A pause. There are men’s voices in the background, but I can’t quite make out the words. The noise dims as if he’s moved into another room. “Tell me what I’ll see when I review the recording.”
So he can’t see me right now.
Oh, this is just too delicious.
I use my foot against the desk to scoot the chair back farther. This should give him quite the show. “I’m sitting in your chair.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Naked.” I barely sound like myself. What am I doing, playing this game with him? I should be fighting him every step of the way, should be demanding answers about what he’s done with my father, and what he intends for the future.
Instead, I’m sitting here at his desk, fingering myself like the dirty little slut I can’t help but be.
I slip two more fingers into my pussy, and I exhale harshly. “I’m fucking myself with my fingers.”
Now it’s his turn to exhale. “Naughty girl, aren’t you? You’re going to ruin my leather chair when you come all over it.”
“Most likely.” I bite my bottom lip to keep a moan inside.
“You know what happens to naughty girls?” He barely waits a beat. “They get punished.”
My orgasm spirals closer. How many times have I laid in bed and touched myself just like this, imagining it’s his blunt fingers shoving into me, spreading my pussy in preparation for his cock? Too many to count.
Having him on the phone, his voice growling in my ear?
It makes everything ten thousand times hotter. I let my head fall back against the seat, barely able to keep the phone to my ear. “I’m going to finger myself in here every time you leave me with idiotic orders like that last one.” I slide my fingers up to pinch my clit and can’t keep a gasp inside. “Maybe I’ll do it on your bed next.”
“Jasmine.” His voice snaps like a whip. “Stop.”
My hand lifts without my having any intention of obeying. I grit my teeth. “No.” I force myself to ignore the command, to stroke my clit once, twice, a third time, until I’m coming with a moan I can’t keep inside. It feels even better because he told me not to and I did it anyway.
I never have been good at following orders.
“Oops,” I whisper.
Silence for several beats. When he speaks again, his voice is downright icy. “Remember, brat—naked and kneeling.”
“Fuck off.” I hang up, fear and need all twisted up in my head and heart and pussy. The light on the computer screen blips off, which is just as well, and exhaustion rolls over me. Too many things happened in the last few hours, too many changes. It saps my strength and leaves me confused.
I shouldn’t want Jafar.
I know that. Of course I know that.
He’s the snake tempting me out of Eden, except he barely has to crook his finger and I trip over my own feet in my eagerness to prove what a treacherous daughter I am. My father doesn’t deserve my loyalty, but other people won’t see it that way. Not after I’ve spent twenty-five years playing the dutiful daughter. And for what? So he can bargain me away to that bastard Ali?
Oh, Ali looks good, as long as no one examines beneath the surface. Handsome and possessing a smile that has charmed countless women out of their panties. He’s also a liar and a thief and, most unforgivable of all, self-righteous enough to think he’s better than the rest of us who move through the shadows.
To him, I’m a possession, a mark of his meteoric rise in this world. Balthazar’s daughter, a jewel meant for a position in a crown. He doesn’t see me as a person, and likely never will.
It’s all over now. Jafar made sure of that.
Didn’t he?
Surely Ali will bow out now, knowing this is a fight he can’t win. He missed his chance with me, and moving on to easier pickings is the only thing that makes sense.
I wish I believe that.
I leave Jafar’s office. There’s nothing for me to find here, not until I know him well enough to figure out his password. Even then, I have no plan. Find information and blackmail him into releasing my trust fund? I have nowhere to go. No desperately needed knowledge of simply day-to-day things. I’m not even one hundred percent sure how to access the money even if the trust is still mine. How to get a job. How to use public transportation. I’ve never even been to a grocery store to shop for my own food. So many life experiences, and all beyond reach.
All still beyond reach.
The front door looms in front of me. It would be the easiest thing in the world to obey. It will feel good. I know that down to my very soul. It’s different than my obedience to my father. That was given under duress, and I had no choice in the matter. This … Jafar gave me a choice. It was a shitty choice, but a choice nonetheless.