by Lexi Blake
Would he end up in a shelter? He had absolutely no idea where he would be in two days. Maybe he’d been wrong to turn down those drugs.
He knew where Cole was. Cole was still in his big, gorgeous house. Cole still had everything.
The nurse stopped at the door, her body half in the stark white room. “I’ll get this done so you can head out when your sister gets here. She sounds lovely, by the way. So polite.”
The door closed behind her.
Sister? He didn’t have any siblings. Hell, he didn’t have any friends. Certainly no one polite.
A horrible thought struck him and he stood up. His head started to pound and the world did a 180, but he was determined to get to his wallet. He found it on the table, opened it, and was utterly horrified to discover that the small card he’d placed in the back pocket was still there, weathered and wrinkled from being folded.
In case of emergency, call Cole Roberts or Emily Yarborough.
It gave his old Master’s cell phone number as his emergency contact. And one other. It was the house phone in Dallas where someone nearly always answered. Cole had insisted Emily be made aware as well, as though Mason pretending to be close to her would bring them together.
Use the house phone, love. I sometimes turn off my cell, but I want someone to answer if there’s an emergency. You’re very important to me. You’re the most important person in the world, Mason.
Fuck. The hospital had called Cole. But the nurse said a female had answered. Ms. Hamilton was the one who answered the house phone. Ms. Hamilton, with her pinched face and the never-ending gloom cloud that seemed to follow her. Some people were like that—vampires sucking away all the joy. But Ms. Hamilton wasn’t polite either.
“Oh, my. You have a lovely backside. It’s completely obvious to me that you work out often.”
Mason nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of that sweet, feminine voice. He turned, his head more than a little woozy. He swayed on his feet as he caught sight of a gorgeous woman in a black-and-white polka dot sundress that could have come straight out of a Doris Day film.
She gasped and was suddenly beside him, reaching out to balance him so he didn’t fall. It gave him the most spectacular view of her pert breasts. They weren’t big, but they were lovingly rounded. And the skin displayed around them was sun-kissed and smooth. He would bet she was soft all over.
“This one is so sorry. I mean, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean for my ogling to cause you distress. I like to tell people when I find them pleasing. There aren’t enough compliments in the world.” She bit at her plump lower lip as sea green eyes widened in regret.
And his dick decided to wake up for what felt like the first time in forever. Fucking hallelujah. Despite the ache in his head, it felt damn good to be hard.
And then he remembered he was in a paper-thin robe that opened at the back. She’d seen his backside in full-screen vision.
But the sweet thing seemed to have liked the view. Maybe the day wasn’t looking so nasty. He needed a place to go. She was walking around a hospital alone. No ring on her finger. Yeah, he could see this working out nicely. “Not distress, gorgeous girl. I was just surprised. I’m glad you liked ogling me. Sometimes a man works his hardest and no one notices.”
It was the first time he’d felt the need to turn on the charm in forever. He wasn’t sure why the gorgeous thing had walked into his room, but he intended to walk out with her. He wasn’t sitting around waiting for Ms. Hamilton to show up because Cole wanted to humiliate him again. No way. No how.
Maybe it was time to start living again. If Ms. Hamilton had a cloud of gloom following her around, then Little Miss Luscious was a ray of sunshine.
She smiled, the sweetest expression he’d ever seen. It did things that went way past his dick. “I can’t imagine that any female with eyes wouldn’t appreciate the sight of your muscular backside. You’ve done a spectacular job with it, Sir.”
There went his cock again. It was twitching now, an eager puppy who had found a playmate. Maybe his head didn’t hurt so much. He could probably perform with a concussion.
Sir. Had she meant sir or Sir? Or was she merely being polite? The nurse had said the woman who was coming to pick him up was polite. Exactly like Cole liked his subs. This one. She’d corrected herself. His eyes found her neck and sure enough she was wearing a delicate filigreed collar around her slender throat.
Fuck all, Cole’s sub had come for him.
His heart took a long plunge. “You belong to Master Cole.”
Her high-wattage smile dimmed slightly and he could see the faintest hint of pain there. All was not well with the sub and her Master. He was brilliant at finding tells and Gorgeous Girl had a multitude of them. God, Cole would die over her. She was so soft and innocent. “I am the Master’s submissive.”
Not his slave. In his truly intimate relationships, Cole would call her his slave. Oh, he didn’t necessarily mean anything by it. Cole treated his slaves like queens, meeting their every want and need, but he found the word slave to be intimate. It meant the woman belonged to him in every way.
But this woman was merely a submissive. So they weren’t far into their relationship yet. Cole liked to take things slow. He liked to spend months training a submissive before he would even fuck her. It could drive the sub crazy.
Something nasty took root in Mason’s gut.
Cole had taken so fucking much from him. What if he could get a little of his own back? Why should Cole get the pretty girl? Now that he looked at her through different eyes, he could see that Cole was dressing her, molding her. She wasn’t Cole’s usual type, which meant he was engaged emotionally in some way.
Wouldn’t it hurt if Mason had her first?
He sighed and took a step back. He had to play this perfectly. It had been a long time since he’d bothered with games, but suddenly he really wanted to win. And that meant manipulating the sub. He gave her a weary smile. “Well, sweetheart, you should know that I won’t be welcome in your Master’s home. He no longer speaks to me. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
She stared at him as though trying desperately to figure out what to do. He attempted to look as pathetic as possible, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Can I at least give you a ride somewhere?” she asked. “I have a car outside. I’m quite a good driver. The Master made me prove to him that I could be safe.”
He was surprised Cole let her drive at all after what happened to Emily. “I would have thought he would get you a driver.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t sign the contract until he allowed me to drive. I’m not a child. I need my independence. I’m allowed to go wherever I like during the day as long as I let someone know where I’ve gone. I left the Master a nice note.”
Oh, god, she was a brat. Fuck, yeah, that did it for him, too. Revenge was going to be sweet indeed. “It’s all right. I’ll take a cab.”
Now her brow furrowed, giving her the sweetest line between her eyebrows. It would be her stubborn look. “You have a concussion. Who will take care of you?”
She wanted to be needed. He would bet Cole wasn’t giving her that yet. He knew how the Master worked. He would prefer that his submissive lie around waiting for him to return, but it was plain that this one needed something more. Mason could give it to her. It was why they had always worked well together in the first place. Mason gave the sub affection and Cole handled the discipline.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve been alone for a long time, honey. Don’t you worry about me.” He turned his head. It chose that exact moment to pound and swell and send him off balance. He put both hands on the bed and gritted his teeth to survive the wave.
She was right beside him, her hands on his forehead. She grabbed the cool rag the nurse had left and gently put it against him. “I looked some things up on the Internet before I left. You’ll feel better if I can keep your body cool. I set the thermostat in the pool house to sixty-eight degrees. It should help with any nausea.”
If s
he wanted to keep him cool, she should keep her hands off him because damn his dick was hot. “I don’t think Cole will let me in.”
Her sunny smile was back. “Oh, I will handle the Master. I’ve found it is largely better to ask forgiveness than permission. It’s easier to get what I want that way. And don’t worry about making the Master angry. He is easily handled with tears and apologies. Most of the time he doesn’t even spank me.”
The last bit was said with a sad regret. God, Cole was fucking up with this sub. How many had he gone through since Emily? Had he turned tentative since Emily? It made sense. Cole would be apprehensive. Mason could use that to his advantage. Once he was in the pool house, Cole could toss him out.
But if he gave in to his sub’s wishes, Mason would be in. And then he could start to work on the sub Cole so obviously was treating with kid gloves.
He would make his way into her bed. He would have her spread-eagled, penetrated, and fucked, and he would make damn sure Cole caught them.
He sent her a grateful look. “Are you sure? I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’m alone.”
She softened even further and a light took up in her eyes. “I can take care of you. Let me handle everything.”
He sat back as she stood and started organizing his sad possessions. “I didn’t even ask your name.”
Her shoulders straightened and her chin came up. Carmel-brown hair flowed almost down to her waist. God, she was beautiful. He could almost see her wearing all that hair and nothing else. “I’m Kitten. Kitten Taylor. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Mason.”
“Just Mason, darling.” It was so nice to meet her. Oh, yes. She scurried around, arranging things for their departure, and Mason relaxed for the first time in a long time.
He would have his revenge and then maybe it was time to move on. Maybe it was time to finally figure out who he could be without Cole Roberts looming over his life. A little revenge would close the circle and he would leave Texas. He would make his way north and find a new life.
And maybe he would take Kitten, if she proved to be as sweet as she looked. He would give up his switch needs. They’d done nothing but get him in trouble. He would be in control. He would be the Dom this time.
Yes, he would take care of her. And he would ruin Cole.
Chapter Three
Cole looked up from the notes he was making as his assistant walked into the room with a mug of coffee in her hand.
“Don’t mind me,” Lea Schneider said with a tight smile. “It’s almost three and I know how you drag at this time of the day.”
She was a slightly plump woman with a plain face. Cole thought she might be pretty if she ever smiled, but she had a two-by-four shoved so far up her ass it would never come out. He’d been shocked at how young she was when she’d first hired on. He’d thought she was squarely in middle age, but she’d been in her twenties. Something about the way she dressed and the frown she had most of the time aged her.
He’d hired her over eight years ago and he thought about firing her from time to time. Not because she wasn’t competent. She was always on time, never complained about working late. She was chained to her job. No, she was almost the perfect assistant. It bugged him.
In the end, he simply didn’t want to take the time to find another one.
He accepted the coffee that was brewed to his specifications. As with everything she did, it was perfect. It even had about an inch of space at the top because she knew he sometimes didn’t look at what he was doing and spilled.
How utterly different she was from Kitten Taylor. Kitten forgot things because her head was in the clouds. She tried to hide it, but there was a bratty mouth on her.
She completely fascinated him. He got hard just thinking about her.
He had to take it slow or he would screw everything up with her. She couldn’t know that he was already a bit in love with her. She’d been through so much. She needed the firm hand of a loving Master. He couldn’t screw up with her the way he had with Mason. Julian was wrong about how he’d truly felt about Mason. Love was where he’d gone wrong in that relationship. He’d been far too soft, and it had cost them all.
A vision of Mason floated across his brain. It happened more and more now. Especially since Kitten had moved in. He’d thought about how sweet they would be together. Mason needed a playmate, a woman he could dance with and watch silly TV shows with. Cole had little time for such things, but he enjoyed knowing that his subs were happy and together. Kitten liked games. He could join them for quiet nights at the lodge where they would share wine and board games and end up in an intimate pile together.
Except Mason was gone from him. Where was he living now? God, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Mason since Julian’s visit this morning. Had he found a new Dom? Was he happy with his new lover, or did he occasionally think of Cole?
“Did the meeting go well?” Lea shuffled around the room, cleaning up things here and there. The boardroom was always messy after a long meeting where they fought about acquisitions and mergers. He was tired. He wanted to close everything up and head home where Kitten was probably still in her swimsuit. He could order her out of it, order her to take down his pants and suck his cock until his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he forgot about everything but the way she was drinking him down. Then he would take her to bed and lick her pussy until he knew her taste better than any other. He would make her come and then cuddle with her and fuck her all over again. They could shut out the world and there wouldn’t be anyone except the two of them for a few hours.
God, he was a bastard. She’d been brutalized and he wanted to order her to suck him when he hadn’t even given her a month to get used to being around him. She wasn’t eating. He’d left strict instructions that she was to get anything she wanted when he wasn’t around. She was to be offered everything he had, and Ms. Hamilton had announced that she turned down every given opportunity to eat. She would ask for a salad and then refuse to eat it. She barely ate any of the soup she would order. What he wouldn’t do to get her to eat a burger or some ice cream.
Her abuser had used food, or the withholding of it, as a punishment. The only time she ate was at night, when he watched over her. Then she ate with gusto, clearing her plate every time. She was trying to please him.
She was afraid of him.
Until she started to show signs that she trusted him, until he earned it, he had to keep the relationship platonic.
“Cole?”
He was drifting. He never drifted, damn it. What had she asked? Oh, yes. The meeting. “It was fine. We fought about the property in Colorado, but what’s different about that? Bob is bugging me again about developing it. I have to hold a hard line until I can get the funds to buy it from the company.”
The trouble was the property had tripled in value since he bought it years before. The board was getting anxious about selling it or developing it, and neither of those outcomes was acceptable to Cole.
She frowned again, her face pinching. She didn’t like Colorado. She’d made that plain to him time and again. Or rather she didn’t like the town they stayed in when he was in Colorado. She didn’t fit in there. “Bliss? Why are you wasting money there? No one wants to go to that weird town.”
Ah, yes. Now he remembered why he wanted to fire her from time to time. He let his eyes go stony cold. “My grandfather loved that weird town.”
And so did he. He felt comfortable at the Elk Creek Lodge. It was the beautiful ski resort his grandfather had left him. That lodge was his real legacy, his prize. He couldn’t wait until the season began. He would take Kitten with him. He would buy her a pink parka with faux fur around the hood because she would cry if she thought he’d killed some bunny to keep her warm. He would teach her to ski and sled, and they could play in the snow. She was so much sweeter than Emily had been. Kitten looked at the world with wonder. Like Mason had.
Fuck, when would he stop missing Mason? Years had done nothing to fill the hole
in his heart.
Lea shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’ve always thought it was a risky investment. I know the lodge does well, but the people of that town always give you hell when you try to help them out. They’re very unreasonable.”
He smiled, thinking about the last time he’d had to face the Bliss citizens and tell them his plans. He wanted to build some outlet malls on the property he owned outside of Bliss. Yeah, that hadn’t gone over well. He’d been protested vigorously. Nell and Henry Flanders had chanted outside the lodge. He’d gotten numerous letters asking him why he hated the earth and thought cheap and damaged goods were a reason to ruin the beauty of the planet. Nate Wright had started ticketing him regularly. Max Harper had been more obnoxious than usual, though Cole was damn near certain the man had regular hormonal cycles. Callie Hollister-Wright had cried and begged him not to ruin the valley. But it was all over when Stella refused him breakfast and Zane Hollister had delivered lukewarm beer to his table and told him if he wanted something cold he should put in a tavern at the Outlet Hellhole.
The people of Bliss had spoken. If he couldn’t get hot pancakes and cold beer, life wouldn’t be worth living.
“I’m not going to ruin the earth this time. I’ve given up on those plans. The board is wrong about them. It’s why I finally had to strong-arm them down. I’m going to turn it into a nature refuge where people can pay to hike and enjoy bunnies and shit. Let’s see Nell Flanders protest me now.” He would never admit it, but he actually wanted to fit in there. And he definitely wanted to be able to get a cold one at Trio.
Kitten would like Bliss if she gave it a chance. She’d been there for a wedding, but she hadn’t seen the snow yet. Would they still be together when the winter came and he moved to the lodge? Or would she have moved on to a kinder Master?
“Will we make money off that?” Lea asked.
There was no real “we” there. She didn’t have stock in the damn company. “There are some things that are worth more than money. This is about our company image. That land is going to be a good tax shelter.”