Off Limits

Peter “We should take this somewhere more…private.” The blonde trailed her fingers down my arm, her grey eyes bright with invitation as she swiped her tongue over her bottom lip. “Or not. Whatever you’re into.” My lips curved—not enough to classify as a smile, but enough to broadcast my thoughts. You can’t handle what I’m into. Despite her short, tight dress and suggestive words, she looked like the type who expected sweet nothings and lovemaking in bed. I didn’t do sweet nothings or lovemaking. I fucked a certain way, and only a specific type of woman was into that shit. Not hardcore BDSM, but not soft. Somewhere close to hardcore though. No kissing, no face-to-face contact, women being tied up while I fucked them. I don’t do love making, I don’t do sex. I fucked. Women don’t touch me during the process. Women agreed, then tried to change it up halfway and that’s why I drafted a contract which any submissive I was in the relationship with at the moment signed to. As a b

PHOEBE The next day, Jeremy was in Chicago and Peter was all moved in, into Jeremy’s apartment. Jeremy had succeeded in putting me under the care of the angel of death. I’d watched the movers carry a giant flat-screen TV and boxes of varying sizes into the house next door, and Peter’s McLaren Artura was now a daily sight. Since stewing over my situation wouldn’t do me much good, I decided to make lemonade out of my lemons. The gallery closed on Wednesdays during the summer and I didn’t have any Shifts at my workplace and the Secretariat was closed because of a meeting, I didn’t have any glams scheduled, so I spent the afternoon baking my signature Cinnamon rolls and Chocolate Spongecake. I’d just finished packaging them in a cute little basket when I heard the unmistakable roar of Peter’s car pulling in the driveway, followed by a door slam. Shit. He’s probably in a bad mood. Okay, I was ready. I was. I wiped my sweaty palms against the sides of my thighs. I

PETERThe data on my triple-monitor setup was a flawless layout of corporate acquisitions, algorithmic risk assessments, and encrypted cybersecurity protocols. The Ambrose Group was on the verge of finalizing a forty-million-dollar merger with a tech firm in Manhattan, and by all logical parameters, my attention should have been entirely anchored to the glowing spreadsheets.Instead, my brain was locked in a localized, agonizing loop.Thursday, 9:14 AM.The exact frequency of her voice when she called me a dictator. The precise shade of furious crimson that had stained her neck, bleeding up past her sharp collarbones into her cheeks. The scent of her—unmistakably sweet, like vanilla and baked sugar—cutting through the clinical, expensive leather and espresso notes of my kitchen.My Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory was an asset in the boardroom, but tonight, it was a glitching surveillance camera playing the same tape over and over. I could still feel the phantom heat of he

Peter “The third-quarter projected margins for the logistical acquisition in Munich are currently tracking at seven point four percent," Marcus, my senior vice president of international development, droned from the opposite end of the thirty-foot mahogany boardroom table. He tapped a key on his tablet, and a massive, color-coded bar graph illuminated the digital display wall behind him. "If we finalize the asset transfer before the fiscal closing on the fifteenth, we can effectively mitigate the Euro-zone tax variance by—" "Seven point six two percent," I interrupted, my voice flat, cutting through the ambient hum of the corporate boardroom like a bone-handled scalpel. Marcus froze, his mouth remaining slightly open, his pointer finger hovering an inch above his tablet screen. The fifteen other high-level Ambrose Group executives sitting around the perimeter of the room went entirely rigid, their eyes shifting collectively toward the head of the table. "I beg your pardon,

PETERThe human brain requires exactly three hundred milliseconds to process a visual threat, but my Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory compressed that latency down to zero.12:14 PM.The exact octave of her voice over the secure line. The frantic, ragged catch in her breath between the syllables of my name. The sheer, terrifying weight of her declaring, Peter, he’s here right now.I didn't terminate the call with a standard corporate sign-off. I dropped the sleek black device onto the passenger seat of the McLaren Artura, my hands locking onto the steering wheel with a grip that turned my knuckles into white, bloodless stone. I had already left the corporate headquarters five minutes prior, driven by an irrational, nagging friction in my chest that told me her stationary digital signature in the basement of Larsen College was an anomaly I couldn't ignore from a distance.Now, the vehicle wasn't just a high-performance machine; it was a kinetic weapon.I shifted into track m