Page 14 of All That Glitters

“It’s the perfect gateway part for you, the kind that can catapult you to extraordinary heights,” Marcus continues.

“I don't want to catapult.” The espresso finishes, and I stare at the cup, too shocked to reach for it, too flustered to eat my sandwich now.

“Why? What’s going on inside your head? You better start fucking talking to me, or else we’ll have a problem,” he says.

I sigh. “We always have a problem.”

“Don’t get smart with me. What the hell is going on with you? Talk to me.”

I shake my head hard. “No.”

It’s not me. It might have been at one point, but it’s not anymore. I thought I might become that person again through the powerful dialogue, but not if it means the character is going to do something so…sexualized. With an older man. And the seduction is the whole point of the movie! The entire driving arc of the character. I don’t need to read the end to figure out how it is going to play out. A teenage woman using her brains and her body to get ahead…it never ends well for her, no matter how beautiful or smart.

“Why don’t you want this part, Empire?” Marcus repeats.

“Leave me alone.” I push against him to get him to back up even a little, but there’s no space between our bodies for me to move. The counter bites into me from the front, and his fingers curl tighter on the counter, knuckles white.

“You're going to answer me, or I’ll drag you up to your room and get the answers out of you one way or another.” He stops, and then, “Is this because you’re still a virgin?”

I answer without thinking, without even stopping to wonder how he knows it before I blurt out, “Yes!”

How fucking embarrassing to have to admit it out loud, that I’d been touched but never in a way that made it below the belt. Never even a kiss on the lips; only the cheek, the forehead, the side of the neck…

I’m pathetic.

He goes still. “Well. That’s a problem we can easily solve.”

He wraps his hand in my hair, crushing the tendrils between his fingers and dragging me back, exposing my neck to him. His lips are on my skin a heartbeat later, and heat rushes between my legs at the feel of his muscles against my back, against my ass, and then his teeth nip the side of my neck.

His lips trail a path along my skin before he nips harder, biting down where my neck meets my shoulder.

I gasp and push back against him. He won’t touch me anywhere else, but I feel him everywhere. Every inch of me is taught. My breasts tighten until my nipples ache where they rub against the fabric of my shirt.

There’s no escape, but suddenly, I don’t want to find one.

Marcus drags his lips up to my ear and bites down until I shudder against him and my eyes flutter closed.

He says nothing, and it’s hotter for the silence between us. His hot breath tickles the arch of my ear, and my back arches to bring him into closer contact. Wetness pools between my legs. Everything narrows to me and him, the feeling of his teeth on me, kissing me, pinning me in place as he grinds against me.

I should be pissed off for this, furious at the way he glides his tongue along the mark his teeth surely made on my neck. Heat flashes between my legs. I ache for him.

A moan slips out before he finally gives me the space I’d craved before.

“You’ll do fine,” he says. “Stop doubting yourself.”

I nearly sag at the loss of his heat, and only locking my knees keeps me upright when he stalks out of the kitchen. The front door slams a second later.

SIX

Two days pass with enough silence to last me for the rest of my miserable life.

Sunlight blinds me on the way out to the car. I shove my hand toward the dash, grappling for my sunglasses, shoving them onto my face painfully, although it does shit to block the light.

I’d forgotten my goddamn coffee somehow, and instead of peeling out of the driveway and finding a place, I went back inside the house like a fucking fool. I should stop at a cafe. With an angry groan, I shove the key in the ignition, and the engine roars to life.

Any extra time spent in her company is another opportunity for me to be an asshole and take advantage, the way I had the other day. She’d had no choice, and I’d bitten her like an animal in heat.

I’ve got to get out of this house, even if it’s a temporary escape to my downtown office.

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