Thirteen

After that incident, a decision had solidified in Mark’s mind. He had Teresa transferred to the desk directly outside his office. No reason given, none offered. When she pressed relentless for an answer he gave a bland one. Just a new seat one with a better view and a more direct line of sight. She took the explanation, feeling grateful and pleased that he was concerned about her. It was a strategic move on his part, positioning her within his immediate orbit, a constant presence that he could monitor, observe, and control. The move was a silent declaration of his ownership, an unspoken warning to anyone else who dared to approach.

“Sir,” she had said one afternoon, her voice soft, tentative. “Do you want me to schedule the boardroom for your lunch meeting?”

“No.” He closed his laptop with a slow, deliberate snap, the sound echoing in the sudden silence of his office. “Cancel it. I don’t like eating with people who bore me.”

She blinked, her eyes wide with a flicker of surprise. “Would you like lunch delivered?” she asked, her voice regaining a hint of composure.

“Why?” he countered, his gaze locking onto hers, intense and probing. “Are you offering to feed me?”

Her lips parted, startled, a hint of confusion in her expression as she tried to decipher if he was joking, if this was some strange, veiled proposition.

He wasn’t. He never joked. He was not going to allow her to feed him but he admitted he liked watching her squirm, the delightful dance of discomfort and unspoken understanding playing out across her face.

Her discomfort, he soon came to realize, wasn't a sign of weakness. It was tension. Delicious, unbearable, almost excruciating tension. It was the friction of two opposing forces, a silent acknowledgment of the charged atmosphere that now existed perpetually between them. Every stutter, every blush, every hesitant glance was a fuel to the growing inferno within him. In inferno he refused to douse.

Late one evening, the office was silent and deserted save for the two of them, she came to his office with reports, the soft rustle of papers the only sound. Her hands, he noted, shook just slightly as she set them on his desk. It was a tiny detail, yet it spoke volumes.

“Is that fear?” he asked, his voice low, almost a whisper, yet it resonated with an unsettling power.

She blinked, her eyes wide, momentarily disoriented. “Sir?”

“You shake. Whenever you hand me things. I noticed it.” He stood, slowly, deliberately, beginning to circle the desk like a predator assessing its prey. Each step was measured, calculated, closing the distance between them. “Are you scared of me, Teresa?”

Her eyes dropped, a tell-tale sign of her evasion of the question. “No,” she whispered, the word barely audible. “I just…”

“Just what?” His voice was a seductive trap, drawing her further in.

Her breath hitched, a faint, almost imperceptible gasp.

“I don’t know,” she finally managed, her voice barely above a whisper. “You’re… intense. And because of that I get overwhelmed most times.” He was intense. The word hung in the air, a tacit acknowledgement of the energy that surrounded him, that emanated from him, specifically directed at her.

He was close enough now to see the subtle rise and fall of her chest, the rapid flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat. He could smell the faint, delicate trace of rose and chocolate lotion on her skin, a scent that was becoming inextricably linked with her in his mind.

“I think you do know,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a seductive tone, laced with a dangerous certainty. “I think your body knows exactly what it’s doing. Even when you don’t say a word.”

“I...I didn’t mean to..” she began, a desperate, frantic attempt to explain, to deny.

“I didn’t say stop,” he cut in coldly, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, yet brimming with implicit command. “I said know.”

Then, he leaned in, his movement slow, deliberate, his knuckle brushing the soft hem of her sleeve, a feather-light touch that sent a jolt through her.

She inhaled sharply, a silent, involuntary gasp, her body frozen, completely still, caught in the web of his gaze. The air crackled around them, thick with an unspoken, raw desire.

“You blush when I speak to you,” he whispered, his voice a low, intimate rumble. “You squirm when I scold you. And you left your panties on my desk because you wanted me to see.”

“No, I..” Her denial was a desperate, unconvincing gasp.

“You needed me to see,” he corrected, his voice flat, devoid of question, absolute in its conviction. “Didn’t you?”

Her mouth opened, then closed, words failing her. Her silence was all the answer he needed. It was a silent admission, a surrender.

Mark smiled, a slow, predatory curve of his lips, a look of profound satisfaction in his eyes.

“You may go,” he said, his voice returning to its usual detached professionalism, as if the preceding moments, the raw intimacy that had just unfolded, had never happened. He pulled away, leaving her standing there, trembling slightly, the scent of vanilla and the lingering heat of his touch still clinging to the air around her. The abrupt shift in his demeanor was another calculated move, designed to keep her off balance, to deepen her confusion and heighten the almost unbearable sexual tension between them.

At night, he dreamed about her. And his dreams, he acknowledged with a grim satisfaction, were far more disturbing, far more profound than mere sexual fantasies. He saw her on her knees in his office, not in pleasure, but in raw, vulnerable supplication. Crying, pleading, shaking with an intensity that mirrored his own inner turmoil. Begging him to touch her.

He’d wake up in the oppressive darkness, sweat slicking his body. Sometimes, he’d be hard, the physical manifestation of his unfulfilled desire. Sometimes, a furious, burning anger would consume him. Always, without fail, he woke up profoundly, achingly unsatisfied. The dreams fed the obsession, intensifying the hunger for something far beyond carnal pleasure.

He didn't want her in the conventional sense, not for a fleeting moment of physical gratification. No, his desire was far more profound, far more serious. He wanted to possess her, utterly and completely. He wanted to strip away every last vestige of her composure, every carefully constructed excuse, every desperate deflection, until she stood before him raw, exposed, and utterly honest.

Until she looked at him, her eyes wide with a desperate, understanding terror, and whispered, or perhaps screamed, Yes, I want you to break me.

And he would. Slowly. Carefully. He would dismantle her piece by piece, stripping away her defenses, her inhibitions, her very sense of self, until she was nothing but a pliable instrument in his hands. He would push her to her limits, past them, until she finally, irrevocably, surrendered. Until she thanked him for it.

And only then… only when she was utterly broken, utterly hers, would he take her. Not in passion, not in tenderness, but in a culmination of his slow, deliberate, and utterly possessive dominance. He would claim her, not just her body, but her very essence, making her irrevocably his. The thought of that ultimate possession, that complete surrender, fueled his every waking moment, a dark, potent promise of absolute control and profound, unsettling gratification. The sexual tension that simmered between them would then finally reach its cataclysmic, all-consuming release, leaving nothing but the echoes of his victory and her complete submission.