Ember

  “Lift your other leg,” he commands, pulling my body up and bracing it against the wall as he begins pumping into me. I do what he says quickly – instinctively – without any worry of being dropped. I know he will hold me up. I need him to hold me up. The small thrusts he began with grow larger as he pushes into me harder and harder. It’s the first time I’ve really seen his face, intense and strong as he plunders my body for his pleasure.

  Weightless, I am floating on air, the only sensation I feel is the friction as he pumps me again and again. I wrap my arms around him clinging to him. This is everything I need, and all I desire. I’m filled and fulfilled. The depth of his cock and the bracing of the wall behind me ground me to him. I feel the tingling growing inside me as my muscles tighten around his member. His thrusts become more like sharp quick jabs as I feel him swelling within me, his breath coming out in short hot bursts.

  “Ohhhh,” I gasp as my body releases, convulsing in his strong arms. It’s a slow deep orgasm that rocks me all the way to my toes. The sounds of my passion and clamping of my pussy encourages him to pound me harder, his cock driving itself into me as my shoulders knock against the back wall. He lets out a rough growl as he explodes deep inside my body.

  After he withdraws I drop one leg on the ground and he holds me until I let the other down. Slowly, he turns and gives me a moment to get myself together as he walks to the couch and gets a blanket. Mark gently wraps it around my shoulders. Still shaken by the depth and power of the moment I can barely walk, but he guides me to the couch.

  “I do trust you,” I say softly.

  “Good,” He says, twirling my hair in his fingers.

  “But, Clank and Clack?” I ask knowing I’m probably tempting him to dump me on the floor.

  “I couldn’t take the risk Blake or Kenneth would know I helped you. We have to keep it a secret. For your safety, and for my plan to work. Besides, Robert is a good man and friend. If you’re going to run around assaulting people, you should probably get to know him.”

  I nestle against him satisfied with the explanation. He’s so different, after sex – so loving and nurturing. Tiger, then tabby.

  Chapter 4

  Sitting in the East Village at a sidewalk café, I squint against the sun and discover I’m staring right at Janice even though I barely recognize her. My normally neat and professionally dressed friend is wearing old jeans with an oil stain on one leg, a football sweatshirt, floppy hat and sunglasses. She makes an effort to look up and down the street then slides into the seat across from me.

  “You couldn’t pick an inside place?” She whispers. “Why didn’t you wear something unusual? You look just like you always do. They can spot you a mile away!”

  “Oh, I don’t know Janice. Maybe I thought looking like a drug dealer or international terrorist would attract more attention than it would repel,” I reply with a sarcastic smile. “Are those even your jeans?”

  “They are my sister’s. You don’t understand, Julia. You don’t know what it’s like there. They keep your office door closed and locked unless Kenneth All-Slime is there poking around. They changed the password to your computer and put in a privacy program to protect it on the network. Then they made everyone change their own password. John Kellen thinks they are using some kind of tracking software to read everyone’s new password as it was put in.”

  “Geez Janice, what’s next? Kenneth is going to peel off his face like they do in Mission Impossible and turn out to be Cameron Diaz?”

  “Ha ha, very funny. I’m glad you’ve kept your sense of humor. It must be nice to be you. I have two ulcers and an eye twitch.” Janice pretends to be teasing but I can see she’s really under a lot of pressure.

  “Yep. It’s great to be me. I have lost my job, my magazine, my life work, been escorted by security guards not once - but twice, had two conversations with the cancer treatment center about how I’m going to pay for my Dad’s experimental treatment which may or may not be working, been arrested for assault, and been notified my lawyer’s retainer runs out at the end of the month. My life is just peachy keen!” I respond.

  I almost blurted out “became a sexual slave” in the laundry list, but I didn’t. I trust Janice, but I don’t think Mark would enjoy that part of the deal becoming public, and I’m not sure how she’d react. I don’t know what I think about giving myself sexually in exchange for help, let alone what she might think. Plus, there’s no way I could describe the incredible pleasure his rough thrusts have been providing me.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I guess I’m just tense. The whole office is abuzz at you punching Blake the Snake right in the eye. How is your lawyer doing? Have you found a way back?”

  “I’m working on a plan. I can’t tell you anything about it, but I may call on you and need your help,” I reply, adding a hint of mystery. It works for Mark, maybe it will work for me. “And, for the record I slapped Blake’s face. Although I’m sure by the time it gets to court I will have crippled him.”

  “You know, there are some things I could do. Kenneth is asking me to run the office when he isn’t in there interrogating people or searching through things. I could find a way to jam the copier, stall contracts and slow things down further, trip the breaker and shut the system down claiming brown-outs. Heck, no one at the office does anything real at work anymore. They keep their real writing at home.”

  “Thanks for the thought, but I don’t think that’s the best idea.” I’m a little taken aback by Janice’s offer. She’s as meek as a mouse and once cried when she got a warning for speeding because it was her first ticket and she didn’t like the fact she broke a law. Now she’s willing to sabotage the system for me? It must be terrible there.

  “I’m serious, Julia. If you need a ghost in the machine, you can count on me. In fact, the whole office is behind you. No one quit because they keeping thinking you are going to come back. But, I’ve heard a lot of people say they’d rather become internet bloggers than work for that hack Valerie James.”

  “Janice, when you said, ‘when Kenneth is not interrogating people’ what did you mean?”

  “Well,” she leans over and whispers louder, only drawing more attention to us. “Kenneth calls them interviews and says he and Blake are just trying to get an idea what everyone’s talents and projects are but it’s clear they are looking for something. They keep asking people what they’ve written about, what they are working on now, and if you assigned them anything that isn’t in the system. Everyone is stonewalling them.”

  “Have they found anything?”

  “No, and they’re pissed. At one point Blake shouted loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘I am truly amazed you people have an award winning magazine when none of you seem to be working on anything interesting!’ People just laughed at him, and he slammed the door and started poring through your files again.”

  “What are they looking for? Did they mention the Wall Street piece by name?”

  “No,” Janice replies but squints when I said the words out loud. “But I think they know something about it. They were asking if anyone had done a “political or financial” piece. And they requested all your payouts, personnel files, and have been going over your source lists. The first thing they did was block my access to accounting, but they keep asking questions about money.”

  “Is the Wall Street piece still secure?”

  “They will never find it.”

  “Is the source secure?”

  “She’s out of reach and out of touch. She’s safe.”

  “As long as we keep it that way we are okay. Listen Janice, one more thing,” I try to find a non-suspicious way to clue her into Mark’s presence on my side of the war. “You know Mark Stone, Blake’s brother? He’s the Co-president.”

  “Yes, he used to handle our account until he bailed like a cheap rat fleeing a sinking ship. Loser.”

  “Well, he’s a friend of mine. No one can know that. He’s been helping me try to get back in. I can’t tell you any
thing now, but someday he may call you and ask you to do something – I don’t know what – but I want you to do what he says if he calls.”

  “He’s a ‘Hi, how ya doin?’ friend or a ‘Let me make you some eggs for breakfast’ kind of friend?” Janice raises her eyebrows with a side-smile.

  “He’s just a friend. For now.” How could I possibly explain he’s my friend who routinely bends me over desks and cars, enters my body with a thrusting force that makes me wet every time I think about it, fucks me like I’m a whore then holds me like I’m a precious egg? I don’t even understand it; there’s no way on earth she would.

  “Do you trust him, Julia?”

  The moment she asks me, the last few weeks pass before my eyes. I see my anger at him for handing off our file to Blake, and my desire when he took me that first time, his frustrating absence that made me do something stupid, and his caresses on the couch after he bailed me out. I see myself embracing his cock in my desiring wet mouth as he told me he had a plan, and I see that text – that damn text message – saying ‘Do not trust him.’ I saw it all and I had to make a decision.

  “Yes,” I tell her, wanting to believe it myself. “Yes, I trust him.”

  Chapter 5

  Tom Petty was wrong. The waiting isn’t the hardest part – the boredom is. I spend my time hanging around my apartment waiting for something to do. Half the time I feel like Mark is stringing me along and I want to run out and do something, anything, to get my magazine back. Then I remember what happened the last time I went running out with a head full of steam. The other half of the time I find myself reflecting on the different ways Mark has used my body, and re-living the pleasure of it all. At all times, I’m waiting for the phone to ring. But when it finally does, I almost miss it.

  After carrying my silent electronic leash around with me all day, the one time I set my phone on the table and go to the bathroom, it rings. Panicked, I nearly fall off the toilet seat, and end up jogging to the phone with my pants around my ankles and my underpants at my knees. Standing in the kitchen, I find it an appropriate way to look when I realize it’s Mark on the line.

  “Come to me,” he says, his voice causing my clit to swell and tingle.

  “Excuse me? Mark? What did you just say?” I ask just to be sure I’m not hallucinating this whole event. I hear his heavy sigh, and realize that’s the sound he makes when I disappoint him.

  “When I want you, I will tell you to come,” he explains slowly. “But, we’ll have to work on that. In the meantime, I need you to come to my apartment. I haven’t found anything definitive on Blake yet, but I have some promising leads – I think.”

  “Really? What? Did he fire me without cause? Did he take out a loan on the magazine’s assets without approval? Tell me!” I’m so excited to hear there may be a weak link in Blake’s carefully planned coup.

  “Not on the phone, Julia,” Mark replies in a tone meant to show me exactly how dumb I can be sometimes. “Come to me.”

  “What’s the address?” I ask, realizing I have no idea exactly where his building is and only a vague memory of how I got there the first time.

  “You were here before,” he responds with another sigh. “255 West 94th Street, 27th Floor. Don’t park here. Blake doesn’t live in the city, but Kenneth is only a few blocks away and Valerie lives in Central Park West. Park at the public on 96th and Broadway. Walk over to my building, go to the service elevator and tell the bellhop your name is Lucy Conway. He will send you to me.”

  The words Blake used still sting me and I find myself rebelling against Mark’s directions and fake name, “Lucy Conway? Who’s she? Your current company whore?”

  Mark kept the edge in his voice to let me know he was displeased, but answered patiently and clearly. “No, we don’t have one of those. Lucy Conway was my former cleaning lady who quit when she got married several years ago. I never took her name off my visitor list, so you can use it without raising suspicion.”

  “Oh, so I’m coming over to clean your apartment?” I snap, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Oh, sweetie,” Mark replies giving me a deep-voiced chuckle that sends chills up my spine. “You’re going to do so much more than that.”

  His plan works perfectly. The bellman doesn’t even look twice at me. He just checks his list, puts me in the elevator and sends me up. My hands shake with anticipation of seeing Mark again and hopefully getting another look at his beautiful place. I am so excited I nearly fall out of the elevator when the doors open.

  “Easy now, Lucy,” Mark says with a smile. His earlier edge seems to have been replaced with confident cheer. Some light jazz is playing in the background and he hands me a wine glass full of something white. I don’t bother to ask what it was – I just take it and drink. That makes him smile and nod. “Everything went okay getting here?”

  “Yes. I was worried I was overdressed. You know – for a poor housemaid.”

  “Clearly,” Mark laughs. “You have never had to pay for a cleaning service. There’s nothing poor about it!”

  “So, what is there to tell me?” I’m so ready to hear good news. All the way over I tried to imagine what Mark was going to say and quite prepared for it to give me a good night’s sleep for a change.

  “I do have something important to tell you. It is something that has the potential to give you back your magazine or cost me my company. It’s not a game, and it’s not something we can’t handle without discipline and planning. So if I’m going to tell you, you cannot go start World War Three in our employee lounge. If I tell you, I need to trust you. And, to trust you – I need you to trust me.”

  “I do trust you, Mark,” I say, looking directly in his eyes. “I made some mistakes and I’m sorry but I do trust you.”

  Mark looks at me for a second, as if he is trying to read my thoughts. He smiles politely, stands up and looks me over from top to bottom.

  “You were right before,” He says, holding his hand out to me.

  “Before?”

  “You are clearly overdressed.” He takes my hand and walks me out of the living room into a spare bedroom. It’s nice with fancy bed-coverings, beautiful headboard, and lovely armoire. Beautiful, but clearly not his bedroom. “Take off all your clothes, fold them neatly, and place them in the chair. Sit on the edge of this bed and I’ll be back in a moment.”

  “What are we doing?” I ask hesitantly. What could he possibly have to tell me that requires nudity?

  “Trusting,” he replies with a smile and takes our empty glasses out of the room while I disrobe in a hurry and follow his instructions to the letter.

  Butterflies fill my stomach as I sit here. However, unlike the unpleasant nervousness of the unknown, this feeling is something I can only describe as delicious. Excitement combined with fear and the desire to please him all combine to create an energy that is irresistible.

  As Mark walks into the room his easy smile lets me know I’ve pleased him. At least so far.

  “Good, good girl,” he soothes as he reaches out running his finger down my cheek and then kisses me deeply. I thrill at the touch of his lips on mine. He reaches to his back pocket and pulls out a long, thick silk scarf. Getting very close to my face, Mark looks me in the eye.

  “I want you to focus on my smile,” he says as he begins unfolding the long scarf and twisting it between his hands. “It will be the last thing that you see, for a while. Remember it.”

  My heart is beating so fast I feel like I’m going to pass out. I look at his gorgeous face reassuring me that everything will be alright. I smile back, wanting his lips against mine again. Then the world goes black as he places the scarf across my eyes. It’s thick enough to keep all light out and it offers not even a corner for me to cheat with. I keep focusing on his smile and the feeling of his closeness to my body.

  I feel the rough tip of his finger slide down my cheek, pausing over my nipple and circling it, sending an electric current straight to my brain and lower regions. His han
ds guide me back until I’m reclining against the headboard propped up by pillows. I feel his weight shift as he gets off the bed.

  “Don’t move, don’t speak.” Mark whispers. I obey. His absence from the room gives me a few moments to reflect on this sensation. Not the sensation of being blindfolded, but the sensation of submission. I’ve been the strong one all my life and Dad always taught me the value of self reliance. Yet, giving myself to him in these moments of intimate trust is a feeling unlike anything the pride of standing on my own could produce.

  I hear a bowl clink on the bedside table and some other sounds, but can’t make them out. Surely he must know of my excitement, I feel the goosebumps on my arms rising. His large hand holds my chin up and the air is filling with the smell of a cut orange. Sweet and ripe, my mouth waters for the taste of it. I open up instinctively and he squeezes some juice for me to taste. He leans into my ear again. My eyes blind, the energy of his presence is overwhelming.