Urges: Part Three (The Urges Series Book 3) (3 page)

“
Well,
now you've done it. Goodbye, Mister Stevens.” I step inside to
close the door, but he puts his palm out to stop me.

“
Fennel,
wait.” He looks almost panicked.

I
narrow my eyes at him as I open the door a bit wider.
“
You
said what you came to say, now leave.”

“
That's
not all I wanted to say.” He shakes his head, keeping his hand
on the door. “Come outside with me for a minute. Please.”

I turn back to my
mother. She's staring at us with such an intensity that it's even
making me feel uncomfortable. It doesn't matter though. I've learned
my lesson. I know better than to be alone with him. If I go outside,
the tables will turn. Who knows what could happen then.

“
No,”
I decide finally, returning my attention to Trent. “You've got
five minutes to say what you came to say, then I want you off of my
property.”

“
Do
you really hate me so much?” The corner of his mouth quirks
into an infuriating smirk, as if he's actually amused by the way I'm
acting.

“
I
don't hate you, Trent.”
Just
severely dislike you.
“
But
I will do you bodily harm if you don't leave next time I tell you
to.”
Starting
with a swift kick to the danglers.

“
Fair
enough.” He straightens, taking his hand off the door and
regaining poise. It pisses me off how he looks so perfect all the
time. Today, he's wearing a pair of khakis and a light rose-colored
polo. If I had to take a shot in the dark, I'd say he's going to play
golf after this.

“
Now,
what do you want?” I lean against the door frame, blocking my
mother's view.

“
I
wanted to apologize and ask you to come back to work for me.”
His expression is completely earnest. This is the facade—the
business side of him.

The sad thing is
that for a split second, I consider his proposal. But then I realize
there's no way we can go back to the way things were before we messed
around. Maybe he can, but not me. The thought of what happened at his
house would haunt me forever, and the sick longing for it to happen
again would follow. And if it did happen, he'd mentally torture me
more than he physically has. I can't keep going through this.

“
Not
interested.” My gaze falls to his feet, and a tremor of regret
races through me. Letting him go was easy the first time, when I was
so filled with rage that all that I could think about was getting
away from him. Now he's on my doorstep, asking me to come back. It
feels like a weird breakup. Except it's not a breakup. He's not here
asking for my affection. He's here asking me to work for him again.
There aren't any emotions attached to it for him other than guilt.

“
Please,
Fennel. You're a good employee. I'm so sorry about what happened
between us. I want to make it right.”

He sounds so sincere
that it's actually pulling at my heartstrings. I can feel my
resistance breaking down, but I know I can't allow that to happen. If
he wasn't as handsome as he is, would it be easier for me to say no?
Thinking that my resolve hinges on his looks makes me feel weak. I'm
not weak though. I can't be weak. Being weak is what got me into this
mess. I'm not falling for that pretty face or those gorgeous green
eyes anymore.

I glance back at my
mother a final time before stepping outside and closing the door
behind myself. When I turn around to face Trent, it feels like he's
gotten closer—the wolf getting ready to pounce on the prey. I'm
not some helpless rabbit, but if I need to retreat to my hole, then I
will.

For as much as I
want to be strong enough to look him directly in the eyes, I can't.
His eyes hold so much power. Instead, I stare at his chest, taking a
step forward to show him that I'm not afraid—that he doesn't
intimidate me. My fingers move to trace the collar of his shirt. “I
can't work for you because I have feelings for you. Don't think I'm
saying that to flatter you. They're not good feelings. Not like they
were.

“
You
hurt me, Trent. Badly. Not just physically, but emotionally. I can't
work for you because I can't stand the thought of seeing you everyday
and not having you. And I can't stand the thought of having you
physically and not having you emotionally. I don't want to work for
you.” I shake my head. “I don't want anything to do with
you.”

I'm back inside the
house before he has a chance to retort. If I was alone, I might have
pressed myself against the door and prayed that he'd knock again and
beg for me to reconsider. As it is, I just don't want to be under the
watchful eyes of my mother. She knows something strange is going on,
and I'm not in the mood to explain. It's too early for that. And it's
too late to fix this.

***

“
How's
the job going?” Terry crushes up some crispy wonton strips over
her egg drop soup. We're doing Chinese food today. It's a nice change
from our super fattening Mexican food diet, and it's also cheaper.
The place that we're at right now, you can get a pile of food about
the size of your head for only five dollars. And it's so good.

“
What
job?” I grunt bitterly.

Her hands fall to
the table, and she gives me a look of complete disbelief and
disappointment. “You quit already?”

I know this entire
conversation is leading up to an I-told-you-so. I might as well get
it over with. “You were right. Working with Trent was a bad
idea. We messed around, it got to my head, and I couldn't handle it.”

She picks up her
spoon and dips it into her soup, trying to drown the wonton
fragments. “The whirlwind workplace romance never works out.”

“
It
was more like a whirlwind seduce and destroy.” My mind flits
back to all the sexual encounters I've had with Trent, each one
bizarre in its own right.

“
Sounds
kinky.” She smirks at me before taking a bite of her soup.

“
Oh,
it was kinky beyond my wildest dreams.” My eyes widen for
effect.

“
Do
tell. When you texted me to let me know you messed around, you didn't
give me any details,” her tone is pure amused curiosity.

“
Texting
takes too long.” I scrunch up my nose.

Terry and I rarely
call each other on the weekdays, and if we're not hanging out on the
weekends, she's usually too busy for a chat, either getting her nails
or hair done, or shopping with her mother. Sometimes, I think the two
of them are better friends than her and I are.

“
So,
tell me all about it. Did he bang you on his desk?” she lets
out a short giggle.

“
Almost.”
I cock my head to the side, remembering how it felt to have Trent's
face between my legs. Just thinking of how crude we probably looked
sends a blush to my cheeks. And that stupid deer head above his desk
staring down at me. I'll never forget it.

“
Details.
Details. It's not fun if I have to drag it out of you.” She
frowns at me between bites.

“
Well.”
I lean forward and whisper so that no one else in the very open
restaurant can hear us. “He ate me out on his desk in his
office.”

“
Kinky!”
she practically squeals.

“
And
then we went to his house and he...well, we kinda...”

“
Fucked?”
Terry bobs her head as if it shouldn't be that difficult of a word
for me to say. I curse like a sailor on the best of days. She should
know that if I'm struggling to say something, it's not because I'm
embarrassed about it.

“
He
tied me up in his basement.” I stab at my lo mein and twirl my
fork in it.

Her mouth falls
agape for a moment as she stares across the table at me, though she
quickly recovers. “Kinky. Did you like it?”

“
Yes
and no. He has this weird pain fetish. He says he only gets off to
doing stuff like that. I think he's a Dom.”

“
A
Dom?” She pushes her soup aside and starts focusing on the moo
goo gai pan she ordered. I'm a bit shocked that she doesn't know what
a Dom is, with all the focus on BDSM lately in the literary world.
Then again, she doesn't like to read, so I'm not sure why I'm so
surprised.

“
A
Dom is a person who likes to be in control. In the BDSM lifestyle,
they take on submissives and do scenes with them, which typically
involve sadistic acts to gain pleasure. Submissives are the target of
these sadistic acts, but they like it, because they're into
masochism. So it's kind of like a symbiotic relationship of mutualism
between the two.”

“
That
was
way
too
technical for me.” Her eyes flare, unimpressed by my
explanation. “So basically, you're saying he took you down into
his basement, beat you, and had sex with you.”

“
No
quite.” I shift uncomfortably. Talking about this in public
makes me uneasy. Now I'm kind of wishing we would have eaten at a
restaurant that had booths, so I'd feel like we had at least a
smidgeon of privacy. “He did things to me.”

“
What
kind of things?” She takes a break from eating to sip the glass
of soda in front of her.

“
Well,
he spanked me. And he used these nipple clamps on me that hurt like
the dickens. And I think he flogged me at one point.” I scrunch
up my face as I try to recall everything that happened. “And he
about choked me to death with his cock.”

“
Sounds
like happy fun times,” she says, and I can't tell if she's
being sarcastic or not.

“
I
liked some of it. A lot of it, actually. It was new and exciting and
fun. But I didn't feel fulfilled emotionally, if that makes sense. I
mean, the sex was good, for what it was. I was completely bound the
entire time, so I didn't have to do anything. Just lay there.”
I can still remember the feel of the cold padding beneath my chest
and knees. The way I got to relax as he pounded into me. It felt like
heaven for a while. Then I realized I'd never be able to touch him.
Not get to see his face when he came. For as much as I'd been longing
for the sexual encounter with him, I felt cheated somehow.

“
Sounds
perfect. Does he have a brother? Preferably one that isn't into
beating women. I'm not much into pain.” She smirks at me before
taking a huge bite of her egg roll. It seems like she's moving across
her plate at a healthy pace, and I'm barely eating, too busy talking
and lost in thought.

“
It
was bizarre. He never let me touch him. Not when we were in the hotel
room. Not when we were in his office making out. Not when I was in
his basement. Not once did he let me put my hands on him. Not the way
I needed to.” I wrap my hand around my glass of water and feel
the iciness beneath my fingertips. It reminds me of how Trent acted
after we had sex, like I was just some random fuck to him that didn't
mean anything—like he'd never have to see me again.

“
Touching
is overrated. Fucking is where it's at.” She points her fork at
me before stabbing at a piece of chicken on her plate.

“
It
felt like more than fucking to me. I really liked him.” I'm
almost ashamed to confess it. There was something about Trent that
drew me to him beyond his good looks. Something about his kindness,
the way he genuinely seemed like he wanted to help me before we
started messing around, and everything went to shit.

“
So
what exactly happened between the two of you?” Terry quirks an
eyebrow at me.

I sigh deeply,
deflating against my chair. “He told me not to get involved
with him. Warned me that I'd get hurt. After we had sex in his
basement, I thought that was what he had been talking about, his BDSM
fetish. It turns out, it wasn't. He said some pretty shitty things to
me, and it made me realize I had just been used.” Is that even
right? I'm the one who pursued him for sex. How can he use me if I'm
the one who wanted it? Still, it feels that way.

“
What
did he say to you?” She grins in interest.