Page 48 of Undeniably Corrupt

She sighs. “I spilled soup all over my sweater and pants and had to change. Thankfully I had a spare outfit here.”

“Close the door.”

She does, walking awkwardly in her shoes that are as uglyand beat up as her dress. I noticed them this morning and hated them then.

“Are your feet okay?”

Then something hits me. Was she dancing last night? Is that why she’s walking like that?

She stops and glances down at her feet, only to laugh. “Um, yeah. My shoes are a little tight.”

“Come here,” I practically growl and tap the edge of my desk where Alesha was just sitting.

“What? No. Why?”

“Not everything has to be a fight, Liora. Just come here.”

She does her best to walk like her feet aren’t killing her, but it’s a hard sell.

“Will it hold my weight?” she asks as she stares warily at the glass.

“Do you think I’d let you sit on it otherwise?”

I get a cheeky smirk. “One never knows with you.”

I roll my eyes and point, and dutifully she sits, crossing her legs the way Alesha did, but adjusting her awful dress so it doesn’t ride up. Except that’s not going to fly with me. Rolling over to her, I grab her feet and set them in my lap, startling her.

“What are you doing?”

I slip her shoes off one by one and drop them to the floor. “Were you dancing last night?” I ask as I start to rub at the red lines indented into her small feet. She always had such cute, small feet with bubblegum pink toenails. Now her toenails are bare, and her feet are overworked.

Her breath hitches as I get to a particularly sore spot, her eyes on my hands as I work her feet. “Is that what you called me in for? To ask about my feet and if I was out dancing last night?”

“Just answer me.”

“Vander, what are you doing…” Her voice trails off, and her eyes practically roll back into her head as a soft moan escapes her lips. “God, that feels good.”

Before I know what the fuck I’m doing, or maybe because I have little to no self-control when it comes to her, I slide her on the desk and shift her around until her legs are no longer crossed and she’s sitting directly in front of me.

Her eyes snap open wide, her jaw slipping as I work the balls of her feet while spreading her thighs wider for me. “What are you doing? We can’t.”

“I hate you in that dress. I hate you in these shoes. I hate you fucking dancing.”

She shakes her head, her blonde hair bouncing around her arms and chest. “That’s not your call to make. None of it is. My life, my choices.”

She’s right, and I hate that too. It’s driving me crazy. I want to dress her in beautiful and expensive things that only I get to take off her. I want her beneath me, writhing in ecstasy as I make her come over and over again. I want my name on her lips and all that fear and all those dark shadows beneath her eyes eradicated forever. The only thing Liora James should know is fucking happiness because despite the shit hand she’s been playing for far too long, she’s all smiles and laughter and teasing jokes.

She’s goddamn sunshine, and that’s the only thing that should ever be in her life. Not darkness.

I’m an idiot. She could be out to hurt me, but instinctively I don’t think she is. I don’t think that’swhoshe is. Still, it’s so difficult for me not to be jaded after what happened at MIT. They were my friends. My closest there. I trusted them. And then they betrayed me. But it wasn’t just a knife to the back. It was shackles on my wrists and ankles and orange jumpsuits. It was a universal wake-up call to be wary and distrustful because everyone,fucking everyone, has their own agenda.

My thumbs dig in, rubbing circles into her soft flesh. I’m hard and mesmerized by her response.

“How did this become your life? Do you really have nothing to do with your family?”

She tries to jerk her feet away, but I’m not letting them go. Instead, I widen her legs until they’re on either side of my hips, and I can see straight up her dress to the scrap of satin covering her pussy. Then I move my ministrations up to her calves.

“Fuck.” Her eyes close and her head falls back, and Christ, she is fucking stunning. “Please stop doing this, and please never stop.” She shakes her head. “Why are you asking me things and touching me like this?”