Power Play Read online

  ‘Well, if there’s anything else I can do for you, Ms Harding …’ he says, and so I can’t be blamed. It’s the fault of that little ellipsis he leaves on the end of his sentence, that little trail off into nothing.

  Anyone would want to fill that nothing up, immediately. Anyone.

  But still I wait, until he’s backing towards the door. Until he’s waving at me, casually, in lieu of a goodbye he doesn’t know how to give. See you later sounds too informal, I suppose. Until next time is almost a threat.

  Like the thing I then give him.

  ‘You could possibly not masturbate in your cubicle.’

  I see him freeze in position without turning my head, those soft-focus eyes of his bright and wide, on the periphery of my vision. Everything about him clearly stunned, even without the benefit of the sound he then produces.

  It’s almost a croak, I think, and it makes me snap my gaze to him. I want to see, I realise. I want to see how open and soft his mouth looks, how wide his eyes are, how rigid his body has gone. And once I’ve taken in all of these things undercover of a steely stare, my sex clenches, just once.

  ‘That is what you did, isn’t it?’ I ask, though of course we both know I’m not really asking. Or at least, I know. Because after a second, he answers.

  ‘I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t lie.’

  ‘I’m not – I –’

  ‘I would certainly advise that you not continue lying.’

  He spreads his hands out, as though they’re going to find the correct answers for him.

  ‘Just let me explain –’

  ‘Stop talking.’

  ‘Please, I –’

  ‘Just stop talking. Stop talking.’

  He’s breathing very hard, I notice – but he does what I’ve told him to. He even compresses his mouth into that oddly mean line, as though he needs a little extra barrier to hold his frantic words in. And when I just keep right on eyeing him, he actually wipes his clearly sweaty hands on the front of his trousers.

  I’ll confess: the gesture tweaks something inside me that I don’t want it to tweak.

  ‘Now. Answer honestly. Did you masturbate in your cubicle, Benjamin?’

  He doesn’t hesitate this time, despite the perspiring and the wide-eyed terror.

  ‘It’s … a possibility.’

  ‘Just a possibility?’

  ‘Well, yeah. OK. I kind of did it.’

  He laughs nervously, and that same thing inside me twangs. It makes me wonder if this would be easier if he weren’t so adorable … or would it be harder? If he was sure of himself, confident – a real Aidan Harcroft – would I be able to do this?

  And more to the point: does he know that I keep asking myself that question?

  ‘And what might it be?’

  Ohhh, this time he hesitates. I see his tongue touch the roof of his mouth, and those hands toy with the bottom of his cardigan. Of course I notice then that the thing isn’t buttoned there – in truth, I’m not sure if it really fits him, because it seems to splay out over his hips like a half-forgotten striptease – but that’s all right.

  What fun would it be if he improved all at once, in a single shot?

  ‘Come on,’ he laughs. ‘You know what it is. You just said it to me half a second ago.’

  God, he makes it so easy. I don’t have to try for the irritated look that comes to my face.

  ‘Remind me,’ I say, while his eyes search my room for inspiration. He looks cornered, I think, and for a second the idea makes me hesitate. It makes me want to back out, quickly – give him an exit sign, if he so sorely wants one.

  But then he says: ‘What exactly do you want me to do?’ And he puts far too much emphasis on all the wrong things. His want is hoarse and husky, his question mark like a hook curling around my waist. I’m tugged into this before I’m sure I want to be, and that’s prior to his gaze jerking its way back to my face.

  His eyelids are heavy, now, I notice. His mouth looks … tender. Though really I’m only using the word ‘tender’ there because my mind wants me to say like the spread split of a woman’s sex instead.

  ‘Say the words,’ I tell him, softly, so softly. And though he tells me: ‘I can’t,’ I can hear something else below the refusal. Something that’s not quite as unsure as he claims he is. For example, I’m not certain an unsure person would go from toying with the edge of their cardigan to kind of … sliding his hand underneath it. You know … just to maybe rub over his own belly through his shirt, with the softly stroking tips of his fingers. … ‘If you can do it in your cubicle, you can say it,’ I say, but now my voice is hoarse. And I’ve crossed my legs beneath my desk, though not because I want to. Because I have to. It’s the same thing as his pressed-together lips.

  I need something to keep the feelings in.

  ‘I was masturbating,’ he replies, and then unfortunately said feelings just gush their way out. Not even the leg-crossing can stop them. In fact, I think the leg-crossing makes it worse. A low pulse has started up right at the heart of my sex, and it gets stronger the longer I let this go on.

  ‘I see. And why exactly were you doing a filthy thing like that in such plain view?’

  Filthy thing, I think, and that pulse becomes a throb. I can feel the exact shape of my clit, without so much as a finger on myself.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I think you do know.’

  He swallows thickly. Tosses that thick hank of glossy hair out of his eyes even though it’s too buoyant to ever actually get close, then has to stroke through it nervously when it won’t stay exactly where he wants it to. The gesture is incredibly boyish and should be incredibly annoying, I know.

  But somehow it’s something else instead. It’s not childish or silly. It’s just him, it’s the way he is. He can’t help being this open and ready and kind of like he wants his face fucking.

  ‘I guess …’ he starts, and I can hardly believe I actually hold my breath, waiting. But by God, I do. Which of course makes it a hideous disappointment when he just finishes with: ‘I guess I just did it because I wanted to.’

  In fact, it’s so much of a disappointment that I actually almost do turn back to my work for real. I finger some of the contracts waiting for approval on my desk. I think about calling Anderson in here, to go over some of his slightly skewed projections.

  There’s a full day ahead of me, and I don’t have to be like this.

  Until he rolls his eyes at himself.

  After which, I don’t know how I need to be. I mean, I actually see him do it. I know that’s what it is. All of his expressions are so big he could star in a silent movie about himself: Benjamin Tate Can’t Control His Cock.

  But somehow, the way he looks doesn’t quite compute in the manner it should. Instead, it just makes me realise something: I’ve never met a man as handsome as him who behaves the way he does. Who wears all of his expressions on his sleeve and puts a hand up his own cardigan and doesn’t seem aware that he’s utterly, utterly lovely.

  Because he is. I don’t see how I could reasonably deny or push that fact away now. He hides it well beneath the goofiness and the too-big grins, but the lust haze he’s descended into makes it almost unbearably clear. His lower lip almost sulks all on its own. His eyes are like an early-morning mist over something heated and heavy.

  God. God. What’s happening to me?

  ‘I mean … it’s more than wanting to.’ He pauses, considering. ‘It’s more like … I need to. Man, I always need to soooo badly.’

  I know what’s happening to me. He says all the things I most want to hear in a tone like melting butter, and then I turn into a sexual psychopath. Observe:

  ‘So you masturbate often?’

  I mean, why am I asking him this? Why? And why is it that the shakier I get, the more confident he becomes? When he answers his voice seems almost … dry. Just hinting at a bank of sardonicism under the clean-cut exterior.
/>   ‘Not in public places, no.’

  ‘But generally speaking.’

  He straightens.

  ‘Yes,’ he tells me, and I can’t help it then. I have to hear the rest.

  ‘How often would you say you need to do it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re going to wear those words out, Benjamin.’

  He takes a breath, but it’s different to the ones he needed earlier. More restless, I think, as though he’s just as frustrated as I am at his sudden inability to express himself properly. I mean, usually he’s almost crazy with words – he’s a goddamn word volcano. I’ve seen him terrify Kelly with his need to share a hundred details about his childhood in Hawaii, and all at a thousand words a minute.

  But now he’s stuttery. He doubles back on himself, as though he’s on trial and has to get everything just right.

  ‘Sorry. Sorry. OK – I guess maybe once or twice a day.’

  And when he does finally get words out, they’re not the correct ones.

  ‘You know it’s very easy to tell when you’re lying. You get this little awkward crinkle above your nose,’ I say, though I’ve no idea that I’d figured out such a thing until the words emerge. It’s like what Woods used to say about the subconscious clues, I suppose – that people do things without knowing it.

  I can’t be sure, however, if this applies to him, or to me.

  ‘I do?’

  ‘Yes. And you look sort of … stunned by your own capacity for falsehoods.’

  He squirms for that one. But shamefully, this only seems to create further problems between my legs. When I shift, I can feel the slickness coating my slit. Can feel it easing over things both delightful and torturous.

  ‘OK. OK,’ he says, and then he does something that makes me want to do more than cross my legs. It makes me want to shove my skirt up and fuck myself right there in front of him, though I’ve no idea why.

  He just counts on his fingers. That’s all. And if he’s counting how many times he masturbated yesterday on said fingers, well … what does that matter? How is that an arousing thing to witness?

  ‘I’d say I maybe do it … three times a day.’ He checks his fingers and nods, then seems to change his mind when he finally looks up at me. Like he knows. Like he can feel me unravelling the lie before I’ve said a word. ‘Sometimes more, depending on what’s happened.’

  I can’t describe the heady rush that goes through me, to know that my expression alone forced him to make that correction. All I understand clearly is that it puts a quiver in my voice, when I finally get words out.

  ‘And what has to happen to make you so desperate to come?’

  Not that it matters. He has his own quiver to deal with, and oh Lord it’s big. It seems to affect his entire body, from sudden slump of his shoulders to the slow drift of his eyelids over those foggy eyes.

  It’s like all his self-control slides right out of him. And I know it does for sure, when he quite abruptly pants out: ‘Oh, that sounds so dirty when you say that word. I think I felt it go right through me.’

  But the words aren’t the worst part about it. No – the worst part is when he just kind of rubs his hand all over his chest and then up to his neck, after he’s spoken. And though I try to deny it, what I’m left thinking of is a stripper, doing her best to be as blatant and sexual as she can.

  You know. To lure people in.

  ‘Say it again,’ he says, and then I have to cut him off. Have to. Of course I do it with words that have absolutely nothing to do with how I feel, but in truth I’m just glad I manage to speak at all.

  ‘I think you have the wrong idea, Benjamin,’ I say, while molten lava makes its way down my body to settle in the pit of my stomach. Strange, really, that my voice comes out quite steely. ‘You don’t tell me what to do, I tell you. Of course, you can decide not to do it. But here’s the thing: I rather think you won’t.’

  His eyes flash in a way I can’t quite reach with the outer edges of my imagination.

  ‘You’re right,’ he tells me, all low and steady. ‘I won’t.’

  I don’t know what happens inside my body after that. If I tried to stand, I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t make it. My sex is so swollen, so full of that sweet ache, that the idea of moving so much just makes me want to pass out at my desk.

  And he’s definitely starting to know it now. He takes a step forward without my say-so, that wicked tongue of his just ever so slightly flickering out to wet his bottom lip. Gaze now as bright as it is heavy, eager and mischievous in a way I don’t want to quite face.

  So instead, I say the first put him off kind of thing I can think of.

  ‘So if, for example, I told you to lick my arsehole – you would?’

  It’s like I’m suddenly playing chicken, I think, and this is my first daring play. The lewdest thing I can think of on such short notice, and one that’s bound to put a man off. Bound to.

  ‘Do you want me to do that? I could, if you wanted me to.’

  Or you know. Maybe it only puts men who aren’t Benjamin Tate off. Because Lord, I swear, I’ve never heard anyone sound so eager to do anything. I’ve told children they can have ice cream, and not had them respond with such breathless anticipation.

  He starts unbuttoning that grotesque cardigan, as though a prerequisite for an ass-licking is nakedness from both parties – though naturally I stop him. I mean, I can’t actually have him lick between the cheeks of my arse, in my open office in the middle of the day. That would be ridiculous.

  Even if he doesn’t seem to think so in the slightest.

  ‘I mean, I’ve thought about doing it,’ he says, before I’ve got past the hand I’ve held up to halt him in his immense, ridiculous tracks.

  And then said hand is the thing that feels ridiculous, in all honesty. He’s actually thinking about ass-licking while I’m the goddamn lollipop lady stood in the middle of our road.

  ‘I see,’ I say, because it’s just noncommittal enough. It’s just enough without going all the way into yes, go ahead, do whatever the fuck you like. Instead it hovers on the edges of explain yourself to me, as cool and detached as my face nearly feels.

  ‘Though obviously, you know. Not in a lot of detail.’

  ‘You haven’t thought about licking my ass in a lot of detail? Well, how comforting.’

  ‘No – I mean … I mean I try not to think about you that way. Most of the time.’

  ‘And the rest of the time you’re spreading my arse cheeks and going to town, in your head?’

  One of his hands pauses, mid-gesture. Finger half-uncurled from the loose fist he’s made, as though he was just about to make an absolutely fascinating point, and now has no idea what it was. Even his mouth seems caught in this feedback loop, that soft shape suddenly tense around words he’s now failing to get out.

  ‘You need to answer me, Benjamin – and quickly. I really don’t have a lot of time to watch you standing in front of me unable to speak.’

  He wets his lips. Closes his eyes, briefly, before continuing.

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Describe it to me, then.’

  ‘Wait – what? What do you want me –’

  ‘Describe what you do to me, in all of these fevered imaginings,’ I say, though I don’t do it because I really want to. I do it because I can’t not.

  And apparently, he feels exactly the same. It’s like he wants to stop, really he does. He wants to have control over himself, and maybe laugh all of this off. But instead he just takes a big breath, and goes right ahead with it all.

  ‘Sometimes … sometimes you tell me to do it. Like this – only fiercer. But other times I’m in the hallway or your office and I drop something, the way I always do when you pass by. And while I’m down there, on my knees, I just kind of … get my face between your legs.’

  He doesn’t look away as he tells me this, which I think is to his credit. After all, I have to look away the second he’s said it. I simply can�
��t keep staring at him, with all of these newly framed thoughts about his clumsiness rattling around inside my head.

  He doesn’t drop everything because he’s just like that. He drops everything because of me. I mean, that’s what he’s saying, right? And if I ask, will that startling and too foggy fact become clearer? Will I be able to look at it head on?

  ‘So you drop the papers on purpose?’

  He shakes his head, wrinkles his brow. Glances sideways, as though he’s trying to map out his fantasy exactly for me but is struggling to do so.

  ‘No, no. I just do it because I can’t help myself. And then I can’t help pushing my face between your legs.’

  ‘And after that …?’

  ‘After that I lick you until you let me do it. Until you’re all wet there and turned on, you know, and I guess sometimes other stuff happens – like you rub your clit while I lick between your ass cheeks. Or maybe the other way around.’

  I’m loath to interrupt him, because I can see he’s getting to that place. The one where he’ll say just about anything and doesn’t really seem sensible of it – though of course this is somewhat more revealing than ‘and one time a shark almost ate me while I was surfing’.

  And if he doesn’t seem to see the difference, well. That’s fine. He can carry on not seeing the difference all the way into the most arousing tale I’ve ever heard anybody tell.

  ‘The other way around?’ I ask, and sure enough, he just slides on into the rest of it.

  ‘With me licking your clit and you …’ he says, and for a second I’m sure he’s just going to leave that last part trailing. I mean, it’s obvious what he’s suggesting. He’s already labelled the two body parts, and it’s not as though we’re talking about hands and feet here. He doesn’t need to go into detail.

  Even if he just takes a second to wind himself up to it – one hand actually twirling in front of him, like a goad to his confidence – and then absolutely says the real live words.

  ‘… fingering your ass. Or maybe just rubbing over it, I don’t know. I guess I just understand that you’re doing something there, while I lick your clit and stroke your pussy.’