Page 18 of Dominant

“Y-yes,” I answered. I had almost answered ‘Yes sir.’

As if he could sense it, he leaned forward and asked: “Yes, what?”

“Yes... Alexander?”

“Call me Mr. Abbott,” he said, with a quiet edge in his voice. He seemed to lean subtly forward. The air was charged with a tense, expectant energy. Something had changed and I wasn’t quite sure what.

“No,” I answered quietly, nearly faint with fear. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, exactly, it was more that I had a sudden sense we might be playing some kind of game.

And I felt an irrepressible urge to resist him.

“What did you say?” he asked, his blue eyes boring into mine. I felt like he could pounce on me any minute.

“I said no.”

I gasped as he grabbed my wrist and, with violence, pulled me towards him. It was my right wrist, and he gripped it tightly, squeezing his fingers around the ring of bruises under my elastic band and making tears spring to my eyes. I was so close to him I could feel the hard heat of his body against mine.

He spoke low and deep. “I know you’re used to getting what you want, Jordan, but this isn’t your parents’ office. It’s mine. And Chateau Andilet is no longer your parents’ company. It’s mine.”

“Who says I’m used to getting what I want?” I interrupted him.

“Excuse me?”

Dammit. I blinked my eyes away, nervously.

“I told you I don’t tolerate brats,” he said roughly, the heat of his breath brushing the top of my ear. He pulled me closer until I was only inches away from him. I could smell his cologne and the clean laundry smell from his shirt, and I felt weak. “You need to learn some respect.”

He gripped my wrist tighter. The pain from the bruises burned through me, but I felt transported. Between the pain and the headiness of his closeness, there was a sense of immediacy, of being present, that I rarely had but craved. It was why I snapped the elastic band around my wrist. To lose myself, if only for a moment.

“You’re hurting me,” I whispered.

“What do you say?”

“You’re hurting me, Mr. Abbott.”

He released my wrist and I exhaled with relief. For a second, we both stayed where we were. I was aware that we were breathing in the same rhythm.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he asked in a low voice, and I looked up at him, meeting the bright blue eyes that always looked like they could see right inside of me. An electric energy was coursing through me and I felt… turned on. Incredibly, incredibly turned on. I was practically panting.

“We’re going to have to teach you not to be such a brat,” he said roughly.

The room suddenly seemed very quiet. “Yes, Mr. Abbott,” I breathed.

“Good,” he said. Something softened in his face; for a moment his eyes sparkled at me, and then he stepped back and walked back around his desk and sat down.

“You can go.”

“Okay.” I turned towards the door, my heart thudding in my chest.

“Jordan?”

I turned around.

“You did a good job today.”

I nodded, and left his office in a daze.

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