16. Deniz
Chapter 16
Deniz
I need to stop looking at my fucking phone.
It’s near the end of the third quarter, and finance is giving a presentation that, up until an hour ago, I was invested in hearing. Now, I can hear my CFO’s voice get more and more irritated every time I look down.
“Can operations provide some insight on the clients with the slimmest margins and a justification for their expenses?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at the presenters across the screen. Adrienne, my Chief of Sales, smiles with a wattage that could start a forest fire and holds her hand out for the presentation clicker. She flips forward about a dozen slides until a profile on our least cost effective clients is on the screen.
My team is incredibly competent. They’re at ?imsek because they know we’re at the top of the game. Which is why I felt confident in their abilities, even when I was distracted by stalking Clara this past year.
But now, I can feel myself slipping. The glass of the lingerie shop distorted her features as she walked in, but I could have sworn I saw a small, victorious smile grace her lips as she pushed that door open.
She’s fucking with me. She knows I’m watching her, and somehow she knows I still want her, and so she’s using it against me.
That should not make me want her more. I hate her. With every fiber of my being, I want to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze, the way she did to me in the surveillance room. I want to feel her breath leave her, to hear her moans, to have her hands on me again…
Stop.
I have eleven minutes until I can officially declare that I have another meeting I need to get to. I’m desperate to see her again, to catch a glimpse of what she’s doing inside that god forsaken store, but I have to at least pretend like I’m doing my job.
The board and my executive team have given me a lot of leeway since Kerem’s death. Perhaps their patience would have run thinner if company culture had taken a hit, or our sales had deteriorated. But empathy runs as deep as pockets, and many potential clients saw a man working through his grief and decided to give us their business. I would feel more guilty, lying about the conditions of Kerem’s passing, if the reality weren’t far more horrific.
If they only knew I spent most of my days and nights at my computer, watching Clara.
The quarterly report wraps up with three minutes to spare, and my assistant announces he’ll email action items to everyone’s teams by close of business. I’m out of my chair before anyone can stop me to talk, making a beeline toward my office and shutting the door behind me.
When I open my phone, the image is still squarely on the storefront. I don’t see Clara, but I run the tape backwards at a high speed. There. Twenty minutes ago, she left the store. Lee’s there a few minutes later, picking her up. I try to track them through the traffic cameras, but before I get very far, there’s a notification at the top of my phone.
Someone’s home.
I flip to my internal security system, watching Clara as she steps out of the elevator, a small bag in her hand. She walks directly into her room and shuts the door without a glance toward the cameras.
I consider shutting down the app and trying to focus on work. But I can’t stop myself from wondering, imagining. If there’s even a miniscule chance she’s about to show me exactly what she bought in that store, I’m physically incapable of passing it up. And I hate her for it. I take a seat at my desk, propping my phone up against a paperweight. She hasn’t left her room, so I start up my computer and resign myself to my day job while I wait.
It doesn’t take long. Clara opens the door, legs bare under an oversized coat I’ve never seen her wear. She walks down the hallway, her steps determined, that triumphant little grin back on her face. Winking at the TV—I didn’t even realize she knew there was a camera there—she passes the living room, headed straight down the next hall. Toward my room.
Unlike her bedroom, mine has cameras. Tiny lenses embedded in the frame of the mirror in the corner and nestled in the fronds of the small plant sitting on the dresser. She looks around, and I think she’s trying to find them. She taps her ear as she sits on the corner of the bed.
My blood burns like fire in my veins as I turn on the speaker and engage the pinprick light at the top of the camera in the mirror. It catches her eye, and she faces it completely, rising up onto her knees atop my bed.
It’s impossible not to remember the other time she’s been in this room. Sunkissed skin, flushed cheeks, arched back. I bite the inside of my cheek as she moves to remove her jacket.
“You may think you’ve bested me, ?????,” she says, dropping the fabric from one shoulder. I curse under my breath as she exposes the delicate, cream-colored lace covering her breasts. She’s using the word fiancé against me the same way I did against her this morning. “But no matter what kind of upper hand you think you’ve won, there will always be something you can never have again.”
She drops the jacket fully now, a bodice of delicate pale ivory lace revealed. She trails her fingers up and down her frame, caressing herself the way I’ve craved to since the night I tasted her.
Unbearable lust barrels through me as she drags her hands down her stomach, lightly brushing over her lace-covered cunt. She may be putting on a show, a demonstration of what she holds over me, but it’s not all a farce. The flush of her chest, the soft way her breath catches, all damning evidence of her lust.
She enjoys this. Me, watching her. And as rightfully afraid as she must be that I can find her anywhere, she also can’t help what it makes her feel.
She takes a nipple between her fingers, twisting through the fabric as her nails dig into her own thigh. The moan she lets out is dramatized, but it barely matters. I’m already out of my seat, headphones in my ears as I storm out of my office.
“Emergency at home, I’ll be back tomorrow,” I yell at my assistant as I rush past. If I ignore every traffic light, I can be in my garage in eight minutes.
The elevator moves achingly slow as I watch Clara continue her perusal, rolling her hips as she pinches her nipple between her fingers. Even for this performance, even with herself, Clara doesn’t touch gently. Her other hand moves to her hair, pulling as tightly as she does on the hard, dusky point hidden by sheer lace. As soon as the doors open, I sprint to my car.
It’s a feat worthy of acclaim that I keep my eyes on the road on the drive home. The one thing keeping me sane is that if I die in a car accident, I’ll never see her fuck herself on my bed.
I pull into my parking structure as Clara’s fingers slip beneath the fabric covering her pussy. Headphones still in, I listen to her moan at her own touch, my own groan caught in my throat. I collect myself as I step into the elevator, waiting to shut off the video until right before the doors open to our apartment.
I can’t hear her from all the way in the foyer, but the memory of the noises she makes when she comes rings through my ears. I toss my keys and phone on the entry table and roll the cuffs of my shirt, my skin hot to the touch.
I have no idea what she’ll do when I walk through that door, but I can’t stop myself. I’ve been reliving the feeling of her gushing over my hand for months, fisting my cock in the shower time after time. Her body covered in bridal lace, wet and wanting in my bed, is too much of a temptation to deny.
I hear her heavy breaths and repressed groans through the door, and I savor them, knowing entering may cause her to stop. But it’s a risk I have to take.
For a moment after I open the door, she doesn’t seem to notice. Her fingers work in slow, steady circles over her clit, her other hand grasping at her breast. She’s staring at the camera in the mirror, but that also means she’s watching her own body as she works herself into a frenzy in my sheets.
Finally, her eyes catch mine, and she stills, her mouth open in the most tempting gasp. I lean my shoulder against the doorframe, aiming for a nonchalance that’s betrayed by the whites of my knuckles as I cross my arms.
“Don’t stop on my account, ????,” I say with a shrug, letting the endearment slip without thinking. Qamari, my moon, cold and beautiful and untouchable. “Show me what I can’t have.”
Her chest rises and falls with heavy breaths, her will battling with her desire. I keep my expression neutral, but she must be able to tell how badly I need her. I won’t touch her, but it’s physically painful not to.
Slowly, she starts her movements again. Light brushes at first, color climbing up her chest and settling on her cheeks. Our gazes don’t break as I move to the mirror, leaning against the wall behind it. My hand twitches to stroke my cock, but I grip my own arm.
“Look at yourself, Clara,” I command, and she blinks a few times before complying. Her knees open wider as she watches her reflection. “You know how much it kills me not to touch you. You know much I hate that you make me want you.”
Her eyes close as her fingers slip deeper and she begins to ride her own hand. The noises she makes now can’t be mistaken for a performance.
“Eyes up.” She lifts her gaze immediately, desperation and hunger etched across her face. “You don’t want to watch yourself come?”
She opens and closes her mouth, another war raging in her own mind, before releasing a long, defeated sigh. Like she’s giving up the control she bought when she climbed up here to taunt me.
“I want to watch you,” she whispers, like that will keep me from hearing the desperation on her tongue.
The words could drown me and set me on fire all at once. I keep my expression neutral, but I know my pupils are blown wide. She keeps riding her hand, soft pants and cries slipping from her perfect lips.
“You want to watch me what ?” I demand, needing her to say it. Needing her to lose as much as I am, for us to be on equal footing. I need us both to let this hate and rage and fear dissolve into something more.
“I want to watch you come,” she begs. And it is begging . Her voice is thin and breathy, her fingers working faster in that pretty cunt that I’m desperate to see again.
“Show me how much you want it,” I demand, sliding my belt free from its buckle and undoing the button of my fly. Clara’s eyes flare as she sits back and spreads her long, gorgeous legs. The bodice of this incredible lace contraption seems to separate from the bottom, and she slides the thong down her thighs quickly, desperate to have her fingers back inside her.
She circles her clit with two fingers as she props herself up on an elbow. Sliding down my zipper, I stroke my cock over my boxers, desperate for relief, knowing I’m going to come all over my own hand as I watch her fuck herself.
She’s ethereal. I was right that first night at Skyline—she’s like the moon. Glowing in the darkness, radiating a lonely kind of beauty. I release my cock from my boxers and allow myself the pleasure of watching her pupils widen with desire.
“That’s it, Clara,” I murmur, watching her sink her fingers back inside her pussy. I pump my fist tightly around my cock, trying to stave off the release that I could probably find just by watching her, no friction needed. “Prove to me you can come on your own fingers as hard as you came for me.”
She moves faster and faster, and I pick up my pace to match her, aching to finish when she does. Cries spill from her lips, and I continue edging her further and further with my words.
“So beautiful when you come. Makes me desperate for you.”
The words are too much of an admission, ones I’ll agonize over later, but they’re worth every drop of regret. Because Clara locks eyes with me as she grinds the heel of her palm against her clit. And when she breaks, it’s my name that spills from her lips.
That’s all it takes to push me over the edge. I fall with her, cursing and chanting her name, coating my hand and the floor in front of me.
We both slowly return to the present, our chests heaving and our eyes locked. The euphoria wanes, and Clara’s face blooms with even more color as she comes to terms with what just happened.
My drop is equally as jarring. Every day, the things that should make me hate her more, that should solidify my need to destroy her, only feed my need for her. The line between lust and rage, hate and love, is so blurred it doesn’t exist. And the guilt that comes with that realization is crushing.
Clara grabs her panties and coat, holding both to her chest as she scrambles off the bed. She turns over her shoulder as she leaves the room.
“I’m still going to kill you,” she whispers.
She shuts the door, and I wonder if I could promise her the same.