by Joey W. Hill
“It was a mistake. I care about you, Marcie.” When he put his hands over her wrists, his face was locked down again, that expression she was beginning to hate. “We can’t do this. There’s no way any of it works, and you need to stop trying. I’ll be cruel if you force me to it. That’s a promise. Take what you’ve been given and leave it at that.”
“What did I give you, Ben?” She stared up at him. He was looking at her, but not really at her. It was as if he’d blanked out her features and was staring at something faceless. She dug her nails into flesh. She’d marked him as well. He had claw marks in his back. “You figure if you give a woman Nirvana, she’ll be okay with the fact you’ve taken nothing for yourself? It doesn’t play with me. You thought I was out of it in the tub last night. I wasn’t. You were intimate with me. Caring. And don’t you dare deny what happened after, on the balcony.”
His eyes went ice cold so abruptly it startled her. Putting his hands on her wrists, he detached her hands from his shirtfront. “Wait here.”
He turned, shutting the door as if he didn’t believe she’d obey, and she probably wouldn’t have, except the frigid look in his eyes held her frozen, uncertain. When he came back, opened the door, he held her shoes. He locked her stiff fingers around them.
“I won’t talk about this further. Not right now. You’re not in the right frame of mind for it, and neither am I. Go to the limo.” When she continued to stand there, staring at him, he physically moved her off the stoop onto the walkway, closed the grate to the alcove, shutting her out. He stared at her through the bars. She wondered if he realized it looked like he was shutting himself into a prison cell.
“I am your friend, Marcie, but from this moment on, only your friend. We are to each other what we were a few days ago.”
She couldn’t help it. She gave a bitter laugh. “Yeah, that much is true. The funny thing is, I’m the only one who accepts what that is.”
“I’ll talk to you when I get back from Houston.” With that, he stepped back into the house and closed the door. Fucking closed the door in her face.
He wouldn’t talk to her when he got back. He’d do everything he could to avoid talking to her. When they next saw one another, it would be at a Thanksgiving or Christmas gathering with the others, where he could treat her with smooth charm, like any other woman he held at arm’s length.
What swept through her was so strong, it made her lightheaded. She swayed, closed her eyes. Which was a mistake, since images from last night once again went through her head. The power of them, the emotion, the all-consuming…everything. He’d say he’d given her what she wanted, and she only had herself to blame for putting her heart out there, when he’d told her what to expect. What total horseshit. What happened last night wasn’t a one-sided experience.
She was young, but she wasn’t stupid. She also wasn’t some melodramatic teenager, imagining things. Even when she was in her teens, she’d looked at him and seen things others hadn’t. She remembered it now, him standing in the shadows of Jon and Rachel’s wedding, watching their first dance. For just a brief moment, there’d been a look in his eyes…
It recalled the many painful times she’d been reminded she had no parents to come to awards ceremonies, see her off to prom, ask her how her day had gone, things every other kid with functioning parents took for granted. He trusted very few, and those few were now married, somehow pulled away from him, even though it looked as if they were still standing right there, where they’d always been. Everybody dealt with change, but it broke her heart, seeing in that brief glimpse that this was a path he didn’t know how to follow, shutting him out of their happiness.
Unable to see that desolation and not try to help, she’d gone to him. Yeah, she was a shy awkward teen, but she thought of him as her friend. Sidling up to him in those shadows, she’d elbowed him to catch his attention. His expression was back to being what was expected, congratulatory and amused, but that didn’t matter. She pulled his head down to whisper in his ear, steeling herself to keep her cool, even though his whiskey-sweet breath was on her neck.
“Let’s go put an ‘I support offshore drilling’ sticker on the back of Jon’s hydroelectric getaway car.”
“He’d retaliate. Put a Disney Gay Pride Day sticker on the back of the McLaren.”
She smirked up at him, glad to see the sad look replaced by his smile. “Then let me have some of your drink.”
“When you’re twenty-one.”
“Does everything fun happen then?”
“Only to boys. For girls, it’s age thirty. Your lives totally suck until then.”
She’d punched him in the side and he’d hugged her, pressing a brotherly kiss on the top of her head. Later she’d talked him into dancing with her, even doing the YMCA dance. She had incriminating photos to prove it.
She’d made it her private mission to keep an eye on him during that event. She knew what it was to hunger for what one might never have. It gnawed, it ached. At a key moment, that hunger could break loose and result in very, very bad behavior.
Coming back to the present, she studied her surroundings with narrowed eyes. Finding what she sought, she nodded to herself and pivoted toward the street, for the first time registering the limo and the man leaning against it, patiently waiting for her.
She wondered if Max had been standing there when she and Ben had her exchange at the door. Even if he’d still been sitting in the driver’s seat, he would have known from their body language things weren’t peachy. Max didn’t miss much.
The K&A women joked about how much he looked like Peter, since he was Dana’s regular driver. Blond, gray-eyed, with lots of muscles that had been used in his previous work as a Navy Seal. Why he’d spent the past few years working for the company motor pool was a mystery, but they’d speculated about it. As well as a lot more inappropriate things about the handsome, quiet male.
He wore a pair of belted tan khakis and white shirt open at the throat, a jacket over that. She had no doubt he had a weapon underneath it. Always prepared, after all. He nodded to her as she approached. “Miss Marcie. Good to see you.”
“You too.” It was a reflex answer as she handed him her bag and her shoes. The large fingers closing around the dainty straps would have amused her under normal circumstances, but right now, she had a different mission. Her hands now free, she turned around, headed back toward the front door.
She stepped off the path, smoothing her skirt modestly up under her thighs as she squatted. Selecting a handful of the smooth rocks that formed the mulch around the well-tended shrubs, she found they had a good weight and size in a woman’s palm. Aware of Max’s regard, she nevertheless ignored it.
Moving back onto the walkway, she backed up a sufficient number of steps, gauging her distance and studying her potential targets. Ben would have gone back upstairs. There was an office there, right off the bedroom. He preferred work when anything was aggravating him, and he’d made it clear she was an aggravation. His desk was close to that window. Perfect.
“Ben.” Her throat had resigned itself to being abused, so it was settling into a kind of sexy, intense Lauren Bacall sound. She’d been able to hear the muted rush of passing cars in the bedroom, so the window insulation wasn’t soundproof. She was loud enough to be heard. “Here’s how reasonable adults react when they have feelings.”
The first rock hit the upper office window dead on, breaking through with a satisfying shattering noise. The lower panel went next. She hoped she’d winged him, bounced the damn thing off his stubborn head. It would probably break the rock. Then she adjusted her stance and aimed for the bedroom window, where that amazing moment of connection had happened. When he’d lain upon her, looking down at her, her legs coiled over his hips, his hands on her face. She’d leave an explosion of broken glass so he’d have to strip the bed, get the linens washed or get splinters in his ass.
She hesitated when she lowered her gaze to the first level. Yeah, she could send a rock zinging t
hrough the wrought iron bars and take out door panels, but they were beautiful old stained glass. Some things were sacred. She targeted the living area windows instead, and used the last couple rocks for the other side, his dining room. Though she was standing about twenty feet away, she didn’t miss a single target. Before Jeremy had changed from her brother into an addict, he’d shown her how to throw a rock pretty damn well.
She was breathing a little erratically, but any desire to cry was gone. She was flat- out pissed, her blood on full boil. If he walked out that door, she wasn’t entirely sure another rock wouldn’t be aimed at his forehead as though a bull’s-eye was drawn there. But of course he wasn’t coming out. Stubborn bastard. No, worse than stubborn.
“If you’re too chickenshit to take me to a club,” she snarled up at the now fully aerated window treatments, “I will go by myself. Fuck you. How’s that for reasonable?”
Yeah, she knew better than to bluff Ben O’Callahan, but this time, she wasn’t sure it was a bluff. She was so mad, she was going to throw it out there. To thine own self be true.
It was time to fall back, regroup, or she was going to prove herself an obsessed stalker after all. She’d climb through one of those windows and beat him to death. Nothing said love like a two-by-four applied to soft tissue areas.
She marched toward the limo. Max was still leaning against the car, arms crossed over his broad chest. There was some sympathy in his gaze, some sardonic amusement. Apparently his scope of responsibility hadn’t included stopping her. She would have liked to see him try. She was more than ready to kick someone’s ass. Instead, she was going to have him take her home. She was doing exactly what she’d intended today. Mostly.
She’d call Research and tell them she’d report Monday, because she was in no mood to be at K&A today. She’d take care of that Pickard job in the early evening hours, but then she was going to a club, damn it. Not Progeny. She’d go back to Surreal, because she wouldn’t run into someone she knew, and she was already familiar with their layout. She’d tell Cass she was driving up to Baton Rouge for an overnight to follow up on the Pickard work, which was plausible, because there were a couple things she could check out there after she handled the Dumpster job here.
Catching a movement in her peripheral vision, she noticed one of Ben’s neighbors standing on the sidewalk, a trio of apricot toy poodles in her arms, too stunned to be yappy. The woman was staring at Marcie in a fascinated, horrified way. Marcie gave her a dignified nod. “He deserved it, I promise,” she said.
The woman’s lips twitched. Putting the poodles down, she continued on her morning walk with only a couple backward looks.
Max handed her his handkerchief. When Marcie glanced at him, puzzled, he touched a fingertip to her face, letting her feel the tears. “Oh shit,” she muttered. She mopped her face with it, blew her nose with a ferocious snort that had his brows rising. “Please take me home, Max. I want to stop on the way for a brownie from Starbuck’s. I’ll treat you to a coffee and you can have this omelet. I think I’d choke on it at this point.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, a glint in his eyes. Then he held the door for her.
Holy hell. He’d hit the floor like Peter under enemy fire when those first stones came through. “Fuck,” Ben snarled, under a shower of glass. Only two things kept him from shoving up from the floor to wear her ass out. One, he got hard as steel from the thought of punishing her, which undermined the whole getting-rid-of-her scenario. Two—more importantly—he deserved her anger. It was his fault for letting it go this far, and so he would take the cost. Which was apparently eight perfectly preserved panes of pre-Civil War glass. Fuck, fuck and triple fuck.
Once she was done with her diatribe and he heard the limo pull away, he fished out his cell. Staying on the floor, he put in a call to his maid and maintenance services for glass cleanup and window replacement, respectively. But every word she’d shouted at him was echoing in his mind. He could imagine how she’d looked yelling at him, those gorgeous brown eyes flashing, her hair a swirl around her face, breasts heaving and fists clenched. Damn it, he was getting stiff against the floorboards, thinking about how he’d deal with her in such a temper.
I swear to God, I’m going to have to cut off my own dick.
Ben rolled to his back. He didn’t feel like getting up yet. He’d heard her threat about the club, but he also heard the waver of uncertainty behind it. She was just working off a mad, even though he had no doubt she’d end up there by herself at some point if he didn’t give her some direction. She was that stubborn. He’d make sure she had the numbers of those other Doms he’d talked about. Once she calmed down, she’d be smart enough to take them, even if her initial motive in doing so was to make him jealous. It wouldn’t. That’s what he told himself. They were nice, young, calm and sedate guys. Doms she’d find so boring they’d put her to sleep.
They were too lighthanded. Even when she was crying out from every blow, her ass kept rising up to the cane, the spatula, the flogger. Those strikes made her wet, made her beg for more. Christ.
He needed to get to Houston. If he was smart, he’d stay there for a couple months. Or he’d come back tonight, go to Progeny himself. No, too much risk of dealing with someone he knew. He might go to Surreal. Take a taxi from the airport, hang out there until closing, have one of the limos pick him up and bring him home. He’d find a sub who’d help him forget how he’d fucked this up. He’d call Lucas later, maybe, explain the situation, though he wasn’t really sure how to do that. Maybe he’d wait and see what Marcie was going to do. She might not tell them. She was mad, and her pride was probably hurt.
He wanted to ignore the niggling thought that it went deeper than that, but he wouldn’t duck that responsibility. He’d taken her too deep, let her get too close. It was better to wound her now, when it wasn’t mortal.
He’d take her anger. Her tears would destroy him.
Ben: Congratulations on the five thousand you raised to help the off campus domestic violence shelter. Cass said you’ve been volunteering there. She also told me about that run-in with a husband ignoring a restraining order. She said you wouldn’t let him come into the house, basically backed him down. You have a tendency to take things to extremes, brat. A guy won’t stop to think about assault charges when he’s got a red haze in front of his eyes. Btw, we’re matching the funds you raised, and I’ve already authorized having a security system and panic button installed at the shelter.
Marcie: My knight in shining armor (lol). You guys are so overprotective, but I know the shelter will really appreciate it. As far as the asshole (aka husband) I just had to prove to him I had bigger balls. I did JJ. Seriously, don’t worry about me. I’m no different from you guys. If I don’t stick up for what’s right, for what I know is truth, no matter what the world throws at me, then what kind of person am I?
Ben: Not a corpse. Just be careful, brat. Who will interrupt my day with her incessant letters, texts and emails if you’re not around?
Marcie: That’s true. I’m not sure if most of the women you date are literate.
Email exchange between Ben and Marcie
Chapter Eleven
Marcie paused inside the foyer of Surreal, breathed deep. She’d chosen to spend some of her K&A intern salary on a car service to bring her here, because she’d made a deliberate decision to down a couple shots of tequila from Lucas’ liquor cabinet before she left the house. The effect was still coursing through her veins, making her feel wild and loose, but she wasn’t drunk. Underneath the storm waves, she was all deep ocean, focused and intent.
She’d gone through an extreme experience with a Dom less than twenty-four hours ago. She could handle any Master here. Tonight she’d get some nice marks to overlay Ben’s, sashay into the office Monday, flip up her skirt and show him before she flounced down to her “place” in Research.
Of course, she’d have to use a Sharpie and circle the marks that were from her visit to Surreal. Otherwise he wouldn’
t be able to distinguish them from his, or those that had resulted from today’s Dumpster adventure. She’d added a couple aspirin to the tequila to deal with that. She couldn’t believe she’d let that security thug get the jump on her, but maybe she’d been spoiling for a fight. He’d gone the intimidation route, the usual tactic for big guys, and it had become ugly. Unfortunately, he also got the raw edge of her temper, so it was a fair trade. At least the mask covered her black eye. Nothing could cover swollen testicles, so he’d probably taken the night off.
Yeah, she was a badass. A badass whose palms were sweaty. She ignored that, handed her credit card to the hostess, a gorgeous ebony-haired pixie in corset, tight skirt and boots. When she’d come here masked to observe Ben, she’d had a definite plan, a focus. To watch him, gather information. He’d commanded her attention so decisively, nothing else had intruded on that path. No room for this open-ended anxiety, the what-if or what-trouble-am-I-going-to-get-into feeling.
The hostess nodded to the pirate chest full of rubber bracelets. The various colors denoted categories of play. She hesitated long enough that she had to move aside to let more decisive people pick up their choice. Then, feeling the hostess’s curious glance, that sense that she was about to be asked if everything was all right, if she needed help, she firmed her chin and snatched up a silver one. It said she was a moderately experienced sub, that she was unattached and interested in invitations to play.
Of course, the fact she was here alone, and her outfit, made that patently clear. Her wet latex leggings looked poured on and rode low on her hips. They laced up the back, from crotch to just below the twin dimples of her pelvis, following the seam of her buttocks. She’d laced them snug enough that nothing was graphically revealed, but as her cheeks twitched along in a sauntering walk, interested parties might strain their eyes to see if they could discern any details through that shadowed sliver of exposure.