IT WAS FUCKING INFURIATING, insulting, and downright ridiculous how Paul's entire body responded to Nina's as though some twisted force had already written their names together into the same cursed destiny.
He'd stepped into the bathroom on their office floor with every intention of washing his face and making himself look prim and proper again.
Instead, his thoughts betrayed him.
They wandered right back to her.
Before he realized it, his gaze had dropped to the stubborn bulge still straining defiantly against the fabric of his pants.
Damn it. It was still throbbing as hard as an iron rod.
The memory of Nina licking its crown and stroking every inch of it erupted back to life with vicious clarity, igniting a craving so fierce it almost bent him in half with the urge to relive every sinful second.
He crushed the fragile desire the moment it surfaced.
It was disgusting.
It was thrilling.
So fucking corrupting that he wanted to scrub the memory off with his bare hands.
Without wasting another second, Paul locked the bathroom door, unzipped his pants, shoved down his boxers, and tried forcing the stubborn length back under control.
Hell, it refused.
His own body shamelessly and outrageously double-crossed him.
Fuck.
He tried again.
Failed.
Once more.
Again.
Again.
AGAIN.
Fuck.
Fuck every thick fucker responsible for this fucking mess.
It refused to yield.
Still hard.
Still straight.
Still thrumming and pulsing with that relentless ache.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he hissed at his ram-rod length, raking a frustrated hand through his disheveled hair.
Anger seeped through his veins, churning his blood hotter degree by degree. He wanted to chop off his own cock and throw the damn thing away for defying him.
But, fuck. He couldn't.
Paul was trapped and helpless from every fucking side.
Given the current status quo, he was supposed to be out there working, talking, and getting things done. Locking himself inside the bathroom until the stubborn length finally surrendered was equal parts insane and pathetic.
People in the corporate world were no better than evil vultures, circling from miles away at the faintest scent of gossip or scandal.
The longer Paul remained holed up in the bathroom, the greater the chance someone would start asking questions.
He wouldn't let a single soul witness just how thoroughly ruined he was. Would he?
There was only one way.
For one holy breath, Paul locked his eyes with the stubborn bulge and let the last thread of his inhibition collapse. He wrapped his veiny hand around his own length, and surrendered to the raw images glutting his mind.
Images of Nina Kaur.
Naked.
Straddling his lap.
Riding his cock.
It was a bad, bad, bad idea. He knew it down to his bones.
But there wasn't a single right choice left.
Paul had already begun loathing himself the moment he'd let her touch him. For the way he'd pushed her away only to pull her back. For everything that had happened in between. One more act of self-loathing wasn't going to kill the devil living inside him.
He drew in a shaky breath and started to jerk his cock, slow and tender.
A tingle of sensation crept beneath his skin, dragging out a strained grunt from his throat.
His mind conjured the image of Nina kissing him, grabbing his hair, and owning every fucking second of him.
Clinging to those images like a man possessed, Paul tightened his grip and quickened his pace, stroking with mounting desperation.
He squeezed his eyes shut and bit down on his lower lip.
At first, resistance made it impossible to picture anything that belonged to Nina. But the euphoric sensations, tangled with a ravenous urge to drown in them, began to chip away his restraint gradually, incessantly until every barrier he'd built cracked under the pressure, and she flooded his mind with a clarity so vivid it felt dangerously realistic.
He could see her.
See himself wrapped up in her.
See them—together.
He couldn't shake the image of her luscious breasts, her breathless gasps, the sway of her hips, how her sensitive peaks were pressed against him, and the way she'd taken every inch of him like a good girl, looking so breathtakingly beautiful it bordered on obscene.
The vision swarmed through his psyche, slow and hot, making him lose control and jerk his cock like some deranged creature.
The thin bathroom walls reverberated with his raw, filthy groans.
"Fuck..." he panted, jerking himself. "Fuck... Nina."
The more he latched to thoughts of her, the more every savage instinct inside him demanded to be whipped and destroyed.
Like a helpless freak, he answered every ruthless call with brutal, punishing strokes, chasing the edge like a man starved, letting his mind and senses choke on the filthy, unfiltered images of everything he'd do to her if she were his.
In another universe.
Wanna tie her up? The demon inside him hissed. Wanna fold her in all the right places? You do... don't you?
Paul moaned as another pulse of pre-cum escaped him.
It was sick, pathetic to picture her that way when he despised her with every fiber of his being.
But fuck the hate.
He would drain every last drop of unholy inspiration from Nina Kaur if it meant finally unleashing every ounce of thick cum out of his cock.
His movements grew more frantic, more feverish, when the dark image of Nina all tied up bloomed in his mind like a beautiful malignant disease.
The vision consumed him.
It corrupted him.
Made him want to slither his tongue out, savor every forbidden second of it, and jam it down his throat until it poisoned every last corner of his body.
The rough ropes enveloping her soft flesh, lifting her bosoms high, making her tits look even harder, fuller, impossibly pointier. They trailed lower, hugging the curve of her waist before disappearing around her ass, parting it in all the right ways. Her hands bound behind her back, and her pretty cunt completely exposed.
The way he'd claim Nina's mouth in one bruising kiss while shoving two of his macho fingers deep in pussy, ambushing her from all sides. Giving her no chance to catch breath, swallowing every broken sound she made, and licking her peaks with calculated torment until she trembled beneath him.
She'd buck.
She'd beg.
And he'd keep her on the edge for as long as he pleased.
All day, every day.
Locked to him.
Driving her completely out of her mind.
The mere thought of it turned him on like a burning coal. Its blistering heat flared behind his eyes, awakening something feral and ruthless within him. An inhumane rush of adrenaline rushed in his veins, drugging Paul until he enjoyed overwhelming sensations instead of fighting them.
Paul's strokes turned rougher, faster, more restless.
A moan ripped from his throat as he came down with such a brutal force.
So hard.
So hypnotic.
So horrendously relieving.
"Fuck... baby," he groaned once more, drawing out the last remnants of his release.
His breathing turned ragged as the emotions kept him suspended somewhere between euphoria and self-disgust.
Paul could feel her too close; too deeply rooted.
In his nerves.
In his mind.
In every pitch-black corner of his heart.
Nina had infested in him like a brand, and no matter how hard he tried, she refused to leave.
So stubborn.
So fucking Nina.
"What have you done... to... me?" he huffed, his grip faltering for a heartbeat before tightening again.
The image of taking her from behind surged back into his skull with atrocious clarity, dragging another wave of desperate hunger through him. His mouth fused to hers, teasing her clit, watching her come apart beneath him.
Steadily and perpetually, every corner of his head brimmed with thoughts of Nina. Him. Them.
The obsession swelled until it pushed him to the precipice of something haunted.
You want to claim her as yours. Don't lie, the demon rasped as Paul's vision tinted green beneath the avalanche of exotic sensations crashing through him.
"Yes," he admitted, sounding like a man being lugged through hell by the devil himself.
"I want to devour her lips..." He jerks his cock harder. "Smack her ass..." Another stroke. "Want to fill her up with me so completely she forgets where I end and she begins."
His mind spun, turning lightheaded beneath the bombardment of tickles, the ravenous need, and the aching desire to have her while despising her with equal ferocity.
It was insane.
Maddening.
And somewhere between all that hunger and hatred, Paul came down hard once again, completely deranged by the woman he'd sworn to detest.
His grunts rumbled through the bathroom walls as he forced out every last drop of his cum, painting the pristine marble floor in streaks of white.
"Ahh... umph–" he groaned, still riding the intoxicating high she'd left behind.
For several long seconds, he remained frozen in place, one palm braced against the cold marble countertop while he struggled to steady the violent rhythm of his heartbeat. Every muscle in his body felt wrung out, trembling with the persistent aftershocks, yet his mind refused to quiet.
He sucked in a slow breath.
Another.
Neither helped.
The phantom of Nina still anchored to him, wrapped around every frayed nerve as though she'd never left.
Only when the haze began to thin, his gaze finally drifted downward.
The mess stared back at him.
The once-pristine grey marble floor was ruined beneath him, and at long last, his stubborn length had lowered its crown. The throbbing had gradually eased into an exhausted ache.
A few minutes crawled by, and Paul remained rooted in the aftermath, feeling its chaos seep into his bones and drowning in every fucked-up second of it.
Soon, his breathing steadied.
His emotions receded.
Slowly, he descended from the maddening peak of it all.
But thoughts of her still prowled through his mind.
They wouldn't leave.
Her words echoed inside his skull, leaving him dizzy, disoriented, and barely clinging to his anger.
Paul dragged both hands through his sweat-slicked hair, gripping the strands as though he could pluck every image of her straight out of his skull. Or, for fuck's sake, tether himself to reality.
"Leave me alone. Alone," he mumbled, his fingers tightening painfully in his hair.
Leave me.
Leave me.
Leave me.
For fuck's sake.
Please.
Leave me.
He chanted the words like a sacred mantra. A desperate exorcism. Again and again, until Nina's voice began to fade, her image bleeding out of his mind one vicious fragment at a time.
Until her hold finally loosened.
Until she vanished into oblivion.
Once everything waned, Paul pulled on his boxer briefs and zipped his pants shut. For another brief moment, he simply stood there like a statue carved in ice–eyes blown wide, muscles locked taut, his face eerily blank and bowed low, sweat drenching his skin.
"What the fuck did I just do?" The realization slammed into him full force, bitter and grotesquely absurd.
As if things couldn't get any fucking worse, every event from the past twenty-four hours flashed before his eyes like a shady old cassette on rewind, forcing him to relive every microscopic moment that had dragged him here.
His intestines twisted into a vicious knot, blood roaring so violently in his ears it nearly drowned out his thoughts.
It wasn't Danica having a business partner, or even the possibility of someone keeping tabs on him, that made Paul lose his fucking mind.
It was NINA KAUR who made his blood boil.
The fact that he'd allowed her to infiltrate his orbit.
The fact that he'd lost fucking control and thrust into her.
And the fact that he'd fucked himself in the bathroom, anchoring to images of her like a deranged fucking honeybee drunk on the scent of a flower.
She was everywhere. In his mind, in his scent, in his fucking cum.
And thanks to the new business arrangement, she'd always be lurking somewhere in his vicinity.
It was a never-ending fucking punishment.
Paul's hand curled into a brutal fist, his knuckles bleaching white as he gritted out, "How could I lose control?"
A beat.
"HOW?" he growled, driving his fist into himself.
More punches.
More tight slaps.
More.
MORE.
It stained his face a violent red, but they did nothing to smother the inferno of self-disgust still chewing through his flesh from within.
As if that weren't enough, Paul slammed his head into the bathroom mirror, and blood immediately seeped from his forehead.
"Why the fuck did you allow her?" he roared, smashing his head against it again.
The shattered glass burrowed deeper into his skin, coaxing out more blood until it streamed over his temples, clung to his eyelashes, and traced his jawline in thick, warm streaks.
Paul was still riding the vicious high of disgust and rage when he finally stopped smashing his head and stared at the broken mirror, its fractured surface splitting him into a thousand different selves.
Each one looked identical. Yet something about them felt different.
Something was fucking off.
Paul narrowed his blood-soaked eyes, studying his reflections with a cold, detached curiosity.
They're imposters, he thought. They're not me.
No. That's not me.
"Who the fuck are you?!" he snarled at no one but the reflection.
No response came.
And somehow, the silence annoyed him even more.
Maybe it was the gash on his head. Or the violent emotions surging through him, tangling into an indecipherable fucking mess. Paul couldn't pinpoint the exact reason, but he could see those imposters laughing at him.
They were all fucking laughing.
Paul swallowed hard, his red-rimmed eyes widening a fraction before he blinked twice.
Reality was bleeding into fantasy.
This was some hallucination shit. There was no fucking way he could see and hear his own reflections mocking him. Laughing at him. Thousands of them.
"You're a fucking fool," the reflection finally spoke, and every limb in Paul's body went rigid. "You know you can't resist Nina. She's a ticking time bomb strapped to every inhibition, every vow, every shred of control you've spent years building."
Paul's breath hitched, as though he were physically chaining his anger inside his chest.
"You know you can't look away when she's near," the reflection continued. A laugh slipped from its mouth before it added, "Nina Kaur is a woman who likes you. And you fucking like her too. You're just rotting in denial."
"I. Do. Not." Paul clenched his fist again, bracing himself for war. "I hate her. Do you fucking understand?"
"Then why did you imagine her naked, tied up, locked to you… inside your head?" Its grin widened. "Why not Danica?"
The words slashed straight through one of Paul's fragile nerves, leaving him dumbfounded.
"The answer is painfully fucking clear." A beat. "You. Like. Her."
Paul was still trying and spectacularly failing to process the revelation with practiced indifference when the reflection's voice echoed around him.
You like Nina so much.
Suddenly, all thousand reflections began chanting the same fucking thing, submerging him in unnecessary emphasis and twisted variations, as if repetition alone could carve the belief into his bones.
You like Nina Kaur.
You like her so damn much.
Paul likes Nina.
It was mind-numbing as fuck. Their voices crashed into one another, overlapping and colliding, carving grooves into his heart and stuffing them with something foreign, indigestible, and utterly fucking absurd.
"No. I don't," Paul defended.
He clamped his hands over his ears to shut out the noise, but it only swelled louder. Clearer. Thicker.
She is your missing rib.
Only she notices you. Just like you notice her.
You like Nina Kaur.
"NO!" he snapped, glaring murderously at his reflections.
You like her.
You cannot fucking breathe without her.
The voices came stampeding back, stronger this time, drilling so viciously into his skull that Paul ripped his hands away from his ears.
Your eyes always look for her.
PAUL LIKES NINA KAUR.
NINA LIKES PAUL.
"NO, I FUCKING DON'T!" Paul drove his fist forward, smashing the entire mirror into thousands of tiny pieces.
"I. HATE. HER." he barked at the broken shards. "DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND?"
No response came.
The reflections? Destroyed.
The voices? Vanished.
Suddenly, everything was too fucking silent, leaving him stranded with nothing but his bruised pride and shattered control in a seven-foot-wide room.
The silence was so fucking thin he could hear every fractured breath scraping through his lungs. Every drop of blood kissing the floor and bleeding into his cum. A filthy cocktail of violence, shame, and the control he'd just slaughtered.
Paul shoved a bloodied hand through his hair and exhaled sharply.
When some semblance of normalcy finally trickled back into his consciousness, he straightened his translucent shirt and adjusted his tie before stepping out of the bathroom.
The moment he emerged, he found Lee leaning casually against the opposite wall, wearing that same dickish grin.
Lee's eyes swept over Paul, leisurely cataloguing every inch of damage. The bruised hands, a bloody forehead, crimson-streaked temples, and a jawline painted red. The man looked as though he'd wormed through a lifetime of savage wars and still possessed the audacity to stand tall like an unbreakable fucking rock.
"Did you enjoy your roller-coaster ride?" Lee asked, pushing off the wall.
Paul remained impassive as fuck. He was too fucking drained to entertain another mindless conversation.
"Now your ego is going to tell you I was stalking you..." Lee added coolly, stepping forward.
"Because you happen to be everywhere whenever damage and I are involved."
"That's merely a series of unfortunate coincidences."
Paul scoffed.
"This time, I was merely passing by when I noticed a crowd gathering near the bathroom. It felt strange. So, I trusted my gut and came over." Lee paused. "And guess what I saw?"
Paul folded his heavy arms across his chest as Lee continued.
"People were deliberately eavesdropping. Practically gluing their fucking ears to the bathroom door. Turns out they'd come here to answer nature's call and got blindsided by Paul William's euphoric moans instead."
"How do you want me to react?"
"You should be grateful I shooed them away for the second time this morning, sacrificed my precious pee, and saved your ass from another round of secondhand embarrassment."
Paul's jaw flexed.
Everything was already fucking ruined, and no part of him needed saving. He owned the shit he created. Every filthy fucking ounce of it.
"And you should be grateful," Paul replied in a detached tone, "that I still haven't punched you in the face for wasting my time with this stupid, ear-bleeding story."
Lee chuckled and patted the back of his head twice before responding. "You're an ungrateful bastard."
"I am."
"Well, then as a genuine friend–"
"I already told you. I have no friends." Paul stepped closer, his eyes unflinching and glacial. "Only. Enemies."
Lee's face darkened for one fleeting second before he wrestled that casual nonchalance back into place and smiled.
"Well, then, as the finance manager of Dominion Group, I'd advise you to indulge in your masturbation elsewhere. Somewhere without an audience. Just you and your dick."
"And as Danica Clarke's manager," Paul replied without the faintest trace of a smile, "I'd advise you to shut your mouth and get back to your duties. The ones that don't involve checking up on me or lecturing me."
Lee plainly stared at him, utterly unaffected. All blithe ease and calm.
While Paul returned the stare with murder simmering in his eyes and a warning carved into every hard line of his features.
He was sick of people and their fucking tantrums. Some days, he wanted to shoot them purely for fun and therapy.
But the suit, the tie, and the suffocating walls of the corporate world reminded him to stay in character.
The character of a prim, proper, workaholic gentleman.
"I know you hate a lot of people, and I'm somewhere on that ever-growing list too," Lee said, still refusing to back off. "But it makes me happy knowing there's one person in this world who might actually challenge you to add her name to it."
Paul narrowed his eyes.
"I'm talking about Nina." Lee cleared his throat before mimicking him. "Fuck... Nina. Fuck... baby. What have you done to me...?"
Paul's entire face erupted into violent shades of cherry-red, invisible fumes of flusteredness smoking from his head.
Lee dropped the mimicry and burst out laughing at the sight of his friend turning tomato-fucking-red while failing miserably to incinerate him with imaginary fireballs.
"She was–"
"I know," Lee interrupted, strangling his chuckle. "She's the source of your red, swollen lips. The bite marks. And your..." He pointed lazily toward the bathroom door. "Cum."
Lee had fucking balls.
And a point.
But Paul would rather chew glass than acknowledge either on his pretty, diamond-cut face.
"That's not what I meant. Ms. Kaur was here..." Paul cleared his throat, shamelessly deflecting. "To organize an event."
"Event?"
"Dominion is hosting a major event to introduce their new business partner. And Nina happens to be leading the whole fucking thing." Paul dragged a hand down his face. "I'm in deep, diabolical shit."
"You always are."
"I'm already trying to shove Alfred out of the way, and now we have a new nemesis in this fucking story. A new business partner. I don't know who the fuck he is." His jaw tightened. "Plus, Nina is permanently stuck to my ass."
"This is tragic. But I already told you to back off, didn't I?"
"And I already told you I'd rather burn myself alive than commit such a fucking sin." Paul gritted out. "Danica is mine. I want her. I will have her."
Lee bit back his grin. "Then may the best man win."
This is going to be one hell of a fucking ride, Lee thought, utterly amused by his best friend's riled-up state.
It's a long road. A bumpy fucking one.
And you're certainly an idiot if you believe there's only one ranger gunning for the finish line.