BOOK 1-F**king My Corporate Rival: Part 1
The van smelled like burnt espresso and ten years of mutual hatred. I hated that I noticed the way Elias filled the cramped space, his broad shoulders brushing the equipment racks every time he shifted. Twelve hours. Twelve f*****g hours stuck in this metal box with the one man who could make my blood boil faster than anyone else in the industry.
“Keep your eyes on monitor three, Sloane. Target’s assistant just parked two blocks down.” His voice was low, clipped — the same tone he used when he stole my contracts. Deep. Rough. Like gravel dragged across my nerves.
I didn’t look at him. “I can read a feed, Elias. I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been ruining other people’s ops.”
He let out a short, humorless laugh that vibrated through the stale air. The kind of laugh that said he remembered every time I’d beaten him to a mark. Every time I’d walked away with the payout while he was left holding empty intel. The resentment sat thick between us, heavier than the humidity leaking in from the rain-gray streets outside.
I crossed my legs tighter on the narrow bench, trying to ignore how my skirt kept riding up against the cheap vinyl. My blouse already stuck to my lower back. The van’s AC had died an hour ago. Now it was just us, two monitors glowing green, and the low hum of servers that made the whole box feel like a pressure cooker.
“Still sore about Prague?” he asked, not even pretending to watch his own screen. His eyes were on me. I could feel them tracing the line of my throat.
“Prague was mine. You poached it.”
“You left the door open. I walked through.” He leaned back, arms folding across his chest. The black button-down stretched over muscle earned from the same brutal fieldwork I did. “That’s how this game works, sweetheart. You hesitate, I take.”
The word sweetheart landed like a slap. My jaw tightened. Heat crawled up my neck, and I hated that it wasn’t all anger. Part of me wanted to slap him. Another, darker part wanted to find out exactly how hard he could push back.
A warning beep cut through the tension. Monitor two flickered, then went dark.
“s**t,” I muttered, already moving. The glitch was in the cable routing behind his station. Of course it was. No way around it.
Elias didn’t move his legs. He just watched me, one eyebrow raised like a challenge.
I exhaled sharply through my nose. “Move.”
“Cable’s behind me. You’re smaller.” His voice had dropped lower. “Handle it.”
Bastard. He knew exactly what he was doing.
I got up. The ceiling was too low to stand straight, so I had to crawl. Over his lap. My knee landed between his thighs, my hands bracing on the server rack above his head. My ass brushed his chest as I stretched forward, reaching for the loose connection. The van felt even smaller now. His breath ghosted against the side of my thigh where my skirt had ridden dangerously high.
The air thickened. I could smell his cologne — something expensive and woody — mixed with the faint salt of his skin after hours in this heat. My fingers fumbled with the cable. Heat pooled low in my stomach, unwanted and insistent. I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached.
“Having trouble?” His voice was right there, inches from my hip. I felt the vibration of it against my skin through the thin fabric.
“f**k you, Elias.”
“Careful.” His hand came up, hovering just under the curve of my ass as I strained forward. “You keep squirming like that and this stakeout’s going to get a lot less professional.”
My breath hitched. I hated how my body reacted — n*****s tightening against my bra, a slick warmth building between my legs. I’d spent years telling myself the only thing I felt for Elias was contempt. Now that contempt was pulsing, hot and traitorous, right against his chest.
I finally jammed the cable back in. Monitor two flickered back to life. But I didn’t move right away. Neither did he. My knee was still pressed between his spread thighs. I could feel the hard muscle there, the tension coiling in his body like a spring.
I turned my head just enough to meet his eyes. Close. Too close. His pupils were blown wide, the usual cold gray now dark and hungry. His jaw flexed.
“You done crawling all over me?” he asked, voice rough.
“Depends.” I held his stare, refusing to back down even as my pulse hammered in my throat. “You done pretending you don’t want to bend me over these racks and finally settle who’s actually better?”
The words slipped out before I could stop them. Dangerous. Stupid. But the charged silence that followed felt electric.
His hand finally made contact — palm sliding slowly up the back of my thigh, stopping just under the hem of my skirt. Possessive. Testing. The heat of his fingers burned through my stockings.
“Careful what you start, Sloane,” he murmured, thumb brushing the sensitive skin where thigh met ass. “Once this door opens, there’s no putting the hate back in the box.”
My breath came shallow. I could feel his c**k starting to harden against my knee through his slacks. Thick. Unapologetic. My mouth went dry even as my p***y clenched around nothing.
I should have pulled away. Should have gone back to my station and pretended this never happened.
Instead, I pressed my knee forward just a fraction, grinding lightly against the growing bulge.
Elias’s breath growled out of him. His fingers dug into my flesh, hard enough to leave marks.
And for the first time in years, I wasn’t sure I wanted the target to show up anytime soon.
