by EM Gayle
As I approached Alex’s office, the door swung open and he was there, pulling me into his strong arms and enveloping me in all his glorious heat and comfort.
Still weak and needy when it came to him, I breathed deep, inhaling the familiar masculine scent of my…boyfriend? No, that didn’t sound quite right. Lover? Maybe, but he’d become so much more than that too.
He was the first Dominant that I’d fully submitted to, but even that didn’t quite encompass what he made me feel or how proud I got when I spied certain looks cross his face. His need for constant control had given me a taste of my own power and it had been sweet.
Master.
I inwardly smiled. Yes. That suited him to a T.
The man who’d gotten so deep inside me I wondered if I’d ever recover after tonight, was my Master. God, it hurt to fully realize that now.
Despite the turmoil in my head, my body reacted by instinct. I melted against him and soaked in the man who made me feel everything no matter how small or big.
“God, kitten. I’ve missed you.”
His breath shivered across the shell of my ear. New tears welled at the edges of my eyes again. “I’ve missed you too.” It certainly wasn’t a lie. The time without him and the subsequent kidnapping ranked up there as some of the hardest days of my life. And I had a sinking feeling it was a horrible preview for the days to come.
Sure I had work to keep me busy, but that’s not all I wanted to define my life anymore. The desire for family had come on strong and out of the blue after my stupid little confession.
“You look beautiful, by the way. Ready for some fun?”
When I hesitated, he pulled back and held me at arm’s length, his eyes narrowed and from the look on his face I’d swear he knew exactly what was going on in my head. He had a knack for knowing me sometimes better than I did.
“What’s wrong?” He tugged me away from his office and back towards the living room. “Did something happen while I was working?”
I shook my head, needing a second more to gather my wits. “Just tired of laying in bed and now that the I have the official go ahead to get back to normal, I think it’s time to do just that. Maybe go back to work.”
“You always work too hard,” he stated, “and you’ve needed someone to take care of you while you recovered.” He gently touched the largest of my stitches that I couldn’t hide with makeup. “But I’m here now and I plan to not only take care of you but also pamper you with pleasure. We’re way overdue for a nice long session.”
“I—I don’t—”
“I know, Harper.” He brushed his thumb along my cheek. “I’m not going to pounce on you just yet. First, I’m going to hand feed you the way we both enjoy, second we’ll soak together in the hot tub until we’re both good and relaxed and then I’m going to spend the rest of the night giving my kitten the fucking she deserves.”
Chapter 11
Harper
* * *
I swallowed against the heat that suddenly flared between my legs. His plans sounded perfect and under normal circumstances I would drop to my knees and offer myself for his pleasure. I especially loved the look of hard lust clearly shining in his eyes. I knew from experience his brand of care and comfort would leave me more than satisfied and sore for days. In other words, I’d love every damn second of it and end up begging for more when he finished. He knew how to play to my needs and his perfectly.
But our lives had changed. Too many obstacles stood between us.
“We—uh—need to talk,” I started.
“We definitely do,” he agreed. “First we eat.” He led me to the formal dining room where the huge table that could seat at least twenty loomed in front of me. With the lone place setting at the head of the table, I easily imagined the scene Alex had planned. Me on his lap while he offered me bites from each course. Or maybe he’d strip me first and have me kneel on the floor.
I sighed. He wasn’t making this easy. I loved when he got like this. Very possessive and loving. It always surprised me how such a powerful and busy man could seemingly derive so much pleasure from the simple acts of feeding or bathing me at times. I’d never once questioned why. He made it too much fun and simply decadent.
As we approached the head of the table, I squeezed my eyes shut at the extravagant place setting with several covered platters arranged around the single plate. It was as if he’d known I was coming to him.
You can do this. You can do this.
Yet every step made my heart beat faster and sweat broke out across my skin. I clenched and unclenched my hands. Nope. I couldn’t take it. All the words I’d rehearsed to say to him were fleeing my mind with each step we took toward his planned decadence.
Slowing my steps, I ignored the insistent press of Alex’s hand on my back and whirled to face him. It was now or never.
“No,” I blurted.
His flinch appeared and disappeared before I completed a breath. “Excuse me?” His left eyebrow rose. “No what?”
“I can’t have dinner with you. In fact, I can’t stay here anymore.” Shit. I couldn’t remember what I’d planned to say.
“Harper…” His tone deepened and the immediate compulsion I felt to obey almost unnerved me.
“Please don’t, Alex. I think it’s time for me to return to my apartment. The doctor says I’m fine to go. I know we have a lot to talk about, but maybe we need some space to think first.”
He was shaking his head and advancing on me. “I don’t think so. If we need to talk then talk. You disappearing into your head again or leaving the safety of this penthouse right now is out of the question.”
Oh boy. That was about the worst thing he could have said in that moment. I felt my face flush with heat as my anger flared.
“You don’t understand,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“Then make me understand, Harper. Because right now I’m not seeing a problem other than your insubordinance.”
Now it was my turn to give him that look. The one that said I can’t believe you just fucking said that. It was starting to feel a whole lot easier to get words out.
“I came here that night to say good-bye. As hard as that was, I figured it was the right thing to do it in person. Of course you know what happened instead, but you don’t know the whole story. There is something from my past that made it easy for those men to convince me to go with them. I thought they were someone else.”
“You came to say goodbye?” The incredulity in his voice stopped me cold. How were those the words in all of that he chose to focus on? After our disastrous last scene, he had to know the end was inevitable. What else could we have done? I wasn’t supposed to fall in love.
It wasn’t like I could just forget his painful silence after I dropped my bomb. As far as I was concerned, his inability or unwillingness to respond spoke volumes about the situation.
Thankfully his arrogance now gave me the strength I sought to continue. “Are you really that surprised? You were not pleased with how things ended the last time we were together and we barely spoke after that until the boat thing.”
“You mean the kidnapping?” he growled. “That was NOT a little boat thing. Jesus, Harper. I don’t think you understand what your near death experience did to me. I’m already struggling with the fact I can’t make someone pay for what they did, but if anything had happened to you I would have burned this city to the ground. Literally. And as for the other…” His words trailed off as his fingers rubbed over his face. “You caught me off guard. I needed to think and then fucking Ronin started pulling my strings without my knowing. I couldn’t deal and chose to put it off until I returned and could face you in person.”
Some of what he said made me want to cry for him. I could almost feel the guilt my death would have caused him. All the more reason he had to know the truth. “I went with those men willingly.”
“What!?” he roared, his outrage slamming through the room. “Why the fuck—”
“I thoug
ht they were FBI agents. Before coming to New York, I broke the law. I walked out on a federal court summons in a high-profile case in North Carolina. I was supposed to help put my husband behind bars for a very long time.”
The room turned silent when I stopped talking and now Alex was rubbing his temples. I could only imagine the horrible thoughts going through his head as he tried to process what I was telling him.
Finally, he looked up at me and I saw only sadness in his eyes. Not anger. “I already know about Bill Bennett and I don’t think husband is the correct word you are looking for in this case.”
My jaw dropped and I couldn’t seem to close it. I had been wrestling for weeks over how to tell him something he already knew?
“Wait? You know? How could you? For how long?”
“I had you investigated after our first night at the Glass Kat.”
More shock coursed through me. My head was about to explode. “How could you do something like that?” I finally whispered.
“You have to understand, Harper. In my world that is standard protocol. The decision to get involved with you for more than a night meant that I needed to make sure there was nothing in your background that could hurt me.”
Unshed tears were burning my eyes and blurring my vision. “I guess Viktor was right. Everything is just a game to you. Even love.”
“I can’t believe you just said that. Viktor is definitely not right and I wasn’t trying to play a game with you. But my life is subject to different rules than others, that’s for sure. And I have to be more careful than most who I let into my life. People can be hurt.”
I didn’t want to admit that I kind of understood because knowing that he’d had to secretly investigate me made me feel even more untrustworthy. And violated.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Or at least ask about what you found? We could have talked about it like adults. Maybe prevented…”
I let my remaining unsaid thoughts fill the space between us.
“Because our preliminary investigation found nothing out of the ordinary on Harper Allison other than she didn’t seem to exist before she came to New York City. So I asked my people to keep looking and I chose to take a leap of faith even though I knew you were hiding something.”
Great. Now I really felt terrible.
Although none of this made one bit of difference in the real reason we were having this conversation. And the fact that I had fallen in love when I wasn’t supposed to. There was no doubt in my mind that the longer I stayed the more intense those feelings would grow and the more painful it would be when Alex decided it was time to move on.
We were at an impasse whether he wanted to admit it or not.
“Look, Alex. This just makes it more certain that it’s time to let this go. My life is a mess. I am complicated and that’s not good for you or your world.
“Stop right there.” The low pitch of his command should have halted my tirade in its tracks, but the pain of these last several days fueled me now and there was no turning back. I’d come here to say good-bye and, dammit, that is precisely what I intended to do.
“No, I won’t stop. I have to get this out before I let you talk me out of it. For once in my life, I am going to try and do the right thing, okay?” His scowl deepened, but I continued. “This isn’t going to work because it isn’t what I want. I’ve already lived a life with a man who claimed to love me who not only didn’t, but he ultimately humiliated me because he thought I was weak and needy. So I’m not about to keep living a life with a man who understands and embraces the submissive part of me but doesn’t love the woman. I deserve better than that. I deserve an equal emotional relationship.” Not the exact words I’d planned, but they’d do. I reached behind my neck and underneath my hair and unclipped the exquisite necklace Alex had bestowed on me not long after we agreed to explore a Dom/sub relationship. (when he’d been in the shower that morning I’d located the key he kept in his wallet and unlocked the lock.)
With shaky hands and an even heavier heart, I placed the silver chain on the table in front of me. Afraid to look him in the eye again, knowing my resolve crumbled the longer I stayed, I walked to the foyer, grabbed my coat and purse and slipped out the door.
Every second I waited for the elevator I prayed he wouldn’t come after me. My only hope of sticking with this decision relied on him letting me go. When the familiar ding finally chimed and the door slipped open, I began to let some of the pent-up emotion free. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I turned and stared at his door one more time. I held my breath, half hoping.
It never opened.
The elevator closed and the quick descent began. Like it or not our relationship was over. And the pain of losing him? Well, that would soon come. It couldn’t be helped or stopped. I stared at the button for the penthouse one last time and then slid my eyes closed.
“Goodbye, Alex,” I finally whispered.
Chapter 12
Alex
* * *
Alex sat at the head of the table and stared at the necklace sitting in front of the untouched meal he’d had prepared for their dinner. What the hell had just happened? He scrubbed his hands over his face several times and refocused on the gleaming table top. The fucking collar was still there.
She called it a necklace. He called it what it really was. A collar. The symbol she wore to let everyone know that she was taken. That she was HIS.
After more than a week of missing his time with her because of that damned out-of-town trip to Italy, he’d planned to set everything aside to put all of his focus on Harper for a much needed scene between submissive and Dominant.
He should have known something was wrong when she didn’t answer his calls that day. He’d been too busy cleaning up Ronin’s mess and trying to process her falling in love with him. That had thrown him for a loop more than he cared to admit. No one was supposed to fall in love, but he knew how the world worked. Things rarely happened the way you expected them to, especially when it came to emotional responses.
Then their world had gone off the rails all because he’d screwed up by taking her to a party on Viktor’s boat. Rage coursed through him every time he thought of the Russian asshole that he still couldn’t find. The bastard had gone underground, probably into some hidey hole in Russia where no one could get to him, and it was making him take his frustration out on everyone else around him.
As the head of his security, Gerard ended up taking the brunt of it and did so without a word. The man simply had the patience of a saint.
What could he say? The last several days had been hell. Sleep wasn’t going well because every time he closed his eyes he saw the explosion on the boat with Harper right in the middle of it. She hadn’t seen what he did and he wasn’t so sure she comprehended just how close to death she’d come.
Awake he had to face the stitches on her forehead that reminded him constantly that he’d failed her. He never failed and that he did so with a woman so important to him… Well, it was no wonder he was on a tight rope with his control.
He’d planned to change all of that with Harper tonight. He needed to pamper her, prove to her he could keep her safe, and most of all fuck her. They both needed to get back to reality as quickly as possible or he was going to break.
Instead she’d fucking taken off his collar with tears running down her cheeks. The stricken, tragic look on her face had frozen him in place and put every self-preservation instinct into hyperdrive. It was his stupid reaction that allowed her out of his apartment for even a second. She was probably halfway to the lobby by now.
Alex shoved his chair back, lunged for the house phone and pressed the button for his building security.
“Yes, Mr. Woodman, how can I help you this evening?”
“Ms. Harper is on her way down. Make sure she doesn’t leave the building before I can rejoin her,” he barked.
After a slight pause, Charlie answered. “Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”
Alex threw down the
phone, rushed to the elevator and depressed the down button several times, impatience flooding through him. His normally calm reserve was mostly gone as he began formulating what he’d say to the woman trying to walk out on him.
The doors opened, he stepped inside and waited for the quick ride down to the lobby. He had no doubt Charlie would do as he’d asked. His people were used to his unusual requests and above all they were loyal.
The minute the doors slid open, he heard Harper’s choked sobs and repeated pleadings to leave the building.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Allison, I have to detain you for a few minutes more. I’m sure Mr. Woodman has some very important reason for not wanting you to leave just yet.”
“You’re damn right about that,” he muttered under his breath. He quickly crossed the lobby and stopped directly behind her, waiting.
“Harper.” To an outsider, the simple statement of her name would appear calm and neutral, but to his wayward woman with her beautiful need to submit, she would detect the underlying command with automatic precision. He couldn’t begin to describe how beautiful that trait was.
Just as he expected, her arguments halted and her back straightened. While she didn’t turn in his direction, he definitely knew he had her full attention. Instead of closing the remaining distance between them and grabbing her by the arm like he desperately wanted to, he waited. The tension in the room increased until nearly palpable and still he waited for her to react. Poor Charlie looked miserable standing there, his gaze going back and forth between them.
A few seconds later, the doorman cleared his throat and picked up his hat. “I think it’s time for my break.”
Alex nodded at him, grateful as always for the man’s amazing efficiency. He had a knack for understanding and predicting not just his needs but those of the few homeowners his building housed as well. That coupled with his stunning abilities with computer systems that enabled him to respond at lightning speeds to any situation that arose made him a very valuable employee. He’d definitely owe the man another bonus for tonight. His staff liked Harper—a lot. It probably wasn’t easy to watch her cry either.
