She knows what her father did.Doesn't she? Yes. Of course she does."My parents went to prison when I was young. They were there for fifteen years." I watch her for signs of recognition—and I get it. It's easy to tell that Sabrina knows about the incarceration of my mother and father. How they were sent to prison for purchasing property with laundered money. Turned in by their competitor who made it his business to expose them. Break them. Turn our world inside out. "When they were released, they just...they were so ashamed. They'd lost their will to live. My father was a shell of his former self and when my mother passed from heart disease, he just...followed. Didn't wake up. Prison withered them into nothing. Dust."Her golden eyes are wide, unblinking. She starts to say something and stops short, her face losing a healthy degree of color. "I'm so sorry. I d-didn't...I didn't know that.""Didn't you?" I ask, with slightly too much accusation in my tone.She shakes her head rapidly.
Sabrina pushes up onto her hands, attempting to leave. Shaken. Wheezing. "Stop—"But I surge up over her, bending her knees all the way back to her shoulders, pinning her to the easy chair with my mouth, my bared teeth against her parted lips. "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't want it."Our hot, panting breaths mingle between us.When she blinks rapidly, her hand curling in the front of my dress shirt, I'm caught off guard by a wave of regret. Of...affection. For her. It leads me to speak without thinking. "I'm a bastard. I don't know how to be any other way. I don't have an ounce of sweetness inside of me. I'm sorry if that's what you need. I'll make up for it in other ways." A swallow gets stuck in my throat. "Let me make up for it in other ways."Her grip on my shirt loosens in degrees, as does some of the fight in her body.When she nods, that permission is...Jesus, it's better than conquering. Or winning a fight. It's the most intoxicating victory I've ever experienced. "
No. She told me she had no experience with men. I didn't believe her. How could I believe her? There is nothing so pure in my world. Purity doesn't exist. Not like this. Not like her. Everything is morally gray and corrupted, including me. And I've just defiled her. I'm...I'm recording this.An invisible clamp closes around my windpipe, denial rattling my skull. I forgot about my phone across the room. I lost myself in her and forgot, but I remember with a vengeance now. I remember I'm an immoral bastard and I've just crossed the line into irredeemable."Bryant," she whimpers shakily.And for the moment, I forget about everything but her. Everything but making this right and good for her. "I'm here," I grit out against her lips, because there are no words to describe how tight she is. My eyes are watering, she's squeezing me so brutally, her delicate pussy muscles stroking me every time she breathes or blinks or shifts on the chair. "I'm here," I say again, kissing her mouth gently,
Bryant picks me up the next morning in an SUV with tinted windows.I step out of my studio and he's there. Waiting.It's not raining like it was yesterday when he left. The world is bathed in sunshine and there's a new texture to the air. It's easier to breathe, hold life in my lungs. I didn't realize I was so lonely before. I had my dollhouses and my inner monologue and I didn't need a single other thing, but when Bryant's body joined with mine yesterday, I was home.And I have no idea what to do about that.About him.As soon as I spot him outside my door, I'm elevated to a new state of awareness. Of my body. My breasts and belly and mouth. I'm rocked by the pattering in my chest that only grows louder when he slides off his sunglasses and looks at me. Simply looks. No smile. Just those blue eyes boring into mine, a greeting of souls. And everything inside of me rejoices at his presence. I'm not merely walking in his direction, I'm floating. I'm on an invisible cloud and my body doe
I'm a ticking time bomb.I'm unwell.A man on the edge of madness, waiting to see if the girl I'm obsessed with will betray me. By the end of today, I will know. I'll know the direction my life is going to take. I'm either going to be the happiest man alive or I'll want to jump from the very top of this building.She is on the other side of my office, smelling of cedar and roses and my seed, diligently answering the phone and taking messages, making notations in my schedule. She senses me looking at her and we trade a long stare. That single glance from her is like a breath of mountain air, a shot of adrenaline, a soft, warm blanket. It makes my heart beat truer. My soul mate. Both of us know it's true. Somehow we've found each other among the wilds of the city, despite the tragic way our pasts interconnect. She's not faking it. There's no way.We're in love.I would walk across an ocean of broken glass for her.I'd give my life.She would crawl inside of me if she could and never lea
When the office door closes behind Bryant, it takes me a few minutes to fill my lungs again. They're totally depleted. That's what he does, that's what we seem to do together. Suck the oxygen straight out of the room. We're using every ounce of it to exist around each other under the weight of feeling. Of love."What am I going to do?" I whisper, swiping at my damp eyes.Turning in my chair, I look at his computer where it sits silently on his desk. No password engaged. Everything is right there. All I need to do is find some evidence that Bryant has been bleeding corporations dry financially so they will have no choice but to sell him their property in exchange for being bailed out of debt. Once I have that evidence, I'll finally be brought into the family fold. No longer on the outside.I stand up and approach his desk, sitting down carefully in the leather executive chair, still warm from his body. After several deep breaths, I begin going through his files. Long minutes pass while
Before I can stand up, an icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen catches my eye. A cloud. I'm not sure why I reach for the mouse and click. I'll never know why my curiosity prods me. But I lean down and I double tap the cloud, watching more icons flood the screen, along with pictures of various buildings. Construction sites.There's a video at the very bottom.Recognition hits me in the throat.That's my apartment. My dollhouse studio.When did he record a video inside of it?I hit play.It starts with Bryant setting up the phone in the corner of my bookshelf, guilt and conflict written in every line of his face—and my stomach drops to the ground. Oh God.In the here and now, the office door opens.Bryant walks in. He's breathing hard. There is a look of utter relief and elation on his face that would be beautiful at any other time. But not now. Not while I'm watching us make love on the screen of his computer. No sound is coming out, but I can hear every second of it in my
I don't want to live anymore.I thought life was bleak and colorless before she came into the picture, but every minute without her now that I've breathed her air is unacceptable.A trial.I haven't been able to leave this office since she walked out of it, because I don't want to look at the outside world. Don't want to face it without her. Sabrina gave me a reason to live, she stole the loneliness and now that her life-affirming presence is gone, I'm depleted. I'm raw and miserable and I deserve every second of it.The hurt I caused her.She wasn't going to betray me. If I'd listened to my heart earlier, I would have known.She was so brave and incredible, standing up to her father, and what reward did I have to offer? A video of me defiling her. In the place she holds sacred, nonetheless. I'm a monster.I stare bleary-eyed at the computer screen, the words and numbers in a senseless jumble. It's the middle of the night. She left me three days ago and I've been working on this proje