The Stranger I Know (Dark Romance) (6 page)

Her expression changes from shock to anger. She doesn't look pretty when she's angry, and I mean that in the most offensive way possible. "Are you threatening me?"

"Yes," I say, dumping my purse on the floor and walking up to my desk. I slam my hands on the top of it. "Yes! I am, Stacie." I touch the edge of my hairline and make sure no stray strands escaped on my walk back. "If you don't find another job in another company, I'll tarnish your name so thoroughly that you'll look like nothing but a gutted and used up whore to anyone who even glances at your resume."

"What the hell? You can't do that."

I walk toward her and push my chair back. She backs away from me, trying to keep her distance. Good. I whirl around her and she starts backing toward my open door. "I can do whatever I want, Stacie. Don't you know who I am? Do you know what I did to get here?" My voice is harder than steel. I'm going overboard. I don't care. She's against the threshold, her hand gripping the frame of the door.

"You're just my supervisor."

"Just?" I roll the word around like it's toxic. "Just your supervisor? Read my plaque, Stacie. If you can. I'm an Executive Officer of this company. You just called the sous chef a busboy. Never step into my office again, and don't speak to me ever again. I want your shit out of this building by the end of the day."

"I thought you said," she stammers, "I could find another job!"

"You will, at home. I don't want to see your fucking face here again. Get out!" I shout and point out of the building. She stumbles back out of my office and turns away with tears in her eyes. A thrill rushes through me and calms my nerves, like a sharp shot of vodka. I walk up to my door and spy out into the cubicles and notice everyone's heard. I slam my door shut.

I lay on the floor again. I have to think. I rub my temples and keep my eyes closed. Anything to keep this migraine away. Practically murdering Stacie helped, but it wasn't enough.

She isn't who I really want dead.

A good hard fuck. That's what he said. Maybe he's right. From my prone position, I yank on the phone cord. The entire phone comes crashing to the floor, knocking the receiver free. Bits of plastic crack and break free on the floor. Whatever.

I take the receiver and dial the Stranger's phone. I memorize it like it's my social security number. I recite it to myself throughout the days. When I wake up, when I shower, when I eat. It's as automatic as my signature now. Which is... deranged?

The phone rings... and rings... then picks up.

"You're calling awfully early," the voice says on the other side. It's a bit indistinct, but not from background noise. Deep and powerful. Just hearing it makes me start to sweat.

"I need to meet," I reply. The Stranger doesn't answer right away. Did I break some rule he didn't tell me about? I don't think it counts if he didn't tell me. I can feel sweat drip down my temple and around my ear. Soft breathing comes over the line. He's still there. I don't ask.

"Tell me why," he says at last.

I don't want to. "Work related stress."

"Details."

"Does it really matter?"

"It could."

My head throbs. "I thought that was too personal. We aren't supposed to talk about this."

He breathes and is silent for a little while. The seconds feel like ages. "Meet me tonight."

Relief is already washing over me. A decision I don't have to make. "Yes."

He hangs up and the line goes dead. The drone of the phone goes on until I hang up the phone before pushing the entire thing away from me. It slips under my desk, the cords now wrapped around the legs.

I wipe my forehead and stand up. I feel a little weak, more than I should. Skipping meals isn't working out for me, and with all this extra stress, I'm that much more vulnerable.

A knock on my door forces me to scramble to my feet. I try and straighten my wrinkled clothes just as the door swings open. It's Michael.

He leans on the doorframe and eyes me suspiciously. "What were you just doing?" He points at the floor. "Why is your phone under your desk?"

I'm flushed and sweating. I was fidgeting when he walked in. I probably look like I just murdered someone. I swallow hard and take a deep breath. I walk behind my desk, and lean down to pick up the phone. As I set it on the surface, I open the microphone. I ignore my chair. "Taking a break."

"You don't get a break, Marcy," my boss says. His voice slices into the air. "I just heard from HR you fired Stacie? This looks really bad."

After the pink slip scare and James fucking with me, I can barely handle this right now. I'm at my absolute limit. I clench my fingers along the edge of the desk and fight to keep myself from shaking. Even more, fight myself from throwing the desk over on my boss and letting it break his legs. "What looks bad? That I fired someone incompetent?"

"She wasn't incompetent, just because you didn't like her. For whatever reason. I don't understand you women sometimes..." he tries to act like he said it under his breath, but his voice was loud and clear to me.

"Stacie was the definition of incompetence. The person who hired her should be fired for not seeing right through her at the interview. God, I saw her resume, too. It was full of shit."

"I hired her." He glares at me. It isn't a confession, it's a warning.

"Oh?" I say as I release my grip from my desk. I walk around to the front, while dragging my fingers along the polished surface. "So you should be the one getting fired?"

"I don't know where you're going with this but you better stop it right now, Marcy, you're walking on dangerous ground."

"How dangerous is it?" I dare him. I'm standing eye to eye to him now, my heels giving me the extra three inches I need to equal him. His face is flushed and he's staring at me like a lion stares at its prey. If the lion was wearing an ill-fitted button up and had sweaty palms. I push the gaze right back at him, just as his eyes flicker down to my breasts. I see where he thinks this is going.

"Did she suck your cock, Michael? Did she suck it to get the job?"

He's sweating. I can smell the stale coffee on his breath and his off brand deodorant. His sweat stained undershirt. His confusion. His anger. His impotence and the arousal it gives him.

"I bet she did a real good job, to push that kind of resume past anyone else. If I had seen it before the hire, I would've blocked it immediately."

He takes a step back from me and shakes his head. A strange smile crosses his lips. "What are you going to fire me, too?" He chuckles. "You don't have any proof, of anything. So what if she sucked my cock? So what if I blew a load all over her face? She liked it. She wanted it."

"Did she?" I take another step closer to him and stare him down like he's a child who won't listen. My glare makes him shiver visibly, which only makes me shudder with euphoria. "Or did you grab her head and force her to gag on your disgusting cock like the stupid animal you are?"

"I —" he hesitates.

"You want me to suck your cock now, too?" I ask. I lift my hand and twirl a couple of loose strands from my bun. I recall the unevenness of it, the strands that were cut lost in my car somewhere. "You'd like that?"

His face is like a red blister, ready to pop. He looks around, eyeing the blinds and checking, actually checking, if we'd have the privacy for something like that. He thinks I'm serious. I laugh, unable to keep it to myself.

He's bewildered and even more confused. "You're fucking crazy."

He moves toward me again, his hands raised and formed into claws. I stumble back against my desk and press another small button on the top of it. He stops dead in his tracks and stares down at it like it's an alien machine.

"I just recorded our conversation, Michael. If you're here to bust my balls about firing Stacie, who deserved it, or to give me shit about handling James Pierce, that's fine. But I don't want to see your face in my office again. Don't you dare knock and come inside uninvited." I narrow my eyes and imagine him shrinking into a pool of tears. He isn't crying, but his sweat might be that salty. He backs away, unable to say a word, and leaves my office.

I exhale slowly, savoring every second of power I had over him. Every moment of eagerness I saw wash through him and then drain his face pale. That kind of power. It's a head rush. I sit in my chair to catch myself, and pull myself forward against the desk again. I open the top of the desk phone and pull out the memory card and toss it on my desk. With a key from my ring, I unlock my drawer and place it inside with the others. A good handful of a dozen or more cards are scattered at the bottom of it. Other bosses who thought they were better than me. Who thought I was gunning for their position and tried to get me to quit. Who thought they could saddle me with grunt work.

They're all the same. Lustful, hungry, stupid animals. And just like animals, easy to manipulate and control.

All but one. I give him full permission to take that from me. That control I lust for so much, I let him have all of it.

But now there's another who doesn't bow before me and it infuriates me.

I need to eat. Then I need to get to the hotel and meet the Stranger again. Twice in one week... we haven't done that since the beginning.

T
he hotel lobby is empty. The gold walls and high chandeliers seem pointless without an audience of people to stare at them. They aren't as lustrous as they were when the building was first built. The receptionist recognizes me and doesn't say a word as she gives me my keycard and a small sticky note with the room number on it. The Stranger always gets here first and settles everything, which makes it that much easier for me to slip inside and slip out of my skin.

This time, the room is on the fifteenth floor. I step into the elevator, also empty, and tap the button. The elevator whirs to life and lifts me up, each story passing by in the blink of an eye. As I coast to a stop, the blood rushes to my head.

Not from the ride. Something else. A nagging feeling. Like an itch I can't quite reach. An inch at the back of my mind, inside my skull, inside my brain.

The gift he sent me is in my coat's pocket, and I can feel the bundled up material pulsating. It's my imagination, but in my mind the blindfold has a will of its own, all coiled up inside that dark hole. Will he be glad I brought it? Sometimes, it's hard to tell what he thinks. He's unpredictable like that, but that's what I like.

I find the room, 1539, and slip the keycard into the slot. The indicator light on the knob turns green and the deadbolt clicks open with a mechanical noise. Inside, the room is unsurprising. The decoration the same as the others, but the bathroom and beds are on the opposite side of what I'm used to. A nicer room than last time, at least. He splurged. I don't know where he gets the money, I certainly don't pay him for our time.

Sometimes I feel like I should. If he demanded it, I'd feel forced to give in. But he never has. I don't know if he ever will. My heart pounds the inside of my ribs like they're prison bars as I step around the corner to the bedroom. The Stranger is standing near the sliding glass door, staring over the cityscape. Night has fallen and the windows of a few other buildings are lit up. The rooms are lit up in a scattered way, as if the lights were left on by mistake or their owners are there, working hard into the night. Avoiding family? Who knows.

He's dressed sharp. A jet-black suit. He's holding his gloved hands behind his back, their leather skin stretching with his grip.

I'm staring so hard at his hands that I trip on the corner of the nightstand. He clears his throat. "You came."

"You didn't think I would?" I ask, surprised. I purse my lips, catching myself: "Sir."

He lets out a dark chuckle, the vibrations of his voice on my chest like a drum. I already feel like I'm covered in sweat. Walking into this room isn't walking into a normal hotel room. It's a jungle. The heat is cranked up, the humidity is high, and my nerves are on edge. I don't know if he does it all by himself, like some supernatural force, or if my body is just so sensitive to his every... whim.

"No. I knew you would," he says. He turns around to face me, and his mask greets me as it always does. Anonymously. I always think, 'this time, he'll go mask-less, and I'll finally get to see who he is.' I don't know why. If I knew who he was, it would ruin the magic, right? Or would it just mean I could have him whenever I wanted?

The mask isn't full-faced. It only covers everything from the nose and up. The slits around the eyes are so thin I can't even make out his eye color. The first time we met, I teased and tricked to slip his mask off. He made me never forget that moment with a bruise I asked for.

One that I'd brush against in the shower and think of, not with pain, but appreciation. The first time he lashed out at me and I deserved it. The first time anyone really had, and it was freeing. It was that lack of control that excited me. That time, it was enough of a release to keep my frustration and anxiety at bay for weeks.

But then the pain faded and I needed more. I always needed more.

"I don't even know what you'd do if I missed a meeting," I say, as I sit on the queen bed.

"I do."

He doesn't continue. He takes a step closer to me, and I remember his gift. Usually he fashions something out of my clothing or a pillowcase, so having a real blindfold might be interesting this time. I fish out the long scarf-like fabric and present it to him like I'm a servant and he's my King.

He fingers it a little before picking it up and staring at it. "You brought it. Excellent."

I nod and keep my eyes averted from his mask. I'm hunched over, my elbows planted on my thighs and my nape exposed. If he were a wild animal, he could decapitate me if he wished. What could I do to stop him?

"I also, received your gift." One of his gloved hands disappears in his pocket and he pulls out the underwear I mailed off to him. "It was very pleasant. The thought of you walking around the entire day, wearing nothing under those clothes... was delightful."

His voice always has a growl to it when he's turned on. I don't need the voice to cue me in though, his erection bulging through his pants is enough as it is. I stare at it, and he smiles. It's a distinct sound.