Power Play Read online

  I don’t stick with something safe and obvious, like maybe a little love tap on his upturned ass. I grasp him, hard, like I’m getting a fistful of him. Fingers curling just under the left cheek of his perfect ass, palm flat and firm to the meat of him. And when he gasps I squeeze so fiercely, like a man groping some sweet little secretary against her will.

  Though even that isn’t enough. Once I’ve done it I can feel something incendiary, something that explains why his trousers seem so thin. He isn’t wearing any underwear – just as I had suspected the other day – and the knowledge makes me slide my hand down, down until I’m almost between his legs.

  In fact, if he was a woman I’d be able to feel his cunt now through that material. But as it is I make do with the hint of his tightly clenched arsehole and that soft strip of skin just before his balls, as I grope him with something like greed running through me – as I lose my mind entirely, and press my thumb right between the cheeks of his arse.

  ‘You like that, slut?’ I say to him, but he doesn’t answer in words. He ruts right back against my squirming, pressing hand, a long, low groan spilling out of him as he does so. And when I rub more firmly, right over that sensitive place, his groan gets louder. More desperate, I think, and naturally I know why.

  If I keep doing this, eventually he’ll come. I’m not sure if the right word is eventually, in truth, because the second I press down his entire body jerks forward.

  ‘No, not like that,’ he tells me, but how many times did I say the same to Woods? Even if I didn’t have that memory in me I’d know what he really means, and said knowledge just makes me work him harder. It makes me stroke closer to his balls, which feel tense and tight and too drawn up.

  And when I do he tells me what I already understand.

  ‘Please – I can’t hold off. I’m too close,’ he says, and I think of all the times those words have left me so disappointed. All the frantic bouts of sex, ended minutes too early with that exact phrase on someone else’s lips.

  I can’t hold off, I think, and then something strange and new surges through me. My clit swells between the slippery lips of my sex, and that urge to push him unbearably close to the brink gets stronger, brighter. I want him to come all over himself, I realise. I want him to grunt and be unable to control his own reactions.

  And I want him to do it right now, as I stroke some little near-innocuous part of him in a stationery cupboard.

  ‘You remember I told you that you weren’t allowed to come, don’t you, Benjamin?’ I ask, while this wonderful sense of duality slips over me. My body wants him to do just that more than anything, and yet the words that are coming out of me …

  Is this how Woods felt? Was he filled with this need to make me give in, even as he told me not to?

  ‘No, no,’ he pants, suddenly lucid in the middle of it all. And I see why, a second later: ‘You said I couldn’t touch myself. You didn’t say I couldn’t come.’

  He’s right, of course. Even when he’s close to spurting in his pants and so on edge his teeth are practically rattling, he’s a better rule follower than I ever was. However, something does occur to me, the moment he’s gotten the words out.

  ‘So you’ve been cheating, then. You’ve been rubbing yourself off on things all this time?’

  Another groan of despair comes out of him – longer, and higher on the end of it. Those hips of his roll, though he’s clearly not trying to get some extra pressure now. He’s trying to get away, I can tell, and him doing so just makes me want to be meaner.

  So I slide my hand all the way between his legs and get a hold of the thickly pulsing length I find there.

  ‘Fuuuuck no, no – I haven’t. I haven’t cheated. I swear, I haven’t consciously made myself come in fucking days and days and –’

  ‘Consciously?’

  I can’t help asking it. The word just jumps out at me before he’s finished babbling, like a little blue tick in the middle of a blank-paged notebook. He made his words specific, though they didn’t need to be.

  And now he has to answer for them.

  ‘Ummm,’ he says, like he really is thinking. He’s thinking long and hard about what he could have possibly meant by that, despite the fact that it’s glaringly obvious. ‘I guess I uh … maybe …’

  ‘You use far too many uhs and ums, Benjamin.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ he says, and I can almost hear his face scrunching up with embarrassment. ‘I woke up the other night and I’d … you know. Done it all over myself.’

  ‘Done what all over yourself?’ I ask, but I’m crueller than that. I don’t just force him to say the proper words, I rub the tip of my finger over the ridge around the head of his cock, as I do.

  ‘Ohhh-ohhfuck, fuck. Uh, OK – I came on myself. I woke up and I’d had an orgasm in my sleep.’

  I think he’s actually trying to climb the shelving by this point. If there was a hole in the cupboard he could crawl into and through the other side to safety, I think he’d do it.

  ‘And do you remember what you dreamt about, to make you do such a filthy thing?’

  ‘I don’t – uhhhh, Jesus, don’t do that. No don’t, don’t – I’m really going to come.’

  ‘If you tell me, I might stop,’ I say, though of course I’m lying. His cock feels like a red-hot brand through his trousers, so heavy and swollen it’d practically be a crime not to fondle it. It’s making me breathless and near to orgasm myself, just feeling him like this and hearing him stumble towards that place he got to before.

  That place I like to call Extreme Frankness.

  ‘I dreamt about your pussy, Ms Harding. I dreamt about licking your clit.’

  Ohhh yes, there it is. There, there. God, I can’t get enough of the way he says that last word – like it somehow has seventeen syllables, and each of them sound more filthy than the one before it.

  ‘Is that all?’ I ask, so cool and calm and collected. As though him dreaming about licking me there doesn’t send a fresh burst of pleasure direct to that said same place.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then tell me the rest,’ I say, and when I do I pinch the head of his cock. Just to give him a little extra incentive.

  ‘I dreamt I spurted all over my own belly and thighs, and after I’d done it you made me walk around the office, naked, with it all over me. All my own come, glistening on my bare skin.’

  Jesus fucking Christ. I’m not even sure how I’m still standing, or what force is keeping my tone this steady and calm. He’s close, he’s really and unbelievably close – so much so that I can almost feel his orgasm rolling through the length of his heavy cock – but I’m in far more trouble than he is.

  I think I’m having an orgasm already.

  ‘And that idea excites you, does it? The idea of me forcing you to shame yourself that badly?’

  ‘God, yeah. One orgasm wasn’t enough. I wanted more as soon as I woke up.’

  ‘You wanted to touch yourself?’

  ‘I wanted to hump the fucking mattress.’

  ‘Like you want to hump my hand, right now?’

  ‘Ohhhh yeah, fuck yeah I want to do that. Are you saying I can do that?’

  I haven’t the faintest clue why he’s asking. He’s practically doing just that anyway, right now. Every time his body shifts I feel his cock stroking over my open palm, as though he’s kind of pretending that what he really wants to do is get comfortable. When in actual fact he’s almost jerking off into my hand.

  ‘Do you recall what I said about restraint, Benjamin?’ I ask, and he near moans some words in response

  ‘That I have none.’

  ‘That’s right. And what happens to people who have none?’

  He already knows, I can tell. I can feel it in the way he suddenly presses right into my hand, to get at those few little extra strokes that would push him over the edge. Hell, I think one stroke of my fingertip over the swollen head of his cock would do the trick, but I’m not going to give it. I can’t give it yet, no matte
r how much I want to.

  The game would be over if I did – and what then?

  Does worse come, then?

  ‘Do they get what they’re wanting?’ I ask, and he takes a series of shallow, panting breaths. Tries to wrestle back some control, even as I take a step away from him.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what happens to them?’

  ‘They get punished,’ he tells me, only that last word comes out thick with something it shouldn’t. ‘Punished’ should never sound so full of desperate longing, with that little gasp right on the end of it.

  But apparently when Benjamin Tate says it, it does.

  ‘And how do you think I should punish you, Ben?’ I ask, but of course I’m already doing just that. I’m fairly certain he can hear, as I ease my too-tight skirt over my stocking-clad thighs. And the second I slip a hand between my legs – the very second that I do it – his whole body jerks.

  As though I touched him, instead of me.

  ‘Oh God, are you masturbating?’ he asks, but here’s the delicious part: he doesn’t turn around to check. He just carries right on clinging to that shelving, hips bumping forward like he’s pushing into a cunt that isn’t there. Body trembling minutely all over as he listens and listens and listens to the lewd sounds I’m making.

  And by God, are they ever lewd. It’s just such a small space, that’s the problem. The moment I do the tiniest, most innocuous of things – like, say, circling my pouty swollen sex-lips with the very tip of my finger – he can hear it. I can hear it. It sounds like someone slicking themselves all over with a quart of baby oil.

  And it gets worse, the longer I do this. The more I work my finger through my slippery folds, until I’m almost but not quite rubbing my stiff little clit.

  ‘Ohhh you’re definitely masturbating. Can I … can I watch?’ he asks, as though I’m not being cruel at all. I’m not withholding something from him by taking this step back and putting a hand between my legs. I’m giving him something instead, something I can barely fathom until I let him turn around. After which it’s obvious – it’s all over his face.

  I’m giving him the sight of my fingers working under the almost cover of my skirt. And despite the fact that he can barely see anything at all, his eyes never leave that moving shape. He just keeps watching as I furtively touch myself, that gaze of his like a second hand between my legs.

  Though I can hardly blame him for it. I do exactly the same thing when he’s finally stood before me, face so flushed it’s almost burgundy, that thick shape making a fist in his trousers.

  And all of this is before I get to the best part – the one I could just about feel through that material. He’s made a little shadow of wetness, just to the left of his zipper. He’s actually leaked through the material to the point where I can see it, even in the dim light of the stationery cupboard.

  ‘Oh that’s so …’ he says, but of course he can’t finish. If he found the word that went on the end of that sentence – lewd or wicked or something sweeter, like inviting – I think he’d have to give in. I don’t think he could stop himself touching me, and Lord knows I wouldn’t be able to do the honours in his absence.

  If he reached out, right now, I wouldn’t be able to be the Boss I’m turning into. I’d just let him slip his fingers through my soaked folds to find that oh so empty place and sink inside. And once he’d done it, once I’d let him take that step … there’d be no going back. I can almost feel the chain reaction that would happen because of it: his mouth suddenly on mine, frantic and sloppy. Those big, strong fingers of his pumping in and out of my greedy cunt.

  And then his cock to finish with. That thick, heavy shape just ever so slowly easing into me – or maybe it wouldn’t be slow at all. Maybe he’d just push and tug all his clothes aside then fuck into me without a hint of preamble. Hands on my ass, my legs around his waist … ohhhh.

  ‘God, yes, I’m coming,’ I tell him, though naturally I don’t mean to. I wanted to be still and silent, as emotionless as Woods – but apparently I’m not any of those things when orgasm overtakes me. I’m just this flushed, frantic mess, fingers busy on my swelling clit, chasing and chasing after those waves of pleasure.

  Though of course once I’m done I’m embarrassed. It’s not embarrassment, really – it’s like the low feeling instead, only in reverse. I’m just stood against the door, hand all sticky and face as hot as ever I’ve felt it, waiting for him to tell me something awkward. He’ll say what I said to Woods: well, I’d better get back to work.

  And when he doesn’t, I’ll be honest. I don’t know whether that’s better or worse. I only know this: that I want to be better. I want to be smoother, calmer, more in control, no matter how bright his eyes are when he looks at me.

  In fact, those bright eyes are the very thing that makes me turn and walk right out of the cupboard, without a single word offered in his direction.

  Chapter Six

  He doesn’t look at me when I walk into the room, which I should really take as a bad sign. He always looks at me when I walk into rooms, even if I’m doing my best not to look at him. In the elevator this morning he’d practically pressed his gaze right up against the side of my face again, but somehow here, now, he’s not?

  Of course, it could be that he’s finally getting some control of himself. Maybe he understands now that there are lines and boundaries and things he’s forbidden, and is going to behave accordingly. He’s going to be the way I was whenever I saw Woods in a professional capacity. I used to simply sit in these meetings and focus on something ever so slightly to the left of his head, as though he didn’t exist.

  And for a long moment I’m sure that’s what Benjamin’s doing. He has found a spot he can safely stare at, without getting stiff or needing to squirm or beg. He’s a model student already, before we’ve done anything at all.

  I mean, what’s a little masturbation in a stationery cupboard, really? It’s not much, is it? And if part of me kind of believes it is and doesn’t really want to stop thinking about it, well … that’s fine. I can cope. As long as it doesn’t show on my face as I give this presentation, I can cope.

  Though naturally I can hardly keep it off my face, the second I get to page two on the PowerPoint project Benjamin has so diligently put together. Diligent isn’t the wrong word, exactly, because I can tell without any sort of close examination that a lot of effort has gone into this.

  It’s practically a work of art. Every inch of it carefully planned – the first page clean and crisp and concise, so that I wouldn’t stop when I first brought it up on the laptop and tell everyone something blustery and casual like ‘It looks like the presentation has a fault. Let’s just sit around and have a chat instead.’

  And then the second page … oh, the second page. I didn’t even know you could get a sparkly pink font to headline your neat little PowerPoint page. I had no idea there was an option to insert rows of dancing teddy bears around the text.

  But apparently Benjamin Tate did.

  ‘Cute, Harding,’ Anderson laughs, only I don’t hear him. I should, I really should, but the trouble is, it’s hard to listen to anything beyond the sound of that veil falling over me. The one that used to signify all the things I was going to let Woods do to me, but now means something else instead.

  It means everyone has to leave, now, and if I say something strange to make that happen, well, what does that matter? He’s done more than write me a terrible letter or wear a T-shirt with a stain on it now.

  He’s given me the green light to be very, very bad indeed.

  ‘Well, it seems I’m going to have to re-schedule the meeting for tomorrow,’ I tell them all, and though they grumble and some of them are still laughing about the teddies and so forth, they go. Of course they do.

  I’m in charge. I’m so in charge that I’ve reached a higher plane of being-in-charged-ness, in which my body does things independently of me, like locking the meeting room door behind the last person. And once I’ve
made that move, once I’ve gone that far, it doesn’t seem like anything to take another step after it.

  ‘Do you see where I was just standing, Benjamin?’ I ask, in a voice that is not my own. It’s this other person’s voice, the one who locked the door a second ago and is now closing all of the blinds on the glass wall beside it.

  ‘Uh … yeah. I think I can figure that one out,’ he says, so big and bright and gauche, despite the thing he’s just done. Though of course I realise now that it’s partly a role he’s playing – it’s partly a game.

  He’s my big, dumb tons of fun. And I am his corrections officer.

  ‘Go stand there,’ I say, and though I don’t turn from the window I’m not looking through, I know he obeys. I can hear his big feet on the carpet, can feel the shift in the room. He’s not quite being coy any more – his breathing has changed. Now it’s tense, anticipatory. Like my own.

  ‘Okaaaay,’ he says, in a way that suggests I’ve gone just a little bit mad. But somehow, him behaving like that just makes it sweeter. It makes it better than it was in the stationery cupboard, better than it was when I put my heel to his chest.

  That note of confusion sends a lick of pleasure direct to my sex.

  ‘Now bend over the table.’

  ‘Sir, I –’

  ‘Bend over the table, Benjamin. I don’t know why you need me to tell you twice, I really don’t. It’s tiresome.’

  It isn’t tiresome at all, in truth. But if I said it was all of the things it really feels like – thrilling, arousing, intense – it would almost certainly lose some of those words. I’d be just as giddy as he seems when I glance at him over my shoulder, instead of how I know I must appear.

  Bored, I think. Near indifferent. Not in the least bit thrilled to see him considering the table in front of him.

  ‘Go on,’ I say, and then I have the privilege of watching all the air rush right out of his body. I get to see his eyes drifting closed in that heavy, syrupy way they so often do, just before he actually obeys me.