STORY EXCERPT

By the time the clock read 7:56 p.m. Jared felt like overheated vomit.

After shutting off his laptop and the lights and packing up his stuff, he all but crawled toward the elevators, dead-tired. A quick glance around showed an empty office floor, with the only lights on right in front of the elevators. Jared pushed the call button and yawned so hard tears stung his eyes.

Once the elevator pinged and the door opened, Jared ambled in, barely able to lift a leg to get inside. He leaned against the glass-covered, elegantly decorated wall and dreamt of his queen-size bed.

“Hold the damn elevator!”

Déjà vu all over again.

Startled, Jared nearly jumped out of his skin, rushed to press the button to ensure the doors reopened, and only when Grant stormed in did Jared feel a twinge of remorse at having done so. God, how sweet it would have been to leave Grant hanging, perhaps impatiently pounding his fist at the closing doors. Now it was too late.

Grant blinked when he saw Jared, and his face hardened. Still, he gave a quick nod as a thank-you, Jared supposed. Then, a miracle happened. “Thanks.” Grant’s husky timbre did funny things to Jared’s groin, but his ears and brain refused to believe the man had even spoken. That kind of human behavior was totally uncharacteristic.

“No problem,” Jared muttered, and obstinately stared at the floor, wanting the trip to be over already.

But once again Grant acted oddly. He didn’t turn around but stood there, facing Jared. “You got plans for tomorrow?”

Jared looked up, surprised and wide-eyed. “Huh? Oh, um…I was just gonna watch the fireworks from my apartment window, eating takeout and drinking tequila.” Okay, the last part was a fib, but what did it matter? This was Grant he was talking to. In five minutes, the man would have forgotten Jared even existed.

Grant frowned, cocking his head, as though he disapproved of Jared’s Fourth of July practices. “I see.”

“You?” Jared asked to be polite, though he didn’t give a rat’s ass.

“NY Philharmonic concert in the park, then a restaurant, probably.” Grant was oddly talkative. Jared was positive this was the longest conversation they had ever had. Weird. Must have been a full moon or something. Grant’s blue eyes narrowed in sharp inspection. “No family to go to, or friends?”

“They’re up in Maine. It’s just me, myself, and I here in the Big Apple.” Jared offered a flicker of a smile, even while knowing Grant would most likely not appreciate it. To hell with that infuriating man.

Grant’s eyes flashed intently, and Jared had a bad feeling. “If you don’t have any plans, you could come and work tomorrow. Lot of projects you could better catch up on. Like the solar cell efficiency charts you sent me today. There was a math error. Not to mention the information reaching me past the deadline.”

Jared straightened up, so pissed off he was practically seeing red. Who the hell did this guy think he was? God? “Tomorrow’s Independence Day. I’m not coming to work.”

“You just said you had no plans.”

“I haven’t taken a day off in eighteen months. Only public holidays.”

Grant let out a scornful chuckle. “So? I haven’t taken a vacation of any kind in seven years. That’s why I’m CFO.” And you’re not, Jared concluded the thought in his head. Damn, that guy had some nerve.

“Guess I’m not the ambitious kind. You know, a shark who devours without remorse. I don’t even shed crocodile tears. I’m not like you.” Jared realized he was pushing the envelope. In an actual fist fight with Grant, he’d lose. In a verbal match he might get on top. But since the man had power over him, to fire him or not, Jared was the inevitable loser, no matter what.

Grant’s gaze gave Jared a leisurely once-over. “No, you’re not.”

Jared was too angry to care about his fate anymore. He would end this argument with a quitting notice, that was for damn sure. “And what am I, then? Oh, right, I know. The pushover. The loser. The wimp. The short end of the stick. Yeah, you’ve certainly shown me my place, boss. Wanna know something? I fucking qu—”

A loud, sharp metallic creak echoed around them. A tremor went through the elevator, shaking it from side to side. Then the lights went out.

And then the elevator stopped moving up or down, dead in the water.

So much for sharks and the little fish they liked to eat.

ADULT EXCERPTS

That was exactly what Grant did.

His embrace tightened to extreme, almost cutting off Jared’s ability to breathe, but then he loosened his hold. Inch by torturous inch, he pushed his cock deeper, not stopping until his hips touched Jared’s buttocks.

“At your command, baby,” Grant murmured, like a warning before an attack.

Grimacing, Jared wasn’t sure how to react to being called baby, but he didn’t really get the chance to get either dismayed or pleased.

That was because Grant took no prisoners. He caressed Jared’s chest and pinched his nipples as he slid his hands lower to gather Jared’s hips into a bruising grip. Then he pulled almost all the way out, but in a heartbeat pushed back in, leaving Jared brutally claimed, weak in the knees and pleading for more.

Grant started a relentless rhythm of thrusts in and out, pounding the shit out of Jared, who could do nothing but yield and moan. Grant wrapped an arm around Jared’s upper chest in a move that forced Jared to arch up or risk breaking his back.

“Gonna fuck you so hard you’ll be ruined for other men,” Grant whispered in Jared’s ear. Though it wasn’t the most original sexual threat, it had Jared grinning. The implication was that Grant intended to keep ruining Jared for other guys, which was a delightful notion.

“Dunno. I’m pretty difficult to keep satisfied.” Jared taunted his lover simply because it tickled his fancy and because he desired to see Grant’s response.

Grant responded with an ominous chuckle, just before he gripped Jared’s hair in a hard tug and yanked his head back harsh, causing Jared to groan in a mix of pleasure and pain. His growl at Jared’s ear made his skin turn goose-bumpy. “Oh, I’m up to the task, believe me.”

Grant punctuated his point by thrusting in so hard Jared’s feet almost left the floor, leaving him trying to maintain balance barely on his tippy-toes.

“Oh my God,” Jared muttered, half in disbelief of the force his lover exercised, half in pure exaltation of getting fucked so rough.

Grant stepped back, driving Jared to follow his lead, or lose their intimate connection. Once Grant had Jared where he apparently wanted him, he tightened his hand on Jared’s nape and pressed the man’s upper body down. Jared clung to the railing, his grip white-knuckled, while his cheek lay imprinted against the glass wall, probably leaving a sweaty mark.

“Still feel like mouthing off?” Grant goaded smugly, as seemed to be his custom.

Jared was up to the challenge. “Is that the best you’ve got, cowboy?”

Grant laughed hoarsely, seemingly pleased at the dare. Just when Jared had thought there was no way his lover could ramp up his fucking, Grant rammed into him like a battering ram. Jared moaned, losing himself in the fog of perfect sex. Nothing existed but the huge cock inside him, taking him to the edge and beyond.

“What was that, honey? I couldn’t quite hear you.” Grant was making sure Jared knew his position, and what a delicious place it was.

But he’d be damned if he begged after that arrogant question. “Fuck me, damn you.”

Grant laughed teasingly and picked up the pace of his strokes, lunging deeper, harder, and faster. Jared’s mind was a blank slate, with nothing but a blood-red haze clouding his being. He didn’t want the rough mating to stop, and he no longer cared if they got caught.

After that flash of insight, Jared had no real awareness of the details of their animalistic coupling. He could only feel, floating on a wavy sea of sensations, tossed around here and there like a ragdoll.

Grant really put his back into it, as he snaked one arm around Jared’s hips and belly, and used the other to pin Jared’s neck down. He pounded into Jared with gusto, practically fucking Jared through the wall. They were both making primal noises, sounds of sex echoing around them. Skin slapping against skin, ragged breathing, low moans, all drowned out Jared’s rationality and his sense of propriety.

He surmised this was the reason why sex in elevators was typically prohibited.

Later, when he analyzed what he’d done, Jared couldn’t explain rationally why the feel of Grant’s hand on his neck, pushing him down, made his cock harder than it had ever before been.

For now, though, Jared allowed himself the illusion of being forced to submit when in truth he had been the one to ask for this treatment. Jared felt like a…a man-whore. Why was the thought so inspiring and exciting? Was it because the cock ramming into him belonged to Grant, his arch-nemesis? Had Jared known hate and fury could morph into blissful sex he might have engaged in an argument with Grant long ago.