Keeping Her

by Holly Hart

  He moves slowly, reactions worn world-weary by the alcohol coursing through his system. Yet strangely he doesn’t seem too unsteady. I guess he has spent so many years pouring liquor down his throat that it doesn’t affect him like ordinary men, not anymore.

  I glance up at the living room clock. Damn it. It’s already a quarter past one in the morning. I know from long, bitter experience that this night is only just beginning.

  “Okay, get in here, dad,” I say. “Now!”

  I try hard to bite it down, but a hint of my irritation comes out. More than a hint. And yet it seems to work. He winces, and then at least attempts to apply some kind of discipline to his expression.

  “Can you give me a hand up, baby,” he whimpers, looking up at me helplessly. “My legs aren’t working like they used to.”

  “That’s the drink, dad,” I grunt irritably. And yet … and yet I do it anyway. Because what the hell else am I going to do? What the hell else can any child do but help their parent?

  For all his sins, despite whatever Robert Warren has done in his life, he’s still my father. And I know that I’d never be able to forgive myself for not helping him.

  I reach out my hand. My dad takes it with blubbering eyes, and I pull him up to wobbly feet.

  “Thanks, baby,” he grunts, sending a stream of super-heated, alcohol-laced breath crashing against my face like waves colliding with boulders on a rocky beach. “Just … just don’t look at me, okay?”

  His tone is quiet, low, even ashamed.

  “Why not, dad” I ask, struggling for breath as I help carry him into my apartment.

  “I know what you think of me,” he says, slurring for the first time. “I know I’ve let you down.”

  “You haven’t, dad,” I say, kicking the door shut behind me. It’s a lie – a white one, maybe – but a lie nonetheless. The truth is, my father has let me down – tonight, and so many other nights, and he knows it.

  It might even be the guilt that’s eating him up inside – the guilt that he hides from through the haze of alcohol, or the guilt that’s driving him to drink.

  “I wasn’t always like this, you know,” he says, head slumped forward. “A drink –,” hiccup, “– a drunk.”

  “I know, dad,” I say.

  With a grunt, I heave my father forward onto the couch. He falls in a heap, and I glance up at the clock once again. Another five minutes has passed. I’m going to be exhausted tomorrow, a complete wreck.

  “I mean it,” he sniffs, looking back up at me, helpless once again. “It’s just, after your mom died – ”

  “Dad, please,” I beg, cutting him off. “Don’t!”

  I don’t want to hear my mom’s name. I don’t want to hear dad’s grief yet again, because it’s an unpleasant reminder of the emotions I’ve forced down, forced into the darkness, into a place I seldom venture.

  It’s as if he doesn’t hear. I see a wetness glistening in his eyes, then silent tears streaming down his wrinkled, dirt-smudged face.

  I look at my father – angry at what he’s become. I’m battling with an overwhelming desire to help him out of this hole he’s in, but I want to turn away. The professional inside me knows that I can’t make him overcome his problems with alcohol – he has to want to fix himself.

  “She was the best woman I’ve ever known,” dad says, a whimper cracking his tone. “The most beautiful girl at prom, the smartest woman at any dinner party, the best cook, the best mother…”

  “Dad – ”

  He carries on, unhearing. The tears are flowing like a river now, relentlessly coursing down his cheeks, wetting the couch cushions beneath him.

  “I’ll never forget the day you were born,” dad says. His voice, though weighed down with grief, seems stronger now, as if he’s taking strength from the memory. “Seeing your mom hold you in her arms was the most beautiful site any man could ask for. But now – ”

  “– she’s gone,” I murmur, slumping down onto the floor and resting my back against the couch.

  I can’t leave dad like this. I can’t leave him here alone, stewing in his grief.

  At least, that’s the lie I tell myself – The White lie. Because the truth is that I might be every bit as broken as my father. I’m just concealing it better.

  And that thought scares me more than anything.

  212

  Skye

  I get into the office early. The rest of the world barely even seems to have started turning. Tyler’s not in yet, that’s for sure.

  As I approach my office door, eyes still half-lidded from lack of sleep, a flash of color catches my eye. There’s a gift-wrapped box sitting on top of Tyler’s desk – black, with a knotted pink ribbon. It’s strange, out of place, and yet I almost ignore it as my legs plod onward, still weighed down by exhaustion.

  Thank God I don’t.

  I stop and turn.

  Tyler’s a by-the-book kind of guy. Even if he could, he wouldn’t receive personal items at work. I take a couple of paces over and look down, reaching for the tag peeking out from underneath the ribbon.

  It’s addressed… to me.

  The card tag feels expensive. It’s a thick, heavy cream card, beautifully textured. I pluck it out, and turn it over to read.

  Skye, I meant what I said last night. You’re going to fix me, and I’ll repay the favor a hundred times over. I’ll keep repaying the favor until your hips buck against my face, and you’re begging me to stop. I hope you like my gift.

  Oh. My. God.

  Did I just read that, or are my eyes playing tricks on me?

  The little note is unsigned, but I know exactly who it’s from. I snatch the box up, being careful not to drop the tag, and hurry into my office, casting anxious looks over my shoulder. My cheeks are burning with the heat of embarrassment … but maybe also a touch of desire.

  The second my office door closes behind me, the phone rings. I sprint for my desk and answer it. “Hello?”

  Harlan’s voice is on the other end of the line, crystal clear. “Did you get the gift I sent you, Skye?”

  “No…” I say.

  I don’t know why, but my brain automatically reached for a lie. I feel like I’m playing a game of cat and mouse with Harlan, only, I’m the mouse and he’s the cat. He’s playing with me as surely as a tiger might with its prey.

  “Don’t lie to me, Skye,” Harlan growls down the phone. I feel stuck on the spot, thrilled by his commanding tone of voice. And then he delivers a bombshell. “I’m watching you…”

  My head snaps round. “What –?” I squeak. “Where…”

  Adrenaline flows through my veins. I peek around my office, half-expecting to see my boss hiding behind a stack of books, or even the therapy couch his perfectly-toned body once rested on.

  “I’m not in there with you, Skye,” Harlan whispers, his voice pitched so low that I’m forced to strain to hear his delicious, tempting tones. “Look up.”

  Then it hits me. My neck springs upward, and I see the slow, flashing red light on the security camera, whose slow, lazy, metronomic movement has patrolled my office for so long I’d almost forgotten it existed.

  “But – ” I croak.

  “But what, Skye” Harlan asks in a whisper. “I’m watching you, Skye.”

  “Sessions are supposed to be private,” I say, searching desperately for something to say, even as my brain appears to have departed me. “You can’t –.”

  “I don’t care about your sessions, Skye. I won’t watch them. Just you. I’m addicted to you.”

  “What are you talking about?” I whisper, staring directly up at the lens of the security camera. I noticed that it has stopped moving, and is instead focused directly on me.

  It’s an unsettling feeling knowing that Harlan is watching me, yet being unable to see his face. He’s watching me with those eyes – those perfect, ice-cold, searching gray eyes.

  Harlan doesn’t reply.

  Not directly, anyway.

  “Put it
on,” he says. “I want to see you wearing it.”

  He can’t possibly mean…

  But he does. Of course he does. He’s Harlan fucking Wolfe – Wolfe by name, killer by nature. And I’m in his sights, I’m his prey.

  A shocked, electric tingle runs up my spine.

  “Harlan…” I whisper. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t?” My boss growls down the phone. “Or won’t? Because those are two very different things, Skye.”

  My heart beats, my thoughts – both pounding away at one hundred beats a minute. It feels like a caged animal now lives inside my chest.

  “Are you recording me?” I ask.

  Oh my God, if I’m asking Harlan a question like that, then I must be considering it!

  “Do you want me to?” Harlan asks dangerously.

  We both know that he’s already won. We both know that however much I might protest, I’m going to do exactly what he tells me. I’m his already, whether I know it or not. Because what I want – what I really want in life is worth so much more than a little embarrassment …

  … especially when it’s this hot.

  My chest rises and falls in ragged breaths as my mind races. My career – my life – flashes before my eyes. The rational, sensible, staid side of Skye Warren begs me not to entertain this fantasy.

  But that Skye’s voice’s volume level reverberates quieter and quieter.

  “Turn it off,” I whisper down the phone.

  Harlan pauses for a second before replying, a pause that resounds with satisfaction. “Done,” he says. “Now, I’ve carried out my end of the bargain, Skye…”

  He breaks off, daring me to argue. But I can’t – I won’t. I know exactly what he wants from me.

  It’s your turn.

  I close my eyes. One hand holds my phone pressed against my ear, and all I can hear is Harlan’s slow, measured breathing. The sound of his breath is completely at odds with that of mine. I hear my own panting, awkward nervousness replayed through the phone’s speakers.

  Harlan just waits.

  My other hand traces its way up my shirt, all the way to my neck. My index finger, almost acting on its own accord, traces a lazy circle around my neck, half one way, half the other, as if Harlan’s brain is guiding it. The touch seems to come from someone else, and sends an electric thrill running down my front.

  “The cameras are off, right?” I ask, my throat cracking with nervousness.

  This isn’t me.

  I’ve never done anything like this, not even close! When all the girls in high school were running around getting laid in the bed of their boyfriend’s pickup truck, or else getting frisky underneath the bleachers, I was studying.

  I was so sure that men couldn’t do anything for me because I couldn’t come – so what was the point – I never bothered testing the limits of what my desire could make me do.

  “No, Skye,” Harlan says in a soft, chiding voice. Then he pauses for a second. “But I’m not recording. I told you that. This is just between us.”

  I hold onto Harlan’s voice like it’s leading me out of the darkness.

  Then I do what he wants.

  My fingers hover nervously over my top button, heart thundering in my chest. Suddenly, I tug one button open, pause, then the next.

  Seconds later I’m standing there, cool air conditioned air kissing my soft stomach, eyes still closed, still listening to Harlan’s slow, steady breath.

  “Good girl,” Harlan says.

  Good girl. If any other guy had said that to me, I’d have found it creepy, but with Harlan… what a fucking turn-on!

  “Now the skirt,” Harlan says mercilessly.

  “No fair,” I complain, pressing my legs together as a heat ignites inside me. “Why don’t you have to do anything?”

  “I did,” Harlan chuckles as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I bought you the gift, Skye. This is my reward.”

  The skirt comes off easier. I tug it down an inch at a time at first, and then step out of it, standing there self-consciously in a plain set of underwear.

  It’s not my finest moment. I can only hope that the security camera isn’t too high a resolution. I’m suddenly uncomfortably aware that I’m almost naked. Maybe he likes what he sees.

  Yeah, right. This is Harlan’s office. He’s the kind of man who only goes for the best of the best – whether that’s restaurants, clothes, or…

  … women?

  “Fuck,” Harlan growls.

  He layers that one word with so much excitement, so much pure, animal lust that I know it’s not faked.

  “I know I’m no supermodel –,” I say with embarrassment, cheeks reddening in an instant.

  “Shut up, Skye,” Harlan half-moans. “You’re fucking gorgeous, you know that? If you don’t know that, you should. You’re the sexiest woman who’s ever stepped in this office, and that’s saying something.”

  Warmth sparks inside me. I know I shouldn’t feel pride about being complemented on my body, but I do. I guess it’s a natural reaction. I’ve spent so many years being embarrassed about how I look, I think it’s only right that I also get to reap the rewards?

  I think so, anyway.

  I glance down at the tissue-paper lined gift box, and the outrageously sexy lingerie staring back up at me. I consider what I’m doing – and what I’m about to do – and my face burns.

  “Look away,” I beg.

  “No way, Skye,” Harlan laughs down the phone I’m still holding pressed against my ear. “You think I’m going to miss the best of it? The climax?”

  He teases that word out – torturing me. The one thing I’ve never had, the one thing I thought I could never have. He dangles it in front of me, like bait to a fish.

  I hear a ping echo down the crystal-clear phone line.

  “What was that?” I whisper, desperately trying to distract Harlan away from his goal of getting me to strip completely naked on camera.

  I picture Harlan’s gorgeous, chiseled features as he glances at his computer screen.

  I hear a low chuckle. “You had better hurry, Skye. Your assistant just got in the elevator…”

  213

  Skye

  My heart is racing. The blood pounding in my ears sounds like the rushing of the sea.

  “What!” I squeak – an exclamation of fear, rather than a question.

  “Hurry, Skye,” Harlan repeats, unfazed. I can only guess at the amused smile teasing his lips. “You wouldn’t want Tyler to see you like this now, would you?”

  “I’m done!” I cry. “I’m done playing your games.” I crouch down, reaching for my discarded skirt and shirt.

  “Skye,” Harlan says, using a voice that's a throaty mix of menace and desire, “Stop.”

  I freeze, muscles locked as if they’ve been set in concrete.

  “You don’t…” I say, my voice dying in my throat.

  “Don’t what, Skye,” Harlan replies. “Control you?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and nod slowly. Sensible Skye is telling me that I should be embarrassed right now, or else terrified – but the truth is, I’m not. For one of very few times in my entire life, I’m completely turned on.

  Harlan has me in the palm of his hand, and he knows it.

  “Yes.” I whisper.

  “Stand up,” he says.

  I do.

  “Open your eyes,” Harlan orders.

  I do.

  “Look up, into the camera.”

  I follow Harlan’s cool, confident order to the letter.

  “Good girl,” Harlan says again. A tingle runs down my spine as he says it. “I want you looking at me when you do this…”

  My eyes meet the camera. The red, blinking light entrances me, but I’m uncomfortably aware of the metronomic ticking sound of my office clock that’s sounding out my demise. Tyler’s on his way up, and that means that time’s running out.

  “Now hook your thumbs into the waistband of your panties,” Harlan says, lowe
ring his voice to a whisper.

  The adrenaline running through my body spikes yet again and my knees go wobbly. I sway on the spot, but do as I’m ordered. My hands move quickly – aware that I could be discovered at any moment, my movements are jerky and awkward.

  “Slow down,” Harlan commands, taking delicious satisfaction in my discomfort. “I want to savor you, Skye.”

  There’s something unbearably sexy about what’s happening to me. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I want a man to bend me over and have his way with me, right now.

  And not just any man – Harlan Wolfe. He’s the kind of man I thought I could never have, the kind of man I never knew I wanted.

  But right now, he’s the man I need.

  And I do as he orders.

  My mind flashes back to the night before, in that high-end Manhattan strip club. Suddenly I realize that I’m that girl. Right now, I’m the stripper, and just like last night, when every pair of male eyes were turned in the direction of the stripper’s pale, alluring flesh, right now, Harlan only has eyes for me.

  What a fucking turn-on.

  “Do you think I’m sexy?” I ask.

  My voice is halting – not yet confident in my newfound profession.

  “I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, Skye,” Harlan replies down the phone, his voice hoarse with desire. It’s as good a lie detector as I’ll ever need.

  “That’s not what I asked,” I reply, digging courage from somewhere. It surges through me, giving me a new lease on life, and a strength I didn’t know I possessed.

  “Sexy, then” Harlan inquires, dragging out the question in more delicious torture.

  Then, in an aside, “The elevator’s moving, now, Skye. He won’t be long.”

  I feel the danger of discovery in yet more adrenaline streaming into my body. And yet for some reason, this time I refuse to be dissuaded. Harlan will answer me, no matter the consequences.

  “I’m not moving another inch,” I threaten, toying with the waistband of the panties, biting my lip and staring directly into the camera, “until you answer me, Harlan.”