Nicolai Powerful Read online

  I own the fucking company. They can think whatever they fucking like.

  When she’s finished her coffee, she skips obediently along with me to the foyer and the sparkling awning at the front of the hotel. My car is there, waiting.

  “A McLaren,” she says. “What happened to the Aston Martin?”

  “Wrong color,” I tell her, pleased that she noticed. Also, oddly pleased that she knows at least something about sports cars.

  “Wrong color black?” she asks me. She really was paying attention. “Exactly.” I look down into her eyes. And lift her chin with my finger.

  The scents of her. Strawberries, lavender. Milk and honey. The warmth of her butterscotch skin, the pout of her dark pink lips, I didn’t believe that anybody could make me feel the way that she does.

  And, of course, it has to be the intern at a company that I have. Is there no end to the curse of my inheritance?

  I lean close enough to taste her breath on the night air. Sparkles dance in her eyes as she looks up into my face. Her eyes are on my lips first, thickened, moist and parting for her, then she looks back up into my eyes. Thoughtful. Like she’s playing with an idea. Her eyelids lower as she inspects my cheekbones. Then my neck. My chin. She looks over my hair.

  Her tongue slips across her lips. I have a strong urge to snatch it in my mouth. My breath deepens and thickens. I’m inflamed with thoughts of thrilling her with my tongue, awakening her with my body, opening her up with my hands, then my lips and finally, spreading her wide open and filling her, stretching her wide and splitting her on the girth of my cock.

  I haven’t felt this way for a woman before. Ever. All through my younger years I was focused on other things. I was committed to the traditional idea, that the right woman would be out there for me. That I would know her as soon as I saw her. That it would be right and perfect for me when I found her.

  Time passed and I began to think there was no such a perfect woman. But I saw no point in settling for anything less. Now I’m glad that I didn’t. It feels as though this feisty, bouncy intern is her.

  It seems impossible, but if she is the one, then no matter what it takes, I will take her. Claim her. Have her for my own. Forever.

  I feel as though I already know. But I have to be certain. The costs for me will be very high indeed. Especially if I have to give up all of the family’s business interests.

  Laurel’s eyes shine when both doors of the McLaren scissor upward to open. I reach to hold her hand, to help her step in. Her smile lights me up. Then the contact, skin to skin, her small, soft hand, resting in my firm grip. I don’t ever want to let her go. If I were forced to a choice, I think I would lose the Stravinski-Romanoff group of corporations rather than let go of her.

  Seated in the passenger side of the McLaren cockpit, she seems wrapped. Enfolded. Like she is my gift and the car is merely a package to deliver her for me. Only for me.

  “Buckle up,” I tell her as I slide into the driving seat. The doors lower and slip perfectly into place, and I wait while she fastens the seat belt. She’s looking around, taking in the McLaren like a child in a candy store.

  “Do you like fast cars?”

  “I don’t think I’ve been in a car as fast as this.”

  “Well,” I slip the car into drive, “Scream if you want to go faster.”

  Inside, the cockpit is black, apart from the highly focused instrument panel. I spin the small, race-developed steering wheel. The car is practically track-ready. It reacts super fast to the lightest touch on all the controls. A precise nudge on the gas and we catapult into the traffic.

  The 600LT is tiny and extremely lightweight. Acceleration slams us firmly back into the contoured hold of the leather seats. Almost on the ground, we’re at the height of the wheels of yellow cabs as we slice through the night-time city traffic. We dart close and tight through minute gaps, flipping and turning, nimble and fast.

  On public streets, I use just a fraction of the car’s potential. The superfast Inertia Push gears shift instantly through the dual-clutch seven-speed gearbox, giving me an intoxicating sense of engagement. Like the car is an extension of me, we dart and weave fast through night roads.

  I see Laurel’s eyes flick and shine. Her chest heaves. With her hands in her lap, her thighs part.

  “There’s no rug,” she says, as we zip along the riverside road.

  “Weight,” I tell her. “The car is built with an obsession for performance.”

  “I was impressed that you didn’t want to take credit for the website and your brilliant algorithm.”

  She smiles. “I don’t want the bank’s clients calling me up to ask about it.” she says. I’m sure that isn’t the whole story, either.

  “Still,” I tell her, “It’s impressive. For an intern to pass up on a big hunk of credit that way, it must have taken some restraint on your part.”

  “I was impressed that you offered me the credit.” As we make a turn and shoot up through the park, her voice catches. Then she says, “It isn’t something that happens too much at SBB.”

  “No?” We flash around a statue at the edge of the park.

  “Everybody there is very focused on reputation and how they’re stacking up next to each other.” Her hands press onto her thighs. I want my hands there. I flick the McLaren into a sharp right, into the warehouse district. This is where the address she gave me is.

  “So,”I ask her, “Why does the internship matter so much to you?”

  Her voice comes back on a long, heartfelt sigh. “It matters because it’s my chance to break free from the plans my daddy has for me.”

  “What does he want you to do?”

  “He wants me to have a three- or four-year career in venture capital. Then marry well, preferably to a banker or a senator-to-be. Have children. Three, for choice. Stay home and be a mom till they’re in college. Go back into finance and VC in time to take over his business from him when he decides to retire.”

  “Quite a plan.”

  “Way too much plan for me.”

  With half a mile of straight, clear road, I give the McLaren some speed. Her breath shallows. She’s pinned back in the seat and her face shines.

  Then she asks me, “So?”

  “So what?”

  “So, what made you think the internship was important to me?”

  “Your algorithm,” I tell her. “You could build an excellent business on that alone.”

  “I know.”

  “But you brought it to us.” I look across into her eyes. “That’s how I know.”

  “I’m glad to have you paying me such close attention.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes.” She holds my gaze. “It does make me a little afraid, though.”

  “I’m a powerful man.”

  “You really are.”

  I figure she’s living either in a derelict squat or a fairly expensive loft. It’s amazing to me that it could be either. But I have a strong hunch. We reach the building, and I spin the car in front of the entrance to make a perfect stop.

  We’re silent in the car for a moment. I watch the rise and fall of her chest. Listen to the silky soft wisps of her breath. “The elevator is big enough to take a car,” she tells me. “And it goes right into my loft. If you’d like a coffee, you can bring the car up with you.”

  What a bundle of wonderful surprises she is.

  The big freight elevator carries us and the McLaren up to the top floor. Her loft occupies the whole floor. I drive the car out and park it by a hatstand. Areas of the loft are zoned off by moveable screens. A seating area in the center has two wide couches an several armchairs around a coffee table. All very minimal and stylish.

  “Not the kind of an apartment I expect an intern to have.”

  “No?” She looks back over her shoulder at me as she makes espressos with an Italian mocha on an induction hob.

  “I know the bank doesn’t pay you a salary.” She pours the coffee and takes the two demitasse
cups over to the coffee table. “Are you an heiress? Do you have a wealthy lover?”

  “Ah,” she says, sitting in one of the chairs. “I was about to tell you, but then you changed the scope of the question.”

  I sit on the couch, opposite her, across the table. Her smile is mischievous.

  “So,” I say, “Now you’re not going to tell me?”

  She takes a sip of her coffee. Her nose wrinkles as she smiles and shakes her head.

  “Because I asked if you have a lover?”

  “You asked if I had a wealthy lover.”

  “Oh. So if I’d asked you, did you have an impoverished lover, you would have told me?”

  Chapter Seven

  Her

  JUST WHEN I THINK that I’m keeping up a good front with him, one look and he still practically terrifies me. How well I’m hiding it, I just don’t know. He’s so off-the-charts hot, but no matter how much time I spend with him, I don’t think I’ll ever know what’s coming next.

  Now, out of nowhere he tells me, “Laurel, you are the woman for me.” I gulp. “You are the dream that I had almost forgotten, so long ago. The secret wish that I had all but abandoned. Until I saw you.”

  I clear my throat. “Do you talk to all of your employees like this, or only the vulnerable interns?”

  His eyes gleam. “I think you may be innocent, Laurel, and I think you may be pure. In fact, I’m sure that you are.” He’s watching my eyes. I don’t allow them to move or shift. I’m not telling him that. But then I have the sense that I have told him. Some little micro-movement that he’s read in my face has told on me.

  He sits back, smiling. “I certainly would not call you vulnerable, though. Above everything else, what we Russian men prize in a woman is strength. Strength of mind and character. You have those strengths, Laurel. I feel them in you.”

  His nostrils flare as he takes a long breath. “For my woman, my queen, I will be a wall. I will keep her safe against any weather, any war. Any force at all, be it nature or man. The only thing, the only force that can ever stand up to me, is my woman.”

  I sigh.

  Trying to reassemble my composure, I ask him, “Aren’t there rules in the company against employees having sexual relations?”

  “There are.” He sits forward. Closer now. “It’s a moot point whether I am an employee. But still, let’s assume that I am. Is this sexual for you, yet?”

  “I don’t know.” I tell him, truthfully, “I would say it seems to be heading in that direction.”

  “Well,” he tells me, “That will be your first instruction.”

  I straighten up and my eyes stretch. “You’re going to instruct me?”

  He sits straight, too. Tall in the chair. Like he’s ready to stand. “Of course. Yes, I’m going to instruct you.”

  I swallow. I can feel the heat between us rising. “In what sense? Will you, ‘instruct,’ as in give me instruction; teach me, give me guidance and correction? Or do you mean you are going to give me orders?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which?”

  “Both.”

  “Oh.”

  Involuntarily I cross my legs. Slowly. He watches. Without hiding it. He watches as my hips tilt and twist. His eyes react as my thighs swish under the dress, and he looks frankly at the flesh of my inner thigh. He watches my knee rise, and he watches my eyes. I watch him, watching me. I can hardly breathe.

  I sink deeper, back into the seat.

  “Stand.” he tells me. The instruction is a shock.

  I stand, holding the sides of my dress. His head tips back and his nostrils flare. A greedy look is in his eye.

  He rises to stand in front of me. I’m holding myself as defiant as I can. Determined to stay strong. For whatever is coming next. Being directed makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  “Turn,” he tells me. His voice is firm. I obey him. It scares me. In a way that I like. I had no idea.

  In front of him, I obey him. I turn. Slowly. As prettily as I can. I feel like the model ballerina on a musical box. Obedient. Responsive. A lovely plaything. I want him to bend me over a chair. Take me. Now.

  “Lift up your hair,” he commands me.

  “Like this?”

  His gaze slides over my neck like a caress.

  Then my eyes pop as he lands a slap like a whip on my ass.

  His face is hard. No mercy. A thrilling chill drips through me.

  “Sir,” I gasp.

  My lips curl, and I ask him, “Like this, sir?”

  I lift my hair higher, to give him a better view of my neck.

  “Oh, yes,” with gravel in his sigh, he says, “I like that. Your neck is beautiful.”

  I smell my own heat. I never felt this way before. Obedient. Like I am his now. His to command. His to play with and do as he will. I feel that I am giving him my consent.

  Chapter Eight

  Him

  “TAKE OFF THAT DRESS.”

  “You still want me to tell you, when this becomes sexual?”

  Looking in her eyes, I nod.

  “Yes. Tell me.”

  “This feels pretty sexual.”

  “Is that bad for you? Or is it good?”

  “It’s really bad. In the best way. And it’s good in the worst way.”

  “Good.”

  “But the company rules…”

  “Oh. You’re fired. Obviously.”

  Her mouth opens. She’s about to speak. “I can re-hire you just as easily.” Relief rises, pale pink in her face. “But I will decide when.” She nods. Obedient.

  “Now. The dress.”

  “Yes. Sir.”

  The little black figure-hugging dress perfectly highlights her beauty. Her full breasts and her round ass fill it to perfection. She reaches up the back of the dress. Pulls down the zipper. When she peels it down, slips out her shoulders, shrugs it off her breasts, she shows me the soft curves of her stomach, the slopes of her hips. And her ass. She slides the dress down over her hips, lets it fall, fluttering to a pool on the floor around her feet.

  She stands in heels and stockings. Her soft, curvy form is tantalizingly outlined in black, lacy underwear.

  Suddenly she’s self-conscious. She raises her arms to cover herself behind her elbows. Her thighs cross.

  “I feel exposed. I want to be better than I am,” she says. “I want you to see something more beautiful, more perfect than I am under these clothes. I don’t want you to see this,” she says, and then bites her lip. “I don’t want you to see me this way.”

  I should punish her for not saying, ‘Sir.’ But we can be real in twin tracks for a moment, this is important for her to understand. Everything will radiate out from this moment.

  I tell her firmly. “Stand up straight. Lift your head high.” She does it. Even her shyness is a perfection. “You’re beautiful. Beyond perfect.”