My throat goes dry. “Dean?—”
“Mr Walker” His correction is sharp, hungry. “You’re at work. Remember?”
Heat floods my chest. I force my hands to move again, tapping out words I can’t even see, every keystroke trembling as he circles behind me. I feel his presence at my back, the way his shadow stretches long across the desk.
“You’ll finish this contract,” he murmurs, “while I test how obedient you really are.”
A shiver racks through me. I type harder, faster, desperately to hide how my body betrays me.
Then his hand is on my shoulder—firm, anchoring — and the other brushes a line down my spine, slow enough to stealthe breath from my lungs. I arch without meaning to, a tiny movement, but his low chuckle tells me he caught it.
“You’re shaking,” he says. “Do you know what that tells me?”
“That I hate you,” I manage, though it comes out broken.
“No, baby girl.” His lips are at my hairline now, his voice a brand on my skin. “It tells me you want more.”
My fingers falter over the keys, letters scattering nonsense across the screen. He sees it. He doesn’t care. He thrives on it.
“You have two choices.” His breath is hot on my neck, his tone steady, dangerous. “Finish the document like a good little assistant… or I take this game further than you’re ready for.”
The cursor blinks at me, merciless. My chest heaves. I don’t know which choice terrifies me more.
The letters blur. I can’t even remember what contract I’m supposed to be formatting, but my fingers keep moving, clumsy over the keyboard.
“That’s it,” Dean murmurs, still behind me, still too close. “Keep pretending you’re in control.”
My jaw tightens. “I am in control.”
He laughs—low, sharp, like he’s cutting the air between us with it. His hand slides higher on my spine, pressing just enough that I straighten in my chair. “If you were Brooklyn, you wouldn’t be typing gibberish.”
I glance at the screen—sentences half-formed, words misspelled beyond recognition. My stomach drops. He’s right.
“Don’t stop,” he warns. “Don’t even think about stopping.”
The pressure in his voice makes my pulse slam against my throat. My hands shook violently as I furiously typed, desperate to prove him wrong, and the letters became a jumbled mess.
He leans closer, lips brushing the shell of my ear. “You’re a mess. And still, you obey me.”
Heat coils low in my stomach, sharp and humiliating. “You’re sick,” I whisper.
His laugh rumbles, darker this time. “And you’re still in this chair, letting me.”
The keys clatter louder under my shaking fingers. Every mistake echoes. Every misspelling is another thread he pulls tighter around my throat.
“Do you know what happens,” Dean asks, his tone lazy, dangerous, “when an assistant cannot deliver clean work?”
My chest caves. “You fire them?”
“No,” he says, the word dragging across my skin like teeth. “I discipline them.”
My fingers stutter, almost still.
“Keep typing.” His command snaps like a whip. “Or I’ll show you what that looks like right now.”
The cursor blinks, the page fills with broken sentences, and I realise I’ve never been more terrified or more alive.
The clatter of keys is the only sound in the office, frantic and uneven, my words dissolving into nonsense the more his presence presses into me.
