Page 35 of X: Command Me through Alexander’s Eyes

Peters & Clarkwell takes up one floor of a nondescript office building not far from Westminster. The benefit of this is that everyone here is busy going about their days. Work and lunch and whatever else normal people did during the week.

I shove my hands into my jeans and stroll toward the lift, pleased that no one seems to notice my appearance. Apparently, the paparazzi hasn’t caught up to where she works. Yet.

There’s no use pretending that she’ll remain a secret now. They’ll follow her incessantly. My father will demand answers. I didn’t lead her into hell gently. I’d dropped her into the inferno. She needs me to protect her now.

I’m planning to tell her—planning to explain exactly how things are going to be when the lift slides open, revealing her. Her knuckles are white on her bag’s strap. Her cheeks are burning with a lovely shade of embarrassment. Every ounce of me wants to shove her against a wall, hike up her skirt, and show her that I’m capable of all the things I’d promised in those sodding text messages.

She stumbles when she spots me, but before I can respond, she straightens and heads straight for me. I hadn’t expected that.

Clara Bishop is strong.

Good.

She needs to be.

The buzzingbehind her reminds me more of a beehive than an office. Heads pop over cubicles. There’s a woman whose tea is dripping on the floor as she holds the cup at an odd angle. Every person in the office is staring at me. I only care that she’s staring, even if her glare is murderous.

It’s a pity all these people are here because Clara Bishop is sexy when she’s angry. I can’t help thinking about the perfect body under her proper office clothes—of what I want to do to it.

“What are you doing here?” She crosses her arms over her chest, still fuming, but now that she’s closer, I realize the fury stops before it reaches her eyes. I recognize the hungry, wild look she can’t hide. It had been there when I took her to bed. I’d seen it as I pushed her to the edge and then over it. Her breath catches, and I can almost hear her say it. Yes, please. She’d been so polite with her desire. So eager. So pliant. I want her to say those words again.

“You’ve had long enough. I need to talk to you.” I don’t give her the chance to argue with me. I doubt she would in front of her co-workers. Instead, I take her by the arm gently—I’ll save the roughness for when I get her into bed—and lead her toward the lift.

But she’s not exactly following my lead. Her body is rigid, coiled tight, and I wonder if it’s her anger or how long it’s been since I fucked her that’s bothering her.

“Couldn’t you text me?” she asks dryly, sounding anything but amused.

I sigh and drop her arm as we step inside the lift. “I guess you saw that, too.”

But I don’t wait for her response. I can’t wait. I’m on her, pressing her body against the stainless steel wall of the lift. I need to feel her body against mine. My hands pin her wrists above her head as my hips lock against her. I know she can feel my cock pressing into the soft flesh of her abdomen. I might be going too far. She’d made her feelings clear the last time I saw her, but I hadn’t imagined the connection between us. It hangs between us now, an invisible thread pulled tight between her body and mine. Surely, she feels it. She has to.

“Alexander!” Her cry is half panic, half prayer.

“Why haven’t you answered my texts?” I demand.

“The whole world can read that you want to go down on me on a gossip site, and you’re worried about that?” she stammers, her eyes widening. Her body stays perfectly still, resisting the tug of that connection between us. It’s too controlled, but I sense something more lingering under the surface of her rebuke: concern.

Concern for me.

She has pushed me away. And she has come when I’ve called. She’s torn between my warnings and my temptations. The truth is that she’s too good for me—too kind, too normal—and we both know it. So why don’t I just let her go? I think of the texts and the lying tabloids. It’s been a long time since I gave a shit what any of them had to say. But I care now—I care what she thinks. I don’t want her to believe them.

“I don’t give a damn what they can read!” This realization explodes from me, and I back away, afraid I’ll scare her. “Why do you care what they think, Clara?”

“Me?” Her hand goes to her heart—to the one part of her I will never let myself have. “You were the one who wanted to meet me in secret at a fucking hotel!”

It takes me a moment to process this. She thinks I was hiding her because I was ashamed? As though any man wouldn’t want the world to know the things he’d done to a woman like her. “I did that to protect you. You were scared of the paparazzi.”

“They were reporting we were in a relationship,” she says, “and I didn’t know who you were at the time.”

“We are in a relationship,” I tell her even as my brain struggles with the concept. We are? Where did that come from? I’m surprised to discover that I do very much care about this fact—and it is a fact to me. Clara Bishop belongs to me. She did then, and she does now.

Her mouth opens, her perfect lips are wide but unmoving. She blinks as if clearing her thoughts. When she finally speaks, confusion coats her words. “We broke things off.”

“You were overwhelmed, and I gave you space, but did you think I would allow you to end things like that?” I ask. “I made it clear that I hadn’t had my fill of you.”

“But you didn’t want to be seen with me,” she babbles, her eyes darting between me and the floor. “You can’t pick and choose when to be in a relationship!”

“I wanted to protect you.” I brush my index finger along the curve of her cheekbone, marveling at the supple softness of her skin. “I didn’t want to scare you. I can do that all on my own.”