But maybe she’d only had Vance, playing the role of stand-in for her husband’s duties.
The longer Macalister passionately kissed her, the more I began to wonder who, exactly, he was punishing. Her sigh of contentment announced he was giving her all the attention she’d craved, basically rewarding her. And I was the one who had to sit there and endure my future in-laws making out with each other.
Macalister awkwardly broke off the kiss, dragging his lips across her cheek. She swayed, looking adrift for a moment, his mouth temporarily drugging her, and she blinked her cloudy eyes at him.
“There. I gave you what you wanted.” His tone was unexpectedly flat. “Your lipstick smeared on my face. Does it make you happy?” His upper lip curled into a cruel smile. “Because I was imagining you were Marist the whole time.”
Oh, my God.
The blissful expression on her face froze, and I shirked back in my seat. This was just the beginning of it, I knew. It’d get much worse before he was done. The alternative method of punishment he’d selected was psychological warfare and—oh, shit—maybe I should have let him use the belt. It likely would have been less painful for both of us than what he had in store.
He grabbed her around the throat and pushed her roughly down to her knees. She nearly fell, putting a hand down to stop herself, and turned her surprised expression up at him, wordlessly asking what he was doing. The only answer he gave her was to step forward, putting the fly of his slacks right at her eye-level.
“Let’s see if you can even get me hard, or if I’ll have to imagine she’s you.”
Oh, my God!
There were a million tightly wound springs beneath my chest that all broke at the same time, leaving me a jangling, chaotic mess on the inside. They screamed at me to run, to fucking do something. But there was a reason I shouldn’t, some part of me remembered on a basic level. I couldn’t remember it specifically because my brain was barely processing, but the warning was enough to make me hesitate.
Alice’s gaze darted to me, but he was prepared for that. “Would you like her to complete your task?”
Her focus snapped back to him like his words had magnetized her. “No.”
Determination overcame her as she accepted his challenge, and then her hands were crawling up over his legs. He stood still, his head tipped down to watch and his hands hanging relaxed at his sides as her palms worked their way toward the center of his pants.
My mouth was dry and full of dust, making it impossible to swallow. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Sit here and watch as she gave him a hand job? My body was a cage, locked tight with horror when her fingers focused in on what she’d been searching for and began to massage him through his slacks.
They were positioned sideways to me, so I could see one half of each of their faces, and behind them the view of the mountains surrounding us. We were on Mount Olympus now, the mortals below in Aspen. Zeus stood motionless as his jealous wife knelt on his expensive inlaid hardwood floor and tried to service him.
Her glossy pink fingernails scratched over his fly, and she cupped him, twisting her grip along his length, but there was no reaction from him. He stared at her with impatience etched across his face, and the atmosphere in the room began to shift as Alice fully committed to what he’d asked her to do. I was forgotten, all that mattered now was pleasing him.
But he wouldn’t let her forget. While he had her full attention, she had none of his.
He turned his head and stared at me with a look that was scary as hell. It threatened dominance and control and promised wicked pleasure if I’d allow it. When our gazes connected, he inhaled a deep breath, and his wide shoulders rose. I was cornered, trapped by his intense stare, but I let loose a silent scream inside my head.
He didn’t tell us what he was thinking about, or what awful fantasy with me he was conjuring up. But whatever it was, it was working. The crotch of his pants grew tight and it began to tent.
Alice’s excited fingers curled on the top of his slacks and the button holding them closed, but his focus flew back to her. He seized her hand and twisted it away, his thumb pressing deep into her wrist to stop her. “Did you want something?”
The word was barely a breath from her. “Please?”
He considered it for a long moment, and time suspended. Then it launched forward when he released her, flinging her hand away. “Go on, then. Take it.”
She attacked his zipper with renewed energy, eager to have him unrestricted in her hands. He crossed his arms, grabbed the sides of his sweater, and tore it up over his head in one swift move. It was balled up in his hands and thrown away with force before his glittering gaze swung back to me.
“I’m going to imagine this is your mouth, Marist.”
He wasn’t smiling, and he hadn’t said it just to provoke a response from me or her—he was deadly serious. A ruthless, cutthroat businessman during a hostile takeover, and I was the target he was determined to acquire.
Move, Marist! Fucking move!
Suddenly free, I leapt to my feet so quickly I nearly toppled over. My gaze reeled around blindly, searching for the exit, and although I avoided the worst of it, out of the corner of my eye I saw her latch onto the sides of his pants and jerk them down.
I made it two steps toward the door before his dark taunt rang out. “Leaving so soon?”
My shoulders tightened to my ears, and I closed my eyes. Blocking the scene out gave me just enough of a reprieve for my brain to start working. If I left, things would go back to how they used to be, and I’d lose everything. Giving over control to Macalister would be handing him the passcode to the security system I’d built around Royce and myself. He’d get inside and break us down, and I couldn’t let that happen.
“Stay,” he commanded. “I want you to watch, like how you wanted me to.”
The shudder started with my shoulders but graduated to my full body as the image of him looming in the shadows, watching as Royce went down on me, sliced through my memory.
Was I really considering this? Staying in this room and witnessing this deeply intimate act I had no business or desire to see?
His voice was loaded with the sinful challenge. “Unless the sight of me with someone else is too difficult to bear.”
Holy fuck. I whirled around to face them, refusing to let even a molecule of the shock I felt show on my face. It wasn’t too difficult to bear. I couldn’t care less, and I’d fucking show him that.
And I reminded myself I’d partially seen this before. It had been dark in the woods, and Alice had been with Vance when I’d spied them together the night of the initiation, but a blowjob was a blowjob. It couldn’t be all that different with another partner.
I kept my voice firm and my head up as I marched back to my chair. “I don’t give a fuck who you’re with, so long as that person isn’t me.”
Macalister’s eyes shrank to slits. But the sides of his mouth lifted in a joyless smile, telling me he didn’t believe me. Worse, he wanted to test the theory. His fingers worked to undo the buttons on his shirt, releasing them one by one.
As each one popped free, the tension inside me multiplied. It held my muscles stiff and made it difficult to sit, but I managed somehow, dropping into the leather chair with barely a sound. It unfortunately meant I couldn’t avoid the scene before me any longer.