Elena #2
I circle faster, too worked up to obey the pace he set. Dominic hears it in my breathing.
“You’ve been thinking about my mouth.”
“Yes.”
“My fingers inside you?”
“Yes.”
“My cock?”
My hand stops for half a second. He waits, giving me nowhere to hide.
“Yes,” I say, the word a surrender.
“Where do you want it?”
I close my eyes. “Inside me.”
I can’t pretend this is clinical after telling him where I want his cock. I said stop more than two weeks ago because full sex would take us outside the process I designed. Now I’m sitting in my office telling him I want exactly what I refused.
His voice is rough when he answers. “Fuck, Elena.”
I need to take back control of this, of myself. “Move your hand faster.”
“Was that an instruction?”
“Yes.”
He obeys. I hear the change in his breathing and the faint slide of his fist. My fingers speed up because he’s touching himself for me.
“Tell me what you’d do if you were here,” I say, my voice going husky.
“I’d put you on your desk and take your underwear off.”
My fingers move faster.
“I’d make you ask for my mouth. Then I’d keep you spread open until you came hard enough to forget anyone is on the other side of that door.”
A quiet moan slips out.
“Again,” he says, his own breathing catching.
I give him another, louder this time. The pressure builds low in my stomach, pulling every muscle tight. I’m close. A few more circles and I’ll come with him twenty-one steps away, while Maya sits outside my locked office.
“Say my name,” Dominic tells me.
I bite my lip. “Dominic.”
“Louder.”
“Dominic.”
Someone knocks on my door.
My hand freezes.
“Elena?” Maya calls. “Treasury needs your authorization before the cutoff.”
I pull my hand out from under my dress and shove the skirt down. “One minute.”
My voice comes out strained. I clear my throat and try again. “I’ll sign it now.”
“Okay. I’ll leave the folder outside.”
Her heels move away.
I stay in the chair with my legs pressed together and my whole body throbbing.
Dominic’s breathing is still heavy in my ear.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
His concern is so genuine, so Dominic, that the absurdity of it almost makes me laugh. “I’m about to sign a treasury authorization while trying not to come.”
“So, no.”
“Do not finish without me.”
He is silent for a beat. “Is that an order?”
“Yes.”
“Then come to my place tonight.”
I press my thighs together again.
I want to say yes. I want to walk across the hall, pull him out of his office, and stop pretending the clinic is the only acceptable reason to put his body inside mine.
“I have to go,” I say, the words clipped.
“Elena.”
It’s a coward’s way out, and it’s all I have. “Good night, Dominic.”
I end the call before he can ask again.
The folder Maya left outside my office contains three pages and one yellow signature flag. I sign where she marked, send the authorization, and spend the ride home trapped at stoplights while the ache between my legs gets worse.
By the time I close my condo door, I’m angry, embarrassed, and still so aroused that the seam of my underwear chafes with every step.
I kick off my heels, drop my bag on the entry table, and head for the kitchen. The clinic portal is still open on my laptop from the last time I checked the second appointment.
I carry the computer to the couch and sit in the same corner where I stopped Dominic.
The tentative appointment is eleven days away, subject to monitoring, and the projected ovulation window is still more than a week away. The clinic told me when to start home testing, but I began early because waiting without data makes me unreasonable.
This morning’s test is still in the bathroom trash. The result was negative, exactly what the calendar predicted.
The negative test leaves desire as my only reason to call him, and I still want him here tonight.
I could wait for the appointment. Dominic would provide another sample, sit in the waiting room, and give me every bit of distance I asked for.
If the second attempt failed, we would schedule a third.
I could continue following the procedure until I got pregnant, or the clinic recommended a different one.
The plan is still available to me, and tonight I don’t want it.
I want to hear Dominic’s voice without a phone between us. I want his hands on me again. I want to find out what happens when I don’t stop him.
None of those reasons belong in our contract.
I open my cycle app, though I already know what it says. The clinic’s projected date hasn’t changed. There’s no early surge, no new information, and no medical reason to call him.
I type a message anyway.
Me: Come over. I want to finish what we started.
I read it twice. The words are accurate and so exposed I can’t bring myself to press send. Nothing in the message limits the invitation to conception. It leaves me responsible for wanting him, including whatever happens after he walks through the door.
I delete it.
I could simply tell him to come over because I want him. My thumb rests on his name without touching it.
On my couch, Dominic told me he didn’t want me only inside the plan. He waited when I said stop, checked on me, brought me water, and left without punishing me for changing my mind. This morning, he told me I sounded angry because he gave me the space I requested.
He would come if I asked for sex. I know that. I also know he would make me own the request, and the thought of saying it plainly terrifies me more than anything we did on the phone.
Wanting him for one night sounds manageable until I try to separate it from everything else.
I want the way he looks for me in meetings.
I want him beside me when the clinic calls.
I wanted him at my birthday table with the friends who know me outside work, and I noticed the empty space across the hall when he stopped finding reasons to fill it.
That list is already longer than sex. If I say all of it aloud, I have to face how quickly Dominic has become part of days I spent years arranging around myself.
Conception gives me a boundary I understand. It gives the sex a purpose, a start and an end, and a reason that doesn’t require me to admit how much of Dominic I already count on.
I leave the laptop open on the coffee table, get up, and walk to the kitchen.
The clinic information remains visible from across the room, and I can recite every relevant fact.
The appointment date hasn’t moved. The projected window is still more than a week away.
This morning’s ovulation test was negative.
The facts stay the same no matter how many times I walk around my living room.
I hate what I’m considering because it’s dishonest. The test in my trash is negative. The appointment is eleven days away. Dominic will believe me if I say the cycle shifted. I’ve never given him a reason to question medical information.
My hand drops from the phone.
For several minutes, I sit with the laptop open and try to make myself wait.
Then Dominic sends a message.
Dominic: Are you home?
I stare at the screen.
Me: Yes.
Dominic: Did Maya get the authorization?
Me: Three minutes before cutoff.
Dominic: Good.
The dots appear again, disappear, then return.
Dominic: Are you all right?
He asks the same question he asked after I stopped him and again after Maya knocked. I don’t know how to handle him asking without using my answer to get closer.
I type, “I’m fine,” then delete it. He knows what fine means when I use it. He’ll let the conversation end because I asked him to, and tomorrow we’ll stand in another meeting acting as if I didn’t tell him where I want his cock.
I call him.
He answers immediately. “Elena.”
His voice is still rough, and the sound of it coils low in my stomach.
I hold my breath. “Did you finish?”
There is a short silence. “No.”
“You listened.”
“You gave me an order.”
My fingers curl around the phone. I almost tell him I’m still wet and I want him inside me. The rest is harder to admit: I’m tired of thinking about what changes when I say yes.
I close my eyes, and force the words out. “I need you to come over.”
Dominic’s answer loses every trace of teasing. “Are you asking me to finish what we started?”
The question is a door, and I’m walking through it. “Yes.”
The word is true. It still leaves me with no explanation for changing my mind this far ahead of the appointment.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then I’ll be there.”
I let out a breath. He has agreed without demanding a medical justification, and I’m still preparing to give him one.
“Is this only about finishing the call?” he asks.
I could say yes. It would still be a lie, just a smaller one. The truth feels sharp in my throat.
“No.”
“Tell me what else you want.”
“You know.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
He wants the words, the admission I’ve structured my life to avoid. My grip tightens on the phone. “I want you here.”
Dominic exhales slowly. “All right.”
He sounds affected, but he doesn’t turn my admission into a victory. That almost gives me enough courage to leave it there.
Then he presses, “What changed since the clinic?”
My eyes move to the clinic portal and the projected date on the screen. I can still stop. I can tell him I want sex and leave medicine out of it.
Instead, I give him the one reason I know he won’t ask me to defend.
“I took another ovulation test after I got home,” I say, keeping my voice perfectly steady. “It was positive. I’m ovulating.”