Tie a Tie

The prince groaned when she pressed the towel down on his hair. She bit on her lips, releasing them only when she felt a sharp pang of pain. Inflicting pain on herself helped in restricting herself from doing something irrational. Something irrational like wrapping the towel around the prince's face and choking him with it. But she wouldn't. He would overpower her and kill her even before she attempted to choke him with it.

"Press down a little harder." His words came out as an order. Esmeralda inhaled and exhaled before pressing the towel down on his hair. 

"That's okay. Come over here." Esmeralda moved to stand in his front.

"I have a market survey I haven't attended to." He blurted out. Esmeralda gave him a questioning look, wondering where he was heading to with his sudden announcement. 

He rose from the chair to stand, barely giving her the time to adjust to prevent their bodies from touching.

"You don't like body contact?" He asked, his eyes narrowing down on her neck. He leaned in and Esmeralda moved back, suddenly feeling wary of their proximity.

"Are you that paranoid? What is that on your neck?" Esmeralda's hand went to feel the spot he was looking at. 

"It's nothing." She answered, transferring her gaze elsewhere. She didn't trust her eyes not to wander around his almost naked body.

"Nothing? The spot looks red. Like a hickey." Esmeralda didn't miss his sarcasm at the end, but she wasn't about to tell him the story of how her mother had slapped her hard once when she was eight. Her mother applied balm later that night, but it only caused the spot to redden the more. Her mother's magic had done it. The spot healed, but the redness didn't.

"Yes, a hickey." She replied. The prince nodded, his face changing from worried to indifferent. 

"I'll be back." He disappeared into an adjoining room and came back later with a suit bag. He opened it and threw something at her. Esmeralda caught it in her arms and raised it. A tie.

"Do you know how to tie a tie?" He asked, slipping his arms ever slowly into a cotton wine shirt like a striptease would after stripping.

Esmeralda took her gaze away from the prince. This was going to be difficult. She was supposed to be putting him in a similar situation, teasing and seducing him, but here she was. In his executive suite and watching him dress. 

"I know how to knot a tie." Esmeralda answered, letting her gaze rest on the glass panes. From her position, she was seeing almost all of the highway of Aleshore.

The prince crooked one of his fingers, signaling her to move closer to him.

"Knot a tie. Tie a tie. The verb doesn't matter." He said, his hot breath fanning Esmeralda on her neck. Esmeralda raised the tie and hooked it around his neck. She didn't know why but this state they were in made her insides tingle. She was with the tie, and he was just there, staring at her.

"The verb matters, sir." She drew out. The prince chuckled. The low ramble of his voice did things to her she didn't think was possible. Her body was reacting traitorously to him, for example.

"How?" He asked. Esmeralda straightened his collar before proceeding to knot the tie just in front of his open button. For some seconds, she watched as his  Adam's apple bobbed up and down. The movement had her glued to him, she found it sexy. Now, she knew she had to find a tree to bash her head on. She couldn't be getting attracted to someone her mother wanted her to eliminate. Eliminate in the using-his-semen-to-get-him-and-render-his-bloodline-impotent-kind-of-way. 

Esmeralda remembered they were in the middle of a conversation and that he had asked a question.

"You misunderstood me when I used the verb 'come'.

The prince held her hands which were tying  the second knot on his neck. His hands were hot on her own cold ones. A soft caress she wanted to last forever. But no, the prince being the kind of man he was, withdrew his hands quickly as if she had leprosy.

"I am a man of clarity. I love elaboration. Come can mean anything." 

Esmeralda quickly tied the second knot and drew it outside of the first one she had tied. She removed her hands from his neck and dropped them to her sides. The prince felt the tie and patted it.

"You tie well." He remarked. His eyes narrowed down on her neck again and he frowned.

"That is not a hickey, Esmeralda Furler." Esmeralda's breath caught in her throat at the addition of her surname. Why was he even interested in knowing what it was? She didn't like the attention he was giving her neck, so she drew her chiffon up a little. The movement caused her skirt to move up and the prince's eyes went to her legs. 

"Let's talk about the market survey. Go to the office and wait for me." The concern on his face which he was sporting a few minutes ago was no more. All she saw now was indifference.

She hated this job. She was not cut out to be a personal assistant, especially when she was working under the wolf prince. They had spent almost two hours working on the market survey. The prince was very brilliant with numbers, but he was impatient.

She heard something crash to the ground and shatter. She heard the prince cuss shortly after. Another crash. She rose from her chair and dashed out of her office to investigate what was happening.

She pushed his door open and saw him pick up a flower vase, obviously planning to hurl it across the glass panes. 

"Stop." She didn't mean to shout, but since it caused him to stop and turn, she was glad she did. She closed the door and took a good look around. There were other shattered vases on the floor. A crack on one of the pictures on the wall, and a dent on the glass panes.

She went to him and asked him to hand over the vase. He glared at her. Not moving. Not blinking. For a moment, Esmeralda wondered if the man would smack her on the head with the flower vase.

"Hand it over, it'll be over, I promise." She didn't know why she had said the last part and even made him a promise. The prince made her do and say questionable things.

"It'll be over?" He asked. Now she was confused, but all the same, she nodded. He gently dropped the vase in her open hands and ran his hands through his hair. Esmeralda went to drop the vase back on the shelf where others were. Some unlucky others were broken.

"Leave." He ordered. His eyes were a dark shade of red now. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, leaving his bulging biceps and muscles exposed. 

"No." Esmeralda told him. 

"Leave. Now."

"You won't throw things around?" He dropped his menacing stare and posed to rub his palm over his face.

"I won't, okay? I'm not a monster, so stop looking at me as if I'm Thor Ragnarok with the hammer. Now leave!" His voice had attained a threatening bass now. 

She left quietly as she had come. Her first day of work wasn't going as fine as she had hoped it would be. She was going to her mother's place to complain. To quit. She couldn't bring herself to do any of what her mother was trusting her to do.

She had seen the fierce looking prince in his vulnerable state. He was clearly frustrated and angry with fate. She felt guilty, knowing her mother was responsible. She felt guilty the more, knowing she was about to heighten his frustration.