Maybe it’s just me, but that please sounds kind of threatening. Aware that what the CEO wishes has to be an intern’s command, I say slowly, “I’m just surprised you actually know my name, Mr. Moretti.”
I feel rather than see his smile, all the way to my toes, which curl in response. I’ve always thought myself frigid. It’s just my luck to find out I’m as susceptible to lust as the rest when my job is on the line.
Mr. Moretti’s voice drops an octave. “You’ll be surprised at what I know about you, Ms. Wall – and how much I want to know more.”
I’m going to pretend – again – that I did not hear anything suggestive in those words.
“You don’t believe me?”
I fidget. Is this the time to be honest again?
“Then what would you say if I tell you that I know you are 21 years old, single, orphaned, adopted by Nanette Wall at age 7, with four foster siblings?"
I need a moment after that to pick my jaw up. It’s just dropped to the floor. But it’s a waste of time because my jaw just crashes back down when he continues, “There’s possibly a new member for your family if you all decide to let your foster mother have her way.”
Oh. My. God.
I have this nasty feeling he even knows I’ve never had sex and that I’ve a half-completed tattoo around my belly. It’s supposed to be a sunburst design, but now it just looks like my belly button’s grown horns. I only lasted two rays long before passing out.
But Mr. Moretti isn’t finished.
“I also know what happened earlier between---” Mr. Moretti’s voice turns steely. “---you, Janice Rudely, and William Grant.”
Oh.
Shick.
I gag.
Again.
“I’m sorry,” I say miserably minutes later inside the private washroom of Mr. Moretti, which – by the way – looks palatial. It has gold-plated taps, for God’s sake. Doesn’t that scream palatial? Or too much money for Domenico Moretti to know what to do with it?
“I have a really weak stomach.” I speak without actually looking at him because under the extremely bright fluorescent pin lights of the washroom, it becomes impeccably clear why he needs to file TROs against supermodels.
If I look at him just once, I think he would have to file one against me, too.
“I understand,” Mr. Moretti says smoothly. “The sight of William Grant’s wrinkled dick would have made me throw up as well if I had been a woman.”
The image of Mr. Moretti – who is pretty much manliness personified – throwing up because of offended feminine sensibilities makes me choke back an unexpected giggle.
“Are you all right now?”
I nod, still keeping my gaze trained anywhere except him.
“Then shall we go back to my office?” Without warning, he places his hand on the small of my back.
I jump away, unnerved at the electrifying jolt that zings through my body at Mr. Moretti’s touch. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
Before I know it, Mr. Moretti spins me around to face him.
I’m so fracked.
Domenico Moretti is beautiful. His hair may be cut ruthlessly short like a soldier’s at the sides, but it doesn’t make a difference to how silky smooth it appears, how just the sight of it begs for a woman’s touch. I want to know how it feels, to run my fingers through his hair.
His eyes are impossibly green but dark – like leaves in the height of summer. His face looks as if it’s been chiseled by God when He’s at his happiest, without a smallest flaw to mar it. High cheekbones, an aristocratic nose, wonderfully naturally red lips, and a prominently strong jaw - perfection, in other words.
Mr. Moretti is only wearing a pale blue dress shirt of the finest silk, having discarded his blazer in his office earlier. It’s partially unbuttoned, allowing me more than a glimpse of his smooth brown chest. Even without touching it, I know that it would feel wonderfully hard under my fingers.
But what really makes me breathless, what makes my body go weak, and an embarrassing amount of wetness gather between my thighs, is how Mr. Moretti is gazing at me.
He’s looking at me like he wants to devour me, and the sexual tension emanating from him – from me, from us is palpable.
I can’t take my gaze off him.
His nostrils flare. “You smell…”
I pale.
Was he saying I stank?
“I’m sorry,” I say weakly. “It was really hot this morning on my way to work.” I think I’m going to kill myself after this. I have never been so humiliated in my entire life.
Mr. Moretti looks frustrated and furious. “No, I don’t mean it that way. I meant, I can smell---” He shakes his head and takes a step forward.
I instinctively step backward, mostly because I don’t want him to smell me even more, whatever it is that he smelt.
“I was hoping this would be the case, but I hadn’t dared hope,” he murmurs seemingly to himself.
Yuck, I can’t help but think. He has a fetish for bad odors? It’s such a turn-off I shake my head at it.
“What is it?” he asks sharply.
“Nothing,” I stammer.
“It doesn’t seem nothing,” Mr. Moretti says while taking another step forward.
I take another step backward and almost curse when I realize I’ve inadvertently backed myself into a corner – literally. Mr. Moretti closes the distance between us, and with his gorgeous face this close I forget all about his weird fetish and just focus on keeping myself from hyperventilating.
God, he’s hot.
God, God, God, he’s hot.
Mr. Moretti bends his head, nuzzling my hair. “You let it down. Why?”
It takes me a while to realize what he’s asking. And what that question means.
“I...couldn’t find my band,” I say, stumbling over the words because I’m so tense I have a hard time stringing words together. I tense even more when he lifts a lock of my hair, and then I feel close to fainting when he brings it to his lips, closing his eyes as if savoring the scent.
Another fetish?
“You smell so good.”
Oh. So maybe that was what he was saying a while ago? That I smelled good and not that I just stank?
His head moves lower and he nuzzles my neck, inhaling again. “So good,” he says with something like reverence just before inhaling my scent again.
It feels like he’s worshipping me, and just the thought that this man wants me so much makes me moan again. It’s too much. He’s too close, too hot, too everything that my body is arching towards him before I realize what I’m doing.