Page 3 of One Cut Deeper
I bury my face against Sheba’s neck and make a sound I hope he takes for “Yes?”
“May I ask you a personal question?”
I clutch the big dog harder. She licks my cheek and makes a lowwhuffin my ear. “Of course, Mr. MacNiall.”
“Mac,” he chides. “Hell, you could call me Charlie and I wouldn’t mind, though the only other person who called me that was Mom. I’ve been coming to Dr. Wentworth for a year, and I’ve known you since the first day she hired you. Surely you can call me by my first name now?”
Has Dr. Wentworth talked to him about me? How much does she know about my past?
Considering she’s Mom’s best friend, probably way more than I want her to know. But I’m never late, I love the animals, and I’m determined to do my best work every single day. I’m holding it together. Nobody has any cause to suspect I might have a few screws loose. “Dr. Wentworth prefers for us to be professional at all times.”
“She calls me Mac. Why can’t you?”
I wish I’d never looked into Sheba’s human’s eyes. I wish I’d been able to crush that first hint of attraction. I wish he wasn’t such a dedicated pet owner, who brought Sheba in faithfully every month for grooming. I especially wish he’d never given me a hint of the kind of dominance he wields so effortlessly.
What that dominance could do for me.
How can I begin to explain it to him? If I crack that door open even a little, the whole avalanche will slip free and bury me beneath roiling, uncontrollable emotion. It takes all my will and effort to keep all that locked away so I can function. It took me two years to get over the last man I dated.
Althoughdatingisn’t exactly the right word for such a disastrous and dysfunctional relationship.
“I have to get back to the front desk.” Without looking up, I push to my feet and carefully edge around him. Part of me hopes he wraps his fingers around my throat and hauls me up against him, giving me no choice but to tell the truth. I refuse to feel disappointed when he merely follows me to the front of the office.
I take my seat behind the high counter that walls me off from the world. Only then do I attempt to meet his steady, piecing gaze again. Nope, I can't do it. Not yet. I settle my gaze on his sweater, tracing the weave of each thread, the way the colors meet and blend. That distracts me enough to answer him. “What do you want to know?”
He stares at me, waiting.
Oh fuck. This man’s so dangerous. He knows exactly how to play me. How to tempt me. I’ve never talked to him about more than Sheba’s next appointment, but he knows the secrets I try so hard to hide. Secrets I buried, denied, and prayed I could erase, but they’re always there to torment me.
I don’t want to let him in. I don’t want to play his game.
That’s a lie. I want to play his game so badly I’m scared to death.
I’ve been lying to myself. I threw out all my toys. I cut back on chatting on my favorite Discord servers. I broke all contact with everyone I knew in St. Paul before moving back home. I’ve got a job and my own apartment. I feed myself and go to work every day and pretend everything’s normal.
But I’m not okay. I’m not ever going to be okay. He looks at me and asks an innocent question, and I’m already slipping.
My muscles ache with strain. My body wants to surrender and give him exactly what he wants. There isn’t any safe territory for me to play at mind or control games. My body’s already decided it’s his to command.
My mind quivers with the need to be his slave. If he crooks his finger at me…
I grit my teeth together.No. No!
For a moment, I’m afraid I said it out loud. His eyes widen and he opens his mouth, though my heart pounds so hard I can’t understand whatever he says. My eyes burn from the heat coursing through my body. I’m not afraid of him, but if he doesn’t stop, I’ll humiliate myself in the office. I’ll lose my job.
I fight to keep myself under control. To stay in my seat instead of sliding to my knees. But my mind’s already picturing the way he’ll look down at me as I unbutton his pants. I can almost taste his cock in my mouth.
Sheba rescues me from myself. She puts her big head on my thigh and gives a little puppy bark that manages to break through the desire strangling me. My head aches abominably and my stomach churns on all the cocoa I downed to get through the afternoon.
The worst is yet to come, because he’s still here.
He saw it all. Thank fuck he has no idea how close I came to embarrassing us both. All the man wants is for me to let him in, just a little, and use his nickname. And I can’t even do that without wanting to give him a public blow job.
I rest my hand on Sheba’s head, fighting not to cry.
The door to the examination room opens and Mrs. Summers comes out carrying her extremely fat cat. She’ll need to pay for Fluffy’s exam and schedule the next appointment. Numbed from battling myself, I raise my head, determined to face him. It’ll be better if I get it over with quickly, even if the last thing I want to see is the relief in his eyes that he hadn’t made the mistake of asking me out.
Bracing his elbow on the counter, his chin in his hand, he watches me pet his dog with a bemused little smile that sends my heart somersaulting. He isn’t backpedaling toward the door. The warmth in his eyes is still there, molten chocolate and damnably sweet as he stares at me.