Page 51 of Wicked Temptations
I’d never gripped a table so hard in my life. Every thrust rattled the fucking shelves. Bottles of cleaner bounced. A mop fell over somewhere to my left. His fingers dug into my hips hard enough to bruise while I bit down on my own forearm to keep quiet.
It had been perfect. The angle had forced my forehead against the cold metal and I’d had to take everything he gave without looking at him, without seeing whatever expression twisted his features while he fucked me.
It was better that way because something been different tonight.
I pulled my jacket on, trying to pin down what felt wrong. Or maybe not wrong. Just... off.
The roughness had been there. The dominance, the power play, the struggle for who got to be in control. All our usual dynamics. But underneath it, something softer had crept in. Something that made my skin crawl now that I had space to think about it.
He’d been gentler. Not by much, and not enough that if anyone caught us they’d think we were lovers. Hell, if anyone saw us, they’d probably think Ash was assaulting me, given how rough we were with each other.
But I had noticed.
I noticed everything about Ash these days, which was its own kind of problem.
It had been there in the way he’d gripped my hips, firm and tight, but not to the point of bruising. His hand had gone to the back of my neck like always, but the pressure had been more guiding than forceful. And before that, when I’d turned the tables before giving in, when I’d got him pinned against the wall with my hand around his throat, he’d looked at me like he was seeing something I absolutely did not want to show him.
It was that goddamn hair thing. That stupid, thoughtless gesture outside the staff room.
I’d touched him like he was mine. Like he mattered to me. Like this was more than angry fucking in random locations because we had control issues and couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
It had been such a stupid thing for me to do, and now it had bled into this. Into what we did.
“You all right?” Ash was buttoning his shirt, watching me with that concerned expression I hated. I was still shaky, my left leg like jelly, and he’d fucked me so hard that I felt stretched out and sloppy.
“Fine.” I straightened my jacket, checked my pockets for my keys and phone. Everything accounted for. “We should go before someone actually finds us.”
“Jude.”
There was something in the way he said my name that made me want to bolt.
“What?”
“Can we just...” He ran a hand through his hair. The same hair I’d smoothed down earlier like an idiot. “Can we talk for a second?”
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“About what?”
He stepped forward, pinning me with the intensity of his gaze. “Don’t play that game again. You know what I mean.”
Yeah, I knew. What was this between us? What were we doing?
There was no crowd to disappear into now. No coworkers to use as a buffer. Just me, Ash, and this conversation I’d been dodging for weeks.
I should’ve dressed faster and run while his pants were still around his ankles.
That position had left me too fucked out to bolt immediately after. My legs still felt like water. He’d probably planned it that way, made sure I couldn’t just zip up and disappear into the night like I usually did.
Smart bastard.
“Ash. Let’s not—”
“Jude.”
I swallowed what I was going to say and redirected. I had to keep this under control. I couldn’t risk morphing this situation into something it wasn’t or couldn’t be.
