By the time Friday rolled around, I was so sexually frustrated that I had to jack off in the shower three times before going into work. The whole night before I’d been kept up, tortured by visions of sweet little Audrey between my sheets. I hadn’t been around a woman who I’d wanted to dominate in a hell of a long time—years, even. But Audrey was the perfect candidate. She was gorgeous under all those frumpy clothes, and she was the most submissive woman that I’d ever come across. She could barely bring herself to meet my eyes, much less speak out against me.
As I walked into my office, I grinned. I’d arrived early, and Audrey was nowhere in sight. Her poster, a perfect mock-up of the design I wanted to use at the tech expo, was propped behind my desk.
I turned on my computer, planning to spend the morning catching up on emails and calls. I’d missed a few calls this week from someone called Hotchkiss, and while his name was unfamiliar to me, I had a bad feeling about the intensity. Audrey had carried in three messages from him over the past two days.
Under normal circumstances, I would have returned the call by now, but I couldn’t shake the frustrating hold that Audrey had on my dick and my mind. Every time I saw her, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I had to have her. I had to satisfy my lust; I had to scratch the infernal itch that she’d created within my body.
“She’s not here, you can focus,” I repeated to myself. It was a mantra I’d come up with that morning. I knew that Audrey would take time, but I couldn’t let LennoxCo go to hell while I was waiting for her to come around. After all, she was only a woman. I’d had hundreds of those before. No reason why one, in particular, should hold me up so much.
I frowned as my email program popped up. My heart sank when I saw the name at the top of my inbox: Richard Hodges. Great, I thought as I rolled my eyes. You’re back from the brink.
Back when I’d first started LennoxCo and made my first million, I’d been contacted by a potential investor named Richard Hodges. He wanted me to set aside a portion of my business for a consulting firm that he knew. He’d promised me that everything would be perfect—that the consulting firm operated with little overhead cost and that I was getting a great deal.
In short, he fucked me. By the time Hodges was done with me, I’d been almost bankrupted. If it hadn’t been for several investments that I’d made on my own before starting LennoxCo, I wouldn’t have survived the fallout. Ever since that had happened, I hated the man. He’d escaped with barely a scratch, and sometimes he popped up out of nowhere to try to con me all over again. It had been four years since the debacle happened with his so-called consulting firm, and I had no desire to let the business go down the toilet once more.
But now, I couldn’t just ignore a man like Richard Hodges. He’d recently been named a top CEO by Fortune 500, and he’d been hired to helm another tech company in the industry—a company that focused on security services, just like LennoxCo.
Reading about Hodges in the news had given me a sick feeling in my stomach, and I’d prayed that he wouldn’t try contacting me again. Even though I didn’t want anything to do with him, he was powerful. And I had a feeling that if I pissed him off enough, he’d try to destroy LennoxCo.
“Hi, Enzo,” Audrey said. She stepped into my office and straightened her posture. “Can I get you some coffee?”
I nodded. “And could you give me the number for that Hotchkiss man?” I frowned as I dug through the pieces of paper littering the top of my desk. “I can’t find your messages anywhere.”
Audrey blinked and then nodded. She darted out of my office. Five minutes later, she was back, armed with coffee and a notepad.
“He said his name was Richard,” she said, licking her lips and flipping through the sheets of paper. “Here’s his number.” She handed me a piece of paper with the same number written on it as Richard’s emails.
“Audrey,” I said, my tone sharp. “Did he tell you that his last name was Hodges or Hotchkiss?”
Audrey blushed. She buried her face in her hands and stamped one of her orthopedic shoes on the ground. “Darn!” Her voice was muffled. “I screwed up, Enzo!”
“Audrey, look at me,” I ordered, keeping my voice deadly calm. “Look at me right now.”
Audrey let out a small squeak and ducked her head back up to face me. Her cheeks were deliciously pink, and her eyes had begun to water. “Enzo, I am so sorry,” Audrey said in a rush. “He must have said Hodges, and I heard Hotchkiss.” She hung her head again. “I’m sorry. It’s always been really hard for me to hear people on the phone!”
“Next time, you get him to spell his name.” I breathed. “This is a very important man, and someone who I need to keep tabs on at all times, do you understand?”
Audrey gave a meek nod. “Did I screw something up for you?” The fear in her voice was palpable. “What can I do to fix it, Enzo?”
“Just take my messages properly in the future!” I slammed my fist down on the desk. Audrey jumped a foot into the air, making the same squealing sound that she’d made before. “This is the most important part of the job, Audrey!”
She skittered out of my office, and I slammed the door behind her. It was the first time I’d really been irritated with her—aside from when she walked in the first day to find me screwing Karen. I understood that she obviously had some kind of social problems, but it frustrated me that she hadn’t exerted a more disciplined performance. I rolled my eyes.
You’re being too hard on her, I thought to myself. But if it were anyone but Hodges, you probably wouldn’t care that much.
I sighed, opening Hodges’ latest email. He wrote a few lines about not being able to get through that impenetrable secretary of yours, and I had to smirk. At least she’d managed to get under his skin, too. But when I got to the body of the email, I scowled. Hodges was, once again, offering to buy LennoxCo. He’d first made the overture a few months ago, and I’d written it off as drunken bravado. But now I could tell he was doing it to prove a point.
I shifted uneasily in my chair. I didn’t think Hodges was bluffing anymore. I knew that he wanted to buy me out, and suddenly I was more nervous than ever before that he’d actually take a step to threaten me.
“Audrey,” I called out. “Come in here.”
There was no reply. I heard someone’s voice chattering away, but it wasn’t Audrey’s meek little tone. Frowning, I stood up from my desk and walked out of the room. Audrey was sitting behind her desk staring up at Karen, who was leaning over her.
“You’d better watch yourself,” Karen said before flicking her eyes towards me and turning on her heel. “Little bitch,” she muttered under her breath as she walked away. When she reached the elevator, she turned around and stared at me longingly. I could practically see her nipples getting hard under the nearly transparent blouse she wore.
I walked closer. “What was all that about?”
Audrey jumped at the sound of my voice. She whirled around in the chair, and she looked more frazzled than ever. “I don’t know,” she said, glancing down at her feet. “That girl, um, Karen, she just walked over to me and started threatening me.”
I frowned. “What kind of threats?”
Audrey laughed. It was a hollow sound. “She just told me to watch my back,” she said fearfully, glancing over her shoulder. She frowned, narrowing her eyes and creasing her pale forehead. “I mean, she said that you look at me funny.” I watched Audrey lick her lips. “I don’t think you stare at me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Well, Karen is obviously jealous.”
Audrey blushed again, harder than before. “But why would she be jealous of me?” Her voice had an awkward, Midwestern quality to it that I’d never heard before.
I smirked. “You’ll figure it out. Trust me.”