Page 58 of This Might Hurt
“Take a deep breath.” He slouches in the armchair someone brought in for me, looking sickeningly sexy in an untucked white shirt with the neck open, his blond hair styled in messy spikes.
The live broadcast doesn’t start for another twenty minutes, so I’ve been stuffed in this airless room to slowly lose my mind.
I pace over to the shuttered windows, then spin around. “Why won’t you be there?” I demand, my voice plaintive, vaguely aware that I’m being very unreasonable. “I need you.”
Jude exhales slowly through pursed lips, but his eyes are patient. “I’ve been asking you that all day, baby, but you said we shouldn’t put them on edge by having me in the room.”
“Right,” I mumble, without actually processing his words.
I keep telling myself the worst is over, but my body won’t believe me.
It carries the humiliation and fear of last night in places I can’t reach, and all it wants is to protect me from going through that pain a second time. “I can’t breathe.”
Pushing open the sitting-room door, I duck past the library full of studio equipment being erected under the supervision of Colin and our media coordinator.
The unassuming door at the end of the hall hasn’t been used in so long that I have to use my full body weight to wrench it open.
I tip my head back, desperately grateful for the light.
“Woah, this is cool,” Jude murmurs as he shuts the door behind us.
I open my eyes and study the glass roof over our heads, the windows that come halfway down each wall to make a space that’s barely bigger than a walk-in closet.
It started raining around noon, and the droplets hitting the glass make a delicate kind of music.
“It was my grandmother’s sun room before she passed.
” I lean over and push open one of the windows to let in some fresh air, then realize I have nowhere to wipe my dirty palm.
The groundskeepers clean the outside of the windows, but everything in here—the chairs, the empty planters, the coffee table—is coated in a fine layer of dust.
Jude catches my wrist and cleans my hand off on the side of his jeans. “Feeling better?”
“I really do think I forgot my lines.”
“You didn’t.” He steps back to keep his pocket out of my reach and perches on the edge of one of the tall planter boxes. “If you read it again, you’re gonna start second guessing.”
“I don’t know if I can do this without you,” I croak, prowling up and down the tiny room like a depressed zoo animal. “I can’t think.”
“Andrew.”
“What?” I jerk my head around to glare at him. If I mess up this interview, he’ll forever think I’m betting our future on a half-baked revenge plan that was never going to succeed. Something in my chest hurts, and I just want it to stop.
“Can I try something?”
My frenzied pacing slows to a stop. “That sounds ominous.”
I cringe as Jude pulls off the Merino wool sweater I tied around his shoulders this morning and drops it on the dirty concrete between his sneakers. “Down here.”
When I raise an eyebrow at him, he raises one in return. Part of me thinks I don’t deserve to keep coming back here, pretending I’m good when I’m not. But the rest of me wants it anyway, because apparently I’m just that needy.
“They’re coming for me in twenty minutes,” I warn as I take his offered hand and let him steady me down to my knees.
“I know. I’m watching the time.”
“And you can’t touch my hair,” I add right before it’s too late. “Not after they spent fifteen minutes and two bottles of product on it.”
He growls irritably and cups a hand around the back of my neck, the other playing with the shell of my ear as I rest my forehead against the denim of his thigh.
“Should I walk out at the end, or stay and talk to the interviewer?” I ask after about thirty seconds of blissful silence. “Should I seem optimistic, or like I’m in mourning? And I really do think you could be there if you just—”
He coughs out a laugh that’s closer to an exasperated sigh.
“We’ve talked about all this.” His hands leave my skin and I pull back, watching curiously as he unbuckles his belt and flicks open the button of his jeans.
“You know the answers, you know the script, and you don’t actually want me there.
” Without hesitating, he releases the zipper and pushes the waistband of his boxers down under his balls.
“Really? Now?” I squint up at his silhouette against the window, dazed. If he told me to blow him I’d do it, because despite everything I say I trust him completely, but I don’t understand.
“No.” His hand steadies my chin while his thumb coaxes its way into the corner of my mouth. “Just be quiet.”
And then, for lack of a better word, he places his soft cock in my mouth.
I go still with a confused sound. It tastes clean and salty, hot, weirdly heavy on my tongue.
His balls nudge against my chin, which is somehow more humiliating.
He’s lucky I can’t talk, because I have a lot to say about this.
“If you make noises, it’s gonna get hard and that won’t be comfortable.” He strokes my cheek slowly, the bridge of my nose. “Your mouth’s scared. It wants something to do. So do this.”
Even though I go quiet, his cock keeps getting harder, filling up a space that isn’t nearly big enough for it, leaking his musky taste to mix with my saliva until I feel like I’m drowning.
I need to ask him if this is supposed to be happening.
I need to ask him if he’s still watching the time, and if he’ll let me see the script again after all.
He catches the back of my head firmly when I start to pull away.
“No. Pinch me if you want to quit, remember? But don’t you dare try to talk. ”
I groan in frustration, my own cock starting to take notice. A dribble of spit escapes the corner of my mouth, forcing me to shift my weight so it drips onto the floor instead of my suit. The movement creates more drool, and he’s still getting hard, and this can’t be the way it’s supposed to go.
“Shhh.” He cradles my face in his hands when I make a pitiful sound, settling me.
“It’ll go down. I’m thinking about this super nasty dentist I had named Craig Dunkleman who always tried to hit on my mom.
” I crack up unexpectedly, snorting on his cock, and I can hear him fighting not to laugh.
“Stop vibrating it, you’re not helping.”
My chin is slick with spit by the time his cock settles down, cradled carefully on my tongue.
He rubs the back of my neck and I close my eyes and drink in the smell of his skin, the slight tickle of pale pubic hair.
Every once in a while, when my mouth fills all the way with spit and precum, I swallow as gently as I can and he lets out a soft grunt, like it feels amazing.
As I get used to it, as his invasion starts to feel like a natural part of my own body, I relax enough to appreciate the rich scent of wet grass through the window and the pattering of rain.
By the time he hums and rubs the soft skin under my ear, I’m just drifting.
“Okay princess, it’s almost time. Just let it go gently, like that.
Good.” Shivering, I stretch my jaw and let his cock slip off my tongue.
Every inch of my mouth tastes like him, and I know it will through the entire interview.
He helps me to my feet and wipes my chin with the sleeve of his shirt as he searches my face. “Do you remember your speech now? Because I’ll give you the script if you don’t.”
“I do.” I can’t bring myself to feel annoyed at him for being right when he looks so relieved. If I start kissing him I’ll never stop, so I pull him to my chest, firm and quick, my mouth under his ear. “Thank you. You’re mine.”
Then I hurry down the hall, straightening my clothes, and duck into the interview room.
The overhead lights have been dimmed to highlight the cool, diffuse glow from the windows.
They’ve set out a pair of Grandfather’s ostentatious antique armchairs, like we’re some kind of monarchy instead of a bunch of businessmen selling overpriced handbags on social media.
Colin, slim and sharp in his tan suit and dark-rimmed glasses, is sitting in the chair on the left answering a question with his usual dead-eyed, predatory smile.
Our PR and media manager Declan, a trendy guy not much older than me, gestures for me to be quiet as I circle the room to stand next to him.
“Go take the other chair,” he whispers behind his hand.
“As soon as he’s finished, they’ll pivot to you.
Remember it’s live, so don’t freeze up. You talked through your answers with Archie? ”
I glance around the room. The fact that my uncle let his younger brother take the spotlight means he must be in the city dealing with something urgent. “Yes, I did,” I lie.
“Good.” Declan checks my hair and suit jacket, fits me with my lapel mic, and gives me a thumbs up.
I ease into my chair as Colin finishes up an impressively long list of empty platitudes about his father that mean absolutely nothing.
The filming setup is small and unintimidating—just one compact camera operated by a petite woman, another woman conducting the interview, and a control board covered in knobs and buttons that I assume is streaming live to the network’s website.
I glance over my shoulder toward the doorway.
Jude isn’t there, but when I work my tongue around my mouth, I can taste his want and his tenderness.
I realize Colin’s not talking anymore and the interviewer has turned to me with a questioning nod.
When I nod back, the camera pivots to face me.
“Of course we want to hear from Andrew, the heir to Hugh Innes’ meteoric legacy.
Many players in the luxury goods and manufacturing industries have wondered how such a young leader will shape the face of what has been considered quite a traditional company. ”
I chose easy answers to the first two questions, so I’m able to focus on Colin and Declan as I respond.
They whisper briefly, Colin’s narrowed eyes assessing my every movement.
Just like I predicted, my dull answers bore him and he sneaks to the back of the room to study the table of food and bottled water the staff laid out.
“Lastly,” the woman prompts, checking the screen on her tablet and gesturing to the camera operator to adjust something on the control board, “please give us a glimpse of how you plan to steer the company moving into the next decade. Anything new and exciting you can share?”
Jude and I spent all of the late morning and early afternoon on this.
We tossed suggestions back and forth, I almost melted down for the six millionth time in the last three days, and then he kissed me and told me to take a hot shower.
After that I lay in bed mostly naked writing out different scripts while he read his book with his head pillowed on my ass and offered commentary.
I feel ready, despite what I said to him earlier.
“Great question.” I smile at the camera, eyeing Colin’s back as he reads the label on what looks like a jar of chutney.
Archie’s going to tear him to pieces for not watching me more carefully.
“During my time as CEO, I want to focus on new ways to bring sustainability to the world of luxury goods. That’s why, after a lot of discussion, we’ve decided to step away from the merger with Meridian Industries, due to the Pryce family’s heavy reliance on rare metals obtained via open pit mining.
Our company values are fundamentally incompatible. ”
I wrap up with a couple of generic sentences I can’t hear over the ringing in my ears as Colin slowly turns around, a slice of cheese dangling from his fingers, his eyes wide.
Holy shit. This is all I wanted yesterday, that moment of bewildered panic as the boy made of nothing stands up and makes himself seen for the first time.
If they had looked at me for one second like I meant something, this wouldn’t have needed to happen.
It doesn’t matter if my words have no legal weight; now that they’re out there, I’ve made my family look unstable and humiliated Daxton’s.
The interviewer jumps up to shake my hand, looking thrilled. “Thank you so much. Mr. Innes—your uncle, I mean—didn’t mention you’d be breaking the news to us. We really appreciate it.”
Colin says something in Declan’s ear and speed walks out of the room, pulling out his phone.
As soon as he’s out of sight I hear him start to run.
I stare after him, feeling high as fuck but also incredibly sick, like my body is trying to reject this version of me in the way your immune system fights against a transplanted organ it doesn’t recognize.
I need Jude’s hands on me, right now, before I lose myself.
Declan’s arguing with someone on the phone, the film crew already packing away their equipment.
He can’t demand that they somehow undo everything they’ve already streamed without making us look unhinged.
I’m sure our lawyers will have the footage scrubbed from the internet as best they can within a day, but that will draw even more attention.
He shoots me a dark, confused look as I walk out.