“You’re growing attached to your new sub?” Richard asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.
I shook myself out of the haze and cleared my throat. “We only just met, Richard.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
O-kay. “I enjoy spending time with her,” I answered, careful not to reveal too much.
Richard studied me, his gaze narrowing. “Is she falling for you, too?”
I felt my muscles seize. “I’m not falling for her,” I snapped. I couldn’t be. That was fucking ridiculous. One good emotional fuck didn’t mean I was ready to collar her.
Richard froze, the coffee mug halfway to his lips and his mouth quirked in a smile. “You know, it’s okay to have feelings for your submissive. It can work. Look at Jude and Marlena. Just guard your heart. Enter cautiously. In case she has some oats to sew—”
I clenched my eyes shut. Lucy sewing oats was not what I fucking wanted to think about. “Well, I don’t. She’s just a submissive. I care for her the same way I care for the others,” I said, hardly believing myself. It was the exact opposite sentiment that I had just relayed to Jude. If I was already this fucking readable, wearing my heart on my sleeve, then I needed to harden myself. Block these feelings. Hide from my and Lucy’s connection.
“Okay then,” Rich said. If he believed what I’d just said, he disguised it well. “Just… sign the waiver. And make sure one other Silhouette employee has a copy of your signed waivers, ideally someone that each of you knows and trusts. It can even be Jude. Then, at least, if there’s ever any litigation, you both have a signed copy as well as someone on your side to testify on your behalf. Think she’ll be okay with that?” He crossed back to his desk, setting the coffee down beside his computer.
I nodded. “I hope so.”
“Me, too.”
I pushed out of my chair, taking the waivers from Richard even though I already had a copy in my desk. I spun back around before walking to the door. “One more question,” I said, leaning against the back of the chair. My fingers bit into the leather hide of the seat, Brie’s ring leaving an impression in the soft leather. “What do you do when one of your hard limits intersects with one of her triggers?”
Rich looked up, the hard lines around his forehead and eyes softening. “Trust comes before obedience,” Richard said. “Her hard limits hold more weight than yours, especially if she is still learning and in training.”
Fuck. This was why I didn’t train new subs. It was too emotionally ragged. Seasoned subs understood limits—they understood their own and understood mine and it was unemotional as we discussed them. We trusted each other, but only in our pleasure for a night or two. We didn’t need trust to extend beyond that. But with Lucy? I couldn’t do this without trust. Neither of us could. I clenched the consent forms in my hand, my skin almost as white as the papers I was holding. “If I do this wrong…if I fuck up, I could end up tearing open her old wounds.”
“Ash,” Richard said. “That might be true. But also… if you do this right? You might heal those wounds that are triggering her. Or at least bandage them.” He flashed me a quick smile and I nodded, heading for the door. “You might heal some of your own wounds, too.”
Fuck. If only.
Chapter Sixteen
Lucy
You aren’t surfing, are you? I saw on the news that there’s been an increase in shark attacks in Los Angeles.”
My mom’s voice became more shrill than usual as she voiced her question. “Mom, I barely have time to shower before work in the mornings and most days I don’t get out until the sun has set. When would I find the time to surf, even if I wanted to?”
“Luciana, personal hygiene is very important. You need to shower daily.”
I closed my eyes and silently let loose a sigh. I should have known my answer would send her into a whole different danger spiral. She saw danger everywhere. Suddenly, flashbacks of my mom making me scrub my hands raw before eating invaded my mind. How she would make me scoop the dirt out from under my fingernails with this little manicure tool several times a day, even when there was no dirt to be seen. Germs are invisible, Luciana.
“I was just exaggerating mom. I promise you, my hygiene is fine. I shower every day.” I took a bite of my spaghetti and chewed as quietly as I could.
“You’re on lunch break?” Apparently, I didn’t chew quietly enough.
“Yep,” I said, feeling my heart rate speed up with her question.
“Did you see that app I texted you? Where you input each meal and it calculates what you need to eat for maximum health and weight loss?”
I closed my eyes, the spaghetti roiling in my stomach. “Oh. Well, I’ve never been good with tracking calories.”
“That’s why you get the app. It tracks for you.”
Yeah, right. No way in hell I was getting that app. “I’m pretty happy with how I eat, mom.”
She snorted on the other end of the line. “You’re happy eating processed food and preservatives all the time? Sugar and cheese?”
I sighed. “Yep. I sure am.”
“You never take my suggestions. You never listen to me.”
Oh boy. Here we go again. “Mom, that’s not true—”
“I need to go, Luciana. I’m meeting some girlfriends at a new smoothie bar.”
Yep. She didn’t like my answer, so she’s leaving. That’s what she does best. “Mom, don’t be like that.”
“Don’t be like what? Don’t have a social life?”
I sighed, my heart growing heavy. Don’t pull away from me. “Don’t get mad. That’s not what I meant. That app just isn’t for me. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk to you—”
“I’m not mad. I just have plans. I’ll talk to you later, Luciana.” I closed my eyes briefly. There wasn’t much point in arguing with her when she got like this. “Okay, mom. I love you—”
But she hung up before I could finish the sentence.
I sat there, pushing spaghetti around my half-empty plate with one hand and holding the phone in the other. Why did I keep staring at the blank screen? Did I really expect her to call back? This happened a million times before. It’ll happen a million times again. She gets mad when she doesn’t get her way, then she disappears for a while. Sometimes it’s a day, sometimes it’s a month. Eventually, she gets over it and comes back to me.
And yet, I couldn’t stop staring at my phone.
A minute later, it buzzed in my hand, a text message popping up. Only it wasn’t from mom. It was from Ash.
Have you eaten?
I blinked down at the text. Was he fucking serious right now? My fork froze literally halfway to my open mouth as I read the text. I had just gotten done defending my eating habits to my mom… I didn’t need to repeat that with the man I was fucking. I thought I had made myself clear last night about how my eating habits are not his concern and he had to trust me to handle my own nutrition.
Not to mention, he had completely gone radio silent on me this morning when we almost had sex in bed. He pulled away. He tried to cover it up by taking me to the world’s most awkward breakfast before work. We sat there at a greasy diner and ate in absolute silence for twenty minutes before I left first. “We can’t both show up at the same time,” I had said as an excuse to leave, but truly? I couldn’t sit there in that uncomfortable silence for another second. I had no idea what had changed—but whatever it was, it was a deal breaker for me.
I had been dealing with a distancing personality almost my whole life. I knew the signs when I saw it. I had to put up with it from my mother. I didn’t get to choose her. But Ash? I didn’t have to just sit here and take it.
I dropped the fork into my almost empty bowl of spaghetti and my fists clenched and unclenched, my palms growing sweaty as I ran through potential responses in my brain. But before I could respond, three little dots appeared beside his name and my phone buzzed with the next text.
Shit. I just realized how that sounded. I just meant, if you h
ave time before lunch break ends, come see me in my office. We need to talk.
I relaxed, my grip around the phone lessening. Oh. He hadn’t meant to check in on me eating. But somehow, that ominous we need to talk was even worse. I was on edge. This was it. He was going to end it. End us… if we even were an us. He had told me from the start that he didn’t do relationships. Sure, there had been some other mixed signals thrown in there, but truthfully? He told me he was unavailable emotionally. So why the fuck didn’t I listen to him?
I stood, bringing my tray over to the trash can to discard what was left of my lunch. If he was breaking up with me, then I had to remain strong. End things first, maybe. And for the love of all things holy, I could not cry.
On my way down the hall, I passed by the ladies room and paused, Ash’s rule from the contract swirling in my head. Did it matter now? Now that he was ending this and I was… I was… what was I? Not willing to put up with another hot and cold personality in my life, that’s what I was.
I ducked into the rest room, locking myself into a stall quickly and unbuttoning my jeans. Tentatively, I inserted a finger inside myself and swallowed a groan. I was still sore from last night, a dull ache that was deliciously ripe. My body immediately responded, and I grew wet, clenching around my knuckle.
I pulsed that finger inside of myself, gasping, thinking about Ash. His lips. His eyes. His hand. His teeth.
His teeth.
With my free hand, I yanked my shirt down to see if the marks were still there. My nipple was a little red still with hints of a purplish bruise and there between my breasts, two little blue marks from where his teeth nipped me hard. Hard enough to bruise. My pussy squeezed with an involuntary spasm. Breathless, I withdrew my finger. My lungs burned as I panted hard. I wanted to touch my clit. Circle it with that wet finger until I came. But Ash’s voice resonated in my mind. Your orgasms are mine.
Instead, I brought that trembling finger to my lips, gliding my essence over my mouth. I was so turned on. And sad. And confused. And frustrated. Because maybe I wouldn’t feel so needy right now if Ash had just fucked me before work.
I let out a frustrated grunt and shouldered out of the stall, washing my hands before exiting the bathroom and making my way down to his office.
Uncle Rich turned the corner. I gasped and pivoted to escape him. No, no, no… not now. Not with my fucking lips smelling like vagina.
“Nuh-uh,” he scolded, his loud voice halting me mid-step. “Luciana Blair Rodriguez, you get your ass back here right now.”
Aw, hell. He middle named me. He middle named me on my lunch break at work. I spun and smiled at him sweetly. “Mr. Blair,” I said, my voice tight. “What can I do for you?”
His steps fumbled, just slightly enough that I noticed, and he quickly regained his composure, taking only a few long strides before he was standing in front of me. My gaze flicked to Ash’s open office door, only a dozen feet away.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said. He wasn’t shouting or anything, but he also wasn’t whispering.
I cleared my throat and glanced over my shoulder. No one was around—that I could tell. “No, I haven’t.” I tried to cover my mouth with my hand as I talked. Was it like smelling alcohol on someone’s breath? Would he know the second he moved closer to me that my lips smelled like sex? My stomach turned at the thought.
“Lucy,” he whispered. Even though it was quiet, his voice was sharp as a knife’s edge. “I’ve texted you three times since yesterday and called you once to try to talk about what happened.”
“What happened yesterday?” With Ash? Oh, God. He knew. How did he know?
“Yes,” he said, his voice still stern. “With you being the stand-in.” I released the breath I’d been holding. That’s right. He walked in on the stand-in scene when Ash was spanking me. Oh, thank God. He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. “And you haven’t answered any of my texts or calls. So, look…we can either do this in my office after work. Or here in the middle of the hall for anyone to hear.”
I swallowed. Shit. “Okay. Look, that was a one-time thing being a stand-in. I was just filling in because we had no-shows. We really don’t need a meeting about it.”
He didn’t say anything for a long thirty seconds. “Fine,” he said, finally. But his flaring nostrils gave him away. It was anything but fine. And he didn’t move on. He didn’t break away or continue down the hall. And I’d be damned if I was going to let him catch me going into Ash’s office alone. Talk about a red flag. “Lucy,” he whispered my name again and it held the same tension as it did when I was ten and I got caught eating the girl scout cookies I was supposed to be selling door to door. Damn Thin Mints. They get me every time.
“What?” I responded, pressing my lips together.
“Are you … are you and Ash … ” His voice broke. He couldn’t even say it. Couldn’t even finish the question.
I tilted my head. Well, I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Instead, I lowered my brows in confusion. “Are me and Ash… what?”
He shook his head, seeming to shake away whatever thoughts had entered his mind about mine and Ash’s relationship. Or… non-relationship. Whatever the hell we were. “Nothing,” he said. “Just… you remember what I said about Ash, right?” His voice was so low that I had to strain to hear him.
I nodded. “Yes, I remember. He’s a playboy.”
“It’s more than that, Lucy. He’s… Ash is broken.” I waited for more of an explanation, but it never came.
Broken. I kind of already knew that, didn’t I? The way he pulled away from me this morning just as we were about to make love. Shit. No. Not make love. Fuck. Just as we were about to fuck. But that sex last night? That hadn’t felt like fucking. At all.
“Anyway,” Uncle Richard took a step back from me and waved his hand as if he could clear the air of what he’d just said. “I must have been mistaken. For a split second, I could have sworn Ash had been referring to you.” Uncle Rich chuckled in a way that wasn’t meant to be insulting… but it was. He was chuckling as though the thought of Ash being with me was ludicrous.
Wait… he thought Ash was referring to me? Did that mean…? Oh, my God. Did Ash go to talk to my uncle about our relationship behind my back? My face flamed red and hot and thank God Uncle Richard wasn’t paying attention to me anymore. He had already clapped his hand gently to my shoulder as he walked past me and disappeared around the corner.
Thoughts swirled in my head like a whirlpool ready to drown me in my own overactive mind. Ash was broken. He was talking to Uncle Rich about me… which seemed to go against the very conversation we had had last night where we agreed to wait to bring HR into this.
I stormed into Ash’s office with a newfound determination and slammed the door behind me. “What the hell, Ash?” I snapped.
He jumped from where he sat at his desk, a half-eaten sandwich on a plate beside him. After he seemingly settled, looking around the room, his gaze narrowed onto me. “Watch yourself, Shorty. We may be at work, but that doesn’t mean I can’t punish you later.”
“Nuh-uh,” I said, holding up a finger and stalking closer to his desk. Who the hell was I right now? Who was this girl who was putting her finger in her boss’s and lover’s face? “Don’t pull your Dom crap on me right now. I just ran into m—” I stopped myself, catching my almost slip of the tongue as I almost said my uncle. “Mr. Blair,” I recovered. Although, that recovery didn’t do me a whole lot of good.
“So?” Ash pushed.
Fuck. So is right. I’m not supposed to know Richard. Why would he ever stop me or suspect I was Ash’s new plaything of the week. “So… it felt like for the briefest moment… he might suspect something between us.”
Ash stood, crossing around to the front of his desk and leaned back on it, facing me. “Why would he suspect you?” Ash asked.
Fuck. Let it go, Lucy, a little voice said inside of me. “I don’t know,” I croaked, lying. “It just felt like he was watch
ing to see if I came into your office just now. And I had to wait for him to leave to slip inside.”
Ash raised a brow. “Slip inside? More like stormed inside.”
I huffed a sigh. “Did you tell Rich about us?”
“Yes… and no.”
That angry fuse that had been lit in me earlier? Well, it just fucking exploded like a stick of dynamite. “Which one is it… yes or no?”
“I asked him about the consent waiver and how important it is to have something filed with HR. I never mentioned you by name. All I said was that it was an employee of Silhouette who didn’t want her identity revealed because she didn’t want to appear as though nepotism was the reason she was doing well in her job.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Boom. That’s why Uncle Rich suspected me. It was practically the same damn reason I had given him for not wanting anyone to know he was my uncle.
I could just tell Ash the truth—that Richard Blair was my uncle. What did it matter at this point if he knew or not? It actually would make my life a hell of a lot easier. Although sleeping with the boss’s niece might be too much—even for Ash.
He’s broken. My eyes fell to the ring on Ash’s pinky. Please tell me, I begged without words. I needed him to open up to me. Even if just a little bit.
“I wish we weren’t here at work,” Ash said.
My gaze shot to his. “No?”
“No. I wish we were back at my club. So I could bend you over, tie your wrists to your ankles and spank your ass until it was raw for the way you stormed in here yelling at me.”
My face flushed and sweat dotted against my forehead. I wanted that, too. So badly I could taste it.
“Too bad for that pesky no sexy business at work rule we made,” Ash said, his breath hot as he towered over me.
I didn’t want to admit I wanted that, too. That I wanted to be bent over his desk, right here and now and I wanted him to own every part of my pleasure and pain. Instead, I swallowed and tilted my chin a little higher. “Yep. Too bad my career goals are cock-blocking you. Pesky women and our silly desire to be treated equally in the work place, right?”
Role Play (Silhouette Studios) Page 22