“I don’t want it,” she said.
“You’re not getting wet right now? Your heart isn’t beating faster?”
I let go of her hand and grabbed her neck. She reached to balance herself against my chest, gasping, but making no other complaint.
“I can feel it,” I whispered. “I can feel your pulse racing. I can feel your breath hitch.”
“Because you’re choking me,” she rasped.
“Are you wet for me? Tell the truth.”
“No.”
I reached under her skirt. When she tried to pull away I tightened my grasp on her neck. She made a rough noise. Her hands were free. She could have fought me. She didn’t.
I ran a palm up her thigh, over silky skin to the gusset of her panties. She stared at me, swallowing against my grip. She didn’t want me to touch her horny, wet pussy, because then she’d reveal the depth of her need.
But another part of her ached for my touch. I could see it in her eyes, feel it in her body’s tension. The stubborn, hiding part of her wanted me to force her and humiliate her by driving my fingers inside her. I stopped my slow explorations just above her panty’s smooth gusset. I wanted to ravage her with my fingers, to shame her and fuck her, but I wouldn’t.
“Let’s have a little honesty,” I said instead. “You want me every day. You want me every hour, just as I want you. You fantasize about my control, my commands, my gaze on your naked skin. You want me to hurt you. You want my cock inside you, fucking you until everything else falls away.”
With every word, her gaze flickered a little. The front of prim professionalism would never hide the need inside her.
“Just admit it,” I said quietly. “To me and to yourself.”
I waited with one hand grasping her throat, and the other between her legs, not quite touching the heat of her arousal. I’d wait an hour, if she needed that much time to come clean about her feelings. In the end, it only took a minute.
“I admit it,” she said in a pained voice. “I want you. But I don’t want to want you. The thing is… We can’t. I don’t want anyone in my life right now, especially you. You have too much power to hurt me.”
Jesus Christ. My cock was so hard. She was too near. I had to let her go. My fingers opened, releasing her.
“Go to your desk then,” I said. “Go do your important work, and pretend you don’t want me every day for the rest of this internship, but know that I miss you. That I want you. That will never change.”
She flinched like I’d just slapped her. Yes, starshine, remember when I used to slap your face? How horny you would get? How you’d bare your teeth at me and beg for more? She scurried back to her desk, like it was some fortress that would protect her. My desk, in my office.
This isn’t your safe place, Chere. It’s only safe because I’m hanging on to my last fucking shred of control.
“I just can’t right now,” she said, staring down at her design book. “Price, I can’t. I’m sorry.” She bit her lip and went silent.
I looked back at my blueprints. Someday I’d punish her for this. Someday I’d exact revenge for all my suffering and make her beg for my touch and my cock.
She thought I had too much power to hurt her? She hadn’t seen anything yet.
Chere
My internship continued, real work and real education stirred together with constant temptation and Price’s unsettling stares. He was teaching me useful things, but the real reason I sprang out of bed every morning was to spend time in his presence. I admitted this to myself, after fruitless efforts at denying it. But I would never admit it to him.
P.T. Eriksen was a monarch in the design arena, a brilliant, admired star-chitect to whom everyone deferred. He held multiple advanced degrees, spoke multiple languages, and possessed more money and influence than I’d ever imagined. He’d hidden it from me on purpose when he was my client, and now, every day, I struggled to reconcile this capable, famous person with the man who’d shoved his cock down my throat and slapped my face.
Don’t misunderstand me. He was absolutely the commanding man I knew from those sessions, but he was also so much more, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. Every day, I caught myself remembering touches and grasps, low, hissed words, and the feeling of him inside me. I feared I was falling for him all over again, which scared me to death.
On the weekends, I tried to refocus, to move past my misguided obsession with my lover-turned-boss, but I only found myself eager for Monday again. I didn’t know how to explain all this conflict to Andrew. I tried. I babbled to him about the way Price looked at me, and the crazy shit he said to me. Did I think it would make more sense in the telling?