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Khan
The town car cut through the dark streets winding downtown toward Eden’s apartment. I stared out at the increasingly seedy houses and shops lining the road, anxiety building in my veins.
She couldn’t stay in this neighbourhood. It was too dangerous. I’d lived in worse than this, but not by much. The knowledge that she came back here after work was keeping me awake at night.
I rubbed my chilled hands together and tried to shake the feeling of ice cold water from me. It had taken a thirty minute long cold shower to get me soft enough to even get my tux pants zipped up, thanks to Eden’s little display at the store. My beautiful, funny girl, my sunshine, had turned my outrageous request into a parody, and paraded the outfits that had been lined up for her back and forth for me, posing with her entire, delectable body. She’d had a blast, her sunny smile firmly back in place, while I had known a new kind of torment. Keeping my hands off my personal ray of light with the sharp tongue, and even sharper wit, had nearly been impossible. I’d almost tipped my hand earlier in the changing room. I’d wanted to claim her mouth, and press her against the glass wall behind us and fuck her hard, holding her face to the reflection, making her see exactly who it was she now belonged to. Yet, it wasn’t time yet.
She thought I was joking about the security footage. I wasn’t. I already had it. No one else got to see Eden parading about in her new workwear but me. She thought I was only worried about the company’s reputation when I got her new office wear. I wasn’t. I couldn’t care less what anyone thought of Eden’s clothes. They shouldn’t be looking. Eden was mine. I wanted to wrap every inch of her body in the things I had paid for. I wanted to provide every scrap of food that she ate, and sip of liquid that she drank. I wanted her to live in a house I provided for her. I wanted to give her everything, and in return, win the only thing I’d truly wanted in as long as I could remember. Her.
It was irrational and mad. It was possessive and obsessive. Dark. Yet, it was unavoidable. I faced the abyss of my obsession with Eden Davis inside myself and knew that this was a monster that would take no rest until I had her. I recognised it as a fight I wouldn’t win inside myself. I had to have Eden, or die trying. I’d nearly died for much less in my turbulent life. The prospect didn’t bother me.
We pulled up outside her apartment, if such a generous term could apply to the rundown building. I got out of the car and buzzed her door myself. The driver watched me curiously from the car. I didn’t want anyone doing anything for Eden but me. The door buzzed beneath my hand, and I pushed inside. She no doubt expected me to wait in the car, but I wanted to see where she lived. First impressions were not good.
Trash in the stairwell and the rank smell of old piss filled my nose. I heard the clatter of heels as someone came down the stairs, and waited at the bottom, careful not to touch anything in the hellscape. It transported me back in time, to when I had been a teenager, and a stairwell like this would have been a great place to sleep for the night. Quite a find. The lock wasn’t great, and someone had buzzed me in without asking for a name. The place was no doubt known among the homeless community as a good safe space, if it was empty. The thought of Eden coming home to desperate people in her stairwell filled me with panic. I had once been one of those desperate souls. I knew how it felt.
I had to get her out of here.
She appeared at the top of the stairs above me, a vision in lavender. It wasn’t a colour I’d expected her to choose, and yet, as soon as she’d looked at it, something had flared in her eyes, and I’d known she loved it. A fitted bodice studded with something glittery made the valley between her breasts eye-catching, and then the skirt flared out to her feet in soft chiffon. I wanted to press her to the stairs and burrow my head beneath that material and find out what was beneath. She looked like a fairytale princess, and I, the beast of the boardroom, wanted to lift her skirts, and fuck her hard, rut her possessively, marking her with my fingers and spend, so that everyone would know she was mine.
My thoughts about this woman were wild, and yet I was powerless to stop them.
“You look stunning,” I managed to say, after clearing my throat twice. She smiled, enjoying the compliment.
“You clean up well yourself,” she said, accepting my arm to step down the last stair.
“We’ll attract a lot of attention at this event. Are you ready for that?” I asked her, as we made our way to the car.
“I guess so. But why so much attention?”
“Because I don’t take women to events, or appear with them in public much.”
“Right. You’re a dyed in the wool bachelor, right? Mr Eligible but untouchable?” She said, and I recognised the title as one that had graced a high-profile magazine last year.
“Have you been reading up on me, Eden?” I asked her, warmed at the thought. It wouldn’t be a patch on the reading or watching I’d done on her, even so, it felt good to have captured her interest at all. She shrugged, unfazed.
“Why not? You’re my boss and you’re an interesting man.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” I decided, and she laughed.
“Why am I not surprised? I’ve never met a man with a more robust ego,” she said, as I helped her into the car.
“Do you think my confidence unwarranted?” I asked her, wishing to see myself through her eyes. She considered my question and then shrugged.
“I suppose not. If I was as rich as you, with the city at my feet, I guess I’d feel pretty confident too.”
“You seem plenty confident to me. There is an unbreakable spine of steel beneath that sunny exterior,” I told her. Her eyes flashed to me, surprised at the compliment.
“Thanks, and I guess I am confident enough for what I’m doing now, but before, when I was a student, I wasn’t nearly so confident. I worried a whole lot more, because I cared more about what I was doing. You don’t mind me saying that, do you?” she asked. I shook my head.
“You’re a temp from an agency. I’m under no illusion that being my assistant is your end goal, or anywhere near your dream job, despite how I appreciate your work. What do you want to do?”
“Why?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me.
“Because I have a lot of contacts. Maybe, one day, if you need a hand, I can provide it,” I told her smoothly. Prying a personal admission from this woman was like pulling teeth.
“I’m sure you can’t, but anyway… I used to study Fine Art. I wanted to be a curator at a gallery. A small, humble, and totally unachievable dream,” she sighed.
“Unachievable why?”
She opened her mouth to speak, and I leaned in, waiting for some small scrap of personal information. Something that I couldn’t guess or glean from my files on her. Something she didn’t share with the world. The car in front braked suddenly, and she swayed forward, her mouth closing with a click.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t affect my job performance, so don’t worry,” she said shortly instead. I felt that rejection hard, like she had shoved me and my interest in her in the chest and gotten away. I nodded, accepting her words, at least on the outside. I would find out how Eden felt about her failing dreams, and she would be the one to tell me. My interest might appear superficial to her, but that was by design. I was going to be the man who made it possible for her to dream again. She just didn’t know it. All she had to give me in return… was herself.
