Corrupted Chaos: An Enemies to Lovers Forced Proximity Romance (Tarnished Empire)

The next day flew by because Cade and I actually worked together in unison. He wanted JUNIPER to be a freaking breeze, same as I did, and he seemed to want it done ASAP. I wasn’t sure if it was because I said no screwing around until then or if it was because we were getting closer to this retreat being over.

Still, I texted Lucas that I had to work, then sat down across from Cade. Of course Lucas asked for a pic of our boss in the morning, and I smirked as I silently tried to sneak one. Even if my whole work team was spending the day out in a wilderness paradise, frolicking around while I worked, I really had nothing to complain about. My view was just as good.

Or bad if I was trying to keep my hands to myself. Which I was.

I chanted in my head that I really was. But Cade wore those damn glasses as he worked, and every now and then, he’d push them up the bridge of his nose like a drop-dead gorgeous geek I wanted to lick for the rest of the day.

Not only that, he’d had breakfast delivered before I woke up, and because he wasn’t sure of what I wanted, he had them bring waffles and pancakes and doughnuts and eggs and freaking fruit.

When I sent off my picture to Lucas, Cade immediately said, “If you get to take pictures of me, don’t be mad when I take some of you.”

My face heated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You hold your phone at a very different angle when you’re taking pictures, dollface.”

“Whatever,” I grumbled and eyed the feast between us on the table. “I don’t need to eat any of this.” I normally drank coffee and counted calories for breakfast.

“Eat some of it, or I’ll force-feed it to you,” he replied without looking up from his laptop.

I chose some fruit and a waffle, so as not to appear ungrateful. Then, as I started to cut a doughnut in half, he grabbed the whole thing, put it on my plate, and firmly placed it right by my laptop.

“Eat your food,” he repeated.

I rolled my eyes, but complied, because it wasn’t worth the argument. Plus, I wanted the food anyway. The chefs at this retreat were outstanding, but I had no idea where they were even making the food. “Where do you think they get this food? Is someone cooking in a cabin around the corner?”

“Probably.” Cade shrugged, completely bored with the topic of conversation. “Coffee is on the counter for you.”

“Oh! Thank you.” I hopped up to grab it and search for the sugar.

“Already added the sugar, Izzy. I bet it’ll taste as good as Rodney’s.”

So, he’d been listening to everything I said the night before. I took a sip and let him have this one. “Tastes even better.”

He couldn’t hide the way the corners of his mouth lifted a bit as I sat back down. Then, he sent me a file to work on, and we typed away for the next hour in silence. At some point, my back started to hurt from sitting on the wooden bench, so I grabbed my laptop to go work in bed.

First, I changed into some jean shorts and a blouse for team building later. I wasn’t sure if they’d have me talk about JUNIPER, and I wanted to appear semi-professional.

After a minute or two of diving into more emails, I got a message on my computer screen.

Cade: Why did you leave the table?

Me: I had to change, and it’s more comfortable in bed.

Cade: You’re going to fall asleep instead of work.

Me: I’m not. I work in bed sometimes. I feel like it gives me a different perspective.

Cade: Seems like a dangerous place to be.

Me: Why?

Cade: Because it only takes a second for your cabin partner to slide between your legs or for your hand to wander where it shouldn’t.

Me: Don’t start. We have work to do.

Cade: I stopped working the moment you told me you were in our bed.

Me: Technically, one half of the bed is yours. The other half is mine. It’s very clear from the spray-painted line.

Cade: Line seems a bit blurry to me.

Me: Leave me alone.

Cade: Why did you change?

Me: Because we have a team-building event in ONE hour.

Cade: What are you wearing?

Me: Just a blouse and shorts.

Cade: Can your hand slip into those shorts easily?

Cade: If it can, be sure to let me know how wet that pussy is for me.

Sexting and digital play was something I thought would never turn me on but having Cade message me from the other room had me pretty much soaked. Especially when I pictured him sitting at that table with those strong fingers typing away, black ink under his rolled-up sleeves, and the veins protruding from his forearms.

I pressed the ignore button on my messenger app and tried to stay on task. But I couldn’t help myself once he’d put the idea there. My hand roved over my jean shorts, and I pushed the seam of the fabric back and forth between my legs.

He caught me like that, my eyes closed and a soft gasp escaping my lips. I jumped, and my laptop almost went flying. Cade had padded quietly down the hallway and leaned on the doorframe with those fucking glasses. “No need to stay quiet, Izzy. I like the sound you make when your pussy is being played with.”

“Jesus, I was not doing that!” When I chanced a look at him, he was smiling at me like we were breaking all the rules and he was going to bask in every second of it.

“Did you check your daily tasks yet?”

I chewed on my cheek and went to the daily tasks. There were a few left—one of which was to call Stonewood Enterprises and update the owner on our progress, and the last was what he wanted me to see.

Task: Unbutton your shorts.

“Hand in the shorts is going to feel better anyway, right?” He lifted a brow, not letting go of the fact that he’d caught me in the act.

“Unfortunately, I have to call the freaking owner of Stonewood Enterprises to tell him we are minutes away from finishing up JUNIPER for testing with the team. So I guess I won’t be doing that.”

“Izzy, the call can wait. Your orgasm can’t. Play with yourself for me,” he commanded, the last words low, an unspoken threat.

I waited, like I was going to defy him. I wanted to know my punishment.

“You wait another minute, and I’ll corrupt your whole computer, dollface. Then you won’t be able to work at all.”

Shit, he was good. It was the only thing I didn’t want. I would have taken him smacking my ass or getting his belt. It meant he wanted this; he was practically begging for it by actually threatening me with something.

That had my heart galloping with the rush of pleasing him, of seeing his desire for me, of him at my mercy.

Taking my time, I closed my laptop and set it aside. “Fine. You want this so bad, Mr. Armanelli. Let’s give you what you came for. Tell me what you want.”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Unbutton your shorts and push them down.”

I slowly pulled the button open on my shorts but stopped there. I wasn’t about to give him all of me by discarding my clothing simply because he asked. “This will have to do, Cade,” I snarked, and then I shoved my hand into my panties and moaned, feeling the nerves on my clit singing from receiving attention so quickly. This was me. I wanted it fast, raw, and with my clothes still on, like I could get it anywhere just thinking about it. He’d see how fast I could barrel into an emotion, into an orgasm, how fast I could be consumed. My eyes rolled back as I rolled my hips, but Cade didn’t let me get lost that quickly.

“Open your eyes, Izzy. And slow down.”

My eyes shot open, but I didn’t slow down. I went faster, my breath, my heartbeat, the heat rising on my body. “I’m taking it how I want it, Cade.”

I worked my clit, rolling it between my fingertips, and I watched as he fisted his hands at his sides, as his neck tensed, as he licked his lips. He was holding back, not coming to me, leaving me to chase the orgasm on my own. I loved how he stared at me with desire, how he wore those glasses still—like he was researching me, analyzing me, decoding me.

I slid a finger inside and moaned. There was no lasting when he watched me like this, when I felt like I was doing everything wrong, but it felt so right. I screamed his name when I orgasmed, and my whole body convulsed as I saw stars.

He pushed himself from the doorway and strode over to his side of the bed where he sat before grabbing the wrist at my shorts. He pulled my hand from my panties and sucked my fingers clean. “Jesus Christ, you taste so damn good when you’re being bad, baby doll.”

And before I knew what he was doing, he stuck his phone in my face and snapped a picture. “What the hell, Cade?”

“One for one, doll. You took mine, and now I took yours.” He slid his phone back into his pocket, and then his dark eyes, warm as molasses, roved over me.

“Oh no.” I shoved him back. “Stay on your side. We have a team-building exercise in twenty minutes. Heather said we’ll be doing a paddleboard relay race before I assign teams to work on the different parts of JUNIPER.”

“Well, you can be late.”

“No. You and I are not going to be late.” I poked him in the chest. “You have to come.”

“For what?”

“For people to see you and trust you and want to work with you,” I said as I grabbed my pink bikini.

He eyed it. “You’re wearing that for a paddleboard relay?”

“Yep. And I’m hoping it falls all the way off,” I threw back because I knew he was going to say something about it being too skimpy.

He groaned, padded over to his suitcase, and grabbed swim trunks, surprisingly without saying a word. Then, he went to his bathroom to change. I thought I was winning as I threw on my bathing suit and sucked on a candy cane in the living room, waiting for him.

My plan went completely off the rails when he walked down the hallway in nothing but dark swim trunks. I’d never seen the way his tattoos wrapped around his chest, how the black snaked over his skin. When he moved, each of his muscles flexed.

Caden Armanelli hid that perfect body under those tailored suits he wore, but not today. He had two towels hanging off one arm, and he grabbed some sunglasses from the counter to put on before he said, “You ready?”

The answer was no.

I leaned against the table for support. I knew I was drooling too.

How had I never considered that he’d look so good without a shirt on in the sunlight? “I don’t think . . .” How was I going to get around this? “Why don’t you have a shirt on?”

His brow furrowed. “What? Why don’t you have a shirt on, dollface?”

I glanced down at myself, completely forgetting what I had on. “I have a bathing suit on.”

“So do I.”

“But you are . . . You look . . . You’re the boss.”

“I don’t care what I am. If you’re getting in that water wearing a swimsuit you might lose, I’m getting in it with you. Now, let’s go.”

“Instead of focusing on what might be happening with my swimsuit, focus on being the boss, Cade. The team needs to see you.” I was telling him as much myself, goddamn it.

“The team has a boss. Me. Whether they like me or not doesn’t matter.”

“It always matters. Respect makes a person work harder. Just because you’re their boss and they might fear losing their jobs doesn’t mean they are going to do the job well. Haven’t you ever heard that?”

He stared at me for a second too long, and his eyes changed. “I used to think the same about my father, about my family. We didn’t need fear; we needed respect. My brother and I made friends rather than enemies.”

“See?” I pointed out and shrugged as I walked past him through the doorway. At least maybe now we’d get somewhere, even if I had to look at how hot my boss was throughout the whole day.

I stomped out to the paddleboard relay and tried to hide my frown and irritation when basically every girl swarmed Cade. Lucas was by my side in a hot second, too, telling me exactly what he would do if he got Cade alone. It definitely wasn’t subtle, or professional, but I didn’t blame him. That body and those tattoos had everyone drooling.

Then, I was even more frustrated when Cade did exactly what he was supposed to do. He freaking interacted and swam and engaged with everyone on the team. He joked with them. He laughed. An outsider would assume he belonged there, like he was a part of us, like he wasn’t the callous boss everyone made him out to be.

The fucker won the paddleboard relay for his team too. All of a sudden, the billionaire tech mogul was an avid paddleboarder? I swear I almost shoved him off the damn thing.

And after, everyone was more than willing to accept job tasks for JUNIPER. They even complimented us on a great team retreat, as if I had something to do with it.

Cade nearly knocked me off my feet when he told everyone that none of it would have been possible had I not built the system.

I went to bed that night hoping he would roll over onto my side of the spray-painted line and tell me it was all overrated, that we should screw until the sun came up.

He didn’t.

Suddenly, he was the perfect boss, and I was the one who wanted to step over the line.