Chapter 3
Lucy
“Your attire isn’t up to the company dress code.”
Dane Rourke gives me no more than a cursory glance when I’m standing in front of him again. It’s stopped raining, but the clouds are still heavy and gray outside. His office is low-lit, with rich amber lights spilling out onto the wood. It’s comforting in an odd way.
“I have a plan to—” I start, nervously, wondering if I should tell him about my hopes to ask Aunt Ruby for a loan, but he holds up a hand, gesturing to a box on the edge of his desk.
I glance down at it. It’s matte black, with the Ember flame logo embossed on the front, shining in contrast. A beat passes, then I ask, “For me?”
He nods, tersely, only flicking his eyes at my face, and I pull the box toward myself, unable to resist the urge to run my finger over the material. It’s the kind of thing that just feels luxurious, though that’s ridiculous… it’s just a box.
Except it’s not just a box. When I open it, I find the inside lined with a rich, burgundy velvet that cradles three differently shaped, perfectly smooth toys in muted mauve, maroon, and charcoal.
Not toys. Tools. Companions.
My core tightens instantly, and I look up, breathless, locking eyes with Dane Rourke, who stares at me with a perfectly professional expression. It’s neutral, unbothered by the box between us. By what it contains.
“If you’re going to be working here,” he says, his voice even and measured, those cutting brown eyes slicing right through me, seeing right to the center of my little virgin heart, “then you need to be well-acquainted with the product.”
I nod, jerking my head again, sucking in a breath that does nothing to cool my cheeks or quiet the blood rushing to my ears. I need to stop looking at him, break the stare, but I can’t bring myself to do it.
Rourke sits perfectly still for several more moments before tipping his head up toward me.
“There’s an envelope,” he says, and when I glance down, I realize that, sure enough, there is a matte black embossed envelope to match the box.
And when I open it, a weighty silver credit card falls into my hand.
I look up at him, confused, and he says again, “Your attire isn’t up to the company standards. See that you fix that. As our assistant, you’re likely to be seen with us, and it can’t be in…” he glances at my clothes again, like it’s painful for him, “…that.”
“Right.” I drop my eyes to the company card in my hand, holding it like a precious jewel. “Of course. I’ll—I’ll make sure to do that.”
“Good.”
A prickle runs over my skin at the sound of that—his praise. I bite down hard on my tongue to keep that prickle from turning into a shiver.
I’m being a creep, standing here with my thighs pressed together, body ready to fall apart at the sound of his voice. Moving as calmly as I can, I slip the card back into the envelope, then the envelope back into the box, trying to show how I plan to take care of it.
“Lucy?” he says, and I pause just before walking out the door.
“Yes?” I turn back, blinking at him. He holds himself perfectly still in his chair, voice low and deep, his fingers laced together.
“Your desk is on this floor,” he says, eyes shifting away from me, grabbing a stack of papers, and pulling them in front of him. “See to it that you’re present on this floor tomorrow.”
“Of course,” I rasp, before turning and hurrying out.
I get to the elevator, stomach swooping all the way to the lobby, where I text Julian frantically.
Lucy: S.O.S.
Julian: OMG, what did he want?
Lucy: Can you meet me in the lobby?
Julian meets me near the ergonomic chairs just minutes later, his coat on his arm and a bag slung around his chest. He looks ready to leave for the day.
“Rourke gave me a company credit card,” I whisper, stepping in close to him. We might not know each other that well yet, but he’s my only friend at Ember. And I need him desperately right now.
Julian’s eyes widen, and he looks down at the box in my hands. I flush again, praying he doesn’t ask me to open it up for him. He looks back at me, “Shit, he really does have the hots for you…”
“No,” I interject, because it’s like thinking about winning the lottery. Fun, but not realistic in the least. “He just doesn’t want to be seen with Old Navy. It’s about his image. The company image. He made that perfectly clear. I need you to help me go shopping, and get—”
But I don’t get to finish, because Julian is already pulling me toward the front door, saying, “I’ll call the Uber.”
“Love it, I love it!” Aunt Ruby sings, clapping her hands and gesturing for me to twirl. Pudding sits on her lap, lazily licking at her paw, apparently not bothered by my aunt’s exclamations. “Let me see the back! My goodness, you’ve got a great ass.”
We’re in her living room, the soft late afternoon light filtering in, glinting off other buildings, through the west-facing windows. The smell of Thai food and incense hangs in the air, along with the indelible scent of Aunt Ruby’s perfume oils.
Julian is teary, wheezing with laughter, and I turn around, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at her. “Seriously, Aunt Ruby?”
Aunt Ruby waves her hand, “Just be glad you didn’t get your mother’s ass—you know, it’s directly connected to your personality, and hers is flatter than—”
“Auntie,” I complain, dropping my arms and shooting her a more serious glare. I might not absolutely love my parents’ approach to things, but I’m not quite to the point of body shaming my own mother. “Please.”
“Fine,” she grouses, tossing her napkin into her open take-out container. “But you come to me when you’re ready to talk shit about your mother’s ass, okay?”
Julian snorts, and I shoot him a glare, too. He drops his plastic fork and leans back against the couch, saying, “I’m so full. I think I actually got filled up on the shopping earlier.”
“Shopping has no calories,” I argue, turning around so Aunt Ruby can unzip my dress. Her fingers are cold, and her rings scrape against my skin.
Since moving in with her, I’ve never seen her wearing fewer than six rings, which seems to be a pain, since she’s always pouring olive oil on her hands to get them off.
The rings match the rest of her—the skirts, jackets, and patterns, her hair piled up into a headscarf twisted around on her head.
Ears dangling with hand-made earrings from random markets, necklaces layered so they jangle together, tattoos snaking up and down her legs, so you catch glimpses of them when her skirts swish past.
While she is very eclectic and, frankly, too much sometimes, her scent is the opposite. A distilled, straightforward and almost simple note that’s still layered well.
But perfume is what Aunt Ruby does, so it makes sense.
I step into the bathroom to change out of the dress, the last of my haul from the shopping, and hear Aunt Ruby and Julian talking about the consumption of art over food, Van Gogh, and the rumors that he often chose to buy paint over groceries.
I want to roll my eyes, but I actually kind of understand what they’re saying, thinking of the canvas in my room, the painting I’ve been working on of the view outside my window.
When I emerge, stomach growling for my dinner—which I didn’t dare eat in my new clothes—I find them holding the nice credit card, staring down at it and whispering to each other intently.
“What?” I ask, reaching for it on instinct. They let me take it, sharing a look.
“Lucy,” Julian says, his voice thick with excitement. “That is not a company credit card. Look at it.”
Frowning, I turn it over, my mind going blank when I see the name printed right there on the back, right above the numbers.
Dane Rourke.
“That is his personal card,” Julian says, standing up and bringing his hand to his mouth, his eyes sparkling at me. “Holy shit, Lucy—”
“It was probably a mistake…”
“Dane Rourke doesn’t make mistakes,” Julian insists, and I have to agree with him, after knowing him for only a day. It doesn’t seem likely he would give me the wrong card.
But that doesn’t mean I can allow the other explanation—that Rourke wanted me to have his personal card. Now, the thing feels hot to the touch in my hands, despite the fact that the metal is, objectively, cold.
“I’m his assistant now,” I whisper, keeping my voice as level as possible as I stare down at it. “So, it only makes sense that he would trust me with his card. I’ll probably need to use it for all sorts of stuff.”
Julian looks like he has to pee, the way he’s practically hopping from foot to foot, and Aunt Ruby appears cautiously interested. Pudding, as usual, doesn’t seem to care about what’s going on around her.
“Well, I suppose we’ll see,” she says, before stretching, yawning, and announcing it’s time for her to go to bed.
It’s barely seven, but she’s been like this since I got here—going to bed at weird times. It’s either while the sun is still out, the middle of the night, or, sometimes, not at all. And somehow, she seems to have more energy than I do, even though she’s thirty years older than me.
After we say goodbye to Julian and I clean up the mess from dinner, I’m alone in my room, the black box Rourke gave me practically staring me down from the dresser.
Standing, I walk over to it like it might run away from me, biting my lip and running a finger over the outside of the box.
If you’re going to be working here, then you need to be well-acquainted with the product.
I shiver again at the memory of his voice, swallowing hard when I’m able to call it up again like he’s here in the room with me. Closing my eyes, I open the magnetic lid and trail my fingers over the toys.
They’re almost… soft. Inviting.
I’d read more about the products in an article quoting the Chief Technology Officer, Cole Davenport. I got the sense that he didn’t really want to be interviewed, but also that he was proud of the technology.
“…have the finest medical-grade silicone, finely-tuned motors with machine learning. Temperature control, dynamic touch from nano-bots within the silicone that goes far beyond what a simple rotating ball bearing could otherwise accomplish.”
Now, I’m holding one of them in my hand.
I turn it over, something hot and sticky—almost like shame—running over my skin.
It’s not like my parents ever directly demonized sex or pleasure. We got plenty of that from outside sources, namely youth groups and the general small-town culture. I’d never had terribly strong sexual urges, completely disgusted by the boys in my class, and thought that was just fine.
If there was no temptation to give into, I could be a good girl very easily.
But then I got to college, and suddenly, I felt completely out of my depth. Sex was a possibility far, far on the horizon, impossible to grasp without going through the barrier of finding the right guy.
And college guys didn’t seem that much better than the high school boys. In fact, they really weren’t, only a few years removed from hollering down the hallways and smacking books from people’s hands.
So, I did nothing. Focused on my studies. Spent my weekends with Frankie. Ignored the flutter I got when a professor twice my age handed back a paper with a pointed, “Great work.”
Now, my curiosity outweighs the shame, and I walk over to my bed. My heart pounds thickly in my ears, just like it did when I was with Rourke earlier, his gaze on me as I opened the box.
Did that… do something for him?
Surely not. But reality doesn’t stop me from imagining it did, from thinking that maybe watching me open that box would have made something in him tighten, the way it did for me. Watching me see the contents could have led him to imagine me doing something with them.
Running my hands over the toy, I find a tiny indent that must be a button, and I press it. It doesn’t start vibrating immediately; instead, it seems to glow slightly in my hand, warming, the vibration coming on in gentle, lapping waves.
Face hot, entire body pulsing with a mixture of excitement and need, I climb under the covers and keep my pajamas on, slipping my hand with the toy under the elastic of my cotton underwear.
It’s not like Aunt Ruby is going to come barging in here. It’s not like she would care about what I was doing anyway. But being under the blanket and still being dressed, makes me feel more secure.
At first, I have no idea what to do. Slowly, I inch the buzzing toy lower and lower until it sparks something, and I close my eyes, letting out a shaky breath.
So that’s what the vibration is for.
My exhalations come quicker as I settle the toy over myself, marveling at the way it seems to respond to everything… the pressure of my hold, my breathing, even my pulse.
With my eyes shut, the pleasure needs something, some sort of conduit, and I find it in thinking about Dane Rourke.
I definitely shouldn’t be doing this. It’s not professional, and it's not going to make things any easier when I have to see him tomorrow.
And yet, I’m imagining his cutting stare, his deep, commanding voice.
Your desk is on this floor. See to it that you’re present there tomorrow.
So, I picture it—me arriving at my desk, finding him waiting for me. His hands are rough on my hips, pushing me up against the wall. His fingers on my chin, forcing me to look at him, his leg between my thighs, his erection pressing into my hip.
“I need you,” my imaginary Rourke says, and when I gasp, he kisses me, sliding his tongue into my mouth like it’s his to take. I’m his to take.
“I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I know.”
I gasp, writhing against the vibrations, the waves of pleasure slotting inside me and building up into something more intense. My fantasy spirals into a series of flashes, his hands sliding up the skirt of my dress, turning me around, bending me over my desk.
Or, better yet, his desk, in his office, the city gloomy and dark outside, my cheek pressed to the wood as he kicks my heels apart and slides his hand along me, finding me wet and ready for him.
The orgasm crashes over me like a surprise invasion, releasing the fantasy before I’ve even gotten to the good part, not that I would quite know how to imagine it. What would the pressure feel like, of him fucking me from behind?
Even as I come down, hands shaking, an unsteady laugh puffing out of me, I can’t deny the insistent, pressing curiosity inside me. The distant, aching feeling of wanting more. Of not quite being satisfied, despite the way the toy made me orgasm.
It’s my desire to know exactly what it feels like to have Dane Rourke like that. It must be what drug addicts feel, craving a hit. It’s like waking up in the middle of the night, bleary and so thirsty, reaching for the water at your bedside like it’s holy.
And I have the sinking feeling that I’ll never be able to satisfy this particular itch, no matter how many of Ember’s companions I try out.