Chapter 197: Ask Nicely**

The fourth floor of the East Wing was dark except for the line of light under Jack’s door.

Blair knocked at nine exactly.

"It’s open."

He was at his desk with a stack of midterms and a red pen. He didn’t look up. She closed the door behind her and stood just inside it with her coat buttoned to the throat.

"Lock it."

She turned the lock. The click was loud in the small room.

Jack finished a word in a margin, capped the pen and laid it square to the stack. Then he leaned back in his chair and looked at her.

"We agreed to work on this together," he said. "You and me."

"The man Silver has on a chain gave you the old line tip, and you kept it to yourself. Someone put you under the ice, and you told me it was handled." He didn’t raise his voice. "And Silver keeps something in his water, and you told me fish."

Her fingers found the edge of her cuff.

"Three lies to the one person working beside you." He tipped his head toward the door behind her. "It opens from this side. If you stay, you’ll be punished for every one of them."

She looked at the door. Then she looked at him.

"Yes, Professor."

"Coat."

She unbuttoned it and laid it over the chair by his desk.

"Sweater."

She hesitated, then pulled it over her head and laid it on top of her coat. She stood in her undershirt and skirt with her right hand closed at her side.

Jack came around the desk and took her right wrist. He turned her hand under the lamp. The bruise across her knuckles had gone yellow at the edges. In the middle of it, the curve of a heel still showed.

He looked at it for a long moment. Then at the bite on the inside of her left wrist. He said nothing about either.

He let go, reached past her and switched off the lamp.

"Hands on the sill."

The room went dark except for the window. She crossed to it and put her hands on the cold stone.

He came up behind her and didn’t touch her. She could hear him breathing, slow and even. Hers wasn’t.

Then his hand closed around the back of her neck, and she went still.

"The man on the chain," he said at her ear.

"I—"

"Not yet."

His other hand slid down her side to the hem of her skirt. He drew it up to her waist and held it there with his wrist. His fingertips traced the inside of her thigh, an inch at a time, and stopped at the edge of her underwear.

She pushed back against him before she could stop herself.

"Still."

She held still.

He stroked her through the cotton with two fingers, lightly, bottom to top. She was already wet. She knew he could feel it, and her face burned in the dark.

He hooked the cotton aside. Two fingers spread her open, and the pad of his middle finger found her clit and circled it. He kept the same slow circle until her thighs shook, until her hips rocked into his hand and her breath came in short pulls, until she was right there—

He took his hand away.

A small, broken sound came out of her.

"You keep your eyes on the floor," Jack said, "and your voice small, and people trip over themselves to forgive you. I’ve watched you do it to my godson." His fingertips drew one slow line up her inner thigh. "It doesn’t work on me. Now. The man on the chain."

She pressed her forehead to the glass. "Caleb."

"Go on."

"He said it was under the trees. He begged me not to ask him again." Her voice shook.

Jack’s fingers came back. Two of them pushed inside her, slow, all the way, and his thumb took over the circle. She bit her lip to keep quiet. He curled his fingers forward, and she couldn’t keep anything.

He worked her up again with the same patience. Each time her breath broke, he eased off, waited and started again. The second time he stopped, she was trembling against the window and her bruised hand slid on the sill.

He laid his own hand over it. His thumb rested on the heel mark and pressed, just enough for her to feel it.

"Who put you under the ice?"

"Olive."

"Olive," he repeated.

He let her cum that time. He didn’t slow and didn’t stop, and she came with her mouth open against the cold glass and her knees giving out. He held her up with one arm around her waist until she could stand.

Behind her, his belt. The side drawer of the desk. A foil wrapper tearing.

He pulled her underwear down her legs, and she stepped out of it. His palm pressed between her shoulder blades until she was bent over the sill. The head of his cock rested against her entrance and stayed there.

"Say it."

"Yes. Please, Professor."

He pushed into her slowly. She was swollen and sensitive, and the stretch made her gasp. He didn’t stop until he was all the way in. Then he held still, his hips against her and his hand flat on her back, and let her feel all of him.

He began to move. Long strokes, nearly all the way out and all the way back in.

"Daemus looks at you and sees something small that needs keeping safe," he said. "I see a liar."

She shut her eyes.

"A manipulator. You cry when crying works. You go quiet when quiet works." He drove in deep and held there. "You use everyone soft enough to let you."

Her face burned. Her body didn’t care. She tightened around him, and he felt it. His hand closed harder on her hip.

"He might fall for the puppy eyes, Ms. Willows. I don’t. I know exactly what kind of monster you are."

He found the angle that made her knees go weak and stayed on it. When she began to tighten again, he stopped.

"What’s in the tank?"

She didn’t answer.

He waited, buried in her. His thumb moved once along her spine.

"No," she said.

"No?"

"No, Professor."

He drew back until only the head of him was inside her and held there.

"Why is it always lies with you?"

She pressed her cheek to the glass.

"Why?"

"Because the truth gets people hurt."

She heard it in the dark and wished it back.

Jack went still.

She didn’t let herself think about the last person she had told everything to.

"Who?" he said.

She shook her head against the glass. He didn’t ask again.

"Then you don’t cum until you ask for it," he said. "Properly."

Heat flooded her face. She pushed back against him. He moved with her and kept the inch.

"Please," she whispered.

"Louder."

She swallowed. "Please, Professor. Please let me cum."

He thrust back into her hard and didn’t stop again.

The slow strokes were gone. He took her fast and deep, one hand gripping her hip and the other wound in her hair. His breathing went rough. Then he made a low sound in his throat, one she had never heard from him, and it undid her. She came around him crying into her own arm, and he drove into her through it until his rhythm broke. He pressed deep and held her there, and came with his forehead against the back of her neck.

Neither of them moved for a while.

He pulled out carefully. She heard him deal with the condom and his belt. Then the lamp came back on.

By the time she had found her underwear on the floor and straightened her skirt, he was at his desk with the red pen uncapped.

She went to the chair for her sweater. A small flat tin sat on top of it. The label had worn off the lid. It hadn’t been there when she took her sweater off.

She looked at him.

"Twice a day," he said, and turned a page.

She pulled the sweater on, tugged the right cuff down and put the tin in her coat pocket.

"Eleven tomorrow," Jack said, still writing. "Wear something you can swim in."

She unlocked the door and let herself out.