The Exposure (13 page)

“Thank you, Sir, but if I look good, it's only because you make me that way.” She sucked in a breath as his lips drew closer and closer to the juncture of her thigh and torso, but whined when he backed up.

“Not yet,” he said. “I'm not quite ready to reward you for being such a good girl.”

He finished his rope work on her legs, then stepped back to look. He'd been right. She was a different person in bondage. Soft and pliable. The hardened TV executive was gone and in her place was the most amazing submissive he'd ever worked with.

Satisfied with the way she looked, he picked up the camera
and took pictures. He knew as he took picture after picture that the second part of the shoot more than made up for the lousy beginning. But even as the photographer part of him rejoiced in the quality of shots he was taking, the Dom part knew he'd achieved the greater victory.

Meagan wasn't one to easily give her submission. She was guarded and trusted only a few with that precious gift. She'd never said as much, but he knew without being told. The fact that she submitted to him so perfectly and easily was heady knowledge. A man could get drunk on that knowledge. And a Dom wouldn't rest until he'd claimed it completely.

*   *   *

H
ours later, Luke woke to feel Meagan stir. After he'd untied her, he'd carried her to his bedroom where he wrapped his arms around her and told her to sleep. She'd given a few half-hearted protests, but even she knew she was in no state of mind to drive. Within minutes, she was snoring.

Luke had always been a light sleeper, so it came as no surprise to him that when Meagan extracted herself from his arms, he woke instantly. What surprised him was the fact that she sat up and moved to the edge of the bed. Even though his rational brain reasoned she might just be getting up to use the bathroom, his intuition told him it was something more. He kept his breathing deep and even so she'd think he was still asleep.

The bed shifted slightly and he felt the weight of her stare. She was watching him. Trying to see if he was sleeping? He focused on his breathing and willed his body not to move. After a few seconds, the bed shifted again as she stood up. Was she leaving?

He cracked one eye open. She wasn't putting her clothes on and for that he was thankful. He really didn't want to wake up
to find a note where she should be. Besides, she didn't come across as the type of woman who would leave before dawn and not say anything.

The last time she spent the night, she'd wrapped up the next morning in an old robe he had. Since she was still naked after the rope scene, and he hadn't put anything on her after, she walked on tiptoes to the master bathroom and took the robe from the hook he had it on. Then she crept back through the bedroom and out into the hallway.

She was probably going to the kitchen for a little snack. He grinned. He was feeling a bit hungry, too. Though it wasn't food that would satisfy him. He'd sneak into the kitchen and turn tables on her. Maybe he'd hoist her
onto
the table. Yeah. That was the best way to take care of middle-of-the-night hunger pains. His cock agreed and stirred to life.

He slid out of bed, not bothering to put any clothes on. After all, she had only a robe and he wasn't planning on her wearing that much longer. He planned it all in his head. She'd have the refrigerator door open. He'd come up behind her and put his arms around her. She'd turn around. And then up on the table she'd go. He walked faster.

But when he stepped into the hallway, it wasn't to see her entering the kitchen, but his office.

His office?

He stepped into the room near the office, so he could watch her undetected. She was going through his desk drawers looking for something. Obviously not finding what she was looking for, she attacked his filing cabinet next. Whatever she was looking for, she was on a mission. Not once did she look up to see if her absence had been noted.

She sighed as she closed the last drawer. Her back was still
to the doorway and he kept waiting for her to look over her shoulder, but she never did. Did she want to be caught? Or was she that intent on looking for what she wanted?

He couldn't imagine what she was after and he'd just taken a step forward to ask her what the hell she was doing, when she made a small noise and lunged at the photo boxes he had on a shelf behind his desk.

Photographs? What the fuck?

He ducked back into the room right as she turned around. He stayed still for five seconds and when he peeked again, she was going through his pictures. Her head was down and she was focused as he'd never seen her before as she flipped through the stack in the box. Being caught was clearly the last thought in her head. As silently as he could, he crept back to the bedroom and crawled into bed. Made sure he rolled onto his side so he wouldn't be facing her when she came back. What had he just witnessed?

According to the clock by his bed, merely five minutes passed before she returned to his bed. He knew he should confront her, but he wanted to wait. He wanted to see if he could determine which pictures she was looking for. Perhaps she only wanted to see the ones he'd taken of her. It struck him as he lay perfectly awake that he hadn't shown her any of the shots.

That had to be what it was.

He'd just convinced himself of that when he heard her sniffle. He held perfectly still, thinking maybe he'd heard wrong. But no, she twisted in the bed and from the sound of her breathing, she'd turned away from him. Though she tried to stifle it, she was obviously crying.

Fuck.

He was caught between angry and upset and worried. It was a completely new place for him and he didn't know how to
handle it. He could pretend her coming back to bed had woken him up, but in his current state of mind, he doubted he could pull it off.

He could confront her. Ask her what the hell she was doing going through his office at two in the morning. But he felt perhaps he was too upset to talk rationally about it and with her already in tears, he would probably only make things worse. He'd just gotten her back in his life; he didn't want to push her away.

In the end, he did nothing. He stayed on his side of the bed, listening to her cry not-so-silent tears, and wondering what the fuck had just happened.

And what he was going to do when he found out.

*   *   *

N
o more crying, Meagan told herself. She'd done enough of that last night. Thank goodness Luke had been asleep at the time and her eyes were no longer puffy and red when they got up and had breakfast. She didn't hang around Luke's for long after. Just being in his presence made her feel even guiltier than she already was.

On the way back to her apartment, she took a detour. Later tonight she'd send an e-mail to The Taskmaster, but first she had to do something she'd rather not: visit her brother. She tried to stop by every few months to check on him, but she admitted it was more out of obligation than anything else. It'd been four months since her last visit and she'd promised her dad before he died that she'd keep an eye on him.

She shouldn't dread seeing her brother. That wasn't how families were supposed to work. Unfortunately, that was the way it was with her and Jake.

He was a year younger than her and, according to her grandparents, had been an “oops” baby. When she was younger, she was often jealous at the attention he received from everyone. As she got older, she told herself it was simply that he was the baby of the family. But she remained jealous. Now, however, she was thankful she hadn't been treated the way he had been. In a word, he was useless.

She pulled up to the run-down condo he lived in. She hadn't bothered to call. It was a Sunday afternoon, after all. He'd be watching football.

She heard the announcer's voice from the television through the closed door. And, if she wasn't mistaken, other male voices as well. Great, now not only would she have to deal with her deadbeat brother; she'd have to deal with his deadbeat friends too. She thought about turning around and going back home without seeing him, but that would mean she had to e-mail The Taskmaster and she'd rather put that off for as long as possible. With a sigh, she rang the doorbell.

The sound was turned down and footsteps approached the door.

“Are you happy? I turned it down,” her brother said, flinging open the door. He did a double take when he saw her. “Meagan. What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you, too, Jake.”

He looked as though he'd just rolled out of bed. And judging by his smell, it'd been several days since he'd showered.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said. “Why are you here?”

“I came by to see how you're doing. Aren't you going to let me in?”

He didn't want to—that much was obvious by the pointed
stare and refusal to move out of the doorway. But she knew this game well, so she stood her ground and lifted an eyebrow.

With an exaggerated sigh, he stepped out of the way. “Don't say anything about the mess.”

She pressed her lips together, but didn't say anything as she stepped over the threshold into the pigsty that was his apartment. Just inside the entranceway, piles of clothes filled one corner of the room, fast-food wrappers and bags were strewn everywhere, and the air held a hint of mold. Jesus, how could he stand to live like this? Her skin itched and she knew as soon as she made it home, she'd be taking a shower.

A guy she didn't know sat on a threadbare couch, watching TV. He nodded at her, but didn't acknowledge her in any other way.

“Ray, this is my sister, the TV exec. Meagan, this is my roommate, Ray.”

“Pleasure,” she said, and he just grunted.

It was a mistake to come today. She didn't want to talk with Ray around and she sure as hell wasn't going to sit down on anything.

“How's work going?” she asked Jake. Last time she'd talked to him, he was stocking groceries, but granted, that had been over four months ago and he rarely kept a job that long. “Still at the grocer?”

“Nah,” he said, scratching his chest. “I quit. They wouldn't work around my schedule.”

“What schedule?”

“I told you, I'm writing a book. The muse wouldn't talk to me with all that structure and shit. I have to be free.”

Structure and shit? Did he mean life? She shook her head. In the past, she'd given him money, but she'd stopped that years ago. “So where are you working?”

“I told you, I'm writing.”

“You found someone to give you an advance?” She thought that very unlikely. For one, his idea was probably something preposterous about aliens battling ape people, and two, he couldn't write for shit.

“No, but I will. I just need time to finish.” He snapped his fingers. “Hey, do you think you could loan me some money for rent? Ray's been covering most of the expenses. I want to do my share.”

“And your
share
is hitting your sister up for a loan? I have an idea. Why don't you get a job? Do something meaningful.”

“I'm writing a book.”

“For five years.”

“Art takes time.” He looked at his roommate. “You get that, don't you, Ray?”

Ray took a swig of beer and belched. “Your sister's hot.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Please.”

“In fact.” Ray lowered his hand to his crotch and gave himself a slow stroke. “If you'd like to contribute to your brother's share, I'm sure we could work something out.”

Yes, she'd miscalculated. The Taskmaster would have been the better option. She leveled Ray with her best Domme glare. “Bring anything of the sort up again in my presence and I'll tie your balls in a knot around your dick.”

“Meagan, really?” Jake asked.

“You're seriously going to let him talk to me that way?”

“A lot of girls like him.”

She stared at him in shock. “You're an ass.”

He shrugged. “It's the truth.”

“Obviously, talking with you is out of the question.” She hugged her purse close to her body and turned. “I'll show myself out.”

Before the door closed behind her, she heard Jake tell Ray, “She's always been an uppity bitch.”

“You asshole,” she mumbled as she walked toward her car. “I should have let the police have you.”

On her way back home, she thought back to that summer.

Seventeen years ago

“T
here was another fire last night.” Meagan's father set the newspaper down on the table and took a long sip of coffee. “No one's been hurt yet, but it's only a matter of time. Whoever's doing this is escalating.”

“You think so?” Meagan asked.

“He got lucky this time, or rather the homeowners did. An off-duty fireman happened to see the fire and he was able to dispatch a crew. If he hadn't been there . . .”

“That's scary.” Meagan shivered. “I don't even want to think about it.”

“It was worse this time. The family was inside. I sure hope we can find out who's been doing this.”

“No clues?” Since her dad worked for the fire department, he would know.

“Not anything I can talk about.”

“You'll find out who it is.”

“Maybe not,” Jake said, strolling into the kitchen, his hair still wet from his shower. “Not if they're good. Not if they don't fuck up.”

Her dad gave Jake a pointed stare. “Watch the language.”

Jake rolled his eyes. “Whatever. The truth is, I bet you never find him.”

“Don't be a dick. Of course they will,” Meagan said.

“Language,” her father repeated.

She decided to ignore her dad. “Jake, I'm leaving for school in three minutes. If you don't want to walk, I suggest you get your ass in the car.”

Her father sighed. “Meagan.”

As she walked past the table on the way to the garage, her eyes fell on the discarded newspaper. “Oh my God. I know that house.” She grabbed the paper. “Jake, isn't that Melissa Coop's house?”

Jake took a granola bar from the pantry and squinted at the paper. “Might be.”

“It is! Oh my God.”

“Meagan, calm down.” Her father took the newspaper back. “The family was okay. I promise we'll find out who's behind this.”

She was still shaken as she got in the car and drove to school. Jake was unusually quiet, not complaining about her taste in music or the way she drove. He drummed his fingers against the door handle, and then picked something out from his nails.

“I can't believe someone set Melissa's house on fire,” she said when they were halfway to the high school. “I mean, what do you think? Didn't you ask her out?”

“Yeah, but she turned me down.”

“I wonder if she'll be at school today.”

“Don't know. Like I said, she turned me down when I asked her out. I really don't know if she'll be there or not.”

“Doesn't it bother you that this happened to someone you know? Someone you liked?”

“Not really. I mean, she's fine, right?”

“The paper said they got out in time. It doesn't mention if she was hurt.”

“If she was, the paper would have said. They aren't going to let a moneymaker like that slip by.”

“How is the fact that she's injured going to sell a bunch of papers?”

But Jake was finished talking. He focused on the passing scenery, probably lost in his own thoughts. She looked down at his fingers still drumming on the car handle.

“Jesus, Jake! What happened to your hand?” A long red gash ran across the top of his hand, surrounded by several smaller cuts.

“Oh, that.” He ran his finger along the line. “Cut myself in the garage last night.”

“Doing what?”

“Fuck off. None of your business.”

“Excuse me for caring. It looks like you needed stitches.”

“Well, I don't.” He jerked the sleeve of his jacket down in an attempt to cover the gash.

Damn. And people said women were moody.

The rest of the ride to the school passed in silence and when she parked the car, Jake jumped out and hurried into the main building. Meagan shook her head as she watched him disappear in the crowd.

“You heard about Melissa's house?”

She turned to find one of her friends, Penelope, walking toward her.

“Yeah,” Meagan said, remembering Penelope lived across the street from the Coops. “Saw it in the paper this morning. Horrible.”

“I heard they lost everything.”

“I really hope they find the bastard who did this.”

“Me, too. Do you know if Jake saw anything?”

Meagan wrinkled her brow. “Why would Jake have seen anything?”

“I saw him outside in the area earlier last night. Thought he might have heard or seen something.”

She planned to wait until her parents weren't at home before confronting him, but even though they were out that night, Jake was, too. The next night they were all sitting down to dinner when a call came in about another fire. Her father rushed out to head to the station and the next time she saw him, he was in the hospital, hours away from death due to the injuries he'd sustained as a result of the call.

There weren't any more strange fires after that. Then again, she had to lose her father to get them to stop. She never thought it was a fair trade.