CHAPTER 25DENISE
CHAPTER 25
DENISE
As I walked into Hugh’s office, my mind was on the conversation I’d had with Lucian. He was right, I couldn’t just give up. The only way out was through. I had to keep that in mind because it felt like the only way out was running in the other direction.
He looked up and without a word, held out his hand. I sighed, taking it, and letting him pull me behind his desk and onto his lap. My head lay under his chin and his arms came around me, squeezing me into him.
“Thanks,” I mumbled against him, glad I had gone without makeup. His baby blue dress shirt was paired with a heather gray suit, and I’d feel horrible if my cuddle ruined his clothes. Fingers went to the nape of my neck; each fingertip slowly pressed down and began to turn in a circle, and I felt some of the stress I’d been holding relax.
“He’s just getting his fifteen minutes.”
“I know,” I replied.
“After this, it’s just me and you all weekend.”
I felt my heart kicking against my chest. Lots of things that he said made me feel gooey inside, but that—that was my kryptonite. That was the one thing that I wanted to hear him repeat over and over again.
“Oh?” I asked, hoping he was finally going to let me take him on the magical journey into adult wizards.
“Yes,” he replied, his lips coming to my forehead.
This is what I needed. All day I’d been working and ignoring the parade of people that absolutely had to walk past my office for some reason. I’d eaten lunch alone in my office because I couldn’t stomach the idea of sitting in the kitchen, even though the interns had waved me over. It didn’t seem right to interrupt their break time with the person making them work after hours. That’s why I’d drafted the letter. From the way the phones had been going off, they were working hard.
My fault. That niggling voice popped up in the back of my head again. I ignored it, focusing instead on the feel of his body beneath mine.
“Should I be worried?” I asked quietly.
I didn’t want to know. But what I wanted and what I was going to get seemed to be two totally different things. Burying my head in the sand wouldn’t make any of this shit go away any faster. He continued to rub my neck in slow, lazy circles.
He didn’t say a word, his lips just burned a trail down to my neck.
“We need to move your stuff out of that place.” His tone was too measured. He was expecting a fight. I felt that immediate jolt of fear that he wasn’t serious, but I stuffed that feeling away because I knew, deep in my gut, that he was right.
Someone had found out where Cleo lived, and she’d have to move. It wasn’t a stretch that they could find out where I lived too. I couldn’t move back there. But had I wanted to? I mean, really wanted to.
Feeling his heartbeat and hearing his breath even into sleep last night gave me the space to think about what he was offering me: it was peace.
I’d never had that before, not really. He was the sun shining bright in front of me, but I hadn’t seen the sun in so long, it was too much. But when he was holding me, whispering to me, it all made perfect sense. Nothing seemed like too much.
“Okay,” I replied.
“You’d be moving your stuff into my place.” He was saying the words slowly like he was confused.
“Okay,” I repeated.
He paused for a moment before catching my eyes.
“Just, okay? No conditions, no questions? Just. Okay?”
The look of bewilderment on his face made me laugh, full-on belly laugh right in front of his face. He didn’t laugh, he was solemn and that made me laugh even harder. I wiped my eyes as he shook his head.
“Denny.”
“Conditions didn’t work the last time, what’s the point of making them this time? Plus, we know we coexist well together. Well, almost. The grocery delivery thing. That’s expensive and hella unnecessary. And the cleanliness is super anal, but I mean, you’re never mean to me about it, so I guess that’s okay. Oh, and the cars that take us out to Oakland. Driving is cheaper and way more efficient.”
He stared at me for a moment, something unreadable in his expression. After a few seconds passed he started laughing, his face buried in my chest. He stayed there, laughing with his whole body before he wiped his eyes and leaned back to regard me with smiling eyes.
“So, we have to go grocery shopping and I have to drive to Oakland,” he repeated.
“Well, I mean, we can BART to your Grams house. It’s not far—”
“Why in the hell would I BART anywhere?” his eyebrow went up, and I scoffed.
“BART is great.”
A strangled noise rattled in his chest.
“BART is great. If you’d grown up in LA, you’d know how terrible the Metro is. You are so spoiled up here,” I scoffed.
“Yeah, let’s take your potato salad in a car where some fool is smoking a blunt and some other idiot is pissing in his seat,” he leaned back in his seat and glared up at me, daring me to argue with him. The problem was I’d told him of those two separate incidents that happened while I was coming to work.
Rolling my eyes, I poked his chest.
“Public transportation is public . And if it reduces our use of fossil fuels—”
“My car is electric,” he cut in.
“Good, it’s settled. You’re driving.” I smiled at him as he just watched me.
“I feel like I walked right into that,” he said while giving the world’s deepest sigh.
“You did. It’s okay. It happens to the best of us.”
I stood up and before I could convince myself not to, I placed my hand against him, feeling the heat of his semi-hard dick through his pants.
“Do negotiations always make you hard?”
My tone sounded husky, even to my ears. His hand covered mine, holding it against him.
“Depends? Does the idea of me ripping that dress from your body make you soak your panties?”
My stomach dipped and flipped again. Some brazen bitch must have inhabited my body, because before I could stop myself, I pulled away and reached up underneath my dress and grabbed the edges of my panties, pulling them down past my boots.
I bent over, my ass grazing against his leg as I picked up the panties and placed them in his hand.
“You tell me,” I said, before turning and heading towards the door. When I braved a glance backward, he had my panties to his nose and a look in his eyes.
He didn’t need to say it. There was a list, and I was adding to it.
Good.
I wanted—no, I needed—to feel the release that came from being punished. The euphoria of that pain took me away to a place where I just existed, floating in the ether, pushed and pulled by someone I trusted with my pleasure.
When I walked to my office, my head was high, and I wasn’t afraid to make eye contact anymore. One moment, one conversation with him, and I remembered who I was and who I’d always been: a bad bitch.
Albeit, a bad bitch buried beneath stress, anxiety, and a few bad decisions.
But still, a badass bitch.
Fuck anyone who thought differently.