Chapter 23 Ian
I had run from Collette today. I couldn’t take it anymore. She was taunting me. Flaunting herself was more like it. She’d actually found a way to make me want to change my rules.
There was no way to ignore her luscious breasts when she was constantly bending over in front of me. They were right there for the taking. My hands itched to feel them, to grasp them and hold them.
I couldn’t even be in the office anymore. Everywhere I turned, she was there. It was my own fault, really. I could have told her that there wasn’t a need for her to be there, but I didn’t want her to be far from my side because I was selfish.
She’d wormed her way into my life, and when she’d confronted me on the need to control her, I hadn’t responded. It wasn’t really any of her business. Then again, I was the one that had brought her here, and in a way, her questions weren’t that far off.
Was I afraid to tell her the truth? Shouldn’t I have wanted to be transparent? How was I ever going to get close to someone if I couldn’t handle a few questions?
For some strange reason, I was wanting to get to know Collette better. She drew me in with her unique personality.
Why did I feel the need to torture her? I could have had the same amount of pleasure without the need to inflict a mental breakdown. Exploring the ways in which she worked made it feel like she was an experiment and not someone that I was developing feelings for.
I really wanted to develop feelings for the first time ever. I was falling in love.
I stuttered at the thought. My heart started beating out a falsetto that I never thought I would experience. Collette has lured so much from me.
Love. That was a foreign word to me. I wasn’t sure that I’d ever had anyone that even meant enough to have that word come from my lips. No one had tried to find a way into my heart.
I probably hadn’t let anyone close enough to try. My mother had been the only one that had shown me love. I wasn’t even sure it was true love. She’d done the best she could, but in the end I had lost her way before I found out how love worked.
To work through this minefield, the research lab had become my sanctuary over the past few weeks. There had to be some separation from my siren.
Torn between the need to be near her all the time or be able to check in on her, it had become a constant habit. Knowing where she was at all times sated my need to overprotect her. I knew that wanting to check on her was a traumatic response to losing my mother.
Everything that happened throughout the day either reminded me of her or drew me closer to her. I couldn’t escape her. It was as if she had something about her that I just couldn’t ignore any longer. I didn’t want to ignore it anymore.
Each thing she did only brought more parts of her to my attention. No matter what I threw at her, she just bounced back up and came at it with a different perspective.
There hadn’t been another woman that had had this effect on me. I kept trying to stop this growing attraction for her, but she didn’t react like any other woman I had ever met. It kept egging me on, and I wanted to explore more about her. Find out all the ways that made her tick.
Everyone else had left for the day, and I turned out the lights in the lab before walking over to the leather chairs in the corner.
“Why am I doing this?”
I muttered out loud as I put my head in my hands.
It was too hard to explain. The reason I’d always had a one year contract was so the feelings didn’t get too deep and both parties could always move on.
Yeesh, I sounded like it was just a business transaction. And it was. Or was supposed to be. It always had been. I had enjoyed each of the women I’d been with. I was proud to show them off and have them in the office to look at, but there had been something missing that I hadn’t even realized until she’d run into my chest.
Collette had changed things in such a short time that I’d been with her, and it hadn’t even been more than a few weeks.
She was making me fall in love with her, and it was something I couldn’t afford to do.
Fuck, what did I know about love? I was too messed up to be loved or to give love. It was one of the few things that my father had been right about. He was always right when I didn’t want him to be.
How could I expect to have a normal relationship when it could mean that I would do exactly as my father had done?
There were other ways to get what I needed without all of the cloak and dagger stuff.
I smiled as I thought of her attempts to get back at me the past few days with the sexy swaying of her hips or shoving her ass in my face time and time again.
Oh, that ass. I wanted to grab and squeeze it. Or better yet, give it a good firm slap that would make her squeak.
The things I was doing were getting to her as well, but in a good way. Her body was fraught with sexual tension. She was ready for me to have her. If only she would tell me so. I couldn’t act on anything until she gave me permission.
Maybe we were two different sides of the same coin. Both in need of someone that understood what it was like to be on the outside looking in on the normals of the world.
There wasn’t going to be some sort of happy ever after in my world. I’d settle for a few moments of happiness that could be shared with someone like Collette.
When I’d seen the way that my father had treated my mother, I had assumed that it was how love worked. Then as I grew older I knew that love wasn’t hurting someone, but by then it was too late. Some habits were ingrained so deeply that it would take a jackhammer to pry them loose.
I had wanted to try for a chance at love, but nothing had managed to thaw out my cold heart. It was why I’d dated one of the socialites that were on my father’s list of approved women.
We’d gone out for several months, but I’d never even tried to sleep with her. I hadn’t had the urge to do so. I cared about her, she was nice. It wasn’t fair to her to continue leading her on, so I’d let her go.
Rumors had started to pop up about us, they linked our names together. It meant that she was expecting me to ask her to get married. That wasn’t something I ever planned to do.
She’d want kids and then another and another. I couldn’t have kids. I wouldn’t have made a good father. There was no way I was going to mess up future kids’ lives by having me as their sperm donor. The past was proof that the family line should die with me. No one should have to carry around that type of baggage.
After that, I only dated, I hated the tears she’d cried when I’d broken it off with her. That was when I vowed that I would never get married or date someone for more than a month in a social setting. There was no way they could get the wrong idea in that short of time.
At one point, I’d gone to a few clubs that catered to my type of proclivities, but just didn’t like anyone trying to oversee what I did. Everyone at the clubs felt they should know everything that I was doing or who I was doing. It was too public for my tastes.
I’d been telling myself fantasies for so long that I was overlooking the real thing when it was in front of me. She was more than I had bargained for.
The real thing was so much better, but there were only so many times when I had wanted to break my own rules.
Just that morning when I’d ordered her not to get dressed, she had pranced out of the bathroom still dripping from the shower. I had almost shot my load right then.
She had no idea what she was doing to me. Paperwork, working in the lab, doing research on new prototypes all were beginning to take a back seat when she was around.
After she was asleep, I would just watch the monitor as if she would leave me. Not that she could, but I didn’t want her to. I mean, I gave them a choice, but that was more of a formality.
Unsure of what to do about her or the way she made me react, I’d changed things up. It was why I’d started having us go to the condo on weekends. I wanted to be able to get to know her in a less stressful environment while still maintaining some of my control over the situation.
None of the others had even been given the opportunity to come to my condo. This was the first time that I’d broken my carefully created rules.
She’d wormed her way into my heart.
“Damn it.”
I threw the glass against the wall in anger. I was losing my touch.
Fantasies continued to run through my mind. All the things I’d done over the years that others had found intriguing, I wanted to try on Collette.
Her innocent naivety was worth watching at things I’d done over and over again.
With her, it was like getting my virginity back and being willing to lose it only to her.
The things she made me want to do to her. I was losing patience with this game of tit for tat. She just needed to ask me to have sex with her.
She’d accused me of delaying things, and maybe she was right. If I could delay having actual sex with her, then I would be able to remain in control. That’s what I’d been telling myself for days.
I was afraid for the first time in my life. True fear. Not to my body, or mind, but emotionally. If I let her in and actually had sex with her, then I would let my walls down. She would own me instead of me owning her.
Then what would become of me? What about my much needed control? Would I hurt her like my father hurt my mother?
All of the others before her had managed to stay in their place. I had experienced fun and gotten my jollies taken care of, but none of them had even come near to scaling the walls I had in place.
She was the entire package. Brains, body, and a willingness to do what she was asked. The only thing she had asked for was an explanation, and I hadn’t given her one.
What if I broke my rules just this once? What if I asked her to have sex with me instead? Could it hurt to get her consent in a different manner?
This was getting so out of hand. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take, and I felt that she might be at the same point. The longest time I’d gone with an assistant without having sex, it was bordering on insane.
I groaned and stood. The erection scraping against the zipper in my pants was slightly painful and erotic.
It was getting late. If Rossi had followed my directions, then she was on her way back to the cabin basement right now.
When she was at work, I didn’t feed her. It was one reason I’d had Rossi bring her dinner tonight. I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting next to her on the couch. My need to have her was getting worse.
Work was suffering because I was more concerned with sneaking peeks of her working. When I wasn’t in the room, she would concentrate and did amazing work.
It was time to drive home and tell her a bedtime story.
What she did with it was up to her? After all, it was her choice, wasn’t it?