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

I sped off, wanting to get away from it all. Wanting to stop the thoughts. Wanting Gerald and Cade to get out of my head. I weaved through dancers and around tables and got back to the elevator quickly. I hit my floor so I could go back to my desk and decompress. Working was my happy place, even if I had to do it dressed as Harley Quinn.

The lights on our floor should have been off, but the corner office—the one that was never occupied—was brightly lit. My white Harley Quinn boots took me straight to it. I stood in the doorway, waiting for him to look up.

“What the fuck are you doing back here?” Cade grumbled, flicking his gaze up momentarily before focusing on one of the four computer screens in front of him.

“Party’s in full swing out there.” I motioned behind me, ignoring his attitude.

“Then go enjoy it. I’ve got work to do,” he grumbled as he typed away at something.

Instead of obeying, I pushed off the doorframe and came toward him to see what he was working on. When I rounded his desk, I felt a zing of exhilaration. You didn’t go look over a hacker’s shoulder or stand behind them unless there was full trust.

He didn’t fight me, but I saw his muscles bunch up. I’d gotten a reaction out of him, whether he wanted to give me one or not.

“The party’s for you and us. You came with a mask and everything, then disappeared. Sort of missing the point of being on a team.”

He turned to give me a stare so cold, it could rival Antarctica. “And what about you? You come back here to tell me that because you want to celebrate with me too?”

“I wanted . . . I needed a second away.”

“Because your ex broke your little heart?” He turned back to his screens.

“Or maybe because my boss groped me in an elevator on the way to the party.”

“Hardly groping when you unbuttoned your shorts and rode my hand, baby doll,” he murmured, clicking away on the computer.

“Harley Quinn’s nickname was always dollface, not baby doll.”

“Well, you’re acting like a baby, so either suits you,” he pointed out.

I rolled my eyes at him and decided to not engage. Instead, I changed the subject. “What are you working on?”

“Nothing of importance to you.”

“I could maybe help,” I tried.

He shut my offer down immediately. “I don’t need help. I assign you all the work that I deem feasible for you.”

I tried to peer over his shoulder, but he straightened to block my view.

I crossed my arms in front of me. “You don’t need help with anything, but we all help you, don’t we? You give Juda work for all of us from some remote location year-round.”

“I do that for most teams under my authority.”

“Must be isolating to never get to know your employees.” I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to see if he cared even the least bit.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes before he continued. “Izzy, I don’t want to deal with your shit right now. This is classified information, and I can’t have just anyone looking at it.”

I nodded and tried to ignore the sting in his words. It was a small dart thrown my way, but I was hyperaware of anyone’s potential distrust in me because of my past.

“Okay.” I dragged out the word. “If honesty helps prove to you that I’m not here to sling around my shit, I’ll try that. I’m not celebratory after being dumped, so I’m not enjoying the festivities. I’m tired, and I want to work, not party. Quite frankly, I probably shouldn’t be partaking in something like this anyway.”

He straightened and turned to face me. “What do you mean?”

“Well Lucas and I have been sober—”

“Is someone doing illegal drugs up there? Lucas has only been sober for a year and—”

“How do you know that?” I blurted out, confused with how he knew that and also that his tone sounded as if he cared.

He cleared his throat. “I know about the people that work for me, Izzy.”

“Well, no one’s doing anything illegal.” I didn’t want anyone getting in trouble with the boss when there was nothing to get in trouble for. “Lucas is fine. He’d call me if he felt he was slipping. But I know parties always trigger—’

Cade pushed away from his laptop and slammed it shut. “Then our team is done with this party.”

“No.” I stopped him and studied his approach. Cade didn’t know this team. Why would he care if Lucas and I were fine or not? “It won’t go over well. Just . . . I came back here to work. It’s where I feel most comfortable.”

“All you do is work, Izzy.” He rolled his eyes like it was bad.

“You have no idea.” I narrowed my eyes as I thought of something. “Do you watch our office?”

He didn’t deny it. “I watch all my teams.”

“You can’t possibly be taking in all that information while accomplishing what you have in the last year.”

It was well known that he’d stopped nuclear warfare, penetrated enemy systems, and kept adversaries at bay. “I also enjoy working, Izzy. I’m the boss. It’s my job to manage you.”

“Only because you won’t trust people like me to manage some of these employees,” I blurted, knowing it wasn’t the time nor place to get into this. Juda had told me at my six-month review that it’d be at least two years before Cade would consider giving me a higher position, that Cade had written that in my file.

“You’re not ready. You couldn’t even handle a breakup today.” He stated like it was obvious, before waving me toward the door. “I’ll go celebrate just so we don’t have to do this.”

“Do what? Engage in a normal social interaction?” I scoffed as I stomped toward the door and then out into the hall, him following me. One day he was going to have to come up with a different excuse for not promoting me. “Honestly, a year in, and I think I’ve proven I’m not a gamble, even if my boyfriend was a dick and needed a new paint job for his car.”

“Well, you had a misstep once or twice in your first few years working for the government,” he mumbled as we faced off in the darkened hallway. “Let’s not forget about that.”

My twin sister had been taken because our targets identified her as me. I hadn’t been careful enough to make sure she was safe. I wanted to scream in frustration at him bringing that up.

“Technically, I wasn’t even working for you back then. Besides, everything turned out fine.”

“I still had to watch that train wreck.”

I hated that he’d been privy to my undercover work and that not all of it was flawless. But everyone made mistakes when they were starting out. “That was the beginning of my well-decorated career, and Lilah is fine,” I spat.

“No thanks to you.”

My jaw dropped. “You have the audacity to act like I didn’t do what I could—”

“You were a kid trying to make a name for herself and didn’t respect the law, the dangers of the job, or the people you dragged into it.”

He was right. I’d tried to bring down a drug operation pretty much on my own. I had a chip on my shoulder and wanted to prove myself.

It was stupid.

And I knew that.

But I sure wasn’t going to admit as much to him.

“I held my twin sister in my arms while she bled out on my chest. You think I didn’t learn from my inexperience or lack of foresight?” I narrowed my eyes at him. This time he wasn’t the one backing me up against the wall. Instead, I advanced on him, a finger raised. “Don’t ever tell me I don’t respect the people I dragged into the operation. I more than respect them. I love them. Lilah and Dante mean everything to me.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he grumbled like he was insinuating something.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, it’s clear you had a thing for Dante. You kissed him.”

“I loved the idea of him!” I practically screeched, throwing up my hands. I didn’t get mad about this anymore. Yet, he pulled out the worst in me, the part I didn’t have control over. “I’ve told everyone this before. Even Lilah knows.”

“What idea exactly, Izzy? You like the idea of Dante with you instead of your sister?”

I wiped a hand over my face, so furious that I was allowing him to purposely goad me. I knew he was but I couldn’t stop myself from feeding into it. “That was so long ago! And if you must know, Dante not only used to be our neighbor, but he was also my friend, Cade. He was a friend like none I’ve ever had. I had guy friends who tried to hook up with me, get me drunk, or have me try drugs. They enjoyed me acting out and getting wild. But when I really fucked up, Dante was the only one who didn’t disappear and still believed in me. He was my friend.”

Cade crossed his arms and waited. I gave him a second to insult my explanation, but he didn’t. It was like he wanted me to confess more.

“He accepted me. He gave me a chance. So yes, I kissed the man. Yes, it was fucking stupid. Yes, I realize I betrayed my sister’s trust. I was blinded by the fact that he was there for me, him being a real friend when most were assholes. And then I fell for—” I stopped, almost ready to confess something I never had before. “I fell for a lot of dumb shit. My relationships were unhealthy, but he wasn’t. He was the family friend, the rock. He was maybe really my only friend—”

“What was I to you then?” His voice suddenly sounded broken and accusatory.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You? You were . . . you are my fucking enemy, Cade! You tear me down every chance you get. The first time I met you, you threw in my face that I was an addict and couldn’t be trusted.”

“I stand by that assessment back then. You were going into dangerous undercover work.”

I couldn’t keep my eyes from bulging. I think my hand even twitched because I was ready to smack him. “If you weren’t my boss, I’d—” I shook my head, so ready to inflict physical pain upon him.

And then I saw it.

His real smile.

The one nobody ever got to see. Cade in action. Cade in malice. Cade in destruction mode, relishing in the chaos he was about to create.

“Go on, dollface, say it.”

“You’re unhinged, you know that?” I said, but my heart had picked up speed. My body clenched, my pussy grew wet, and my breath caught in my chest just feeling what was in the air between us.

Even if I knew it was dangerous, pushing Cade to that smile was so enticing that I couldn’t help it.

He chuckled. “Oh, really?” He leaned against the wall as he casually eyed me up and down. “If that’s the case, you’re delusional thinking you could work well with me tonight. I work alone.”

“Just because you’re ridiculous doesn’t mean I can’t handle it.”

He hummed low before he pushed off the wall, forcing me to move back. He had a look in his eye I hadn’t seen before, the look of someone on the hunt, someone ready to capture his prey.

He stopped a centimeter before his body touched mine, and I stared up at him, completely aware that the heat between us wasn’t a work-related issue.

“You can handle this?”

“What?” I whispered.

He made a point of looking down between us before he took that last step into my space. Our bodies collided, the sparks flew, my mind scrambled, and my heart jackhammered the blood through my veins.

“This,” he murmured into my ear. “We might be enemies, Ms. Hardy, but this is where we aren’t. This is inevitable when we work in the same building.”

There was no use denying it, not when my nipples stood to attention as his hard cock pressed into my stomach. I breathed his air, and he breathed mine.

“And do you think we should indulge in it?” I asked softly, as I stared at where our bodies connected because I wanted him to say it, to admit that I affected him the same way I knew he affected me.

“No.” His response felt like ice water being poured over my head. “And that’s all the more reason for me to have you fired at this point, because I normally do indulge in shit I shouldn’t.”

And those words felt like fire licking over my body, warming me up again.

“From the reports we get, you’ve actually done a lot of what you should,” I whispered. He’d kept businesses afloat, helped to curb trafficking, money laundering, big drug deals. He’d done so much.

“I’ve done a lot of bad too.”

“Sometimes good requires bad.”

He nodded a few times as he stared at me staring at him. I swear he was dissecting me, like he could find every hidden answer. Like the algorithm would show him something nobody else could see.

Then he took a deep breath, and with it, he stepped back, ready to walk away.

Instantly, my body missed the tension and the proximity of him. The closeness of Cade was dangerous. I knew I could end up reliant on someone like him, and that I couldn’t afford. Not when I’d come this far on my own.

“You’re right.” He cracked his knuckles in front of me as if he was readying himself for his next words. “What’s the bad in us that will bring the good, Izzy? Is it indulging so we can get it out of our systems? Is it me firing you quickly, which would be bad but end up good for everyone in the end?”

“Don’t you dare.” I stood up ramrod straight. “I deserve to be here.”

He chewed on his cheek before running one tattooed hand over his jawline. I read the letters that were on each of his fingers as he did it.

CHAOS.

And I thought, as his smile creeped up again, I was about to witness it.

“Dare? Is there something else you do dare me to do?” He waited for me to give him permission, to step over that line. We’d danced around it for years, and I knew if we took the jump now, it’d change our dynamic forever.

“Would you even take a dare?”

“Try me.”

“I dare you to do what you want to me. What I know you’ve been wanting to do.”

He didn’t even wait a second before his tattooed hand shot out so fast, I barely saw the blur of ink as it flew to my neck and pushed me up against the wall where he held me captive as his mouth descended on mine.

He didn’t kiss me. He consumed me.

He commanded my mouth to open with his, pushed his tongue in and tasted every part he could of me. I met his kiss with the same passion, like I was ravenous for him, like I’d been starved of him for too long. I clawed at his back and moaned into his mouth as his other hand went into my shorts. I didn’t care that we were in a hallway where our coworkers might walk in, I didn’t care about my job. I didn’t care about anything but having him.

He squeezed my neck harder along with my thigh and shoved me high enough up the wall for my pussy to settle against his cock. My legs immediately wrapped around him, and I rocked my hips forward, letting my body take over. He encircled my waist with his arms and walked me back into his office, shutting the door on the way and locking it behind us.

I took my lips from his to say, “Maybe we should leave and—”

“I’m not waiting another minute for you, baby doll. I’ve had to endure your bad attitude for long enough. Now, I’m going to fuck it out of you.”

“Jesus,” I murmured. “I shouldn’t love your mouth as much as I do.”

“You’re about to love it more when I taste you.”

He slammed me down on the desk, and I moaned at the intensity of it.

No more time was given to me to prepare. He shoved my shorts down and grabbed hold of my panties.

“Hurry,” I demanded.

“Hurry?” He cocked his head, and then he straightened, stepping between my legs and towering over me. I pushed up on my elbows to see him taking his sweet time as he slid one hand up from my thigh all the way back to my throat. Leaning close, he whispered, “I’m the boss, remember? I tell you what to do and you listen.”

The instinct at this point in our relationship was for me to fight him. I swear he knew it too as I said, “If you’re the boss, try to make sure you establish that here tonight, because I might have forgotten.”

His hold on my neck increased as he pushed my back flat on the desk, his thick length pressing against my entrance. “Breathe when you’re told, dollface or you’ll pass out.”

“What? Like I’d forget—” His grasp completely cut off my oxygen—he didn’t waste time warming me up to the idea—as his other hand worked my clit in earnest.

Instantly, the fear of not breathing kicked my adrenaline into gear while I simultaneously writhed against him. I’d never experienced pleasure with the fear so acutely. I tried to cling to rationality and told myself this wasn’t special. It was simply the thrill of hooking up with my boss, the guy I’d lusted over for so long.

I was riding his hand, lost in my desire for him, holding his wrist for leverage, not paying attention to the lifeline that was breathing.

“Breathe, Izzy,” he growled. He’d loosened his grip on my throat and I hadn’t realized. My eyes flew to his, and I saw a look that wasn’t normally there.

Desire and awe.

I didn’t have time to consider it much before I gulped in two breaths. Then, the pressure was instantly back on my windpipe, and he was unzipping to pull his cock from his trousers. “Feel just the tip, now, huh?”

I stared at him guiding his hard cock to my center, and my eyes widened when I saw the metal there. If I could have, I would have asked. I would have spent some time assessing the piercing. Instead, he rolled the head of his cock over my wet pussy.

“God, you’re already soaked. Next time, I’m going to document this. Make sure we have enough evidence to prove that despite how much you claim to hate me, you paint my cock so well with your arousal.”

I couldn’t focus on anything as my vision blurred, as my high almost hit, as he looked at me like he was finally about to give me that darkness.

“You on the pill, baby?”

I nodded.

He thrust in and commanded, “Breathe.”

I gasped for air. Maybe from the size of him entering me. Or because I needed to breathe. Or because the orgasm ripped through and ravaged me. I couldn’t tell which. Clinging to his shirt, I pulled him down as he pumped into me and ground my pussy onto his cock. The feeling of him against my inner walls as I took a breath to bring life back into my body was one I’d never felt.

I’d been high, I’d slept with men, and I’d been in dangerous situations where adrenaline ran through my veins. But this, this was everything wrapped in one. The explosion tore through me and flung me into a stratosphere I didn’t know existed.

I screamed his name loudly, and his hand covered my mouth as he continued to fuck me while whispering for me to be quiet. Yet, no part of me was able to cage that feeling as I rode out the best orgasm of my life.

“You’re going to make it known that I’m fucking you back here, Izzy. Then I’ll probably have to demote you just to keep things fair.”

I don’t think I responded. I couldn’t as I continued to pull in long breaths, trying to come back from another world of pure euphoria.

He slowed his thrusts down. Long and measured, as if he wanted to work me up again. Then, he chuckled. “This is how I like you. No attitude, just gratitude.”

That got me to roll my eyes. “Please shut up.”

“At least she says please. Want to say please while I fuck another orgasm out of you, baby doll?”

“I don’t think you can,” I whispered, sure I was done.

The devil danced in his eyes as he pulled his length deliberately from me and let it slide upward so his piercing ran over my bundle of nerves, coated with the slickness of us both.

I shivered at the feeling. “You’re playing games, Cade. Fuck me or get off so we can get back to the party.”

“I was never at the party to begin with. I was working on calming down one of our best employees in the elevator, and then I came here to handle another situation, but you showed up and distracted me.”

I wiggled my hips, trying to get more friction between us. He flexed his cock, and I watched how his length moved out of my pussy’s reach. I hated that every part of him was more than perfect, including the size, symmetry, and thickness of him.

“You’re staring like you want it again, Izzy.” I glared at him as he cocked an eyebrow at me. “Do you? Or should I make you lose your breath by giving you a taste instead? I’m happy to have you gag on my cock tonight too.”

“You shouldn’t be able to say shit like that.” I shook my head at him.

He chuckled as he took a handful of one of my pigtails and started to pull me down the desk. “Knees. I think you need to experience the taste of me coated in your arousal so you can better understand the dynamics of this relationship.”

“Me tasting my arousal on your dick won’t do that,” I shot back, but I was already getting on my knees before him, ready to have him in my mouth. I wanted him at my mercy, if only for a second.

“If I get to come in that mouth of yours, I don’t really care what it does, Izzy. Now, open up for your boss. Make sure you take it like a good girl.”

Up close, I started to have reservations. I cleared my throat. “You’re bigger than I’ve ever taken, Cade.”

“Damn right I am. You’ll gag, baby. And you’ll love it.” He dragged a finger down my jaw to my chin. “Good. Show me you can take it.”