The Dictation

Belinda Sparks had been fired from seven jobs in two years. Not for incompetence. For blushing. Well, that and the inability to look at a powerful man without her brain short circuiting into a library of extremely unprofessional fantasies. But human resources tended to phrase it as a pattern of distracting body language. Today, she was determined to break the pattern. The elevator doors slid open onto the fifty seventh floor of Alejandro Tower. Chrome. Marble. The faint smell of expensive cologne and panic. Belinda adjusted her glasses, thick framed and deliberately ugly, and smoothed her generic black pencil skirt. You are a stenography machine, she told herself. A very efficient, sexless stenography machine. The receptionist barely looked up. "Temp?" "Belinda Sparks. For Mr. Alejandro." The woman's face flickered with something close to pity. "Last one lasted forty five minutes. Bathroom's down the hall. Use it now." Belinda's stomach dropped. She had heard the stories. Lucas Alejandro, thirty four years old, CEO of Alejandro Financial. Fortune magazine called him the blade in the three piece suit. Forbes said charmless but effective. Reddit threads called him Daddy? Sorry. Daddy? Sorry. She had read them all. At two in the morning. In the dark. With her hand between her thighs. Stop it, she snarled internally. Stenography machine. The office door was already open. Lucas Alejandro stood with his back to her, silhouetted against a wall of gray sky. Six foot three of tailored Savile Row wool. Hair so dark brown it looked black in certain light, just long enough to curl slightly at the collar. His shoulders were a warning. Broad. Tense. He was not doing anything. Just staring out the window. But the stillness had weight. Like a predator deciding whether you were prey or a waste of time. Belinda's mouth went dry. "Mr. Alejandro," she said. Her voice came out too soft. "Belinda Sparks. Tempor" "Sit." He still had not turned around. She sat. The chair was leather, cold, and slightly too low. Oh no, she thought. Oh no, oh no, oh no. His face was worse than the photos. Sharp cheekbones. A mouth that looked like it had never smiled. Eyes the color of aged whiskey, amber with flecks of gold. Cold. Assessing. He looked at her for three full seconds. Then he said, "Dictation." Belinda scrambled for her steno pad. "Yes, sir. Ready." "The Salinger acquisition. Clause fourteen, subclause three." He rattled off legal jargon at a speed that would make court reporters weep. Belinda's fingers flew. She could do this. She was good at this. For three minutes, it worked. Then he said, "Take this down verbatim." Belinda poised her pen. He stopped walking. Right behind her chair. So close she could feel the heat of his body through her blazer. "The deal closes Friday," he recited. Then, quieter, "And Miss Sparks, stop breathing so loud. It is distracting." The pen stopped. Belinda's lungs forgot how to work. She was not breathing loud. She was barely breathing at all. But she could feel it now. The way her chest rose and fell. The way her n*****s had tightened. The way her thighs pressed together. He cannot know, she thought. There is no way he can know. She looked up. Lucas Alejandro was staring directly at the pulse point in her throat. "Did you get that?" he asked. "Yes. Yes, sir." "Read it back." Belinda swallowed. She read, "The deal closes Friday. And Miss Sparks, stop breathing so loud. It is distracting." A silence. Then Lucas Alejandro smiled. It was not a nice smile. It was the smile of a man who had just confirmed a suspicion. "Good," he said. "Again." That was how Belinda learned that Lucas Alejandro did not need an assistant. He needed an audience. The first week was a masterclass in psychological warfare. He dictated merger terms while standing too close. He made her proofread documents while he loosened his tie. He never touched her. He never had to. Because every time he said "take this down" in that low, graveled voice, Belinda's pulse went straight between her legs. She started taking cold showers before work. It did not help. By day four, she was having dreams about his dictation recorder. She woke up wet and furious. By day five, she decided to fight back. Not overtly. She could not afford to be fired again. Prove you are unaffected. So when he dictated, "The quarterly projections are underwhelming, Miss Sparks. Much like your typing speed," she did not flinch. She finished the line, set down her pen, and said, "Would you like me to type faster, sir? Or would you like to admit you are stalling because you do not have anyone else to talk to after eight p.m.?" The office went silent. Lucas looked up from his monitor. Slowly. Dangerously. "Excuse me?" Belinda's heart was a jackhammer. But her face was smooth. "You heard me. You fired the last assistant for sneezing. You fired the one before that for distracting perfume. You do not need help. You need someone to watch you." He stood up. She did not move. He walked around the desk and stopped directly in front of her chair. Belinda refused to break eye contact. "You have thirty seconds to explain why I should not have security escort you out," he said. "Because I am the first person in three years who has not been afraid of you." His jaw tightened. "That is not true," he said quietly. "Is it not?" Belinda stood up. They were inches apart. "You are not scary, Mr. Alejandro. You are lonely. And you use dictation as an excuse to hear a human voice before you go home to your empty penthouse." For a long moment, she was sure she had gone too far. Then Lucas Alejandro laughed. Rusty. Unpracticed. He turned away, ran a hand through his dark hair, and when he looked back, something had shifted in his whiskey colored eyes. "Miss Sparks," he said. "You have no idea what you just started." That night, Belinda could not sleep. She lay in her studio apartment, replaying his voice. What had she started? She grabbed her phone. Opened a blank document. And before she could talk herself out of it, she typed. Dictation Number One. Unofficial. To L.A. From B.S. You think you are the only one who can dictate terms. You are not. Here is mine. You want to know why I breathe loud? Because two weeks ago, I saw you in the lobby without your jacket. Shirt sleeves rolled up. Forearms. And I have thought about those forearms every single night since. Your move, Mr. Alejandro. She stared at the words. Her face burned. Then she printed it, folded it, and tucked it into her work bag. The next morning, Belinda arrived at seven forty five. She placed the folded note directly on his keyboard. Then she sat down and waited. The elevator chimed at eight o two. His footsteps approached. He walked to his desk. She heard the soft rustle of paper. A long silence. Then, "Miss Sparks." She looked up. Lucas was holding her note. Reading it. His face was unreadable, but his knuckles had gone white. "Did you write this?" he asked. "Yes, sir." "You understand this is wildly inappropriate." "Yes, sir." "Sexually explicit content about your employer constitutes harassment, Miss Sparks." "Yes, sir. So does telling your assistant to stop breathing because it makes you hard." His eyes flashed. He walked to her desk and placed the note down in front of her. "I did not say it made me hard," he said quietly. "You did not have to. Your voice dropped an octave. You stood behind me for thirty seconds longer than necessary. You were distracted." His jaw tightened. "You are playing a very dangerous game." "I am not playing anything. I am telling you the truth." Lucas crouched down. Suddenly they were eye level, his face inches from hers. Up close, she could see the faint scar through his left eyebrow, the way his pupils had blown wide. "Let me be clear," he murmured. "If we do this, there is no going back. I do not do casual. I do not do once. I do not do 'this was a mistake.' Do you understand?" "What are you saying?" "I am saying that if I touch you, Miss Sparks, I will not stop. Not until you are mine. Not until you cannot remember a time before me. Not until the only thing you can think about is my voice in your ear telling you exactly what to do." Her breath caught. "You wrote 'your move,'" he continued. "Here it is. I am not making a move. I am telling you that if you want me, you have to say it. Out loud. Right now." Belinda's hands were shaking. Every rational part of her brain was screaming no. But the rest of her, the part that had written the note, opened her mouth and said, "I want you." Lucas stared at her. His hand came up, slowly, and his thumb brushed her lower lip. "Say it again." "I want you, Lucas." Something broke behind his eyes. He stood up, pulled her to her feet, and before she could breathe, his mouth was on hers. The kiss was not gentle. It was the kiss of a man who had been starving. His tongue swept into her mouth. She tasted coffee and hunger. She fisted her hands in his shirt. He walked her backward until her spine hit the wall. "Tell me to stop," he said against her lips. "Do not you dare." He kissed her again. Harder. His hands slid down her hips and gripped her thighs. He lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist. "Tomorrow night," he said. "My penthouse. Seven o'clock." "Why not tonight?" "Because when I finally take you to bed, I want hours. I want all night. I want to hear you scream my name." He pressed his forehead to hers. "If you come, you are mine. If you do not, we pretend this never happened." Belinda looked into his whiskey colored eyes. "Seven o'clock," she said. "I will be there." He kissed her one last time. Then he set her down, stepped back, and straightened his shirt. "You should go," he said. "Before I change my mind and take you right here on this floor." Belinda walked to the elevator on shaking legs. She pressed the button. The doors opened. She stepped inside. And as the doors closed, she heard his voice one more time. "Seven o'clock, Miss Sparks. Do not be late."