Chapter Eight #2
I ground my heel into the earth and shot Bartosz a look with a serious face.
“But I don’t want to forget about it, I want to make up for it!”
Bartosz ran a hand over his face roughly, groaning.
“You don’t get it, I’m uh,” he groaned again, interrupting his words, “I’m such a fucking stereotype,” he finished to himself.
“What do you mean?” I asked earnestly, “I don’t know that much about you. What is your life like when you’re not being press-ganged into helping a crazy woman to clean a wheelbarrow on a godforsaken island?
Bartosz sank into an incredibly low squat where his arms were resting on his knees, which were just a whisker beneath his chin. The position would have been incredibly uncomfortable for me, but he looked like he was chilling.
“It’s crazy how distant that life, real life, feels,” he wondered before looking at me.
“I run two businesses, one is a materials company, we specialize in incredibly durable and flexible metal, and an adaptable plastic which is ideal for high velocity travel. We make parts out of both materials and also sell the materials themselves.”
“So for like rockets and stuff?” I asked, impressed.
He shrugged like it was nothing, but I could tell that he was proud of himself underneath it all.
“And bullet trains, F1 cars, and some airplanes. And my other company sells highly efficient generalized business software.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, not believing that he was saying what I thought he was saying.
“You’re not talking about Nanov?” I said in disbelief. I had heard that phrasing before, that description of a company, but it couldn’t be what I thought! It was more likely that it was some small start-up that did something similar, but…
Of course, he lit up like fucking Christmas tree.
“Yes! You know it?”
Did I know of Nanov? The company that had 80% of U.S. corporations turning away from the Microsoft Office Suite? The reason why people in the office said, ‘I’ll just do it in a Nanov sheet’ instead of an Excel sheet? The company that had just gone public?
“You’re shitting me!” I half squealed. I had heard the CEO was super young, but this was shocking.
“Yeah,” Bartosz shrugged, but I could see the hint of a blush on his cheeks, “I don’t do much other than work.
I don’t get out often, and I was super stressed about my companies when when we first met,” he finished, running a hand sheepishly through his hair.
It seemed like this was an attempt at an apology.
I would accept it because of the whole accosting him thing.
“I get it,” I replied, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was talking to the CEO of the fastest-growing, most impressive company in the U.S.
I could feel my consultant side rising up like a wave of slime.
My immediate reaction was to think of the firm.
Old Mina would think, ‘what a great opportunity to get a new client!’ and twist herself into something pleasing and easy for him, something non-offensive and non-sexual, someone who he could trust with so so so much of his money.
But that wasn't who I wanted to be; that wasn’t who I was, at least not here.
So instead I separated him from Nanov in my mind, and focused on Bartosz: the handsome, asshole-ish man who had brought me a sheep when I had asked him for one.
“So where did you grow up?” I tried, in my best attempt, to pretend that my mind wasn’t blown.
His eyes darkened, and he turned away from me.
“Caracas, Venezuela, then Chicago, then Warsaw, Poland, then back to Chicago. Mom’s dead, Dad’s a dick, there’s not much there. My life has mostly been studying and then working.”
“And football,” I said almost teasingly, “and thank the lord or else we would all be back on the seaweed and mushroom diet.”
At my smile, he turned away, the tips of his ears red.
“Yeah, now it feels like all of that practice paid off,” he said, before he pulled himself a little straighter, his ears, if possible, burning even brighter.
“Maybe not all paid off. I-I was promised an award…” he trailed off, and light bulbs clicked on in my head.
He had liked it. It hadn’t been just a physical response. The gremlin in me licked her lips, urging me to pounce on him, wheelbarrow be damned, but normal, cautious Mina was still concerned. I needed him to say it so the uncertainty, guilt, and worry wouldn’t eat me alive.
“What did you mean,” I started slowly, “when you meant you were a cliché?”
He stood up properly and chewed lightly on one of his kissable, full lips.
“I mean, like, CEO with a dead mom, is into, you know, it’s-it’s pathetic kinda,”
I wanted to make him say what he was labeling as ‘you know,’ but I wouldn’t push it.
“I don’t think it’s pathetic. You know that I’m doing this weird test relationship with Ettore and Jin Woo. Many people would call me weird and pathetic. Is that what you think?” I asked him solemnly, cutting my words evenly.
“No,” he said decisively, “I don’t think you’re pathetic.”
I hmmed, before I continued, quietly gratified by his thoughts of me.
“I’ve never wanted to grip someone’s neck before, to demand things of them, like I want to with you.
I could blame it on my lack of medication, I could blame it on being on a deserted island, and the stress of finally leaving a job that felt like it was slowly suffocating me one moment at a time,” I felt myself veering away from the point.
I brought myself back, “But I will not. Would you let me experiment with you? Try something new?”
I could see him decide, but in that same decisive way that he apparently made every decision, a quick ponder, and then a direct, fast answer.
“Yes, I’d like that.”
The gremlin was happy, and the wheelbarrow was as clean and sanitized as it possibly could be. I dropped it over the fire without fanfare.
“Ok. Come,” I ordered, placing a hand on my hip.
And he did, he came to me in two long, smooth steps. I could see the eagerness in him, in the way that he slightly cocked his head to the side as if to better bare his neck to me.
“What a good boy,” I murmured, as I stroked the glorious, tan planes of his neck, “listening to me so well, doing exactly what I wanted.”
His eyes were wide and fluttering. I stroked the side of his face, keeping my hands on his neck, pressing my pointer and middle fingers against the throbbing pulse point under his skin.
I dug my fingernails slightly into him, scraping lightly, and watched him shiver, the muscles rippling in his jaw.
“What do you want as your prize?” I whispered into his ear, slightly out of breath myself.
There was something about the way he smelled, under the odor of the island, the smoke from the wheelbarrow, and sweat and pine.
Underneath all of it was something like strong mint tea with lemon juice, rich and tangy, sharp and deep; it made me want to devour him even more.
“Whatever you think I should have,” he half-huffed, half-whined.
I walked us back to the wall of the cabin, his back made a solid thump against the wood, and I fought against the urge to pull him back and then push him into it again, just to hear that sound once more.
In a second, I had three of my fingers pressed against his lips.
“Open,” I ordered, and when he did, I dipped my fingers in, caressing the wet, slickness of his tongue, the silky sides of his cheeks, feeling his anticipatory trembling beneath me. Once my fingers and palm were wet, I pulled my hand away from his mouth.
“Unzip your pants,”
He did, so rushed to open his pants that he almost pulled his button off. I dropped one of my hands to where he was struggling with the zipper, stilling him.
“Hey, hey, hey,” I said softly, gently, “don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere, ok?”
As much as I wanted him and enjoyed his desperation for me, I didn’t want him to be frantic.
I wanted him to know that, at least in this moment, at least in this heartbeat, he was mine, and I wanted him to feel good with me.
I wanted his pleasure to flow down and satiate him.
Once he had relaxed, I dropped my hand into his pants, gripping what I found.
He was large enough that I paused for a second, just gripping the soft shaft, surprised, but at the same time not surprised at the weight on him.
I felt him thrust shortly into me, and that awakened me from my dick-nosis.
Bringing my free hand back to his neck, which was quickly becoming my second favourite place for my hand to be, I pressed against him hard, waiting for him to still.
Once he did, his beautiful grey eyes staring almost pitifully at me, I spoke.
“Are you going to be good and still, and let me give you a reward?
“Yes, yes, yes, please.”
I began to stroke him, exploring him with my fingers, feeling as he began to harden more and more, reveling in his twitches as much as his little pants and sighs, his eyes locked on mine even as his stomach flexed, he fought to stay motionless, to do as I said, to stay still.
I was going to do my best to make him fail in a delicious way.
As I began to stroke, rubbing along a prominent vein, the head of his cock, rubbing along his slit, I began to kiss his neck, soft, little kisses.
“You are doing so well,” I whispered into his skin, licking up and down, scraping my teeth elegantly against his skin, even as my hand began to pump harder and faster, wringing out whimpers and little, begging nothings.
I could feel him coming to the edge, leaning close, I whispered,
“Cum.”
And he did, spilling hot into my hand. His head was thrown back, but his eyes never once left mine.