My Doninant Boss

Chapter4:Awkward Feeling

The ride down to the basement garage in Malcom’s private elevator was conducted in thick, suffocating silence. He stood beside her, still clad in his silk robe, his presence filling the small space.

True to his word, his blacked-out executive sedan was idling in the subterranean shadows. The driver, trained to absolute discretion, held the door without casting a single curious glance at Emma’s rumpled evening dress or swollen lips.

Malcom watched her slide into the leather backseat. He didn’t offer a gentle goodbye or a soft kiss. He simply rested his hand on the top of the door frame, his dark eyes fixed on hers with an intense, unreadable weight.

“I’ll see you at the office, Emma,” he said, his voice low and absolute.

Before she could answer, the door shut, sealing her in cold isolation.

Three hours later, the stark reality of Vance Global Headquarters greeted her like a bucket of ice water.

Emma stepped out of the glass elevator onto the top floor, her heart thumping wildly against her ribs.

She had rushed home, stood under a scalding shower in a desperate attempt to wash away the lingering memory of his touch, and put on her usual uniform—a high-necked cream blouse that carefully concealed the faint pink marks on her throat, paired with a sharp black pencil skirt.

Even the simple act of sitting in the cab had reminded her of the night: a dull, persistent ache between her thighs, the tenderness along her hips where his hands had held her too tightly.

As she reached her desk directly outside Malcom’s grand corner office, she smoothed her hair and took a deep, steadying breath. It was just one night, she told herself. We are professionals. We can go back to normal.

The lie tasted thin even as she formed it.

“Good morning, Emma,” Hazel, the junior floor coordinator, greeted as she dropped a thick stack of acquisition files onto Emma’s desk. “You look exhausted. Long night at the celebration?”

“Just a lot of paperwork to follow up on,” Emma replied quickly, offering a practiced, polite smile that felt entirely hollow. She kept her eyes on the files, afraid that if she looked up too long someone might see the truth written across her face.

At precisely 8:15 AM, the private elevator doors chimed.

The temperature on the entire executive floor seemed to drop five degrees instantly. Malcom stepped out. He was immaculately tailored in a sharp navy three-piece suit, every dark hair in place, his expression carved out of cold, unyielding granite.

There was no trace of the wild, possessive man who had pinned her to a hotel bed hours earlier and demanded her total surrender. He looked exactly as he always had—untouchable, controlled, and completely unreachable.

As he walked past her desk, the heavy scent of his expensive sandalwood cologne washed over her. Emma’s thighs tightened on instinct. Her body remembered him before her mind could stop it.

“My office. Now,” Malcom commanded without breaking his stride or looking at her. The heavy mahogany door swung shut behind him.

Emma swallowed the lump in her throat,picked up her notepad, and followed him inside.

The moment she stepped across the threshold, the air thickened. Malcom stood behind his massive glass desk, unbuttoning his suit jacket with deliberate calm.

He didn’t sit down. Instead, he rested his long, broad fingers on the polished glass, his dark eyes locking onto her with a dangerous, quiet focus that made the large office feel suddenly too small.

“Where are the updated figures for the European merger?” he asked, his baritone voice crisp, clinical, and completely devoid of warmth.

“They’re… they’re right here, Mr. Vance,” Emma said, stepping forward to hand him the folder.

As she reached across the desk, her fingers brushed against his.

The reaction was instantaneous. An explosive bolt of electricity surged through her arm, making her breath hitch loudly in the quiet room. Emma instinctively tried to pull her hand back, but Malcom was faster.

In one swift, fluid motion, his large hand shot out, wrapping tightly around her wrist.

He didn’t hurt her, but his grip was an iron cuff, halting her escape completely. The contact sent a fresh wave of heat through her body, sharp and unwelcome in the bright morning light of the office.

“Mr. Vance—” she gasped, her eyes flying to his.

“Stop calling me that in an empty room,” Malcom said, his voice low. The icy facade cracked just enough to reveal the darker current underneath.

There was irritation in it, yes—but also something more unsettled, as if her attempt to rebuild the professional wall between them bothered him in a way he had not expected.

He pulled her forward until her knees pressed against the front of his desk. He didn’t let go of her wrist. Instead, his dark gaze slowly traced down the high collar of her cream blouse, lingering on the fabric as if he could see straight through it to the marks he had left on her skin.

“We have work to do,” Emma whispered, her heart hammering wildly, her professional composure crumbling under his proximity. “The partners… anyone could walk in—”

“Let them,” Malcom rasped, repeating the very words he had whispered into her skin the night before.

The silence that followed was heavy. He held her there, thumb brushing once over the rapid pulse in her wrist, as if testing whether her body still responded to him the same way.

Emma could feel the heat of his hand, the quiet intensity in his eyes, the way the air between them seemed to tighten with every second he refused to release her.

“You think we can just pretend it didn’t happen?” he murmured at last, his voice quieter now but no less absolute. “You think you can wear that high collar and act like my hands weren’t all over you six hours ago? Like you didn’t come apart in my bed more than once?”

“Malcom, please…”

His dark eyes flashed with raw satisfaction at the sound of his name. For a moment the cold corporate mask slipped further, revealing the same man who had looked at her in the morning light and refused to let the night end cleanly.

He released her wrist, but before she could step back, his long fingers reached out and gently tugged at the top button of her blouse, loosening it just enough to expose the faint, bruised skin beneath.

He stared at the mark for a heartbeat longer than necessary. Something complicated moved through his expression—possession, yes, but also a quieter, more dangerous awareness that the line they had crossed could not be redrawn.

“Much better,” Malcom said softly, his voice a dark promise. Then, as if the moment had never happened, he leaned back, slid his hands into his pockets, and returned to his cold, corporate posture in a fraction of a second.

“File those reports by noon, Emma.” His eyes met hers one last time, steady and unreadable. “And don’t lock your office door later today.”

The command settled over her like a weight. Emma stood frozen for a second longer, the open button of her blouse feeling suddenly impossible to ignore, before she turned and walked out of his office with as much composure as she could still pretend to have.

Behind her, the heavy door clicked shut.

The day had only just begun.