Hanging On 2: Surreal Neal [Awakenings 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More)

by Michele Zurlo

  “Hints. Snippets. Bits and pieces.” She shrugged. “Maybe I feel guilty for throwing away everything I’ve worked to achieve.”

  I stared at her. “Did you agree to buy Elysium because you feel guilty for quitting your job?”

  “No.” With a heavy sigh, she peered across the lawn at her husband talking with mine. “Maybe. I think Jonas wants me out of the house more. He said I’m restless.”

  Hearing that made me feel a lot better. I knew they were navigating a rough patch, and I didn’t want to see anything bad happen to their marriage. They were so good together. “See, he does talk to you about it.”

  She shook her head. “I overheard him talking to Ellen. They changed the subject when they heard me coming closer.”

  I truly did not know how to respond to that. Lots of spouses and friends sought advice about the ones they loved. I knew Jonas was in the midst of seeking regular advice about how he was handling being Sabrina’s Dom.

  So I turned it back on her. “Are you restless?”

  She leaned closer. “I think all the sex is wearing him out. I’m not restless. I’ve just never had this much energy.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed so hard that I snorted. By the time I was able to regain control of myself, my stomach muscles hurt. Drew chose that moment to call us for dinner.

  As people gathered around, they gravitated first toward Drew’s foil-wrapped surprises. I waited. Drew hadn’t just put potatoes in those packages, but I wasn’t about to tell our friends that he was testing out a new recipe. He’d added turnips. I’d turned up my nose when I saw what he was doing, but Drew had only given me a superior look and continued with his food prep.

  Once the foil was opened, tempting aromas drifted out. Still, I let everybody else try them first. Turnips weren’t something I’d eaten before, and I wanted a consensus before I waded into those new waters.

  Reactions were mixed, which seemed to disturb Drew. He wasn’t used to anything but resounding praise for his dishes. Knowing he’d come for my opinion, I sucked it up and scooped some onto my plate.

  They were okay. As expected, Drew parked himself next to me. With the repairs going on, there wasn’t enough seating, and we were eating picnic-style on the ground.

  He eyed my plate. “Well? What’s wrong with them?”

  I stabbed my fork at what I thought was a potato. “They look like potatoes, but there’s a sharp bite, and nobody expects that when you’re eating potatoes. Maybe if you mashed them with a little bit of cheese?”

  His baby blues lightened to match the summer sky. “Like twice-baked, with a bit of crust on the top. Maybe some bread crumbs. Sophie, you’re a genius.”

  I wouldn’t go that far, but I also wasn’t going to do anything to tarnish his view of me. I kissed his cheek. “I try.”

  We fell silent as we ate. After a few minutes, Drew touched my hand. “Are you serious about buying into Elysium? I don’t want you doing this because you feel pressured. I only want you to do this if it’s what you want.”

  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to own the island resort. My accounting business was, by most measures, successful. I had a good number of clients, and I worked hard to juggle them all.

  “I’m going to have to hire someone to help me out with DiMarco Accounting, but yeah, I want to do this. It’ll be different. Fun. We can check out what needs to be done next month on our trip.”

  He nodded, and I could see the wheels churning in his head. I thought he was planning out some wild sex scenes, but he wasn’t. “I heard Ellen say that Lex and Stef are willing to loan you money. I don’t want you borrowing money we already have.”

  I refrained from correcting him. He had money. He came from money, and he made a great living as a celebrity chef. I made okay money as an accountant. I wasn’t complaining, but it wasn’t enough to purchase Elysium. I settled for a single-word warning in my best Domme voice. “Drew.”

  He threw the tone right back at me and gave me a firm look to match. “Sophia.”

  “I told you I’m not using your money.”

  When Drew was angry, his eyes darkened to a brilliant blue. They did that now. “Don’t. We’ve argued about this before. It’s our money. Our house. Our cars. Our marriage. We’re in this together. Unless we’re talking about closets or sinks, there is no ‘yours and mine.’ I thought we were past this.”

  He knew we weren’t. I maintained a separate bank account. He was the beneficiary, but he had no rights to the money until I died, not that he’d need it. My savings were nothing to him. Though he’d put me as a joint owner on his accounts, I had never once touched the money.

  “Drew, I don’t want to fight about this.” I especially didn’t want to fight with other people around. I was crazy private about those kinds of things, but Drew wasn’t as cautious.

  “Great,” he said. “Then it’s settled. Move some stocks or whatever around to make this happen.”

  I was not his accountant, investment counselor, or financial manager. He wanted me to have those jobs because he trusted me more than anybody else, but I had refused to be responsible for his money. Losing it would devastate me. That was another reason I didn’t want to use his money to buy Elysium. What if this whole thing did go sideways? Where would that leave his finances?

  Pressing my lips together, I exhaled hard. “I didn’t agree with you.” Enumerating my reservations would have no effect on him. I had been through this with him too many times to count. He was likely to stick his fingers in his ears and sing “la, la, la” at the top of his lungs if I tried to reason with him.

  He grasped my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I ask very little from you.”

  Not only were his eyes a dusty blue, but the tips of his ears were red and color was beginning to creep up his neck. I’d seen him truly, irrevocably pissed one time in the five years we’d been together. He filmed his show in his kitchen. No matter how many times he declared that the house was ours, I knew the kitchen would always remain his. One of his catering staff had been there to help prepare the food. When Drew filmed, he made several iterations of each dish, keeping them at different stages of completeness so they could be filmed.

  The staff member had taken it upon herself to change out several of the ingredients. He’d pointed out the mistake. Instead of making the change, she had opted to argue. Nobody messed with Drew’s recipes in his kitchen or on his show. He’d lost it, smashing the glass bowls with the wrong ingredients at her feet, and then he’d fired her.

  Right now, he was looking at me the same way he’d looked at her. I swallowed nervously. This time when I said his name, it was a plea. “Drew.”

  “I want you to have this resort, and I want you to use our money to buy it.”

  I wanted to argue. When I put my mind to it, I could be one stubborn bitch, but this man brought out the best in me. I had a deep need to give him what he wanted, and I suddenly couldn’t find it in my heart to refuse him.

  I nodded. “Okay. If you feel that strongly about it.”

  Just like that, the black cloud of his temper evaporated. His brilliant smile returned. “I like when you’re reasonable.”

  Chapter Five

  Sophia

  On Thursday I worked at the Sensual Secrets office. It was a little room upstairs that I’d transformed over the years from the junk-filled storage space to a warm and welcoming office. I used it two or three days each month, and I’d set up areas for Ginny, Drew, and their office manager to do their thing. When I’d first begun working there, Ginny had tried to make me the office manager. I’d refused, but I’d trained her and the current manager, Heidi, because Ginny was a wreck when it came to the business aspect of running a bakery and Drew was only concerned with the savory side of the building. Heidi was a goddess in disguise. She was skilled at managing both Ginny and Drew, and in getting them to do tasks they needed to do but didn’t want to do.

  I could have worked from home, but Drew had asked me to b
e at the office by two. I hoped for a late lunch, but Drew dashed my hopes as soon as I arrived.

  The bakery and kitchen were separated by a narrow hallway that contained the stairs to the office at one end and a door that was always locked at the other. The older building had once housed a storefront with an apartment in the rear. The storefront was now Ginny’s bakery, and the apartment had been remodeled into a huge catering kitchen.

  He met me there, in the quiet shadows of the in-between place, and blocked me from entering the kitchen. “They’re busy. Let’s not disturb them while they’re doing prep work.”

  Cooking hadn’t commenced, so no wondrous scents wafted through the doorway. I eyed the closed door regretfully. “No lunch?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “You didn’t eat?”

  I lifted a brow and did my best to imitate a haughty food critic. “When heading to the kitchen of the world’s best chef, one does not eat beforehand.”

  He laughed and kissed me. “I’ll make you a sandwich. Head upstairs and get to work. I put some papers on your desk.”

  The space upstairs was set up with four desks. Most of the area belonged to Heidi, who was on vacation this week. My desk was shoved up against hers. I kept mine clean, mostly because I knew Heidi needed all the available square footage. Along one wall, we’d put two more desks. That work area was for Ginny and Drew.

  The stack of papers on my desk wasn’t large. It fit neatly into a regular yellow folder. I opened it to find the documents necessary for us to liquidate some of Drew’s holdings and to transfer that money to an LLC set up by Alexei Morozov for Samantha, Sabrina, Ellen, and me. It was heady stuff.

  I sat down heavily on the padded leather chair. After we’d arrived home from Jonas and Sabrina’s, I had avoided all mention of this topic. I didn’t have it in me to go behind his back and get the money from the Morozovs. That kind of betrayal would put a knick in our relationship that would scab over and never heal.

  Taking money from Drew filled me with a sense of dread. I couldn’t fail at this. I couldn’t lose his hard-earned money and let him down. I picked up a pen and signed my name next to the many sticky tabs marked with an X.

  When Drew brought my sandwich, he found me staring at the last signature page, watching the ink dry.

  He set a plate down on the desktop. “Did you sign them?”

  I nodded without looking up or speaking.

  “Feel like you’re going to vomit?”

  After analyzing the sensations zooming under the surface numbness that protected me from freaking out, I exhaled the whisper of a breath. “A little.”

  “I felt like that when I signed the contract for my first season. Second and third too.”

  He was always so confident. That was one of the things I liked about him. It was one of the qualities that made him impossible to scare away when we’d first met and started dating. I found it hard to believe that he’d ever felt like this. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” He lifted me from my seat, sat down, and put me on his lap. “This is the door to a brand-new future. It’s exciting and terrifying all at once.”

  I rested my head on his shoulder, letting his warmth and strength wash into me. “I just don’t want to let you down. I don’t want to lose your money. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”

  He stroked my hair with one hand and parked the other on my knee. “You could never let me down. I’m proud of you for taking this chance.”

  I was glad he didn’t say anything to protest my assurance that I’d repay him. I needed that one point of pride. We stayed like that for a few minutes before I became aware that the hand he’d rested on my knee had inched its way under the hem of my skirt.

  “Are you getting frisky with me, Mr. Snow?”

  He chuckled without a hint of remorse. “Yes, Mrs. Snow, I am. ‘I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows.’ Are you shocked?”

  Shifting, I straddled him and pulled my skirt out of the way. “I’d be amazed if you didn’t try something. You left early this morning without waking me up.”

  Sitting on his lap like this put my head higher than his. The back of the chair came up to a point below his neck. He scooted down so that he slouched, and he rested his head on the top of the backrest. As I unbuttoned his white chef’s jacket, he slipped his hand up my shirt and cupped my breast. The thumb on his other hand stroked lazy circles on my panties, which were growing moist with my juices. I had his jacket open. Underneath, he wore a light blue Sensual Secrets shirt. At that point, I gave up. His lazy movements meant he wasn’t going to cooperate with clothing removal anytime soon.

  “You are so irresistibly beautiful. I think you grow lovelier by the day.”

  I blossomed under his compliment. Lots of men told me I was beautiful. Drew was the only one I believed when he said it.

  “You’re not so bad yourself.” I tried to joke with him, but my voice had turned husky.

  Recognizing the signs that I wanted him now, he urged me to my knees so he could open his pants. I scrambled off him, shimmied out of my underwear, and climbed back aboard. He was hard, as ready for me as I was for him.

  He positioned his cock at my opening, but when I tried to sink down, he moved, preventing penetration. I tried again, but he grinned, and I realized he wanted to play first. So I held myself over him, close enough for him to rub the crown of his cock around and against my clit. It felt good, but it only increased my need to have him inside me.

  Before long, I captured him. As I drove him deeper, the familiar, erotic feel of him stretching me took over. I became a sensuous creature. Rocking on him, I allowed the pleasure careening through my system to set the rhythm. He helped with his hands on my hips, but he let me have the lead on this ride.

  “Gorgeous.” He caressed my thighs, lifting my skirt when it fell to block his view of where we came together. “I love looking at us. It’s so hot.”

  I loved that he was so enthralled with us. The wonder on his face excited me, propelled me into the stratosphere. Then he circled my clit with his thumb, adding extra stimulation. I went wild. He kissed me, swallowing the noises I couldn’t help but make, and I muffled the sounds of his pleasure the same way. I came hard, my body stiffening as the climax rocked through me. Drew grasped my hips hard, controlling my body until he followed me over that cliff.

  Lying on his shoulder afterward, I might have drifted off. I certainly lost track of time.

  “Sophie? Honey, we need to fix our clothes. I interviewed Neal this morning. He’s amazing. I hired him, and I need you to get his paperwork squared away so that he can start tomorrow.”

  Reluctantly, I lifted away from him. My knees were a little cramped, and he helped me get to my feet. “You didn’t tell me you were going ahead with that.”

  Drew was regularly approached by people who wanted him to hire their friends. Due to our unpopular Midwest location, few candidates actually made the trek to the Detroit area. I hadn’t honestly thought Neal would consent to coming here after he’d called home exciting places like Atlanta and Rio.

  “He came. I let him cook. I need a new sous chef. He’s perfect for the job.”

  I went to the restroom across the hall to freshen up. When I returned, Neal was in the office talking to Drew about turnips. I thought back to my experience last weekend with the root vegetable and didn’t comment.

  Drew held his hand out to me. I took it. He brought me close and planted a kiss on my cheek. “Neal, you remember Sophia?”

  He had a dark tan, but it didn’t camouflage the blush staining circles on his cheeks. “Yes, of course.”

  Where most men would extend a hand to shake mine, Neal stared at the floor, waiting for me to make the first move. I glanced at Drew, but I found him gazing at Neal with a puzzled expression.

  I offered him my hand, which he took. He had a firm grip. I liked that about him.

  “It’s nice to see you again.”

  “Thank you, Mistr—um, Mrs. Snow. I’m happy to
have this opportunity.”

  Drew threw a warning look at me, which I caught reluctantly. I liked the way Neal was treating me. I liked it a lot.

  “Neal, look at me.”

  He did, and I was struck by the sincerity in his deep blue eyes.

  “Call me ‘Sophia.’ Okay? Unless we’re in a dungeon, I’m not your Mistress.”

  From the expression on Drew’s face, I could tell he probably wanted me to deliver more of an absolute, but he wasn’t going to pursue it. He kissed me on the cheek again. “Sophie will get you squared away. We’re shorthanded, so I need to get downstairs. Be here tomorrow at two. We have six events to cater.” Then he motioned to my desk, where he’d left a sandwich and pickle slices. I’d forgotten I’d skipped lunch.

  Neal nodded. “I can start today if you need me to.”

  Drew considered it, but he ended up shaking his head. “You need to find a place to stay and get settled in. Sophie can help with that.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Drew left. I wondered what he was up to. He’d warned me away from Neal because he was now an employee, and yet he’d given me an opening to pursue a personal relationship.

  As I turned back to Neal, I noted that he was watching Drew walk away. Drew turned back and winked at me before closing the door. When Neal saw me studying him, he blushed again. “Sorry, Mistr—Sophia.”

  “That’s okay. The man can make an exit, that’s for sure.”

  As he rubbed at his neck, I noted the corded muscles flexing in his arms and back. I couldn’t help but wish I could see him naked. Neal was hiding something spectacular underneath all that clothing.

  “Sit.” I indicated the chair at Heidi’s desk, and he obeyed my order. “Normally Heidi would be here doing all of this, but she’s on vacation.”

  He nodded. “Chef told me. He said you only do the accounting, and that you aren’t here a lot.”

  “I’m not.”

  I kept ready-made files for new hires. During the year, we went through a good number of interns. Working in a high-end bakery or catering service wasn’t easy, and many people couldn’t handle the stress and demand for perfection. I pulled one of them and set it in front of Neal, but then something Drew said occurred to me.