“Please,” I gasped, not knowing what I was begging for, not knowing what I needed, what I wanted, only that he was the only one who could give it to me. “Please,” I begged.
And he pressed his hips into the back of his hand, rocking into me.
The weight of his body against mine. His hips grinding. The tightening of his palm. The curl of his fingers.
“Come,” he whispered.
A hot surge ripped through me, every molecule in my body flexing toward his fingers in a blinding moment of open, heedless pleasure, a series of frantic pulses drawing him deeper with every burst.
My body went limp, though my heart still galloped in my chest. I lowered my forehead to the curve where his shoulder met his neck as his hand slowed, then stopped, and then—
He disappeared.
I nearly fell over, my eyes flying open, the temperature cooler by ten degrees the moment he was across the room. And he was. Inexplicably, he was over there, and I was over here with my panties around my ankles and my skirt pulled up to the widest part of my thighs. He looked…stricken. His eyes were hooded and molten, his chest heaving, testing the tailoring of his shirt. Red lipstick stained his mouth—there was even a bit on his nose—and he looked at me like I was a mistake.
“I…I’m sorry,” he muttered, his voice thick like he’d been dreaming, raking his hand through his hair as I bent to pull up my panties, ashamed and mortified.
Never in my entire life had I ever been taken like that. And never had I expected that the man who had taken me would look at me that way.
“I shouldn’t have…I…I’m sorry.” He swallowed, and with a look of shame and panic, he wheeled around and bolted from the room.
For a long, painful moment, I stared at the door, wondering what had happened, what I’d gotten myself into, and how the hell the man who had become such a confounding fixture in my life had cut me down and kissed me in the same breath. How he’d touched me like he owned me and discarded me with the flick of his wrist.
Hot tears stung my eyes as I moved to my bag, abandoned near the painting. In it, I found the little makeup bag Val had packed for me, complete with single-packaged makeup wipes and a small mirror. Lipstick had stained my face like his, though brighter, the effect garish and disturbing, and I wiped it off, those tears falling in streaks tinged with black down my pale, pale skin. And I looked at my reflection, asking that girl what the hell had happened.
And worse, why he’d thrown me away.
Court
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
That single word looped on my tongue, whispered into the silent hallway. My heart slammed, my pulse thumping through my body, my mind racing along with it as I bolted away from her.
One rule. I had one fucking rule, and I’d blasted it to hell.
For her.
My open hand pushed the bathroom door open so hard, it hit the doorstop and rebounded, but I was already inside, my heart and legs and brain moving too fast for it to touch me.
I leaned on the granite counter, fingers splayed on the cold stone, chest heaving, my reflection dark and hard and unyielding, a man possessed.
A flash of pain passed across my face as I pictured hers when I’d left. The look of rejection and shame in her eyes, her cheeks flushed from the sweet, hot orgasm and her own humiliation.
I shouldn’t have kissed her.
I wanted to do it again.
I wanted to blow back into that room and tell her that I shouldn’t have crossed the line, that I couldn’t touch her again, that I shouldn’t have touched her in the first place.
But not as badly as I wanted to hitch her skirt up to her waist and bury myself inside of her.
What has she done to me?
She’d taken a breath and let fire rain down on me. She’d called me out, told me I was wrong, filled herself up with assertive decision. She’d put me in my place, and I’d lost the battle of wills. I’d had to kiss her. I’d had to touch her. Because in that moment, she’d evolved into something entirely other, entirely incredible, entirely powerful. Power I’d met with my own, and my power had superseded hers, bent her to my will.
And God, had I breathed in her surrender.
But there were no words to erase the truth—she and I could never happen.
I closed my eyes, my body humming, my cock so rock hard, it throbbed painfully from the confines of my briefs. But when I shifted and my fingers brushed its aching length, a shock of relief shot down my thighs, up my spine, the nerves screaming.
A vision of her invaded my mind—her head turned, red lips hanging open, those legs, those fucking legs that never ended, her skirt hiked up to the point where they met, my hand buried in the hot, wet hollow between her thighs. My palm shifted in a long stroke of my cock that sent a tremor of anticipation through the length of my body.
“Fuck.” The word left me in a sound more growl than whisper, and I spun for the door, throwing the lock.
Images of her rose in my thoughts as my breath burned a shaky path in and out of my chest, my fingers unbuckling my belt as I watched myself in the mirror, the stone tile behind me black as my mood, dark as my desire.
I imagined the length of her body stretched out in my bed, naked and white as snow.
My trembling hands unbuttoned my pants. Her long fingers reaching for my cock. My own released it from its prison, and it sprang from the V made by my zipper, aching. Her eyes watching as she strokes me. My fist closed around my shaft, my hips flexing involuntarily, pumping once, twice. Her lips, red and thick and glistening as they opened, the tip of her tongue reaching for the tip of my cock. I dragged the flat of my tongue across my palm, groaning at the salty taste of her still lingering on my skin, gripping myself again with a smooth, wet stroke. Her face drawing closer, closer to my body as I disappeared into her hot mouth. I stroked faster, my eyes on my cock in the mirror as a milky drop slipped from its throbbing tip. The shape of her long back and bare ass, the cleft where they meet, the slick center of her that I know is tight and wet and ready. I drew a noisy breath through my nose, the orgasm surging, drawing from deep in me, reaching for my crown. My fist drew up to enclose it, to ease the mounting pressure, wishing I were buried in her, wishing I’d hit the very end of her, wishing I could feel the pulse of her body around mine, pulling me into her, deeper, deeper—
I came with a strangled groan, my teeth clenched so hard, my jaw popped. My neck arched, cock throbbing, pumping, my hot release blazing as it left me in a stream, in a flex, in a heartbeat, then another.
And as my need subsided, I hung my head, eyes closed, unable to fathom just how badly I’d fucked up and just how badly I wished I hadn’t.
“What has she done to me?” I asked the empty room, and the question echoed in my ears, unanswered.
13
A Little Dirty
Rin
I unlocked the front door with my heels hooked in my fingers and flats shuffling over the threshold, feeling wrung out and left stretched and twisted and sagging.
I’d taken the time to wipe the majority of my makeup off in an attempt to remove every trace of him from my face. The rest of me couldn’t forget him so easily; I could still feel the ghost of his touch on my thighs, his lips on mine, the place where he’d slipped inside me achingly empty, even now, an hour later. The train ride had been suffered with my glazed eyes on the window across from me as the tunnel blurred by in streaks of misplaced light, as the tiles of the station walls came to a slow, then a stop, then sped up again, throwing me back into the dark.
Dr. Lyons—Court, my boss—had finger banged me in front of a six-hundred-year-old painting of Jesus.
And I wished that were the worst part. But it wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
When I hauled myself through the door, I found everyone in the living room. Katherine’s feet were propped on the coffee table, and Amelia sat, folded up in an armchair in an oversized sweater and leggings. Val, next to Katherine on the couch, took one look
at me and knew.
“What happened?” she asked solemnly.
Katherine twisted to look over the back of the couch, and Amelia’s face immediately bent in hurt on my behalf without knowing a single detail.
Tears bit at the tip of my nose as I dropped my bag and heels next to the door, kicking off my flats.
I didn’t speak.
Val and Katherine moved to give me room, and I sank into the couch between them, my knees together in front of me. I stared at the point where the hem of my skirt met my skin, trying not to think about the feeling of his fingers moving it up my thighs.
Val watched me for a second. “Okay, you’re freaking me out,” she said gently. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head as tears sprang, spilled, slipped down my cheeks, my chin quivering.
“Oh my God,” Val cooed, drawing me into her arms as Katherine moved to sit straight. And they let me cry, let me burn down my shame and hurt until it was ash in my chest.
I sat back when the worst of it had passed, swiping at my tears and schooling my breath. But I couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes, not when I told this story. I took a deep breath, the band on my lungs tight and painful.
“Dr. Lyons kissed me.”
“What?” Val blasted. Similar exclamations came from Amelia and Katherine.
Another breath. “He kissed me and we made out and he…he…” I didn’t even know how to say it in a way that wasn’t juvenile or crass. And with two shitty options, I chose the one that at least sounded hotter. “He gave me a hand job.”
The room erupted in noise, questions and expletives and gasps and several Oh my Gods.
I cringed.
Val held up her hands to quiet Amelia and Katherine. “Hang on, hang on.” They hushed, waiting with more questions behind their pursed lips. “I’m gonna need you to start from the top.”
So I did. I walked them through the day together—the talk about my dissertation to the painting, his subsequent freak out, my subsequent bullshit calling, and the third-base exhibition that would go down in the books as not only the hottest thing that had ever happened to me, but also the most mortifying.
They listened, completely gobsmacked, their mouths hanging open like trouts and their eyes bugging like they’d been electrocuted.
No one said anything for a second.
“That sounds to me like a harassment lawsuit,” Katherine said.
I snorted a dry laugh as Claudius jumped in my lap, and I found myself grateful for his weight and warmth and a comforting task for my hands. “I literally begged him. If he’d asked, I would have given him anything he wanted.”
“Even your B-hole?” Val asked suspiciously, though a ghost of a teasing smile was on her lips.
I turned my gaze on her to show her just how serious I was. “Anything.”
Amelia gasped, affronted. “Cardinal sin! You can’t let him near the back door, Rin! This guy hits too many things on the Never list. Like not dating mean guys.”
“We’re not dating,” I said, trying not to sound miserable, running my hand down Claudius’s back.
“I mean, what the fuck is this guy’s problem?” Val said, her brows knitting together and her anger flaring. “Is he a sex addict? Did he skip his meds? How can he go from accusing you of trying to sleep with him for a promotion to touching your lady parts?”
“In front of Jesus,” I added.
“In front of Jesus,” she echoed, pressing the point.
I sighed. “I have no idea. But I didn’t hate it at all, not until…” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Not until he left.”
“That fucking asshole,” Val spat.
“Lawsuit,” Katherine said flatly.
Amelia sighed. “I don’t know. It kinda sounds hot.”
A sad smile brushed my lips, fading almost immediately into a frown. “It was. But…it was more than that. It was like I’d been waiting for him all week. Forever. And he’s not only out of my league, but he’s a complete asshole. Hot and cold and nothing in between. He’s a mess, a horrible, destructive mess. And I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to stay.” The words he’d thrown at me before he shoved his tongue down my throat flashed through my mind, and my frown deepened. “He was so suspicious. I wonder what happened to him. I think…I think someone hurt him.”
“Don’t do that,” Katherine said, her dark eyes blazing. “I don’t care what happened to him—don’t let him treat you like this.”
“I won’t,” I said, hating that I meant it, hating the position he’d put me in. Hating that I’d begged him, hating that I would do it again in a heartbeat. “I just…I can’t believe this. And now…now I have to go back there and work with him. I have to see him every day, see his face and think about how it felt to kiss him, how it felt for him to want me, to touch me like he did. How it felt for him to walk away.”
“Asshole,” Amelia said, folding her arms with a scowl on her face.
“Well,” Val started, “the good news is that you have all weekend to get your head together, and you have us to keep your mind off things.”
“Movie night tonight—Easy A,” Katherine declared. “And I might have bought two pounds of bonbons from Wammes bakery in a PMS-driven frenzy.”
I brightened up, my mouth watering. “Oh my God, did you get the cheesecake ones?”
She nodded conspiratorially. “And the lemon crèmes,” she whispered.
Val groaned. “I don’t want to go to work.”
I chuckled, but the second I looked away, my gaze lost focus somewhere over the coffee table.
Katherine took my hand. “Rin, you didn’t do anything wrong. You know that, right?”
Just like that, the tears were back. I rubbed my nose to hold them off.
“I mean it,” she insisted, her words as gentle as her touch, which was to say moderately. “What happened wasn’t bad or wrong or dirty.”
A sad, single laugh left me. “I mean, it was a little dirty.”
She smiled. “But you’re not dirty. You’re not unclean. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s him who has the issue.”
“In his defense,” Val added, “you really do look hot in that skirt. I’d finger you in front of Jesus any day of the week.”
I laughed—a real one, a cackling, happy, surprised sound from deep in my belly. And for a moment, I thought in vain that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. As bad as they felt. As bad as they were. And that, come Monday morning, I would have a plan to survive.
14
No, Sir.
Rin
The weekend was over too soon.
Movies had been watched, books absorbed, pizza and bonbons consumed. And my plan, which was shaky at best, was in place.
I would go to work and pretend like it never happened.
I didn’t say it was a good plan.
Active avoidance was the name of the game. I would not entertain an audience with him under any circumstance beyond the absolute minimum required to do my job. I would not consider what he wanted, what had happened between us, or any conversation on the matter, and if he tried to make a move on me again, I would say, Nuh-uh, no sir, no way, no how.
If he gave me a choice.
He’d better not even bring it up. Even to say he was sorry.
Because I would not forgive him.
Probably.
Ugh.
I looked over my reflection in the mirror with a new level of scrutiny. My outfit had been chosen on the advice of Katherine, who suggested I wear something that made me feel powerful enough to withstand gale-force pheromones. So, I’d settled on a black pencil skirt and a maroon chiffon blouse. My heels were tall and black, and my lips were a deep, deep burgundy, courtesy of our fairy godfather Curtis at Sephora.
Not gonna lie, when Curtis had seen me walk into the store so changed from the silent girl in the baggy sweater and his jaw had come unhinged, I’d floated a few inches off the ground—until I made it to the register at least. He’d foisted two new
lipsticks—liquid this time, less smudging—upon me and a pile of other things I would have to YouTube to figure out. He’d also taken the time to answer questions I had in my foray into makeup (How do you stop your mascara from getting on your eyelids when you put it on? Look down when you apply it. How do you get a perfect wing? Draw the wing lines first to make sure they match.), and when I’d left the store that time, I hadn’t felt scared at all. I’d felt like the boss bitch my lipstick said I was.
Of course, that morning, I felt like a lost bitch. But my eyeliner was even, I’d figured out how to curl my hair, and my lipstick was perfect, which was just about the best thing a girl could ask for on a Monday morning.
I turned my head, marveling at the swing of my hair. I’d intended to have it trimmed and shaped up, but Amelia had busted out Pinterest again, searching for something called a lob—a long bob, shorter in the back and longer in the front. And somehow, I’d ended up getting peer-pressured into letting a guy named Stefan cut a solid foot off at the shortest point where it brushed the very top of my shoulders.
It was sleek and sophisticated, fresh and edgy—for me at least. I reveled in the feeling of it sweeping my bare skin, in the way it moved when I turned my head. I looked together, and I felt more like the me who wore heels and pencil skirts and red lipstick.
Stefan had also convinced me I needed a big, fat curling iron and showed me how to use it as the peanut gallery—aka my friends—watched on, fascinated.
I’d become everyone’s favorite guinea pig.
What I didn’t admit aloud was that I was starting to enjoy it.
I kept another, much worse thought even closer—I hoped Court would see it and regret walking away from me.
I realize how pathetic it was that I should give a shit what he thought. And really, I hadn’t cut it for him. But if he happened to notice? And if the sight of me happened to drive him crazy and send him into a frothing, foaming frenzy? If he threw me up against a wall and kissed me like he meant it, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to ever happen to me. I’d be mad as hell and would probably do him bodily harm, but I most definitely wouldn’t hate it.