Beloved Pet

“You just told me to go away,” she said, softly. “William, if you want to try and throw me off with transparent flirtation, you’ll need to be a little less obvious than that. I know you alpha males think you can do what you want, but maybe try to be more subtle about it.”

“Human emotion is complicated,” I deadpanned, setting my pen back on its holder. “Haven’t you ever had conflicting feelings about someone?”

She looked at me for a long moment.

“Yes,” she said, at last, licking her lips reflexively.

“Well, there you have it,” I said. “I imagine you’ve had to deal with plenty of unwanted attention from the opposite gender.”

I was trying to confirm my suspicions that she was a virgin. She didn’t seem to want to give up that information, though.

“I have,” she said, looking at me cautiously. “But we were talking about you.”

“You were talking about me,” I corrected her. “I don’t find that very interesting. I already know everything there is to know, you see. I’d much rather talk about you.”

She let out another laugh, this one with even more genuine music to it.

“I think you already know about me,” she told me. “After all, weren’t you on a committee to select me as a candidate for an internship?”

She was right about that. In a different way than she knew. There were a lot of people selected to be interns and I wasn’t a large part of the committee that decided that. But after looking her up last night, I did know a lot about her.

But I still wanted to know more.

Knowledge was power, and I wanted enough of it to make me strong enough to consume her completely. I wanted to claim her as my own and make it so that she would never even look at another guy again.

I kept looking at her, silent, until her face reddened slightly, until she looked away.

“I don’t know enough about you,” I said, “so I can only continue on with this mentorship if you’ll agree to answer twenty questions.”

Her forehead crinkled slightly.

“Twenty… questions?” she echoed, and I could tell that her mind racing to understand what game I was playing. “I don’t understand. There are certain things I can’t discuss, with my boss, or, almost-boss…”

“With this mentorship in place, you can discuss anything you want with me,” I cut in. “Including answering my personal questions.”

She took a deep breath, and I watched her full breasts rise and fall under the slim cut of her suit jacket. I couldn’t wait to see them naked, with nothing standing in between her nipples and my eyes.

“Mr. Davies, I don’t want to play games.”

“That’s too bad,” I said, picking up some papers that were on the table in front of me and moving them towards the folder.

“Wait.” She swallowed audibly. “What if I refuse to answer one of the questions?”

“Then I get another try,” I said. “Unlimited questions until you’ve answered twenty of them. Honestly.”

She laughed.

“How will you know?”

I just raised my eyebrows slightly.

“I’ll know.”

Jocelyn rolled her eyes.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“I can’t believe I am, either,” I told her, honestly.

I was never this into a woman, to take such risks for her. I shouldn’t be doing this with her, but I couldn’t help it.

She smiled coolly. “I’ll try to answer your questions.”

Nodding, I glanced down at my desk, and then back up at her face.

“Has a boss ever been attracted to you before?”

She let out a long, measured breath.

“How would I know?”

I tapped my index fingers together, lightly.

“That’s not an answer, Jocelyn. Should I move on to the next question? Just so you know – they get progressively more personal.”

Jocelyn rolled her eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “Next question.”

“Were you attracted to him?”

Her smile came slowly, the most genuine expression I’d ever seen from her.

“I didn’t say it was a him.”

Laying my forearms down on the desk, I leaned forward slightly.

“That’s not an answer.”

With a slight laugh, she tilted back in her seat.

“All right, fine. Yes. I had a boss back at a summer job in college, and I was attracted to him at first.”

“At first?” I shifted back in my chair, mirroring her movements. “What happened?”

“You’re burning through questions very quickly, Mr. Davies.”

“Let me worry about that.” I tilted my head slightly. “Why only at first?”

She cleared her throat softly before answering me.

“He was too forward. We started communicating privately, which I knew was a mistake, and then on the fifth or sixth text message he was already asking me to…” Her mouth thinned slightly. “…sit on his face, smother him, walk all over him in stiletto heels – even if I wanted to, it’s not like I ever would. Especially not with a text message trail that could ruin my reputation. He was stupid.”

“Very stupid,” I agreed. “Anyone can see you’re not that kind of woman.”