"But... I thought you said... well, what about us dating? Isn't calling you 'Sir' a bit formal?"
The smile that didn't quite reach his eyes was back. "Think of it more like a contract and less like dating. We have an arrangement. Arrangements have rules, Hannah. It's how I maintain order in my life."
"That doesn't sound very romantic," she said.
"I wasn't aware you were looking for romance. I'd reset your expectations if I were you."
His words confused her. He'd just wined and dined her at a five-star restaurant—had given her a box full of diamonds. Did he want to date her or not? She sipped her drink as she spun their conversation around in her head, feeling more confused with each passing minute. By the time she set her empty glass down on the bar, she felt light-headed. Sweat beaded on her face as the room grew oppressively warm. She leaned forward to lie her forehead down in an effort to stop the room from spinning.
Jake's voice continued, but it sounded like he was getting further away, down a long tunnel. For the briefest of seconds, she had the clarity to realize he'd slipped something into her drink. There was no way one drink could make her feel like this, but that moment of clarity quickly slipped away, replaced with a pulsing throb at her core. She wiggled in her chair, trying to scratch the itch of desire that had flamed in her skimpy panties.
"...help you relax. I can't have you working yourself up into an unnecessary frenzy over nothing. I'm going to take such good care of you."
She'd missed the first part of what he said, but in that moment, she couldn't wait for Jake to take good care of her. A vision of him laying her over the bar, stepping up behind her and fucking her hard had a throaty groan escaping.
What the fuck did he give me? I'm in so much trouble.
He was done talking. He moved to her side of the bar, scooping her into his arms in a deceptively gentle embrace. He chuckled when she instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck to hold on as he carried her down a long hallway, with several closed doors lining each side. When they got to the end of the hall, he once again had to input his retinal print and long code sequence. Alarm bells were still going off and her psyche tried to rally a protest again. Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth and her protest was a disoriented mumble.
"Shhh. I can't wait for you to see how special my office is, and all I've prepared for you to work here with me."
The room was pitch black, but as soon as they entered, soft recessed lighting illuminated several large bookcases and a small bar area. The only other light that had come on was a lamp on a huge wooden desk the size of a conference table. The only reason she suspected it was Jake's desk was because there was only one leather chair behind it. On the surface, the room looked like an executive office.
She forced herself to keep looking around the space, despite her growing lethargy. Jake stood in the middle of the room, slowly turning with her in his arms, as if he wanted her to see what awaited her.
The lack of windows caught her attention first. The room was completely private. There was one door other than the one they had entered through, and she could see a vanity sink... a private bathroom. She noticed a second, smaller desk to the side of the room, in a location easily monitored from Jake's workspace. Her eyes caught an odd piece of furniture in the corner, but the shadows were too dark to make out if it was a table or chair. A small seating area with a couch, loveseat and coffee table sat opposite the desk.
Jake moved behind his desk, sitting in his chair, cradling her too gently in his arms. For a moment it felt nice, as he stroked her long, sandy-blonde hair intimately. She had just about convinced herself she'd been imagining the danger before when she noticed the heavy steel rings attached every few inches along the exterior edge of Jake's desk. They lined the top and bottom edge of the desk. It seemed like a strange choice in décor.
"This is an odd desk." Her stilted words sounded distant.
"It's a special desk. I like to engage in unique activities in my office. This desk is an important part of that."
"Activities?" Her tongue felt thick, making the single word sound distorted to her ears.
"Let's call them performance evaluation activities. I am a precise man. I require precise performance from my employees. If they miss the mark, I enjoy correcting them in order to help improve their performance."
"Performance?" The word was slurred. Her head was still foggy.
He didn't answer, but instead pulled a manila folder out of the top drawer and opened it. She saw her name, Hannah Martine, printed on the tab. The thickness of the file alarmed her. What information had he collected about her? Panic that he knew about her life in Ohio before she had moved to California threatened to overwhelm her.
As if he understood her fear, he pulled out a sheet of paper a few layers in. It was a print out of a newspaper article that she had memorized. She didn't need to read it to know what it said. The desire to throw up was strong and she swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. Jake Davenport had researched her life. That meant he knew...
"Now, first I'd like you to know how sorry I am for all of the legal and family problems you've had in your relatively short life, Hannah. I want to reassure you, your problems are behind you now. Like I said, I'm going to take care of you. You
