This Is What I Want

This Is What I Want
Megan Hart

By day she was Eve Grant, customer service drone in a drab office cubicle. But at night she became Eris Apparent, sex goddess of the blogosphere, where she could express her true self in sizzling erotic fantasies. As Eve she entertained aching, unfulfilled fancies about her sexy co-worker. But as Eris Apparent she was outspoken and demanding as she carried on a steamy cyberspace affair with the mysterious Tell me.

This is What I Want

Megan Hart

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)

This is what I want.

Your hands make circles around my ankles. Theyshackle me for but a moment before your fingertips moveupward over the edge of bone, the dip and hollow of muscle andflesh. Over my calves and the prickly surface of my knees, wherethey linger to stroke the soft, smooth underside. Thoseuntouched places. Your fingers linger there, seeking creases.

Your thumbs move up the sun-warmed flesh of mythighs, which I part for you beneath summer’s bright goldenlight. Like the breeze that twitches the ends of my hair, yourfingers drift along my skin, moving higher.

This is what I want. You. Touching me.

You take the time to trace the faint white line, the placewhere once my flesh parted beneath the edge of a razor wieldedby an unsteady hand. You don’t ask about this scar. You asknothing, say nothing. You have no voice but that which I grantyou…and so far I haven’t given you permission to speak.

You kneel in front of me, and this is where I like you.How I like you. On your knees, my body aligned for yourworship and your hands smoothing a constant upward path.

This is what I want—your breath on my skin. Yourfingers parting me. Your mouth finding the sweet, small pearl ofmy clitoris. I want your tongue there, and the pressure of yourlips. I want you to lick me as I stand over you, you upon yourknees.

I want you to worship me.

* * *

“Hold that elevator!” Eve Grant called across the lobby, already knowing it was a futile request. The elevator was super slow and had a cranky habit of stalling, forcing the employees of Digiquest to trudge up and down the stairs. Nobody was willing to contribute to a breakdown by stopping the doors once they were closing, not even at five to nine and knowing she was only hollering because if she had to wait for the elevator or take the stairs, she would be late clocking in.

Almost nobody.

A hand appeared at the last second, sliding between the slow-closing door and the wall. The elevator door bounced against it before grudgingly sliding back open. Eve grabbed up her bag and ran. Her sprint wasn’t dignified or graceful, but she wasn’t about to let the chance pass.

“Thanks,” she said as she hopped into the elevator just before the door closed, finally. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

Lane DeMarco, six-foot-four of gorgeous and a half inch of fantastic, smiled at her. Eve automatically smiled in return. Lane’s smile was hard to resist.

Eve and Lane had been hired at the same time—she in customer service and he in I. T. They’d been through the battlefield of employee orientation together and two years of office picnics and holiday parties, but it hadn’t made them anything more than acquaintances. He was just the sort of guy who’d flirt enough to flatter but not freak out, the kind who’d smile and hold the elevator for someone. Anyone. It didn’t make her special or anything.

Lane lifted an insulated cup to his lips and sipped. Watching his throat work as he swallowed was bad enough, but when his tongue slid out along his lips to swipe away the creamy coffee, she had to look away.

“That smells good,” she said about the coffee, because the only thing worse than making inane conversation was standing in awkward silence.

Where were her words when she needed them? Why could she speak to strangers online, share with them her most intimate secrets, yet she couldn’t do more than mumble with Lane? Why was he so…unattainable?

Lane swirled the liquid in the cup and sipped again. “It’s called a Mocha Mint. I got it from the new place next door, The Beanery. Have you tried it?”

“No.” Her stomach rumbled, reminding her she’d run out of the house without breakfast. Again. She really needed to get up earlier if she was going to blog before work. “I’ll have to check it out.”

The elevator dinged. One more floor to go. It actually might have been faster to take the stairs…but then she’d have missed out on the exquisite torture of riding up with Lane.

The door opened on their floor. Lane hung back to allow Eve to exit first, depriving her of the chance to ogle his ass. Shit. Was he ogling hers? Eve glanced over her shoulder but found Lane’s gaze trained on her face. Was that better or worse? Worse, she decided, but not unexpected. Lane might be the star of most of her naughty online fantasies, but to him she was just another computer to fix.

As if he’d read her mind, he asked, “Are you still having that problem with your chat windows freezing up?”

“Oh, yeah.” She hadn’t forgotten about the support request she’d put in. Lane wasn’t the only I.T. guy on staff, but she’d been hoping he’d be the one to take the task.

“I’ll swing by in a bit to check it out, okay?”

She nodded and gave him a little wave as she watched him saunter away. Gah. He’s all that and a bag of chips.

In her pod Eve tossed her bag onto the spare chair and shook her mouse to wake the computer, then logged in quickly, barely making it before the clock clicked from 9:00 to 9:01 and made her officially late. Her queue was already five customers deep, the blinking cursor an impatient reminder her she was here to work, not fantasize about Lane DeMarco, no matter how tempting it was. Her fingers tapped away at the keys that would bring up the first customer from her queue. She had a minute or two of prewritten remarks to get through before she had to actually engage her mind.

Some poor sap was having a dickens of a time figuring out how to get his wireless devices to talk to one another, a problem so common Eve had no trouble solving it. She finished the chat with the last of the scripted phrases and logged off. Immediately a new message window opened and she started all over. It was another easy chat with a simple solution. The faceless person on the other side of the Internet didn’t abuse emoticons or need the instructions repeated more than once, and Eve worked her way through the necessary steps without issue. Unfortunately, just before she inserted the text asking if she’d completed the chat to the customer’s satisfaction, the screen froze. She tried every key combination she knew and finally got it working again, but the customer had already logged off. Damn. It could mean a survey response of unsatisfactory for her, maybe, which wouldn’t look good on her performance statistics, but she didn’t have time to worry because the next window demanded her attention and she got back to work.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Four hours later her stomach still rumbled and she desperately needed a break.

She hadn’t even had time to do more than take a peek or two at her blog. The comments were coming in fast and furious but had to go unanswered, a fact that was killing her. She peeked again, satisfying herself with at least reading what people were saying before pushing away from the computer with a stretch. She headed to the restroom and then to the break room. The busy morning had kept her from pondering too much about what she’d write later tonight, but with the bathroom out of the way and a coffee and doughnut to fill the hole in her gut, Eve had time to think about what waited for her at home.

Most of the comments to her blog were one-liners or casual compliments. Praise for her writing or the ideas she’d presented. A fair number were from what she considered admirers—bloggers who got turned on by her entries and weren’t shy about telling her so. Every once in a while she even earned a “troll,” someone who commented with the sole purpose of insulting her or her readers and taunting them into a battle of words. Eve never engaged trolls, simply deleting their comments without reply.

Sometimes, though, she got something special. A fellow blogger, maybe, with similar tastes. Occasionally a particular comment turned into a spectacular dialogue and led her to places she hadn’t known she could go—or wanted to. Other times, someone new found her online persona and left a comment that led to another, and a friendship grew out of that small, random moment.

She sipped the bad coffee and nibbled the sugary doughnut on her way back to her pod. Her pulse leaped a little, thinking of what they’d said and what they’d say, how they’d react, her faceless admirers.

Her worshippers.

Some, she knew, like Puppetboy 1241, would rave about this morning’s post. He always loved the ones in which she demanded homage. He’d already offered, privately, to be her slave not only online but in real life, too.

Well, not hers, precisely. Not Eve’s. He wanted to be slave to Eris Apparent, the name she blogged under. It was a tempting offer and one she might have considered but for one small reason. A simple, silly and ridiculous reason, Eve thought as she rounded the corner into her pod. She stopped short at the sight of her computer screen, which she’d left open to her queue but was now back at the log-in screen, and the Mocha Mint cup, steam still curling lazily from the top, sitting on her desk. An unattainable reason.

Lane DeMarco.

* * *

This is what I want.

You, surrounded by books. They teeter in towers readyto topple with a glance, and you’ve settled in the midst of themlike a king looking over stacks of gold. Papers in piles makewhispering noises when you shuffle them. The room smells ofink and paper. Of intellect.

You’re bent over the desk, scribbling furiously. Yourglasses have slipped down to the end of your nose, and I knowyou’ll push them up when you think of it, but for now yourtongue is caught between your teeth as you concentrate. Yourpen scratches on the paper, creating worlds with words.

You’re lost to everything.

Except me.