Page 5

I forced myself to stay busy this weekend. Once or twice, I was tempted to log onto Olympus to see if Brynn was on there, but I had decided against it. There were also moments when I wanted to summon someone else to Lotus to relieve some of this built-up tension inside of me, but I didn’t want random sex with anyone. I wanted her. Karma. Brynn. I thought I could keep them separated, but I was finding that very hard to do lately.

I already found myself staring at her throughout the day, mainly when she was distracted by others and completely unaware of my roving gaze. When I would see her, my mind would be inundated with all the things I wanted to do. All I could see was Brynn tied up, yet I was the one in knots. My stomach. My thoughts. Everything was becoming so twisted, and if I didn’t pull myself together soon, it would all come unraveled.

Would that be the worst thing to happen? To lose control.

I already knew the answer to it, so there was no need to even entertain the idea further. If I needed any further confirmation, I needed to look no farther than this morning when I came to and found myself in the dog park near her house. Last night, I had gone to sleep dreaming of fucking her once again, only to wake up mere feet from her. As with all the other sleepwalking instances, I never remembered anything before falling asleep.

Maybe I should just have a sample of her again. It wasn’t as if I could even remember the taste of her on my fingers anymore. I should have savored the moment longer, but I honestly thought it would happen again much sooner. As it was, the longer this went on, the less apt I was to fuck her again. At least, that was what I kept telling myself. The lies seemed to come so easily, and that gift was one that had been perfected over the years.

“You could sell snake oil to a snake oil salesman,” my father had told me after Aria’s death. “You will repeat these lies to anyone who will listen, and over time they will become truths.”

I did as he had told me to do, and I had to admit that he had a point. Any suspicion pointed at me for my twin’s murder was directed elsewhere which allowed me to finish what I needed to in Greece, then move to the United States where I had been ever since.

That wasn’t even the first lie I had told. And Aria hadn’t been the only victim either. There was an inherent evilness in my veins, and it fed the demons within me. Whenever I would try to fight them, they would always win. If I didn’t put some distance between Brynn and me, I would be putting her at risk.

I only brought her here to save her from the workplace danger she was in.

I knew that, too. Brynn had settled in at Benedict Technologies well, so maybe I should have her reassigned to another area of the company. There were plenty of other departments where she could work, but I would miss her. I knew that now, yet I still kept her around. And I would continue to do so.

I was still shaking my head when I arrived at work. I composed my features prepared to see Brynn when I stepped off the elevator. She was nowhere to be found, though. Her office and mine were both dark as they lay empty. There was no coffee awaiting me like there was every morning. And most of all, there was no annoyingly cheerful smile of hers as she called me “Sir.”

Each time she addressed me, all I could see was her at Lotus, bound and at my mercy. It made for some uncomfortable moments, but nothing as awkward as me standing there in the middle of a dark space with a look of bewilderment on my face. I looked like a fool, but it wasn’t the main thing bothering me, even though it was all I could seem to focus on. Where was she? Brynn was never late, and she was always here before me.

I shook my head, then flipped the switch on the wall before going into my office to do the same. As my computer powered on, I went back out into her space, and started a cup of coffee. Bea never made me make my own coffee either, and while capable, it was one of the few things I rarely ever did by myself. As the richly scented aroma filled the space as it brewed, I was at least thankful that I knew how to do this much for myself.

When my coffee was done, I was headed back to my office when she finally appeared looking a bit distracted. I arched a brow at her as she skipped the morning greeting and went right to her desk. I had seen her almost every day for the last several weeks and she never appeared in such disarray. She was Molly fucking Sunshine most days, and now she looked like she had barely done more than drag her sexy body out of bed.

I didn’t actually know what she looked like first thing in the morning because I never stayed with her after a scene at Lotus. I’d always left her to rest, and was long gone before she would stir. Perhaps she was sick, and if so, I would just send her home. I looked down at my coffee, and having not even tasted it yet, I walked over to her desk and set it down in front of her.

“Here, drink this.”

She looked up at me, and at the cup, then over to the coffee machine before returning her focus back to me. “I-I’m sorry. I ran into traffic this morning.”

“Traffic?” I questioned. It would explain her tardiness, but not her appearance. “Is that all?”

“That, and I might have overslept.”

Now that sounded truthful, and I stayed there near her desk and stared down at her. She finally raised her gaze to me. “What were you dreaming about?”

“What?”

“You overslept which must have meant you were dreaming about something good to not want to wake up. I want to know what that something was.”

“It was really nothing because I don’t even remember any of it.”

I had heard that about dreams before, especially that they often contained bits and pieces of one’s actions or thoughts from the day. It was a messy recollection all pieced together like a poorly solved puzzle. Because I had been wracked with dreams, or rather nightmares, for years, the entire study was fascinating. I knew that oftentimes, the act of waking up would erase them from one’s mind.

For everyone it seems, but me.

“You’re very flushed, Brynn. Your skin is damp from sweat,” I said, reaching out to run a finger over her forearm, “and I bet your heart is racing right now. You’re aroused because I can smell it.”

Or maybe I wanted her to be. “I can assure you that I’m not,” she told me, and I stepped back.

“I could dip my hand under your skirt and see how wet you are, but this is a workplace, and I have an early meeting. Make another cup of coffee, then join me in my office in ten minutes with your notebook.”

I didn’t wait for her to respond. I returned to my desk and had just signed in to the international conference room. Brynn was mulling around in her office space, and something told me she would take every second of that ten minutes to get her ass in here.

I groaned as visions of her ass entered my mind. I could still remember as she lifted it high for the next strike from my flogger or cane, and I wanted to relive that again. Normally, I only thought about sex in this building when making arrangements to meet a submissive at Lotus. I had certainly never even considered having sex with anyone in this safe place of mine.

Brynn had me ready to make an exception for her, and it brought up the reasons why I had been scarce and keeping my distance from her over the course of the last few weeks. She was a distraction I could ill afford at this point in my life, but she wasn’t enough of one for me to send her away. She appeared in the doorway with a notebook, pen, and my coffee, and when she heard the others as they talked amongst themselves, I motioned her to come in and close the door.

I took the coffee she brought over to me, and I noticed as she sat that her nipples were hard peaks, and her shirt did little to hide it. If Brynn wasn’t aroused before, she was now. I suspected she had been the entire time, just as I knew she had been dreaming about me. Call it arrogance, or even some foolish brand of hope, but I also knew it to be true, and her guilty smile when I smirked at her all but confirmed it for me.

The call started off as all others did. We did a roundtable introduction, then I spoke with the investors for the next two hours before pausing for a ten minute break. Brynn jumped up at the intermission, and I watched her carefully. She was acting very strange. It was almost as if she was nervous around me for some reason. Everything had been fine before I had left on Friday.

“Are you okay, Brynn?”

“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”

“You tell me,” I said, then cleared my throat. I knew how to get her to talk. “Actually, go and grab me a glass of ice from the employee break room.”

“Just ice?” She asked, and when I nodded, she left.

I sometimes sat and just ate ice chips so it wasn’t anything she would find strange. She followed my request, and when she returned and closed the door behind her, I pressed a button under my desk which lowered the shade to cover the frosted glass. The call began once more, and I knew the next hour would be spent listening to Dr. Viet Chang going over the early results of the clinical studies we had started a little over a month earlier.

I hit the mute button just as the man began to drone on. Next, I stood up and removed my suit jacket, laying it on the back of my chair. I then rolled up my sleeves and moved over toward Brynn. Before she could do more than just look up at me, I fisted a handful of her hair, wrapping it around my wrist. Her luscious lips parted for me as I lowered my head, but I turned at the last moment, and went straight for her neck.

I knew how much Brynn loved to be kissed on the neck, and I attacked her soft flesh with my lips, tongue, and teeth, before tugging her tight skirt up enough to bare her panties. I had the urge to tear them from her, but I wanted to tease her first.

“You’ve been lying to me, and by extension, lying to yourself, Karma,” I told her. My lips skated along her collarbone, and I grinned against her skin when she clutched the arms of the chair.

“What are you doing, Sir?”

I picked up a cube of ice, then let it glide over her upper lips, before dropping it, and my hand, between her legs. I used another finger to push aside her panties, then slowly inserted the ice inside of her.

“I’m giving us what we both want.”