Page 46 of Broken Vows

He crosses his arms, and I know he sees through my lie. I’m literally gripping a notebook in my hand with no snack in sight. I clumsily stand up from the chair, and it rolls back on its wheels until it hits the file cabinet.

“And, um, sorry I was sitting in your chair. Is that weird? It just looked so much more comfortable than the other one.”

I need to shut up.

Flames have taken over my entire body. His fingertips wrap around the notebook and I release it immediately. “This doesn’t look like a snack.”

His tone gives nothing away. The room feels suspended, as if time has stalled. He rests the notebook on his desk and takes a step towards me. I back away. He follows. “Lexie.”

The harsh sound of my name on his tongue sends fear running through me, and my heartbeat thuds louder. I’ve seen a lot of versions of Theo. Overly charming, considerate, raging, heated, maybe even possessive. But this one is different. This is calm. Stern. Calculated. I step back until my ass meets the file cabinet.

“Lexie,” he says again, inching so close to me that I feel the static between us. I plant my palms behind my back to brace myself. I can’t run. There’s nowhere to go. I can’t scream. And I can’t fight him off. He’s too strong.

A heavy swallow rolls through my throat.

He scoops the hair cascading down my shoulder and lays it behind my back. And leaves his hand. One second, two seconds, three. My heartbeat shoots to my neck. His handprint carries the buzzing vibration of a dirty hymn sung by a church’s rejected sinners. I know he’s a doctor and touches bodies all day. Maybe he’s desensitized.

But I’m not.

“You know what I think?” he says, calmly, his breath warming my ear, his palm pushing into me, and God these terrible, Judas tingles spread across my skin. “I think you were sneaking around my office, touching things you shouldn’t.”

I shake my head, pressing my ass even further into the cabinet to create more space between us. “No, I wasn’t. I told you… I was looking for a snack.”

God, I sound pathetic. He absolutely knows I’m full of shit.

There’s the smallest hint of a grin at the corner of his mouth. He pulls in a breath and slowly releases. His palm is still pressing against my upper back, pushing up my chest, and my breasts brush against him.

“I want to know why you’re so curious about me.” His voice is steely calm, and I hate, hate, that my core tightens with his touch. I want to run and scream and hit him, but unwanted moisture pools between my legs instead. His body is too close. The air turns heated, as his fingertips begin to dig into my flesh. “If you had a question for me, all you had to do was ask.”

He puts his mouth back to my ear, the quickest brush of lips meet my earlobe, and my head involuntarily tucks against him. I shiver with the sensation, hating myself, my body, hating him. How dare he? Heat rushes to my core. I can’t stop it. My chest is lifting and lowering quickly, my heart is pounding.

His mouth is still right at my ear. “So go ahead, Lexie. Ask me your questions. I’m dying to hear what was so important to you that you’d reduce yourself to a thief.”

Fuck him. Like I just plunged into an ice bath, my body screeches to a halt. I push at his chest and he steps back. “I was trying to find a snack, asshole.” I yank my jacket and purse from the chair, trying to ignore the imprint of his palm branded into my skin. “Listen, I really appreciate what you did for my mom. But if you ever corner me like this again, I’ll slam my elbow into your nose, and you’ll be the one who needs to go to the ER.”

I storm out the door.

But somehow I know that whatever this is, is far from over.

21 Theo

I can’t believe I convinced Lexie to still let me take her home after she stormed out of my office.

As I drive us back to her place, I keep stealing glances at her. She’s silent, staring straight ahead. I don’t feel any remorse about how things went down in my office. She was going through my things. Seeing that only confirmed what I already knew: I was right not to trust her. I can’t ever let her out of my sight again.

But fuck, the way it felt sweeping her hair back, pressing her body up, watching her chest push high through her shirt. The restraint I needed not to flip her over so she was palms down on the desk, hike up her skirt, and fuck her from behind was more than I’ve ever known.

What the hell is wrong with me? She’s making me break all my commitments, making me do insane, stupid shit in my office. My work. My only sacred place. And within minutes, I wanted to dominate her.

I turn at the light, glance at her again, and she’s still in that same, angry, cross-armed position. But she’s not scared. And I want her fucking scared. Terrified. Shaking. I want her to feel all the fucking things she makes me feel. I want her so tight, so restless, so soaking with a desperate desire that she’ll cry, fall to her knees, and beg me to stuff her mouth with my cock. Tears will flood those huge, beautiful eyes. She’ll lift her skirt, and show me that glistening cunt, and beg me to fill it. After all these years, I want her to taste the poison of rejection, to have it consume her the way it consumes me. I’ll turn her into a feral, primal, savage fiend of need, and she’ll know the only cure is me.

And I won’t fucking give it to her.

Finally, she’ll obsess over me the way she’s forced me to obsess over her.

When I pull up to her place, she steps out without a word, slams her door and marches to her apartment.

Fuck.