As he leaves me at my door, it is with a warning. “Don’t open this door to Mr. Grayson. If he comes to your room before you and Liz come downstairs, you call me, and you stay put.”

His eyes travel down the hall to ensure we’re alone, and he leans to my mouth for one last sweet kiss.

Chapter 22

“I’m gonna fuck that sweet ass of yours, baby.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen. I thought my second night would be easier than my first, but as he whispers in my ear, as though his words are some sort of seduction, my eyes flash to Derek’s, and he looks away quickly. When he returns his eyes to mine and sees my fear, dread, absolute horror, he moves toward us. As he reaches us, he leans to my ear and apologizes. He had no excuse to refuse the man, and with Mr. Grayson watching our every move, he had no choice. I know this is true, but I’m stung anyway. As the handsome man that has purchased my time this evening leads me from the room, I glance back at Derek, only to see that he’s leaning against the wall with his head down and his hand raking roughly through his dark hair. I sense his pain, and I see it clearly in the set of his body, but at the moment, I can think only of my own mounting terror.

As we enter my room, he repeats his phrase of earlier. “I’m gonna fuck that sweet ass of yours, baby.”

And at his words, my brain starts screaming, the fuck you are!, at the top of my internal dialogue’s lungs, but the only visible sign of my horror is the tight set of my jaw, and wide eyes that feel as though they’re going to pop from their sockets at any moment. I can’t do this. I cannot do this. And yet, I have absolutely no choice but to do it. Where are Derek’s damn pills when I need them? I need a lobotomy to do this with him. I don’t know this man, and while he’s not at all unattractive like the pudgy romantic, he’s still not Derek, and I don’t want him touching me in this way. The second night was supposed to be easier! And yet, it’s turning into a bloody nightmare!

I keep holding his eyes, frozen like a rabbit ready to bolt, and as he senses that I’m not going to be the one leading this game, he orders me to turn around. I do, inhaling slow deep breaths, willing myself not to pass out. He orders me onto all fours on the bed, and I comply. He then orders me to lift the back of my dress, and awkwardly, I do. The dress is long and trapped under my knees from my crawl to the bed, but once free, I pull it up to my waist. I stay still, breathing as calmly as I can. My brain is still screaming, and I’ve still not come to terms with how I’m going to get through this, but for the moment, I’m frozen in place. The fear is mounting inside my body, and as it continues to mount, creeping through my body, I’m struck when I’m very literally struck. On my bottom, hard. I fall forward to my chest as the sting of it resonates through my body. What the fuck! Now I want to punch the asshole, and as I spin to face him, he grins at me.

“I didn’t tell you to look at me. Turn around.”

His words aren’t mean. If anything they are playful, but I’m terrified, and I can’t do this. When I feel his hand on the cheek of my bottom, groping and massaging the tender skin, I panic at the touch. I pull away from him quickly, stealing myself to cower at the head of my bed.

And I start to apologize. “I’m sorry … sorry. I can’t do this. I can’t … I’m so sorry.” My eyes are down, and I can’t manage to meet his glare.

He’s apparently not an understanding man, and as he starts to yell at me, I cower more. “What the fuck do you mean you can’t do this? You’re a fucking whore. You do what I want you to do!” Holy fuck, he’s mad.

He starts walking toward me, still yelling about what a rotten excuse for a whore I am, and I try to disappear through the glass of my wall. He’s going to hit me. He’s going to hurt me, and oh God, I can’t stop him, and I have nowhere to go. But as I pull myself as close to the window as possible, wishing desperately for it to open up and allow me to fall away from him, my door is thrown open.

Derek storms across the room and pulls the man by his collar back away from me. The man turns to him in rage, but stops cold when he sees Derek’s cold, harsh glare. Moments after that, two security guards enter my room and take their place by Derek. As the men all glare at one another and I move across the bed to the far wall, Frederick enters as well. He seems to be the only calm male in the room as he takes in the situation.

He orders the guards to leave, and with a hand on Derek’s shoulder, he speaks to him as well. “She’s okay, Derek. Just be cool.” His words are calm and without an ounce of the tension that courses through everyone else in the room.

When Frederick takes in the butt man, it is with a calm, appraising eye, and when he speaks, it is in the same calm manner. “What happened?”

“Stupid bitch wouldn’t do her fucking job. I paid to fuck her ass, and I expect to get what I pay for.” He’s glaring at Derek as he speaks.

But it is obvious that Frederick has taken over this conversation. “You must realize you’re not allowed to hurt our women. I just happened to be in the security surveillance room when I saw you move toward Ms. Monroe as though to strike her. Mr. Pennington disciplines his women, not you, and if you have a problem with how one of his women is behaving, then you take it up with Mr. Pennington. Not her. Do I make myself clear?”

Frederick is calm and reserved as always, as Derek stands by with his nostrils flaring and his jaw clenching. Were it not for Frederick’s timely appearance, I’m not at all sure I wouldn’t be staring at a shattered window wall and butt man’s dead body twenty-five floors down.

When Frederick finishes speaking to the man, he turns to Derek. “I’ll speak with Mr. Archer about how he’d like to proceed with Ms. Monroe. Why don’t you speak to her privately about her obligations to Mr. Archer?”

With a very audible and deep exhalation of his breath, Derek moves to me and pulls me by the wrist into the bathroom, slamming the door behind us. I’m relieved to be alone with him again, but as I start to apologize to him, he whips around and pins me to my spot with his harsh glare. He’s pissed.

“What the fuck were you thinking? He paid for this, and you agreed to do this. If you can’t hack it, then you have no business being here!”

My mouth is slack, and I am shocked. I’m not sure why I expected comfort from him, but I stupidly did. He’s right. This is what I signed up for, and I’ve just made a target of us both. The last thing either of us needs is negative attention, not with Mr. Grayson downstairs as we speak. What was I thinking? As his words sink in, my tears start to fall.

“I’m sorry. I just got scared. I can’t…”

I’m shaking my head in frustration and anger at myself, but my words are the truth. I panicked. I can’t do this with the man out there. I just can’t, and while I know I’m supposed to, there is no possible way in hell for me to give myself to him in that way. The idea is revolting and terrifying, and if that means I get fired, then I’m going to get fired. My life will be over, and I’ll be on the run again … at least for as long as it takes the thugs to find me and kill me. What have I done? I shake my head as the tears continue to fall, and Derek watches me with his harsh, cold eyes that only earlier this morning held mine so tenderly and carefully. I’m in hell, the most depressed I’ve been since being at Trimbles.

Derek looks at me long and hard as I look at his chest. I’m afraid to make eye contact. I know he’s going to kick me out the moment I do. He has no other choice. I’ve given him no other choice, and it breaks my heart. I don’t want to lose him. I so desperately don’t want to lose him that I want to will myself to give in to butt man’s wishes, but I just can’t. Every time my brain considers it for even a moment, my internal breaks are hit hard and joltingly fast. I just can’t, and that is a depressing fact. Because it seals my fate.

When I finally peer up to his eyes, I look away quickly, but he doesn’t let me get away with it. He pushes me up against the vanity and pulls my chin to angle up to his face. When I give up and look to his eyes, he glares down at me, saying nothing, but he watches, and his mouth scowls and contorts in some inner anguish and turmoil I don’t understand. His gaze flits to the door, considering something that is again outside of my scope of understanding.

With one final harsh glare, he spins me to face the mirror. He leans his mouth toward my ear, and his words shock me and relieve me all at the same moment. “You take him, or you take me…” His words are spoken slowly and deliberately. He continues to watch my eyes in the mirror as he warns me. “He has a small dick, and I guarantee you, he’ll be easier for your body to take than I will be.”

But my decision was made the moment he gave me the option, and as I shake my head, he closes his eyes. “I want you.” It’s a whisper.

When his eyes open again, he looks worried, concerned. His anger is lost, and when he speaks again, his voice is gentle and resolved. “Damn it, Ash. Take your dress off.”

He moves from me as I undress. He searches in the bathroom drawers until he finds a tube of lubricant and a condom. He moves behind me as I lean to the vanity top, and as I hear his zipper, my eyes search his out and find he is already watching me closely. He runs his hand lightly down my back as my body stills. I’m terrified beyond words, but I can do this … I can do this with him. His hands trail between the cheeks of my bottom as they graze over my anus.

I flinch slightly, and at my pause, he speaks. “Stay relaxed. Relax every muscle in your bottom, even when you want to tense up. You have to stay relaxed.”

I start to tremble at his words, and new tears threaten to spring forth. He looks like he’s in pain, and I realize I can feel his engorged cock nudging my lower back. He’s aroused, and yet his eyes are worried beyond all measure. Images of his incredibly impressive cock float through my mind, usually so welcome, but I start to panic a little bit more with every breath. How can he fit? With this unwelcome question, the tension sets in, and my muscles do exactly what Derek has told me not to allow. He senses it, too, as his hand still lingers between my cheeks, gently caressing my skin.

He leans toward my ear once more, and speaks quietly and intimately. “I’ll go slow, but you have to relax.” His quiet words are purred into my ear. My stress starts to melt, and I do relax. Perhaps only marginally, but it’s a start.

He stands once again, and after applying an over-generous amount of lubricant to his finger, he parts my cheeks and gently starts to work the slick wetness into my bottom. He is slow, just as he was the first time he touched me in this way. Small, slow thrusting gradually moving deeper and deeper. Once his finger is all the way in, he withdraws and gently adds a second finger. He again moves from shallow thrusts, increasing deeper and deeper. His penetration and the incredibly serious and concerned look in his eyes turn me on. I’m wet, though he’s not touched my sex at all. I want his hands on me there, but I know I’ll have to wait. As he finally finishes readying my body for him, he lines himself up to my most secret entry. He’s watching my eyes, and I’m watching his as well.

I can still hear the conversation between Frederick and the man outside in my bedroom. The man is calm, but they are waiting for Derek and me to return. The man wants me to hold good to my word and finish what we’d started, and with a hasty look to my eyes, Derek whispers, “We don’t have much time.”

And with that, he rolls the condom onto his length, and slowly, incredibly slowly, starts pushing the head of his cock past the rim of my anus. The first push is painful, and I immediately tense and cry out, but his strokes are shallow and retreat quickly, and at his retreat, I start to relax again. The next shallow thrust moves just ever so slightly deeper. He is watching his cock penetrate my bottom. He’s studying every stroke, and controlling his every movement.

He continues to stroke shallow and retreat quickly, again building deeper and deeper with each push. And with every invasion, I learn to still my muscles and relax against the pain and firm, invasive force. The invasion, while controlled and gentle, is far more intense than anything I’ve ever felt. This supersedes losing my virginity to Derek, but I’m also desperate for it to be Derek, so I focus my entire mind on relaxing my muscles, and he pushes farther and farther. It’s astounding that my body is accommodating the length and girth of his cock in this way, and yet gradually, he moves deeper and deeper within me. This feeling is more filling, stretching, and aching than any sensation I’ve experienced with him. And Derek was right, every time I start to tense, the pain shoots through my body, and yet when I can keep my muscles relaxed, the pain fades to the background.