Page 24 of Bitter Burn
Before I can (gently) refuse him, he leans forward and presses his face between my hips. I freeze, but he doesn’t, some kind of long-held control unraveling into loops and piles around him as he rubs against my groin, needily, hungrily, mouth open and whimpering. His entire body is shaking, and he’s dropped his tablet on the floor, and when I slide my fingers into his flaxen hair, he presses even harder against me, seeking and mouthing.
“Please,” he begs. “Please, sir. Only for you. I’ll be only for you.”
Blood and heat pool, and I swell against the attention. It would be easy, I think, to unbuckle my belt, pull myself out, and make my pliant assistant give me some relief. To grant myself satisfaction for all the times Tristan and Isolde have made a fool of me. To clear my head so I can think, so I can feel for a moment like the man I was before Tristan Thomas came and knocked down every palisade I’d built around my innermost being.
But bodyguards aside, I’ve been reluctant to fuck my employees, and it would be dangerous for me and someone like Sedge to be together anyway, because he is trembling with something that feels almost like self-hatred, and I would?—
I would not be responsible with that.
It doesn’t matter anyhow. As easily stirred as my flesh is right now, my mind and spirit are still in a Cornish forest watching my deceitful ones hold hands in their sleep.
“Sedge,” I say with as much kindness as I can muster.
Contrary to what you might have heard about me, I try to soften my cruelties where I can. I understand Sedge’s lust. I know what it feels like to have a yawning void in your belly, to feel like the ache in your chest and the ache between your legs are the same, the same throbbing grief.
“Sedge,” I say again, and I pull his hair, tilting his face up toward mine. I am too firm with my grip, I think, because arousal whips through him as he registers the pain, and his hips move in the air. “You are everything someone like me could want. But I can’t.”
“You want it,” he breathes. His cheeks are flushed, and his velvety lips are too. “You’re so hard, sir. I can help. Let me help.” He reaches up to squeeze the undeniable erection I’m sporting. Fuck.
I tighten my grip enough that the hand on me falters.
“I can’t,” I say, my voice as sympathetic as the hand in his hair isn’t. “My body and my mind aren’t in agreement. I still miss—I still wish they were?—”
I blow out a long breath, let go of Sedge’s hair, and then step back. His hand, where it had been fondling me, hovers in the empty air.
“I’m sorry. I am grateful for this, Sedge, but I’m not ready.”
He ducks his head, his hand falling slowly to his side. “For her. You deny yourself for her, when she has denied herself nothing.”
“I have not denied myself Tristan either,” I reply. “Surely, the gossip at Lyonesse isn’t so feeble that you haven’t heard.”
“They’ve chosen each other. They’ve left. How long will you starve yourself?” His voice is a miserable whisper now, and it makes me miserable too. That is the nature of unhappiness. It spreads like ink in water.
I move forward and press my hand to the side of his face. He turns toward the warmth instinctively, a flower to the sun. “In another life, you’d be very wanted. And in this life, I can help you find what you’re looking for.”
“You,” he says, his eyes closed. “I’m always looking for you. And at you. Sir.”
“I wish that things were otherwise,” I say, which is barely true. There is no otherwise that’s worth living through.
But the words seem to revive Sedge. “They will be eventually,” he murmurs, opening his eyes to look up into mine. “I can wait, sir. For your broken heart to heal.”
It won’t, but there is no point in telling him so. I don’t want to bruise this rare, vulnerable courage any more than I have to.
“That’s kind of you,” I answer, and then I kiss his head. “Will you be okay? Do you need a break from me after this?”
His teeth catch his lower lip as a new flush stains his skin. “I’ll never need a break from serving you, sir.”
I do have time for a shower before my afternoon meeting, and then right after, Lox calls me.
“Do you have more contractors exploiting my perfectly safe security systems using the log-ins you gave them?” she asks after I say hello. Just because one time a contractor managed to use our background check system to allow for Drobny’s men to attack the club, endanger my guests, and stab me.
“I’ll let you know during New Year’s Eve,” I say, turning in my desk chair to face the window. The Potomac is a tired gray, and even though the capital is doing its best to put on a festive show for the holidays, it looks tired and gray too. “But I appreciate the fixes you made.”
I hear the reluctance in her reply. “However they got in, I wasn’t happy they were able to fool the system with the fake profiles. I take pride in my work, and it pissed me off. I was glad to fix it.”
“I have another project for you.”
“Is there money in it, and will it piss off the NSA?”
