Page 61 of Take Her

I know my brother’s dying and all, but do you think you could manage to keep me on deck?

—Caleb, from One of a Thousand Wishes by A. R. McGeorge

Ihad no idea what I’d gotten myself into, but I didn’t have a choice now, did I?

I mean, well, technically, I did, but...I didn’t want to have one.

I knew on some level Rhaim and I were still playing a game. I’d been ground down psychologically before—still was, depending on the day—but whatever he was doing so far was not that.

No, it was something that I had agreed to. And it made sense that he called me little moth, after seeing my tattoo—because if I was a moth, then he was my flame, and I was just going to keep flying nearer and nearer until he burned me alive.

I stepped into his office and closed the door behind me, then walked over to him to stand nervously nearby as he gave his lap another meaningful pat and said, “Hitch up your skirt a little.”

I fisted it up some, raising it to mid-thigh, and then carefully sat down atop him, the reverse of how I’d been that night at Vertigo, sitting up and tense, as he wrapped one strong arm around my back, and we were so frighteningly close.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked, his gaze intent on mine. I gave the tiniest of nods. “Good,” he said, and then touched my cheek with his free hand, making me look at him and leaving it there. “Are you going to behave?”

“I’ll try,” I said quietly, and he chuckled.

“You’d better do more than try, little girl, or we’ll both be stuck here all night,” he said, and I anxiously licked my lips.

“What was it you wanted me to do?” I couldn’t give him a blowjob from this angle, or even grind against him all that much, and I had no idea what to do with my hands.

“Touch yourself. Till you come.”

“No,” I gasped, in thoughtless horror.

A cruel smile played across his lips. “Yes,” he refuted me.

“Rhaim—”

“We talked about this, Lia,” he said, his gaze on mine going slightly cruel. “You can get up and walk away if you want to. Or you can use your safeword. Or you can be the good little girl I know you are and fucking do what you’re told.”

“But—that’s—” I went on, unable to stop myself.

“You’d better think carefully about anything you might say next, Lia,” he cut in, as his tone became terse. “Or I might think you’re questioning my authority.” His dark eyes washed over my face, like they were memorizing everything about me. “Tell me why you’re fighting.”

All sorts of words I could give him rushed to the surface. How this was possibly wrong, maybe disgusting, definitely embarrassing, but what they all really boiled down to was this: “I’m scared.”

“Mmm. Do you have any reasons to be scared around me, little girl?” he asked, his hand still on my cheek so I couldn’t look away.

Yes.

So many.

Because what if we did all this and then something went wrong and he left? What if I let myself fall into this moment and he wasn’t there to catch me?

What if this was just a game to him—but it became my everything?

But I knew I couldn’t unpack all the ways I was crazy right now, like this, in front of him. Even I had enough sense of self-preservation to know it was too soon. So I gave him the answer I knew he wanted.

“Not if I behave,” I whispered.

He nodded—and then I had no choice.

I wriggled my skirt up higher, and he made a pleased sound. I screwed my eyes tightly shut, as my fingers found the edge of my skirt’s hem and dipped beneath it, starting to trace the outside of my pussy.

It wouldn’t be any different from all the other times I’d gotten myself off, dreaming of him.