Hostile Takeover by Hill, W (best novels to read for students .TXT) 📕

would have had to do numerous times, she’d had to sit back down on it, let the hundreds of barbs stab into those welts anew.

Her hands were shaking as she typed. She’d apparently long ago stopped trying to stifle her tears, because there were dried tracks on her cheeks beneath the newer ones, tears caused by stress and pain. While her hands were moving, the rest of her body was rigid, trying to minimize any motion that could impact those barbs. She’d still feel their bite with every key typed on the laptop.

“Marcie.”

She stopped abruptly but didn’t look at him. Her fingers curled over the keyboard.

“Get up.”

She couldn’t. He knew she couldn’t. But she tried, placing her hands on either side of the computer. Her elbows quivered so hard the desk vibrated. Since there was a small store of office supplies on the desk, the printer pulled closer, at some point she’d stopped getting up. Now the lack of circulation, the prolonged stiff posture, was defeating her efforts to rise. Stubborn, beautiful, pain in his ass.

Going to her, he turned the chair on its swivel toward him. Clasping her upper arms, he eased her to her feet. When she tried to swallow a pained noise, he cupped her face, turning it up to him. He was tempted to take her head off with a bellow that would scare monks in their temples in the furthest corner of Asia, but he kept his voice even, steady. “I left you an order. To remove that pillow when Janet gave you the note.”

“I know. But I had to prove—”

“Stop.” He cut her off with the steel injected in his voice. “A Master told you to do something, and what did you do? You disobeyed. You can call it interpreting, overcompensating, whatever the hell you want, but it’s pure disobedience.”

She was pale, and he could read her thoughts in the trembling of her body. She thought he might punish her further, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to bear any more pain. But she would. Just to prove to him she could. Christ.

“Marcie.” He pushed her head to his chest, curving his hand over the side of her face to hold her there, shelter her. “We’ll deal with that later. Right now, just be easy. Easy, darlin’.”

A little sigh went out of her, a hiccup. “I love it when you sound Cajun.”

Her hands were folded in between them, so he tightened his grip, cocooning her. He wanted her to stop shaking, but that was going to take some doing. “Where’d you put your things? Purse, girly stuff?”

She straightened, holding on to him to steady herself, but determined to show him she could do it. When what little color she had drained out of her face, he anticipated the faint. She hadn’t had lunch, hadn’t hydrated herself at all, because her skin was too cool and dry, despite the fact she looked as if she’d perspired quite a bit. She really needed to work on that bad habit of locking her knees.

“Okay, here we go.” He’d lifted her, carried her to the reception couch. The mere pressure of the seat cushion on her ass was enough to keep her from full unconsciousness. She swayed inside his grip, her brown eyes seeking his face.

“I messed up, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did. But not as bad as I did. Stay here just a second.” He made sure he was back fast, bringing her a bottle of water from his office fridge, and a pack of peanut butter crackers. “Okay, drink some of this. Slow, just sip it. There you go. Ease back on the couch if you can.”

It was difficult, her body too stiff, her ass too sore. She was starting to shiver. He was functional, brisk, sliding his hands under the skirt, along her thighs, locating the straps to the two phalluses he’d left inside her. Coiling an arm around her waist, he lifted her enough to work all of it free, then set it aside. She made a small sound as his fingers brushed her pussy, her upper thighs, the rim of her ass, a different kind of shudder going through her.

Her cheeks colored over it, but he wasn’t surprised. Given what he knew of her already, the pain and stress wouldn’t have completely overwhelmed the arousal caused by being under a Master’s command, his direction. Being as much of a Dom as she was a sub, he of course couldn’t stop his dumbass cock from hardening.

Shrugging out of his coat, he put it around her shoulders. Then he lifted her in his arms and took her spot on the couch. When he put her in his lap, he kept her abused ass in the open area between his splayed thighs, bracing her lower back and upper thighs against that vee so she made only nominal contact with the firm cushion—and his groin. Then he brought the water back to her mouth.

Cupping her hands over his, she met his eyes before her lashes lowered, suggesting that she’d felt his arousal against her hip, but she focused on drinking. For the next fifteen minutes, he didn’t let her speak, just worked on calming her down, getting crackers and fluid into her. At length, she let out a little sigh, rested her head against his chest. Her fingers were curled loosely in his open collar, because he’d pulled off his tie in the limo. Her French manicure was making teasing little scratches against his flesh as she continued to shake.

“Why did you say that? That you’d messed up?” she whispered.

“Figures you’d latch on to that.” He was relieved to feel her lips curve in a slight smile against him, but he tipped up her face, held her chin, made her see the serious reproof in his gaze.

“A hardcore submissive like you, an inexperienced one, tends to go to extremes. You have to be trained to understand a Master’s nature, to respond to it. You don’t know