Breaking Lucy Pt. 01

This is a two-part story.

It marks my first foray into the NonCon/Reluctance genre, which is rather strange, since I read that category almost obsessively. You can form your own opinions about what that may mean. ;)

But my tastes in this regard are rather particular. I prefer the lighter, "Reluctance" end of the spectrum, rather than the hard core NonCon end. My preferences are for stories that involve the breaking of will or resolve, versus the breaking of skin, if you see what I mean.

So hard core fans may find this a tad tame, but I undertook this as a sort of "aggressive seduction" story.

If you're reading this category, I'm assuming you can probably handle masculine dominance and female subjugation story lines. This is erotica, after all, it's not a socio-political essay. But if that is not your cup of tea, you may want to spare yourself the next few pages.

For everyone else who is willing to take a little journey with us, I hope you like it.

I must admit, I really, really enjoyed writing this one. (Again, you're free to form your own opinions on the meaning of that statement.)

Kisses,

L

*****

Monday, 2:39PM – Executive Board Room

She wanted nothing more than to slap that knowing smirk off his handsome face.

'What an arrogant, infuriating dick!' Lucy fumed silently, carefully maintaining her poker face. She knew his type – the kind of guy who was used to getting whatever he wanted. Life must be SO easy when you're a tall, dark, handsome, rich white guy of a certain age.

Now he was making eye contact with her. What color were those eyes, anyway? Emerald? Jesus. And no man should have eyelashes like that.

The devil is always pleasing to look at, she mused. Just listen to him go on and on about how much needed to be improved! This company has been reasonably successful for nearly eight years, and Lucy had been there for the last five. Could they do better? Of course. Was everything broken? No way.

Sure, some of the points he made were probably right. In fact, many were ideas that Lucy herself had presented to the CEO just a few months ago. She persisted in following up, but hadn't heard a final answer on her recommendations. And then last month, her boss informed her that he decided to engage this consultant.

He had a major reputation as a "fixer", the kind of strategic consultant that turned businesses around. He'd written two best-selling books on strategy, and had done a couple of popular TED Talks. Must be costing them a fortune. Of course, why should they listen to an experienced, committed and loyal employee who knew the business inside and out, when they can spend a fortune on some slick, name-brand opportunist for the same ideas?!

'Fuck him.' Lucy thought, as she endeavored to maintain her serene expression. 'And the fucking horse he rode in on...' She added mentally. That phrase always made her laugh, though, and now was no exception. She averted her eyes, pretending to look down at her notepad on the conference table, as she desperately tried to stifle the giggle that rose up unbidden.

'Stop thinking about it!' She scolded herself. She could feel the involuntary tug at the corners of her mouth. Lucy began to doodle. It was a nervous habit she had when stuck in situations like this – situations in which she had to fight the urge to jump out of her chair and shout.

Other people around the table were nodding vigorously and agreeing with everything he said. They all had the glazed eyes and bemused grins of true sycophants. Fucking groupies. Lucy was surprised they didn't all rush up to kiss his ring. They probably would have if he'd been wearing one – which he wasn't, she noticed.

And he was still talking – but now he was asking people questions. What a manipulator! In that deep, husky voice of his. Figures, he had to be English. Lucy unconsciously fidgeted in her chair as the moist tickling between her thighs intensified. An English accent just sounds smarter to inexperienced Americans, she internally grumbled. It was a posh accent, born in exclusive Public Schools. Even his name is posh. "Stuart Mannering." Like a hero in a fucking Jane Austin novel.

Okay, so it's not that Stuart was wrong in what he was saying. Maybe he was smart, but did he have to rub their faces in it?

"Lucy?"

SHIT! Now he was talking to her. Her head snapped up, and Lucy felt a flush growing in her cheeks as she was forced to look into his eyes. Eyes almost too pretty for a man. Almost. She felt all the other eyes in the room upon her.

"Sorry – yes?" Her voice sounded very deep in her own ears. Almost breathless.

He paused for a long moment, just looking at her. What was this? Some kind of mind game? Her panties were now totally soaked. She found herself clutching the pencil so hard it almost hurt.

Fucker.

'Keep it together!' She mentally chided herself. She put on a polite smile and raised an eyebrow inquiringly. This is the 'oh yes, please, Mr. Expensive Consultant, I'm so eager to help you' expression.

His eyes moved over her face and then down to the scoop neck of her blouse, where a subtle few inches of her cleavage were visible. She had large breasts, so there wasn't much to be done about it except deal with it. Trying to cover up large breasts only succeeded in making a woman look dowdy, or hefty. Better to just embrace them, so to speak.

The top was expensive, and looked it. Her double-strand of pearls gleamed against her skin, resting just at the top of the cleft. His eyes traveled back up, lingering for a fraction of a second on her lips before again holding her eyes hostage. It happened in a heartbeat. Lucy doubted anyone else would have noticed. But she certainly had, and he'd seen to that. He smiled, his white, perfect teeth looking dangerous. He was definitely fucking with her.

"Bob gave me a memo you'd written about a potential new venture a few months ago – it was exactly the kind of thing I've been talking about with him. It was really well done. Do you want to work on the new investment initiative project with me, since you have so many great ideas?"

Hmm. Keep your enemies closer? Get me to do your homework? 'Not as if I have a choice, do I?' Lucy thought sourly. But still, she held that placid little smile.

"I'd like nothing more." She said, immediately biting her lower lip to stop the laugh that almost burst forth at her shameless lie. If he wanted to play games, so could she.

His eyes narrowed for a nanosecond, and then he quickly recovered a pleasant smile.

"Good, thanks. I'll send you an email so we can put some time into the diary later this week." He began to turn back to the whiteboard he'd been writing on.

"Great." Lucy replied. Her sarcasm was almost perceptible this time. He finished writing a word, and then inserted punctuation with rather more force than needed. Though he continued talking, when he turned back around, his eyes burned into hers for a moment before they moved back over the rest of the room.

Shit. That tiny rebellion of hers was a little too overt. She was going to have to watch it with this one. He was perceptive.

Lucy reached for her glass of water, suddenly needing to soothe her dry throat. She drained more than half, trying to calm herself. Hopefully, it could put out the fire that seemed to be burning inside her.

When she placed the glass back on the table squarely in the center of the coaster, Lucy noticed that the water pitcher nearest to her was empty. Dammit. She could really use more. Her pencil began to attack her notepad afresh, this time drawing droplets of water flowing from the top of her page into a hastily sketched puddle at the bottom.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she had a frisson down her back. He was standing behind her, talking to George across the table. He moved even closer, his hands resting on the back of her chair. She could practically feel his body heat.

Fucker.

Lucy looked across at George, and saw the worshipful expression on his pasty face. Poor George. The kind of nerd who always wanted to be friends with a guy like Stuart.

She could sense Stuart looking over her shoulder. She was glad she hadn't written any of her hostile thoughts on her notepad. Let him look, she thought. All he'd see was the clean, crisp summary of the key ideas they'd been discussing, captured in perfect outline form. And her little artsy doodling, which she wished she could hide.

She began to breathe again as Stuart moved further down the table. But then, to her great consternation, he came right back and moved between her chair and the empty one to her right. Leaning around her such that she could feel the brush of his chest on her upper arm, Lucy was astonished to see him refill her glass, and then deposit a fresh pitcher of water on the table in front of her.

She looked up at him in surprise, forgetting for a moment to maintain her guard. His face was less than a foot away from hers. He smelled good – like cedar and citrus. He looked down into her eyes, a crooked smile on his face, and nodded toward the water.

"Thought you might want some." He said in a dark undertone.

Her tummy did a little somersault and her lips fell open as she looked up at him. He paused, waiting for a reaction. His eyes were sparkling wickedly. It was clear that he meant the double entendre.

Numbly, she said "Thanks." His smile widened, and he winked. Then, as if nothing had happened, he turned back to George and continued making his point.

Fucker.

Lucy spent a rather long time in the Ladies Room after the meeting. She needed a moment to collect herself. Hiding in a stall, she took a moment to pee, and then just stayed there for a few minutes trying to slow her racing heart and normalize her breathing. Her nether regions were slick with arousal. She was thoroughly annoyed with herself.

'I'll be damned if I will become one of his fucking groupies.' Lucy thought. 'It will take more than a wink and his lucky genetics to make a sucker out of me.'

The word "sucker" was an unfortunate choice, however, because it just made Lucy think about what his cock might be like. Probably pretty fucking big, given his confident swagger, his height, and the size of his goddam hands. Those hands. She literally shook her head, as if to knock those thoughts out of it. Enough.

She yanked the stall door open with a bit too much force, and it smashed against the wall. Luckily, no one was in there with her to see this lapse in control. Lucy looked at herself in the mirror while she scrubbed her hands, rinsed, and then scrubbed again.

She tried to see herself objectively, to perceive what Stuart saw when he looked her over so very carefully. 'Like I'm a horse he's thinking about buying!' She thought caustically. 'I'm surprised he didn't ask to check my teeth!'

Just hovering on the south side of forty, Lucy looked many years younger. Her wavy hair was that indistinct color on the spectrum between dark blond and light brown. She kept its length just brushing the top of her shoulders, and had highlights and lowlights done every six weeks or so.

Her skin was healthy, perhaps due to her obsession with hydration. Her eyebrows were very thick and dark. She had them shaped at the salon each time she had her hair done. Sometimes she worried they were too masculine. Her hazel eyes were heavily flecked, and looked alternately amber and gray or pale green and brown, depending on the light and what she wore.

Today, they looked decidedly amber. Her lips were full and wide – her mouth was a very dominant feature in her face. Since Lucy felt that her features were all too extreme – eyebrows too bushy, eyes too pale, nose too small, cheekbones too angular, mouth too wide, jaw too square – she wore very little make-up. She would only use natural tones and sheer gloss on those lips – anything darker would likely look lurid.

Lucy dried her hands in the turbo hand dryer, and then put a few stray locks back into place. Her ivory blouse was tucked into her knee-length, black pencil skirt. Her kitten heels were enough to seem feminine, without being slutty or making her too much taller than her natural 5' 7". She had a yoga body – she preferred exercise that was efficient, precise, and disciplined.

Overall, Lucy felt that she was too "medium". Medium height, medium weight, medium brown hair. Medium. And thus, boring. She sighed. What might it be like, she wondered, to be a dramatic beauty – to make people stop and stare? But then she shook off that notion. Women like that – women full of drama – they didn't always have happy ends. Life happened to them, they were not usually in control. How messy.

Feeling more like herself, Lucy exited the restroom and walked crisply back to her office. As she passed by the conference room, she could see him still in there through the glass partition, talking with some of his fan club. He glanced up and made eye contact as she walked by. A faintly predatory grin creased the corners of his mouth. Lucy inhaled sharply – suddenly feeling like the canary to his cat.

She looked away quickly, and made her way out of his line of sight. She imagined for a moment that she could feel his eyes on her backside as she walked away. It was all she could do to resist looking back over her shoulder. For some reason, she felt that he'd like that way too much.

Wednesday 4:29 PM – 28th Floor Guest Office

Arriving about a minute early for their meeting, Lucy rapped with her knuckles on the half-open door, and peered around to see if he was inside. The door was suddenly tugged inward and Stuart was standing so close that she gasped audibly and jerked backward too quickly, slamming into the door jamb.

Inhaling through gritted teeth, she visibly winced as the corner jabbed painfully into her right shoulder blade and her head snapped back to hit the hard molding.

Much to Lucy's chagrin, she couldn't stop the soft "OW!" that escaped her lips. She reached one hand up automatically to rub the back of her head.

Her cheeks turned scarlet with embarrassment as she looked up into that ridiculously good looking face. But she was stunned to only see urgent concern there, not the derision or humor she might have expected.

Stuart reached for her, gently pulling her inside and shutting the door. "Oh. My. God. Are you alright? I'm so very sorry, Lucy. That was very clumsy of me. Are you hurt?"

Perversely, and perhaps because the pain which had been sharp and irradiating was now subsiding, she began to laugh. It was like a knee-jerk reaction to feeling foolish.

Stuart was very still for a moment as he watched her, the husky, self-deprecating laugh somehow diffusing the otherwise awkward situation. The sound of it rolled over him like a sensual wave. He thought once again how incredibly sexy this woman was, and how completely unaware of it she seemed to be. That mouth was even more incredible when she was smiling for real – not like that plastic, passive-aggressive little mask she was wearing in the meeting the other day.

Stuart had to force himself to stop thinking about what he would like to do with that mouth.

"Have we met? I'm Grace." She quipped, laughter rippled through her words. It was infectious.

The sympathetic crease in his brow erased, and he laughed along with her, urging her toward the sofa in the large, airy office. He could feel the silky warmth of her skin beneath the fine fabric of her blouse. He inhaled the scent of her perfume. He'd noted it in the meeting on Monday, but it was more pronounced now. Had she put more on before coming to see him?

"Can I get you some ice, or something?" He asked solicitously. She laughed even more. Bloody hell, he felt his cock stiffening a little.

"No – no, I'm fine. Really. Just feeling a little silly." He watched how she moved. Her body was sinewy and curvy in all the right places. He loved her uptight little heels and the way her ass looked in those sleek skirts.

She sat down on the sofa, exactly where he'd directed her, without seeming to notice that he'd done so. Hmm. Interesting.

He turned toward the windows, saying: "You shouldn't feel silly – I'm the one who essentially sprang upon you, scaring you half to death. I'm lucky you're not concussed. I'm getting a water – want one?"

As Stuart walked over to the mini fridge tucked into the credenza by the windows, Lucy took a moment to inventory herself. She was reasonably together, though that body slam would likely leave a bruise on her shoulder and a lump on her head. She smoothed down her skirt, tucking one flap of the side slit under the other, and glanced down to make sure that not too much décolletage was showing in the V-neck of her wrap blouse.

She was annoyed with herself for that goofy incident, and for giggling like a girl. She needed to keep it together around this guy. Why were her panties so wet? Again!?

"A water would be great. Thanks." Back to business. She leaned closer to the low sofa table and flipped open the large file folder she'd brought along.

Lucy sorted between the variety of pitches she'd collected, and prioritized the ones she thought were most likely candidates, near term. Stuart put one of the bottles of water down in front of her, and then walked around the table. She assumed he'd sit across from her in one of the club chairs, but instead he walked all the way around and sat on the sofa to her immediate left.

Her nervous surprise was betrayed by a momentary pause. She made it a point to not look at him, but her hands had begun to shake a little, and she felt her heart rate spike. He was so close she could smell his unique scent, and feel the energy emanating from his body. His thigh was just a few inches from hers.

He leaned forward for the sheaths of paper she'd set to the left side of the stack and turned upside down. This was the high priority stack of ideas she'd set there, so they could discuss them first. Picking them up without even asking, he flipped them face up and began to scan each one, leafing through the three packets of information she'd clipped together.

A flash of annoyance rushed up, coloring her cheeks, at his presumption. As if this work somehow belonged to him.

Swiveling toward him, she snatched the pages from his hand, tersely saying: "Whoa there, don't get ahead of yourself. I want to walk through my ideas" (her emphasis on "my" was not subtle) "in a specific sequence, but first, I want to frame up the process. We should agree on the key criteria we want to use to form our shortlist, and we should discuss the critical path for coming to a go/no go decision on the ones we decide to recommend. Once that structure is in place, we can work through the more tangible things like funding and timing."

He grinned at her, watching her closely as she reordered the pages he'd been holding and tapped the bottom of the stack on the table to make them all perfectly even. Stuart loved the way her delicate nostrils flared when she was angry, and the OCD tendencies she was showing were highly entertaining. He then looked down pointedly at the way her knee had jammed into his thigh when she turned, and how the side slit of her skirt had fallen open. He had a great view of a vast expanse of her lean, nylon-clad thigh. The off-black, sheer pantyhose had a darker black lace pattern etched around the upper thigh, as if simulating a garter. When she bought them, she thought this would be her own naughty little secret. Not anymore. She followed his gaze and inhaled sharply when she saw this.

Lucy scrambled away from him, which forced her to press close to the arm of the sofa. She struggled to adjust her skirt to cover her legs.

With confidence and maddening slowness, he slid further back on the sofa, crossed his left leg over his right, and rested his right arm along the back, effectively trapping Lucy into the corner.