by Force, Marie
“Count me in,” Jasper says.
“Yes, definitely YES,” Marlowe replies.
“Love to,” Kristian writes.
“God, yes,” Flynn’s sister Ellie responds.
“Um, let me think about it…” Emmett says. “YES!”
Leah’s reply makes me laugh. “Seriously!?!? I love this job!”
“Well,” I say to myself, “tell me how you really feel, people.” I can’t help but notice that Hayden hasn’t replied to my email. I try to imagine the two of us in our current push-pull status together for a vacation in Mexico. How will we ever pull that off in front of our closest friends? He hasn’t even said he wants to go, and I’m already anticipating disaster.
Just before eleven, I gather my stuff and head for Flynn’s office to participate in the first of three calls he has planned for today. I’m about to knock on his partially open door when I hear Natalie’s voice.
“Someone has to tell her,” she says. “It’s not fair that she’s getting into this without knowing. Remember how the sin of omission nearly derailed us?”
“I remember, but it’s not our place to share Hayden’s business. It’s up to him to tell her, not us.”
“I hate that she doesn’t know. It makes me feel like a bad friend to be keeping such a big thing from her when she’s getting in deeper with him all the time.”
Holy fucking shit. I have no idea what they’re talking about, but I want to know—and I want to know right now. I knock loudly and enter Flynn’s corner office with the spectacular view of the city. I couldn’t care less about that spectacular view in light of what I just heard. “I’m going to put this right out there. I heard you talking about me, and I want to know what everyone is keeping from me.”
The two of them stare at me, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Eavesdropping on my boss and his wife is not the best way to get ahead in my career, but the door was open, and he knew I was coming for the meeting.
I look him dead in the eyes and say, “Tell me, Flynn.”
“I-I can’t.” In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never once heard him stammer. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have been talking about you or Hayden. It’s none of our business.”
“No, it isn’t, but the fact that he’s keeping something big from me is very much my business in light of the fact that I’m sleeping with him.”
That statement results in more staring and shocked silence.
“This is all my fault, Addie,” Natalie says with tears in her big green eyes. “I never should’ve said anything. Not here, anyway. Please forgive me.”
“Of course I forgive you. You’re both concerned about me, and I appreciate that. But I don’t appreciate my friends keeping things from me. So who’s going to tell me the big secret?”
“Hayden has to,” Flynn says. “It’s not ours to tell.”
Well, isn’t this just fabulous? He said we’re going to “talk” tonight, well, you bet your ass we’re going to talk. He’s going to tell me what he’s been keeping from me if I have to beat it out of him.
“Fair enough. There’s your call,” I say when the extension on his desk rings.
Still looking rattled, Natalie kisses his cheek and squeezes my arm on her way out of the office. The friendly but sympathetic smile she gives me sends my nerves into the red zone. What the hell does everyone else know that I don’t?
Chapter 8
Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK. I don’t hear a word of the conference call as my mind races with the implications of what Addie overheard. Hayden is going to fucking kill me for this. I should’ve stopped Natalie the second she opened that line of conversation after I told her I was worried about Addie.
She said she hurt herself Rollerblading, but after hearing she’s sleeping with Hayden, now I’m not sure I believe her. I said as much to Natalie, and our conversation took off from there.
So fucking stupid! I know better than to do that here, but I let my worries for Addie get ahead of my better judgment.
During the call, she glares at me accusingly. I don’t blame her for being pissed. I’d be pissed, too, if she knew something about Nat that she refused to tell me. But telling her that Hayden is a sexual dominant is absolutely not my place. He—and only he—can tell her that—or not tell her. That’s up to him. I want to text him to tip him off to what happened, but I’m afraid to do even that with Addie staring at me.
I bet she hasn’t heard a word of the call either.
As it begins to wind down, I say, “Can you email a summary of everything we covered today?”
“Of course,” the director’s assistant says. “No problem.”
“Thanks a lot. I look forward to seeing you in Prague next month.”
“We’re thrilled to have you on this project, Flynn,” the director says.
“Happy to be part of it.”
We end the call a few minutes later, and silence descends upon my office. Addie makes no move to leave. She continues to stare at me, seemingly without blinking. Wow, this is bad.
“Addie…”
“Unless you’re going to tell me what you’re keeping from me, don’t talk to me.”
Her unusually harsh words are like a knife in my heart. I hate that I’ve hurt her, even if it wasn’t intentional. “I can’t tell you. It’s not that I don’t want to, but it’s not my place—”
“Right. So you said.” She gets up to leave, gasping and reaching for the back of the chair to steady herself.
I move around my desk to grasp her elbow. “You need a doctor.”
“No, I don’t.” Her face turns bright red, leaving me to wonder what the hell is really wrong with her. If Hayden did something to her, I’ll kill him with my own hands.
“Let me call Dr. Breslow to see you.”
She wrenches her arm free. “Mind your own business, Flynn, and stay out of mine—and Hayden’s.” Limping, she leaves my office, and I’m reaching for my phone before she clears the doorway. Though he hates to be disturbed while editing, I choose Hayden’s number from my favorites, prepared for his fury when he hears about what happened.
The phone goes to voice mail, so I call again and again and again until he finally answers.
“What?” His roar actually hurts my ear.
“We’ve got a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Um, Addie…”
“What about her?”
“She might’ve overheard Natalie and me talking about the thing Addie doesn’t know about you—”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“I wish I was. There were no specifics, but now she knows there’s something.”
“Fantastic, Flynn. That’s just great.”
“I’m sorry and so is Natalie. We weren’t thinking.”
“It’s fine,” he says with a sigh. “Don’t beat yourselves up. It doesn’t matter anyway. The thing with her is over. Mostly.”
“Why is it over?”
“For all the reasons you never wanted it to happen in the first place.”
“Does she know it’s over?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why she’s limping today?”
Complete silence.
“Hayden?”
“She’s not limping. I saw her earlier. She was fine.”
“She’s definitely not fine, and when I suggested calling Breslow to look at her, her face turned bright red, she got royally pissed and told me to mind my own business.”
“Fuck,” he mutters.
“She said it was a Rollerblading accident, but it wasn’t, was it?”
“I have to go. Don’t worry about her. I’ll take care of her.”
“You’d better.”
“I said I would, now butt out.”
The line goes dead, and I’m left feeling unsettled about the entire situation.
Fuming and confused and in worse pain than I was in before I sat for an hour, I leave Flynn’s office and go into mine. I’m in there f
or about two minutes before sheer frustration propels me out the door to the lobby.
I take the elevator to the sixth floor and invade Hayden’s sacred territory by entering the editing suite. Everyone who works for Quantum is told on day one to stay away from the sixth floor when Hayden is doing postproduction or risk his wrath. I don’t care if I’m bothering him. I don’t care about the rules or anything other than whatever he’s keeping from me that Natalie thinks I have a right to know.
When I walk into the suite, he’s surrounded by editors and sound people and others whose roles I can’t recall off the top of my addled brain.
“Hayden.”
When he looks up and sees me there, he doesn’t seem surprised, which tells me Flynn has already gotten to him.
“Could I have the room, please?” he says softly, but everyone hears him.
People file out, each of them taking a look at me on the way by. The fact that I’m up here and that he asked for privacy will be all over the office within minutes. I couldn’t care less. When the last person leaves, the door clicks shut, leaving us alone. Now that I have him to myself, I have no idea how to proceed with this conversation.
“Why did you lie to me?” he asks, breaking the charged silence.
“What?” I ask, genuinely baffled. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“You said you were fine, but Flynn says you’re limping and that you told him you hurt yourself Rollerblading.”
“I did.”
He gets up, angrily tosses the headphones that were around his neck onto the control board and comes to stand in front of me. “That’s a lie, Addison, and we both know it.”
I force myself to meet his gaze without blinking. “Would you prefer I tell my boss and your best friend that I’m sore because we had anal sex last night?”
He makes a sound that’s half groan, half laugh. “I’m sorry you’re sore.”
“I’m not sorry we did it.”
His hands land on my shoulders. “Addie…” My name is a groan, an oath, a swear slipping from between his clenched lips.
“What does everyone else know about you that I don’t?”
He’s shaking his head before I finish asking the question. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“We talked last night. We agreed that was the last time we’re going to be together that way, so it doesn’t matter.”
“It’s not the last time. It’s the first of many times we’re going to be together that way.” Because I’m fighting for my life here, I brazenly cup his obvious arousal and run my fingernail down the full length of him, making him tremble in response. “You can lie to yourself, but you can’t hide the truth. Not from me.”
“You won’t understand.”
“I love you, Hayden. After last night, do you think there’s anything you could ask of me that would be too much for me?”
His eyes flare with heat and desire, and his cock gets even harder under my palm. Before I have a second to anticipate what’s going to happen next, he’s kissing me with deep, desperate strokes of his tongue that send me reeling. I almost forget why I came up here. With that in mind, I turn my face away to break the kiss. “Tell me what you’re hiding from me.”
“No.”
I squeeze his cock, and his fingers dig into my shoulders. “Tell me.”
“Fucking hell, Addie. No, I won’t tell you.”
“I’m not leaving until you do.” Before he can anticipate my intentions, I unbutton and unzip him and drop to my knees before him, taking most of his thick length into my mouth and then biting down gently but insistently.
He howls and claws at my hair, but I don’t let up. “Fuck, Addie… Motherfucker.”
I raise my hand to his balls, squeezing the firm globes until he’s leaking down my throat, on the verge of release. Massaging the spot behind his balls that turns every man to putty in the hands of a lover, I drag my teeth over his shaft, sending the not so subtle message that there’s nothing I won’t do to get to the truth. I want his truth—and I want it right now.
“All right! I’ll tell you! I’ll fucking tell you!”
Thrilled with myself and with him, I decide to let him come before he talks. I stroke him with my lips, tongue and hand while continuing to massage his pressure point with my other hand. He comes with a grunt and a sharp thrust of his hips, sending his cock so deep, my gag reflex is triggered. I battle through it to take every drop of his release into my throat, swallowing frantically.
When I release him, he stumbles backward, landing on the sofa where he’s been known to sleep while editing.
He’s sprawled on the sofa, his dick hanging out of his pants and still wet with my spit. I have a confession to make right here—I’m exceptionally pleased with myself as well as my powers of persuasion. To see such a big, strong man reduced to putty in my hands is rather satisfying, if I do say so myself.
“That was a dirty trick, Addison,” he says in that low sexy growl I love so much.
Sitting back on my heels—a move I instantly regret—I shrug off the comment. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. Now start talking.”
“It’s really none of your business. You know that, right?”
“I’m making it my business.” Moving slowly, I push to my feet and move to the sofa, wincing as I sit because I no longer need to hide how I’m feeling from him.
He takes hold of my hand. “I hate that you’re hurting.”
“You play, you pay.”
With his gaze focused on our joined hands, he says, “That’s what Flynn and Nat were talking about. Playing.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m a sexual dominant, Addie. Do you know what that means?”
As I’m still processing the words “sexual dominant,” I don’t immediately answer him.
“You’re shocked, right? I know it’s a lot to take in, but it’s not really important that you fully understand it. It doesn’t matter—”
“It does matter. This is why you keep telling me that what’s already happening between us can’t continue. You think I can’t handle it.”
“That’s not it.”
“Right.” I load that single word with every ounce of sarcasm I possess.
“It’s so much more complicated than that.”
“You know how I feel about you, Hayden. Don’t I deserve more than platitudes? Tell me the truth.”
“Fine! The truth is we’re incompatible. You’re no one’s submissive, let alone mine, and you can’t be controlled. I’d be crazy to even try to dominate you. You’d fight me every step of the way, and we’d both end up hurt in the end. I can’t go there with you, and I’m not willing to live without that side of myself. You wanted the truth—there it is.”
It’s a lot to wrap my head around. “So let me get this straight—you want and need dominance…” I swallow hard. “In bed.”
“Among other places, including dungeons, playrooms, in public.”
My brain nearly gets stuck on the word dungeon, but I force myself to listen and process everything he says. “But you don’t want that with me.”
“It’s not that I don’t want it with you, Addie. It’s more that I’ve been in this lifestyle a long time, and I’ve learned how to judge compatibility. We’re incompatible.”
“That’s funny, because we felt pretty damned compatible the last couple of nights in my bed.”
“That’s not what I mean. We have chemistry, attraction and desire to spare. I’d never deny that. But those things alone don’t make for a successful dominant-submissive relationship.”
“What does?”
He sighs deeply. “For one thing, a deeply held desire on the part of the submissive to turn over her well-being and control of her pleasure to her Dom. That’s not you, Addie. You want to be an active participant. You want a partnership. I want utter dominance and complete submission.”
The words, and the images that accompany them, make my nipples tig
hten. My clit tingles, and I shift in my seat, seeking some relief from the sudden hum of desire. “Th-that doesn’t sound terrible. Could we try it?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“That’s it? Just no?”
“Just no.”
Now I’m pissed. “You say you don’t want me to hate you, but if you refuse to even consider the possibility that we could make this work, I’m going to hate you.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he says with weary resignation. That’s when I realize this is hurting him almost as much as it’s hurting me.
Why does it have to be this way? Before I can ask that, another thought occurs to me. “How do Flynn and Natalie know about this?”
“Before I say anything more, I need to be assured of your discretion. We’re talking about people’s lives and reputations here.”
“I’m a little insulted that you think I’d repeat whatever you’re about to tell me. I might remind you that I signed Emmett’s rock-solid confidentiality agreement. Suffice to say I’m not looking to ruin my life or anyone else’s by blabbing about what goes on here.”
“I know I can trust you, but I have to say it anyway because of the sensitive nature of what I’m about to tell you.”
“I won’t tell anyone, Hayden. You have my word on that.”
He hesitates before he says, “Flynn and Natalie know about this because they’re in the lifestyle, too.”
Even though I sensed he was going to tell me about Flynn, I’m shocked to hear that Natalie is part of it, too. Suddenly, a lot of things make sense. “This is why she left him, isn’t it? She discovered he’d been keeping this from her.”
“Yes. She found the room I keep at my Malibu place and asked him about it. He panicked and lied to her, and then Valerie called her and told her where to find the room in his house. When she confronted him about that, he lied again. As you know, they’ve since worked things out, and he’s brought her into the lifestyle slowly but surely.”
“So Natalie, the survivor of a violent sexual assault, can handle being a submissive to her dominant husband, but I can’t handle being submissive to you?”
“It’s not about whether or not you can handle it, Addison. It’s about whether or not you’re actually submissive. And you’re not. That’s not how you’re wired.”