The Chemistry Of Control Ch 02

"You want total control," he told her two and a half weeks later, hardly waiting for her to fully open the door.

Her face registered nothing but pleasant attentiveness. Her eyebrows came up for a moment, but her lips never parted. He knew she would stay that way forever if he didn't indulge her.

"You like playing John and I off of each other the way a kid likes to control BOTH Rockem'-Sockem' robots, am I right? I just want to hear you say it."

The corner of her mouth curved up in slow motion, her dimples finally coming out. Her smile was, as usual, patronizing and completely self-satisfied. Her dress was the one she had worn the first day he saw her, but she had on knee-high boots and a lace-edged denim jacket that gave her a slightly more rugged look. It did nothing to decrease her femininity.

"Would you be uncomfortable coming in?" she asked with a flash of her green eyes, knowing full well that it was the last thing that would make me uncomfortable. She stepped back and opened the door fully, putting plenty of professional, platonic space between them. She knew that HE knew that she had done it completely on purpose. It was incredible what this girl would do to drive him crazy.

Brandon stepped in to the very room he had shared with Maren and John a few weeks before as the triangle of tension had quivered a bitter note in the air. If not for the fact that she asked him to come in, he would have let himself immediately regret using the lame Robots reference.

When she had closed the door and was standing within three agonizing feet of him, she gestured for him to go ahead and sit. He chose the couch, assuming she would take a chair, which she did. At least it was the closest chair, and he could still read her eyes- the only thing that really betrayed her in most situations.

"You've come over to try to figure me out, is that is?" she asked him when they were both seated. "You think that I've got you and John in a fight that I'm controlling, and that I already have a winner in mind? Am I a child, Brandon?"

Even though he knew she was feigning offense, and that she knew he was absolutely right, he couldn't help but smile internally at the sound of his name on her lips. He wondered if he could get it to come out louder, or maybe softer and out-of-breath. He wanted to have both, repeatedly, for days on end.

"You're no child, Maren," he stated back, combining a patronizing tone with one of some admiration. "In fact, you're a very crafty, very manipulative woman, and unfortunately I've fallen victim."

She shook her head in mock sadness, getting up to pour herself a glass of water. And remove her jacket. He thought she must have a terribly good immune system considering all the water she was ingesting on a daily basis. After a long drink, she left the glass on the counter and came back to him. Instead of sitting, she remained standing, towering over him. "Would you mind telling me what you've been a victim of?"

"You know what you do to a man, Maren."

She seemed surprised by this answer, as if it were bolder than she expected. Of COURSE she knew what she was doing. How could she not? She bent her knees and seated herself on the edge of the coffee table, directly facing him. For a moment, one of her knees slid in between his and rested there. It was the first time they had physically touched outside of a handshake, yet she had been touching him cruelly, mentally, for weeks. Her eyes were glued on his, and there was a fiery center to each of them that the water had not hindered. She pointed to a copy of the Organic Chemistry journal that rested on the bottom shelf of the table.

"In your term paper, you described an extra terrestrial being that cannot think in the abstract... a being that can only understand an experience by actually experiencing it, am I right?"

Of course she was right. She didn't wait for validation.

"I'm starting to think you're the thing you wrote about."

When he didn't answer, she slid both of her hands up over his kneecaps and forward to his thighs. She gripped them dangerously close to his lap as she made her point, "All you've ever done is demean women and torture their thoughts. You've made them crazy wanting to please you even for a second. I didn't have to talk to very many people to find that out about you."

"You talked to Ellen," he guessed. Though, it could have been anyone.

"Ellen wouldn't speak to me. She seemed to blame me for your lack of consideration for her." Her hands didn't budge. "But I've enjoyed teaching you a lesson." Her sly smile had crept back and there seemed to be some intention behind it now.

"What lesson?" he asked, concentrating on suppressing the erection that he knew he could not think away. He had spent these few weeks trying to take control of his need, thinking that was the only weapon against her. He was totally losing it all over again.

"I was teaching you what it feels like to be demeaned," she answered quickly.

Everything was speeding up. She was close now. He could smell her hair and taste her skin from two feet away. Her lips were still moving, and she was telling him things... painting vivid pictures in his head that he had spent days on end erasing. Her fingers started dancing playfully over the swollen craving in his lap, and she had almost touched him when she pulled away and stood again. He wondered if his whimper was aloud.

"Let me see it," she demanded, the edge of her lips slanting in that sexy, maddening way of hers. "Stand up."

He followed her orders. At this point he didn't know what else to do. He tried to think about what she had said about demeaning women, and his paper, and none of it made sense. His head was so full of her smell and her closeness. He stood, unzipping his pants and pushing them down to his knees, where they fell to his ankles. His full erection held up the hem of his shirt, but she seemed to not even glance down. Her eyes were still glued on his.

"I want you," she said, "but not nearly as much as you want me."

She laughed an intoxicating little laugh as if it were a great piece of wit, then let her eyes fall to the hardest part of his body. Taking it carefully in her hand, she took one step closer and brushed her lips softly against his while she gripped him ever so softly, letting the pads of her fingers drag lightly across his sensitive skin.

"Tell me what you've been thinking about," she encouraged, feeling him twitch in her honey-colored hand.