Chapter 28 #2
After I tell myself that enough times, I feel confident to do what needs to be done. I reach for the doorknob as my phone chirps.
Tension and tingles fire down my spine. I pull the phone out.
Blue: Check your inside jacket pocket.
My throat tightens.
I glance down the hallway, then back into my office before closing the door behind me. The lock clicks, far louder than it should. I bypass Shirley, go into my private space, and pick up my jacket from the chair. My fingers brush the lining as I slide my hand inside the pocket she specified.
My breath stops short, chest tightening as recognition hits. The object is small, folded deliberately, and unmistakable in color and intent. My fingers curl around it before I can stop myself, the texture sparking a memory I shouldn't allow.
Another chirp.
Blue: I hope you found it.
I lower myself into the chair slowly, jacket still in my grip. The room suddenly feels smaller, the walls pressing in with the weight of the choice in front of me. I know exactly what this is and it's not a gift. It's a test and a tether she's confident I won't cut.
I don't respond, holding the wadded-up material in my fist near my nose and inhaling deeply.
Seconds tick by. Then minutes pass where there's no smell except her faded arousal tormenting my body.
My phone vibrates again.
Blue: Smell it.
How does she know?
She knows everything.
My hand tightens, knuckles whitening as I fight the reflex she's counting on that's already betrayed me. Then I realize I've already lifted the fabric closer without conscious permission, and cold settles in my stomach.
I set the jacket down and stand. I pace across the room, trying to ground myself in anything that isn't her.
My phone vibrates again.
Blue: You own all of me. Red. My heart, my body, my scent. It's all yours to control. To ruin. To cherish. To decide what survives and what doesn't.
Alarm, desire, and euphoria skyrocket, causing a hailstorm of guilt mixing with uncontrollable hunger.
Her words don't read like delusion, and that's what unsettles me further. There's no playfulness in them, no exaggeration, no hint that she's trying to provoke a reaction for sport. It's an offering made with eyes open, deliberate and final.
My chest tightens with recognition over the power she's naming, and the fact that she's handing it to me without flinching.
A colder thought follows close behind. She understands the weight of it.
She's not asking to be protected from herself.
She's asking to be altered, with me deciding which parts of her are allowed to remain intact and which parts I get to dismantle.
And the authority implied isn't erotic at its core.
It's existential and the kind of control that leaves fingerprints on a life, not a body.
Fear grips me, and it's not of her but for her.
It's of myself and how quickly something dark and attentive stands up at the invitation.
I easily imagine which roads I'll choose to go down with her, with a terrible, seductive belief that I'd know exactly what to keep and what to erase, how far to push and how far to pull back.
The hairs on my neck rise. A shudder runs through me. I sit back down heavily, the chair creaking in protest under the shift. My jaw tightens until it aches.
This isn't seduction.
It's escalation.
Deliberate, intelligent, unflinching, escalation into a place where boundaries don't exist unless I create them, but even then, my gut tells me Blue will find a way to blow them up.
My Bluebird knows exactly what she's doing.
I type, then delete. Then type again.
Me: This has to stop.
The response comes almost immediately.
Blue: You don't mean that, Dr. Mercer.
I close my eyes briefly, then open them and stare at the far wall. The professional part of me lines up the correct steps with brutal clarity. Documentation. Disclosure. Referral. Distance. The moral high ground is clear and unforgiving.
The other part of me, the one I've spent years controlling, watches calmly from the sidelines and waits.
My phone lights up again.
Blue: I'm wearing white tonight.
The words land like a match struck too close to something volatile.
My breath catches despite my effort to keep it steady.
The image of her in the lingerie she made for me, and what I've been dying to do to her in it, digs deep into my thoughts until I'm clearly looking at her, sitting in the chair across from me.
"Fuck," I grit through my teeth.
I press my palms flat against the desk and lean forward, staring at the grain of the wood as if it might anchor me. The room hums with chaotic energy, every instinct split between restraint and ruin.
I could end this now with one call, a firm conversation, and a clean, devastating decision.
Instead, I sit there, motionless, phone face up on the desk, knowing exactly how dangerous the silence I'm choosing really is, but I can't change it.
Then clarity makes my chest tighten.
The hardest part isn't wanting her. It's how much of me wants to be exactly what she's daring me to become.