Her arms thrown over her head to protect her smarting scalp, it wasn't until she heard the icy fury of a clipped British accent—"Get your bloody hands off my submissive!"—that she realized what had stopped the attack.
Miranda stood between them, her white-knuckled grip on the angry man's arm being the catalyst that had sparked her unexpected release. Now, six feet and two inches of angry Mistress stood between him, and Ana and Sinclair, who were still clinging to one another on the floor. Her face was a mask of icy fury unlike anything Ana had seen before, and her voice—brisk, but calm, each syllable sharply clipped by what was normally a soft British accent and which was now so strangely prominent—rolled like velvet thunder throughout that small confectioner's shop. "How dare you!"
It was not a question, and by the very look of her, Miranda wasn't about to accept excuses.
Apparently, the fox-man hadn't seen that kind of icy fury before, either. Pulling his arm from her grasp, he took a hasty step back. Catching himself, he must have thought it a sign of weakness, because in the next second he had his mantle of anger pulled back around him. Ana forgotten, he now advanced on Miranda. "You want a taste of my whip too, little girl?"
Standing at least two inches taller than him, Miranda was neither impressed nor cowed. "Try it," she dared. She advanced, driving him another retreating half-step back. Her furious gaze never broke from his as she loomed over him, as ominous and fierce as she was tall. "Please do. I am Mistress Miranda Hardwick. I work at this establishment, and I promise you, if you so much as breathe on my submissive again, I will have you spit-roasted faster than a scene whore at a DP demonstration."
The man jerked back, his temper giving way to first confusion, and then disgust. "You don't know what she's done—"
Beyond them, the candy shop's door flew open and two men in black security t-shirts rushed in. When Miranda snapped up a staying hand, they stopped. It did not, however, stop the third security officer, who came barreling through the door before it could swing shut behind the first responders. He was, Ana recognized in some distracted and scattered part of her mind, a very big, very strong, very familiar-looking man. Miranda held her finger up to stop Jackson, too, but he ignored it and kept coming, pausing only once he was within easy reach of them.
Neither Miranda nor the man in the fox suit looked at him.
"She's breaking the rules, too," the man said, flashing Ana's cell phone at everyone. When Miranda merely held out her hand, expectantly, he deposited the phone into her palm.
"What she has or hasn't done is none of your business," she said coldly. "She is not now, nor will she ever be, yours to correct. She is mine, do you understand?"
He snorted. "Yeah, sure. I understand. I understand you want the little cock tease for yourself." Smirking the first smile he'd offered—and it wasn't a pretty one—he leaned in to Miranda. "Whatever she tells you, I just want you to know… your baby dyke here, she was all over my jock."
Miranda barely moved, but even from where she was sitting, stunned, in Sinclair's tense arms on the floor, Ana could see the first crack of real temper break through the cool mask. "What you have done here is assault," Miranda said, the faintest tremble underlying her words.
"I barely touched her," he snorted. Eyes narrowing, he edged closer to her. "I haven't even touched you yet, either."
Deliberately, he held up his hand and then extended his finger.
"Don't do it," Jackson warned.
"What are you going to do about it? Lay one hand on me, and I'll sue this whole place to the ground." Giving Miranda plenty of time to see it coming, the angry man deliberately thunked his finger onto her chest, directly between her breasts. He smirked; Miranda allowed him that, that half-second to gloat, right before she grabbed his wrist, wrenched back his hand, and broke his finger.
She moved so fast, almost faster than Ana's startled eyes could follow, even faster than the man could react. His eyes bulged, his mouth gaped. He didn't have time to make a sound, and Ana barely did more than suck in a shocked breath. She and Sinclair both jerked their feet up out of the way before, with a sweep of her foot and flip of his arm, Miranda threw the man face-down onto the floor. His feet and legs hit a display, sending chocolates flying everywhere.
"Argh!" he shouted, his broken finger still firmly in Miranda's grip and wrenched up now behind his back all the way up to his shoulders. Kneeling in the small of his back, she seized a handful of his dark hair and mashed his face into the tiled floor.
"I want an apology," she snarled.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Bitch! You broke my finger!"
"Idiot," Jackson said, with a sigh. He shook his head—although Ana honestly couldn't tell who he was shaking it at: the man, for his bad behavior, or Miranda, for how she'd handled it.
Motioning to his men, Jackson finally intervened. "All right, buddy. Let's go." He reached down to help the man out of Miranda's less than tender care, not that his was much gentler. Gripping him by the wrist of his broken hand and the back of his shirt, Jackson marched him from the shop.
"I barely touched her," the man protested.
"No means no," Jackson replied, unsympathetically. "We say it in every Orientation: No means no. And assholes who don't listen get banned for life."
"I'm calling the cops. I'm pressing charges against all you people!"
"Chances are they've already been called. They don't like us much, but there's three of us and one of you. What do you want to bet they'll take my version of what happened over yours? I'm thinking you broke your finger when you threw that girl to the ground."
Then they were gone, leaving a mess of chocolate on the floor, a display rack overturned, Ana and Sinclair still clinging to one another, and Miranda standing, statue-stiff, before them. She stared after the man for a long time before, her head dropping, she looked at Ana's cell phone in her hand. She then looked at Ana.
"I-I'm s-sorry," she squeaked, staring up at Miranda, so certain that at any moment she was going to see… what? Blame? Accusation? What had she honestly done to invite any of what had just happened? She didn't know. She couldn't think. She felt responsible somehow, deep down in the pit of her. Her stomach was one solid jumbled knot of quivering certainty that it was all her fault.
Miranda looked at her now, as if seeing her for the first time. Her dark eyes softened. "Sorry? For what?"
She held out her arm, and Ana could not get up fast enough. She flew up into Miranda's embrace, pressing her face into Miranda's neck, burrowing to get as close as two people possibly could.
"I'm sorry!" she whispered, babbling now but unable to stop herself. "I don't know what happened. I don't know why he… and then the phone…and it fell out… why did I even bring it with me? Are we in trouble? You broke that man's hand! Are you going to get arrested?"
"I'm going to be fine," Miranda soothed, resting her cheek on top of Ana's head, the fingers of one hand playing lightly in her hair. Despite her assurances, she didn't sound fine. If anything, she sounded tired. Arms loosening, she began to pull back. Given the option, Ana would have continued to stay just as they were, holding one another tightly, but Miranda caught her shoulders and resolutely pushed her away. "Go upstairs. Wait for me. I'll be late, but… I'll be along when I can."
"Where are you going?" The last thing Ana wanted right now was to be alone. "Can't I go with you?"
"No, you can't."
"It's okay if she wants to stay with me a while," Sinclair offered from behind them. Wiping her hands on her apron, she looked at the mess around them. "She can help me clean up."
"If you like," Miranda allowed. "But when you're done picking up, I want you to go home…" Taking Ana's hand in hers, she turned it palm up, placed the errant cell phone within it, and curled her fingers back over the top, forcing her to hold it, "and I want you to wait for me. We'll talk about this then."
Ana stared at the phone, her stomach churning. She may as well have been holding onto a living snake.<
br />
Settling her hands on her shoulders, Miranda leaned in and kissed her brow.
It was her fault. Ana stared at the phone, her eyes filling with stinging tears that gradually obscured everything behind a watery sheen once again. She could feel Miranda's exhaustion, both mental and physical, as easily as she could feel her disappointment and anger. Some part of her had to be angry with what Ana had done. Otherwise, how could she turn just then, and so effortlessly walk away?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ana sat on the couch in Miranda's living room, her back to the arm and her legs hugged so tightly to her chest that she could rest her cheek on one knee. She had her phone in her hand. Every few minutes, she turned it on. There were so many missed calls, voicemails and text messages that she was out of memory to receive any more. That depressed her even more, and she'd shut the phone off only to turn it on all over again a few minutes later.
It had been almost two hours since Miranda had left her at Maybe's Candy Shop. She hadn't called. Not that she'd said she would, but that didn't stop Ana from hoping. Of course, because she wasn't keeping her phone on, and because she was out of memory, she had no way of knowing it if Miranda did call.
Frustration rising, she powered up her phone for she'd lost count of how many times, and deleted the overwhelming abundance of texts. That made her feel better for all of about five seconds. She was about to set the phone aside when it buzzed in her hand. Her instant of sheer elation at the thought that it might be Miranda, crashed back down hard inside her when she saw Peyton's name on the digital screen.
Tsking, Ana threw the phone into the cushions on the far side of the couch. Folding her arms over her head, she only just resisted the urge to scream into her knees. What was wrong with her? Why was she just sitting here, sulking, like a bride jilted at the altar? Why couldn't she make sense of what she was feeling? She was so… so smitten…
No, smitten was what she had been back when all they'd been to one another was an exchange of illicit conversations online. Against all reason, this had become more than just 'smitten' some time ago. And yet, why, instead of closer, did it feel as if there was some yawning cavern of distance growing in between them? Why, instead of better communication now that they were face-to-face, were they trapping themselves in secrets, isolating castles all their own? Miranda, with her 'emergencies' constantly dragging her away. Ana, wishing so badly that she could start a new life here, and yet rather than pick up the phone and tell Peyton not to call—or, better yet, change her number, she had stuffed it into a drawer and hidden from it. She hadn't even told her parents about the breakup yet. She hadn't told anybody.
Because if this visit with Miranda ended as horribly as she was starting to think it might, then at least she could go home and have…
What, options? What kind of option was it to have a life where half of who she was had to be hidden away because it was labelled as sick and deviant, and to be so afraid of being alone that she'd rather have a girlfriend who hit her than none at all?
Tucking her legs under her, Ana pulled a sofa pillow onto her lap and hugged that instead. It made a sore substitute for the woman whose long, graceful curves she'd rather be cradled up against, but all these secrets and disappearances were starting to weigh on her much more heavily than her thin shoulders could bear. Struggling to mentally retrace everything they'd said to one another since she'd arrived, Ana honestly could not recall one time when Miranda had told her something intimate about herself or her past. She never mentioned family or friends. She never talked about growing up or going to school, or where she came from, or what had brought her from England across the Pond to the States. Perhaps it was just another layer of Ana's own selfishness that she couldn't make herself be happy with everything Miranda had given her, or perhaps leading a double life didn't allow for transparency. Either way, Ana wasn't happy.
And what about these emergencies? She understood, or at least thought she understood, the first one, but who had emergencies every single day? Was Miranda going to the hospital for all of them? Was she actually going to a hospital at all? Ana hadn't grown up so sheltered that she didn't know at least some of the games people liked to play when they were cheating. Miranda hardly seemed to fit that role, particularly since the relationship between them barely had a string of commitment to it, but nothing else made sense. There had to be someone else. Otherwise, Miranda would have told her what and who the emergency was. And this stupid rule about the cell phones, where Ana had to keep hers in the desk, but Miranda kept constant contact with her own—why didn't the rule work equally both ways?
Maybe all Ana was, was a notch in the bedpost.
She gave you a perfect day, a tiny voice reminded her. The horse, the sex…
She gives people perfect days for a living, another voice argued. Like an escort. People pay her to play out their fantasies.
Ana covered her head again. How many girls did Miranda bring to the Castle, to her home, on an annual basis? Were they all special cases?
No expectations, Miranda had said, but the thought of other girls being folded into her elegant embrace stabbed Ana in the chest. They were probably all pretty, too. Successful and tall, with glamorous names. Like Sable or Marguerite. Ana bet Marguerite rode Fire Dancer the first day, without any fear or hesitation. She probably cooked something more glamourous than quinoa, without making a mess of Miranda's kitchen.
She probably did all sorts of sexy things with Miranda, and never blushed or felt a second's mortification over words like pussy, Hitachi, or strap-on.
Ana wandered into the kitchen, but the gleaming surfaces offered no distraction. Against her will, her hand went to the counter where Miranda had lifted her, kissed her, spread her legs and made such breathtaking love to her.
Lost among the couch cushions, her phone sent up another buzzing plea for attention and Ana snatched her hand back off the cool granite. She gave herself a stern mental slap. She had to stop thinking like this. She had to put a stop to everything before she drove herself so crazy that she destroyed her time with Miranda even more than she already had.
Her temper lit up hot inside her head. Charging around the half wall, Ana stormed the couch, throwing cushions and pillows aside until she found her phone. Every new-found intent to assert herself died, however, when she saw the message that lit up the screen.
Bad news! Urgent! Call me ASAP.
It came from Peyton, but Ana's first thought went to her aging parents. Her voicemail was so glutted with calls, she tried at first, but her swiftly rising concern put an abrupt stop to trying to sift through Peyton's alternating pleas for forgiveness and demands that she stop being childish and return her calls. Dialing her parents, she waited anxiously, but no one answered the home phone. Her parents. Technology's last revolutionary bastion against the convenience of a cell phone.
They could be shopping, that voice of reason quite sensibly pointed out.
They could also be in the hospital, a darker doubt whispered. Her father wasn't on heart medication for insignificant reasons.
If she'd been playing spanking games with Miranda while her father had had another heart attack, she'd never forgive herself. Dialing Peyton's number, Ana covered her eyes and tried not to think the worst.
"Ana! Finally!"
"What's happened?" Ana countered, almost unable to get the words out, her throat had tightened so badly. "Is Dad okay?"
"Honey, this isn't something I can tell you over the phone." Peyton's voice cracked.
Ana's whole chest pounded to the faltering skip of her heart. "Oh God." Her knees gave out and she collapsed. The couch caught her. "Is he dead?"
"We're here in Granger. We tried to contact you through the Castle switchboard, but they wouldn't even tell us whether you were a guest there, and they won't let me on the bus. I'm at the Starbucks, at the shuttle depot. You're going to have to come to us."
Jumping up off the couch, Ana rushed to the window. Pressing her cheek to the glass, if she
strained, she could just make out the white paint of bus bumper through the gaping maw of the portcullis in the outer Castle wall. "I-I don't have a bus ticket anymore. How—"
"The barista says you don't need a ticket to leave, just to get in. Tell them you have to go to the airport. They'll bring you back here and we'll get you to the airport. We've already got a ticket."
"Just tell me, is he okay?" Ana ran back to Miranda's bedroom, grabbing her purse and her bag. Half its contents were still neatly arranged on a sliver of space around the sink, but she didn't waste time retrieving them. There was nothing there she needed so badly that she couldn't come back for it later. "Who's 'we'? Who came with you?"
"Your mom. She's talking to one of the shuttle drivers right now."
Ana's stomach fell all the way to her toes. Her mom would never have left her father's side, not if he was still alive. "Oh my God," she said again, her voice cracking now, too.
"Ana…" Peyton paused. Peyton, who was never at a loss for words. "Just come. As fast as you can."
Ana dropped her phone in her haste to shut it off. Shoving it into her bag, as she rushed back through the living room, she glanced at the miniature grandfather clock. It was a few minutes before noon, the prompt hour of departure according to the brochure. She thought about leaving a note. Ana wasn't sure how long it would take to get to the coffee shop, or where it was, but she'd have to hurry, and Miranda wasn't likely to be back for at least a few hours. She'd call her. After all her own emergencies, surely she would understand Ana's extenuating circumstances.
Racing down the stairs from the third floor apartments, she ran all the way to the main staircase. She bumped into two people on the stairs and very nearly knocked over a member of security in her mad dash across the grand foyer.
"Whoa!" he said, trying to catch her arm, but she dared not stop. "Hey, is everything all right?"
Ana Adored: Mistress of the Castle (Masters of the Castle) Page 19