Page 74 of The Associate
He floundered, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
Movement. Fast and brutal. A hand, the same hand that had gently buttoned his shirt, fisted in his hair again, near the crown. It yanked, not with enough force to truly hurt, but with enough to pull his head back sharply against the headrest, exposing the line of his throat in a jarring, uncomfortable angle. Gael leaned across the center console, his body a dark, overwhelming presence, his face now inches from Samuel’s.
“Is. That. Understood. Samuel?”
He bit off each word, his breath hot against Sam’s skin. On the final word he did something devastating. He closed the last fraction of an inch. Their lips brushed. A whisper of contact, dry and shocking. The faint scrape of stubble, the heat of his mouth, the promise and threat held within it.
The combination was deadly. It shattered the last of Samuel’s crumbling resistance. His will dissolved. A thin, helpless whimper escaped his trapped throat.
His head, held fast, managed a slow, dazed nod. His voice, when it finally emerged, was a broken, breathless thing. “Yes… Yes. It’s understood, Sir.”
A faint, dark smirk touched the corner of Gael’s mouth; a flash of white in the gloom, there and gone. The punishing grip in hishair eased, but his hand didn’t leave. It slid to cup the back of Samuel’s head, holding him firmly in place.
“Good.”
And then he kissed him again.
It was not like the earlier kiss.
Gael’s mouth covered his, swallowing the shaky breath Samuel tried to draw. His tongue swept in with a languid, filthy ownership. He mapped the inside of Samuel’s mouth with a slow, thorough stroke that left no part untouched, unknown.
It was a kiss that saidmine.
Samuel could only take it, a low, desperate moan vibrating in his chest as he was devoured. His hands clutched at nothing in his lap, his entire body tightening, blood rushing south, making him painfully, overwhelmingly hard again in an instant.
The kiss was a brand, searing away every other thought, every shred of doubt, leaving only heat and shameful, dizzying need.
Just as Samuel felt himself tipping over an edge, Gael withdrew.
But not before his teeth caught his swollen lower lip. He bit down, not hard enough to break skin, but with a sharp pressure that was both a punishment and a promise. A jolt of pain-pleasure shot straight to Samuel’s groin, so intense he cried out, a sharp, choked sound against Gael’s mouth.
Then it was over.
Gael released him and leaned back into his seat as if nothing had happened. He straightened his shirt with a slight tug, his eyes forward, fixed on the dark street ahead. His breathing was the only sign of the encounter, slightly elevated, a quiet counter-rhythm in the silent car.
“Good night, Mr. Ruiz.”
Samuel fumbled for the door handle, his fingers numb and clumsy. He stumbled out onto the cold curb, the night air a shocking slap. He turned, a half-formed thought, a phantom plea on his ruined lips.
He was too late.
The car’s engine snarled to life. The tires bit into the asphalt with a short, sharp screech, and the sleek black vehicle pulled away, accelerating down the empty street, its taillights shrinking to tiny red dots and then vanishing into the night.
Samuel stood alone on the curb. The cold seeped through his jacket. His lip throbbed where Gael’s teeth had marked him, a persistent, aching pulse. Inside the silent vacuum of his skull, the new rules echoed:
Friday. 8 pm. Sunday morning.
And as he stood there, shivering, hard, and utterly possessed, he knew he would be there when Friday came.
Chapter 20
Samuel
Samuel pushed open the door to the coffee shop, a bell chiming a soft, wooden note overhead. The air inside was warm and thick with the rich, bitter scent of roasted beans and the sweet undercurrent of steamed milk. Saturday afternoon light slanted through the front windows, catching dust motes in golden suspension.
He stood just inside the doorway, his nerves a live wire. The memory of the previous night was a fresh, chaotic bruise on his soul, throbbing with every heartbeat.
He felt electrified, humming with a residual energy that had no outlet. And beneath it, a deep, sickening shame. It felt like he had a dirty secret smeared on his skin, visible to anyone who looked too closely.
