Sexy as Hell Box Set (29 page)

But what had happened to us being exclusive?

Then I recalled she’d said she wouldn’t fuck anyone else while she was teaching me…hadn’t she? She’d never said she wouldn’t play with them.

What I found confusing was the fact she’d wanted to do something with him when she had me to mess around with. He’d been
flogging
her, for fuck’s sake! Flogging a woman who usually did the flogging. Christ, I’d had the idea our switching of roles was a private thing, something no one else would know anything about. Something she wouldn’t have
wanted
to share with anyone else. Yet she had. As soon as my back had been turned, she’d well and truly embraced her submissive side.

Carlos walked towards the hallway with his head down, flogger tails swinging by his side, bag in the other hand. A true submissive, I thought—but then he hadn’t adopted that pose when we’d seen him outside the building in Eden Street. Perhaps he was ashamed today, or maybe… Why did I care what he thought anyway? I had my own emotions to deal with.

After the click of the front door closing echoed through to me, I took a second to gather my thoughts, then said, “What were you doing?”

She casually withdrew her hand out of her jeans and stood. “What did it bloody look like?” She reached down for a discarded jumper and stuffed her head through the neck hole.

“It looked like you were being flogged.”

“And,” she said, jamming her arms into the sleeves then pulling the scarf out so it sat above the jumper, “that’s exactly what was happening. I don’t have to explain myself to you, Victor.”

I bristled at that. “You do when you’ve got some bulky bloke laying into you in my home!”

“Ah, I see.” She planted her hands on her hips. “I’m supposed to have asked if Carlos could come over, is that it? Okay, I can understand that, and I apologise, but I still have to
work
, Victor. You telling me to stay here and masturbate all day…well, I suspect it didn’t enter your head that I might have to practise some of my routines during the day, did it? When the hell do you think we work out what we’re going to do in our shows?”

She widened her eyes, which seemed to blaze with all manner of emotions—annoyance, anger, lots of that—and a touch of incredulity. My cheeks were going to get hot; they already tingled. My heart did a couple of heavy pounds, just to remind me that I’d forgotten my damn pill
again
that morning. That was Zara’s fault—I’d been lingering, watching her sleep. The woman was bad for my health.

“Well?” she demanded. “Did you think the routines just happened? That they’re off the cuff?”

“So…” What was she saying? Her next show would be having Carlos flogging her? It didn’t make sense, not when men went to watch her being the dominant one. “So you’ve decided to embrace this new side of yourself and incorporate it into your work, is that it?”

She rolled her eyes. “No!
Not
that I have to explain anything to you, but I had Carlos flog me to show me how hard I should be doing it to him in order for him to say his safe word. I had it in mind to do a show where he was in such pain he couldn’t take any more. I needed to feel what he would feel, to know how it had to be done.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have done it here, should have gone home or worked it out in Eden Street, but it’s happened now and I can’t change the past.”

I felt a bastard for doubting her. But I did. From what she’d said last night she’d never felt the need to put herself through what she subjected subs to. My thoughts were scattering, though, like snooker balls at the break, so I let that one bounce against the side of the table to be deciphered another time, while others were potted, out of view.

“Right, well…it was just a shock, that’s all, coming home and seeing you like that. With him.”

“He’s a work colleague as well as a slave, Victor. I can’t just ignore him while you’re in my life.” She paused, staring at the ceiling. “I could, actually, but I won’t.” She looked at me again. “We have our jobs to do, me and him, and what you and I have going…that has to be fitted around it. I can’t just stop working. I have
rent
to pay.”

She glanced around the room, making it clear she’d correctly guessed I didn’t have any such bill to pay.

“I understand.” And I did, but I didn’t have to like it. For a moment, when I’d come home, I’d quite forgotten what she did for a living. I didn’t have to like that either, but it was a part of her and something I’d have to learn to accept when…
if
we ever got together in the longer term. Yet all I’d seen upon my arrival was my woman with another man. Jealousy, envy, and a host of other negative emotions had swamped me, and everything in front of me had been tinted red by a rage I hadn’t felt in a long time. I’d learnt to keep those rages in check, reactions like that, again, bad for my health.

“Do you, though?” she asked, swinging her gaze back to me. “As you’re the boss, you can take time off as and when you like. Delegate jobs to your employees without ever worrying where the next pay cheque is coming from.”

“But that isn’t my fault, Zara, and I won’t apologise for what I have. I worked for it, gave up most of my adult life drowning in overtime and lack of sleep to get it. There have been times in my past that I haven’t been able to make the rent and have been tossed out of digs. I won’t forget that, either.”

She inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring. Had she assumed I’d been born with a silver spoon in my mouth? Her resentment didn’t tally with who I was—who I’d thought she knew me to be.

“I built my business up,” I said. “It wasn’t handed down to me by my father. He’s an engineer, worked for a telecommunication company, as an employee, never his own boss, never owning his own—”

“That’s none of my concern.” She wafted one hand at me as though what I’d said was boring. “The point I’m trying to make is that I can’t skive from work and
wank all day just because you told me to. Understand?”

I nodded. “I wish you didn’t have to do that job.” Shit. It had come out before the words had been a fully formed thought. “Sorry. That’s none of
my
concern—what you do, I mean.”

“No, it isn’t, but if it’s any consolation, there are some days I wish I didn’t do that job either.” She smiled, almost sadly, and gazed to the side and down. “But then what else would I do?” She looked straight at me again. Grinned broadly. “Besides, I’d be crap in a shop or office. Hell, you’ve seen what I get up to in an office.” She waggled her eyebrows. “My job’s perfect for me.”

“For your dominant side and huge sexual appetite, yes.” I decided to change the subject. I felt we were going to skate far too close to an argument if we continued in this vein. “So, I won’t ask why you needed to wank while he was flogging you, but—”

“I was combining work with doing what you’d told me to do.”

A little honesty, at last. “Yes, well, that’s good of you, but… Do you want me to check that your back is all right? Don’t you want to wash your hand?”

She lifted it then walked towards me. “No, my back is fine. And again, no, I rather thought you might want to wash it for me.”

She placed her fingertips to my mouth, and the scent of her arousal wafted up, goading me to taste it. All my anger dissipated, my innards made a swift comeback, and, damn it, I parted my lips and sucked her fingers inside.

* * * *

I dropped Zara off at Eden Street then drove away with images in my head of her and Carlos together. Earlier, after cleaning her fingers, amazingly I’d cut off any further antics, claiming I’d only nipped home for a file. That hadn’t been true—I’d wanted to see her, awake. Thought maybe a quickie in my lunch break would help relieve the hard-on in my pants.

That plan certainly hadn’t come to fruition, and now I needed time to process what had happened and my severe reaction to it. I actually needed someone to talk to about it. I chuckled at the thought of approaching Mary, then, at a stop light, which thankfully took a long time to switch over to green, I quickly texted Ollie and asked him to come to my office. He only worked in the next building, for a marketing company, so it was easy for us to meet up a couple of times a week if we wanted to, and, of course, had the time.

I walked into reception to raised eyebrows from Mary, who I’d told as I’d left that I wouldn’t be back until the morning. For once she didn’t question my return, gave a quick smile, then bent her head back to her work.

As I walked down the corridor, I called back over my shoulder, “Ollie will be here shortly.”

She didn’t respond, and I couldn’t be bothered to turn around to query why. If she was still sulking, she could get on with it. I had too much on my plate to worry about her insecurities.

In my office, I headed straight for the bathroom and swilled my face with cold water, asking myself what the fuck I’d got into and why I wanted to stay in it. Zara wasn’t my type, her life wasn’t my sort of life, yet I couldn’t get the bloody woman out of my mind. And what would my clients think if they knew who I was seeing? She was hardly a good advert for business—come and get the boyfriend of a dirty little sexual vampire to draw up plans for your new home…you never know, he might even insert a dungeon in the basement.

I huffed and shook my head as a new thought hit. What if someone I’d created drawings for, other than Geoffrey, had perved over her in Eden Street already? The idea churned my stomach. Zara was mine, but nothing to do with my work. Her and my kind of customers didn’t mix. Yet how come those lines between her and my professional image were blurring, despite what I’d told her last night? She was becoming as much a part of my life as my business was, and my business was everything to me. Everything. My heart, my soul and my future.

I swished water on my cheeks again, wondering whether it was really
her
who had hooked me or if it was the sex, the learning experience. I would only know for sure when we went our separate ways. Sex, I could get that anywhere, but could I find another woman like Zara? I guessed that would remain to be seen.

A quiet knocking on my main door had me hurriedly drying my face with a folded white towel placed on the sink unit every morning by Mary. I left the room and entered my office, pleased more than I’d ever been in the past to see Ollie lounging on the big chair behind my desk. He swivelled it side to side, gripping the arm rests, and I had the strange feeling he was about to spin himself around full pelt like we had in similar chairs in our childhood.

“Don’t,” I said, raising my arm and jerking my thumb over my shoulder. “Out of that chair. This is serious.”

He stood, walked around to the other side of the desk, and plonked himself in the spare chair. “Fuck, what have I done now?”

“Nothing,” I said, moving to the wooden sideboard next to the door and opening it, taking out a decanter of brandy and two balloon-bottomed glasses. As I poured I said, “I need some advice.”

“Ah, that woman from the coffee shop,” he said.

I didn’t turn to see the smug look on his face—it always tended to be there when he’d suspected I’d need to bend his ear about something. From when I was six years old and worrying about the health of my pet snail to our teenage years and when my first serious girlfriend had promised we’d go all the way at Dan Todger’s party. “Yes, her. Coffee-shop Girl.”

“Too much for you, isn’t she.” Statement—and damn, maybe he was right.

“I’m beginning to think so.” I’d hated admitting that but if I could to anyone it would be Ollie. And damn, I needed to unload my tumbling thoughts. I returned to my desk, handing him a brandy, then sat, taking a large gulp.

“I did wonder… Could tell she was a handful. Prepared to share?”

I stared at him, shocked. “What, her? Not on your bloody life!”

He laughed. “Would be nice, but no, not her. Some information. I can’t help if I don’t know what you’re dealing with, although I have a sodding good idea.”

I took a deep breath before telling him the pertinent bits, not wanting to reveal too much. I didn’t tell him she was a professional Domme, that she worked in Eden Street. I made out we were seeing one another, an item—no mention of the month-long tuition. He shook his head and nodded alternately, listening to me going on about how much I liked her but how I couldn’t see it working because she was just so…so beautiful and out of my league. Headstrong. All the while I was spilling my guts, I had a feeling he was laughing inside. As I drew the tale to its conclusion, I knew what he’d say once I was done: “A man like you…”

“See, that’s the problem right there, Vic,” he said, pointing one finger at me. “A man like you can’t handle a woman like that. You haven’t got it in you to be the dominant one. She’ll walk all over you, mate, you wait and see. Now, it sounds like she needs a bloke who’ll do what she says, when she says it. High-maintenance, too, if I’m any judge. I think, once you two are over, I’ll take sloppy seconds. Then you’ll see how she ought to have been handled.”

Before I could launch myself over the desk and punch my cousin as though we were eleven again, I blurted, “Helen didn’t go to South Africa, she’s still here, in England. In this city. It was all an elaborate lie to leave me.” I paused, enjoying the brief flash of surprise on Ollie’s face. “And not only that, she’s fucking Zara’s ex.”