Hanging On 2: Surreal Neal [Awakenings 6] (Siren Publishing Menage and More) (27 page)

On mine, I found Drew. He was glowering at vegetables on a cutting board. A glance down showed the cause of his dissatisfaction. The knife work wasn’t up to his standards.

“Did you know that your wife invited my aunt to your house for dinner tomorrow?” My question came out more aggressively than I’d anticipated.

His glower didn’t change. “Jenny,” he bellowed.

The buxom brunette arrived at his side, wiping her hands on a towel. “Yes, Chef?”

“Tell me what’s wrong with these.”

She cocked her head to the side and looked. “Too little?”

He sighed. “How long have you been with me?”

“Six weeks, Chef.”

“You’re still cutting your pieces in different sizes. They won’t cook evenly. Redo it.” He swept her first attempt into a nearby trash can. When he looked at her, he radiated patience and dominance. How had I missed that before? “Do it right this time.”

He left the other end of the ultimatum unsaid. Drew was patient with staff, but he didn’t tolerate sloppiness, and those who couldn’t meet his standards didn’t stay for long.

He turned away from us both, completely ignoring me.

I went after him. How dare he walk away from me? “Drew, did you hear what I said?” Again, I unloaded my temper into my tone.

Now he faced me. “Tomorrow?”

I nodded.

He pursed his lips thoughtfully and made a sound that said he found the idea interesting. Then he turned away again.

I clamped my hand on his arm. He froze, and the muscles under my palm tensed. “Without me.”

“I’m sure she included you in the invitation.”

“She did, but I have to work until six. It starts at four.”

“So come by after.” He directed a pointed look at my hand.

I got the message. Drew might have drawn a distinct line between our personal and professional lives, but he would always play the dominant role. “I don’t have a car.”

“So I’ll leave a car for you.”

The idea of him leaving a car for me triggered a sense of panic, and that feeling always morphed to anger or resentment. It was better for survival, but I was beginning to feel like a hostage to that emotion, especially because Drew didn’t deserve to be my target. “I don’t want your car.”

Drew sighed. “Look, Neal, I don’t have time for this now. First, this isn’t something we should even be discussing here. Second, instead of rejecting all of the solutions I’m offering, just say you don’t want to come. It’s not required.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. My irritation ceased to exist.

“Now go take your break and let me get back to work.”

With the anger gone, all I had left was panic, and so I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Okay, leave the car. I’ll come by after work.”

If he smiled in triumph, I didn’t see it.

Later that night, Sophia picked Drew up from work. He gave me his car keys, and as they left, Sophia winked at me. I wanted to fall to my knees and beg for her attention, for the kiss I hadn’t given her when she’d dropped me off at my aunt’s house.

Drew might be all business at work, but Sophia didn’t share his reservations. After all, she was only my boss in the bedroom.

I felt a stabbing in my chest at the thought of not seeing my Mistress or Chef again. My emotions were contradictory, frustrating me to no end. Still, I downloaded a copy of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
so that I’d know what the hell they were talking about when they peppered those quotes into conversation.

Drew

Neal was trying my patience. After freaking out at the prospect of having a larger role in our lives, he had the nerve to get upset about Sophia inviting his aunt to our house—and he had the audacity to try to grill me about it at work.

Part of me wanted to strip off his pants and give him the discipline he was so vigorously courting. Surely one of those double rings that bent the penis in half would mellow his in-your-face hostility. He might be larger than me, but if Sophia had taught me anything, it was that dominance was in the personality. I’d never considered myself dominant before, merely alpha, but now I saw that the distinction lay only in my mindset. Neal was definitely an alpha, but under the right circumstances, he was also submissive.

I wondered how Sophia would have reacted if he’d challenged her that way, and then I shook the thought from my head. This was my place of business. He and I had agreed on keeping it separate from our casual relationship, and I needed things to stay that way. My personal life was nobody’s business.

The rumor mill at the network thought they had the real scoop on my relationship with Sophia. I’m sure they were waiting for me to divorce her, or for her to grow tired of my alleged affairs and leave me. That would never happen. I’d promised to love and honor her until death, and I kept my promises.

Sophia had never invited anybody to the family dinners she had the last Sunday of every month with her family. The first time I attended one had been an accident. She’d broken up with me when I was across the country, and I had flown home to call her out on it. I had arrived at her house to find her mother at the stove. After I’d set Sophie back on the right path, her father had interrogated me to make sure I was good enough for his little girl.

Yep, I’d married a woman who still had her father wrapped around her finger. As long as I made her happy, David DiMarco liked me. I intended to keep things that way.

Did the fact that she’d invited his aunt shock me? Hell, yes. She hadn’t mentioned it, though the opportunity to talk hadn’t presented itself between the time I had rolled into bed last night and the time I had to get up this morning.

There hadn’t even been time for sex. I liked morning sex, especially when I hadn’t been able to indulge the night before. Sometimes my work schedule made me feel like a monk.

Coming to work and seeing Neal hadn’t been easy. He looked damn sexy in his white jacket. It made his hair seem darker and his eyes bluer. The cut accentuated the broadness of his shoulders and the slimness of his hips. And that ass…

My eyes were drawn to his pouty lips. At least, they had been until I realized he was actually pouting. That was not attractive.

When Sophie picked me up, we held hands as we walked to the parking garage. Sensual Secrets had dedicated parking for three vehicles, and frequently those went to the catering vans. Tonight my car was parked in one, and I’d given the keys to Neal.

I smacked a kiss on Sophie’s cheek as I opened the passenger door for her. She hated driving in the evening, so I always did the honors. “You invited Neal’s aunt over for dinner tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t think she’d come, not with Neal glaring at her the whole time.” She got into the car, and I closed her door.

As I backed out of the parking space, I said, “He can be intimidating when he wants, but it’s hard to intimidate someone who knew you before you were able to walk and talk.”

“He said he’s coming? For sure? I figured he’d talk her out of it.”

I grinned. “I left him my car. He’d better come.”

She reached over and put her hand on my shoulder. Pressing down, she tested the amount of tension I’d gathered over the course of the day. “If I’d known he was going to make you so tense, I would have had the masseur waiting for us.”

Tilting my head to the side, I stretched out my neck muscles. “It’s nothing you can’t handle.”

“Mmm.” A catlike grin curled her lips. “Naked massage. No sheet. Can I tie you down?”

“Nope. I want my hands free to wander.”

I thought she might let her hands wander to other parts of me, but she just squeezed my shoulder and set her hand back on her lap. “Drew? When are you going to come out of the closet?”

“The closet?” I had no idea what she meant. I was openly bisexual. “What closet would that be?”

“The one where you get all tingly when Neal calls you ‘Chef’ in place of ‘Master.’ If you want him to be honest and face his feelings, then you also need to be honest.”

I didn’t think I had been dishonest, which I guess wasn’t the same thing as being honest. “What do you mean he needs to face his feelings? It seems to me that he faces them pretty regularly. He’s carrying around a lot of angst.”

She pursed her lips. “His reactions on our trip were not normal. After he dropped—and I’m not sure he actually dropped—those two times, he started avoiding us after a scene. It’s very difficult to provide proper aftercare when the sub gets up early and heads to the beach.”

Neal had done that for the last three mornings we’d been there. I hadn’t thought much of it. He liked to windsurf. It was his vacation too. “You think he was avoiding us? Why would he do that?”

She gave me an exasperated look, and she didn’t bother to temper the drama of her sigh. “Drew, you said it yourself. He reminds you of me. When we first met, I avoided situations with you that would expose me or make me emotionally vulnerable. You didn’t give up on me, and we can’t give up on him. He’s hiding some serious pain.”

Now that she said it, everything made sense—his mood swings, the defensive behavior, the way he insisted on behavior protocols that he didn’t actually like. Sophia had been exactly like that when I’d met her. She’d pushed me away at every turn.

“Damn,” I said. “You put me through hell. I’m not sure I can do that again.”

She took my hand in hers. “He’s worth it, honey. You showed me that. Don’t lose faith. We’ll do this together.”

With Sophie by my side, anything seemed possible.

* * * *

At home, Sophia fed me some soup she’d made. I didn’t bother analyzing the flavors. Like most people, I just enjoyed good food. There was no need to figure out the ratio of cumin to coriander. While I chowed down, she sat across the table and grinned at me. I recognized the grin.

“What?”

“Want to learn how to use a flogger?”

“Will you flirt with me and say, ‘Yes, Chef’ a lot?”

She laughed so quickly that she snorted. She had a cute snort. “You’re not going to practice on me. I set up a mattress for you, and I dug up a set of velour sheets from the bottom of a closet I cleaned out today. Whatever possessed you to buy velour sheets?”

I had no idea where those had come from. “Must have been a housewarming gift. I’ve never used them. I prefer silk or cotton.”

“Well, you’ll get plenty of use out of them now.”

I did want to learn to flog. When Sophia had prevented me from flogging Neal, I had understood her reasons for doing so, but the lack of experience had smarted.

Watching Sophia was art in motion. She was a graceful dancer, all sensual curves and wicked intent. Downstairs in our dungeon—I’d already shifted my thinking about that room, from
hers
to
ours
—she set me up in front of a wall where she’d propped up a mattress and covered it with the sheets. They did not look familiar at all.

“You’ve watched me for years. Do you want me to break it down, or do you want to try it first and have me correct you?”

“Try it first.”

She moved out of range. I gripped the handle loosely, the way I’d seen her do. I knew the importance of a relaxed grip. Then I whipped the falls at the mattress. They tangled around my arm, and I looked down in dismay.

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” I said, hopping on that comment before she could utter a word.

“I know. Before you master this skill, you’ll hit yourself in some pretty uncomfortable places.”

My dick twinged—not in a good way—at the thought I might hit it. Perhaps I should wear a cup in addition to the safety glasses she’d made me put on. “Do you think Neal would like that?”

She pursed her lips and inhaled. “I’m not sure. Once he got into subspace, he took some pretty hard hits.”

“You don’t hit hard,” I teased. She punched my arm.

The first time I’d been alone with Sophia, she’d tied me to the bedpost and flogged me. It hadn’t been anything but annoying. The whole time, I’d stared at her, watching her sexy body move, picturing her naked and underneath me. Once she figured out that I was neither a submissive nor a sadist, she’d asked me how I’d been able to take the flogging without it denting my libido. She hadn’t loved my response.

“When your balls are the target, every hit is hard. We can ask him, but if you’re going to learn to do that, you’re going to need to aim better.” She pointed to the sheet. “First, though, you have to hit the sheet.”

Hit the sheet. I’d show her what hitting the sheet meant.

She saw my intention the second it registered on my face. Taking a step back, she held her hand up in the universal sign of “back away.” “Drew, you’ll never learn the flogger if you don’t practice.”

I was a faster runner than Sophie. We’d jogged together several times, and her fast pace matched my slow one. She zigged toward the door. I zagged and beat her there. I captured her in my arms and pinned her body to the wall with mine.

“Practice later,” I said. “Hit the sheet now.”