Dylan Garcia

The weekend stretched out longer than it had any right to. I thought I’d savor the quiet of my apartment, maybe even welcome it after Charles’s intensity, but the silence grated instead. Every tick of the clock on the wall only reminded me how empty the space felt without his voice threading through it.

It was my fault. I was the one who had snapped at him, reminded him that we were just an S and M contract, nothing more. I had told him not to act like a jealous boyfriend. And he listened, too well.

No texts. No calls. No sharp, commanding messages that usually made my stomach clench with dread and anticipation. Nothing.

I told myself this was good. This was what I wanted. I could finally focus on my life outside him, focus on work, focus on myself. But no matter how I want to distract myself, Charles was always on the picture. In a span of few days, he already trained me like a good sub. I would always hears his voice as if everything I do, its his comman. When I went to bed, the sheets were cool and untouched, instead of carrying the faint warmth of another body. The absence settled into my bones.

By Monday, the distance between us was more suffocating than his presence ever was. At work, I caught myself glancing at my phone between emails, expecting to see a new message waiting, something like be at my place tonight, don’t be late. But the screen stayed dark.

And Eric didn’t help. He hovered in the office, a smug smile lingering on his lips whenever he caught my eye, as if daring me to prove Charles wrong. His shoulder brushed mine when he leaned over my desk, and my whole body flinched, not just from discomfort but from the sharp reminder of Charles’s hand slamming the grocery table, his voice like a whip in my head. You’re mine. My sub.

But he wasn’t texting me. He wasn’t calling. He wasn’t anything.

The first meeting came late Monday morning.

I had been typing out an email, my eyes blurry from lack of sleep, when the low rumble of his voice carried across the open floor. I froze before I even turned, pulse spiking like a startled animal.

“Garcia.”

I looked up. Charles stood at the edge of my cubicle, suit immaculate, expression unreadable. Not cold, just controlled. Too controlled. His gaze flicked briefly over me, impersonal in a way that made my stomach twist.

“Morning, sir,” I managed, my voice thinner than I wanted.

He nodded, no warmth in it, and handed me a folder. “Review this by noon. We’ll need the figures for the client call.”

That was it. No sharp glint in his eyes, no double meaning layered under his words. Just work.

My hands trembled slightly as I took the folder. “Understood.”

He turned without another word, walking back toward his office. His stride was steady, commanding as always, but it felt like watching him from behind glass, close enough to touch, yet untouchable.

I sat there staring at the folder in my lap, heart pounding. The silence between us had followed us into the office, colder and sharper here than in my empty apartment.

By lunch, it was worse. I’d carried my tray into the breakroom, ready to choke down a sandwich, when Eric slid into the seat across from me, smirk already in place.

“So,” he drawled, voice pitched low, “having trouble with your neighbour?”

I stiffened. “Not your business.”

He leaned forward, elbows on the table, grin widening. “Funny, though. I could’ve sworn he watched you like a hawk last Saturday. Like a predator protecting its meal. Now? It’s like you are just some leftovers. Guess he got bored.”

Before I could snap back, the door opened. Charles walked in, coffee in hand.

For one suspended moment, his gaze caught mine, just for a breath. His face didn’t change, but the weight of it pressed into me, pulling something taut inside my chest. Then he turned away, wordlessly fixing his coffee at the counter.

Eric’s grin sharpened as he muttered, “Yup. Definitely bored.”

I shoved my tray aside, appetite gone. My legs moved before I had time to think, carrying me out of the room, past Charles, whose broad shoulder brushed mine in passing. He didn’t flinch, didn’t pause. Didn’t look at me.

And that hurt worse than anything else.

By afternoon, I’d buried myself in spreadsheets, trying to lose the gnawing ache under layers of numbers. It didn’t work. My concentration slipped, every row blurring into the next until I was rereading the same line three times over. The problem wasn’t the work. It was the man a few offices down the hall.

I could hear his voice occasionally, measured, commanding, sharp against the hum of typing and phones. Not the voice I knew in the dark, low and dangerous when it curled against my ear. No. This was his professional mask, the one that never faltered.

The same one he wore when he looked straight through me this morning.

I dropped my pen and rubbed at my eyes, exhaustion sitting heavy in my bones. It was ridiculous, I told myself. He was just my boss at work. Just my dom outside of it. Two separate things. I should’ve been grateful he kept that line clean. But the truth was, I wanted the look. That unshakable, consuming focus of his on me. Even here. Especially here.

Around three, Eric found another excuse to hover. He leaned over the partition of my cubicle, fingers drumming against the divider.

“You look like hell, Garcia.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, not glancing up.

“You know,” he continued smoothly, “if your neighbor is giving you a hard time, there are other people who’d actually appreciate you.”

My jaw tightened. “Drop it, Eric. I’m not interested.”

He chuckled, ignoring me, leaning closer until I could feel his breath against my ear. “Maybe I should take you out for a drink. Loosen you up a little. You could use it. I can maybe do better than him.”

“Shut up.” My voice was low, shaking more from anger than fear.

And that’s when I felt it, an all too familiar shift in the air. A weight. A presence.

Charles.

He stood at the end of the row, a stack of files in one hand, his eyes dark and unreadable as they pinned us both in place.

Eric straightened immediately, but the smugness didn’t leave his face. If anything, it deepened. 

“Afternoon, Mr. Johnson,” he said casually, as if he hadn’t been crowding me seconds before.

Charles’s gaze didn’t waver. It slid over Eric, then to me. Brief. Cold. Impersonal.

“Garcia,” he said finally, voice even. “My office. Ten minutes.”

I swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”

He turned and walked away, shoulders broad and rigid beneath his suit jacket.

Eric snorted under his breath. “See what I mean? Ice cold. I don’t know why you let him boss you around. You could do better.”

I didn’t answer. My throat was too tight, and my hands shook as I shuffled papers just to give them something to do. Because the thing Eric didn’t understand was that I didn’t want better, I wanted the man who just walked away from me like I was nothing.

When I finally stepped into Charles’s office, he didn’t look up from the document he was signing. His desk was immaculate, every pen and folder in place, like him.

“You’re late,” he said without lifting his head.

I glanced at the clock. Barely a minute past. “Sorry, sir.”

He flipped a page, scribbled his signature, and set it aside. “Close the door.”

The soft click echoed louder than it should have. My palms were damp as I turned back toward him. 

Finally, he looked at me. Not the Charles who ordered me to my knees, not the Charles who touched me like he owned every inch of my skin. Just my boss. Detached. Controlled. And that cut deeper than any punishment he’d ever given me.

“Sit,” he said.

I obeyed.

He passed a file across the desk. “Run through this and prepare a summary for the morning meeting. Keep it concise. No mistakes.”

I nodded, the words lodging in my throat. “Yes, sir.”

That was all. No bite in his tone. No fire in his gaze. Nothing.

He dismissed me with a simple, “You may go.”

The silence as I walked out was unbearable.

I stopped halfway to the door. My fingers tightened on the file, nails digging into the thick folder. Something inside me snapped.

“Is that it?” My voice came out sharper than I intended.

Charles didn’t look up immediately. He signed another page, placed it neatly on the stack, then set his pen down with careful precision. Only then did he lift his gaze. 

“Excuse me?”

I turned, heart pounding so hard I thought it might echo in the office walls. 

“That’s it? Just work? Just—just orders like I’m another name on payroll?”

His jaw flexed once, his expression unreadable. “That’s what you asked for, isn’t it?”

“That’s not—” I broke off, breath hitching. Heat burned in my chest, a cocktail of anger and humiliation. “You’re acting like I don’t even exist outside of these four walls.”

“That,” he said evenly, “is exactly what you demanded, Dylan. Separation. Boundaries. I’m respecting them.”

The calmness in his voice cut sharper than a shout.

I took a step closer to his desk, my hands trembling around the file. “Respect? Is that what this is? Because it feels a hell of a lot more like punishment.”

For the first time, something flickered in his eyes. Not the cold mask of my boss. Not the commanding heat of my dom. Something dangerous in between.

He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “Tell me, then. Which version of me do you want right now, the one who gives you assignments, or the one who takes what’s his?”

My throat went dry. The office walls suddenly felt too close, the air charged, suffocating. “You can’t—”

“Oh, I can.” His voice dropped, low and razor sharp, the timbre that made my stomach tighten. “But you don’t get to have it both ways. You drew the line, Dylan. You wanted me to stay in my lane.” He leaned forward now, elbows on the desk, gaze locking me in place. “So don’t stand there and beg for the very thing you pushed away.”

“I’m not begging.”

“Aren’t you?” His tone was deceptively soft, a blade wrapped in silk.

My pulse roared in my ears. Every nerve in my body screamed to either walk out or throw the damn file back on his desk and demand he stop pretending. But my legs wouldn’t move.

The silence stretched, taut as a wire.

Finally, Charles sat back again, composure snapping into place as if the moment hadn’t happened at all. He gestured to the file in my hands. 

“We’re done here. Close the door behind you.”

I stood there another second, burning with words I couldn’t speak, then turned on my heel.

The silence as I walked out was unbearable.

That night, I lay on my bed, the file he’d handed me earlier abandoned on the desk. My phone was clutched in my hand, the glow of the screen illuminating Charles’s name in my contacts.

The confrontation replayed in my head on a loop—his voice low, dangerous, asking me which version of him I wanted. The calm way he dismissed me, as though none of it mattered. As though I didn’t matter. My thumb hovered over the call button.

One word from me, and I knew he’d answer. Knew he’d tear through the distance, break the rules I’d drawn, take control like he always did.

But I didn’t press it. Because I was the one who said no. I was the one who demanded lines. I was the one who told him not to blur them.

And now he was giving me exactly what I asked for. So why did it feel like I was suffocating in the very silence I thought I wanted?