Chapter 96

My first night with my boss was so bizarre, but after that I had the time to read over the instructions in full. Martin had neglected to tell me about it, but the tablet contained an extensively detailed list of everything required of me, from taking his briefcase and placing it on his desk, to how I should arise early to set out some eggs on Sunday and Thursday mornings, to prepare for him to cook with.

Why they had to be set out early on those days, I couldn’t fathom that night.

But the coming morning, a Thursday, I got to see what he did with it at least.

There was no mention of him feeding me, or him touching me upon the list at all, but when he served up his home made waffles for breakfast, it became clear that little event was to happen on repeat.

“Come here,” he said as he sat there with the morning light shining upon him and his dark hair. And by his tone of voice, I could tell… he wanted more than for me to merely come closer. “I bet you’re hungry,” he said, as I looked down on the thick waffles, sprinkled with colourful fruit.

I had to admit, they smelled and looked divine.

I’d spent all night thinking about what I was going to do. Half of me just wanted to tell him to stick his job up his ass.

Then I thought: hey, if I wanted some revenge, knowing these weird little things could only help, right? A weird, sexual scandal could really hurt him, I reasoned with myself.

Funny how elated and relieved I felt when I decided that. Revenge was a dish best served cold, not with a strange tingle between my thighs.

But I knelt at his side without needing to be told, biting in on the corner of my plump lower lip.

“I am, Sir,” I said like the obedient lap dog I apparently was.

“Good,” he said, and he served me up a neatly pre-cut square of waffle with fruit and syrup, feeding me once more as he pet my hair this time. Luxuriating in the long, blonde strands.

“You can claim the satin cushion from my office for this from now on. No need to risk bruising your precious little knees,” he said, half-amused, but half pleasant, as if some part of him wanted to be nice to me despite how cruel his nature was.

This was weird. I knew it was weird.

My mind must have been fucked up, because he was doing messed up things to my body and brain. I swallowed, and it tasted so good.

But his hand felt better.

As the meal went on, a tiny bit of syrup spilled from a bite of waffle onto my chin, and he took up his fancy napkin and gently dabbed it away.

“Hold still,” he cautioned as he cleaned me up, removing all trace of that sweet syrup. “Very good girl,” he remarked with a smile, a certain glint in his eyes that made me both worried and pleased.

That was how our days went for a while, me setting up his things, cleaning up his home — though little actual cleaning was necessary since he lived alone! — and then kneeling upon a satin cushion at his feet as he fed me for each meal he was home. He bizarrely never made any move to push things further, just his strong hand stroking my hair and my back, on down to my rear.

I just chalked it up to some weird power play. He just liked feeling in control.

I had no idea how to deal with it all, I was lost. My feelings were in turmoil and I nearly stormed off several times, until the end of the week… when I saw my pay deposit.

Not only did he pay me double as he’d said, but he’d tripled it. And I was paid not only for the typical work hours, but every hour I spent at his place. If I put up with his strange behaviour for just a while, I could quit and leave a wealthy woman, I told myself!

Though as time went on, it became clear, he had no guests, not even his assistant would come by. It was just him and I. I grew so used to the quiet and loneliness, that I was cleaning his room one day and became completely startled by his presence!

There he was, sat down on the balcony, bottle of wine beside him as he stared off out over the city scape.

I gasped — and maybe even squealed a little — and he calmly spoke to me.

“Bring me a bowl of fruit, Miss Tish,” he said.

“Sorry S-Sir! Right away Sir,” I said, and I hustled off, the ruffled plaits of my skirt bobbing as I went downstairs to get him that.

When I returned, he was just as I left him, and I placed the fruit before him.

“Sorry Sir, I had no idea you were home,” I explained about my earlier fright, and he looked at me, studying me quietly.

“Getting used to the quiet, are you?” he asked in his gravelly voice.

“I suppose,” I said, though honestly, I never quite got used to it. Just expected it. Even when he was home, he wasn’t a big talker.

It was hard to hate a man that looked as good as he did and played things so close to his vest.

I stood just a few feet from him, the warm summer breeze loosening my hair from its barrette. Blonde tresses tickled my cheek and I swept them behind my ear.

“Are you feeling well?” I asked.

He looked out over the city and only glanced back at me, not answering my question, at least not right away. The pause lingered a while, and I wet my lips anxiously.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked me.

I reached across my stomach, suddenly feeling uncertain. What was on my mind? I felt like I’d disconnected, become so invested in just work and money and...

And desiring those soft strokes of affection, and his kind words.

I looked out at the city and shrugged my shoulders before looking back at him.

“Just concerned by the... break in routine, I guess.”

I’d had no contact with anyone but him all week, and it was starting to take its toll, truth be told. But I didn’t want to let him know that.

“Is that all?” he asked, brow raised in that questioning way that made me want to spill every secret I ever held to him.

It got me to confess to something I never meant to.

“Do you… do you intend me to do… y’know,” I said.

“What?” he asked pointedly, plucking a grape from the bowl and feeding it to me, touching his thumb to my plush lower lip in the process. I chewed and took my time before answering.

“Sexual… things,” I said, my cheeks burning blood red.

“Is that what’s on your mind?” he asked, looking not amused nor even upset, just… unfazed by it all. “Would you like that then, hmm?” he asked, and he let his free hand trail low, grasping my round rear through my skirt rather pointedly.

I swear, I was on fire. My skin felt so hot, and my heart was racing.

What’d I just say?

I couldn’t look at him, because I did. Because I fucking did, and that was a horrible thing for me to want. It wasn’t even about revenge.

It wasn’t even the fact that I hadn’t had a boyfriend in ages.

It was about all the things I was afraid to admit in myself. That I liked it.

“I...”

I couldn’t speak, or eek out more than that one word, that one letter.

“It’s okay if it is,” he said with that handsome smile of his plastered across his chiselled face, his hand giving my rear a firm squeeze. “But no, I wasn’t intending to take such liberties with you… beyond the pleasure of viewing your shapely form,” he said, his smile evolving into a wry smirk.

Come on, Tish. This couldn’t be your idea.

The things he was making you do!

So why did I believe him? And why was I the one that brought it up?

I fluttered my eyes, and was so aware of his hand on me. I hated this man, I told myself over and over again. He’d cost me so much.

He was arrogant and strange.

But I was drawn to him.

His strong hand wandered low, and I felt vulnerable… like I’d give into him and his cruel charms at any second. But then something popped out of my mouth, some way to deflect that I both instantly regretted and felt grateful for.

“Is this how things were with your former maid?” I asked, and my face burned red.

It only got worse when he laughed at me.

“Bertha?” he said and laughed again, shaking his head. “Oh no. Oh my no,” he took such amusement in my question as he took another sip of his wine.

“Why not?” I asked, confused, embarrassed.

“She was more than twice my age, and took care of me since I was a boy. It wasn’t like that… like this,” he said, looking me over again, with that hint of lasciviousness.

“Why is it like this with me then?” I continued blurting out things I didn’t quite want to say, but did all the same.

“Because I saw you around the office. And my mind… burned with questions. Possibilities,” he said, his eyes going wide as he looked at me.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like what you’d look like in a skimpy skirt and high heels,” he responded immediately.

Something in me was unravelling. I’d just assumed he’d been a playboy. That he had burned through more maids than I could count, that they couldn’t handle his strange demands and behaviours that my body seemed to enjoy and my mind hated that I responded to them so eagerly.

My breathing was high in my chest, my breasts rising and falling quickly.

“But you acted like this was all, like, second nature to you!”

“It is, in a way,” he said with that wry little grin on his face that made me want to slap and kiss him all at once. “I’m just acting on impulse. My desires,” he said, continuing to stroke the curve of my ass, feeling out the sumptuous flesh.

And it made sense. It wasn’t like these little sexual nitpicks were included in the itinerary left for me, after all.

I’d just assumed he hadn’t wanted a record of all his plans for me.

I shifted in my heels, my ass growing a little rounder as I put the weight on my leg, looking at him with such mixed feelings.

But mostly, they were all quickly becoming clouded by lust. Desire.

He was the man I hated and wanted most in the world. Maybe working for him so long and realizing he wasn’t a complete monster had softened me. Whatever it was, I was throbbing between my legs, and I just wanted to run and hide.

“You never saw me?” he asked, brow raised again in that way that sent shivers down my spine to where his hand rested on my ass. “I could watch you shake your rear about that office all day. The loveliest woman in all my offices. Such fire, such determination,” he said, and his appreciation for me dripped from his words so sincere. “You had a passion for life, to get through and make something of yourself.”

His appreciation for me came as such a shock, and not just because I was unaware of his attention all that time!

I drew in my lip and knit my brows, but my mind was moving at a snail’s pace. I couldn’t believe the things he was telling me. That this wasn’t just a thing he did.

That I wasn’t latest in a line of many desperate women, eating off the floor as he fed them.

As he fed me.

How could I be the only one in all of his little capitalist empire?

Without even realizing he was doing it, he had taken up another grape and offered it to me, like his adored little pet. His intense gaze upon me as I chewed, studying every little thing about me.

“I want you,” he said at last, firm and forward. “I want to bend you over this table and claim your body, as well as your soul,” his voice taking on a gravelly edge. But his words were making me dizzy, literally dizzy!

“I— but…” I struggled to get out my words, but he had no hesitation slipping his hand in under my little maid’s skirt, touching the bare cheek of my rear.

“I don’t want to hear a no,” he said, eyes half-lidded.

I wanted to give in, quickly, completely. But part of me was still obstinate, stubbornly resistant.

“I can’t,” I said, my throat dry as I watched his reaction to my refusal.

“Why not?” he said, dark and ominous.

“I don’t want to just be your… your play thing. Not knowing how casually you toss off your employees,” I said, all those years of angst over what happened to my family bubbling out. My throat had went dry from it, and I desperately tried to swallow and wetten my throat.

I didn’t have enough money saved up, not yet, not for all I needed to do. Fear gripped me, but it was more than the loss of the job, and I knew it.

How could I lie to myself about what was really scaring me?

The idea that he’d let me walk away.

He stared at me, his brows furrowing at first, but then softening as he reached out a hand and slid his long fingers along my cheek, caressing my smooth skin with his hard pads.

“I’ve offended you,” he said, as if realizing his actions had done me some harm without his intending.

“What? No,” I managed, but my knees were trembling and my voice sounded weak and distant. Where was all that fire he saw in me? That determination?

Wilted by his stupid charms. His sexy body. His irresistible smirk.

“No, I have,” he said, as if able to read my mind, understand the old hurt there. It made him ponder, think a while, licking his lips before he spoke up again.

“I’ll undo whatever I’ve done. All of what I’ve done,” he said, rectifying his statement as he looked me back over. “As long as you’ll be mine,” he said, his gaze so intense, his desire palpable.

There wasn’t any undoing it though, was there?

I stared at him, and I knew he had to have figured out that he’d been right. I was being pretty obvious about it as I worried my lip, feeling that tremor of anxiety run through me.

“My dad...” I finally managed, taking in a deep breath. He liked my fire? He’d get my fire. “You put him out of a job, even though I’m a slacker compared to him!”