Off the Clock

She winced at the stinging impact.

He blew out a breath and looked up at her, weariness in those blue eyes. “Sorry. I’m—It’s just been a shit day.”

She shifted on her feet, not sure what to do with this version of the normally upbeat guy she’d gotten to know. He looked like he could use a hug, but she didn’t like random people giving her those, so she wouldn’t assume that he’d be cool with that either. Plus, she’d probably pant or drool on him or something, being that close. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Distraction’d be good. Wanna get drunk with me?”

She glanced at the whiskey bottle. “I don’t drink.”

His brows went up. “Ever?”

“Not my thing.” No way was she testing her genes with a big heaping dose of mood-altering substances. “Maybe another kind of distraction?”

“Wanna fuck?”

The question zipped right up her spine, making her straighten and almost taking her feet out from under her. She hadn’t meant her question that way, but now she realized how what she’d said must’ve sounded. “Uh …”

Donovan turned away with a groan. “Shit. Just fucking ignore me. I might still be drunk. I didn’t mean to say that.”

Her mouth was dry, her heart knocking hard against her ribs. She ached to go to him, put her arms around him, make whatever had beat him down today go away. To say, Yes, let’s do that thing you said. Right now. But all she could do was stand like a damn statue in the half-lit room and say, “It’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s the opposite of all right.”

She should leave. Let him deal with whatever was bothering him in private. But she couldn’t make her feet move. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Donovan went about folding the blanket he’d tossed on the couch, his movements tense. One. Two. Three. He folded sharp lines into the soft quilt. She thought he was going to ignore her completely, but then finally, he spoke. “My parents were killed in a home invasion last year.”

Her heart plummeted into her stomach, making a gust of air pop out of her mouth.

“Today, the courts dropped the case against the guy who everyone thought did it.” He tossed the folded blanket onto the back of the couch with more force than necessary. “New evidence cleared him. Now there’s not a fucking lead to go on, and the case is cold. My parents are dead, my family is gone, and whoever did it is out there living his goddamned life like nothing ever happened.”

She closed her eyes, the pain in his voice seeping into her and making her hurt for him. “I’m so sorry.”

He turned around, his jaw set. “Yeah, well, life isn’t fair, right? The good guys don’t get to win just because they’re good.”

The bitterness in his voice made her want to cry for him. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

He stepped toward the desk and put his hand on the notes she’d dropped onto it when she came in. “We can not talk any more about it and work. I’ve learned it’s like running in freezing weather. You don’t feel the cold until you stop moving. As long as I keep focused on the project and keep working, I can block out the rest.” He swiped a hand over his face as if trying to erase all he’d revealed to her in the last few minutes. Mask back in place. “So I’ll go through your notes, and I have some new stuff for you. I really liked your insights on the last one. Have you ever considered switching to this department? I can tell the sleep stuff isn’t really doing it for you.”

The tone of his voice had switched to all business, the emotions packed up tight behind the safety door, padlock clicked. She knew that mode. It was that place she went when her mom had one of her episodes. Like when she’d come home one day a few years ago and all the plates had been smashed because her mom had been fired from another job. Her mom had been sitting among the mess, hands and knees cut from the jagged glass. Nate had been left at kindergarten because her mom hadn’t remembered to pick him up. Marin had been thirteen, but she’d learned that day to switch off the fear and to keep moving forward. She’d bandaged her mom up, called a neighbor to pick up Nate, and had spent the night cleaning the kitchen.

So she knew not to push Donovan for more and went along with the shift in conversation. She’d run along beside him in those subzero temperatures.

“I might consider it actually. I’ve really enjoyed digging into your research.” And that was the truth. She’d always planned to specialize since she wanted to be a researcher not a practicing clinician. But she’d had yet to find the topic that lit her up. This hadn’t just lit her up, it’d set her aflame. Sex was fascinating—this strange, foreign thing she wanted to unpack and analyze. And learning from Donovan this week about all the different avenues in the field had deepened her interest even more. When he didn’t respond, she shifted and cleared her throat. “So what have you got for me tonight?”

He sank into his chair, moving aside her notes. He wouldn’t look at her. “I’ve been working on a force scenario. Nothing violent, but it’s going pretty far in the taboo direction.”

“Force?”

He glanced up at her, his eyes clearer than they had been a moment before but still tired. “It’s a pretty popular fantasy according to research—capture fantasies, things getting a little rough—especially for women who are held back by having guilty feelings about sex. But it can be a trigger for others, so you need to tell me now if you’re uncomfortable with listening to that.”

Marin wet her lips, images of Donovan taking charge and taking over filling her head. She could still feel the anger rolling off of him and wondered if he’d come up with the fantasy because that’s what he needed right now—a little violence, someone he could exorcise those demons with, a release from all that ugly reality. “I can handle it.”

“Okay, cool.” He rocked forward in his chair and grabbed a thumb drive. “Remember, I’m looking for unedited feedback. If it sucks or is horrible, you need to tell me. Don’t coddle me just because I had a bad day.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

“So did it work for you?” The question jumped out before she could stop it.

He peered up at that, surprise there at first but then something else flashed in those blue eyes—wariness. “Well, I have no interest in forcing myself on anyone, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Marin didn’t know where her boldness was coming from. Maybe knowing this was her last night with him was making her daring. Or maybe she was still thinking about the alternative he’d suggested to drinking the night away. “You want me to listen to it and tell you what I think. Obviously, I don’t want some guy to rape me.”

He coughed and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Sorry, you’re right. I’m asking for all this personal honesty from you and you’ve given it. I’d be an asshole if I’m not willing to do the same.” He straightened the papers on his desk. “The scenario worked for me. Rape isn’t a turn-on. Obviously. But a woman consenting to playing that game, to letting it get kind of rough? That could be hot.”

Marin rolled her lips inward, need curling like vines, tangling with the images in her mind. “Yeah, I bet it would be. Cathartic, even.”

His jaw twitched, and he seemed to be thinking hard on her words. For a moment she thought maybe it would happen. Maybe he’d get up, grab her and kiss her, put his hands on her. Maybe he’d let her help him forget for a little while. Help her forget. But then he cleared his throat and rolled his desk chair forward under the desk. “Thanks, Mari.”

Any hope she had burned into a pile of ashes at her feet. Of course he wasn’t going to stroll across the room and ravage her like some old-school romance novel. He’d confided in her about his family, but that’s just because he was hurting and she was there. They were just working on a project together. Friends. Hell, not even that. She picked up her backpack and hitched it onto her shoulder. “Yeah, no problem.”

He rubbed fingers over his forehead. “And I’m sorry about what I said earlier. It was completely out of line.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” She grabbed the thumb drive. “I’ll check in with you when I’m done.”

Donovan looked up like he was going to say something else, but then seemed to think better of it. He clamped his lips shut and nodded, effectively dismissing her.

She headed down the hallway to the sleep lab on shaky legs. When she reached the lab, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The room was empty and quiet except for the hum of the computers. Tonight there’d be no study participants on the other side of the glass, so she’d have the place to herself. She’d never been more thankful for it. She needed time to put herself back together.

She couldn’t get it out of her head about what Donovan had gone through. That sadness in his eyes when she’d first walked in. Then the swift heat that had filled her when he’d said, Wanna fuck? Right then she’d had a feeling that despite the alcohol involved, she was seeing some real part of Donovan, the unrefined part that lurked in there, the part she’d only glimpsed in some of the fantasies he’d recorded. She felt guilty about even having those kinds of feelings when he was going through such a hard thing, but her body seemed to be programmed to respond to him that way.

Marin sank into her chair and rubbed a hand over her brow. After the fight with her mom and the conversation with Donovan, she needed this night in the lab. Predictable. Safe. She could block out all the ugly stuff and just focus on his voice, on escaping into the fantasy. She turned on her terminal, slipped in the thumb drive, and put in her earbuds.

She would listen to Donovan and block out the real world for a while. The tape started.

“You don’t see me behind you. I know you know who I am, but you don’t know I’ve been watching you. You don’t know how much I think about you, about all the dirty things I want to do to you. You have no idea how badly I need you and no idea that tonight’s the night you’re going to be mine. I want to hear you beg for your pleasure and for my mercy …”

The smooth, deep voice in her ear let everything else melt away. She closed her eyes and let the words take over, sinking into the fantasy and feeling her body go warm and liquid after only a few minutes. The words were explicit, the scene intense. The man captured the woman, tied her down in his hotel room, brought her to the edge of orgasm over and over and then took her roughly from behind. But there were hints in the narrative that showed the man was taking care of the woman, that she’d consented to this earlier, that this was a taboo fantasy shared by willing lovers.

And it was so working for Marin.

She found herself squeezing her thighs together, the throbbing ache between them almost unbearable. She’d gone through this night after night listening to these tapes, but this one seemed to be pushing her buttons even harder, the taboo topic and danger of it tapping into some reckless part of her. And all the emotion from earlier with Donovan channeled into the fantasy as she pictured him in the role of the man, her in the role of the captive.

Her body thrummed as the scene unfolded in her head, every part of her going sensitive, primed. Like one touch and she’d go off. She tried to stave off the desire, clamping her hands around the arms of the chair and breathing through the rush. But finally, as the man in the tape brought the woman to another orgasm using harsh fingers and filthy words, Marin couldn’t take it anymore and parted her knees. There was so much tension in her—from the crappy day, from her conversation with Donovan, and from this unmet desire she’d been fighting with all week. She couldn’t resist anymore. She needed the oblivion, some kind of release from it all. The air of the room felt cool on her inner thighs and she pressed a hand over the throbbing part of her through her shorts, giving just enough pressure to offer some relief.

She let out a soft gasp and slowly rocked her hand against herself, the simple move sending sharp, electric currents racing through her, making everything go heavy and tight. Her breasts felt fuller, her blood hotter, her pulse louder. Guilt weighed on her. Part of her knew she shouldn’t be doing this. She didn’t deserve this pleasure tonight. But the freight train was already chugging down the hill with no brakes. She dragged her fingers over the cotton of her shorts, trying to be discreet but not gentle.