Page 32 of Scary In Love
He drops his pen into the holder and puts the clipboard, along with all my answers, in his desk drawer. I watch as he locks it, then pockets the key.
Since we’re done, I assume it’s okay to take the gag out, but I liked being called a good girl earlier, so I wait for his permission.
The seconds feel like hours when he’s staring at me from across the desk, blatantly exploring my body with his gaze. I didn’t think I could feel any warmer than I already am, but sweat is beading underneath my top, and I don’t know whether I want to cool it down or turn up the heat.
I haven’t always been kind to myself when it comes to my appearance, though things have been better in recent years. The older I get, the less I give a shit about what people think. I am who I am, and I’m not interested in changing to please others.
In school, I often felt like I was the only one getting bullied, but looking back, I’m sure everyone had it rough at some point. I was an easy target for immature kids, mostly because my parents ran a retirement home.
People would say I had thirty grandads, and somehow that meant I was inbred. Or that I stank of piss, which is offensive both to me and to the residents.
The few classmates who ever came to my house would run screaming at the sight of the skull collection in my bedroom, sparking rumours that spread so rapidly the police turned up to make sure I wasn’t the infamous and elusive Crowmorne Cat Killer. There’d been a lot of suspects that year, though most people eventually accepted it was a fox.
When I hit puberty before everyone in my year, the joke was that I was stealing food from grannies to grow tits. And people wonder why I prefer the company of older people? Kids are pricks, teenagers are worse, and I can only hope that biology lessons have advanced in the last fifteen years because that’s obviously not how digestion works.
And then there are men. The ones I’ve been with haven’t always been kind either. Subtle comments that landed like a brick. Comparing me with their exes. A frustrating lack of attention or care in the bedroom, and certainly nothing that’s ever resembled worship.
But Mason? Mason obviously cares about my pleasure, and he’s still looking at me like I’m a fucking prize.
“You can take those out now,” he says eventually.
I consider putting them back on, but I drop them on his desk instead. He presses his tongue into the side of his cheek, and I can tell he wasn’t expecting it.
“So what’s the verdict?” I ask.
“I think you’re my dream girl, Jenna Laing.”
19
Jenna
Ontheoutside,Itry to act cool. This is no big deal. A perfectly normal Sunday afternoon, discussing my deepest sexual fantasies with a man who frightens people for a job. Who among ushasn’tbeen in that situation?
On the inside? I’m kicking and screaming and blushing all over while I wait for him to make the next move.
“Stand up,” he says, and I do it before he’s even finished speaking. He beckons me closer, and I round the desk with as much grace as I can manage under the circumstances. He spreads his knees wide and taps the top of his thigh with his fingertips.
“Sit.”
He’s so fucking cool about all of this. It’s ridiculous how much I want to follow his orders, but nervous laughter bubbles up inside me, and I hesitate.
“I don’t know if the chair will take the weight of both of us.”
“Don’t be a brat.”
“I’m not,” I protest, even though the accusation makes me want to double down and see where a little bratty behaviour might lead. “It looks pretty old.”
He wiggles his hips to prove how sturdy it is, and fair play to him, it doesn’t even creak.
“Do you trust me, Jenna?”
That question makes me laugh too. “Honestly? I barely know you.”
“You will soon enough,” he smiles. “I know I’m asking for a lot here.”
His palm wraps around the side of my thigh, and I make an embarrassing squeak at the contact with my bare skin. He slips it behind me, squeezing to pull me closer.
“I’ll never put you in any danger, remember? Not ever.”
