him a glare. He was in no mood to be trifled with.
Duncan cleared his throat. “Ah, sorry, I think her name’s Jennifer, something like that. She works in Finance. Or maybe it’s Legal.”
“Jillian?” he managed to choke out. “Could her name be Jillian?”
“I…maybe. Why?”
“Last time I checked you were head of Human Resources, Duncan.”
“Jesus, Sam, we have over four thousand employees, two thousand in this building alone. I can’t personally keep track of all of them. I haven’t worked with her directly. She’s probably—”
“Find out. I want her file on my desk in ten minutes.”
“What’s got into you?”
Sam took a deep breath. “Schedule a meeting with her.”
“A meeting?”
“Yeah, with me.”
“You don’t know where she works or what she does in your company, but you want a meeting with her? Why ?”
Sam felt the impatience he’d tried to contain roar through him. He wasn’t used to having his orders questioned and he sure as hell wasn’t used to explaining himself to anyone.
“ Because I’m the fucking boss and I said so .”
* * * * *
So, she’d dropped everything as ordered and hightailed it up here. Now what ?
She hadn’t had time to grab even a quick bite for lunch and her stomach was beginning to churn in protest. Of course, it wasn’t everyday someone at her level got a personal summons to the big boss’s office, so that might have something to do with it.
So, what the hell did he want with her ? She hadn’t done anything. Had she? And if she had, wouldn’t he want to talk to her manager? Okay, so the analysis she’d done on the Bourke deal hadn’t exactly been her best work, but it was still better than anything anyone else here could have done. As usual, she hadn’t gotten any credit for it. Her manager was a pain in the neck, a frustrating pain in the neck because she’d gotten into the predicament of allowing him to take credit for her work. Well, not exactly take credit, but anything he presented up the chain was never individually recognized. Had it come back to bite him on the ass and he’d thrown her under the bus? Even if the IT geeks had somehow tracked her checking out the naked firefighter calendar last week, it would come down through the department head. Wouldn’t it ?
Jillian took a deep breath. “Am I in some kind of trouble?”
She’d always liked the direct approach and she wasn’t sure how long she could stand the suspense, particularly on an empty stomach. If she needed to go clear out her desk, she’d prefer to know sooner, rather than later. And if she didn’t? Well then, she had about fifty unread emails, a voicemail light that wouldn’t quit blinking, a spreadsheet still to get through and a meeting due to start in— crap —fifteen minutes ago.
“Depends on what you consider…trouble.”
Jillian blinked. His response was delivered in a slow, sexy drawl. If she hadn’t already been nervous from the intense scrutiny he’d given her since she’d walked into his fancy office that would have amped things up considerably.
“Ms. Moore, Jillian, why don’t you sit down?”
Oh my God, Samuel Steele was a