Bossman's List Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue To Bossman’s List

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Personal Note from Ashlee

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue To Bossman’s List

  More from Ashlee Price

  Copyright

  Keep in Touch

  Bossman’s List

  A Billionaire Christmas Office Romance

  By Ashlee Price

  Personal Note from Ashlee

  Thank you so much for downloading Bossman’s List!

  I can't wait for you to get into this steamy story. A hot holiday romance that is sure to keep you warm during these cold winter nights.

  I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

  I've also included bonus content as a way of saying thank-you for supporting a small indie author with big dreams.

  Happy Reading :-)

  Ashlee xoxo

  Prologue

  I rode him hard, grinding my hips down on him, jamming his stiff prick into me from below, hot and thick, as the darkness of midnight swirled around us. My body felt like it was acting on its own, a second being with its own brain, its own desires, its own means of getting what it wanted. I leaned forward, fingers splayed over each one of his hairy thighs just above the knees while I dropped down harder, barely able to take him all the way in.

  What am I doing? I had to ask myself. I don’t do this kind of thing. This isn’t me, this isn’t Sheryl Francis.

  I turned to look back, spine straining as my hips bobbed, my blonde hair falling over my blue eyes. Can’t make out his face, I heard my own voice echo in the back of my mind. Gotta see his face.

  It was only then that I realized I wasn’t even sure who it was. The room was dark, and I wasn’t even sure if it was my own. The fixtures and pictures were blurred and hard to make out in the deep shadows. The thrill of it struck me hard, question mark curling in my crotch, my brain swimming with possibilities crashing like waves against my inner walls.

  Is this it? I asked myself, suddenly more interested in myself than my lover. Is it finally going to happen? Please, God, please let it happen. My own begging voice turned me on, cracking with helplessness and brimming with hope and craving. Please, please, please… finally make me come!

  I ground down harder, up and down and in circular motions, a lump rising in my throat. My fingers clawed into his muscular thighs, tightening under my grip. He bucked hard, pushing me up like some great Brahma bull trying to throw me. But I held on. Neither of us wanted to be separated from the other. We only wanted to get closer. He fought to push himself all the way into me, and I struggled to wrap my body around him, shaking and pounding and grinding and bucking, the bed straining beneath us, springs crying out for mercy.

  I wanted to speak, but the words got caught in my throat as my breath huffed out and my head fell forward in helpless resignation, hair damp with my sweat and falling in stringy sheets over my face. I could feel it coming, that mythical explosion I’d never managed to set off, a tripwire no man had stumbled upon despite feverish searching.

  It felt like it was rising in me, the way it had so many times before, but it remained the tickling promise of something grand, something incredible, something still beyond my reach.

  And my lover seemed to know it. He wanted me to come, he wanted to be the one to make it happen, and I wanted to beg him to be the one, the man I’d been waiting for, the man of my dreams.

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t come, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t breathe.

  My lover knew these things too, and his strong arms reached up from beneath and behind me, hands finding the back of one of my thighs, pulling it up as the other hand eased me around until my palms and knees were flat against the mattress. He knelt behind me, his amazing meat still deep inside me, and the twist and wrench as we changed positions was almost enough to send me over the edge.

  Almost.

  He thrust his hips in a back-and-forth piston pounding behind me, deeper than before, my splayed legs giving him more access, deeper thrusts pushing the blood faster in my veins as my sweat glands struggled to keep up.

  He shook his hips occasionally to interrupt his rhythm, which only got faster after every frantic shake. Shake and pound, thrusting hard and deep. My fingers dug into the bed sheets, already damp and curling around my trembling fists.

  “You like that?” he asked. At least that’s what I thought I heard him say. His voice wasn’t clear, wasn’t recognizable over my own heated panting. I wanted to answer, but I couldn’t, so I settled for huffing and nodding instead. I did like it. I liked it a lot.

  But not quite enough.

  My legs splayed wider, knees sliding on the bed sheets, body sinking lower as he railed me, every bit of his effort and attention fixed on the same spot as my own: that mysterious curl in my loins, rising and expanding but refusing to burst, contracting and recoiling back into my most secret recesses. No, I wanted scream at my elusive orgasm, don’t you do it again, don’t you run away from me!

  But even if I couldn’t put words to my needs, my lover seemed to understand. And he was ready to take measures I’d never expected. The slap came hard and quick, a lightning bolt of stinging pain shooting up my body with the crack of his palm against my left butt cheek. The second slap was even harder, the effect even greater. His strong fingers kneaded my ass, hard and soothing, and my nerves trembled under his commanding grip.

  Another slap filled the room with that crisp snap. I sucked in a gasp while he kneaded even harder, my muscles tensing and relaxing, my whole body shaking with that strike and the next, each punctuated with hard squeezes which nearly made my knees buckle.

  My lover rasped, “You been a bad girl?” My ears twitched to hear his voice, but I still couldn’t place it. My ears and my ass were still ringing with those hard slaps when yet another came fast and sharp to derail my train of thought. There was no deducing anything, no thinking about him or myself or anything else.

  Except one thing.

  His other hand reached out from behind me, grabbing my hair and closing around those sweat-damp locks in a fist, his gentle power easing my head back with just the slightest pull. My skull rang out with a slight electric charge, manageable and even desirable pain shooting straight into my brain, ringing in my ears. A bit further back and my spine arched, hips curling upward, ass ready for another hard crack from that big, flat palm, fingers digging in for another deep massage.

  Thwack!

  My orgasm started to roil inside of me. I knew it was going to happen. Another few strikes and there’d be no turning
back.

  Thwack!

  My walls pressed together, taught and tight, clamping down on that delicious dick railing my pussy. His hands were slapping my ass and pulling my hair, stinging, hitting me from both ends, top to bottom, meeting somewhere in the middle. My stomach rolled, my lungs cramped, my pelvis shuddered.

  So close, I heard my own inner voice reassure me, so… so close… so… so….

  My spine clicked and popped as he pulled my head back just a bit further, another hard slap punctuating a harder, deeper pump, each one registering in the back of my head while the rest of my body pushed and pulled in response to his pummeling prick. My teeth clenched, my eyes clamped shut… and that orgasm slithered away, just out of reach.

  No, I wanted to cry out, no, come back, damn you… come back!

  My lover wasn’t ready to let my climax escape my clenched grip any more than I was. He flipped me over and my back hit the sheets, legs swinging around under his certain grip as he deftly manipulated my body to be just where we both wanted it to be. I looked up at him, finally able to see his face, bathed in a shaft of moonlight streaming in through the window. His hair was long, casting a shadow over his features. But he was not a man I knew, or at least not as I knew him.

  Is this somebody I know as I wish he was, as I’d want him to be? No, nobody I know, nobody who could possibly exist; a fever dream, a figment of my imagination.

  There was no more time for reason or wonder, no room for doubt or concern. My body was fractured, squeezing out the last of its strength to corner that climax and force it out of hiding. But the more I searched, the more I struggled, the more I realized how futile it was.

  “C’mon, baby,” my lover growled, his voice still strange to my ears, foreign, “you can do it, I know you can!”

  I shook my head. “No,” I rasped out, “I… I can’t… I… I can’t!”

  He eased my legs up, knees to my breasts, shifting up and forward and driving me even harder, and suddenly my body was collapsing around him like an old house whose occupants still remained hidden within. Crack and crash, slap and pump and clench and curl, I fell apart under those twin wrecking balls, my walls crumbling, clouds of dust rising up around us.

  And I disappeared in the wreckage.

  ***

  My eyes shot open, unfocused, as my mind swam to place itself. Spine stiff, arms at my sides, I looked around in a pitch of urgent confusion. My little Brooklyn bedroom surrounded me, familiar photos of my parents on the walls, souvenirs of my life back in Oregon. I sighed, perspiration trickling down between my breasts as I dropped my head back onto the damp pillow.

  Just a dream, I told myself yet again. Countless midnight disappointments such as this had lined up to tell the story of my life, if it could be called that. Just a dream, and this damn dream never comes true!

  Chapter 1

  The hot water poured over my body, slowly bringing me back to life. I was exhausted from my fitful night’s sleep and the lusty dream that was still dominating my imagination. The water ran down my breasts, washing the film of night sweat from the pert, proud mounds of my womanhood. I’d blossomed in my teens, developing a tight gymnast’s body with strong legs that were womanly and inviting and the subject of fantasy for countless schoolboys and schoolgirls in my classes, plus teachers and coaches and my martial arts instructor. But those people were all in my past, and at twenty-three I still didn’t know what my future would hold.

  I looked myself over in the bathroom mirror as I applied just the slightest bit of makeup. I would never brag about myself—because I wasn’t so sure there was all that much to brag about—but I wasn’t complaining about the gifts I’d received, either. Boys had always liked me, found me pretty; with the big blue eyes and button nose, I had a body a lot of girls envied. I’d always wished I was a bit taller, but I also considered myself lucky to have ten fingers and ten toes.

  I put on one of my better business suits, a gray skirt and jacket with a white peasant blouse and stockings. Grabbing a heavy Eddie Bauer coat to protect myself from the New York winter’s chill, I headed out into the living room of the little Brooklyn apartment I shared with Ricardo Tellez.

  Must still be asleep, I reasoned. It was easy to imagine the night of rave dancing and ecstasy he’d enjoyed. He’d earned it, as far as I was concerned. If it hadn’t been for Ricardo, I’m not sure I ever would have survived my first few months in New York, let alone the following year. He’d befriended me when I was alone and vulnerable, taught me things I needed to know about life in the Big Apple. And I was so grateful for his friendship, his protection, that I couldn’t stand to tell him how sad I thought it was that he raved every night, slept all day, and didn’t get nearly as much work as his photographic skills deserved. I’d gotten him what I could through Alister Fashions’ Powerplay magazine, but he’d need more.

  We all needed more.

  Not sure whether to envy Ricardo or pity him, I took a deep breath and stepped out into the morning rush hour of one of the most challenging cities on Earth.

  The subway rattled across Brooklyn toward Manhattan, the clattering of wheels and gears shaking the train as it pushed forward. The train stank of urine, and so did much of New York, something I thought I’d grow used to one of these days.

  Advertisements were defaced with mustaches and ink-drawn spoken word bubbles, turning smiling models into hideous, black-toothed molesters. Beneath them, dead -eyed passengers sat staring out into some imagined distance ahead of them, bodies lightly jostled by the ride but senses too numbed to be irritated. What are they thinking, I asked myself as the train sped on, what are they seeing in their imaginations? They all look so sad, so beaten down. I suppose they’re thinking about their tragedies, spouses deserting them, children dying from accidents or disease, the slow encroaching cancer of loneliness? Or are they reflecting on their own mistakes, the tragedies they brought upon themselves? Don’t we all do that eventually, given the opportunity and despite our best efforts to make the very best and the very most of our lives? Are they sitting there regretting the day they quit their job, the day they took that risk or asked that existential question, “What am I doing with my life?” Those are the questions that can do the most damage, the kind that can’t be undone.

  I couldn’t help but think about my own life. I’d been in New York for less than two years and had secured a job working directly for the CEO of one of the world’s leading fashion design firms. True, I wasn’t a designer, more like a personal assistant, but I was on a fast track to success. I hadn’t made any life-ruining mistakes.

  Yet.

  But I understood doubt. I knew the lingering echo of those ultimate questions: Who am I, what am I doing here, is this what I really want? Will I ever find that, or even know what it is?

  Luckily my stop came up before I got too deep into my first existential crisis of the morning. I had to push my way out of the car with the others before the tide of waiting passengers pushed themselves in. The rudeness of the crowds in the city always irritated me. Being five-foot-four in a five-ten city was bad enough; getting shoved around in a stampede made every journey a challenge, not to mention a complete pain in the ass.

  Manhattan was sheeted in snow, but the grime of the gutters had pushed its way up into that virginal white to create oily gray sludge caking the streets and sidewalks between mounds of shoveled powder. Cars belched toxic gasses into the air, which mixed with the reek of pee and body odor, moldering under wool coats, to create a nauseating mist. Pedestrians pushed on in each direction, shoulders up, scarves wrapped around their necks, breath clouding up in front of them. I held my own coat closed, legs chilly as I walked down Fifth Avenue. Homeless men and women sat crouching against the feet of grand marble buildings, the palaces of billionaires. I stopped to give one man a five-dollar bill, but it was too cold to share a smile. He didn’t seem interested in that anyway.

  “You really shouldn’t do that.” I turned to see an old woman glaring at me, wrapped
in a fur coat and matching hat. She wore a snarl that was coated in lipstick. Her wrinkled cheeks barely supported the weight of her base and rouge, and her withered old eyes were hardly strong enough to support her thick, black fake eyelashes. But she had a bitterness that seemed to give her the strength to carry on, not to mention meddle in somebody else’s business.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Give them money like that,” the woman said, her emerald ring catching a glint of light. “It only encourages them.”

  I had to smile. “But that’s just what I’m trying to do.” With that, I left her, but I could feel the old shrew glaring at me as I walked away.

  I arrived at the Alister Fashions building on the corner of Fifth and East Fifty-Seventh Street. It was a tall steel-and-glass skyscraper, modern and sleek, a fortune made manifest. This was where I’d caught my lucky break, and this was where I’d make my future, I was sure of it.

  But just how I was going to do that was anybody’s guess. I’d thought I’d make it as a fashion designer, but that dream was beginning to seem every bit as real as the one I’d had the night before.

  Don’t complain, my inner voice chided me, always ready to put me in my place. You’ve got a job with a future and a roof over your head. You’re making ends meet and, most importantly, you’re still here. They haven’t sent you back to Oregon with your tail between your legs just yet!

  I threw my shoulders back and stepped into the lobby, which was warm and plush, guarded and elegant, with a delicate pine scent to bring out the charm of the holidays. The lobby, and in fact the whole building, was so different from my apartment in Brooklyn, my life back in Oregon, that I wondered if this was really my life, if I was really meant to be there.

  But that’s where I was, and that’s where I’d stay for as long as humanly possible.

  Five minutes later I was sitting next to the great man himself.

  “We were up ten percent in the last quarter,” John Alister said, sitting at the head of a long conference table, posture impeccable, shoulders back, graying black hair combed back to reveal his handsome, weathered face. His body was still strong despite his receding youth, and he had a kind of power, a gravitas, that younger men I’d known had been sorely lacking. Behind him, a flat screen TV mounted on the wall was dominated by a colored pie graph. “That’s two percent down from the previous quarter.”