Diamond groaned. “Do we have to? Can’t we just act like it never happened?”
“Well,” Crystal joked. “I suppose I could, but I’d take bets that your ass wouldn’t be able to. I’ve been on the receiving end of Pax’s paddle before, and he ain’t no joke. And girl, he was swinging hard last night! I don’t think I’ve ever seen him swing that hard!”
Torn between laughing and being mortified at her friend’s sense of humor, Diamond just nodded.
“Well, I’m trying anyway. This whole mess has certainly been a good distraction.”
“I bet.” Crystal pursed her lips together looking thoughtful, as if she was unsure that she should say anything. But in a fashion all her own, she threw caution to the wind and plowed ahead. “Listen, if I could have said anything last night, it wouldn’t have been what you are probably thinking. What I would have said, to you and Pax both, is that I’m happy for you guys. Truly. Especially for Pax. Rojo has been his life for way too long. And he always puts the needs of the casino, and the customers, and the employees, before his own. He’s happy to do it. But it’s made him too rigid. It’s made him forget how to take a chance, to chase after what he wants, to put his own needs and wants first. He’s a great boss. But for the last year or so, something has been lacking. Rojo wasn’t enough to fill his needs anymore, but he wasn’t willing to admit it.”
Crystal paused and took a breath, smiling at Diamond encouragingly before continuing. “And then, you came along. I wish you could have seen the two of you on stage that first night. It was truly one of the hottest, most insane things that has ever graced that stage, and its seen its fair share of hotness, I’ll tell you what. But that, was in a league all its own. The connection between you two was evident to everyone watching. You could have heard a pin drop in there. Everyone was on the edge of their seats. And I kid you not, I thought to myself, if only Pax would pull his head out of his ass, and break the rules, and take a chance on love, I think he might have something special. You’re probably worried about your reputation, and being seen as a cliché, the whole dating the boss thing. I get it. But you know what? The staff here loves Pax, and they want him to be happy. And if I’m wrong, and someone doesn’t feel that way? Fuck ’em.”
“Wow, thank you.” Diamond was impressed and grateful for Crystal’s impassioned speech “That… wasn’t what I thought you’d say.”
“I figured not. That’s why I had to say it. Besides that,” she added. “It’s all true. Anyways, I better get back to work. It’s kind of a madhouse down there. You’d think they just found out the missing daughter of Elizabeth Barrett was working here secretly, and dating the boss, or something!”
Diamond groaned, throwing herself back on the bed dramatically. “Don’t remind me. Pax says I’m not allowed to leave the suite until this all calms down, whenever that is. I’m going to lose my mind after the first day.”
“Yeah, probably. I’ll talk to him on my way up. See if I can pop in and visit every once in a while. Maybe sneak in something not from room service?”
“That would be amazing.” Diamond grinned, grateful that she had been lucky enough to find a friend like Crystal in her short time here. She was going to need it.
Crystal left, shutting the door to Pax’s bedroom behind her, leaving Diamond alone with her thoughts, and thankfully, her stuff. She happily dug through the bags, relieved to see that Crystal had gotten everything important and then some. She grabbed her toiletries, makeup and a change of clothes and headed for the shower. Maybe standing under the hot water would help massage some of her stress away.
* * *
“Talk to me.” Pax answered his cell, relieved that Jason was finally calling. He had been going out of his mind up here waiting for updates. He was supposed to be helping keep Diamond calm, but he wasn’t sure that was within his abilities at the moment. He wasn’t keeping calm himself. She was doing a much better job of it, truth be told. She had more experience.
“Fitch has been located, and escorted off the premises. I’ve spoken with Diamond’s father, and if he sees Fitch again, he’ll be serving him with a restraining order.”
“Do you think he’ll try to sneak back in?”
“I actually don’t. Diamond’s father’s assessment of him seems pretty spot on, and security gave him the full treatment. He won’t be coming back if he knows what’s good for him.”
“Okay, good. What about the others?”
Jason hesitated on the other line, stalling for so long, Pax thought he had lost him. “That’s trickier. Technically, until they do something wrong, we can’t ask them to leave. They have as much right to be here as anyone else, and it would be impossible to pick them all out anyway. I spoke with the legal team, and they said we have two options. We can either hold an informal press conference, and confirm that Diamond is working here, and that the two of you are, in fact, dating, or we can use you as bait.”
“Explain.”
“Well, earlier, when those idiots with cameras nearly assaulted you trying to get their precious photos, we were able to have security haul them away, get their names and ask them to leave. So basically, we could just do that over, and over, and over again, until we got rid of them all.”
“That could take days.”
“Yes. The only upside to that method is we wouldn’t have to tell them anything.”
Pax shook his head, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he tried to decide between the lesser of the two evils. “Get the legal team up here, ASAP. I’ll need their help preparing a statement.”
“You got it, boss.”
Pax hung up the phone and headed into the bedroom.
“Di, we need to order lunch. Do you know what you want?”
“Not hungry!” she called out from behind the bathroom door.
He wasn’t either, but he needed to be alert and keep up his strength. Not to mention his rigid schedule was about the only reliable thing in his life at the moment.
The pounding of the water against tile alerted him to the fact that Diamond had jumped under the shower spray and was no longer listening. He’s just order for her, and if she didn’t like what he ordered, she would have to deal.
Lunch was delivered thirty minutes later by Will, of course, and Diamond was still in the bathroom. Pax wasn’t about to wait, so he ate alone, a burger patty, topped with avocado and grilled onions wrapped in a lettuce leaf. He was dying for carbs, but it could wait. Tonight was Monday, and he would have his cheat day even if he had to eat in. Marzetta’s downstairs would deliver. They didn’t have a choice. It was one of the perks of being the boss.
Jason and the legal team arrived shortly thereafter. Diamond still hadn’t made an appearance.
The lawyers, Sid Colburn and Michael Jamison, had been with Pax since he opened the place, and with Jason before that. They were also patrons of Rojo occasionally, even though, to Pax’s knowledge, neither man had a kinky bone in his body.
They greeted him briefly and sat down, pulling out pens and briefcases and legal pads. All business.
“Give us the rundown.” It was Sid who spoke first—it was always Sid. Michael was the quiet, meek one of the two—until you got him in the courtroom. Then he was a piranha.
Jason took over, briefing them on the main points while Pax jumped in occasionally adding a detail or correcting Jase when necessary. Pax was much like Michael that way. Besides that, Jason had much more experience with legal matters, because he liked to toe the line whenever possible.
It took no time at all before they had a brief statement prepared. “How do you want to do this? Do you want to keep it wholly informal—just go out there on a whim, and whoever happens to catch it catches it—or do you want to set a time and notify some of the local stations?”
Sid looked out the window. “I think they are all out there anyway, but you can never be sure.”
“Let’s do it formally,” Jase jumped in before Pax had time to make a decision. “It helps to develop a false sense of
trust between you and the press. That way, they start to think if there is anything more that needs to be said, you’ll tell them. I think we should set it up for late evening. We need time to assemble a good security detail and a safe line of escape afterwards. Pax needs to be able to get in, say what he needs to say, and get out.”
“Agreed,” Michael and Sid spoke as one.
The three of them seemed to know what they were doing much more than Pax did, so he was content to let them handle it. He didn’t want to bother with the stress of setting up the details. He would do the speaking, and that was it.
“Hey, Pax,” Diamond called out, skipping through the door into his office. She stopped short at the sight of the men and froze pulling at her soft yoga pants self-consciously. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was here.”
“You were in the shower,” he responded dryly, raising his eyebrows at her carefree attitude. Mentally, he added a spanking to his list of things to do tonight. Even if she didn’t need to receive it, he needed to give it. “Come meet my legal team.”
She extended her hand, and he quickly made the introductions, inviting her to join them at the table.
“Um, why do we need lawyers? Slander? Libel? Restraining orders? What’s going on?”
“None of that, not yet. They were helping me prepare a statement for the press release.”
“A press release,” she barked, looking a bit wild eyed. “About me?”
All four men nodded.
“Oh, hell no! Why wasn’t I consulted on this? It’s my life. I’m not about to let you go out there and exploit my mother’s death and the nitty gritty details of our relationship to a bunch of fucking vultures! No way, Jose. Not happening.”
Pax’s eyes went hard and dark, and she backed up as he advanced on her slowly. When he reached her, he gripped her elbow tightly enough to make her wince, but not tightly enough to do any actual harm. “Excuse me, gentlemen. We’ll be right back.”
He all but slammed the bedroom door behind them, and marched her straight up to the corner he had designated for naughtiness. One quick tug had her yoga pants around her ankles, and her panties with them.
“It might surprise you to hear this, sub, but not everything is about you.” His body pressed up hard against hers as he spoke softly but firmly in her ear. The room was soundproof, but he wasn’t taking any chances. “This happens to be a business decision. These people are upsetting the day to day operations here at Rojo. Not only are they loitering and not spending money, they are upsetting our paying customers and harassing our staff. We examined our options and this was the most streamlined plan of attack with the end result of hopefully getting them out of here quickly, feeling like they got something.” He paused, his hand moving to cup her bottom possessively as he spoke.
“Listen carefully, your safety and well-being is always at the forefront of my mind. In reality, they are not getting any new information that they do not already have. The lawyers are smart and they are careful, and they know how to write a God damn press release. The statement basically says, yes, you work here, yes we are dating. That’s it. The fact that you thought I would say anything else without at least running it by you first is, frankly, quite offensive. Besides that, you were very disrespectful in the way you spoke to me just now—in front of my friends and business associates no less. Because of that, you and I will be having a nice long discussion this afternoon. I think my friend Mr. Cane will be doing the talking. And until then, you will wait here, with your naughty bottom exposed thinking about the way you speak to me until I return. And we are still talking business, so it might be awhile.”
With that, he delivered a hard, rump shaking swat to her bare bottom, and left the room, not waiting for her response.
* * *
It was good that Pax hadn’t waited for her response, because she hadn’t planned on giving one. After a lecture like the one he had given, the yes sirs usually fell freely and often, but today, she was determined to begrudge him that small gift. She wasn’t feeling very submissive.
Tears pricked her eyeballs as she stood in the corner, fists balled at her sides in frustration. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this submissive thing after all. She seemed to constantly be in trouble for the same thing, and the lines of when certain things were appropriate and they weren’t seemed too blurry for her liking. And she hated that he would have made a decision about how to move forward in a crisis without at least asking what she thought. After all, she was the one who was experienced in dealing with paparazzi. He could have at least asked her opinion.
“To be fair,” she mentally argued with herself, “You were in the shower a really long time, and it is his place of business, and you should trust him. He has given you no good reason not to. Besides all that, you like being his sub. You like being called sub, you like being punished, you like the kinky sex, and the humiliation of it all. And he takes really good care of you, and he’s not perfect, and he’s obviously having a bad day. You’re not perfect either, and you’re not going to be great at every aspect of this submissive thing every night. Pax knows that. That’s why he punishes you, instead of getting angry. He knows you need practice and a tangible reminder to do better.”
Wow, this bare bottom corner time really does the trick, Diamond laughed to herself, imagining how she must look at the moment. Nose pressed against the wall, pants around her ankles, arguing with herself.
She stopped the argument, but her brain didn’t stop working. It continued to race through conflicting thoughts at a million miles a minute, until she could add sobbing, tear stained snot covered face to the list of reasons she looked downright crazy.
Pax came in, turned her around, took one look at her, and lifted her into his arms, carrying her to the bed to sit in his lap. He grabbed tissues from the bedside table, and softly wiped her nose, holding one to her nose so she could blow.
“That’s looks like it was an intense timeout. Want to talk about it?”
“I can’t,” she sobbed, soaking the front of his shirt with her tears. “There’s too many things, and they all run together, and contradict each other, and I can’t make heads or tails of any of it. The only thing that makes any sense to me at the moment is you. That’s it. Not BDSM, not spanking, not working at Rojo, not why I can’t seem to get it right as a sub—none of that makes any sense. I can’t find any peace about it, and just when I think I have, some other totally different contradictory thought comes straights out of left field and blindsides me.”
“I see. Would it help if I said I’m having the same kind of day, and I think I overreacted a bit and I’m sorry?”
She sniffled, and looked up at him, with hopeful eyes. “Maybe.”
“We’ve hardly gotten any sleep the last few nights, we’ve been burning the candle at both ends for several days, and the one day we do plan to sleep in, we are woken up early and greeted by utter chaos. It’s enough to overwhelm anybody. Add in the fact that there are no less than a thousand photographers downstairs just biding their time, waiting for a glimpse of either one of us, or even better, both of us together—and that they are literally taking over a place that is both our work and our home—we were doomed for some sort of miscommunication or blow up. It was bound to happen. And for my part in it, I’m truly sorry. I should have run it by you. It does directly affect you, and I should have been more considerate. I felt like I was doing the right thing, and I’m used to being the final word in all decisions. But just because I am the final word, doesn’t mean I need to necessarily be the only word.”
“So what you’re saying is you could have at least pretended that I had a say?” She giggled, already feeling slightly better. Pax had a way with words. He was good at cutting right to the core of what was bothering her, and offering reassurance while still expressing his own needs and frustrations.
“I think I’ve been feeling a lot of guilt today, and because of that, I overcompensated.”
“Guilt? Why!”
�
�Well,” he began, stroking her hair with one hand as he spoke, while his other hand possessively gripped her neck. “I feel, however misguided that it may be, that I failed in protecting you in this. I could have refrained from kissing you on the porch once I saw that guy in the tree. I could have told you not to take pictures with certain people at work. Several of them are heavy into the online scene as well, and I knew that. I could have protected you from it, by using wisdom, and thinking with an organ other than the one between my legs. But ever since I meant you, everything I thought I was has flown out the window. I don’t use common sense, I act impulsively, I throw schedules out the window. And it’s fun, and it’s healthy, and it’s very freeing, but I need to be more strident in remembering when it is acceptable to act impulsively, and when I need to put your safety first and foremost above all else. I feel like I failed in that this week and I’m sorry. Sometimes the lines blur, and they need to be balanced. And sometimes in order for you to figure out where that balance is, there has to be a little chaos, and mistakes have to be made. And that’s just the reality of it. But in the end, the one thing that is clear, is that stressful day aside, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. And at the end of the day, all the blurred lines, and regret and mistakes fall away, and here we are dom and sub, and that’s how we have to operate.”
“Oh.” It had come back to that. Of course it had. No matter how sweet and considerate and romantic Pax was, if she had a punishment coming, it would always come back to that. It was one of the things that made him an excellent dom. “I’m sorry I got mad and yelled at you and didn’t trust you to make a good decision with my best interest at heart.
“It’s already been forgiven, my dear. I’m sorry I didn’t consult you on the matter that affects you as much as the rest of us, and I’m very sorry I overreacted. I wasn’t very kind when I brought you in here, and you certainly don’t deserve the cane. The hairbrush maybe, but not the cane.”
“No!” Diamond whined pathetically, not really feeling that way at all. The entire day had had been overwhelming, and emotional, and every one of her senses was crying out for the sort of tear inducing, conscience cleansing, role reaffirming spanking that only a hairbrush could provide. She was never so relieved as when Pax ignored her protests, and rummaged in the nightstand drawer, withdrawing the wretched brush. Oh how she loved to hate that thing.
Collared (Vegas Nights Book 1) Page 16