Broken Record

Chapter 15: Stevie

Stevie's first instinct was to flee. To get up and run out of this place, the adrenaline pumping hard throughout her body, harder than she'd ever experienced because she was constrained. And even though she was full-on panicking, regret filling her like a fullspeed hose in a water tank, she couldn't ignore the dark, murky thought that while this feeling was truly terrifying, it was also incredible.

She started to roll away like some sort of worm, realizing just how restrained she was, and she felt the edge of the padded table at her back.

"Don't. Move." Benton bit out his words, something like a snarl contorting his lips. Stevie froze in place aside from the rapid rate of her breathing, the sudden fear of not getting enough oxygen coursing through her veins, making her eyes go wide and her vision fuzzy. Benton bent down lower, meeting Stevie at eye level.

"Breathe, Stevie. In and out." Benton kept staring at her as his hand moved to the ties at her back, first freeing her wrists from her ankles and then each limb from one another. Stevie bolted upright, more wobbly on her feet than she'd expected to be and again Benton was there to calm her despite the incinerating rage in his dark crystal blue eyes. He wrapped his strong arm around her back, gently massaging the skin at one of her wrists as normal blood flow resumed.

"Sit." He led her toward a chesterfield style leather sofa and she sat at his command. Once he could tell she was safely seated, he stepped several feet away, placing his palms behind him on the padded table. He hung his head and Stevie could see the hard edge of his jaw grinding dangerously, clearly deep in thought. Meanwhile Stevie's head felt completely clear. Blank. The humming sensation in her body made up of pins and needles as blood returned to where she'd been tied. She'd nearly lost it when she heard his voice. When a tall, strong businessman entered the room she'd felt a flutter of excitement, but when he'd commanded her to lay down, she knew. She knew it was Benton. And yet she'd stayed, thinking her disguise would see her through and that the edge would be worth it. Well I was right about the latter, Stevie thought. Now time for the fallout...

Benton finally looked up, his eyes meeting hers. He dragged his thumb across his bottom lip and Stevie squirmed in her seat.

"Why are you here?" Benton's voice was low, unreadable.

"I...I honestly don't know--"

"Bullshit." Benton stood up straighter, crossing his arms over his chest and Stevie didn't miss the impressive outline of a bulge in his slacks. She swallowed hard.

"How did you know about this place?" His dangerously calm tone returned and Stevie felt like she was at the other end of a conference table rather than in a dimly lit sex room.

"Mary, she--"

"Mary?" Benton's eyes snapped. "She knows about this?"

"Well, uh, not quite...more like I think she's trying to find out...you know, where you go on your secret weekly meetings..." Stevie's voice trailed off as Benton's eyebrows shot up high on his bronzed forehead.

"And how do you know that?"

Stevie took a deep breath and decided to just spill the rest since she was already well on her way to hell at this point, and probably facing very real jail time considering the man in front of her had been her only chance at avoiding charges.

"So, well, okay, one night I was at the studio late, you know? Sometimes Aero and I like to stay late. But this time I was by myself and it was like 2:00 AM. I saw that Mary's computer screen was updating or something and then her desktop was just like, bam, right there! So I snooped a little, and I know I totally shouldn't have, but she just seems like she really doesn't like me or something, and then I found this document, sort of like a list. She's trying to figure out where you go and what you do in your weekly private meeting and so then I was like, I mean, yeah what does he do? I'm just the most horribly curious person on Earth, I swear. And so, I put on a disguise and followed you here last week and then met this gray-haired man at the bar downstairs and--"

"Enough." Benton held up his hand like Stevie had seen him do back at the office. She took in a gulp of air, her mouth and throat suddenly very dry.

"Could I, if you don't mind, have a glass of water?"

Benton's stance shifted, growing taller. He moved toward Stevie slowly, his head slightly tilted.

"You violate my company's IP and show up on my doorstep where I give you an offer from the heavens and then you hack into my personal scheduler's computer after hours and decide to put on a disguise to follow me, only to end up tied and bound to a table where I was about to be balls deep inside of you, and yet you have the audacity to ask me for a glass of fucking water?" Benton growled, a very slight sense of amusement warring with anger on his handsome face. Stevie opened her mouth but couldn't get a sound to come out. Benton walked away quickly and for a moment Stevie wondered if he'd left. Just like that. But a few seconds later he returned with a cold water bottle. Stevie took it with shaky hands and downed about half of it in a single gulp.

"Better?" Benton's voice had a ring of genuine inquiry to it and Stevie nodded quickly.

"I'm s-sorry." Stevie cleared her throat, hating how her voice shook. Her body still felt like it was humming, but the sensation had simmered lower over the past several minutes.

"Are you?" Benton's tone was dark but impossibly hopeful and Stevie's heart raced at his question, warring with herself whether to be fully honest again or not.

"Not completely, no," she crossed her legs, a flush crawling up her neck.

"Go on." Benton sat down next to her on the couch, several feet between them.

"I...I hate that I snooped on Mary's computer. I know that was wrong. But also, why is she tracking you? I mean, not that I have any place to judge."

"Why did you?" Benton met Stevie's eyes and her heart raced, even though an alarm bell rang at the back of her head that Benton seemed to avoid discussing Mary in any detail.

"Why did I...follow you here?"

"Yes, Stevie." Benton's voice dripped with impatience.

"I mean, part of it is just you. You're so...unusual. Mysterious. Almost alarming. I think everyone around you feels that to some degree," Stevie glanced down at her hands in her lap, not able to look Benton in the eye any longer, "but the other part is more selfish. For me. I don't know what it is or why it is...I mean my sister isn't this way. My parents aren't either. But I just need volatility, you know? I just always have to go and seek out some sort of trouble, some risk. It's like a magnet for me and I can't function without it even though it has the ability to ruin me...I mean, it's the same as pirating music, you know? God, I'm sorry I'm sure I'm not making any sense and you--"

"No, don't be. I mean, yes you crossed several boundaries and should feel sorry about that but," Benton inhaled a sharp breath, reaching his hand out toward Stevie's neck, tilting her chin up to look at him and cupping her jaw roughly in his hand, "the rest of your response is...perfect. It's how I feel. All the goddamn time. And this," he gestured toward the room, "is how I handle it. How I control it. Does that make sense?"

Stevie felt the heat of his gaze, her body pulling closer to him of its own volition. Did she understand? Not really, not enough. But she wanted to understand more. Learn what this room could do, what more it could make her feel. What cliff edges Benton and his skilled hands could bring her to?

"I want to understand." Stevie's voice was a whisper, her few words containing so much more. She was asking him to teach her.

"God, Stevie," Benton threaded his hand into her long natural hair, pulling her face closer to his, "do you have any idea what that means to a man like me? How long it's been since I've heard a woman say that?" Before Stevie could respond, Benton closed the last few inches between them, his strong warm lips pressing against hers.