“Yeah. I’m okay. Thanks,” I say, brushing off the seat of my leathers.
“Okay. Let’s go. And if you start to feel bad again, you need to tell us.”
“You guys wanted to scene tonight so―”
“That ship has sailed. We won’t be leaving you. End of discussion. Come on,” she says. She takes my hand and her fingers wind through mine. It’s supposed to bring me comfort, but it only reminds me whose hand it’s not.
The door opens and I find Clint standing there like he’s waiting for me. Trish drops my hand, drops her eyes, and walks on past us. A second later, Clint takes me by the shoulders. “Brian?”
“What?” I reply, unable to look up at him.
“They’re gone.”
“Who’s gone?”
He’s silent for a few seconds before he says again, “They’re gone.” That’s followed with, “They’re back in one of the private rooms. They finished about five minutes ago and―”
“Did she … With both of …” He nods. “Both?” He nods again. “And did she … You know, did they make her …” I can’t bring myself to say it.
His voice is a deep whisper when he asks, “Did they make her come?” I nod to him. “Yeah. Twice. And yes. They both fucked her. They face fucked her. They double penetrated her. And she seemed to be in heaven. They were rough with her and when they carried her out of the performance area, she was so deep in subspace that I don’t think she knew who she was.”
“Oh, shit,” I mutter under my breath, but I know he heard me.
“Look, Brian, I don’t know what’s going on here,” Clint says, “but I think if there’s something going on between the two of you, you should talk about it.”
“There’s nothing going on between the two of us, at least not as far as she’s concerned.” It’s true. She’s oblivious to my feelings for her. Of course, it doesn’t help that I was oblivious to them two hours ago.
“Okay, look. There are some things you should know. First off, I watched her,” Clint says, finally catching my gaze. “This was not her first rodeo. This woman has done this before. She knew exactly what she was doing. The way she fucked those Doms, she’s been in clubs before. And it’s obvious she’s scened in front of groups before. I don’t know if she was a stripper or a prostitute or just very active in a club, but she’s very comfortable with her body and with having sex in front of others. No question in my mind. And I should know. I’ve seen it all. She’s got some skills, and she used them tonight. Plus everybody―everybody―who was watching was impressed. She’s going to get a lot of requests for playtime. If you don’t want that to happen, you’d better step up and say something to her. Otherwise, there’ll be cocks lined up to fill her every time she’s here. Brian, are you listening to me?”
“Yeah, yeah. I hear you. But she’s my employee, Clint. My employee. I can’t … I just can’t do it.” A deep, cold, sinking sensation falls on me and I feel like I’m being pressed into the floor.
“Hey, Dungeon Master,” I hear someone call, and I turn to find one of the Doms she’d scened with standing at the bar, back in his leathers and a weird expression on his face.
“Yeah,” I call back. Clint moves to take over, but I press him back and drop both hands onto the bar when I reach it.
“Got anything back here that will help? We’re having trouble drawing her out of subspace. It’s like she wants to stay and won’t come out.”
“Sure.” I reach under the bar, grab a small package of little chocolate morsels, and hand them to him. “These will do it.”
“Thanks.” Chocolates in hand, he turns and makes his way back to the back hallway.
“Maybe I should go check on her,” Clint says under his breath.
“No. Leave it. Let them figure it out.” The initial shock is starting to wear off and I find that under it all, I’m royally pissed. Seething. Boiling. Furious. No one can tell me that, with the time we’ve spent together over the last little while, she hasn’t noticed that I’ve gone out of my way to do things for her, to give to her, and to treat her well. No one can make me believe that. She noticed―she had to. She’s not that dense. She had to know that if she has needs, I would fill them.
That’s when it hits me. To her, I’m just her employer. I’m not a friend, I’m not a Dominant, I’m certainly nothing any more intimate. Just an employer. Just the guy who pays her paycheck and makes sure his money puts a roof over her head, food on the table, and gives her something to drive. Even though I didn’t even realize it, I’ve been treating her like a partner, like a lover, like someone I care deeply about. I’ve been taking care of her, seeing to her needs, making sure she has what she desires. I’ve been treating her like a princess, like my child, like someone I cherish.
A submissive.
What the hell have I done? I’ve shit in my nest. I’ve played where I get paid. Looks like I’m about to lose the best assistant I’ve ever had, and based on the way I feel right now, I’m going to lose a lot more. I’ve compromised everything I believe in, and especially the basic tenet of the lifestyle, which is simple. Be honest. I haven’t been honest with myself or with Cirilla, but most especially with myself, and I’m paying for it.
Letting her live in the same apartment with me was a mistake. Bringing her here―bigger mistake. “Brian?”
I turn to find Clint still standing there. “Yeah?”
“Where’d you go? You were gone for a few seconds there.”
“Yeah, no. Um, no. I’m fine. Hey, do you still have keys to this place?”
“Yeah.”
I’m starting to shake again. “Can you lock up for me? Take care of everything? I need to get out of here before … I need to get out of here,” I say, not wanting to admit to him why I don’t want to be here. It’s impossible for me to see her when she comes out of that room, to watch her go into the locker room, change, and come back out, to go home and find her there, to act like nothing happened. I can’t do it. “Please?” I know I sound like I’m begging, but I’m that desperate.
“Yes. Go. I can take care of everything. If you need a place to crash―”
“I’ll be fine. I just need to go.” Before he can say another word, I’m out the door. Since it’s the door on the side of the building, I have to walk around the back corner, but that’s okay. It’s cool out here, and I need that fresh air.
Once I’m out of the parking lot, I don’t know where to go or what to do. I can’t go back to the apartment. I can’t just sit in my car all night―somebody will call the cops and I’ll get arrested for vagrancy. Yes, they take that a little too seriously here. There’s only one person I can talk to about this, who’ll understand what I’m saying and what I’m going through. I hate to do it, but I have to. Once I’m stopped in a vacant parking lot, I pull out my phone and hit the contact.
Instead of hello, I get, “Clint already called me and told me what’s going on. Get your ass over here so we can talk. And be careful driving, hear me?”
“Yeah. Okay. You sure Olivia won’t―”
“After what I put her through? If she thinks she can keep somebody else from doing something equally stupid to another person, yeah. She’s fine with it. Now, Brian. Don’t dilly-dally around. Get on over here. I’m old and I need my sleep. See you when you get here.”
Chapter Five
Olivia’s nowhere to be found when I step into the house. “Get in here and sit down,” Dave orders, and I comply. It’s what I came to do, after all. “Drink?”
“Yeah, a bourbon on the―”
“You’ll have a diet soda. With no caffeine. You don’t need to be any more strung out than you already are. And you sure as hell don’t need any booze.” I sit there, head in my hands, while he rustles around and, in a few seconds, I feel the icy coldness of a can against my hand. When my palm cups it, dread pours over me and I feel like I might burst into tears. “Now, let’s talk about this. So she went through orientation, of which I’m well aware because I led it, and
she was at the club tonight, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And she scened with two Dominants, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“And you came unhinged. Am I getting this straight?”
“Yeah.” So far, I don’t have any other words I can use. That’s about it.
“Okay, so let’s break this down a little further. You brought her to the club with you that first night. Why?”
“Because we’d just gotten off the plane and I wanted to come by first.”
“Yeah. And then you brought her back that one night. Why?”
“Because she wanted to come.”
“It never occurred to you to tell her she couldn’t?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean, I don’t know.”
“Let’s back that up a little. Did you bring her when she asked because you were hoping she’d get interested in the lifestyle?”
Oh, shit. “I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. She asked about membership and orientation. You told her about it. Did it ever occur to you to tell her that it was full and she couldn’t go?”
Oh, double shit. “I don’t know.”
“You looked at the schedule and reported back, right?”
God damn it, he’s right. I could’ve put a stop to it at any time, but I didn’t. And I did it all while trying to fool myself into thinking that it was okay because she was just my employee. “Yeah. Totally my fault.”
“Brian?” He stops, and I know what he wants. He wants me to look at him, and I don’t want to. I know him well enough to know that he’s going to read me like a damn book. “Brian, look at me.” Yep―I was right. I lift my head and when his eyes lock with mine, I know I’m screwed. “Brian, this has been going on for a while. I don’t know if you realized it or not, but I think it’s why you moved her here with you.”
“I moved her here because she’s the best assistant I’ve ever had.”
“And why do you think that is?” I just shrug. Whatever he’s trying to get at, it’s lost on me. “It’s because she feels the same way about you. She wants to please you, to be what you need her to be. She’s been trying to get you to respond all along. But when you refused to do the orientation because she was going through it, she gave up. She realized then that you were never going to see her as anything but your employee. It looked hopeless. So she went in there tonight to get her needs met, needs that you could’ve easily met―”
“There’s only one of me,” I say to correct him.
“Oh, shut the fuck up. She did that because she’s hurting. It was twice the distraction for her. I guarantee you when both of those dicks were in her, she wasn’t thinking about you. There were so many sensations running through her body that she was oblivious to the ache in her heart. Look,” he says, putting a hand on each of my knees to look straight into my face, “she was trying to tell you with everything she’s done for you. What else has she done? Think about it.”
“She found the apartment.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And negotiated a helluva deal for it.”
“Yeah. What else?”
“She put the office together. She ordered all the furniture for her room and then worked on mine. She put away my things after she put away her own.”
“How did you miss the fact that she was taking care of you, Brian? You’re not that blind. She’s been taking care of you in ways … you’re not paying her enough to take care of you in some of the ways she has, but she’s done it, and she hasn’t complained. Not once. Am I right?”
“Yeah. No. I mean, yeah, you’re right.”
Dave lets out a long, tortured sigh before he says, “Go home, Brian. Go home and talk to Cirilla. Tell her how you feel, how you felt knowing what she was doing tonight. Tell her how much it hurt, and how sorry you are that you hurt her by pretending you couldn’t see what she was doing. Do it. Don’t wait. I almost waited too long. Don’t be as stupid as I was.”
“I don’t want to wake her up.”
He lets out a low chuckle. “Trust me, she’s not asleep. She won’t sleep at all tonight if you don’t come in at some point.”
I’m terrified. And then it hits me. “Oh, god.”
“What?”
That conversation. I said, And thank you for being honest with me. And what was it she’d said?
You’re welcome, sir. I wish I could be more honest with you.
“Jesus, I’ve gotta go. Thanks. Thanks for everything, but I’ve gotta go.” I know what I’ve got to do. She wanted me to be honest. Well, I’m about to be honest, and we’ll see what happens. Can’t be worse than what happened tonight.
“Just be careful,” Dave says as I rush out the door. I hope he closes it behind me. I don’t have time to.
* * *
All the way there, I wonder what I’m going to say. I wonder what she’s thinking, and what will happen when I get there.
I unlock the door and step into the silence of the apartment. It’s dark, with only a little lamp on in the office, the door cracked just enough that a beam can escape and offer anyone who’s up a bit of safety as they move around. After toeing my shoes off and placing them silently by the door, I move around quietly, listening, but I hear nothing. Then I tiptoe over to her door and listen.
There’s a sound and for a few seconds, I can’t sort it out. It takes a few more, and then I hear it. A sniffle. She’s crying. I don’t know how to proceed, so I do what I think will work best. I knock. A tiny voice calls out, “Yes, sir?”
“Cirilla, I need you to come out here, please. Right now.”
By the time she cracks the door open, I’m sitting on the sofa, the lamp next to me on low. I watch as she shuffles out and takes a seat in the adjacent chair. “Cirilla,” I start, “we need to talk about―”
“Sir, please, let me―”
“No. Me first,” I say and watch her shrink into the chair. “You told me that you wished you could be more honest with me. I wondered at the time what you meant. But I need to be more honest with you too. And that starts right now. Do you know why I left tonight?”
“Because you were angry with me,” she offers, sniffling again.
“No. Because I was upset. There’s a difference. Know who I was most upset with?”
“Me.”
“No,” I say with a strong shake of my head. “Me. I was upset with me. Because being upset was my fault. Because I hadn’t been honest with you. So now it’s time. Do you know why I didn’t want to do your orientation?”
She repeats back to me what I’d told her at the time we talked about it. “Because it would be awkward since I was your employee.”
“That’s what I told you. But the real reason was because …” This is it, Zimmer. Man up and be honest, that little voice in my head orders. “It was because of the way I already felt about you. I was trying to keep it professional, and that ship had already sailed.”
I watch as her gaze swings up from her hands and straight to my eyes. “What?”
“I didn’t want to do your orientation because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep lying to you about how I feel about you. Actually, come to think of it, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep lying to myself about it,” I say with a little chuckle. “I’m a big ol’ fat liar. Now, you said you wish you could be honest with me. It’s your turn, Cirilla. Be honest.”
She looks back down at her hands and fiddles with the hem of her robe. “If you had moved and not brought me with you, it would’ve …” There’s a choking sound, and it tears my heart in two. “It would’ve killed me. I’ve done everything I could to let you know how I feel about you, but you just wanted me to be your employee.” The tears start to pour down her cheeks and I wonder how I could’ve been so stupid. “I don’t think I’ve ever been as proud as I was when you told me what a good deal I got for you on this apartment. I was trying so hard, sir. I thought surely you’d see. And it was like I was invisible.”
“But you’ve tried
extremely hard to be invisible, honey, and you’ve done a good job. You wouldn’t let me in, wouldn’t carry on a conversation with me, wouldn’t treat me as anything but a boss, and I just kept going with the charade.”
“So what now?” she asks, never looking up.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Have you been in the lifestyle before?”
I watch her look off across the room absentmindedly. “Yeah. Most of my adult life. It’s what I’m most comfortable with.”
“Then I’ve got another question for you.” When she nods, I ask, “What’s with the clothes and the glasses, babe? What’s with the frumpy getup? I don’t think that’s you. Hell, based on what I saw at the club tonight, I know that’s not you. What’s that about?”
She closes her eyes, shakes her head, and starts to cry again. “I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. You can never know. That’s best for both of us. Look,” she says, then faces me and locks her gaze with mine. “I don’t know how long I have. Every day is iffy. I have to stay quiet. I have to stay out of sight. I have to keep my head down, stay under the radar.”
“Are you in the witness protection program or something?” I ask, totally confused.
“Can we please talk about something else? Or maybe not talk at all? I promise, I’ll talk about it, but not right now. Please?”
I nod. “Okay. I won’t push. If you won’t tell me, I have to trust that there’s a good reason or you’d level with me.” The only response is a sniffle. “Okay then. Come here.” When she doesn’t move, I say again, “Cirilla, come here. Stand up and come here.” On her feet, she takes the two steps to me and I pat my lap with both hands. God, that’s the magic signal, the thing that opens up the world to us both.
She sits down on my lap and curls against me, and my arms wrap tight around her. I can’t help the tears that trickle down my face when she buries her face in my chest and sobs. “I’m so sorry, sir.”
“No. Not sir. Not now,” I tell her.
Completely Mine: Bliss Series, Book Four Page 9