Chapter Twenty-Three Rae
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rae
ALRIGHTY THEN. I GUESS we’re not civilized. I guess we’re… something else. Something rougher, uncontrolled. A little scary.
What’s he going to do? That’s the thing keeping me on my toes as I rinse dishes with total concentration. Pretending everything’s just hunky-dory and there’s not a man behind me being… well, the word uncivilized certainly springs to mind.
When he doesn’t say anything else, I glance over my shoulder at that face and—oh, crap—my insides clench, my nipples go hard, and I watch, my mouth slightly open, as he unbuttons a sleeve and starts rolling it up.
Mesmerized by his quick, precise movements, I find myself turning to lean back against the sink, eyes glued to those efficient hands as he sets to work on the other sleeve.
His approach, as calm and deliberate as a hunter with his prey, makes my pulse go haywire. The closer he gets, the harder it is to catch my breath, and when he leans in…
What’s he doing? Is he going to…?
He reaches around me to shut off the water.
I didn’t even realize I’d left it running.
I never leave water running; it’s much too precious a resource.
Expensive and limited and… “What are you…?” My words trail off, like the last of the breadcrumbs I dropped to get us to this place have suddenly frittered away to nothing, and it’s too late anyway because I’m Little Red Riding Hood from Into the Woods, and the Wolf is right here, and I maybe kind of asked for this.
No, I definitely did. Who cares, anyway, because with Grant Bowman this close, I’m short-circuiting.
He doesn’t reply, and I guess I didn’t actually finish my thought.
So what is there for him to say as he stands there, three feet away, watching me with eyes that are sometimes black, sometimes brown, and always—always—searing me from the inside out?
Like a burning coal in a cold furnace, the man incinerates me without an ounce of warmth.
“We’ve got a problem, you and me,” he says, his tone so conversational that this could almost be a professional conundrum he’s come to me to solve.
“Oh?” I manage, soap-slick hands gripping the sink behind me in a way that sticks my boobs out and makes my heavy breathing obvious.
He looks down at my chest and watches a full in-and-out cycle before allowing that sharp-edged gaze to return slowly to mine.
“I think you know exactly what problem I’m referring to.” He settles into a position that’s somehow both casual and purposeful. Hands at his sides, tension in the thick, corded forearms I can’t stop staring at, his legs a little wider than they’d naturally land.
“I… I don’t…”
“The rules, Sunny.”
Everything clenches between my legs hard. “The rules?”
“Don’t play innocent now.” The headshake, the cynical ghost of a smirk. This man will have none of it. Not for a solitary second. “You’re much too intelligent for that.”
He thinks I’m smart? That’s a shocker. But the compliment feels as good as his undivided focus. Even the hint of condescension hits a pleasurable note deep inside me.
He looks down, squeezing the back of his neck, and sighs with obvious disappointment.
Why, oh why, do I now feel chastised and put in my place and, incidentally, more turned on than I’ve been in my life?
If the sink weren’t holding me up, I’d melt to my knees, hug his legs, and beg him to… to… for… if only…
“Turn around.” His words are all consonant. The whiplash of a T, the final D sparking down my spine.
Yes. That. The instruction pings through me, lighting up nerves and cells like the on switch to my circuit board, and yet I can’t convince my body to move.
When all I do is stare, he releases another of those annoyed sighs and steps closer.
“Turn… the hell… around, Sunny. Now.”
I’ve never spun so fast in my life. For a blank moment, I stare at the sink, my hands floating above it like birds with nowhere to alight.
As if he knows how directionless I am, Grant guides me. “Hold the sides.”
I lean forward and put my hands against the edges, grip hard to keep from sliding… and wait.
Wait.
Wait.
“You know why the rules are there, Sunny?” he finally asks, the question a puff of warmth against the side of my head.
“I… I think so.”
“No. I don’t believe you do. If you did, you would take them more seriously.” There’s a little sound from him, half growl, half grunt, and then he’s closer, body heat giving his proximity away. “You think it’s a game? What we’re doing here? What we did down there?”
“Uh…” I don’t know. Maybe? Isn’t it, though? Kind of a game? I’ve heard people refer to BDSM dates as play sessions, which makes me think that’s exactly what it is, but then for others, it’s a lifestyle. I… I don’t know what he wants me to say, which is simultaneously the best and worst sensation.
As an eternal teacher’s pet, I hate not having the answer.
I’d feel unmoored, lost, and on the cusp of failure if he weren’t right there behind me.
As it is, I want him one step closer. I want more than heat.
I want the weight of him, the pressure, and maybe—what the hell, Rae?
—maybe a little pain too? Like, if he tries it, just once, maybe I’ll go to that place he took me to on Friday, and everything—all the overwhelm, the anxiety, the uncertainty—will fade and—
“Stay with me,” he says in that low, solid voice.
It’s some kind of magic that makes everything suddenly crystal clear. I’m present, in my body. “Okay,” I whisper, hypnotized.
“Good. Now listen.”
I nod, staring down at the pile of half-rinsed plates, aquamarine frosting running down the drain in a rogue Van Gogh swirl.
“The rules are for your own good. And mine. The rules keep things clear, separate. They keep us safe.”
Slowly, my eyes close to the rich, warm velvet of his voice as it radiates from my ear to my solar plexus and places farther south.
I can’t help the way my back arches, seeking more from this encounter. A hint of friction, at the very least.
“Look at you.” Another annoyed sigh, and he shifts. My breath catches as one arm settles on the sink ledge beside me, the other on the opposite side. I’m boxed in. Trapped. Still, annoyingly, he’s not actually touching me. “You need to be contained, don’t you, naughty girl?”
I try to shake my head, but I’m not sure it works. Nothing works but my heart, which is about to explode from all the pumping.
“Widen your legs.”
I immediately obey.
“You know what I can’t stand? What isn’t remotely acceptable?”
I hope he doesn’t expect a response.
“The way you prance around—”
“I prance?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. Okay.”
“Stop. Talking.” One knee nudges the back of my thigh. “You think there aren’t consequences? For disobeying? For sashaying around, all fairy dust and light, like there’s nothing bad in the world, when we’ve got jobs to do.”
“What? That doesn’t make any sen—”
“And this goddamn neck.”
Oh. Oh, that’s it. Here we go. The rule. The one that pushed me too far and made me take a big fat black marker to his precious list.
5. HAIR MUST COVER NECK AT ALL TIMES.
“Yeah, about that, I’m not okay with you telling me what I—” I start to turn, and he stops me with that same knee, only this time it’s flat against my bottom.
“Don’t move.”
“You don’t decide how I do my hair,” I whisper.
“Don’t I? You run around with this pretty little nape exposed, Sunny, and expect to be treated like a colleague instead of the little sub you are? Making me sit there and stare at it, hard as a rock while you staple and type and bop around in that chair, with this soft throat out, begging for…”
He loses it here, his voice gone, scraped raw, as if the last few words were wrung from his lungs, the velvet sound from before has been brushed the wrong way, and now the rough’s come to the surface.
“Begging for what?” I ask, as his breath heats my nape, sending goose bumps out to the tip of every finger, every toe, prickling so hard that my body can’t help but wiggle in response.
“Don’t move, Sunny.”
It’s too late, though. I can’t help but shift my weight, and he retaliates by inserting his knee fully between my legs from behind, and suddenly I’m straddling it.
“You see now, Sunny?” he rasps. “We talked about this. In the club, remember? You disobey the rules. You pay the consequences.”
I’ve just opened my mouth to remind him that we’re at work and his rules are inappropriate here when… he bites down on my neck. The only sound I can produce is a gasp.
Everything goes blank.
Quiet.
I’m a body. An animal. Caught, strangely calm. Excitement’s an electric pulse, thrumming, thrumming underneath my surface.
“Consequences,” he mutters against my skin before licking it. “That’s all this is. Cause, effect, quid pro-fucking-quo.”
He’s right. This feels inevitable. Like a chain of events that can’t possibly be stopped.
“Use it,” he mutters into the crook of my neck. “Use my knee.”
Without hesitation, my body obeys. Pushing, cramming.
His hand pressing down on my shoulder, making everything more, harder.
Eyes closed. A slow hip circle.
Good. So good. Pressure at my hip, making me speed up. Grind faster, ramp up the contact. I let out a whimper.
“There it is,” he whispers. “Good girl.”
Pleasure fizzes through me, sparking in my fingers, my toes. I wiggle, lit up and alive.
He claims both hips and works me up and back over that muscular thigh, up and back, until there’s nothing else. And then, there, the press of him against my ass, his erection a metal bar right between my cheeks.
He’s as turned on by this as I am. His excitement eggs me on, and I’m arching, reaching for more. Straining. Stretching.
“That’s it. That’s my sweet Sunny. Give it to me. Show me how you do it.”
“Give you… Give you what?”
“The orgasm you owe me.” His mouth strokes my ear, the words a harsh counterpoint to the wash of warm breath. “Go on. I know it’s in there. Show me.”
I don’t get it. “Y-you want me to make you come?”
“Oh, Sunny.” His dry laugh makes me feel young and naive.
It’s a threat, that laugh, coupled with a promise. I lap them both up like mint chocolate ice cream.
“I’m not the one who’s going to come all over this knee, sweet subby. You are.”
I gasp.