Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
I’ve been naked in enough locker rooms and brushed shoulders with enough sweating strangers at the gym to know this isn’t that.
Under Alistair’s stare, the command lands with the weight of a hand on the back of my neck. I fight the urge to shove him into the wall, tear open the closet door, and bolt the way Kael did when he got his chance.
Down the line of men, a few match Alistair’s focus, watching as if some kind of ritual is about to begin.
Jake, though, gives me an encouraging thumbs-up that would fit better backstage at an opening night where I’m about to nail my cue.
That breaks the spell, and the whole room snaps back into something I understand.
It’s a test.
I shrug off the leather jacket, step out of my shoes, and steady my hands on my belt buckle.
The tailored pants cling so tightly it takes a humiliating shimmy to get them down.
I almost trip yanking free from the cuff, and out goes the sliver of confidence Marcus Wilder had mustered.
No one laughs at what must be the least sexy undressing they’ve ever seen.
In nothing but dress socks and green-striped boxer briefs, I bend toward my feet.
“Did I tell you to remove your socks?” Alistair’s voice rasps behind me.
“No, I—”
“Leave them.” He gestures toward Brad. “Fetch me his book.”
The half-circle rearranged into a loose line facing Alistair while I was undressing. Brad stands at the far end, book in hand, smirking as he gives it a little waggle that makes it clear I’ve become tonight’s entertainment.
To reach him, I’ll have to pass every one of them.
Fine, I’ll—
“Stop.” The boom of Alistair’s voice cracks through the room and locks my spine.
Cold air licks my skin as the room waits for his next command.
I wanted in, and with the pretense stripped off alongside my pants, I finally see Alistair exactly as Evie described him: the world’s most powerful tech CEO, getting off on control. Now I just need some way to prove it.
“Crawl,” Alistair says. “On all fours. Bring me the book.”
The command carries that old, sick familiarity of my father in his recliner, beer sweating onto his knuckles, daytime TV turning his face blue while he trapped me in a world small enough he could control it.
Something shifts behind the locked door where I keep my memories of him. Pressure builds behind my ribs. The hinges groan, and one sliver of old rage slips through to clench my heart.
But if this is my first test, it’s exactly what I came for. This is my chance to get close enough to tear Alistair down from the inside.
I drop so fast my knees slam against the floor.
“Good boy,” Alistair purrs.
“Over here,” Brad says, joining in.
Joke’s on them. I do bear crawls at the gym.
“Push him over,” Alistair orders.
Someone shoves my shoulder, and I let myself flop sideways.
“No,” Alistair booms. “You do not fall.”
Back on all fours, I crawl again, deliberate now that I understand he wants me in control, not helpless. This time one of the scrawnier guys tries a shove, and resisting him is embarrassingly easy as I push forward the last few steps.
Brad looks carved from obsidian into hard planes and brutal mass. From this angle, his chest blocks the light, and his arms could snap me in half. His shaved head gleams under the Edison bulbs, and his dark eyes narrow enough to bore through me.
Next to him, I’m nothing. If Alistair told him to crush me, one punch would do it.
I reach for the book, and he, predictably, pulls it away.
Brad smirks, tapping the book against his thigh. “You want it?” he says, loud enough for the room.
I keep my eyes down. “Yes.”
“Then earn it.”
Alistair’s shrug gives Brad permission the way a king lets a jester perform in front of his throne.
Brad lowers the book again, and this time I lunge, yanking it from his grip and spinning back toward Alistair with a few quick, efficient crawls.
I stop at Alistair’s knees and hold the position, waiting for the next order because that seems to be the game.
He lets me wait before taking the book. He’s hard, and he wants me to notice.
This is everything to him—money, power, reputation, sex—all twisted together in one sick little performance, and I refuse to give him my eyes. I look at the floor, his shoes, anywhere but there.
“Stand,” he says.
I push upright, my boxers tugging with the movement, dress socks still on, everything else too visible.
No one reacts to his erection. They let it become part of the room, as ordinary as the velvet furniture and the game board behind them, all of them running some script I need to find so I can get the hell out of here.
“Tell us a secret,” Alistair says. “Something you’ve never told anyone. Make it good, and you pass your first test.”
Hearing him use the same words as Evie makes my stomach flip. It’s one thing to study rumors about Alistair’s game, and another to hear him reference it directly, as a player.
“I wanted to be here,” I start. “I tracked you down twice, not just at the park, but at Beluga Brew.”
With the truth, I hide the bigger lie.
“I didn’t know that,” Alistair says. “But I said make it good. I don’t care about your pathetic chase.” He adjusts himself.
I understand the real test, and my shoulders pull in before I can stop them. He wants something dirty. Something that proves I’m willing to hand myself over one piece at a time. The first memory that surfaces comes too fast and crowds out anything safer.
I’ll tell him about my first sexual experience. If I leave out some details and swap Hannah for a guy, he can think whatever he wants.
“The first time I did anything sexual was after winter ball, freshman year. I took my date back to my dorm, which I’d cleared by telling my roommate tonight would be the night. I even fluffed the damn couch cushions.”
Alistair leans forward.
“I really liked this… guy. A first crush kind of situation. I’d built the whole thing up in my head until touching him felt impossible but not touching him felt worse.
We had a few beers, got under the same blanket, and I could feel the heat coming off his body.
I was nervous. Embarrassed, too, because everyone else seemed to have gotten this out of the way much earlier in life, and I had no idea what to do with my hands. ”
A few smiles move through the room, but no one interrupts.
“So I pretended to stretch. That was my big move. I stretched just enough to press my shoulder into his, and he didn’t pull away.
Then his hand ended up on my thigh. Close enough to be an accident that quickly became torture.
I think it was his first time too, because neither of us admitted what was happening.
We just sat there pretending his fingers weren’t resting an inch from finding exactly how badly I wanted him. ”
Alistair licks his lips, rearranging himself again, and it’s clear that I’m making it good. He wants dirty. I can do dirty.
“We stayed like that for a while. His hand on my thigh. My cock twitching under my jeans, right there, close enough that one brave movement would give me away. I was terrified to look at him, but eventually I did. He looked just as scared as I felt. Then we kissed, and that tore the walls down.”
One guy near Jake shifts, his hand sliding beneath his waistband while his eyes stay locked on my mouth.
“I was bad at it at first. Went in too fast and bumped his chin. He laughed, and when I joined in, his tongue slid past my lips. I stopped caring about being smooth. I pulled him closer. We were grinding so hard the couch kept knocking the wall, and when his fingers finally slipped beneath my waistband, I thought I might come before he even touched me.”
Alistair’s mouth parts, no longer pretending not to enjoy it.
“He grazed me first. Barely anything. Just his knuckles brushing my cock, but I made this little sound.” I swallow, forcing the story where Alistair wants it to go. “A groan, I guess. Small, but humiliating. Like one touch was enough to make me lose my shit.
“Then he wrapped his hand around me. Not stroking yet. Just holding and squeezing enough that I couldn’t pretend anymore. I remember his breath against my mouth and how hard I was trying not to move my hips, because if I started, I knew I wouldn’t stop. But then he went still.”
That’s where the real memory stops working, and I give the greedy, turned-on billionaire the ending he clearly wants.
“He told me to fuck his hand,” I say, grabbing the only ending that makes sense.
“So I did. I fucked his hand until I came. He got me off slow at first, then not slow at all, considering how badly I wanted it.” I make myself finish the lie.
“And when I was close, he went down on me. Took me in his mouth and, you know, swallowed.”
Alistair gives me an approving nod.
“And that’s… basically that.”
“Looks like you enjoyed it,” he says, smirking.
“Yeah. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy their first time?”
His gaze drifts down.
I’m hard.
My hands drop too late. I shift to hide my erection, but the attempt only makes me more obvious. My rage burns hotter, with nothing but thin boxers and two useless hands between me and the room.
“A good secret.” Alistair tilts his head. “Except it’s not true.”
The floor seems to drop a half inch.
“You’re telling it like a bedtime story,” he says, lazy and cruel. “It’s clear enough it still… rouses you, but where’s the shame? Why hide something so harmless?”
Shit. I can’t—
The room flickers, and Hannah replaces Alistair. Hannah waiting. Hannah trying not to look disappointed. The frantic confusion of that night comes back in one humiliating rush, my body betraying me when it was supposed to do the simplest thing in the world.
“I—I didn’t come,” I admit, voice shaky.
Alistair stills. “Why?”
If I could answer that, the story wouldn’t still hurt.
“It felt good,” I manage. “I wanted to. I just… couldn’t.”
Silence presses in until Alistair finally nods. “There. You’ve passed.”
Relief hits so hard it feels like nausea. I’m in. I’ve weaseled my way into Alistair’s good graces.
“Tomorrow at nine, we’re going to my private island,” he says. “I’ll send someone to fetch you. Now, leave.”
“Awwww,” some of the guys groan.
I bolt for the door.
“Bye, Marky,” Jake calls after me, light as air, oblivious, or just better trained than I am.
I keep it together until the hidden door shuts, and then I sprint through the guest room.
The dance floor’s abandoned aside from discarded clothes, half-eaten hors d’oeuvres, and empty bottles.
The art room is bare too, nothing left but wires and walls where everyone spent the night performing for Alistair’s money.
The abandoned top half of my suit lies bundled in a corner.
I slip it on, shaking and cold. More than cold.
What just happened?
The jacket touches my skin, and the rage I keep locked away slams against the door so hard I nearly double over. I rip the jacket back off.
Control. That’s what happened. Alistair thinks he’s won. He thinks I’m his now, but all he’s really done is hand me the keys to his sick little empire. And I’ve sold him the lie.
I don’t know what Alistair does to the guys in his game, but I’m not going to his fucking island to find out.
I’m going to burn it down.