Sub Mission

by Ts McKinney

  Sketchy.

  Shit, he was cheating on me!

  How could I have missed it? It all made sense now. His nervousness. His whispered phone calls. Sneaky computer activity. His refusal to take me to the playroom. His determination to keep sex as vanilla as possible.

  Shit. Fuck. Damn.

  I felt my back bump against the cold elevator wall and I slowly slid to the floor, shocked at the remarkable speed I’d managed to fuck things up with Seth. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to hold his interest. Seth was…Seth. He was perfect. I was…inexperienced. At relationships. And as a gay man. Boring, probably.

  “Baker! What’s wrong, babe? Talk to me!” I heard Seth yelling at me in a fear-laced voice. His hands touched my face and then began slowly working down the length of my body, like he was checking for injuries. “Baker, you’re scaring me.”

  The elevator door opened, and I saw we’d finally reached the parking garage. Ari stood right outside the door, obviously waiting on us, and then hustled inside when he saw me on the floor with Seth kneeling next to me. Confusion mingled with the pain that had caused my collapse. I didn’t understand. One second Seth was whispering to strangers and in the next second, he was acting like the perfect boyfriend.

  I looked into his eyes and saw nothing but worry and love. Maybe I was overreacting, seeing monsters under the bed when there weren’t any there?

  “What happened?” Ari demanded as he knelt next to Seth. “Are you okay, Baker?” He looked at Seth and said, “What did you do?”

  “Me? Why would you think I did something?”

  Okay, this conversation needed to stop.

  “I’m fine,” I answered quickly and made myself stand back up, shrugging off the help both of them offered. “I think my sugar must be messed up. I just felt dizzy for a second.” My sugar wasn’t messed up…my head was.

  By the tightening of Seth’s lips, I knew he didn’t believe a word I’d just said.

  “Come on,” I urged. “I’m hungry. Let’s get home so I can eat. I’ll be fine then.” I stepped off the elevator, knowing they’d be forced to follow me or get stuck on the other side of the elevator door.

  “Did you tell Seth I needed a ride home?” Ari asked, catching up to me quicker than Seth. Actually, Seth seemed to be hanging back, pecking away on his phone. “Because if you didn’t, let’s not mention it. I’ll call for a car. If you’re feeling bad enough to almost pass out, I’m not going to be the one responsible for keeping you away from food.” His body shook in another exaggerated shiver, like earlier. “I don’t want to be the one caveman blames if his lover has another sugar attack.”

  Clearly, Ari didn’t believe me either. I must be the world’s worst liar.

  “No, you’re riding with us. You told him earlier you needed a ride. Remember? Anyway, it’s no problem to drop you off at home.” I pulled a candy bar out of my backpack and said, “See? Nothing to worry about. This bad boy will save the day.” The last thing I wanted to do was drop a chocolate bar onto my already churning stomach but I was determined to live-the-lie, so I ripped open the package and bit off a huge bite. Chewed. Swallowed. Smiled. “Yum. I’m already feeling better.”

  “Whatever,” Ari mumbled. “Listen, Baker, whatever’s troubling you about Seth, you need to talk to him about it. He’s a good guy and loves you, like enough to be the poster child for a lovesick fool. Just talk it out.” He snatched the candy bar out of my hand and said, “And put that shit away. You aren’t hungry. Or having a sugar attack.”

  I smiled. “It’s a good thing you’re gay, Ari. Women wouldn’t put up with that attitude of yours. Snatching chocolate from their hands could get you killed, no questions asked, and they wouldn’t feel the least bit bad about it afterwards. No touchy the chocolate.”

  I looked over my shoulder and saw Seth tuck his cell into his back pocket. His eyes met mine, darted away guiltily, and then returned to mine.

  He winked.

  I frowned.

  Ari rolled his eyes.

  “You still need a ride, Ari?” Seth asked as he jogged to catch up to us. We reached the car at the same time, and Seth quickly moved to open the passenger door for me.

  Aww, what a mother-fucking, cheating gentleman.

  Smiling up at him, I said, “Thank you, Seth.”

  “Climb in, Ari,” Seth said as he opened the car door for him, as well. “Why did you disappear?”

  I turned around in my seat to look at Ari. Watching my friend squirm might work wonders for getting my attention off my own problems. “Yeah, Ari,” I said as Seth backed the car out of the parking lot. “What was with the vanishing act? And, before you answer, remember that you accidentally referred to the new employee as an asshole when we were talking earlier.”

  He flipped me off. “He’s not going to be a new employee if I have anything to do with it,” he muttered in disgust. “I try my best to stay out of dad’s business, but I’m going to have to meddle this time. We don’t need Eli on our team. End of story. I’m going to tell dad not to hire him.”

  Seth snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to work out for you, Ari. The interview tonight was nothing more than a formality.” Looking into the review mirror where he could meet Ari’s gaze, Seth added, “Trust me; I’m no more excited about his presence than you, my friend.”

  My head whipped around in Seth’s direction. “Why would you say that? You barely spoke twenty words to him.”

  Seth’s chest expanded with a deep breath before he answered. “The man we just met, Eli Wallace, is Samantha’s stepbrother.” He turned and looked at me, a naughty look twinkling in his eyes. “You remember Samantha, right? Your ex-Domme?”

  My eyes widened in shock. Why was Samantha’s stepbrother suddenly interested in the business? I plopped back against the seat and realized that I didn’t know if this man was just suddenly interested in the business. He could have been working at one of the satellite agencies for years, and I wouldn’t have known it. Not only had I only been working for The Company for a little over a year, the Domme/sub relationship I’d had with Samantha had been strictly business. I knew absolutely nothing about her family or what, if any, their dealings in the company’s business might be.

  Without considering the consequences, I seized the opportunity Seth had just tossed into my court and answered, “Why, yes, I do remember her. Maybe I need to visit her again…just so I don’t forget what the inside of a playroom looks like, of course.”

  I heard Arizona’s gasp of surprise, but it was nothing compared to the look of pain that flashed across Seth’s face. I wanted to take it back the instant it left my mouth, but it was too late.

  Fuck. I’d fucked up. Again. The fucking story of my life.

  Seth’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, but he didn’t use words to fight back against my unfair and intentionally mean threat. He used his silence, and it hurt far worse.

  “I’m sorry, Seth,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t mean it, right?”

  “I’ll always want you to say what’s on your mind, Baker,” Seth finally answered. “It’s one of the many things I love about you. Your honesty.” He offered me a stiff smile and added, “Let’s change the subject, shall we? Perhaps this is something better left to discuss when we’re alone.”

  “Hell, yeah, it is,” Ari muttered from his spot in the back seat. “I’m not into those dirty games the two of you play in the dark, but that comment made me want to whip your ass, Baker. Can we please just talk about me and how this asshole’s arrival is going to potentially ruin my life? Me, me, me,” he teased. “You two need to work on your miscommunications in the privacy of your own home. I need all the focus on me right now.”

  I turned around to glare at him. “I know you’re not into all the dirty games Seth and I play in the dark, but I really think somebody needs to whip your ass right now,” I countered. “Could you possibly be any more spoiled? The wh
ole world doesn’t revolve around you, Arizona.” Narrowing my eyes at him, I ordered, “Now…spill the deets. Why do you hate Eli Wallace, also known as Samantha’s step brother, aka asshole, so much?”

  Still feeling like a shit, I reached my hand over and looped it around Seth’s. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d shoved it away, but he answered with a reassuring squeeze. I kept our hands locked together.

  “Okay,” Ari began. “You guys know that I’m a computer nerd and there’s not a code out there that I can’t write or decipher.”

  “Brag much?” I said.

  “What you probably don’t know is that I’m not just a computer nerd…there’s a good chance I’m a full-time, twenty-four seven, around-the-clock nerd. I graduated from MIT when I was seventeen years old. When your entire section of the world is much older than you, more mature than you, and more confident than you…well…it leads to ugly situations. People were either mean or treated me like some sort of pet mascot.”

  He grew quiet for a few seconds and had a faraway look in his eyes. I hadn’t known Arizona for very long, but I’d never seen him act anything other than happy and well-adjusted. He always smiled and wasn’t stingy with laughs. Looking at him now, his eyes screamed sadness and insecurity.

  “Did Eli do something to you, Arizona?” Seth growled. “Was he one of the crowd that mistreated you? Does your father know this?”

  He kept firing questions, not giving Ari a chance to answer before barking out another one. It was evident that Seth wasn’t going to have any difficulties in disliking Eli. I didn’t doubt for a second that Seth suspected Samantha had sent Eli to the satellite office to keep an eye on the two of us. He was wrong, though. I think Seth totally misunderstood the type of relationship Samantha and I had. It was nothing like the connection the two of us shared.

  “Well, Seth, you remember the night you were whining around about Baker not loving you, Baker leaving you without a goodbye, Baker…blah, blah, blah. You remember that night, right?”

  Seth rolled his eyes and I couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t like it brought me joy to know that Seth had suffered the same way that I had when we’d been apart…but it did make me smile.

  “Yeah, I thought you did. Remember me telling you that I’d already been dumped seven times in my life, so you needed to quit whining about the one and only time somebody had left you high, dry, and horny? Well, Eli Wallace was my number seven. Bastard. He broke my heart and walked away with a swagger that screamed, ‘I-don’t-give-a-fuck’.” He unfastened his seat belt and leaned up closer to us. “You just don’t do that to people. It’s wrong. It’s mean. It hurts. So, for that reason, I’m going to beg dad to not hire him, regardless of who he’s related to.”

  “Not going to work,” I countered. “He’s the stepbrother to the owner of the company. I doubt Landon will have a choice in the matter.”

  “Okay, you’re probably right about that,” Ari conceded. “But, here’s the deal; nobody in this car is going to like him, be polite to him, welcome him to the team, or even talk to him. It’s like a friend code, or something. Pinky swear, guys. I’m not kidding. We are going to smother him with a level of hate that will suffocate him to the point that he runs back to wherever he came from, tail tucked between his legs.”

  “I’m in!” Seth answered cheerfully.

  While Ari had been preaching his rant, my mind had been working up some basic mathematical calculations. Something wasn’t adding up, and that something was age. Looking back at Ari, I asked, “You met Eli at MIT, right?”

  Ari scooted back and buckled his seatbelt again. “I see where you’re going with this and think its best you mind your own business, Baker. You’re starting to step on toes, my toes, and I don’t like it when that happens. Zip it.” For the first time since I’d known him, he looked like the nineteen-year-old he was.

  “You said you were seventeen years old when you graduated. That’s underage, Arizona. If there was something between you and Eli, it was illegal, and your father damn well needs to know about it.” Seth’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t give a fuck whose stepbrother he is. That’s against the fucking law. You were a kid, for fuck’s sake!”

  “Nothing happened,” Ari muttered. “At least nothing physical.” He huffed around in the back seat a few more seconds before he added, “There’s a good chance I might have lied to Eli about my age. Maybe. Probably.” He crossed his arms over his chest and even though I hadn’t believed it to be possible, his bottom lip pooched out in a big pout.

  “Yeah, I lied about my age,” he muttered.

  Seth pulled into Ari’s neighborhood and then, seconds later, into his driveway…or the driveway that belonged to his parents. Arizona still lived at home. It would have driven me crazy, but they seemed to make it work.

  After putting the car into park, Seth turned to Ari and asked, “You lied about your age? How old did you tell him you were?” Seth snorted. “And how could he have been dumb enough to believe it?”

  Ari kicked the back of Seth’s seat with the tip of his foot. “Don’t be an ass, Seth. I’ve told you time and time again that it isn’t an attractive look on you. I told him I was nineteen-years-old. I looked identical to how I look now, my looks haven’t changed hardly at all. Anyway, I was a senior at MIT. It wasn’t even a hard lie to pull off.”

  “If he believed you were nineteen, I’m having a difficult time believing the two of you didn’t have sex, Ari.”

  “We almost did…but then he heard the truth from one of my teachers. Up-tight bastard ratted me out before I had a chance to lure Eli into my bed. I should have gotten him fired for that,” Ari said thoughtfully and then pulled a notepad out of his backpack. “I’m going to make a note to see if it’s not too late.”

  “No, you are not!” I yelled. “You and I both know the teacher did the right thing by you and Eli. Especially Eli. Hell, Ari, he could have gone to jail!”

  “I wouldn’t have told! I was in love with him! I knew perfectly well what I wanted!”

  I threw up my hands. One couldn’t argue with stupid.

  “I might have known you’d side with him,” Ari muttered. “Good thing I got you to pinky swear before I told you the whole story.”

  “Get out of the car, dumbass,” Seth said. “You need to tell your father the entire story, Ari. After that, you need to get your mess sorted with Eli. Don’t put your father in a position where he has to choose between his son and the owner’s stepbrother. He’ll end up quitting and we all know how valuable he is to the company’s success and the team’s safety. Come clean with him, Arizona,” Seth ordered. “Now, get out of my fucking car.” He looked at me. “Baker and I have an important discussion of our own that needs to take place.”

  Oh, shit.

  “Fine. Thanks for the ride. Both of you keep your big mouths shut. I’ll handle this with dad.” He waggled his finger between us. “You all need to worry about your own shit and keep your noses out of mine.”

  “You do realize you just rubbed our noses in it, right?” I asked as he got out of the car. He didn’t answer, only flipped me off and started walking toward the front door.

  “That’s going to be a problem, I’m afraid,” Seth said as he backed out of the driveway. “Arizona has a brilliant mind, but his emotions are still on the teenage level. Eli Wallace is way too much man for Ari, but it’s clear that Ari still has feelings for him.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. What do you and I need to discuss?” I asked, already terrified this was the break-up discussion. The “it’s me, not you” talk. The “I’ll sleep on the couch until you find a place to stay” dialogue. The….

  “We’ll talk about it at home,” Seth answered quietly.

  “What if I want to talk about it now?” I prompted…like an idiot.

  “Then you’re going to be disappointed,” he answered. Turning to look at me, he added, “You know…like you obviously are with our sex life right now.”

  The remainder of the car
ride was spent in silence. I had nothing to say, no way to defend myself as Seth’s words pinged around in my head like that tiny ball in a pinball machine. Well, it was more than those words. They were there, slamming into brain matter, but there was also the secretive phone calls, the computer, and the complete withdrawal from the playroom. It didn’t take long before I felt like my head would explode from all the anxieties that had suddenly taken up residence inside of me.

  Chapter 14

  Seth

  I’d really fucked things up with Baker. It was my responsibility…no, privilege to take care of him, and I’d made him feel unwanted. The thought of the man I loved hurting because he believed I didn’t find him sexually attractive made my heart ache with enough pain to nearly cripple me. If I didn’t have our evening already planned, I probably would be doubled over with worry.

  What kind of irresponsible Dom let something like this slink into our lives? Maybe Samantha was right by sending her stepbrother to watch over Baker? And, yes, that’s exactly what I thought Eli’s sudden presence in Colorado was. When Landon told me, it had been nothing more than an irritant. I had nothing to worry about. Baker and I were happy…like happily-ever-after happy. At least I’d thought we were.

  Was tonight the wrong night to do what I’d been planning for weeks? Was my timing fucked up?

  The questions were still running in a loop inside my head when we pulled into our driveway. It looked like the workers had finished installing the black iron fencing around the property, so maybe that would perk Baker up. I looked over to see him gnawing his bottom lip like a man chewing on his last meal before execution. I cleared my throat. “It looks like they finished the fencing today. That means as soon as they get the gate up, we’ll be able to start searching the animal shelters for those dogs you’re wanting.”

  Slowly, he turned to look at me and then whispered, “I love you, Seth. I…uh…I just want you to know that, okay?”