Christina
Red is still leaning against the wall, looking like a man who really does not care about anything, cooler than cool. Now that Ryan has left the room, that cocky smile has returned to his face. As I walk to my desk and sit in my chair—thinking that I can put this desk in between us as a kind of shield, I suppose—I wonder if the concern was some kind of ruse. But if it was, why drop it now? And a ruse to accomplish what? I thrust these thoughts down; overthinking about Red has made me paranoid. I lay my palms flat on the desk, watching Red, who just watches me right back, smiling nonchalantly.
Here is the man who has captivated my dreams for the past week: who has made me wear out the batteries on my vibrator, who has given me innumerable incredible orgasms in my fantasies.
After a while, the silence becomes unbearable. Red doesn’t seem to mind it. He just leans there, calm, collected, as though he wouldn’t mind leaning there for the rest of time. I cannot. I have work—yes, yes, that is my excuse. I have more work to do.
I clear my throat, and then say, “Thank you for bringing him in, Red, but…” I’m supposed to tell him I have to get back work. Instead I blurt out: “I didn’t expect that of you. Really, I didn’t. I’m shocked—” I cut short, wondering where that came from, wondering why I cannot just control what I say and do when I’m around this man. Since I made the decision to follow social work instead of accounting, I have been in control. But with Red I feel like the little girl who being pushed here and there without ever finding her grip.
Red pushes off the wall, swaggers to the desk, and takes the seat opposite me. He rests his elbows on the armrests and lets his forearms and hands hang down, like some massive powerful animal ready to jump across the desk at any moment; I search his eyes for lust, and I’m sure there’s something there, an ember in the deep night of his gaze. A ghostly hand trails up my back, tickling me, and I have to repress a shiver lest he see the effect he’s having. “Shocked?” He lets out a short laugh. “What did you think I was, sweetheart? Some kind of animal?”
Is this guy a mind reader or what? Yes, I want to say, that is exactly what I thought you were. At least, that is what I tricked myself into believing you were. But now I can no longer keep up that fiction—and I am lost without it.
“No,” I say. “I just didn’t expect you to care.”
“Care? Who said I cared?”
“You did—your behavior did.”
“You a shrink now?”
“No, but I spend a lot of time around people and I think I have a pretty good handle on how they’re feeling at any particular time; I think it’s vital to my job.”
Red lets out another laugh, his eyes never leaving me. “That sounds like the sort of answer you’d give in a court case, sweetheart. Defensive. Next you’re gonna tell me you’re pleadin’ the fifth.”
Tell him to leave, tell him you have more work, tell him you haven’t got time to chat.
“Red, you saved me from those unpatched bikers, which is a nice thing to do. Obviously. But then you acted like you couldn’t care less, and now here you are, being nice and caring for Ryan, and now acting like you couldn’t care less again. Which is it? Are you the uncaring asshole or the sensitive biker?”
Red shrugs. “You of all people should know it’s never that simple.” Red glances at the picture of a waterfall, which is to my left, and then stands up and goes to it. The desk is no longer between us now, not properly, only the edge of it. Ludicrously, I think about dragging my chair around to the other side. This is insane …I should just ask him to leave. But I don’t. Instead, I watch, enraptured, as he runs his callused biker’s finger down the canvas’s falling water. “Is this supposed to make a man peaceful, then?” he comments.
“Or a woman, or a kid. Yes.”
For the next ten or so seconds, I just watch as this six-three leather-wearing hulk of a man trails his finger along the contours of the canvas, and then he turns to me, staring down at me with eyes blacker than the acts which have haunted my dreams this past week. I remember thinking earlier that I wish I was wearing something else, but Red clearly doesn’t mind. His eyes roam to my shirt, and then down to my dress and to my legs. I’m wearing tights, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
I wriggle under his gaze. He meets my eyes, and smiles again.
“Do I make you uncomfortable?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, even though that’s not the whole truth, or even the half-truth. I am wriggling because my clit is aching, my nipples tingling as though goose pimples are rising on them; even my ass cheeks are buzzing in some strange way, like they want to be groped by this giant man.
He leaves the painting and comes and stands over me. He is so large that his shadow obscures me, leaving me in semi-darkness, so large that when he stands over me it’s as though only he and I exist; I am trapped here, beneath him. That should make me scared—Neanderthal, brute, animal, I should say—but it does not.
“You’re shocked that I have a heart,” he says, staring down at me with an intense expression now. Horny? Angry? Somewhere in between? I don’t know. All I know is it intrigues and excites me. “You were thinkin’ about me as some kind of ape-man, eh?”
“No,” I lie. I should push myself to my feet and walk to the door, hold it open, and tell him thank you so much for coming by but now he must leave; I should ask him to back up. But I don’t. I just sit here, because no matter how much I reason with myself, my mind does not care about reason. And even my reason is weak, now. He cared. I saw it with my own eyes. He really cared.
“No?” He tilts his head. “Really? Then why were you shocked, sweetheart?” He watches me closely for a few moments, and then says, “Do you know what I reckon? I reckon that for this past week you’ve been fantasizing about me, and now here I am, not the man you thought I was, and it’s making you damn horny. Don’t tell me it isn’t. I know a horny woman when I see one.” All at once, he’s kneeling next to me so that our heads are on the same level, our eyes staring directly at each other, our lips poised directly at each other. “No, Christina, I’m not just a fuckin’ brute, just, but I am a fuckin’ brute. Yes, Christina, there is a soul in here somewhere, but it’s buried deep and I don’t think anybody’s ever goin’ to find it.” He is leaning forward now, invading my personal space. I can smell sweat and engine oil and cigarettes and whisky and a dozen other manly smells on him, smells that should not be appealing but with my lust propelling me are more than appetizing. I’ve always wondered how the heroines in my romance novels can look past the brutality of these men, but now I know. Lust plays a huge part, as it is with me now. “Are you scared, sweetheart?”
His breath tickles my lips. He has one hand propped on the edge of the desk and the other on the arm of my chair, enveloping me in his grip, and his breath spreads warmly over my lips and my cheeks. I open my mouth to speak, and he leans in again, so close that our lips are within inches of each other. This is my last chance, I know. This is my last chance to back away, to end this. This is my last chance to shove him hard in the chest and demand that he gets out of my office at once. I am aware that we are in my office, in the day, that down a hallway Triss is working, the library in full function, people on the computers or their laptops. I can hear them, quiet through the walls but real.
“I am not scared,” I say. No—I try to say. But the words don’t form. All that comes out is a small, “Ah.”
Red grins. Fuck, that grin is hot, and his body is huge; the sort of body a woman could be willingly trapped by. And his knuckles are grazed, and his face is hard, and his eyes are black and intense.
I lay my hand on his chest, meaning to push him away, but then I find myself digging my fingernails so hard into his leather that two of them break. But I don’t feel the pain. All I feel are his lips pressed solidly against mine.