Chapter 32 #3
Silence fell over the kitchen, thick and suffocating. Carrie slowly stood up, walking around the table until she was standing directly in front of me. Her fingers hooked under my chin to tilt my face up.
"She touched her leg to yours," Carrie murmured, her thumb tracing my lower lip. "In a room with a locked door."
"It doesn't lock from the inside, it's just glass—"
"She touched you," Carrie interrupted, her voice a low growl of possessive fury. "After I explicitly told you she was off-limits. After I made it clear that you belong to me. Where? Show me exactly where she touched you."
Trembling, I pointed toward the side of my shin. "There. Just on the side."
Carrie stared at the spot as if she could see a phantom bruise. When she looked back up, her expression was clinical.
"Then you clearly didn't explain the situation well enough," she said, her voice a dangerous purr. "If Ms. Davies has somehow convinced herself that she is in a competition for your attention—or worse, that you are a woman who can be swayed—then I have failed to mark you properly."
"Carrie, I tried to tell her! I was panicked, trying to be professional because she’s staff—"
"Panic is not an excuse for passivity, Alex," she interrupted, stepping closer until our chests almost touched.
"When someone attempts to stake a claim on what belongs to me, I expect you to shut it down with ruthlessness.
Instead, you sat there. You let her linger. You let her threaten what we have."
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I didn't know what to do."
She reached out, her hand sliding into my hair and gripping just tight enough to make me gasp.
"You are going to learn, darling. By the time I’m finished with you tonight, the very idea of another woman’s touch will make you recoil.
And as for Ms. Davies... she is about to find out that some things are not for sharing.
And some people are far too dangerous to provoke. "
Carrie let go abruptly. She stalked over to the kitchen island, picked up my phone, and thrust it into my hand.
"Text your parents. Tell them you won't be home tonight."
My fingers fumbled through the passcode. I sent a quick, vague text about staying late at Carrie’s, my heart hammering against my ribs.
As soon as I locked the screen, Carrie furled her hand into my hair again. It was a firm, possessive grip that forced my head back. She hauled me onto my feet and marched me out of the kitchen, down the hallway, and up the stairs.
When we reached her bedroom, she shoved me. I stumbled forward, landing on my knees against the plush rug at the foot of her bed. The bedroom door slammed, and the sound of the bolt sliding home echoed like a gunshot.
Carrie turned back to me, her silhouette framed by the door, her expression masked in the dim light. The composed lecturer was dead. The woman who called me "darling" was gone.
“Carrie,” I whispered.
I was a mess. But God, I loved this. I loved the weight of her ownership. The adrenaline was a chaotic storm of anticipation, guilt, and genuine fear.
She stepped closer, hooking a single finger under my chin to tilt my head back. When she let go, I stayed exactly where she had placed me, rooted by her will. Then, she began to circle me.
I stared straight ahead, my eyes fixed on the far wall. She completed four agonisingly slow laps around me.
“In only a week, you have let two women touch you.” Her voice was a low, dangerous vibration. “I thought I had made my point, Alex. But no. You let another woman touch you—and make it clear she intends to stake a claim."
With a sharp, sudden nudge of her bare foot to my upper back, I toppled over instantly, my hands slapping against the rug.
“Not only did you allow her to touch you,” she continued, her voice floating down from directly above me like ice. “But the woman in question happens to be my colleague. A woman you have already slept with. Twice.”
My arms shook as I held myself up. Carrie reached down, locking her fingers under my chin again. "Tell me, Alex, do you value honesty?"
"Yes... of course I do, Carrie."
"Stand up," she commanded, sharp as a guillotine.
I hauled my shaking body off the floor. Carrie walked over to her vanity, picked up her dark blue velvet chair, and placed it dead-centre in the room, facing the bed.
"Strip. Down to your underwear."
I fumbled with my clothes until I was standing in nothing but my sports bra and cotton pants.
"Sit."
I sank into the velvet chair, my chest heaving. Carrie began to circle me again, slowly unbuttoning her blazer, folding it with terrifying neatness onto the vanity.
"So tell me," she began, her voice a low, melodic taunt. "Honestly. How many times were you in my seminar, or my lecture, and you saw Ms. Davies? How many times did you picture her naked? How many times did you think about sleeping with her again while I was standing right there?"
"Carrie, please," I pleaded, my voice cracking. "We weren't together at that point."
She stopped dead, leaning down until her face was inches from mine. "I don't care about the 'point' we were at, and I certainly didn't give you permission to argue. I asked you a series of questions, and I expect answers. Correct yourself. Who are you talking to?"
"I... I'm sorry," I whispered, my head bowing instinctively. "I'm sorry, Dr. Carter.”
Carrie nodded, a predatory smile ghosting across her lips. "Good girl. And who else are you talking to, princess?"
I whimpered, the sound small and broken. "Mommy."
She rewarded me with a kiss so soft, so agonisingly tender, it was a cruel contrast to the coldness in her eyes. Then she straightened up. "Answer me."
I let out a shaky sigh, staring at my bare knees.
"I... I don't know how many times. A lot. At the start, anyway. I’d look at her when you were talking because it was easier than looking at you.
You were too much, and she was... she was just a body I already knew.
I thought about it to distract myself from how much you were getting under my skin. "
"You used her to hide from me," Dr. Carter said, her voice dangerously low as she paced. "You sat in my presence and occupied your mind with a mediocre subordinate because you were too cowardly to face what was happening between us."
She stopped behind the chair, her hands coming down to rest on my shoulders, her grip grounding me. "Tell me, Alex. Does she touch you better than I do? Does she make you feel this small? This seen?"
"No," I said, the word rushing out of me. "No, it wasn't like that. Not even close, Mommy."
"Clarify that, Alex. Tell me exactly what you mean."
I swallowed hard, my face burning. "I... I was always the one in control with her. I was the one doing the touching. I used her. She never touched me back, not like that. She’s never even seen me without my clothes on, Dr. Carter. We never... she didn't."
The silence that followed was heavy. I could feel her processing this behind me. The truth was, both times with Billie had been quick, dirty, and entirely focused on her body, not mine.
"She never saw you?" Carrie’s voice was a low vibration against the back of my neck. "She never had the privilege of seeing what is mine?"
"No," I whispered, my eyes shutting as her hands slid down to the swell of my breasts, claiming them. "Never."
"Good," she murmured, her tone laced with lethal satisfaction. "Because if she had, Alex, I would have had to do more than simply handle her. I would have had to erase the memory of her from your skin entirely. What, exactly, did you do to her, darling?"
"The first time," I started, my voice barely a thread, "I fingered her. It was in the staff room of the club. It was fast. Messy."
Carrie’s grip tightened, splaying across my skin. "And the second time?"
"The second time…in her office. I went down on her. That was it. I didn't even take my shirt off."
The air left the room. Carrie walked back around the chair, her expression unreadable, though the vein in her temple was pulsing.
"You went down on her," she repeated. "You used that mouth—the mouth that begs me for mercy, the mouth I’ve claimed a dozen times over—to pleasure a woman who is nothing more than a footnote in your story."
She leaned down, gripping the arms of my chair, trapping me. "Tell me, Alex, did you think of me then? Or were you too busy playing the part of the experienced little heartbreaker?"
“It wasn't like that,” I rambled, the words spilling out in a desperate torrent.
"I swear, Dr. Carter—from the moment you walked into that first seminar, I couldn't breathe. I never thought I’d have a chance with you.
You were this impossible, untouchable goddess.
Billie was nothing. She was a distraction because I thought you were out of my league.
She doesn't compare to you. I’d trade a thousand lifetimes with her for one second of your attention. "
Carrie remained perfectly still, her hands white-knuckled on the arms of my chair, her nose brushing mine.
"Desperation is a very dangerous motivation, Alex," she whispered. "It makes people do reckless things. Like letting my own colleague touch them in a library."
She let go of the chair and stood up, her height a weapon.
"If you truly believe she doesn't compare, then you won't mind proving it. You say she’s never seen you? She’s never truly touched you?
" A slow, predatory smile spread across her face.
"Then we are going to make sure that the marks I leave on you tonight are the only thing you see when you look in the mirror tomorrow.
And when you see Ms. Davies in the corridor, you will feel every single one of them burning. "
Carrie didn’t give me a chance to breathe. She moved with fluid, terrifying grace, straddling my lap. The weight of her pinned me back against the velvet as her knees dug into the sides of my thighs, looming over me as a silhouette of absolute authority.