The Position (4 page)

I realize that I have no clue what a healthy relationship even looks like. All I ever saw at home was co-dependence and rage. It makes me wonder what it is exactly that I want from Lazarus? What good could possibly come from falling in love with someone both unavailable and slightly deranged? Is that what I wanted for myself? To win him from Celestina only to have him fuck around behind
my
back? Like mother like daughter.
 

Late in the afternoon, Lazarus still hasn’t returned. I run out of busywork to do, so I pull out a pad of paper and begin to work on some of my own designs. I sketch out an idea I’ve had for a while, a living design for an exterior space, with organically formed structures and a garden that would naturally integrate humming birds into its function by planting a very specific garden. For the first time since college, I lose myself in my own creative work. I experiment and brainstorm until I find the right elements to fill my space. My mind runs free and I forget all about Lazarus and Celestina and Captain and my whole sad life. And for the first time in ages I actually feel happy.
 

By the time I’ve finished sketching, it’s well past closing. Outside, the sky is dark and the building lights twinkle in the night. I sit back and press the heels of my hands to my eyes, which are stinging from so much focus. It’s been a long day and I didn’t sleep a wink the night before. I’m suddenly aware of how exhausted I am. For once, I want to go to bed without messed up thoughts lingering in my mind, invading my dreams.
 

I grab my bag and turn off the desk lamp, standing up for the first time in hours. My legs are stiff and my back aches. All I want to do is get back to my car and go to sleep. When I step out of my claustrophobic little hovel, I catch my breath. Lazarus is standing in the doorway of his office, arms crossed over his chest, staring at me. My heart lurches.
 

“Michaela,” he murmurs, a strange threat in his voice. “Why do you have to make everything so fucking hard?”

Chapter Seven

“Stay where you are,” Lazarus commands gruffly.
 

His expression is all shadows; his eyes are flat and emotionless. They’re filled with the dispassionate hunger of a wolf stalking its prey, functioning on pure instinct. Unstoppable. My heart hammers violently against my ribcage, as if wanting to escape. This is not the Lazarus I’m in love with. This one terrifies me. Yet he overwhelms me with confusing desire.
 

Lazarus slips off his sports coat and drops it on the ground. I stare at the flawless shape of his body in those tailored clothes. The shoulders. That chest. Those abs. I think of it pressed up against me the other night. I want it again. But I’m scared. I don’t know what to do.
 

“Lazarus, what…”
 

“No talking.”
 

He slowly crosses the room and I know there is no escape. I’m his trapped rabbit and he’s coming for me. Why is he doing this? Where’s the kind, compassionate Lazarus who came to my rescue in the street? Who took my battered friend to the hospital?
 
Is he certifiably insane? It is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He is the cruel, lustful Lazarus. The dysfunctional one. The frightening one. I drop my purse.
 

“Turn around,” he orders.
 

I obey, just like I did when my dad would give me a beating. It never even occurred to me to fight back. Lazarus approaches me from behind, grabbing me hard by the waist and pressing my ass to his crotch. I feel his hard length against me and catch my breath. He wants me. It makes me flush with heat. I’m faint and breathless, not sure what’s happening.

Lazarus seizes both of my wrists and pushes me face down on the desk. I gasp. Not cool. He’s going to hurt me. I thought I’d be happy to let him do anything he wanted, but now I’m not so sure. I’m breathing fast, frightened. Wanting to fight him off, to knee him in the nutsack and run for the door.
 

But something else is happening as well. For some weird reason, my whole body is coming alive and a thousand sensations are rushing in. I grab the edge of the desk with both hands. Lazarus leans his hard, muscular body over me. I feel his hot breath in my ear and it makes me shiver. His voice is low and fierce.
 

“Don’t move.”
 

And I don’t. He straightens up and steps back. For several moments nothing happens, but I can sense him there, enjoying the sight of me bent over the desk. Then I feel the hem of my skirt tugged upward until it’s bunched at my waist and my ass is exposed. Again, there’s a pause, but this time I can hear his long, slow breaths. I don’t move a muscle. The desk is hard and cool beneath me. My fingers ache from gripping the sharp edge. In my core there is a mounting pressure I’ve never known. The heat inside is unbearable. I am feeling. Everything.
 

Suddenly, his palm comes in hard, smacking my ass. The loud slap is startling in the silence and I cry out with surprise. My skin stings and throbs with the pain. Adrenaline rushes through me, smothering the panic and the pain. Another one comes. Slap! I cry out again. The sensation is jolting, but not painful this time. In fact, it awakens every last sleepy cell in my body. It comes again. And again. Harder and harder each time. The tingling heat. The energy surge. I’m alive. I’m finally alive.
 

The realization overwhelms me like an avalanche. I’m not a child. I’ll never be a child again. I’m a grown woman in charge of my own life. I have power. No one can hurt me again unless I let them. The epiphany takes my breath away.
 

“Stand up,” Lazarus commands.

I push myself up, the skin of my ass on fire, and turn to face him. His eyes burn into me, cruel and smoldering. But I’m not afraid anymore. I’ve never felt less afraid in my life. And so I focus on the mounting pressure between my thighs, the fire roaring through me.
 

“Get up on the desk and sit on your hands.” Though his voice is steady and strong, I can see the anxiousness in his face. The desperate hunger.
 

I move so quickly, so forcefully, he doesn’t see it coming. My hands thrusting at his chest, I slam him against the wall. He grunts loudly in surprise. Before he can move, my body is pressed hard against him. I lift my face to his, hellfire in my eyes.
 

“I don’t think so.” My voice is a husky whisper.
 

I let my hands go where they please, raking over the strong chest, which seems to emanate heat. Lazarus is so shocked, he doesn’t move. The hardness in his eyes has been replaced with uncertainty. But the hunger is greater than ever. I run my fingers over his flat, corrugated abs. They are so hard and perfect that I sigh loudly. This is unexplored territory; a land I’ve only known in dreams. A man’s body. A beautiful man’s body. The perfect man.
 

As I touch him, Lazarus’s breaths accelerate wildly. His eyes explode with fire. His hands hang limply at his sides, as if paralyzed, allowing me free reign. His head tilts back and he closes his eyes, waiting to see what I’ll do. I don’t even know what I’ll do. My mind has gone cloudy with reckless lust and I don’t want to think at all. My fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt, but at the first glimpse of smooth skin revealed, I go crazy. I have to see his body. To touch him. To make him mine. Now. With a strength I don’t recognize as my own, I yank open the shirt, sending buttons scattering across the floor.

Lazarus responds with a loud, raspy breath. As I let my fingertips explore his smooth, hot skin I can feel him trembling. My fingers roam everywhere, studying him, sculpting him, stroking him. When they touch his hard nipples, caressing them lightly, he gasps. I want to put my mouth on him. To taste him.

But before I know it, he’s grabbed my wrists and flipped me around, slamming
me
against the wall this time. Our eyes lock, and I get a sense of what I’ve unleashed. His are wild and ravenous, flicking frantically over my face and down to my lips, ready to devour me whole. He lowers his mouth until I can feel his panting breath on my cheek.
Kiss me. God, please, kiss me.
But he doesn’t kiss me. Why won’t he kiss me?

His eager hands go straight to my breasts, squeezing and rubbing them savagely, his breaths accelerating into impassioned grunts. They are the first hands to touch my breasts, and it’s like a high voltage line to my sex, setting the blood there aflame. I can’t recognize myself in the sounds that come out of me, as I writhe beneath him. Lazarus is frantic as well, moaning and panting. We’re like feral creatures whose only thought is to sate a voracious hunger. In a blur of passion, Lazarus rips my blouse open, devouring my black lace-clad breasts with his eyes.
 

He takes a step back and breathes in deeply, as if trying to maintain his self-control. I smolder under his gaze. My pelvis has a mind of its own, rocking back and forth against nothing, desperate to release the sweet pressure there. His hands are on the bare skin of my waist and they feel right. All of it feels right. It doesn’t matter that’s it’s fucked up or that this whole coupling is inevitably doomed. I don’t think about that. I don’t think at all. I only feel. And nothing has ever felt more right in my life than Lazarus’s hands on my body.
 

He lets the tips of his fingers trail along the edge of the lace bra, caressing the soft skin of my breasts. My trembling breath gets louder. I want his mouth on me. His lips sucking at my nipples. His tongue hot on my skin. I want it more than my next breath. My shaking fingers snap open the front clasp, letting my breasts tumble free. Lazarus fixes his eyes on them and exhales loudly. The pink tip of his tongue slips over his lips, wanting to taste them.
Taste them! Please!
I can see him struggle to keep his savage self at bay and take it slow, but I don’t want him to. I want to be devoured. Too desperate to be coy, I arch my back, pushing my aching breasts toward him.
 

He instinctively cups them and presses his hard bulge against my pelvis with a groan.
 

“Michaela.” He draws out my name, low and breathy, as if naming something unexpectedly discovered.
 

I can’t take it anymore. The molten heat. The urgent pressure yearning for release. It’s too new to understand. Too overwhelming. I undulate against his bulge, forgetting everything else, feeling the mounting edge of pleasure coming closer. He gasps loudly, throwing back his head and closing his eyes.
 

“Oh, God! Please!” I shout hoarsely. “Lazarus!” This seems to push him over as well, and he’s wild again. With a groan he squeezes my breasts and pinches my hard, pulsing nipples.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yesyesyesyes…

Just then, a sudden clamoring from the other room startles us apart. The jangling of keys and the clattering of a cart wheeled inside his office. The fucking janitor! Lazarus steps away, adjusting the engorged erection in his pants. My head is spinning. I feel drugged. I’m panting, disoriented. All I can think of is satisfying the desperate need at my core. I don’t even realize that Lazarus has slipped out of the room until he returns with his sports jacket and drapes it over me. I can only imagine how flushed and disheveled I must be.
 

“Let me drive you home,” Lazarus mumbles, running a hand through his messy hair. “It’s too late for you to be out on your own.”

The erotic mist is dissipating and we’re suddenly boss and assistant again. Lazarus’s button-less shirt hangs open and he looks dazed. But I’m not ready for the harsh light of reality yet.
 

“I want to go home with you,” I say brashly. “Please. Take me home.”
 

The thought of being alone so soon after the single most intimate experience of my life is unbearable.
 

Lazarus smiles wanly and shakes his head. “You know you can’t do that.”
 

Without waiting for a response, he turns and heads out the door of my hovel. I step out as well, blinking as if it were a strange, alien place. The city lights twinkle cheerfully below. I watch Lazarus walk to a closet at the back and pull out an identical sports coat. The janitor unravels the cord of his vacuum cleaner and heads for an outlet. Lazarus nods to the door and I follow him down the hall and into the hushed, empty reception area.
 

I cross my arms over my chest, as if I could somehow protect my heart. “What do you mean I can’t do that? You didn’t seem to mind me doing
this
.”
 

Lazarus sighs, shrugging into his coat and buttoning up to hide his damaged shirt. “Michaela…” My name sounds different in his mouth this time. He’s stern. Exasperated. He rubs his face as if trying to come to terms with something terrible. “Yes, I know you did, but… I just didn’t expect to find you here and… It was out of control. I’m sorry. We can’t let ourselves behave like this. We just can’t.”
 

I stare at him in disbelief. After what I just felt, what I still feel throbbing deep inside me, there’s no going back. I have to have him again. Have him all the way. If I don’t, I think I’ll go insane.
 

“But why?”
 

Lazarus cocks his head to the side and smiles. I desperately want to hate him, but he looks so beautiful standing in the dim light, his hands shoved his pockets.
 
The shadow of whiskers is more prominent on his face and yet he still looks so young. How could someone so famous and successful be so freaking beautiful and young? “You’re too smart to ask me that.”
 

The heat of desire mingles with a blindsiding rage. “Why are you fucking with me like this?” I shout, fists clenched at my sides. “Why would you do that?”

“I’m attracted to you, Michaela.” Lazarus leans against the reception desk and looks up through his lashes. “Ridiculously attracted to you. And not just physically. I…” He sighs and looks away. “But I’m your boss. And I’m engaged to Celestina. So this stops tonight. For good.”