Page 9 of Boardroom Mask

That being said, he hasn’t hurt me. Not really. The wall slamseemedrough, objectively, but now that I think about it, he kind of cradled my head with his other hand as he did it, like he’d rather take the brunt of the damage than let me feel a bit of it. Now, he’s talking to me, giving me options, using full sentences. That’s not the behavior of someone who broke in out of some lurid desire to assault and violate me.

Track three: If I don’t kneel, he’s going to force me down, and I believe that threat instinctively. Men who speak like that, with that much authority and certainty in their voice, don’t make idle threats. They certainly don’t break into women’s homes, throw them up against a wall, and clamp gloved hands over said women’s mouths if they don’t intend on following through with whatever they came here to do.

So I kneel.

I lower myself to the floor, slowly, and turn to face the wall. My knees press into the cold hardwood. I lace my fingers behind my head.

As I go through all those motions and my mind whirs in three-plus separate directions simultaneously, I’m feeling all the usual suspects.

Fear, that ever-present feminine terror that comes from living in a world full of rough, violent men.

Anger, that this is happening here, in my home, my safe space.

Panic, in awhat can/should/must I do to get out of thissort of way.

Regret, that my Taser is in my bedside table next to the vibrators instead of in my hand where it might actually be useful.

Beneath all that, though, in a place that doesn’t operate with words or logic…

… there’s something else.

It’s a hot something. A dark something. A liquid something. A primal something. It’s a shapeless flame that’s surging along pathways I haven’t felt in a long, long time.

It shows itself in some obvious ways. Flushed skin. Accelerated pulse. Trembling fingers. Weak knees. That could all be easily explained away as byproducts of The Fear, if it weren’t for that subtle, nonverbal certainty, low in my belly, that it has nothing to do with fear at all.

Because this thing isdesire.

Something is deeply, profoundly wrong with me.

I settle into the kneeling position, like he ordered. “There? Happy?” I ask, unable to stop myself from sounding pissed-off, even if that’s a pretty unwise move, all things considered.

My eyes are closed, but I can practicallyfeelhis nod, his pleased smirk. “Good girl,” he says.

“Donotcall me that,” I snap.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not your good anything. I’m a woman kneeling on her own floor because some psychotic fucking lunatic broke intoher apartment. That doesn’t make megoodand it sure as hell doesn’t make meyours.”

“No,” he agrees, perfectly reasonable. “Not yet, at least.”

His scent announces his proximity. He smells like fire. Cinnamon, spicy in an alluring way. Sandalwood. Musk. It’s all so hot and greedy that, when the heat of his body tells me he’s moved even closer still, I almost sigh in relief, like this is how things are supposed to be.

Then I snap myself out of it.The fuck they are! Things arenothow they’re supposed to be. Things are extremely fucked-up right now, as a matter of fact, and you need to get your sex-starved mind out of the gutter and back in the situation, or your skull is going to end up on this man’s mantel.

“So,” I say to the wall, “are we going to talk, or are you just going to stand there breathing on me?”

“If you’d like to talk,” he replies, “we can talk.”

“Great. You first. Who are you?”

He clucks his tongue in mild disappointment. “That’s not how this works.”

“Oh, there arerulesnow? You break into my apartment, manhandle me, and there arerules?”

“There are always rules, little fox.”

“Don’t call me that, either.”