It awakens me. I feel like what he said I was—alight. His thumb moves to the hollow at the base of my throat, and I suck in a breath. “You shouldn’t be—you shouldn’t—”
“I shouldn’t touch you,” he murmurs.
“You’re my boss.”
“And you’re the nanny.”
His thumb continues its rhythm. “Why don’t you stop?”
“I told you, sweetheart. Life is unethical.”
He’s looking at my lips in the dark hallway, and I lick them. His body turns tense against mine. I can feel the way his muscles harden. There’s maybe an inch between us, but we’re connected by invisible strings. I can feel every line of tension, every point of wanting.
His head descends, a dark shadow.
“Tell me to stop,” he mutters against my lips.
It’s already a kiss, those words. I close my eyes. A tear leaks down the side of my cheek. It’s not sadness. It’s more than that. It’s desire. It’s feeling anything at all after being numb for so long. I’m more afraid of this than a free fall down the cliff. “Don’t stop.”
“Fuck,” he says, wrapping his hand around my throat. Choking me, but without the pressure. It doesn’t hurt, but it makes me feel strange, as if I’m being possessed. “You’re too innocent for the things I want to do to you.”
“What do you want to do to me?”
“Everything.”
There’s fear. Of course there is. He can make me feel things.
I don’t know if I can ever close Pandora’s box again after this. What does everything even include? He’s too much for me in every way, but I still want a taste.
I want to open the lid and peek inside.
“One thing,” I whisper. “You can do one thing to me.”
It’s surrender and a request at the same time. I want this much from him, this slice in time. We’re not in his room. Not in mine. I can pretend this hallway is neutral territory. That this won’t change anything. He presses his lips against mine. They’re warmer than I thought they’d be. Softer. He lets me get used to him there for a moment before pulling back. And then again. I’ve been kissed a few times. It feels like the mashing of lips. It feels like being plundered. This is entirely different. He brushes his lips against mine again, this time from a different angle. A million nerve endings become alight. I let out a shuddery breath.
His hand moves from my neck to my jaw. He tilts my head back so I’m open to him. He looks down at me with a dark expression I take as a warning.
There’s only a narrow window of world. My eyelids feel low. It’s a trance-like state, a dreamy place where my body is liquid and he’s hard as rock.
He brushes the backs of his knuckles across my clavicle. And down my arm. It occurs to me how naked I am compared to a regular day. My nightgown isn’t revealing. It’s a plain gray cotton. Nothing sexy, but he looks at me as if he’s enraptured.
My nipples are hard points against the thin fabric.
He traces the curve of my breast, not touching where I need it most. It can’t be an accident. He can see them standing stiff and sensitive for him. Instead he circles around and around. It’s maddening. It’s cruel. “You’re a bastard,” I whisper.
He laughs softly. “Only one thing,” he murmurs. “We already kissed.”
“Two things.” It comes out on an embarrassing moan.
He rewards me with a hard pinch on my nipple, and I let out a small, muffled shriek. “Ah, ah, Ms. Mendoza. You can’t make noise. No matter how much it hurts.”
It would be so easy to move farther down the hall. To move into one of our bedrooms. We could even go downstairs and never be heard up on the second floor, but that would make this more real. In the dream, where I’m still warm from hearing him sing that old sea shanty, I have to be quiet. “Do it again,” I breathe out, more movement than sound.
He does it again, pinching hard enough that I gasp. He doesn’t let go, either. The pain turns numb, but I’m held taut, my whole body a string between his fingers, knowing that the moment he lets go, it will feel like fire.
It’s with a casual tap of his thumb, a small gesture that speaks to familiarity. That’s how he lets go of me, and I whimper in near-silence as the pain registers.
“Like this?” he asks.
And I shake my head—no, no, no. I don’t want him to stop, but it hurts to keep going. There lies the problem with our relationship. With my entire life.
“No?” he asks, his touch turning gentle again. He slides his hand down to my hip and pulls me close. I can feel his erection against my belly, a hard, hot length that proves how much he’s enjoying this. That turns me on even more than his touch could. This is a man who knows beauty. Who’s been with more women than I’ll ever meet. He could have anyone. He wants me. “What if I felt between those pretty legs of yours? Would you be wet?”
“I don’t know,” I lie.
He gives me a small smile. “Let’s find out. Pull up your nightgown.”
Oh God. It would be so much easier if he lifted the fabric himself. I would let him do anything to me. It’s different to participate. To be the engine of my own destruction.
I grasp the hem in trembling hands and lift.
He takes a half step back to examine me, and I almost chicken out. I almost drop the nightgown and run down the hall into my room. Like some scared little virgin. That’s probably what he expects me to do. He even lifts an eyebrow, waiting and watching.
When I don’t move he gives me a thorough perusal.
“Pink,” he murmurs.
And I don’t know what he means until I remember dressing after my shower.
Grabbing the worn pair of pink panties that have been washed a hundred times. There’s probably something humiliating like a hole somewhere. I never thought anyone would see them. I never thought he would see them.
“Pull them down,” he says.
I close my eyes. Can I do this? “Three things,” I murmur, more to myself.
The air in the hallway should be freezing, but I don’t feel the cold. There’s only heat in his gaze across my skin. I push the waistband of my panties down to my thighs.
“Good girl,” he murmurs.
The words wash over me in a rush of pleasure and embarrassment. I know it’s wrong to be doing this with my boss, with a man so much older than me, with a man who has power over me—but it feels sharper because of those things. Sweeter because of them, too.
He leans close, enough that I can feel the warmth of the words against my temple. “Spread your legs. And hold your nightgown higher.”
It’s hard to spread them with my panties around my thighs. I can only open them about a foot apart. The confinement of the elastic makes it hotter.
As if I’m tied up for him in a net of my own making.
Even my hands are restricted. I’m holding up the fabric, which means I can’t do anything else. I can’t pull him closer. I can’t push him away. As long as I follow his commands, I’m trapped against this wall, open for whatever he wants.
He traces designs over my rib cage, and I shrink away from the ticklish sensation. He draws a heart on my stomach, and I suck in a breath. There’s letters written into my skin along the side of my hip, but I can’t make out the words.