by Anthology
I locate my shoes and head toward his front door. Upon opening his door, I hear, “Lily?” Concern laces Hunter’s voice. I can’t bring myself to face him as tears begin to flow down my cheeks. I hear his footsteps quickly eating up the space between him and me. He grabs my hand and pushes the door closed. He pulls me toward him and embraces me. My body shakes from crying against his naked chest.
“You found them,” he says somberly. I nod my head against him. He kneels down to my level, so we’re face-to-face, placing his hands against each of my cheeks. “Lily, I knew where those marks on you came from. That’s why I didn’t use anything on you. If any of those things bother you, we won’t use them. I won’t lose you. I just had you; I’m not letting you go. Do you understand me?” he asks.
I nod my head in response, not knowing what to say. He pulls me toward his couch, sitting me in his lap. He holds onto me so tight, as if I am going to run at any moment, and part of me wants to, but I want this thing with Hunter more. Which prompts me to stay, no matter how much I want to run.” Talk to me, Lily. You’re scaring me.”
With a deep breath, I start to talk and hope that this somehow doesn’t backfire on me. “I always wanted someone to take control in certain aspects of my life. It allowed me to feel free. I wanted someone to relieve the tension from my life, and sometimes pain centers me. I mentioned it because I was so stressed out. While I was in control of everything, it was eating me alive. Feeling overwhelmed and caged, like a wild animal. I confessed this to my ex, and he took the role on that I asked. It started outside of the bedroom. I had a routine and there was structure, but as time went on, I didn’t realize I was starting to lose myself. I didn’t have any access to finances, I asked him for permission for everything. If I wanted to buy something to eat, I had to ask him. A lot of the time, he would twist it in a way that sounded like it would benefit me, but in reality, it was only benefiting him. I didn’t realize it and these things gradually happened. The control transferred into the bedroom, and he knew that pain would center me, but not the level of pain that he was delivering. He said if I needed to be centered, then I should trust him to deliver the pain that I deserved, and if I loved him; I would take it because there was nowhere else I could go, because everything I had belonged to him. I was trapped. It took almost two years before I convinced myself to leave without anything, except the support of Kara. So here I am.” I shrug my shoulders, waiting for the other shoe to drop: I was too damaged, too much to handle for Hunter. I was more of a burden for him than he wasn’t willing to take on.
Instead, he pulls me in tighter and kisses away my tears. “You’re a survivor. You escaped a horrendous situation. The bastard didn’t demand your pleasure; he abused you. If he so much as steps foot in this state, I can become very creative on how to slowly torture someone like him. He’ll wish he never laid eyes on you. It takes a brave soul for you to leave, after everything you went through. I promise you now; I will never be the person that will strip you away to nothing. I will strive to build the confidence and the fire that you have in you, and make you a stronger person with me beside you. Trust me to center you. We don’t need anything in the chest that you’re not ready for. We’ll take one step at a time, stay with me. Trust that I will always place you first in every decision I make.”
I curl myself closer to him and he tightens his grip around me. “I’ll try, I really want to try.”
I feel him nodding above me. “We’ll always try, my kitten. For us.”
LILLIAN CARTIER
Lillian Cartier started writing when a persistent vampire entered her mind and refused to leave. Sharing the crazy idea with her closest friends and, with the encouragement from them, a story not only started to form but she has gone into collaboration with a friend turned author, Michelle Dare.
A wife, mom, and lover of books, that will be soon going on a vacation on a tropical island where she can finally get some much needed rest and relaxation with her family and friends.
Website: https://lilliancartier.wordpress.com/
Newsletter: http://bit.ly/2cPdhey
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lilliancartier
NIGHT OWL ~ M.C. CERNY
CHAPTER 1
CASEY
“Hi there, night owls. This is your host, Casey Cole, rocking the mic here at Z107 FM. Let’s get those confessions rolling. I’ll be taking your calls for the next few hours.”
I adjust my headphones, tucking an errant lock of dark hair behind my ear, pushing the red light to start my late night call-in show. Sliding my rolling chair, I let my full ass press deep down into my throne, in front of a switchboard of buttons and controls. I love pushing those square and rounded switches. I run my finger around the switch thinking, I’m the one fully in control of what happens here. I can open the line of communication or shut it down at my whim. My nails slip over to depress the color-coded buttons, reaching out over the radio waves to talk to my fellow night owls. It’s strangely arousing to have contact with strangers like me who can’t sleep a full wink at night.
It took two summers interning and one blow job… not mine, thank you. I only set that bad boy up to get this coveted late night spot, which worked out well for my insomnia. I figure if I’m not going to sleep, I may as well find a job that’ll work with my schedule. The radio lab where I’m broadcasting from is cold as shit and my nipples are rocking through my turtleneck dress. I rub my chest, hoping they’ll warm up, but all I get is a snarky look from the man in the sound room who’s watching me touch myself. I pat the girls down and get back to work, nodding to Tucker, my producer and the said receiver of “the blow job I didn’t give”, behind the glass wall. I pick up line four and answer the first caller of the night.
“Hey, night owls. Casey here. What’s your confession?” Drawling out my greeting, I wait a moment, listening to a deep breath inhale and then exhale. The way the caller pauses before speaking immediately alerts me to who it is. Those pesky nipples of mine rise again and the ache between my legs starts a staccato pulse in time with my heartbeat. Damn him.
“I’d like to know what it’s going to take for you to go to dinner with me, Casey Cole.”
I shake my head at the familiar voice. James Austin is the CEO and owner of Austin Communications. In other words, my boss. My very hot and very interested boss. For the last eighteen months, he’s been asking me to dinner. Why? I have no clue what some rich fat cat would want with a girl like me. I’m curvy as hell. I’ve got more twists and turns in my figure than Lombard Street in San Francisco. I keep bizarre hours and can eat my weight in caramel toffee ice cream. Essentially, I’m not his type.
“I don’t date callers. Sorry.” Or bosses. I pause and wait for his sigh, hanging up the phone with finality. Each night is a struggle to hear the lingering disappointment in his voice before moving on to the next call. “Hi. This is Casey. What’s your late night confession…?”
This is how I spend my evenings… taking calls and doling out advice to the lonely soles of Philadelphia. I’ve loved radio for as long as I can remember and since I don’t film well on television, because of my lovely large breasts above the news desk, news broadcasting was out and radio was in. My voice is pitched low, the tone controlled, and I’ve been told it comes off as sexy. I interviewed all over the country, and Z107 FM gave me a chance… a chance in the mailroom my first year, and as a production assistant my second. Apparently, my curves made me second chair until I had an opportunity to sit in for Sabrina, the traffic wench. I made it known to management that I hated traffic, so they blackballed me for two more summers and here I finally sat, perched on my late night radio throne of minor stardom. God, it felt good, and there was no way in hell I was going to screw it up by letting my hot boss grease my wheels. I much prefer him greasing my paycheck, thank you very much.
My show runs from 11:00PM until 2:00AM, Jamal takes over with some prerecorded material, then the soft rock jocks Luke and Eddie come in at 5:00AM and the morning rush hour sh
ow starts. It’s not a bad gig and it pays the rent… mostly. I still have to walk dogs uptown with my plus-sized ass, and record a bunch of advertisements and voice-overs to make ends meet. I wouldn’t trade my life for anything, except maybe to end this dry spell I’ve been having. In fact, it’s about as long as my employment here at Austin Communications…
* * *
JAMES
Her voice flows through the radio in my car like silky sheets slowly slipping to the floor. As she answers callers and listens to their sob stories and confessions, I start to think about all the things I want to do to Casey. I think I’ve been half in love with her from the day she started working for the radio station. Long dark hair, full breasts that would fill my hands if she just let me touch them… I’d give a lot of things for Casey to let her guard down and let me in but, for now, I’ll settle for our banter during my once a night phone call to ask her to dinner. She always says no. Cheeky woman. It’s become a standing joke with her callers following suit but, if I can’t have her, she better damn well tell them no. I clench my fist momentarily. The desire to go inside the building, haul her fine body over my lap, and spank her lovely ass to a rosy pink is tempting. So damn tempting. But, right now, I’ll just drive around the city until her show finishes.
This is our nightly routine and one I’ve seldom missed. On the nights I have, I always send Tucker or my driver to take her home. I don’t like her neighborhood or her apartment building, and I especially don’t like the dickhole who lives on her floor next door. Smug bastard always has some comment or a leering look I’d love to beat off his face. I don’t because last time I threatened to, Casey refused a ride home from me for nearly two weeks. I don’t think I could take that again, so I drive around the block until her show finishes and I can pick her up. Jamal just came on the radio, so I know it’s a matter of minutes before she exits through the front doors of the building. We play it causal, but she knows I’m going to keep at it.
“James, why do you insist on doing this?” Casey tilts her head asking me the same question she asks every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday nights. She walks up to my car dressed in some unflattering dress that covers every square inch of her real estate from her neck to her thighs. The only perk is that the fabric pulls together, hugging her figure.
She’s leaning into the passenger window and I nod for her to get in the car. She slides inside my BMW, fastens her seat belt promptly, then sneers her pert nose at my car. Sighing, I give her the same answer I always do. “For the same reason you get in my car every single time.”
Casey would take the bus home if I let her, but I don’t. My fingers itch to tap her on the nose like a naughty kitten for taking such a dislike of my car. At least she’s wearing her black “fuck me” boots, over-the-knee leather that cinches under her knees. Tiny chains hug her ankles and I’ve a good fantasy going on in my head about tying those legs up by her boots. The boots almost make up for her hideous dress and bratty attitude tonight. I wonder what she’d do if I demanded she strip the damn thing off.
I think we’re just fighting this insane attraction. “Are you hungry?” She shakes her head and cups a hand over her mouth, yawning deeply and teasing the shit out of me. I’d love to slip something else between those pouty pink lips of hers. Neither of us can sleep well at night. Me mostly because I fantasize about her, and her because she probably conjures up ways to eviscerate me with rejection three times a week.
“No, James. Just drive me home.” The voice that titillates the city of brotherly love sounds tired and my chest clenches. I should be tucking her in, not just dropping her off. “Don’t you have a date or something to go to?” Her lips twitch and I know what she wants to know. No, I’m not fucking anybody, just as she’s not fucking anybody. We should be kicking boots together, but she is so damn stubborn, she won’t let our mutual attraction do what it needs to do.
“The only standing date I have is driving you home, beautiful. Now relax and let me drive.” The rest of our ride is silent and I contemplate doing more than just dropping her off at her apartment building and walking her to her door…
CHAPTER 2
CASEY
Ever since I had a caller threaten me on the radio when I rejected his advances, James has insisted on this ridiculous behavior of driving me home every night I work the late show. He doesn’t talk about it and never brings it up, but I know it bothers him. It was unsettling at the time it happened. I thought I could handle it… until the creeper started to email the station and send inappropriate gifts several times a week. I don’t ask if the mailroom still gets stuff because I would never sleep at night. Now James has all of my incoming mail screened so I don’t have to see any of it. Do I consider that a perk of my job? No, not really.
The balls of my feet ache from walking dogs for the swanky folks who live on James’ side of town. I might have worn the boots just to screw with him, but I’m cursing myself for not bringing flat shoes with me for the barking bitches I had to deal with earlier. When James pulled up to the curb in his hot and sexy car, I can’t say I wasn’t totally fine with it. My poor little piggies will get a rest on the short ride home and I won’t have to fight some vagrant man, who reeks of too much booze, for a seat on the bus. We trade snarky comments and he smiles at me under the glow of the interior light of his car. I see his dark hair is rakishly brushed back, choppy lanks falling in just the right places. It’s unfair for a man to have such great hair. Thick brows define his face, and his eyes penetrate my chest, causing it to ache. I push it down. He’s my boss, but we’ve been at this game a long time, resisting each other.
I try with everything I have to hold the yawn back, but I can barely do that. He’s gone quiet and is focused on driving, weaving in and out of traffic, and that’s fine with me. I burrow deeper into the leather seat of his car, lulled by the soft music he plays by an artist I’ve never heard of, and feel him turn up the heat. It’s seducing me into closing my heavy eyes, and the last thing I remember is the briefest touch of his fingers threading through my hair.
James slowly wakes me by stroking down my hair and gently rubbing his hand over my arm. He squeezes my shoulder, and I look at him. Those eyes are full of something I’m not sure I can handle emotionally, but I can’t seem to say no to.
“You fell asleep, beautiful.” The smell of him is all man inside this enclosed space and I swear it’s a drug, pulling at me to make bad decisions.
“Mmm.” There’s a lot I could say in response, but I’m unnerved, wondering how long he’s been looking at me. I limit my verbal response because, yes, this man entices very bad decisions.
James has an uncanny ability to know what I’m thinking. “I admit driving around the block a few times. I didn’t want to wake you once you nodded off. You seemed… peaceful.” Smiling, he trails his fingers over my face gently and, in my half-awake state, I turn my cheek into his warm calloused palm. He wiggles a finger to stroke that sensitive spot and I sit up, wide awake, and push him away.
“I should find that creepy, but I’m really too tired to think it through. You’ve been pushing my boundaries lately, James.” I cross my arms defensively. How dare he? Yet… I want to dare him to keep pushing me to play the tape through to the end.
“I want you and I believe you want the same thing, too.” James rests his hand against my face a second time, trailing it around to cup the back of my neck, drawing me in. Our eyes are looking and searching, and he’s pulling me closer.
“I shouldn’t want this,” I mutter, inches away from his lips. Our breath co-mingles and his mint stings my mouth and nose sharply, pleasantly.
“But you do.” James leans in further.
“You’re my boss.”
“And?” His question lingers between us and I feel forced to fill the silence quickly.
“I’m not going to have dinner with you.” Shaking my head no does nothing to deter him.
“It’s a little late in the evening for dinner don’t you think?” Chuckl
ing James renews his efforts and I’m helplessly struck down.
“You’re my boss.”
“You said that already, and that’s the most bullshit excuse you’ve given me since we met.” His lips touch mine, cutting off any retort I might have had. His tongue darts out for a sample, and my own tangles with it. I’m shocked, but don’t move away because he’s right. I do want this. I want this so fucking much, my thighs squeeze together. I wish I wasn’t wearing this dress that’s strangling the breath out of me, as much as James is sucking it from my lips.
* * *
JAMES
Casey shudders under my touch and the knowledge that I did this to her charges through me. I bet if her skin was exposed, instead of in this unflattering dress, I could see the goose bumps peppering her pearly skin. Her breath is light and tastes sweet. When she’s on air, she likes to suck on these strawberry candies. It’s the only thing she’ll have while she’s working. I have my PA order them in bulk and put them in a little crystal dish on her desk. She’s barely made a dent in the stash I keep for her, but I want to make sure she never has a reason to leave my employ. Hell, I’d give her a raise if I didn’t think it would draw the board’s undue attention.
Casey clears her throat and draws my focus back to her. “Are we staying in the car all night, James?” Her lips move against mine and I don’t want to pull back, but the car is less than ideal for making out and can get cramped if we try anything else.
“Let me walk you up.” This is usually where Casey puts all her defenses back up, like a Jedi force field, and mind fucks me from a distance. I let her go and feel the remote coolness once we distance ourselves. Like a good girl, she waits for me to open her door. The one time she got out of the car and didn’t wait for me to open the door like a proper gentleman, I walked her to her door and pushed her inside to put her over my knee. Three hard spanks to the soft skin had her squealing in shock, but she never again disobeyed my desire to open doors for her. I told her what would happen if she tried to do that again. I can handle her rejecting me, but I won’t tolerate her having me treat her as less than a lady.