Free Stare Me Down (Stare Down) by Riley Murphy Page A

pressed her cheek against the cool wood and tried again. “Okay, like I said before, you made your point.” More tearing. “Oh, for the love of God, stop with the tape already.”
    He didn’t, and by her count there were five lengths pinning her tightly into place.
    “One more for good luck.”
    “Seriously?”
    He got the last length stretched over her, patted it into place on the door but smoothed it with a lazy and intimate hand-drag over her ass. “There. Now what do you think the point of me doing this is?”
    Finally, he was going to be reasonable, and maybe she wouldn’t wind up doing something with him she’d regret. “I’m insecure, which makes me a poor therapist. That’s the point of this, isn’t it? I let you control the sessions, and now you’re driving your point home. In your mind, if I weren’t so unsure of myself I would have stuck with my original answers and called bullshit on you. Like I should have done.” The last part of those words came out in an unintentional grumble.
    He remained silent while he rubbed his hand back and forth over the tape on her ass several times. Heating her up so badly, if she weren’t glued into place like a bug on a pest strip, she would have shifted into his touch.
    “ Tsk, tsk. You give me far too much credit. Those are valid thoughts, but they’re not mine.”
    “No?”
    “No.” He pressed his body against her, the heat of his chest branding her back. “The point of this little show and tell was to render you helpless. Do you want to know why?”
    She swallowed hard as her mind raced with possibilities. “Why?”
    The whisper of his breath against her ear sent a shiver skating through her. “So I can make you come.”
    This time, when she turned her head and banged her chin on the corner of one of the raised panels in the door, she didn’t even blink. He didn’t really just say that, did he? He couldn’t be that bold‌—‌her heart pounded‌—‌maybe he was, or… “Come where?”
    “Here.”
    She gasped when he slid the barrel of the electric tooth brush between her and the door. Pushing it down and down some more until it was wedged tight and horizontally across her groin. The tops of the three inline clothes pegs acted as shelf. He was clever and creative, and bold didn’t even begin to describe what else he was.
    “You coming for me wasn’t far from every thought during group sessions. But now that we’re alone? You coming for me again and again is all I can think of.”
    “Y-you can’t do this.”
    “By now you should know I’m a can-do kind of a guy.”
    He sure was. In a flash he found the on switch and flicked it. She was shocked, outraged, speechless and instantly aroused. The heavy vibrations beat straight through her. Right to the core.
    She tried to move to dislodge it but couldn’t. “Turn it off.”
    “Say please,” he breathed into her ear.
    “Please.”
    “No.”
    No? He was denying her after he’d told her to say it and she did? “B-but I said please.”
    “Yes.” The heat of his lips penetrated the skin at her nape. “And I loved hearing it. Say it again.”
    “No…‌I—”
    “Stop thinking. Stop fighting your instincts. Just breathe. Relax and breathe.”
    He pushed into her in such a way that her breasts rubbed against the computer clamps and her nipples tingled and puckered even harder than they were before.
    “I shouldn’t—”
    “Shhh.”
    When he pressed his mouth into the fine hairs at the back of her neck, just below her upsweep, her knees almost buckled. Her legs shook and before she could stop herself, she moaned. The desire she’d be denying for so long was dying to show itself.
    “Close your eyes. That’s right. Breathe.”
    She quivered as he dipped his head and licked the pulse point at the base of her throat. And when he opened his mouth and softly bit her there, she lost what little control she had left.
    “Please…”
    The vibrations skittering through the muscles between