by Piper Lawson
“Listen, we just need to build a thing that gets the judges off, yeah?” Adam gripes, nodding to the robot. “A little refinement and it can jack you off, Professor.”
Madison groans and I rub a hand over my face.
“Not my type, but thank you, Adam.”
Royce frowns. “We’re here to design something that could change the world.”
Adam looks at all of us. “And by that they mean make cash.”
“Or you could do something that actually makes a difference.” We all turn toward Sawyer. “Everything we design starts with a vision of what could be. A future that’s different than the present we’re living in. You could try to make everyone’s world better, not only your own.”
My heart thuds against my ribs. It’s as much as I told him before at Fall Ball.
“And before you forget, there’s an important call to discuss the requirements for the next phase of the submissions. I assume you’ll all be there enthusiastically taking notes,” he continues.
Groans go up. “It’s midterms,” Royce sighs.
Madison shakes her head. “Whatever, we’ll be there.”
But I step forward. “It’s okay. I’m the team lead, I’ll take care of it.”
“You’re the best.” Adam reaches out to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear before I can stop him.
I don’t look at Sawyer, but I feel his attention scorching my skin.
“And you’re out of materials.” Sawyer nods to Adam. “You can head to the supply room to get more.”
It’s grunt work but Adam doesn’t blink. He’s probably happy for a reprieve, and to stretch his legs. “Need your pass, Professor.”
“It’s okay. Mine has enhanced permissions. I’ll go too.” The words are out before I think to stop them. The reason mine has enhanced permissions is because Lancaster made them that way, which is a sore spot for Sawyer. But I hop off the counter where I’m seated.
“You think you two can find it?” Royce says. “No hooking up in the supply room.”
Adam laughs.
Sawyer’s heavy stare settles on my back until we’re out the door.
“Seriously. As if we can’t do basic electrical engineering without having to practice,” Adam starts as we head down the hall. “This is where you say ‘you’re imagining things, Adam, he has our best interests at heart.’”
I snort. “He’s punishing us. Something crawled up his ass and he’s taking it out on us.”
Adam’s laughter echoes off the walls.
We find the room and swipe my pass by the door.
The design lab supply room is its own warehouse, more than a dozen rows lined with shelves and drawers of computer chips and LEDs, microcontrollers and wires. There are boards and chips and tools and soldering equipment.
It’s a dream, or it would be if someone kept on top of organizing it.
We go to different aisles in search of the components we were sent here for.
A moment later, I’m pressed up against one of the shelves by a very hard, very angry professor.
“What are you doing?” His voice is a rasp, his body taut and distracting as his best parts line up with mine.
“Sourcing a bunch of bullshit my professor sent me to find.” I cock my head. “Wanna help?”
His eyes are dark, his lips thin. “I didn’t send you. I sent him.”
“And why is that? Because I’m on speaking terms with Adam?”
“According to you it’s because something crawled up my ass.”
Shit. Of course he heard that.
“It’s not my ass you should be worried about,” he finishes, and my eyes narrow.
“If you want to help the team, help us. We don’t need to be lectured at, and we don’t need to build circuits until our fingers are cut.”
“Hey, Liv? You find the stuff on your half of the list?” Adam calls.
“Working on it!” I call back.
Sawyer moves closer. His hand is gripping my right arm, tugging me against him. “I’m not here to play games, Olivia.”
“Really? Because I’m here to work on a project that’s going to determine my future. Your presence is optional.”
We stand motionless for a moment, and my heart is racing. I push on his chest but he’s not moving. He grabs my other wrist and pulls me so close that I feel his breath on my neck.
“My father left you a sum of money. A very generous sum of money.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The attorney said she called you before the gala, which you failed to mention when we saw one another. Apparently you thought you could hide that little fact from me.”
So that’s what this is about.
The truth that I had no idea is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it.
“You’re right,” I retort. “I wanted his money. I was hoping he’d die and leave me a bunch of cash.”
“Stop it. You’re being a brat—”
“I didn’t know he had a son, but given what he left me, clearly I was better to him than his own child ever was.”
His face goes white.
I’ve struck a nerve. In this man who claims to care about nothing, I’ve snuck beneath his defenses and hit him where it hurts.
Regret slams into me. I wanted a reaction from him, but not this one. I’m about to take it back when Adam’s voice interrupts from a few rows away.
“Liv, I think I found it.” He’s far too close for how our professor is currently boxing me against the shelf, chest heaving. “But I need to go get one more thing on the list. It says there’s stock here but I don’t see any. I’m going to check in the supply closet, maybe it got moved there.”
Sawyer and I stare each other down until I hear the click of the door.
My throat works. “I didn’t mean—”
“I don’t want your apology.” He turns away and the moment his touch is gone, I miss it.
“Then what do you want, Professor? What makes us even?”
Because no matter what’s between us, there’s no excuse for what I said to him.
Sawyer is being a jerk but I wasn’t playing fair. He brings out a side of me that’s impatient and needy and angry and vulnerable.
“You mean it.” His eyes flash.
“Anything.” My pulse thuds in my throat, but I’m not afraid of him. “You want to punish me, do your worst. But when we walk out of here, we’re on level ground.”
What I’m afraid of is that he’s going to leave and I’ll lose him forever.
We’re trapped in a hopeless cycle. I can’t have him, I shouldn’t want him, but I still do, and maybe he feels the same way.
In the tension of his body, the clench of his jaw, I want to believe he gives a shit. I want to believe he cares.
He turns it over and I see the moment he decides.
He pulls me to a low file cabinet at the end of the aisle. “Bend over.”
“If you want more lace to jerk off with, you can go to Victoria’s Secret and buy it yourself.”
His low chuckle lifts the hairs on my arms. “This time, it’s not fabric I’m taking.”
If he’s not stealing my underwear again, then what…
I do as Sawyer asks, folding at the waist and lying there, the cool surface of the cabinet against my face.
“It’s not my ass you should be worried about.”
My body throbs, reminding me he hasn’t touched me in more than a week.
Is it messed up that part of me wants him to fuck me right now? That as much as I want to walk out that door, I want him to spread my thighs and sink into me from behind, his possessive hands holding me open and his raw groan at my ear?
Sawyer flips up my skirt and I feel my bare cheeks in the open air.
If his heavy exhale is a warning, his words are an alarm.
“Have you ever been spanked?”
The breath trembles between my lips, heat curling low in my stomach. “No.”
I’m afrai
d now.
Not of the pain. But every time we do something new, it leaves a mark on me I can’t wash away.
He might be angry with me but he’s turned on, too. It’s a kind of power—the only one I have.
It’s not. I can leave.
But if I do, I shut a door I’m not prepared to close.
Because part of me still hopes for him. For us.
“You took advantage of my trust. There are consequences.”
His trust. Those two words make my heart kick.
He did trust me, if only a little. He did let me in, if only for a moment.
He sets his watch on the cabinet next to my face, the second hand ticking silently.
“One minute. You last, we’re done for today. The team can go home.”
He’s giving himself a time limit to break all the rules. Even the ones he hasn’t broken with me already.
“Unless you’re tapping out,” he finishes.
It’s one minute.
One minute to see if there’s something here I missed. Sort the truth from the lies, the ones he told me and the ones I told myself.
One minute to silence both our judgments and feel the connection that’s always been real between us.
The stakes have never been higher, and it’s not only because Adam could come back at any time.
“I’m not tapping out.”
I said I’d play. But Sawyer has to start.
The first smack lands on my right ass cheek.
It’s sharp. I yelp, more in shock than in pain.
I brace myself for another, focusing on the stinging spot on my skin that seems to spread with each moment.
But the second smack comes on the other side.
My fingers dig into the cabinet. This time, I swallow my sounds.
“You asked for this, Cherry.”
Is he reminding me or himself?
The pain fades but doesn’t disappear. There’s a matching throbbing on both sides of my butt.
The second hand on the watch is barely past the two.
It feels like I can earn his trust.
Earn him.
He adjusts my thong, tugging up to give him more of a canvas.
My core throbs as the fabric pulls tight across my flesh. My thighs clench together, but the tug of desire is only a momentary distraction when his hand comes back down.
He’s spanking me hard now, loud smacks that echo through the room.
My skin is on fire.
The second hand seems to slow down as it rounds the four. The six.
I can’t do another thirty seconds of this.
Right when I’m about to call him off, his hand returns, squeezing and then rubbing, soothing the pain.
My back arches and a tiny sigh slips out.
I’m confused. It hurts and then it doesn’t. It’s awful and then beautiful.
“Are you enjoying this?” His whisper is so low it’s barely audible.
Is he reading my mind or my body?
The rasp of his breathing says it’s affecting him every bit as much as me.
I twist and look up at him, my eyes burning.
His pupils are blown, but instead of looking open and exhilarated, he’s closed off.
Sawyer isn’t reckless and free-spirited. He’s wired to judge and condemn. He might be open when it comes to sex, but when it comes to trust, he’s jealous and stingy.
So when does it end?
The answer’s obvious. Never.
“Stop.”
His entire body recoils. He flips my skirt back down and steps back.
“I thought that this would make us even,” I start. “But it isn’t even about me. You’re getting off on punishing the world that screwed you over. I didn’t take the money,” I go on before he can respond. “I didn’t even know there was money. The lawyer called me but I hung up before she could tell me the details.”
I adjust my clothes while he watches with dawning horror.
“I never wanted to take from you. I wanted to meet you on level ground. Or as level as we could be given the circumstances.” I smooth my skirt down, wincing as my skin burns. “But I see now that will never happen, because you won’t ever let anyone in. So forget it, Professor. I’m done trying to earn anything from you.”
His dark eyes pin mine, and I refuse to be drawn in by the emotions in them. “Olivia—”
“I couldn’t find it.” The click of the door opening is lost in the sound of Adam’s voice. “Redmond’s going to have to go get it himself if he wants it so badly,” he says, rounding the corner.
He looks between us and I swipe at the corner of my eyes before he can spot my tears. I take a step toward him, behind him.
“You’re looking for this?” Sawyer reaches over to the shelf next to us and holds up the piece Adam was searching for.
Adam blinks, sheepish. “Oh. I must’ve missed it before.”
When the three of us walk back to the lab together in silence, I stick close to Adam.
This time, I don’t feel Sawyer’s eyes on my back.
I don’t think he’s looking at me at all.
7
Sawyer
“Would you like cream?” the barista asks.
“No. Black.”
The coffee lands in front of me, the color warm like caramel.
“Shit, you said black, didn’t you? It’s been a rough morning.” She grimaces. “I’ll remake it.”
I hold up a hand. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not, you asked for black—”
“I used to drink it with cream in school. I’ll get over it.” I force a smile and turn with my light-tinted coffee to head toward the back.
I pass the handful of occupied tables, a mix of town dwellers and Russell U students gossiping and studying at Some Like It Hot, a popular café that’s new since I was last in town.
What’s with the nice guy act?
I’m feeling guilty over what went down at the supply room. It was a new low. Not an emotional one, but a moral one.
This morning, I met Daniel for a run. It felt good to work out my arms and legs and get my blood pumping. But every footfall on the pavement had me thinking about Olivia.
What we had before last week: the way she melted in my embrace, how she kissed me back, how she opened up to me so easily.
Then the way she looked at me after she straightened her clothes in the supply room.
Finding out my dad left her fifty grand, I couldn’t see straight. Not because of the money but because it meant that he cared about her. And knowing her, she cared about him.
Hearing her and Adam joking in the hallway broke the last of my control.
I bent her over a cabinet and reddened every inch of her ass for how she made me feel, including the cheap insults she hurled my way once we were alone.
I’d only meant to shock her a little but I got carried away.
When I was done, she looked up at me with those stubborn dark eyes full of accusation and said she didn’t even take the money.
What I couldn’t say was it punished me as much as her.
I sink into a seat, setting my notebook on the table.
Maybe there is something wrong with me.
I can blame my father all I want, but there was a sliver of darkness in my heart before I ever met Albert Lancaster, and it outlived him.
I pull up the student essays I started reading the other day, but the ringtone on my phone interrupts before I get far.
“Sawyer,” my former partner says.
“Graham. So you’ve finally called to offer me my half of the company back.”
“It seems as if you’re trying to take it.” A pause. “One of our junior engineers said you’ve been asking who’s interested in moving.”
“Did you expect me to deny it? I don’t deny facts.”
“I didn’t call to discuss what happened last year.”
There’s an old New York magazine on the windowsill from whoever was here last, and I thu
mb through the business news. I stop when I see a piece about both of us.
“Can you even look her in the eye?” I drawl. “If I had a daughter I put up to lying to the entire world like you did, I sure as hell couldn’t.”
When we founded the company five years ago, it was a balance of client work and our own projects—the former paid the bills. But it was always our aspiration to do more cutting-edge development.
The tension came to a head last year when I decided to allocate a few million in budget to new projects without proven markets yet.
He said no. Like the company wasn’t half mine, too.
I pointed out he was stuck in the past, like every other firm in New York.
So instead of dealing with it man to man…
He set a trap.
One there was no hope of avoiding.
The day after, the entire staff looked at me like they weren’t sure what kind of man I was.
I’m the ruthless kind. The reckless kind.
When the world doesn’t care enough, you have to look out for yourself.
“Stay away from our talent,” Graham warns.
“The talent we built.”
“The talent I built. You were never a team player. That was your downfall, and continues to be your legacy.”
“And you tethered yourself, our company, and every one of its employees to the past. That will be yours.”
I click off, tossing the magazine back on the windowsill.
A set of four files I emailed to myself sits in my inbox.
The student essays. The three I read were predictable. Family legacy. Industry reputation. Becoming the first person with a professional degree.
There’s one I didn’t open yet.
Olivia’s.
It felt like invading her privacy.
But yesterday threw me. She’s not going to speak to me, yet I need a piece of her. She wrote this for my father, to him. I want to see her like he did.
Now, here in public, I open the essay.
I wanted to be a dancer for as long as I can remember. Most people think ballet is glamorous; it beautifies graceful women and men. When I tied the ribbons on my pointe shoes, it felt like I was going to war. I put my body through hell for a kind of competence. I thought my work would be rewarded, but it wasn’t. Because merit only counts for part of it.