Maid For His Submission (13 page)

“Why so tense?” Quizzical and concerned, his tone was softened by the friendly smile on his lips, while his fingers worked their way down to her heel and ankle. “I had figured with The Master gone that life would have you relax a bit.”

“Even with Richard gone, life has to go on and things have been busier than you could imagine.” Relaxing more into a reclined position, she draped an arm over her eyes and fell into complete relaxation. “At least I won’t have to wait much longer,” she added with a long sigh.

“Hmm?” His low hum struck a chord in Tosh. Lifting her arm high enough to peek out at him, she noticed his perplexed brow and felt the dread turn over and over again in her stomach.

“Because he’s set to return tomorrow morning.” She paused for him to correct her and prayed he would stay silent. “It’s only a three day business trip, and he made sure to make his absence up to me by taking the rest of the week off from work, and he said he'd planned something extra special.” Pleased from deep in her gut, she said one thing, but secretly begged Thomas to confirm Richard’s original plans. It had only been two days and already he had missed one phone call, and she wondered what would be next.

Slowly, Thomas lowered Tosh’s feet to the floor and reached over to pull her up by the shoulders. He held her sitting in place, looking eye to eye. Serious and concerned, the look in his eyes made Tosh’s heart beat in triple time. She knew this wasn’t going to be good.

“What did Richard tell you about this trip?”

Plummeting from her chest, Tosh could feel her heart sink lower and lower.

“He told me it was nothing more than a merger.” Gulping down her fears, she searched Thomas' face for understanding or hope, but everything in his features came up with nothing. Nothing was ever what it seemed when it came to Richard and Thomas, and she was beginning to think they needed to come with a learning guide for any potential lovers.

Even a fool could tell that Richard hadn’t been completely honest when he explained to Tosh the importance of this trip, and she was beginning to feel the first painful pinches of suspicion. Understanding that their relationship wasn’t orthodox, Tosh knew there were going to be many layers of her dark, dominant master she would never understand, just as there were many aspects of their relationship she couldn’t figure out. She couldn’t deny the electric thrill when he displayed complete dominance in the bedroom, and she enjoyed feeling cherished when he would feed her a morning serving of yogurt and fruit, but the last two weeks were starting to feel like a vacation rather than a committed relationship and this disturbed her.

After everything they had shared, why wouldn’t he let her in?

“You know he does care about you.” She hadn’t realized how transparent she was until Thomas tried to reassure her. He was a good man, and she knew that he truly cared about Richard, but much like with her relationship with Richard, Tosh didn’t know where she counted in his life and if they were genuine friends or if he tolerated her as a temporary attachment of Richard’s. Between the two of them, he was the only one who had real-estate in Richard’s life, and she didn’t know what number she was in his long list of those who had.

“Let's be honest, you and I both know I’m only that pretty college student he saw walking across the street one day.” Feeling the heavy weights of self-loathing pulling her shoulders down, she tried to look away from Thomas so he wouldn’t see the pain in her eyes from what she confessed. “He didn’t really know me when he set his game in motion and besides what we share in his apartment we have nothing.”

“Well,” he said, standing up slowly and walking over to the bar to fetch Tosh a glass of cool tap water. “One thing I can tell you is that you’re the first person to ever live with him here.”

Handing Tosh a glass with a warm smile, Thomas returned to the bar to serve up a cocktail for himself. He was comfortable here and moved like he owned the place, but Tosh figured he spent a lot of time up here with his friend.

“There’s a difference between living with someone and staying at his place.” Setting the untouched glass of water down on the coffee table, Tosh got up to stand by one of the floor to ceiling windows. The dark city skyline twinkled at her feet. She couldn’t understand why living here and having every need catered to her left her feeling empty and depressed. “He left without me and didn’t even think about it. He just left.” A chill came over her, and Tosh wrapped her arms about herself to fight it off, but the problem ran deeper than the thermostat. “This morning he said how he wished I had come, but tonight he forgot to call me. When you got here I thought it was him coming home early to surprise me, and then I reminded myself he wouldn’t be coming home to me, he would be coming to his own home, and I’d be here like any guest.”

“Now, you’re making no sense.” Thomas was the voice of reason, and Tosh knew she was just babbling on now. “How about you go to bed and I’ll wait for the package to get picked up?”

On the cusp of agreeing with him, Tosh paused to think for a moment.

“Tell me how you two met?” she asked. “There is such a friendly bond that I don’t understand.”

He could read in her tone that she was sincere and honest. Thomas had gotten over his little bit of jealousy with her when he realized she had no intention of eliminating his friendship with Richard as so many other women had. He could see and appreciate Tosh for the genuine woman she was, and he hoped Richard knew what he had in her.

“We went to school together,” he started and quickly stopped. Tosh could sense his hesitation and tried to assure him that his confidence was safe with her.

“There’s nothing you can tell me that you have to fear ever escaping this conversation. Even Richard won’t know.” She spoke the truth from her heart.

“I was fifteen and a recent transfer to an upstate prep school. My father is a congressman and had relocated my mother and me to a nice community where he didn’t need to worry about us while he moved to Washington to shack up with his campaign coordinator. It was hard for my mom, but my father had never really been involved in my life, and I didn’t care. I was a troubled kid and had started to act out. Not for my father’s attention, but just the opposite, I knew that every time I got in trouble it would leave a bad political mark on my father, so I tried whatever I could to smash him politically.”

“You were a bright kid.”

“Never underestimate the intelligence of a teenager,” he warned her with pride.

Shaking her head in agreement, she caught his eyes with hers and encouraged him to continue.

“My first week at OakMount Academy wasn’t easy. I had already started two fights, and I was in the act of slashing the Dean’s tires when Richard pulled me out of the way. He took my knife out of my hands, folding it and hiding it in his pocket. The school had recently invested in hired security guards and the most eager of them had almost caught me.”

“Security guards at a prep school?”

“There were a lot of kids with high profile parents, but that day instead of preventing a kidnapping they would have caught me in the middle of a crime that my father probably wouldn’t have been able to get me out of.”

She was surprised it had been Thomas who had been the trouble-maker. Tosh had always imagined Richard was the hell raiser between the two of them.

“The next day we hung out. Turned out we had most of our classes together and that we liked the same kind of Slasher films and comics. Since his dad worked all the time…and other things, he had provided the illusion of a home for Richard with a live-in maid, and guard/hired guardian. He came over to my place all the time.

“One time after lacrosse practice some of the guys in the shower decided to gang up on me. They had wet towels with bars of soap and who knows what else wrapped up inside. I didn’t know how much damage they did after I blacked out and when Richard had finally broken through them to protect me. I think he saved my life that day.

“From that day on things changed. It wasn’t even romantic like you would expect, things just started to shift for us.”

“You mean the sex.”

“Yes.” Taking a deep clarifying breath, he looked for the right words to continue. “Neither of us were ever really attracted to guys or even each other, we just did what teenage boys do at that age, but not alone.”

Confused, Tosh opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words. Thomas understood and gave her a friendly smile.

“We used to sneak adult movies into my room when he spent the night. We were fifteen and curious about sex and quickly became masters of self-pleasuring. One night we were watching a good one—to a teenage boy’s standards—and before you knew it we were jacking-off to what we watched and then suddenly things shifted for us and instead of watching the movie we were watching each other. Like I said, it was never something like what you two have, but our friendship was just more than what would commonly be referred to as a friendship. I would say we were brothers but that would just be wrong, it’s more like how my mom would describe two kindred spirits.”

Kindred spirits was a term Tosh had known growing up as a way to describe her closest of friends, but she never imagine a grown man using the term. However, she felt that in this moment she finally understood the true meaning of the celestial friendship.

Interrupted by the familiar ding of the elevator arriving to their floor, they both looked to the silver shining doors when they parted and two shapely legs in red “Fuck me hard” stilettos walked out. As a courier, the woman was dressed in an expensive red suit that looked to have been cut to her perfectly. The jacket lapel ran low to her waist where it was secured with three small buttons. It opened around her large perfect breasts and displayed a black camisole top. Fitted tight and cut almost too high, the skirt displayed her beautiful long legs and clung to her shapely and firm thighs.

Tosh hated her before she even entered the penthouse.

Tugging uncomfortably at her tank, Tosh suddenly felt under dressed when she answered the door. The only comforting fact was knowing that this sex on stilts was here in LA and not on the East coast with Richard, and chose to greet her guest with a smile. Once opened, the leggy visitor walked past Tosh as if she were the door-man and spread her arms out to give Thomas a warm hug. She had long full red hair that bounced with her body and curled bellow her shoulders. Not knowing anything about her, Tosh wanted to rip every strand from her head.

“I'm so glad you came over to see me. Did Richard tell you I’d be coming by?” Her porcelain skin didn’t wrinkle or crack from her big, red lipped smile.

Thomas was quick to step away and went to retrieve the envelope from the table.

“No, he didn't tell me who was coming by, just that I needed to pass this on.” Holding the over-stuffed manila envelope out to her, he tried to create some designated distance from her.

“Well, I’m thankful just the same," she said, ignoring the package and taking a seat on the same couch Tosh had abandoned. “Traffic was a bitch tonight or else I would have been here sooner.” Looking over her should her at Tosh, the red headed stranger gave her a dismissive nod. “We’re fine now, you can go."

Stuck in jaw dropped silence, Tosh stared at the woman, not knowing what she wanted to do in her defense. Contemplating crushing her dragon-lady red nails under her feet, Thomas interrupted her, coming to Tosh’s defense.

“Abigail, this is Tosh. She’s Richard’s—”

“Girlfriend.” Tosh jumped in, trying to claim some territory, but was only answered with a bone chilling cackle from the red.

“Oh, please, you and I both know the truth,” Abigail said with confidence. “Richards’s taste buds change too fast for any form of commitment.”

“Abigail!” Thomas commanded her attention, but she brushed him off with a wave of her hand and kept her eyes focused on Tosh.

“You’re definitely a change from his typical choice in playthings.” Her words were an anoxic cloud floating toward Tosh and burned her. She knew that her insinuation had hit its mark and didn’t bother to say anything else in Tosh’s direction. Instead, Abigail turned her attention back to Thomas, who now stood by at the entry, holding the door open with one hand and presenting the envelope with other.

“It’s getting late, and I think it’s time you and I both left so Tosh can get to bed.” He tried to help Tosh stake claim on Richards’s home, but she felt too beaten down by Abigail’s sneering and judgmental looks to say anything.

Flipping a lock of red hair over her shoulder, Abigail stood up with a huff that she quickly softened to a sinister smile. The woman had scorpion blood running though her veins and kept Tosh as her poisonous target.

“I guess you’re right. Besides, I’m on the red eye.” Taking the envelope from Thomas, she looked back at Tosh one last time. “Richard needs me in New York to deliver this package to him and help get some…business done.” Tosh read volumes in that pause and didn’t need help in deciphering her meaning.

Leaning over, she looked to give Thomas a kiss, but instead bit his lower lip with a sensual tug that took him by surprise. He didn’t move, nor did he seem to enjoy himself, and when she finally pulled away from him and departed in the elevator—which luckily took no time to go on once she pushed the button—he wiped his lip clean of her saliva and looked at Tosh with sympathy. Tosh didn’t bother to hide her pain and hoped he wouldn’t pity her for being such a fool.