Page 29 of Force Me To Obey


Font Size:  

Roddy cocked his head and looked at me with one fixed eye, puzzled.

I left not saying more, leaving him to figure it out. He never would.

Chapter Eleven

I arrived at Preston’s office in time to watch him shuffle through a pile of papers on his desk, sorting in silence. I figured that he was angry, fuming, so mad he didn’t know what to say and was simply calming himself. But, it didn’t feel that way. I’d been the benefactor of his anger before, and this was so completely passionless that it seemed eerie. Of course, I wanted him to address the “fucking issue” immediately. Get it out of the way, absolve my guilt and pay my penance. If he was going to send me packing, I wanted to know that too. I wanted answers, although I certainly wasn’t going to demand them. Maybe I could still salvage something from the awful mess I’d made. But as I watched him while suffering in the dreadful silence, I was doubtful I could ever redeem myself.

When he finally looked up, his face was as placid as usual, and typically cool, but no more so than normal.

“Tomorrow, Skye, you’ll be accompanying me on a project. The real estate development at Crystal Shores.”

I remembered the account, one of Joel’s, if I was correct. “You need a research assistant there?”

“I need you there.”

“And there’s where you’ll punish me?” I speculated aloud. My anxiety was just not content to wait for him to make a move on the matter of his recent discovery. But my question was another mistake.

“Where I choose to punish you, if I punish you, is my business. I need you at Crystal Shores to take accurate notes. You’re better than any of the office assistants at detail, so you get the nod. We’ll leave here by nine.”

“Yes, sir.”

I had no illusions about the day ahead. Preston wouldn’t let the matter of my screwing Roddy in the basement go unaddressed. He was just waiting for the perfect time. I had little doubt the development site would prove the right place to make me pay for my dim-witted blunder, but things certainly didn’t play out the way I imagined.

Preston drove his Audi to the jobsite, with me sitting next to him.

“Ass on the leather,” was the only instruction he gave me, and I quickly obeyed, letting the feel of leather on my bare behind pleasantly work its way through my crotch. It may be the only pleasant thing I would feel all day.

The drive was uneventful, just a pleasant ride in the country. It was a good twenty miles to the suburban housing development, a very upscale wooded setting of two-story houses under various stages of construction situated at generous intervals along a hilly terrain. Strangely, the scene was vacant of construction workers, obscenely silent when we arrived. As I looked into the partially complete houses, I didn’t see a soul.

“Day off?” I asked absently.

“There’s been some problems with financing the development and the construction has been briefly suspended.”

“Too bad. It’s beautiful.”

“Just a temporary glitch, I’m sure. That’s why Lloyd & Lockhart was hired.”

“Sell the sizzle. There’s lots of it.”

“I’m sure Joel has that angle well in hand.”

“Just look at that one,” I pointed to a house on an approaching rise, surrounded by trees, looking stately, even forbidding. The exterior was nearly complete, combining stone and siding in the current style, a many-gabled roof and large expanses of windows. Looking beyond the panes of glass, I could see that the inside walls were still missing, leaving a cobweb of bare framing. “What an amazing house!”

When Preston drove into the unpaved driveway of this particular house, I wondered if he’d read my mind. Strangely, the structure stood out from all the rest, which were presently bathed in sunshine. Over this one, a dark cloud hung like an omen, lending a spooky feel to the atmosphere, a certain mischief, an elegant mystery, enough to tickle the hairs on the back of my neck. Pulling as far as he dared onto the bare dirt, Preston parked the car carefully, making sure that he wouldn’t get stuck in the mud. It had rained two nights before, and the ground was soft.

Although the day was warm and sunny, cheery even for early spring, a foreboding feeling of gloom gnawed at me, as eerie as the empty jobsite. I remained intrigued. As we stepped from the car, I heard a hammer in the distance; had work suddenly started up again? But it fell silent, as if someone had ripped it from the worker’s hand. I shivered a little and moved forward, following Preston as he gingerly made his way to the front step. There, he pulled a key from his pants pockets and opened the door.

“Perfect,” he exclaimed on entering. I’m not sure what was ‘perfect’ about this house over the others, but I let his comment slide. After all, I’d chosen this house too for reasons I couldn’t figure out.

Except for that tiny instruction at the beginning of our ride, Preston had not made reference to our sexual relationship for the entire half hour. He gave me the impression that this trip was exactly what he described, a fact finding mission that would require my talent for observation and detail. I believed he was telling the truth, even when my gut kept shouting to me otherwise.

As I strolled inside the half-finished house, gazing into the rafters above, my mind tried picturing the finished house. I’d always been fascinated by styl

e and form. And though I’d never want a home as ostentatious as this one would become, I could play with it in fantasy, like a child playing pretend.

“Skye.” His voice wasn’t unexpected as it lifted me out of my reverie.

“Nice place,” I said turning around. “At least I think it will be.” I smiled.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like