Chapter 11
11
Pia
I can’t get the noises Ethan made last night out of my head.
And I should. I really, really should.
Because every time I replay it in my mind, my face heats up hotter than a furnace. And not just because of how turned on I get.
I may have turned a little bratty when he… finished, then disappeared down the hallway, only to return five minutes later, his face set in stone, to calmly tell me it was time for me to go back to my apartment.
Sent off like a little girl. And not the good kind of little girl. An unwanted one.
I’d resisted stomping my foot. Barely. But I pouted and whined and almost called him a few choice names. And I especially disliked him a lot when I tried to get myself off alone in my bed. And failed.
Except all of my unhappiness didn’t stop me thinking of those raw, primal noises he’d made. How it would feel to have it all focused on me.
As he fucked me.
I start to squirm, then freeze. I need to stop acting so sketchy.
Maggie’s been casting me puzzled looks since I walked in this morning.
She caught me sitting gingerly, and her eyes narrowed almost knowingly before she looked disapproving and a little disappointed.
I’m not sure how to react to that, so I’ve been trying to avoid her. Except she’s given me a heap of work to get through… right across from her desk.
My only consolation—even though it feels like a punishment—is that Ethan hasn’t been in all morning. It’s almost lunchtime.
He had the car service pick me up and deliver me to work, then went AWOL.
I haven’t been able to peek at his diary because Maggie’s guarding it like a bloodhound, and I don’t dare ask her.
Her warning from my first week hovers just above my head, and unease builds to mingle with the ache still swirling deep in my pelvis, a derriere that still stings, and a brain intent on playing the sound of Ethan pleasuring himself while staring at my ass and pussy on a loop.
But besides the ache prowling in my nether regions, there’s also the peculiar ache in my chest. The one that started when he gruffly told me to leave on his return from the bathroom.
It’d felt like…hurt. Deep hurt. The one that made my belly hollow, like I was losing something. Losing him. Which was absurd considering, well…everything.
I’ve known Ethan Villiers for less than two weeks. I shouldn’t feel anything beyond the wild hormones and chemistry he evokes in me.
And yet…
I can’t help recall how he’d looked when I tried one last time to talk to him last night, how he’d stood at his condo window, his back firmly turned, as if he was rejecting what we’d done.
Rejecting me.
The tension riding his shoulders screamed that it was a bad idea to engage in further conversation.
I knew I’d pushed him into giving me that experimental spanking.
And oh la la , what an experience it was.
I had no idea it would make me so… wet. So needy. Leave me with an even bigger hunger.
Now I’m full of questions. Questions he’s not here to answer.
I flash another glance at his empty office. At the leather chair he fills so well and looks so magnificent in.
I spent last night tossing and turning, frustrated and yes, still hurt at how everything had turned out. And as the darkness outside lightened, I decided I could tackle things one of two ways.
Pretend nothing happened and go back to how things were before he took me shopping on Saturday and glared at every guy who got within touching distance. Before he snarled in Marty Oswald’s face as if he was a twitchy second from ripping his face off. Before he warned me to stay away from my neighbor, and before he splayed me so decadently over his knees, spanked me then jerked off with his eyes fixed squarely on my burning ass cheeks and the wet space in between.
Yes, I could go back to all of that.
Or… I could do the exact opposite.
Be brave and run full bore at this thing.
Because wasn’t that why I put my foot down this summer and refused to remain in Switzerland when Mother sent me one of her flighty last-minute texts to tell me plans had changed?
That she had her hands full with back-to-back engagements—not-so-secret code for partying—and that she could arrange for me to spend the summer in a friend’s villa . Meaning she intended to dump me on a stranger who owed her a favor.
The thought of enduring months of fake smiles and pitying looks had me immediately calling Uncle Phil, who’d been gratifyingly annoyed with his sister-in-law and stepped in with a different plan that had led me here.
Mother didn’t so much as utter a peep when I texted her with the new plans. And the last I heard, she was in St. Barts with a bunch of her friends.
As for Dad… my heart squeezes tighter for a whole different stream of reasons I don’t want to think about now.
My gaze drifts past Ethan’s chair again as if he might’ve magically appeared while I was thinking of my fraught, almost non-existent relationship with my parents.
The different hollow, one of missing out on the chance to see how far I could get by pushing Ethan’s buttons, has me discarding any thought of stepping away from the heady edge. The one he’d brought me to last night and left me dangling on.
I suck in a shaky breath as scenarios fill my head, making me hot. Hotter . Deliberately, I shift just so I can feel the lingering pain in my ass.
Daydream about how it will feel for him to repeat that spanking experiment spread across his thighs… in his office.
Or maybe I could show him my red ass again…while crawling across his office floor the way I’d seen Maggie Gyllenhaal do in that movie.
“Pia.”
Mon dieu , why does that make me feel so hot?
“Pia?”
I jump at Maggie’s sharp voice. I know I look guilty as hell when I meet her gaze. “ Ou —yes?”
“I asked if you were finished? I need you to run some documents over to the fifth floor.”
I scramble to my feet, eager to get away from her prying eyes. “Yes, I can do that. I’m almost done reviewing the document. I can finish when I get back.” I also need a reprieve from the monotony of paperwork, which allows my unholy thoughts to run unchecked like a friggin’ wildfire.
A walk to clear my head is exactly what I need.
“Are you sure? You seem a little distracted today.” There’s a faint question lingering in her statement, but I pluck out a smile and shake my head.
“I’m fine. Who do you need me to deliver them to?”
She gives me the name and I hurry away, clutching the documents tight like they can shield me from the way Maggie sees more than I want her to.
I’m fine. That’s what I said. That’s what I’ll keep saying until it’s true.
But as I step into the elevator and the doors close behind me, I feel the lie hum against my skin.
Because I’m not fine.
I’m buzzing.
I can’t stop replaying the sound of Ethan’s voice or the smacks of his hand as they landed on my bare ass. I keep thinking about that line of his jaw, the way his control frays at the edges when I got just a little too bold last night.
What will happen when it breaks completely?
I exhale noisily through my nose, press the folder tighter against my chest and my ass against the elevator wall until the pain zings through me again, sending dampness to my panties.
It started as a sudden and surprising crush. Something electrifying, silly, and impossible.
But what I want from Ethan now… it’s not a crush.
And it’s definitely not silly.
It’s consuming . He’s shown me it’s possible.
And maybe—I think, as the elevator glides past the third floor—it’ll hurt.
Maybe I’ll fall too far.
Maybe he won’t catch me the way I imagine he could, with all that sharp, searing intensity.
But even as fear flutters in my belly, right alongside the butterflies, I know one thing with absolute certainty.
I’m still going to jump.