Page 45 of Twisted Play (Cruel Games #1)

EVA

Alek—Sir—hadn’t touched me since our shitshow of an interview. No, he’d humiliated me, made me kneel beside him and make his coffee, taught me exactly how he liked it—how he liked me.

Somehow, I’d convinced myself this wasn’t about sex, that the peace I felt in his presence, when his expectations were clear and calmly given, when he called me a good girl when I pleased him, was a fucked up but acceptable exchange for this job.

And then, he’d stripped me today, literally and metaphorically, laying bare the illusion that I was anything but a toy.

I let my temper get the best of me, teasing him in front of the athletic director and hoping he’d get caught.

And also hoping the bold move would please him.

Because I was fucked up.

Now, he stared at me, eyes such a deep brown they were almost black, his pupils blown.

“If I get caught—” I’d lose my job. I’d lose my scholarship. I’d lose my access to the team and my ability to send information to Jedediah Carter. My father—I choked down the sob that threatened to well up out of my chest. “Please,” I pleaded, hoping he’d understand.

Alek dragged his fingers through my tangled curls until he cupped my head with his large, tattooed hand, his thumb stroking over my temple.

I needed him to?—

I finally admitted to myself I didn’t put up with his bullshit just because I needed the job.

As I stood there, shaking like a leaf, sure every thought was written across my face, unable to hide anything from this man that I wanted to please as much as I hated him, I thought hard about what I wanted.

“What’s going on behind those pretty eyes of yours?” he asked me.

I couldn’t tell him that my time on my knees in his office, my eyes downcast, my mind floating, were the only moments of quiet in my tumultuous week.

That, after last night, the idea of sitting here with my mind blank, focused only on earning the slightest bit of praise from him, seemed like a life raft.

That each Tuesday and Thursday, when I came here after morning practice, were the quietest, most treasured moments of my week.

I sank to my knees, holding his eyes, as if he hadn’t instructed me carefully every goddamned time I made his coffee to keep my eyes downcast while I knelt before him.

His cock brushed against my face, burning against my skin as I took my place on my knees. Blindly, I wrapped my fingers around it, never taking my gaze from his face.

Alek didn’t say a word. He just watched me unblinkingly. He broke eye contact to watch me take his cock in my hand, and then he exhaled in a sharp rush when I pumped my hand up and down, spreading the bead of precum with my fingers.

“Malyshka,” he groaned, and I let that sound go to my head, let it convince me he wasn’t a filthy old man in a position of authority taking advantage of a broke-ass student who needed this job more than anything else.

I tried to convince myself I had as much control as he did, that I could make him lose his shit.

He braced his hand on the desk and kept the other in my hair, his flat palm against the side of my face, anchoring me in this moment but not controlling my movements.

I opened my mouth wide and took him as deep as I could, relaxing my throat.

“Blyat,” he whispered, his jaw going slack for a moment. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back as I sucked hard then took him deep into my throat.

Over and over again, I fucked him with my mouth until his thighs trembled and his breathing changed.

It wasn’t enough.

I had to make him lose control.

I swirled my tongue around his cock, teasing him, his salty, musky taste filling my senses until there was nothing left but me and him.

When I sucked hard on the tip, he moaned again, tightening his fingers in my hair, pulling it hard. I kept one hand on his cock, fisting him and meeting my mouth when I took him deep, resting the other on the thick muscles of his thigh for balance.

“Baby girl,” he rasped, and I reveled in the change in his voice. “That’s it. So fucking good.”

His praise detonated inside me, a hot pulse that sent a full-body shudder through me. My thighs pressed together, desperate for friction, and a muffled whimper slipped past my lips. I swore I felt him twitch against my tongue.

Alek looked down at me, his expression softer than it was when he judged my coffee-making skills but no less devastating. “Is that what you need, baby girl? For me to tell you how good you are?”

My nails dug into his thighs, hard enough to leave marks, but I couldn’t stop myself. My hips shifted restlessly, seeking friction that wasn’t there, my body helpless against the ache his words sparked. My head went light, dizzy, need replacing oxygen.

Yes. Please. Tell me this feels good. Tell me I’m not debasing myself for nothing. Give me something.

I didn’t answer, just redoubled my efforts on his cock.

“So fucking good,” he continued. “You’re breathtaking like this, those perfect tits bouncing as you choke yourself on my cock, so determined to prove yourself, to show me what a good girl you can be for me.”

The truth of his words dug deep into my psyche as I sucked on him, swallowing when I thought I would gag, desperate to take him deeper, faster, harder.

First Cole, then Tristan, now Alek. I was on my knees for men who degraded me, who didn’t respect me, because they were blackmailing me.

“You fight it so hard, baby girl, but we both know this is what you need—to surrender, to let the motor that drives you relax for a moment, to be nothing but a beautiful little cocksucker begging to be used.”

He put words to the sentiment I couldn’t.

“Flawless,” he continued. “My perfect little slut, on your knees not because you have to be, but because you want this. ”

I moaned around him, his words loosening the tightness I’d held in my chest for the past two weeks.

“I’m going to take you apart, baby girl, make you give up that perfect control to be my fucktoy. You’re starving for this—to be owned, to be used, to be degraded. Look at you, with your lips wrapped around my cock like you’re addicted to it.”

I couldn’t. I wanted to see him lose control, but I began to tire, unused to this action, to this effort, as the adrenaline from our near discovery wore off, as the effects of a sleepless night with Cole and Tristan slowly caught up with me.

I faltered.

“Need some help?” he asked, releasing my hair and cupping my face, halting my frantic movements.

Reluctantly, I pulled off of him, a line of spit connecting his throbbing cock to my lips.

“You’re doing so well. Such a good girl for me,” he murmured. “Open your mouth.”

He fisted his cock with one hand, the other still resting on the desk.

I whimpered, the loss of physical contact as painful as a rejection.

I grabbed at the hand on the desk and tugged at it, awkward, my mouth open and his cock resting on my tongue. I needed him to touch me.

Alek lifted his palm and cupped my cheek, stroking his thumb over my skin.

“God, so fucking eager to please,” he rasped. “Such a good girl, taking it all for me.”

My cheeks burned even as my core clenched.

Each degrading word sent sparks of shame through me, followed by waves of pleasure that made my skin tingle and my nipples tighten.

Worse, I was starting to crave both feelings equally—the humiliation and the praise tangling together until I couldn’t tell them apart.

He threw his head back as he pumped his fist up and down his cock.

“Keep your tongue out for me, baby. Such a perfect little slut, the way you submit to me. So fucking good.” Nonsense poured out of his mouth, praise and degradation mixed as I waited, so turned on, I was about to combust, as eager to swallow his cum as he was to give it to me.

“Eva!” he gasped as he came over my face, thick ropes of cum spurting out into my mouth and over my lips. I captured them with my tongue best I could as he finished, his movements slowing until he turned my face up to his.

His hair was askew, his cheeks ruddy. His usual commanding presence was fractured—shirt rumpled, breathing uneven, sweat dampening his brow.

He looked nothing like the calm, cool, collected coach who terrified the hockey team every day, or even the cruel man who’d told me I’d have to give him a blowjob before he’d hire me.

This was Alek, unhinged and wild and unbelievably attractive.

“Look what you did to me.” His thumb stroked over my cheek, unsteady and uncharacteristically gentle. “Such a perfect—” He swallowed hard then paused, collecting himself. “Fucking magnificent.”

When he stepped away from me to put his cock back into his pants, reality crashed in.

I was naked. In my boss’s office. In Alek’s office. Panicked, I looked around for my clothes.

“Here.” His voice was gentle as he pulled my clothes out of his drawer and set them on his desk.

I reached for them, but he stopped me. “Wait. ”

He brought me a bottle of water from his fridge, plus an orange, then gestured for me to climb into his lap.

“I should—” I gestured to my clothing.

“Come here first.” He reached for me, but I flinched away.

“I need to get dressed.” My voice was small, vulnerable. The thought of inviting more intimacy from him after what I’d just done, of letting him hold me as shame crashed through me from my temporary submission, made my chest tight with panic.

“Eva.” An unusual note in his voice made me look up. The usual sharp command was gone, replaced by concern. “Let me take care of you for a moment.”

“I don’t fucking need you to take care of me,” I snapped. “I need my clothes.”

“You’re shaking.”

I closed my eyes, all my certainty deserting me. What had I just done? I wanted to die of embarrassment.

“Stubborn girl.” Alek set the water and orange on the desk then knelt before me, helping me slide on my underwear and my jeans.

I kept my gaze fixed on the walls above his head as he dressed me like a doll.

My bra came next, and then he slid my sweater over my head, each brush of his fingers across my skin a brand.

When he finished with my clothes, he didn’t step back. Instead, he scooped me up before I could protest, settling me across his lap in the office chair.

“You need water.” He pressed the bottle to my lips. “Drink.”

I wanted to resist, to gather the shreds of my dignity, but when I opened my lips and he murmured, “Good girl,” my body betrayed me, melting against him.

When I finished the bottle, he grabbed the orange, jostling me as he peeled it with his arms still around me, releasing the sharp, citrus scent into the air. “Now open,” he said, a cruel repetition of his earlier instructions.

Obediently, I did as asked. His thumb brushed my bottom lip, and I shivered.

The orange segment was tart on my tongue as Alek fed it to me, his other hand warm and steady on my back.

My body felt heavy, floating in that strange peace that came after submission.

I hated how much I needed this gentle moment, hated even more that he seemed to know exactly what I needed.

My eyes burned as his fingers stroked through my hair.

When had he learned to read me so well? And why did that terrify me more than any of his threats?

He fed me another segment, and I struggled to reconcile this determined care with the man who’d forced me to kneel naked before him earlier.

Alek held me, firm and strong, as if he knew I’d bolt the moment he let me go.

He held another orange segment to my lips, and I took it without hesitation. The fight drained out of me, leaving behind a strange peace. My mind was finally blessedly quiet.

“There you go,” he murmured. He looked at me like he was seeing past my painstakingly constructed walls.

“You need this, don’t you?” He traced my jaw with his thumb. “These moments when you don’t have to think, don’t have to be in control.”

I should have denied it, should have pushed away, gathered my dignity. Instead, I let my head rest against his shoulder, accepting another piece of orange.

“So many responsibilities.” His voice was barely a whisper.

“Your father, your studies, work. But with me, you can just...” He trailed off as I relaxed further into him.

“You shouldn’t trust me,” he murmured, so quietly, I wasn’t sure I was meant to hear it.

His fingers trembled slightly against my lips as he fed me another orange segment.

The tenderness felt like another weapon. Between my secrets and Carter’s demands, I was drowning in lies I couldn’t begin to untangle. Alek shouldn’t trust me either.

“Last piece,” he murmured, pressing the final orange segment against my lips. His fingers stroked my hair for another moment before he shifted.

Reality crept back in. Bills. Deadlines. Carter’s threats. My shoulders tensed, and I eased myself off his lap, looking anywhere but him.

“I—” What could I even say? Thank you for degrading me? Thank you for making me feel like I’m worth something by treating me like your personal fucktoy?

“Look at me.” His voice was firm but gentle. When I met his eyes, he traced my cheekbone with his thumb. “You did well today, better than I could have imagined.”

His praise spread through me like warm honey, making my knees weak, my chest tight. Pride warred with shame, relief with self-loathing. I shouldn’t need his approval this much, shouldn’t feel like I was floating, coming undone, just because he called me perfect, good.

But I did. God help me, I did, every fucking time I came into this office, desperate to serve and to please.

“Buy yourself breakfast before you go home,” he ordered, and the command was a cold splash of water. I couldn’t afford to buy a meal on campus.

I had a sandwich in my bag, and that would have to do.

“Yes, Sir,” I lied and walked out of his office.