Page 78 of Hired Help

Her hand seeks mine, tapping the back until I release her side and she can entwine our fingers together.

“Why won’t you even talk to me?”

This isn’t fair.

The world shouldn’t come into alignment again just to change direction and send me spinning out towards the edge.

“I could ask the same question of you. If you needed something else in bed, why didn’t you tell me?” My nose is running, and I untangle myself from her enough to wipe it on my sleeve. There are pinpricks in the corner of my eyes, and I bite the inside of my cheek, forcing the automatic reaction into retreat.

There’s far too much caution in her eyes as she answers, “Because you’d broken up with me.”

“Before the breakup.” I have to force my throat to release each word, straining my vocal cords because they’re tightly clenched, trying to hold everything in the way they’d used to. “Instead of going to somebody else, why didn’t you—”

“There wasn’t anyone else.” Brooke stares at me with… I don’t know, pity? Sympathy? Confusion? “I’ve only been with you and your…”

She lets that one float away, and a hand squeezes my heart in its fist, the pain too unbearable for me to even gasp for air. I jump from the bed, striding across the room, leaning my back against the wall. Wanting to run a million miles away. Wanting to crowd even closer.

Brooke sits upright, then slowly stands, slowly approaches. Her expression is sharp with anticipation, relaxing as I grab hold of her, where I’d expect the opposite.

I push her against the wall, clasping her chin in a pincer grip I hold hard enough to strain my knuckles. “I don’t want to discuss this. We have an agreement, remember? Get back on the bed. I need to fuck you.” My voice drops half an octave and halves its volume. “I need to be inside you.”

“And you need to listen to me. It’s important.”

“Really?” She’s so easy to manoeuvre. So easy to make her do what I need her to when I need it. All it takes is my steel fingers on her face to pull her away from the wall, to walk her backwards until her knees hit against the edge of the bed. It only requires the faintest pressure to make her sit.

She tries to slap my hand away, but I barely register it. I want to punish her, but I hurt her on Monday, on Thursday. I can’t keep doing it.

There’s a darkened patch of skin on her throat where the topmost button of her blouse has slipped open. When I pull it to the side, I can see the bruises I gave her the other night.

I bend my head, running my tongue over the crimson indents, sucking at the deepening browns and purples where blood has leaked under the skin, leaked out from the imprint of my fingers. I lick my tongue against her in one long stretch from the marks up to her ear.

“You want to watch your mouth,” I growl, seeing the shiver spread across her exposed flesh as it rises into goosebumps. When did she become so fucking sensitive? Another glut of blood fires into my cock. “Otherwise, it might get you in trouble.”

“It’s already got me in trouble,” she pants, shoving the heel of her palm into my chest, pushing as hard as she can and getting nowhere.

The thrill of overpowering her takes hold. I finally release her chin only to pin her arms above her head, grinding myself against her, watching the twin delights of anger and desire go spiralling across her face.

“Got you into trouble how?”

Her lips peel back in an evil grin. “I mouthed off to your father but luckily he knows when to spank me.”

I know it’s a lie, Ithinkit’s a lie, but I’m engulfed in a wave of fury so palpable it makes my muscles tremble and my limbs shake.

“You want a spanking?” I pin her wrists with one hand, reaching for my belt buckle with the other. “I’ll give you a fucking spanking.”

“I don’t want anything from you until you tell me what I want to know.”

She writhes underneath me, one of her legs rising far enough for her knee to stray into danger territory near my balls. I unbutton my jeans, pulling my zipper down, then shove her attacking leg flat on the bed, using my weight to keep it there.

“Really,” I drawl, pushing her skirt up high enough to get a finger inside her panties, rejoicing as her hips buck against me, at her arousal slick between my fingers. “Because it feels like you need fucking.”

“Pity your dad got their first.”

Part of me can’t stand to hear her mouth off to me while the rest of me likes it, enjoys the way it spurs me to ever more dizzying heights of desire.

It was her smart mouth that first attracted me. Not the class clown, that was my role, but I loved how she’d roll her eyes at a teacher, mumble some droll witticism under her breath. A complete epitome of a spoiled brat. And once I noticed her, I couldn’t stop; she was everywhere, my eyes seeking her out at every turn along the school corridors.

My eyes that could never stop searching for her, even when the pain of her betrayal hurt the most.

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