by Lila Dubois
“Ms. Brazil and I are in a relationship.”
“Oh my gosh! This is just so much fun.”
How this was fun for Mary, he didn’t understand, but he let it go. “Thank you for letting me know we’d made the tabloids.”
Mary just stood there, beaming.
“I have work to do.”
Her smile dimmed.
“So I…can leave on time and see Sasha.”
“Oh, of course! You let me know what you need.”
Mary ran out, closing his office door behind her. Though Emory was sure that no one but residents of L.A. and New York checked gossip sites every fifteen minutes, he picked up his phone and called his mother. He didn’t want her to hear about this tomorrow on The View—she’d kill him.
“Hello, Mother,” he said, breaking into fractured Hindi. “How are you?”
Fifteen minutes later he called Sasha. He didn’t expect her to pick up. She had several cell phones but rarely had one with her. He’d called her most private number, which meant Jayne wouldn’t answer it or listen to the voicemail, which is what he wanted.
To his surprise, Sasha answered.
“Emory.”
The sound of her voice heated his blood. There was nothing he liked better than hearing her say his name, except maybe hearing her call him Master.
“I didn’t expect you to answer.”
“Do you want me to hang up?”
“Never.”
She laughed and Emory closed his eyes, picturing her.
“Are we still going to dinner?” she asked.
“Yes, but that’s not why I’m calling.”
She was silent for a moment. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there? I can hear it in your voice.”
“No, nothing’s wrong it’s just that—” Emory cleared his throat, glad she wasn’t here to see him blush. “My mother wants to meet you.”
“Your mother?”
“I, uh, called her because we were featured on a gossip site. I know she watches daytime TV, or at least it’s playing on the TVs in the client bays and I didn’t want her to find out that way.”
“I don’t even know what your mother does. She’s…Indian, right?”
“My mom is a dentist. My grandparents wanted her to be a doctor but she hated medical school, so she became a dentist.”
“No wonder you have such good teeth.”
“I’ll tell her you said so.”
“Maybe I can tell her myself, if I’m going to meet her.”
“You’d be willing to do that?”
“Only…if you want me to.” He could hear the uncertainty in her voice and could have kicked himself. It was easy to forget that Sasha was not as sure of herself as she seemed.
“I’d love to, but it’s a bit early for that.”
“I’ll take your word for it, since I’ve never really dated before. So if your mom’s a dentist what does your dad do?”
“He owns fast-food restaurants.”
She laughed. “Really?”
“Yep. My grandparents on that side owned a grocery import business. They were some of the first people to import Middle Eastern and African spices into the U.S. They helped my dad buy a franchise when he was young and he parlayed that into a little fast-food empire. My parents used to joke that my dad sold the soda that ruined the teeth my mom would fix.”
“So you’re rich, I mean, you grew up rich.”
“No. I did grow up solidly middle-class, though not everyone thinks my mixed ethnic background is as interesting as you do. It was difficult growing up looking different and not having an easy answer to the question ‘What are you?’.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. I had the best of both worlds—I had the advantages money could bring and yet was given perspective because of how I was treated.”
“Maybe that’s why you’re so wonderful.”
He grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Please be sure to tell my mother you think so. She always hoped I would make up for her dislike of medicine and become a doctor.”
“I’ll let you be my doctor.”
Emory’s blood heated. “I think I know what we’ll be doing after dinner.”
“Promises, promises. Did your dad want you to be a doctor too?”
“No, he wanted me to go into business. Law school was their third choice after med school and an MBA program.”
“It’s crazy to think that they wouldn’t be proud of you.”
“They’re proud of me, but think I wasted my potential.”
“Maybe it would help if I told them what an excellent Dom you were.”
Emory froze as icy horror at the very idea coursed through him. “Dear God, no.”
Sasha laughed. “I was joking.”
“You’re trying to kill me.”
“Does this mean I don’t get to meet your parents?”
“Get to? I was calling to warn you that my mother is now planning a trip out here to visit me, but really all she wants to do is meet you. I never talk about my clients, mostly because I’m afraid they’d want to meet them, so she was less than pleased to know that not only are you my client, but that I hadn’t told her we’re now romantically involved.”
There was a moment of silence and Emory worried he’d lost the call or she’d hung up.
“Sasha?”
“Hmm?”
“I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m here, but I’ll definitely need a new ‘meet mom’ outfit.”
Emory laughed.
Sasha answered the phone.
She shouldn’t have. It had been less than a week since she and Emory had said they loved each other, less than a week since he declared his intentions to be a permanent part of her life.
“Hello, Rafe.”
Beside her, Jayne stiffened. Sasha motioned her out of the room.
“Tomorrow at 11:00 a.m.,” was all he said.
“It will have to be tonight.”
There was a pause as they both digested that. She could feel him absorbing the fact that she’d countered his command, and that she had the right to do so with her busy schedule.
For her part, Sasha’s stomach was a mass of fear and worry. Even now it took a lot for her to stand up to him—and in the end she wasn’t really standing up to him at all. She’d go, as commanded, because she always had.
“I look forward to seeing you shortly.” Rafe hung up.
Sasha laid her phone down with trembling fingers. She didn’t give herself time to think, to question. She left the office and went to her bedroom closet. Emerging a few moments later, she headed for the front door. Passing Jayne in the hallway, she said simply, “Take the rest of the day off.”
Jayne waited until she heard a car engine roar to life before she called Emory.
“Emory, it’s Jayne.”
“Hello, Jayne, how are you?”
“She’s gone.”
Emory carefully set his pen down on the desk. “Where has Sasha gone?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have called you, but if you’re really dating then I feel like you should know. Not because I think she did something wrong, but because I think maybe you could… I don’t know. I mean, I don’t even know what happens—”
“Jayne, where is she?”
“Rafe Santiago called her.”
Emory closed his eyes. Raphael Santiago was a Spanish national who’d made his fortune importing wine and then several more fortunes by financing movies. He was the closest thing Hollywood had to a patron of the arts.
And apparently he was the Dom who’d tortured Sasha.
All the pieces were there and Sasha was right, he wasn’t someone she, as a movie star, could afford to cross.
He’d called and Sasha had gone to him. Emory put away his hurt from that. There wasn’t time, and Sasha had told him herself that she went when he called because she couldn’t stop herself. From the story she told it was very clear to Emory that Mr. Santiag
o had molded and manipulated a young, vulnerable woman. It said a lot about Sasha’s strength of will that she’d managed to come through what he’d done to her.
Emory had already made discreet inquiries with other clients about psychiatrists, because Sasha needed someone more than him to talk to about all this.
“Address?”
Emory was already moving as Jayne rattled off an address and a gate code she’d taken from her computer backup of Sasha’s cell.
Once in the car, he raced toward Malibu. It would take him an hour to get there; his only hope was that Sasha didn’t have much of a lead on him.
Half an hour later, while sitting in traffic on Highway 1, Emory realized he had no plan. Rescue Sasha was a goal, not a plan.
He needed information.
And if anyone in L.A. knew about Mr. Santiago and his BDSM play, it would be Alton. Cursing, Emory called the other Dom, with whom he’d briefly worked on a coffee table book about BDSM. Alton hadn’t ended up participating in the project because his friend Lane started dating, and mastering, the female model before she got to Alton.
Alton was also one of the most feared and respected players in L.A. It was possible he’d run across Rafe, or had heard of him.
The phone rang four times before it was answered with a terse, “What?”
“Alton, this is Emory Setter. We met on the C&C project.”
“Emory.” There was a pause before he said, “Yes, what do you need?”
Normally a conversation without any niceties drove Emory crazy, but today he was glad. “I need to know about Rafe Santiago.”
There was a pause just long enough to make Emory sure that Alton knew something. “I can’t help you,” the other man said.
Emory gritted his teeth, wishing he could punch Alton through the connection. “Do you know him?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Damn it, Alton. I need to know.”
“Why?”
“He has my girlfriend.”
There was a long pause before Alton said bluntly, “That was stupid.”
“What?”
“I wouldn’t recommend giving your woman to Rafe to train. I’ve cut back, but I would have taken her if you told me you were sending her to Rafe.”
Emory faintly heard a woman’s voice in the background asking, “Take on who? Who’s Rafe?”
“I didn’t give her to anyone. She was…with him…before.”
Alton grunted. “I’m sorry.”
“Why, why are you sorry?” Emory was cold despite the sun that beamed down on his car, turning the inside into an oven despite the A/C.
“I’m only discussing this because he has a way of fucking with subs’ heads. Subs I’ve worked with who were with him, especially if they started with him, have trouble belonging to anyone else.”
“That’s because he tortures and mind-fucks them,” Emory said through gritted teeth. “The woman I love just went to meet him because he called. It’s something she’s been doing for years and she can’t afford to make him angry. I need to end this amicably.”
“Amicably? Emory, you’re talking to the wrong guy.”
Again he heard a woman’s voice. “Emory? Is that the guy Addie had sex with?”
Emory frowned until he remembered that Alton was supposedly dating Lulu, the owner of the shop where Lane’s sub Addie, whom Emory had a session with, worked.
“Woman, I am on the phone—” There was a scuffling noise and then a woman’s voice piped through Emory’s car speakers. “Hi, hello?”
“Uh, hello,” Emory said.
“Is this Emory, the guy with the chains and stuff?”
“Yes. May I please speak with Alton—”
“Oh my gosh, THANK YOU!” Emory winced as she yelled. “The actress Sasha Brazil has been in the store a bunch and one of the times she said that you recommended it and that you were her lawyer. I know it’s because of Addie but I just have to say thank you. And wait, didn’t I see that you and Sasha are dating?”
“I have a limited amount of time and—”
“I know, you have to go rescue your sub… No way, is Sasha a sub? She’s the last person I’d ever have suspected.”
Emory winced. He had not called Alton to expose Sasha’s secret. He was about to hang up when Alton came back on the line.
“I’m sorry about that. My woman is…completely insane.”
“I heard that!” Lulu yelled in the background.
“But to clarify, are you talking about Sasha Brazil?”
“Yes,” Emory admitted. He was fairly sure that Alton could be trusted to keep a secret.
“And you say she’s been his slave for years?”
Emory hated the way Alton described it but couldn’t deny it. “Yes.”
“Damn.” Alton paused before saying, “I met a sub in a club years ago. She was new to the scene, at least I thought so until I had a session with her. That’s when I realized she’d been trained by Rafe.”
Emory remembered Sasha’s description of a scene with a Dom at a club, and her saying that he was considered strict and scary. He should have figured it was Alton.
“Is Rafe the awful Dom Gail was telling me about?” Lulu must have picked up an extension, because he could hear her clearly now, though she was speaking to Alton “The one who basically kidnapped her for two weeks and then never called her again?”
“Woman, would you get off the… Never mind, you’ll ignore me anyway.” There was a disgruntled sigh, then Alton said, “Yes. Emory, Lulu’s talking about a sub who came to us because she was having trouble accepting her Master’s collar. She’d first experienced BDSM with Rafe and part of her, a large part of her, still felt he owned her and was waiting for him. Her experience with him was both very deep and lacked the connection subs need.
“When I used Sasha at the club she was the perfect submissive but had no idea what she wanted or what the rules were. Because of that she didn’t know how to protect herself or how to say no. It was alarming to see someone so submissive but not aware of the culture of BDSM. I figured she’d been with Rafe after we talked, and I tried to find her after that night but I never saw her again. She wore a mask for the session, but I’ve always assumed that was Sasha Brazil. The voice and body are the same.”
“Well, it’s her, and Rafe has been torturing her ever since. He calls her periodically and demands she show up and submit to him. She can’t afford to piss him off because he finances movies, including some of hers.”
“And she’s with him now?”
Emory felt bile rising in his throat. “She’s no more than fifteen minutes ahead of me, so I can only hope she just got there.”
There was a moment of silence where they both acknowledged that a lot could happen in fifteen minutes.
“You need it to end amicably,” Alton restated.
“Yes.”
“From what I know of him, there’s a way.”
Emory listened intently as he turned right off the highway, heading up into the cliffs of Malibu, the sparking Pacific Ocean behind him.
* * * * *
“I can’t keep doing this,” Sasha said quietly. She’d planted her feet in the foyer and had no plans to move any deeper into the massive open-plan living space. Every inch of it held memories for her, though not as many as the massive underground wine cellar with its secret dungeon room.
“Careful of your tone, Sasha.”
Her lip trembled and she bit it, holding back an apology. She was standing and fully clothed. From the way he narrowed his eyes at her, he was taking her lack of immediate submission—stripping and kneeling—very seriously.
The only thing that was keeping her up, keeping her strong, was the thought of Emory.
“It appears it’s been too long since we were together if you’ve forgotten your manners.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything.”
“Then it appears you’ll spend most of your time here in the cage. I’d hoped for something more
pleasant, but I don’t like girls with bad manners.”
“I can’t keep doing this,” she repeated.
“You can and you will. You’re mine.”
“No. She’s mine.” Emory’s voice rang out clear and strong behind her.
Relief poured over Sasha. The feeling was so strong that her knees trembled and she closed her eyes to hold back tears. There was the soft tap of shoes on the marble floor and then Emory was at her side. He didn’t touch her, didn’t look at her, and Sasha wondered if she’d lost him by coming here.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my home?” Rafe’s accent became more pronounced in his anger. Sasha trembled in fear for Emory.
“You’ve taken something that is mine. I’m here to retrieve her and to inform you that you will not touch my slave again.”
“Yours.” Rafe’s gaze darted between them. “Sasha, is this the man you play with when I don’t have time for you?”
“Do not speak directly to my slave.” Emory’s voice cracked like a whip.
Sasha watched as Rafe’s full attention transferred to Emory. Rafe was a good-looking man, still fit in his late fifties. His hair was medium brown with a few bits of gray. He was barefoot and wearing expensive jeans and a button-down shirt open to mid-chest. In comparison, Emory was in a dove-gray three-piece suit with a pale-blue tie that matched his eyes. He was prim and proper as always, and she loved him so much it hurt.
In that instant, Sasha knew it would be okay. She wasn’t sure how she knew, or how it would be okay, but she loved Emory and he loved her.
“She is, and always will be, mine,” Rafe countered. “I saw what she was and molded her.”
“You were simply her first. She’s refined her palate since then.”
Rafe pursed his lips. She’d seen that look before, usually right before she found herself shoved in a cage or wearing a corset with spikes that faced in.
“I know her in a way you never will.”
“Doubtful, but I only collared her a few weeks ago, so there are things I have yet to uncover.”
“Collared her,” Rafe scoffed. “A slave doesn’t need to be collared to know her true Master.”
“Agreed.”
Rafe’s face smoothed out and then he looked at Sasha. She fought the need to drop her eyes.
“Sasha,” Rafe said, “kneel.”