This time, there was no cutting retort from Kathryn. He clicked off the phone without saying good-bye. She could rail at him the next time she saw him. For now, he needed to think. Think about how to approach Morgan about what she’d said. Consider whether he even should. Maybe it was an accident. He’d seen her with other people. She responded to them. She craved them. Sharing was part of her makeup. Did she really want him to be her Daddy?
He stirred the rice and stir-fry, thinking so deeply he didn’t hear her pad into the room, wearing one of his shirts and a thick pair of wool socks. The room was illuminated by a soft overhead light in the kitchen, open to the dining room and living room. Wood walls and wood floors covered by comfy throw rugs, the cabin looked outdoorsy and homey, a place where an older couple might settle down. If it weren’t for the playroom in the basement, any couple wanting a vacation home in the north woods could live there.
“You slept well, little girl.”
She grinned at him, sliding her arms around him from behind and rubbing her cheek against his bare back. “You wore me out, Sir.”
Sir. So maybe it was an accident.
“That’s just the beginning. I’ve made food for you, and then I want to take you to the bar in town.”
She dropped her arms, stepped away, and was silent for a moment before asking, “Will we be picking someone up?” He couldn’t tell if it was anticipation or reluctance in her voice. He turned toward her, but her face was expressionless. He used to be able to read her so much better.
“Is that what you’d like?”
“Whatever you want, Sir. I trust you.”
She moved to the cabinets to get plates for the two of them. Her body was stiff, and he didn’t know if it was from the scene they’d done or if it was because of the giant wall that had lodged itself back between them.
Chapter Eight
The Sparkling Pines Tavern was mostly empty. It was a Thursday night in the off-season, so Morgan wasn’t surprised. Later, more of the locals would wander in, but it was early still. Julian followed her in, his hand pressed against her lower back. She could feel the tension between them and knew she should apologize for calling him Daddy. But the conversation she imagined following her apology was so complicated and painful she couldn’t bring herself to it.
Julian ordered their drinks and led her to a booth near the pool tables in the back.
“Are you still tired?”
“No. The stir-fry helped. Thank you, Julian.”
He studied her from across the table. “Do you have your collar with you, princess?”
She unzipped her down coat and set it to the side, smoothing out her scoop-necked, red cashmere sweater before pulling her purse onto her lap. She’d put the collar in at the last second, anticipating how the evening might go. When they were in Ely, there was almost never a time when Julian didn’t want to play. She was surprised he’d waited this long to ask her to don it. “Yes, Sir.”
He leaned forward, lacing his fingers and resting them on the table. She couldn’t help looking at them, imagining his hand inside her and the way she’d screamed her release.
“Put it on, sweetheart.”
She slid the collar out of her bag and put it on the best she could. She fumbled with the buckle a little, but it didn’t matter. Julian’s gaze burned into her when she swiveled the metal O ring to the front. She tucked the hair he’d insisted she leave down behind both ears so he could see the collar better.
“I’ll never get tired of seeing that on you. Knowing what it means.”
Her breath hitched, and she squeezed her legs together. She loved the possession of his words, the way his ownership danced over her like a gentle caress. She opened her mouth to reply. To tell him it meant something to her too. That it meant everything. But before she could speak, the door clanged open and two girls from town burst into the bar, laughing and talking loudly.
They were young. Probably not much older than twenty-one. And they were dressed like it was the middle of summer. Add that to their obviously tipsy state and Morgan’s nape prickled in concern.
“Lovely,” Julian said when he saw them.
Julian had always been a collector of beautiful things. Everything he surrounded himself with was beautiful and pristine. It was like he went out of his way to break every stereotype people could ever hurl at a black man. His home, his appearance, his car, everything about him bordered on artistic. Morgan was certain that was what drew him to her their first afternoon together. She was his work of art.
Since she’d met him, she’d seen the drive in him. He did everything better, smarter, cleaner, more beautifully. Including picking women.
He glanced at Morgan, but she’d schooled her features. She breathed and calmed her racing heart. She did not want to be with another woman tonight. Not after this afternoon.
“You’re tired, love?”
“A little bit, Sir.”
He rose. “You’ve earned a break then. Would you like to watch?”
She swallowed. She’d seen Julian with other women before. Other men too. Both happened very rarely and only after she’d asked. He kept that part of himself hidden from her, though he never lied about what he’d been doing. But she always sensed he was holding himself back when she watched him with them. Like he was afraid of what she might think. It was different when he shared her. He was more engaged when he directed others to take her. She wished she felt up to allowing that to happen again tonight, but she was way too exhausted. Which left them to Julian alone.
Morgan swallowed down the bile creeping up her throat, the poison of envy and greed for more with him. She didn’t think she could take seeing him with these women tonight. She’d watched the way he cared for those he’d been with in the past, like he cared for her, and she’d hated the way it made her feel. Jealous. Empty. Replaceable.
“No, Sir. I’d prefer not to watch tonight. I’m going to finish my drink and head back. Should I pick you up here? Later?”
“No. I’ll bring them back to the cabin with us, and we’ll go downstairs. You can rest in our bedroom. I’ll take them home after.”
She wanted to say no. She wanted to say red, but she stopped herself. She hadn’t told him about the grant. Or her friendship with Andrew. She hadn’t asked to renegotiate. If he wanted to play with other women at their cabin, it was his right. He’d never promised her anything different.
“Okay, Sir.” She drained the glass of wine in front of her. “I’ll wait in the car.”
She stumbled out the door, hugging her coat to her chest as Julian approached the two young women at the bar. She brushed angry tears away as she slid into the passenger seat of his sleek black Audi. She took a deep breath and waited. She shouldn’t be angry. They’d been through this before. For years now. But it didn’t change how heartsick she was. She pulled at the collar on her neck until the buckle released, and she shoved it into her purse. She composed herself as much as she could with several more deep breaths. By the time Julian led the girls to the car, she thought she’d put her mask back on.
He slid in the driver’s seat as the girls giggled in the back seat. Morgan said nothing. Didn’t even introduce herself, just stared straight ahead.
“You’ve taken your collar off,” he said in a low voice as he started the car, the motor purring to life.
“I won’t need it tonight.”
“It’s not just for play, little girl,” he said, pulling the car out onto the empty road outside the Sparkling Pines.
She gnawed at her lip. “Maybe one of them wants to borrow it for the night.”
Julian slammed the brakes on the car and turned to her. The girls in the back burst into uncontrollable laughter.
“They’ve had too much to drink, Julian,” she whispered.
He glanced back. “Yes. They have. Girls,” he barked at them. “Where do you live?”
The too-skinny blonde one gave him an address through hiccupping laughter.
“I’m taking yo
u home.”
“Oh Julian. We thought you wanted to party,” the brunette said, pulling out a flask and taking a large drink.
“Not tonight.”
Morgan tensed next to him.
“Not any night, apparently,” he murmured and started the car back up, navigating to the girls’ apartment in town within minutes. They stumbled as they got out of the car, and Julian graciously helped them to their door. The blonde tried to kiss him, but he turned his head, gazing back at Morgan. Her heart twisted at the rawness of his look. Anger, but also something else, something like desperation.
•●•
Julian slid into the car and directed it back to the cabin. Morgan was a million miles away from him, and the only way he knew to draw her out was to release her from all her carefully held control. She was guarding her emotions so tightly at this moment he thought she might shatter if he touched her.
He opened the door for her, and she crossed to their bedroom, taking off her clothes and folding them in a neat pile. She slid into the bed naked and stared at the ceiling. He followed her, considering his best approach.
“It was a lot, this afternoon, Julian. I wasn’t ready for more.”
“I know. I didn’t ask you for more, princess.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “You did. Inviting them home, into this cabin, which you must recall you bought me as an anniversary gift, that’s asking for more.”
He blinked. “I told you that you didn’t have to play with them.”
Tears sprung to her eyes, and he moved to brush them away. “What’s wrong, little girl?”
“I can’t tell you. I won’t say it right, and I’m so afraid I’ll lose you.”
“You won’t lose me.” His heart hammered in his chest. He couldn’t stand to see her so distraught. Obviously she was angry about the other women, but she’d never been that way before. She seemed to understand his appetites, though he hadn’t told her everything. But it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the beast inside him that always seemed to crave more. The beast that was only ever satisfied temporarily, at moments when he’d brought her to a place of complete release, where she’d given him her complete trust. This afternoon his beast had been content, content to be her Daddy, but as she proceeded with her cautious guarded conversation at dinner, his beast became hungry again.
“I feel a hundred miles away from you, Julian. Like I want something you can’t give me.”
He swallowed the lump in the back of his throat. “What do you want? Anything. I’ll give you anything. You know that. You know my first job is to take care of you. What do you want?”
She looked at him for a long time, so many emotions playing across her face. He thought she was on the brink of asking him for something, maybe even demanding it, but instead, she turned away from him, and his heart felt like it had fractured in half. “I just need sleep. I’m all mixed up after this afternoon. I’ll be better in the morning. I just need some sleep.”
He didn’t know what to say, what to do. He couldn’t force her to ask for what she wanted. It might push her further away. So he tucked her in bed and slid in next to her, wrapping an arm lightly around her as she drifted into a restless sleep.
In the morning. He’d talk to her in the morning when she was more clearheaded. He’d explain about the beast, about the darkness that seemed to always claw at him, and ask for her help. Because he needed that from her. She was his salvation, if she could only understand it. He would tell her everything in the morning.
But he couldn’t, because when he woke the next day, she was gone.
Chapter Nine
Morgan cried the entire drive home. She was running. She knew it and considered turning around a hundred times on her way back to the Twin Cities, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t ask him to give up who he was, to let go of the part of him that wanted other people. He’d told her when they first started. He’d meant it to soothe her, to ease her concern that he might push too hard and ask too much.
“I’m voracious, little Morgan. You’ll never be enough for me. And I wouldn’t want to take everything from you. That’s why I play with others. You’ll be mine, but I won’t expect you to satisfy my every whim. I have very few limits, and I’m sure you have enough that I’ll need to go elsewhere.”
“Limits? Like what?”
“Like ass play. Like taking you so hard and fast that it’ll hurt more than it gives you pleasure. Like fucking you in public. Like taking away your ability to speak, trusting your safe word to a handkerchief in your hand. Like having you eat another woman’s pussy while I watch. Like using wax and razors and needles to drop you into subspace before pulling you onto my lap and making you ride me until you weep for release.”
His words had taken her breath away. Scared her. She’d never done anything like that, but they also intrigued her. Morgan was tough. She had a high threshold for pain, and she could fight as hard as she fucked. He thought he was saving her from his extreme kink, but really he was keeping her from it.
When he first handed her the contract, outlining all that would be expected of her, and some of the things he’d mentioned weren’t on it, she was too scared to ask for them. Too scared to tell him she wanted those things. She’d been so young. And she didn’t know. Being intrigued by something was much different than wanting to practice it.
He’d discussed renegotiating their contract more than once over the past ten years, but always she demurred. She’d been happy, mostly. And she knew a renegotiation would mean not only admitting she wanted those things, but admitting she wanted him to be exclusive to her. And asking for that would only lead to the inevitability of his no. The deep-seated feeling of rejection she’d learned to live with in the foster system every time she wasn’t adopted, every time things didn’t work out with a new foster family and she was moved to a different one, or stuck back in the group home where no one cared.
So she let things go on. She let Julian be with other people and orchestrate the scenes with her and other people. And while she got off on them, it was Julian who made her come, not anyone else. She did that for him, participated in those scenes, not because she wanted someone else, but because he asked it of her. And she hoped one day he would ask her for more. For everything he wanted. Everything she did was for Julian. Even sweet Luke and his boyish crush. Her orgasm had always been for Julian, for how much being the master of those scenes seemed to make him happy.
But she couldn’t be happy anymore. Not with other people, not even with Julian, it seemed. She drove the Audi directly to the Loft. Julian would come for her, she was sure, his dark eyes filled with fury and his control barely leashed. God, was she pushing him on purpose? Did she want him to lose control?
She didn’t know anymore. She couldn’t think right when he was around. He was always so certain, and that certainty kept her from figuring out exactly what she wanted. She needed time by herself. Time to think and be alone.
Yes, Julian would come for her. But it would take him some time before he woke and found her gone, and before he could hire a driver to take him back home.
She sat in the Loft’s parking lot, scrolling through her e-mails, wondering if he’d try to contact her that way. Her stomach knotted in nerves and guilt. Then she saw a message from the Smith Foundation. She read through the message twice before looking at herself in the rearview mirror and making a half-baked effort to pull herself together. She was the executive director of the Loft, and she needed to put on a professional face.
She carefully applied makeup from her purse, light foundation and a sweep of mascara and lipstick. There wasn’t much that could be done to hide the dark circles, but at least it didn’t look so much like she’d been crying now. She combed through her long hair and twisted it into a knot on the top of her head. She squeezed her cheeks and slipped out of the car. Walking with her chin lifted and her shoulders thrust back, she moved toward the front door of the Loft.
It was early Friday mor
ning. Too early for classes, but Andrew and Kathryn were both there. Kathryn’s eyes popped wide when she saw Morgan.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Morgan said, cutting off the questions she could see forming on Kathryn’s lips. Evidently the makeup didn’t cover up as much as she’d hoped. Kathryn would be on her side, Morgan was sure. She liked Julian, but Kathryn made no bones about her feelings about dominance and submission. Morgan moved to her office, going over the things in her mind she’d need to accomplish today.
Andrew knocked on her office door a few minutes later, his handsome face and floppy dark hair reminding her of one of the foster brothers she once had. He’d been kind to her too, and they’d almost been a family, until Morgan was sent back to the group home because her foster mom caught her foster father staring at her a little too much. She’d never even gotten a chance to say good-bye to her foster brother.
Andrew held out a Dunn Brothers’ latte from next door and offered a small smile. “I come bearing gifts.”
“You sweet man. Thank God. I drove through the night.”
She took a sip of the brew and hummed. Skinny vanilla with cinnamon on top. Andrew knew her order. She glanced at him and found him perched on the chair in front of her desk, smiling wide at her.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just good to see you back. I thought you might be giving up on the grant.”
“Ha. Hardly. It’s more important than ever. They’ve scheduled a site visit for Monday. I just got an e-mail. It’s good I came back. I’d love for you to do the tour with me, talk a little about some of the kids. I feel like we have a really good shot at this one.”
“Yeah. I think we have a shot too. Arts education for children is a really big issue, the paper did a big op-ed on it last week.”
“Maybe that’s the reason for the site visit then? We’re looking like a good option for Smith.”
Andrew nodded as she took another sip of her latte. “Yeah. I’ve been looking into other grants as well. It’d be good if we diversified our funding sources,” he said with a slight hesitation.
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