His Belt (Part Four) Read online

  But I knew I couldn’t do that, knew I had to stay away from her in front of everyone else in the office.

  I was the reason this horrible thing had happened to her in the first place. And I was going to find out who did it, and when I did, there would be hell to pay.

  I reach for my phone, pressing the button that gets Darren on the line immediately.

  “I need security footage,” I demand. “This morning someone broke into the office and vandalized Abigail Bennett’s computer. They also left a torn garment on her chair and spread fake blood around her desk.”

  “Got it,” Darren says. He’s a former hacker, ex-CIA, who won’t tell me exactly what projects he used to work for. But anytime I’ve needed something from him, he’s able to come through, so I don’t ask questions. “I should be able to get it by this afternoon. But we have another problem.”

  “Yes?” I say, my hand tightening around the phone.

  Darren sighs. “It’s about Abigail Bennett.”

  I make it until 2:30 before I summon her to my office.

  I think about emailing her myself, but instead go through the normal channels, emailing Will and letting him know to cancel my meetings for the afternoon and to have Abigail come to my office.

  Will writes me back immediately, letting me know he’s on top of it.

  A stark contrast to the last time I called Abigail to my office and he questioned me. I think about how he kissed Abigail on the cheek that night at the bar and jealousy and anger burn through my body.

  I would have him fired, but the asshole is a good assistant. I’m weighing the con of having to train someone new against the pro of the satisfaction it would give me to see the look on his usually smug face when I fired him when Abigail arrives at my office.

  I watch her on the monitor as she approaches, straightening her dress before knocking on my door.

  “Come in,” I bark.

  She enters, looking nervous but determined. She’s wearing her hair pulled back in one of those braids again, the loose kind she was wearing last night.

  Her dress today is black and knee-high, and she’s wearing sheer black pantyhose underneath. The fabric of her dress hugs her curves, accentuating her breasts, and the stockings encase those long legs of hers. Jesus Christ.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes. Sit down.”

  She sits down and crosses her legs primly in front of her, the bottom of her dress sliding up and revealing the strap of a garter belt. Fuck. Where did she get stockings and garters? Is she trying to drive me insane?

  I grip the side of my desk, mustering my self-control, then pull open a drawer and take out a manila folder. It contains printouts of the information Darren emailed to me after our phone call.

  “Do you want to tell me what you were doing meeting with my mother this morning?” I ask.

  Her eye twitches just a tiny bit, and she licks her bottom lip, looking guilty. But then she thrusts her chin into the air. “How do you know that? Did you… did you have me followed?” She looks outraged, like the idea is unforgiveable.

  “Of course I had you followed.” I pull out the contents of the folder – glossy black and white photos of Abigail and my mother, taking with a highly sophisticated camera from across the street – and set them down on my desk one by one. “I particularly like the one of you kicking her in the leg, although I see you became fast friends afterwards.” I pick up the photo of them sitting in a café, my mother’s hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, Abigail’s head dipped slightly as she listens intently to what my mother says.

  I lean back in my chair and fold my hands, waiting for the excuses, the rationalizations, the reasons why she didn’t tell me.

  “The fact that you had me followed is a gross invasion of privacy, and it’s probably illegal,” she says.

  “So have me arrested.”

  “You’re an arrogant asshole.”

  “You kept something from me, Abigail. That is completely unacceptable, especially when it comes to my mother.”

  “You should talk about keeping things from people.” She stands up. “Now, do you have any information about what happened to me this morning, the vandalism of my desk? Because if this is the only reason you brought me here, to interrogate me about your mother, then I have work to do.”

  “You agreed to play by my rules.” My hands curl into fists, and I can’t help but think about her down on her knees, finally pressing my dick into her mouth, teaching her how to suck me, punishing her with my hard cock.

  “I agreed to go over your rules with you, which you said we’d do this morning, until you kicked me out of your apartment last night.”

  “I didn’t kick you out.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, until you wanted to abandon me in your torture room while you went and slept in your bed.”

  “Is that what this is about?” I shake my head. “That I wanted to sleep in my own bed?” My jaw ticks. If she’s upset about that, about my need for space, then isn’t going to work.

  “What this is about is that you were hot one minute, and cold the next. I told you I wanted to have sex with you, after we’d…” she trails off, and I remember what we did last night, the flog on her skin, the belt around her neck, the feel of her pussy clenching around my finger as she came. “Anyway, you acted like I’d asked to marry you.” She’s still standing up, and I tell her to sit down, but she shakes her head.

  “No. I want to talk about this.”

  “We can talk sitting down.”

  She sighs and sits down, crossing her legs again, a slip of that damn garter belt visible. Jesus Christ. I avert my eyes, because if I get one more eyeful of that creamy thigh, I’m not going to be able to hold it together.

  “I’m sitting,” she says. “Talk.”

  I take a deep breath. Dammit. Somehow, she’s thrown me off my game. But I desperately want her here, desperately want her to understand what I need from her. “Abigail, I need you to understand that if this is going to work, we’re going to need a certain level of trust.”

  “I agree.”

  “Good.”

  “But what you mean by trust is that you want me to tell you everything, while you get to make all the rules and do what you want.”

  I frown. “No, that’s not – ”

  “Why didn’t you tell me your father committed suicide?” she demands.

  My throat goes dry, and my jaw hardens. “He didn’t,” I say. “He attempted suicide. And that’s not exactly something you tell someone after knowing them for a week.”

  “Maybe,” she says. “But you don’t tell me anything.”

  “You didn’t tell me your mother was a prostitute who was convicted of murder.”

  She blanches, her blue eyes going wide. Suddenly, I wish I could take the words back. I shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have taken something I knew about her, something personal and used it to throw it back in her face. But the situation is slipping away from me, and for the first time in my life, I feel out of control.

  “How did you know that?” she whispers. And then understanding dawns on her face as she realizes I must have found out the same way I knew she’d been with my mother this morning – by spying, researching, prying into her life in a way only I could. “Is that why… is that why you got so freaked out last night when I brought up sex?” she demands. “Because what? You think that I’m, damaged or something because of what my mother did?”

  “No, Abigail. I do not think you’re damaged. But I do want to be very careful with you, careful that I don’t… promise too much.” The fact that she’s twenty-three and a virgin isn’t lost on me. And the fact that her mother was a hooker is most likely a part of that decision, even if she doesn’t realize it.

  “You haven’t promised anything,” she says, her eyes cold, her face devoid of emotion. “And trust me, it’s fine. Have you found out anything at all about who did that to my computer?”

  “Abigail – ”

 
“No? Okay, well, let me know when you do.” She turns and walks toward the door, and panic cuts through me like a knife.

  “Stop.”

  She stops, but doesn’t turn around.

  “All I want is to protect you.”

  “Protect me from what?” she demands.

  “Me.”

  She turns and looks at me, accusing. “Sounds like an excuse.”

  “It’s not. You have no idea what goes on in my head, no idea what I’m capable of, the things I want to do to you, the reasons I need to do those things.”

  “Then tell me,” she says, and now her voice is soft, breathy. My chest tightens, and for a split second, I let myself believe that I can tell her, that she’ll accept me and still want to be with me.

  But that’s a risk I’m not willing to take.

  I stare at her, not saying anything, the two of us at an impasse.

  She turns around again to leave.

  “Wait,” I say, desperate.

  She pauses, her hand on the door.

  The silence stretches between us as I search my brain for the right words, the words that will make her stay.

  And then, without turning around, she says, “Elijah, why did your father try to commit suicide?”

  Chapter 3

  ABIGAIL

  It’s a test.

  A test to see if he’ll let me in, even a little bit. If he won’t, if he can’t, then I’ll walk out this door, and that will be it. It will be over, completely. I will walk through this door, I will walk back downstairs to my desk, I will hold my head high and I will move on with my life.

  It will suck. It will be hard.

  But it won’t be any worse than what’s happening now, this torturous push and pull that shows no sign of letting up, the back and forth that leaves me feeling confused and hurt with every interaction I have with him.

  I may have agreed to be his submissive, but he has to give me something, too.

  I wait a beat, my hand still on the doorknob.

  When he doesn’t answer, I turn it.

  “If you leave,” he says from behind me. “It’s over.”

  I open the door.

  “Wait.”

  I wait, the silence stretching between us as heavy as a woolen blanket. It takes over the office, blocks everything else out, reduces this entire bustling city of eight million people to just the two of us, this room, this thing, whatever it is that’s happening between us, growing and taking over the space.

  “Don’t go.” He’s behind me now. I can feel his presence, the same as I did the other day, the heat radiating off of him in waves. But this time is going to be different.

  “Then answer my question.”

  He reaches out and closes the door, and I can feel his breath on the back of my neck. My pulse kicks up, goose bumps blooming on my body.

  I will not let this turn into a sexual encounter the way it did the other day.

  But he locks the door, the click echoing through the cocoon of his office.

  I turn around. “If you think you’re going to dominate me in here, now, then you’re wrong.”

  “Be careful, Ms. Bennett.” His voice is a low growl, and his jaw ticks. “You are on very dangerous ground.”

  “I don’t care.” I thrust my chin into the air. “Tell me why your father tried to commit suicide, Elijah. Or I’m leaving.” It’s not so much that I need him to answer this specific question, as it is the intent behind him answering it. I need something to show me that he’s in this, that he’s willing to do something uncomfortable to be with me, the same way I’ve been willing to do for him.

  “You don’t want to know the answer to that question, Abigail.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He averts his eyes, looking at the floor, and my breath catches. In one second he’s gone from looking like the dominant, powerful billionaire that he is to a vulnerable little boy, his dark eyes cast downward. Emotion swirls on his face, the first real time I’ve seen anything there except lust, and I take a step toward him.

  “Just tell me. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” My mouth goes dry and I lick my bottom lip, not sure if the words I’ve just said are true, not sure if I really want to know what it is he’s about to say.

  I reach for him, my hand pressing flat against his chest. His heart is hammering, harder than I’ve ever felt it. Usually his heartbeat is calm, steady, no matter what. But now it beats a staccato rhythm through the smooth crisp lines of his dress shirt.

  When he finally looks up at me, his eyes are dark and hooded, but not with lust. With something else, something darker.

  “You want to know why my father tried to kill himself, Abigail?” He almost spits out my name, and I’m shocked at the venom in his voice, but I stay rooted in place.

  “Yes. I want to know.” But now my own heart is hammering in anticipation of what he’s about to tell me.

  “He tried to kill himself because my mother was divorcing him,” he says, his eyes still dark. “He was a weak man, Abigail. A man who fell in love, who let it overcome him, who got so enamored with a woman that when she finally left him, he couldn’t stand to live without her.”

  “I’m sure the truth is more complicated than that, Elijah,” I say. “Your father wasn’t weak for loving your mother, he –”

  He grabs my wrist and pushes me back up against the door, his hands snaking to the bottom of my dress. “Why did you wear these?” he growls, his hands snapping the strap of my garter belt against my skin.

  I struggle against him, knowing that to lie to him would be no use.

  “I wanted you to see them,” I admit.

  His hand snakes further up my dress, rubbing over the outside of my thong, his fingers playing with the lace there.

  “You wanted me to see you dressed like a little slut?”

  “Yes.” My pulse kicks into another gear, my body starting to respond to his commands, the desire to fall to my knees so overwhelming it almost overtakes me.

  He takes my chin in his hands, forces me to look him in the eye. “Do you know why I always need to use my belt on you, Ms. Bennett? Do you know why I like to see it around your wrists, against your ass, whipping your pussy?”

  I shake my head, my knees weak.

  He grins wickedly, and now I know exactly what they’re talking about when they say someone’s smile doesn’t reach their eyes.

  “I like to use my belt on you, Ms. Bennett, because my father used his belt to try to kill himself. He wrapped it around his neck and tried to hang himself with it.” His eyes are cold as if he’s relishing telling me this information.

  My chest gets tight and I take in a deep breath through my nose, close my eyes for a long moment, digesting this new information.

  “How’s that for fucked up?” Elijah laughs, and it’s a horrible, bitter sound. “I bet my mother didn’t tell you that, did she, Ms. Bennett?”

  I shake my head, my eyes watery and stinging with tears.

  “Of course not. And I bet she didn’t tell you that I was the one who found him, that I was the one who gave him CPR until the paramedics came. That even though I was trying to save his life, it didn’t work and that in fact, it may have done more harm than good. That he’s in a hospital room languishing in an unconscious state.”

  “I didn’t know that.” I shake my head, resisting the urge to tell him to stop, to press my hands over my ears and demand he stop saying such horrible things. Because as horrible as this is, I know that this is one of his tests, a test to see how I’m going to react.

  “Well now you know.” He’s staring at me, his eyes as cold as steel.

  I wait a moment as something crackles between us, some kind of tension. It feels like a coin is spinning on its side, deciding which way to fall. Heads, we get through this, tails, I walk out and never come back.

  Heads, he sends me on my way, tails, he shuts down.

  Heads, I win, tails you lose.

  “Elijah,” I move toward him, but he take
s a step back.

  Sympathy isn’t what he needs. It isn’t what he wants.

  What he wants is submission. Acceptance.

  For me to see all these cracked, bruised places inside of him and not turn away.

  And so I don’t.

  Instead, I get down on my knees, and bend my head.

  I hear him walking toward me, and then he reaches down and tips my chin up. “You’ve displeased me,” he says. “Meeting with my mother.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He stares down at me. “Go back to your desk, Abigail. Leave here and don’t come back.”

  But I can’t. He’s just so beautiful, staring down at me, his eyes still cold, his jaw set in a hard line. I want to crack him, want to break him open and see all the horrible parts of him, to soothe them and make him see that he’s okay, that he’s enough.

  “No,” I whisper. “No, please, sir. I need to be punished.”

  Chapter 4

  ELIJAH

  She’s staring up at me, those blue eyes so wide and innocent, and I can’t help but want her.

  She’s so goddamn beautiful.

  I know I should send her away, know I should make her leave this room and never come back. And yet… I’ve told her about my father, about the belt, and she’s still here, down on her knees, begging me to punish her.

  “Have you ever sucked a dick before?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. But I want to hear her say it.

  “No, sir,” she demurs, heat rising on her cheeks.

  “No, what?”

  “No, I’ve never sucked a dick before.”

  I squeeze her chin harder, push my index finger past her lips, watching as she sucks hungrily. My other hand dips down, running along the smooth expanse of cleavage that blooms from the front of her dress, tracing over that smooth skin, my cock swelling.

  I begin to pull my belt off, the emotion of telling her what I just told her mixing with the position she’s now in, on her knees to create a mix of desire that’s so intoxicating it overtakes me.

  I slip my belt through the last loops of my pants and clutch it tightly at my side.