by Rebel Wild
“Yes, I’m sure, sir.”
Joe and Bree are waiting for me at the front door. Bree hands me a small, insulated bag with something to eat inside. She’s actually made me lunch. I thank her before turning to leave. I feel eyes on me as I walk out the door, so I turn back around. They’re all staring at me, so I wave goodbye to them and they wave back in unison. I hurry down the porch steps and hop in my car.
Alone, I now freely roll my eyes at that weird Adams Family moment I just left. While laughing to myself at the strange threesome, I turn out of the driveway with the top down and the radio on as I head to campus. I don’t know what made Mr. Garrett change his mind about Joe driving and picking me up, but I’m so happy that he did.
Even with this collar around my neck, I feel free and happy for the first time in a very long time as the sun beats down on me and the cool breeze blows on my face. My absolute favorite song comes on. I turn the radio up and try to sing along. I know I sound terrible, but I don’t care.
Chapter Nineteen
“To what do I owe this unexpected visit this morning?” Maloney asks, watching me come into his office.
“I fucked up,” I tell him, throwing myself down in one of his chairs. “Fix it.”
“It will help me to know what ‘it’ is I’m being called upon to fix.”
“I’m referring to the way I’ve been behaving with my new submissive. I haven’t been myself where she’s concerned. I’ve broken all my rules.”
“In what way?” He asks, writing something down.
“She’s just so inexperienced, so pure and trusting. I find myself completely infatuated with her, but that’s nothing new. I do things to see her smile. I bought her soda and took her to Carmel-by-the-Sea when Joe saw she was bored.”
“You let her around Joe? I thought you didn’t want them around family?”
“As long as Brianna and Joe are comfortable with it, I don’t mind and, in this case, it’s impossible to avoid them since she’s living with me.”
“With you?” he asks, perking up. “In your home in Beverly Hills?”
“That is where I live, Martin, yes. Our contract demands it.”
“Interesting,” he says, writing it down. “So, she’s one of your regular girls, I take it? One of the two-night stands found a way in?”
“It’s Sydney Warren.”
“Sydney? The Sydney? The one that you first started seeing me for?”
“The very same.”
“I thought you were cleansing yourself from wanting her. Those were your words,” he says, holding up his hands when I glare at him. “You said she was underage.”
“Yeah, was. She’s not anymore. She’s perfectly legal.”
“And a submissive? When did you find that out?”
“She’s not a submissive. Look, it’s complicated, but I’m the only Dom she’s ever had. She was a virgin before I fucked her. I’ve been taking it easy with her, of course, but it’s driving me up the wall. She’s driving me up the wall.”
“How so?”
“She’s under my skin. She’s in my head, filling up spaces that no one else has. I took her to my mom’s house for dinner. I collared her. I saw her off to school this morning, for fuck’s sake.”
“School? The girl’s still in school?”
“College, Martin, come the fuck on,” I tell him, pissed at the implication that she’s still of school age, even though I know how me seeing her off to school must have just sounded.
“This whole thing seems rather involved,” he says the understatement of the year. “Maybe you should back up and start from the beginning.”
I tell him every sordid detail, from the moment I reconnected with her at Calhoun’s up until the playroom fucks last night, including agreeing to leave her untied while I fuck her. Martin sits dumbfounded when I’m done. I guess the bastard is finally going to earn his money. Maybe this is what he needs to see just how fucked up I am. What kind of a man would take advantage of a girl in Sydney’s situation, surely, one without a soul? He sits staring at me, taking a moment to sip his water while the one he offered me sits untouched.
“Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “I can see why you’re feeling so out of sorts.”
“You can?”
“The tables have turned.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you’re dropping your guard, letting someone move freely into those areas you’ve demanded total control over.”
“You know why I demand control, why I have rules. It’s to safeguard my subs. It’s the only way to keep me from abusing them. I don’t trust me.”
“You trust her.”
“I don’t fucking trust her,” I spit the words at him.
“Au contraire,” he bites back, speaking French with his damn southern accent. “You allowed her to do a scene unbound because it was her hard limit, going against your own hard limit, I might add, and we’ll discuss the importance of that when you’re better prepared to face it. Just know that was a huge leap of faith on your part.”
“It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“Really? She had just a day before promised you that she wouldn’t use her hands to take control of the scene and you trusted her to keep her word. Why?”
I shrug before loosening my tie. It’s getting hot in here, or maybe it’s the hot seat he has me on asking these damn questions.
“I knew she would,” I tell him the truth. No sense in shitting him, he can see right through it anyway. “She doesn’t get my control issues, but just the fact that I don’t like it is enough for her not to do it and I knew it.”
“Because you trust her.”
“I trust her not to fuck up a sex scene by moving around… yes,” I concede.
“And to be around your family?”
“That wasn’t my choice.”
“But you didn’t protest the way you knew you could have?”
“No.”
“How do you feel about Beverly thinking Sydney’s your girlfriend?”
“If it makes her happy,” I tell him. “It’s better than her thinking I’m like my father and nothing makes her happy since he died. If thinking I have a girlfriend gives her some joy, I’ll gladly let her have it.”
“And when the contract is up?”
“I’ll just tell her we didn’t work out. Couples break up all the time.”
“And will you introduce her to your next submissive?”
“Fuck no.” I get up out of the hot seat before it burns my ass. I’m fed up with the bullshit that’s coming out of his mouth.
“Why?” he asks, not caring about my temper. “You can just say you broke up with that one too at the end. It would take some of the pressure off you having to hide them away in the playroom on those impromptu family visits.”
“First of all, I don’t hide them away and second of all, no submissive is going anywhere near my mother. You know what a catastrophe that would be. Sydney is the exception. That is the fucking thing I’m trying to figure out. Why? So, stop with this shit and cut to it. Why am I allowing her to have this…” I struggle with finding the word.
“This what?” He asks, sitting up straighter to hear my answer. “Control?”
“I’m still in control.”
“You don’t sound too convincing.”
“I struggle with my impulses when I’m with her, but it’s more of a pull, a strong desire to take care of her, to… I don’t even know. Whatever it is, it fills a need in me, not just sexually, but fuck, Martin, the sex. The way she responds to me makes me… Jesus.”
“She ticks all the right boxes, does she?” He grins.
“And then some,” I add and he gives me that look for me to continue. “Last night, I wanted her. The impulse was so strong, I got into her bed with
her.”
“You had sex in your submissive’s bed?” He asks me and I nod. “It wasn’t a scene?”
“It was just a fuck.”
“Without the scene before it?” He asks again. “Was she restrained then? Did you use any toys?” I shake my head. “Vanilla,” he says to himself, writing it down, and I want to stop him from doing so. It wasn’t vanilla, it was just a damn fuck. “How was it?”
I struggle with finding a word to convey how amazing it was with her last night, starting with the quickie in the foyer and ending with the sweet fuck in her bed, not to mention the feel of her mouth on my cock for the first time.
“It was fine,” I say, giving up.
“Did she welcome you in her bed?” He asks me and I nod again.
“I gave her an out. I said I should let her sleep.”
“And how did she respond?”
“She said she wasn’t tired,” I tell him. I leave out the part about her grabbing my ass to pull me into her.
“No safewords?”
“They weren’t necessary.”
“And how did you two deal with each other this morning? Any awkwardness?”
“On the contrary,” I say, thinking about it. “It was less awkward. She seemed more at ease with me.”
“Is that what you want? I only ask because from what I know about your previous subs, you insist on keeping them at arm’s length. You go to great pains in doing so, but with Sydney, it seems to be the opposite.”
“Yeah, there’s a pattern here, Martin,” I tell him, getting annoyed and throwing up my hands. “That is the fucking point of my visit.”
“Perhaps it’s just a fantasy being fulfilled. You’ve been wanting her for years. Imagining what it would be like, wishing she was older and available. Maybe you’re just indulging in something you thought would always be denied to you.”
“I wish that were true, but I’m usually bored with my indulgences by now. This is usually about the time I want them gone, but having her at arm’s length is abhorrent to me. I want her near, but at the same time, I know it’s wrong. So, I’m fighting with myself to keep her away.”
“Have you bothered to stop and ask yourself why?”
“Because it’s wrong,” I repeat it to him.
“Granted, it was wrong in the beginning, but she’s of legal age now, so why is it still wrong?”
“As I said, it’s complicated.” I plop back down in the chair, looking everywhere but at him. He waits with his hands steepled to his chin for me to continue. “I let her use the library,” I finally tell him.
“The one that has all of your father’s movie memorabilia immortalized for him?”
“The very one. She likes to read, so I let her use it.”
“Tristan, she clearly means something to you. You’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you push her away. You do realize that?”
“I’ll be doing her a disservice if I allow her to get too close to me and you know damn well why.”
“Yes, because you’re an evil pedophile with no heart or conscience like your father.”
“Exactly,” I say, glad that he finally gets it.
“Then what are you protecting?”
“Her. I’m protecting her heart. It’s too good for the likes of me.”
“But yet, you’re the one whom she’s choosing to trust. Even when she was younger, she’d hang out with you alone in your office. Never once did she feel unsafe. I’m sure if she felt you ogling her, she would have told her father.”
“Make no mistake, I ogled the fuck out of her. I told you, she’s too trusting.”
“But not gullible,” he tells me, and I shake my head. She’s nowhere near gullible.
“I need to put a stop to it,” I tell him.
“You can’t stop it now. The snowball is already rolling too fast down the hill. You have no choice but to let it crash into you.”
“I can always step out of the way.”
“And where will that leave you?”
“It’s not about me, it’s about her. What kind of man takes a girl’s virginity, knowing she’s only doing it to help her father?”
“One that has been wanting to since before the father was in trouble. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not excusing your behavior. We can both agree, you’re no saint, but you’re not the world’s worst either.”
“She deserves better than me.”
“Why are you forcing yourself to bear the brunt of this mess you’ve stumbled upon?”
“I didn’t stumble upon it, I created it. I’m the one who fired her father, then I had him arrested.”
“People get fired every day, and he got himself arrested by committing a crime.”
“I could have refused to press charges. I could get the charges dropped, suppress evidence—”
“Then, why didn’t you? Or better yet, why won’t you? It seems like the perfect solution.”
“Why do you ask me questions you already know the answer to? I’m using it to keep hold of Sydney.”
“True, but you just said, you need to put an end to your involvement with her. Dropping the charges would do just that, but you won’t, so make it make sense.”
“That’s what I overpay you for.”
“Regardless of her father’s situation, Sydney made her own choice to take the deal you offered her. Good or bad, it was hers, and are you purposely overlooking the fact that she wanted to sleep with you? Unless you’re telling me that you forced her.”
“Of course not, but there’s another side to it, Martin. I want to corrupt her. I want her to like the down and dirty and the more she resists it, the more tempted I am to persuade her. I crave her, even though I know I shouldn’t.”
“She’s not a fallen angel, Tristan. She might surprise the hell out of you. She’s doing a bang-up job of it so far.”
“No, I shouldn’t allow it.”
“For someone without a heart, you certainly care an awful lot about hers.”
“Yes, and that is the problem.”
“I don’t see it as a problem and quite frankly, I find it faith restoring that this young woman has gotten under your tough skin with just a little wag of her pinky finger.”
“I’m glad you’ve found your faith in humanity again, Maloney,” I say to him, pissed off at the notion that any woman has me wrapped around her finger. “But it doesn’t do shit for me.”
“You came here for my expert opinion, so here it is: Give her a chance. Let her show you that it’s okay not to be in control of every situation. Let her show you that the world won’t fall apart and end in tragedy as it did with your father, or that you won’t end up like him.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
I get up to leave, not wanting to hear any more of this bullshit.
I ride the elevator up to work feeling tense and wound up. That fucking Maloney didn’t help at all, and I don’t even have the benefit of a good morning fuck to help take the edge off my mood.
My phone buzzes and I see that it’s my first report on how Sydney is doing. I can’t go home and fuck her, but I can stalk her ass all day.
“Hold my calls,” I say as I pass Mona on my way to my office to check my computer.
There are several photos of Sydney enjoying her day. She’s chatting it up rather animatedly with her old friend Leslie. She used to bring her around the office. I like her. I grin at how much they’re enjoying themselves. As I scroll down, I come across one picture that has me seeing red. She’s sitting on a bench talking with some boy and they seem rather friendly. They’re too close for my comfort. Any closer, she’d be on his damn lap. Who the fuck is he?
Chapter Twenty
“I can’t believe this shit,” I say as I stare at the picture of Sydney walking with some college boy prick.
“Mr. Garrett,”
Mona’s voice comes through my intercom. “Everyone’s in place for your ten o’clock briefing.”
“I’m on my way. What’s on the docket for today?”
“Just the preliminary for the Hubbard case you wanted to sit in on.”
“Take it off and clear my schedule. Something else has come up,” I tell her, getting up and grabbing my cell to take with me.
I shoot off a message to Joanna telling her to keep an eye on that college prick before I take my briefing.
Glancing at the time, I’m patting myself on the back that it’s three forty-five in the afternoon and I’ve let Sydney run wild for this long. I’m parked in a spot below the coffee shop where she’s hanging out with her friend Leslie and that prick. I spent the majority of my day glaring a hole in the photo of her grinning at him. Neglecting work is nothing new. The green-eyed girl that I just can’t seem to get out of my system better occupies my time.
I should call Maloney right now. He’ll have a field day with this shit. I can just hear him now: “The Tristan Garrett, sitting outside of a college hangout, stalking a poor girl that’s simply going for coffee with her friends.”
Screw him. I don’t want to be bothered by him and his “let’s-dive-deeper-into-the-reasons-behind-the-actions” bullshit right now. I’m content with waiting in my car for her to come out and it’s not stalking. I just happen to be driving by and it would be rude of me not to stop and give her a ride home. So what if she drove? So what if I called Joe and had him bring the Bugatti Dad left me just to drive her home? It’s all perfectly within reason.
I check the time once again. She’s been in there for forty damn minutes. How much fucking coffee is she drinking? Before I can give it a second thought, I’m already out of the car going to see what’s going on in there. I could just say I happened upon the place, even though it’s well out of my way. I convince myself that my flimsy excuse will work while the Dom in me is cursing me out for thinking I need an excuse to see a submissive that’s agreed to total power exchange. Just as I’m about to tell him to shut the hell up, Sydney walks out.