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The pounding on the storeroom door continued. It was soon joined by pounding in my temples. I rubbed at them, elbows against the desk.
Aurnia’s ideas were there in front of me. Ideas for a future here at Dublin Ink. Ideas for projects with the boys, projects with me. Ideas that would require long hours together. Long hours where the light faded. Long hours where the brain grew tired, the body hungry. Long hours where temptation increased and resistance fell away like the second hand on the clock. Long hours where mistakes were made…
“There’s nothing here,” I said, throwing the ideas hastily into the bin next to my workstation.
What I meant was that there was nothing here for Aurnia.
“Aurnia stays in the storeroom till she’s finished,” I said, pointing a finger at Mason and Rian.
“You’re the boss,” Rian said.
I thought that was the end of it.
Until Mason added, “You’re the daddy.”
My stool went clattering backwards as I stood angrily. “Enough,” I said. “I’ve had enough.”
Rian and Mason both laughed.
Mason said casually, “Oh, come on, Conor. We’re joking around. We know you and Aurnia aren’t up to any weird BDSM stuff, alright? We know you two aren’t getting off on this little light bondage bit. It’s just kind of funny, okay?”
The way that Rian and Mason were both looking at me made me realise with horror that I’d made a misstep. I should have laughed along with the joke. Or at the very least I should have just rolled my eyes at the eejits and continued with my work. Shouting at them like this, I saw too late, was the worst thing I could have done.
Because the only one who couldn’t see it was a joke was the one person who knew it wasn’t a joke. Me.
To Mason and Rian it was ridiculous, the idea that any of us could be thinking anything but innocent thoughts toward the vulnerable seventeen-year-old girl placed in our care.But that was exactly what I had just been thinking.
Filthy things. Twisted things. Greedy, desperate, hungry things.
Mason and Rian could joke because they didn’t want Aurnia like I did. They didn’t need Aurnia like I did. They weren’t fighting with everything they had not to take Aurnia the way I was. Every minute. Of every hour. Of every goddamn day.
I forced a scoff, the closest I got to laughter, and said, “Just don’t tell Diarmuid.”
Mason and Rian both chuckled, but I thought I caught a hint of something held back. Had they sensed something? A tension a little too tight in me? A flash of fear in my eyes? Had I just planted the idea?
They’d be more watchful now. Any interaction with Aurnia would be assessed more closely. Mason and Rian were my closest friends, but I couldn’t let them know that there was something between the kid and me. I chastised myself. That wasn’t the way to think. The way to think was this: there wasn’t anything between the kid and me.
God, what was fucking wrong with me.
“I need some peace,” I said, gathering up the bills and heading toward the stairs.
I didn’t dare meet their eyes. I passed them quickly. I moved up the stairs even more quickly. The pounding on the door followed me.
The rhythm made me think of Aurnia’s hips against my groin.
The protests of the door sounded like her groans.
And I could see her eyes. On me.
