8 Ways Onto The Naughty List by Rita Sawyer
erotic contemporary romance
novella (approx. 28000 words)
Cover Art by Valerie Tibbs
For two years, Patsy had been working for, and lusting after, her boss, Dexter. Unable to keep hiding her feelings she tries to quit, but her boss refuses to let her out of her contract. Furious, she devises a plan to get herself fired, but everything she does fails to make him mad. She even goes as far as coming onto him, but instead of firing her, he says he wants to take things between them to a more personal level. Now she’s wondering if he’s serious or just trying to keep his assistant?
This book has been previously published with this same title.
Excerpt
The office had been quiet for the past few hours, a little too quiet for Patsy in her current state of mind. She would rather have had the phone ringing even if it was just to distract her. At least her boss wasn’t there to drive her crazy, but she figured he’d be back from his meetings before she left for the day
“I can’t believe it’s been over two years since I started working here.” Patsy whined to herself as she moved the tiny little dancing Christmas tree closer to the corner of her desk.
She removed her boss’ scribbled notes from one of the files and replaced them with her neatly typed ones. When she was first hired on with the firm she was assigned to a woman, who the second she’d found out she was pregnant, promptly quit. Instead of letting Patsy go, the firm, which now consisted of two Certified Public Accountants, had reassigned her to Dexter Chapman. He was the new CPA joining the firm and the brother in-law of one of the partners. She was thrilled at first, but in hindsight, she should have known better than to agree to work for someone she had never met.
He wasn’t the type of guy she’d been led to believe she would be working for. His brother-in-law had said he was a quiet man. Quiet, and brooding, and sexy as hell was what he’d turned out to be, which was just way too intriguing. Almost six feet tall and built like a brick wall, they’d forgotten to mention he had been a wrestler in college. She’d been expecting a suit and tie, not jeans and t-shirt. Okay, so most days he wore a suit jacket and a button down dress shirt over the t-shirt. His light brown hair always seemed to be windblown, and his deep brown eyes reminded her of hot cocoa. Still, his rough and ready style had her thinking all kinds of nasty thoughts. Not that she’d ever act on them. He was her boss, after all, but her desire hadn’t waned the way she’d hoped it would. Instead, it had gotten so bad that now she was ready to admit she needed to find another job.
She needed to do it soon too, before she slipped and he found out her secret. If being Dexter’s assistant didn’t pay so well, she would have left a long time ago. So far she’d been able to keep her attraction to him hidden behind a wall of formality that at times seemed to border on disdain. It wasn’t really that hard since he always set her on edge. Not to mention the bevy of sexy, buxom blondes that had constantly paraded in and out of his office during the past few months.
Though she tried not to, Patsy couldn’t help but compare herself to them. It was her opinion that as his assistant, she should look and act professional at all times. She wore her long wavy brown hair plied into a thick braid and dark business suits, which she tried to soften by wearing pastel blouses. No one knew she defied her professional image by wearing colorful lingerie under her staid suits.
Still, even if she stripped down to nothing, she was no competition to those women. The only thing she could do was start searching for another job. She got to her feet, gathered the files in her arm and walked into Dexter’s office. Patsy dropped the stack onto his desk, smiling as they landed in a messy pile. It was such a contrast to the rest of the immaculate workspace. Normally she took pride in the way she kept things organized for him, but those days had come to an end. Resisting the urge to straighten the files, she walked out of the office. She hadn’t meant to slam the door, but the loud resounding echo made her feel better, even though no one else was around to hear it.
Over the past few weeks she always seemed to be alone, which should have made working for him easier, but it didn’t. All the bright holiday decorations she’d hung around the office did nothing to brighten her mood. The clients who had come in seemed to like the cheeriness, but if Dexter noticed, he hadn’t let on. Maybe he just figured it was part of her job title to handle these things. He could at least say thank you. As she walked back to her desk, she mentally listed all of his egotistical qualities. Grudgingly, she had to admit that the fact he was smart and had a body hot enough to melt butter overrode most of them.
She let out a groan as she dropped into her chair. Feeling a little rebellious, she slid off her functional, plain, black low-heeled pumps. It gave her the opportunity to flex her feet and admire her bright pink toenails. Not caring if any clients came in, she leaned back in her chair and propped her feet up on her desk. Then it struck her that if someone did see her like this, they might complain. Maybe he’d fire her, saving her from having to quit. She’d rather wait until after the New Year started to start sending out her resume. Job hunting around the holidays sucked, and Christmas time was the worst.
Maybe she could ask Santa for a new job? She hummed along with the music coming from the radio tucked under her desk. While she was asking Santa for unrealistic gifts, maybe she would ask for the one thing she really wanted this year. She wanted one night to see if Dexter would live up to her fantasies. One night to show him what he’d been missing for the past two years. That would surely make this a Christmas to remember.
