My knees almost give out at the perfection of being held by Gunner.
My savior.
I slide my arms up around his neck and inhale the woodsy scent from his clothes, nearly moaning when he wraps me up tight, one arm around my shoulders, one low around the small of my back. And when I look up, I see he’s snarling at the men on the elevator, baring his teeth at them in a possessive way that turns me on as much as it gives me hope. If he’s possessive over me, there is no way he’ll allow me to remain on the sugar babies website, right?
He’ll have no choice but to claim me.
The elevator closes once again, taking away the foursome of men.
“I have their faces on camera, Josie. They’ll be fired before the hour is out. They’ll be so ruined in this city, they’ll have no choice but to leave.” He exhales a curse. “I was watching the camera feed. I worried the elevator wouldn’t get here in time, baby—”
“It did. Now I’m safe,” I whisper into his neck, snuggling closer. “Thank you, Papa.”
Between our tightly-pressed bodies, Gunner becomes erect. I hear him swallow hard, one of his hands getting lost in the pink ruffles of my skirt. “What is this outfit you’re wearing? Throw in these pigtails and you look like a school girl.”
“I am a school girl.”
“Perhaps you should be punished like one,” he rasps, dragging his hand up the back of my skirt and kneading my right cheek—just one glorious time—before he rips his hand away, disentangling from me with a shaky curse. “Enough of this, Josie. Goddammit.”
Feeling abandoned, I default to my flirtatious routine, biting my bottom lip and twisting side to side. “You’re the one who brought me here.”
Gunner’s attention drops to my breasts and heats. “I must have been insane,” he mutters thickly, taking me by the wrist. “Don’t make eye contact with any of the men on the trading floor, is that understood?”
Laughing, I allow Gunner to drag me out of the deserted marble elevator bank and down a hallway. At the end of it, there is a reception desk, a sweeping, brightly lit office beyond, packed full of analysts and traders, all glued to their computers. “Why can’t I make eye contact?”
I’m caught off guard when Gunner wheels around, pressing me up against the wall of the hallway, his hard face an inch from me. “You perpetually look like you need to be fucked. That’s why. Every man you look at sees an invitation.”
His big chest and stomach are pinning me and I love it. “That’s their problem, not mine.”
“Don’t. Look. At a single one of them, Josie.” Lightly, his hand circles my throat, tightening ever so slightly. “In my current mood, if one of them showed interest in you, they would be removed from my employ immediately.”
“Why?” I trail a finger down his chest. “Because you want me all to yourself?”
He’s right on the verge of saying yes. I can tell. But at the last second, he blows out an unsteady breath and continues leading me down the hallway and through the office. It’s definitely in my nature to make eye contact with some inconsequential boy just to incite Gunner. What can I say? I’m sassy like that. But I want to be alone with him too badly to blow my chance. So I keep my eyes down on the sapphire-blue carpet until we’re safely enclosed in his office.
I’ve been in my father’s office, which is impressive, but Gunner’s is even more so. Two walls made up entirely of windows overlooking the financial district. A leather sofa in front of a fireplace. And on the other side of the office, there are built in bookshelves behind a humongous desk. He leads me over to it now, hitting a button on his phone that brings down the blinds on the windows, darkening the office, except for the flicker of the fireplace and the glow of his computer.
With a firm hand on my back, Gunner bends me forward over his desk, putting my face right in front of the screen—and there it is. The sugar babies website has been pulled up and my profile is open. Just knowing he looked at these pictures of me so scantily dressed wets my panties, makes me restlessly hot.
“Josie Elizabeth Lancaster,” Gunner says, using my full name, his hand flat between my shoulder blades, his lap pressed to my bottom. “You tell me right now that someone stole these pictures. That you didn’t voluntarily put them up on this horrific website.”
“I…I…”
“Josie, you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I did,” I whisper, my breath fogging up the computer screen. “How…who sent you this? How did you find out?”
Gunner lets out a hiss of breath over my confession, his big hand twisting in the back of my tank top. “A friend sent it to me, urging me to try the service. A service where men my age find young girls to fuck between business meetings. It’s inexcusable. It’s wrong.”