His Absolute Domination: The Billionaire's Paradigm (#5) (A BDSM Erotic Romance) (The Billionaire's Ultimatum, Book Two) (2 page)

I sort of cooked fine. Saying "rather
well" made it sound better, though. It should be adequate cooking,
I hoped. I knew my way around the kitchen, at least, and I had a
few tricks with food like Lucent had tricks with cards. If all else
failed, I could ask Margaret to help me before he showed
up.

If he accepted, at least. He refused
to commit to asking me on a date now? Well, I'd ask him on one
instead. How did he like that?

"I think I would like that," he said,
smiling.

"You can come over Wednesday," I said
quickly; probably too quickly. "I usually work late here during the
weekdays, but Wednesdays are quiet and I can find someone to cover
my shift or ask if I can go home early. What do you like to
eat?"

"I'm unsure if Wednesdays work for me,
Miss Tanner. I apologize for not being able to give you a
definitive answer at the moment."

"Oh," I said.

He breathed in deeply, exhaling just
as much. What was this? I watched him, confused.

"You do have your phone messages to
listen to," he said. "Don't forget."

Oh. Oh! Yes. Well, of course I hadn't
forgotten. But him saying it now made me feel... better? If he
mentioned it, it must be important.

"Messages?" I asked, grinning. "More
than one?"

"Indeed. I left you another while you
slept. Something else came up that warranted further
discussion."

"I'll listen to them," I said. Biting
more of my granola bar, eating it fast, I nodded happily. "I'll
listen to them, Lucent. I promise. Hurry, let's eat. I want to
listen to them soon."

"Of course," Lucent said.

We ate. I ate fast and he ate slower,
but it didn't matter, because we didn't have much food. He might be
one of those people who doesn't eat a lot in the mornings, I
thought. It made sense. That must be why he only brought a few
things for breakfast, too. I'd worried before, thinking it odd, but
I shouldn't bother myself with silly things like that. I
overanalyzed situations sometimes and worried about the silliest
things.

This wasn't that, though. Nothing to
worry about.

...

We finished eating and then I dressed.
Lucent wore all of his clothes already, but I wore none. Not that
this bothered me, and I would have gladly remained naked if only we
were staying in the library, but as we weren't, I needed to dress.
Unfortunate, that. Oh well.

He offered to escort me to my car and
I gladly accepted. Maybe... maybe more?

"Are you still hungry?" I asked him as
we headed to the front library desk so I could fetch my purse and
winter coat. "Maybe if you aren't too busy we could get some food
at a diner? I know a nice place fairly close by."

Lucent smiled at me but shook his
head. "I fear I have much to do, Miss Tanner. I typically never
spend this long away from my work, regardless of if I have the day
off or not. I need to push myself back on track, as it
were."

"Fear, hm?" I asked, teasing him.
Snatching up my purse and tossing on my coat, I rushed to his side
and grabbed his arm. "Are you afraid, Lucent? I fear you might
become famished if you don't eat more. What do you say to
that?"

"Everyone knows fear," Lucent
countered with a soft smile. "I won't go hungry, though. You
needn't worry about that. I have a varied assortment of foods at my
house and keep my cabinets well stocked in case of
emergencies."

"Do you?" I asked.

He nodded, perfunctory.
"Yes."

"If you'd like I could come over and
make us some better breakfast? I don't know what you have, but I
can figure something out."

Lucent breathed in deep, then sighed.
"I doubt that's a good idea, Miss Tanner."

"Oh," I said. "I suppose I might
distract you, yes."

Not that I would mind distracting
Lucent; in fact, I'd probably enjoy it quite a bit. Distractions
were never good for work, though. Or mostly not good. I was sure
that quite a few distractions must have led to breakthroughs in
something or other, but those must be the exceptions to the rules,
as opposed to standard fare. Suffice to say, I doubted the
distractions I had in mind--or, more to point, the distractions I
hoped Lucent might have in mind--were of the exceptioned variety.
An exceptional variety, perhaps, but that was different.

Lucent walked me to the door while I
dreamed of exceptions and distractions. Outside, prim and neat,
someone had shoveled a path to the street. It looked nice, as far
as shoveled paths looked, I supposed. Clear. We walked along it,
onto the street, and towards the parking lot. Everything was
clearer today than it was yesterday, but the city still needed some
time before returning to normal. Across the street, a sidewalk plow
worked at doing just that. Down a side street somewhere else, I
heard the thrum of a plow truck clearing away the back
roads.

The library parking lot was... odd.
More shoveling, another path, but this one went directly to my car
and a little past it. Essentially, I had a perfect arrangement to
pull out of my spot and get to the road, but nothing more. The
parking lot still needed quite a bit of plowing, but I could escape
with my car, at least. And, odder still, my entire car was cleared
off. No snow atop it, on the side of it, anywhere on it, under it.
Not even a speck of ice on the windshield or the body.

I had no clue how that worked. "Um," I
said, staring at it.

Should I even say anything? I didn't
really mind, but when we first left I expected to need to wait for
my car to warm up and melt away the ice and snow while chipping at
it with my barely adequate ice scraper snow brush thing.

"How fortuitous," Lucent said. He
sounded weird. Odd, even. "The morning sun must be strong enough to
have cleaned off your car completely."

"Oh," I said. "Really?"

He shrugged. "Perhaps."

"Oh."

Silence. I reached into my purse for
my keys and they dangled and jangled in my hand. Unlocking my car
door, I opened it wide and stared inside.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss
Tanner," Lucent said. "Everything seems in order. I'll be leaving
now. I appreciate you housing me in your library during the
blizzard. Thank you."

He nodded, bowing slightly, and turned
to walk away.

"Lucent," I said.

He turned back, tilting his head to
the side. "Yes?"

"Will you kiss me goodbye?"

He frowned and muttered. "Miss
Tanner..."

I wasn't about to deal with him like
this. I didn't know why he felt the need to be the way he was right
now, but I disliked it. To get my point across, I swiftly closed
the distance between us and wrapped my arms around him, holding him
close. Pushing myself up on my tiptoes, I touched my nose to the
end of his chin. If I had heels on, I could've kissed him fine on
my own, but in my boots I couldn't quite reach.

Lucent watched me, looking at me with
deep, observant eyes. What did he see in me, I wondered? What was
he seeing right now? An obsessive, strange woman who wanted him to
kiss her in the middle of the day in a snowed-in parking lot,
probably. I was that, and I didn't even care.

He embraced me, squeezing me close,
then lowered his head to kiss me. I expected something soft, more
formal, and chaste, but Lucent exceeded my expectations. He pressed
his lips against mine, firm and demanding. Desirous, needy, I
kissed him back, hard. I closed my eyes and held him tight and
hoped he never let me go.

He did, though. He did
release me, but not before I felt all of him. His emotions and
feelings, a sorrow and longing, yearning, passion, maybe a little
obsession of his own. Attraction and compelling temptation, all of
it. He did like me. A person couldn't kiss like that if they didn't
like the other person, and so I just
knew
Lucent must like me, but
then... why? Why were we leaving each other?

The message, I reminded myself. My
phone.

"Goodbye, Miss Tanner," he said. His
eyes gleamed, quietly sad.

I smiled at him and squeezed his hands
in mine. "Goodbye, Lucent. I hope to see you again."

He nodded, but said nothing. Maybe
that was a hard thing to say? He was like that sometimes; locked up
in his mind and too private. That was fine. I convinced myself he
must have opened up to me in his phone message. Once I charged my
phone and listened to him telling me everything, I could replay the
messages as much as I liked and listen to them over and over
again.

For a moment, Lucent hesitated. A
brief flicker in the overall stream of time, but then that moment
passed and he turned and started to walk away. I watched him go,
smiling to myself, hoping maybe he might turn around and smile at
me and wave. Or turn and stop and run back to me and put his arms
around my waist and lift me up and spin me around in the
air.

Yes
, he would say.
Come to my house and
make breakfast. I'll work while you do, and I need to work after,
too, but... You have your college course book and you can study
while I do what I need to get done, but let's stay together today
because we want to, Elise, not because we have no other
choice.

He didn't turn around, nor did he say
any of that. I dreamed he did, though, and for now that was enough.
I understood. Not everything could be as nice and lovely as the
past couple of days. That wasn't an all-the-time kind of thing, but
a once in awhile, sometimes thing. Occasional. Maybe next weekend
we might do something similar? On our date?

He never asked me on a date, or at
least he hadn't yet, but I knew he would. Or, he should, anyways.
Lucent confused me.

I walked to my car and stepped inside,
closing the door behind me. Breathing softly, sighing, watching my
cold breath fog against the window, I smiled to myself.

Right now, the day was sad, but today
was a good day. It would be happier, and I'd laugh at this moment
later. I laughed a little now, wondering how I could worry about
nothing. I did worry, though. My chest hurt a little, my heart
constricted and confined. Lucent liked those BDSM things and rope
and all of that, and I think he might have bound me up in more ways
than one.

I put the key in the ignition and
turned it. My car roared to life, greeting me with a friendly purr.
The heaters warmed me with a gentle heat far too quickly, but I
thought nothing of it. Making myself smile, I put the car into gear
and prepared to drive home.

...

I arrived home and Vanessa greeted me,
but I told her I was tired and needed to go lay down for a bit.
Which was sort of true, but not entirely. Mostly, I wanted to
charge my phone.

I tried. My phone pissed me off. What
kind of junk phone was this?

Well, my phone was
outdated and the charger was old, which proved frustrating. I
plugged the phone into the charger and had the great idea of
turning it on right then while it charged, but my phone disliked
that. It
did
power on, but only for a few seconds, before turning off
again. The display politely informed me that it was currently
charging, though.

I tried again but it shut off again.
Not enough power, I guessed. I waited ten minutes and tried once
more, but this barely worked. The phone powered up to the main
screen, with my picture of a cute kitten in the background, but
then it shut off again.

I nearly threw it against the wall in
annoyance, except I stopped because I'd never be able to listen to
my messages if the broke the stupid thing. Not such a great idea,
Elise, I told myself. Just let it sit. I changed into pajamas and
flopped on my bed and pouted.

Vanessa had muffins like she always
did, and I groaned and grumped in my room for a few minutes before
joining her in our living room for our Sunday routine. She flipped
through TV stations while munching on her cranberry orange muffin
while I sat on our couch with my knees tucked up to my chest, feet
on the couch, barely nibbling at my butter rum baked good. Mine was
also a muffin, but somewhat malformed so that it looked more like a
biscuit. It tasted nice, though.

We watched nothing on TV, because
nothing good was ever on TV, and I sat there, fidgeting, antsy,
sprung up, waiting.

"So," Vanessa said.

"Yes," I said.

"What did you and him do?"

Oh God. I couldn't tell her these
things! "We watched a movie," I said. "We read books, too. There
were sandwiches and we grabbed snacks from the vending machine, so
that was fine. Um, the power went out for awhile, but there's a
fireplace in one of the rooms upstairs, so we burned some books to
keep warm."

"You just tossed books into the
fireplace?" Vanessa asked, sounding impressed.

I laughed and rolled my eyes. "We used
ruined books. They were going to be thrown away anyways, so it
didn't matter, just nobody had thrown them away yet, that's
all."