She grinned at him. “I’ve seen you work and I’m not sure they much mind.”
“Yes,” he replied, not grinning and not looking like that was something that pleased him.
She found that concerning, this prompting her to ask, “Is everything okay?”
Again bluntly, and without hesitation, he answered, “Although I’d do anything to erase what happened to you, and being the man I am, selfishly not wanting to live the powerlessness it made me feel and the remorse I experienced after not having read one single thing on Kevin so I could have saved you from that, I envy you one thing.”
His words made her heart warm.
Yes, Stellan was a good guy.
“And what’s that?” she queried.
“The break.”
She raised a brow. “The break?”
“From the scene. I never thought I’d admit this, but it’s beginning to get boring.”
She grinned again. “Big, bad Dom needs a challenge.”
“I need something,” he murmured.
Evangeline leaned into her desk, her forearms crossed on top of it, and assured quietly, “You’ll find it, Stellan.”
“Perhaps,” he replied. “And perhaps not.”
“I think, maybe if you open your world a little bit, you’ll be surprised.”
To that, his dark brows went up. “Not hunt at the Honey?”
She sat back and shrugged. “There are subs out there who don’t belong to the Honey.”
“Not any who deserve to grace my playroom.”
She bit back a laugh. “You’re such a snob, Stellan.”
“I’ve worked hard for that distinction, Evangeline.”
To that, she smiled at him.
Her smile faded a bit as she felt her face get soft when she said, “Thank you for coming. Thank you for the reason behind why you came. This conversation might not have gone as you would have liked. But I still appreciate the thought behind it.”
“You’re one of the few worth it, Evangeline,” he returned. “Unfortunately, you don’t like to be tied down with your nipples clamped while I make you enjoy taking my cock up your ass, you prefer the other side of that coin, or I suspect you’d definitely be opening up my world more than a little bit and doing it for some time.”
“I think that’s a high compliment,” she teased.
“There’s no ‘thinking’ about it, sweetheart,” he returned smoothly.
“Again, I’ve seen you work, Stellan. You’re very right.”
“I know.”
That bold arrogance bought him her laughter and she watched his sensuous, full lips tip up, exposing openly he enjoyed it when he did.
Seeing how much more handsome he was smiling, she again wished she’d have that from Branch.
But she didn’t linger on that thought too long.
She’d made a decision and she was all-in.
Win or lose.
* * *
That night when she walked in her kitchen door, she didn’t know what to expect, seeing as Branch’s truck was at the curb but their conversation that morning had gone the way it had.
However, in a million years, she wouldn’t have expected him to meet her right at the door.
And right after she’d cleared it, before she’d even closed the door or put down her purse and attaché, he was in her space, his hands cupping her face, his head descending.
And he kissed her deeply.
She bowed into him, dropping her attaché and purse to the floor, rounding him with her arms and giving him freely what he was already taking from her mouth.
His hand slid into her hair, his other arm going around her, he bent her over it, deepening the thorough kiss, launching her straight to the heavens.
When he broke contact, she was excited, dazed, putty in his arms, open to him forming her into anything he desired.
She hazily caught his gaze to see he didn’t look even close to the same.
“All right?” he whispered.
Evangeline had no idea what he was asking.
But she sensed he needed something from her, and as with anything Branch needed, she had only one answer.
“Yes, honey.”
His hand gliding from her hair to the side of her neck, his forehead dropped to hers.
And that was when the haze cleared and she understood.
During his call that morning, he’d given her a great many cherished things.
And he’d kept from her things that she couldn’t know because she didn’t have them, but they could be far more precious.
And he knew it.
But more, he knew she did.
So he also knew she could think on all of that and come home having made a decision.
It was in her power to end this game a different way, asking him to walk out her door, something she knew, for her, he wouldn’t hesitate to do.
And he didn’t want that.
God, he didn’t want that.
For him, not wanting that might include the words “not yet.”
But he wasn’t done.
And she was far from done.
So she had more time.
More time.
Exactly what she needed.
She just hoped like crazy she had enough.
“Flatbread pizza with my secret special something that will make you think you died and went to heaven,” she whispered to take him out of a moment that he was probably not enjoying as much as she was.
“Secret special something?” he asked, not lifting his forehead from hers or loosening his hold in any way.
“Green olive tapenade and sun-dried tomato pesto brushed on the base before I add the sauce and toppings,” she answered.
Branch finally lifted his head away, but only an inch.
“Now that you’ve shared that, do you have to kill me?” he quipped.
“I hope not,” she replied. “I like seeing you tied down to my bed too much and who would give me good advice after they listened to me bitch for an hour?”
His gaze was soft and his thumb was moving, stroking the skin under her jaw. “You didn’t bitch for an hour.”
“Probably felt that way to you,” she mumbled.
“Forty-five minutes, tops,” he returned.
She grinned.
His look grew softer when he caught it.
But all of a sudden, his head came up, he looked over hers, something crossed his expression and he jerked up his chin in what appeared to be an alpha-man greeting.
He then pulled her into the kitchen, bent, picked up her things and closed the door, tossing her purse and attaché to the counter where she always threw them.
And her stomach grew warmer.
Because that was exactly where she always threw them.
“What was that?” she asked when he turned her way.
“Your neighbor just got home and she likes to watch,” he answered, striding by her.
Ah.
“Jane,” she informed him. “She’s sweet but she’s nosy. Her husband took off on her a few years ago. He got his strumpet, and according to Jane, a not-very-nice apartment since she took him to the cleaners. Obviously, she also got the house.”
Branch was at the fridge pulling out the lavash bread and mumbling, “Mm-hmm,” when she stopped speaking. Since she didn’t start again, or move, he kept his body aimed to the fridge, only turning his head her way, and declared, “Hungry, babe.”
She threw him another grin. “I live to serve.”
“Unh-unh,” he replied, straightening from the refrigerator with the bread, pepperoni and the ball of mozzarella she’d asked him to buy (and her stomach got even warmer) in his hands. “That’s my gig.”
With that, she walked up to him standing in her open fridge, got up on her toes and kissed his throat.
And when she was done with that, she rocked back on her heels, let her eyes roam his head, shot him a big smile and whispered, “I approve of the hair.”
She saw his lips qui
rk, took that gladly and walked from the kitchen.
She needed to change.
Then she needed to feed her man.
And after that, she needed to do whatever she had to do to dig in deeper.
All-in.
In all ways she could be.
For the win.
eighteen
Promise Me That
BRANCH
Branch felt the bed move slightly as Evangeline slid away from his body.
He then felt her fingers working at the ties on his wrists, his ankles, and finally her hand fell light on his ass as her hair glided over the skin of his back and her lips were at his ear.
She touched the plug with her jewel planted inside him and whispered, “Baby, I’ve got that meeting this morning. Need to take care of you.”
“Leave it,” he grunted, not moving except to curl his arms around her pillow and pull it to his chest.
As he did this, he felt her curls skate across his skin as she moved away.
She had an early meeting that morning but he’d returned late-ish from drinks with Ol and Clay the night before, finding when he woke her as he’d joined her in bed that she was in the mood to play.
He had not said no.
In fact, often while she went at him, he’d said fuck yes.
Now he’d had little sleep but the sleep he’d had he’d done with his balls empty, his cock jacked and his ass full so that sleep had been good.
And he wanted more of it.
She twisted the plug slightly, that drove through his dick, and he opened his eyes half-mast and slid them up to her to see she liked the idea of leaving him plugged.
“Unless you intend to do something about it,” he mumbled into the pillow, “don’t make me hard.”
“You’re already hard, Branch.”
Morning erection with his ass full.
Fuck.
“Then don’t make me harder,” he demanded.
She stroked his crack.
“Angie,” he growled his warning.
“Is my big boy sleepy?”
“You feel playful, baby, wait until your big boy recuperates and he’ll give you the show you deserve. Now I’m still wiped from what you gave me last night.”
She grinned.
So fucking pretty.
Her hand trailed over the cheek of his ass to the small of his back and she bent deeper, touching her lips to his jaw before she pulled away. “Sleep well, honey.”
He gave her a look that was contradictory to the sweet her words made him feel before he turned away from her. He yanked the bolster out from under his hips and hitched up a leg so he wouldn’t call her back because lying on his hard cock meant he needed it to have her attention. This effort made moot because his movements brought his attention to her plug up his ass and it felt fucking great.
She kissed his shoulder and left the bed.
He watched her walk to the bathroom, her purple nightie barely covering her ass.
His dick responded to that too.
But not enough to stop him from sliding back into sleep.
* * *
Showered, shaved and wearing nothing but the comfortable, stretchy pants that hung loose on his hips that Angie had given him after she’d come home from shopping with Amélie a week ago, Angie’s bed made, his jewel cleaned and sitting in the nightstand where she kept it, Branch walked down the stairs.
He found the kitchen as he always found it when he slept in and Angie had to leave before he woke up, the last three and a half weeks since their uncomfortable phone call about texting grocery lists.
The kitchen was tidy and there was a big, square, neon Post-it note fixed to the coffeemaker that he knew was set up for him to flip a switch, and within minutes, he’d be caffeinated.
The note could say anything. When she intended to be home that night, if she was cooking, if she wanted him to cook, leaving him a list of shit she wanted him to pick up at the store, leaving him with vastly different instructions, or just saying good morning and telling him to have a good day.
He went to the coffeemaker, tore off the Post-it and flipped the switch.
Then he read the note.
MBB,
Recuperate well, honey. You left me in a certain mood. Get yourself fed. I’ll text when I’m on my way home tonight and then I want to find you in the studio, like you always wait for me.
I’ll see you then.
Can’t wait for my show.
Have a great day!
xxx E
It was Branch in a certain mood after he read the note, even not having a clue what was to come because Evangeline wasn’t about routine. She liked to switch things up even if she clearly had a few of them she liked to repeat (like tying him down on the bolster). She also had a vivid imagination.
So he didn’t know what was to come, he just knew without a doubt he’d get off on it fucking huge.
He also had to stop himself from thinking about it at all because just thinking about Evangeline wanting him in the studio waiting for her, which meant she wanted to find him naked, ass to the door, draped over her horse, was making his dick start to stand at attention.
Though she usually ordered it after they’d come home and had downtime. Not before dinner.
And he wasn’t big on missing dinner with her.
For her, though, he’d do it.
As he crumpled the note in his hand and threw it in the trash, Branch was able to make himself stop thinking about it.
He’d received intensive training in a variety of skills.
And in the last three and a half weeks, he’d found he’d acquired a new one.
That being the ability to stop himself from thinking about a number of things.
Especially the fact that, the longer he let this last with Evangeline, the more deeply he was perfecting the art of being a motherfucking asshole.
They’d found their rhythm. Food. Sleep. Sex. Play. Communication. Relaxation.
Fuck, the last two weekends he’d helped her with laundry and had run the damned vacuum over the rugs covering her wood floors.
And he hadn’t done it as her sub. He didn’t get off on that kind of play anyway but it wasn’t about that because he sensed she knew that, so it wasn’t that she’d asked.
He did it because the sheets he’d put in the washer, he was sleeping on, and the rugs he was vacuuming, he was walking on, and she was cleaning a house he was living in, he’d been around when she was doing it, so he’d helped.
In the last three and a half weeks he hadn’t once slept in his own bed, going to his condo only to change clothes, but he had a razor at her place, shave cream, a comb.
They lived their lives and they lived them together, sharing time, sharing space, sharing a bed.
Sharing everything.
Including their first fight …
No, not a fight.
An argument.
Something that started with him reminding her she hadn’t bought the motion sensor lights he’d told her to get and her blowing him off, saying, “I’ll get to it.”
“What’d I say?” had been his response, to which—both of them engaged in preparing a meal in her kitchen because it was her turn to cook, but she’d asked him to grill—her eyes slid to him.
“It means something to you, I know that, honey, but I’ve been busy.”
He’d looked away, paying attention to the fries he was pouring in the basket of her deep fat fryer, stating, “Then I’ll get them.”
“They have to work with the house.”
He looked back to her. “Then buy them, Evangeline.”
“I will.”
“Tomorrow,” he demanded.
She shook her head. “I don’t have time tomorrow.”
“Then tomorrow you’ll come home to what I think’ll work with the house.”
She turned to him, not hiding she was losing patience. “We’ll go out this weekend.”
Anyone out there he might not want to see him, see
ing her with him?
They would the fuck not.
“If you can’t carve out time to go to the store, look online,” he commanded. “When they arrive, I’ll install them.”
“I don’t have time to look online either,” she’d retorted.
“And again, I do have time to go out and get them so they’ll be up when you get home tomorrow, babe.”
“Just go to the store with me this weekend.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
Her mouth set and her eyes flashed blue fire. “Because you can’t be seen with me.”
He turned fully to her and stated simply, “Yeah.”
“And you can’t share with me why,” she kept at him.
“Correct again, baby,” he fired back.
She nodded her head repeatedly, still doing it as she looked down at the Asian slaw she was making, saying irately, “Then I’ll go alone. You just have to wait for the weekend. It’s, like, three days away.”
“And that’s, like, a month since I told you to get the fuckin’ things in the first place,” he returned, mimicking her speech pattern.
Her gaze shot to his. “Don’t be an asshole.”
“Already a motherfucker, beautiful. Well beyond an asshole. You know that and you still tie me to your bed.”
Her face arrested but she didn’t call him on a remark that was edging over the line.
She said softly, “You’re not a motherfucker, Branch.”
“You’re wrong, Angie.”
“You’re not. You’re mine.”
He shut his mouth.
“I’ll find time to go out and look tomorrow,” she promised. “But, honey, if I don’t find something I like, I’ll need to look online so it’ll take time for what I ordered to get here and I want you to be okay with that.”
What Branch wanted was not to see the hurt she was trying to hide in the backs of her eyes when he took them out of the easy they’d had, the easy he was giving her when he damned well shouldn’t, and reminded her exactly how it was between them.
What he also wanted was not to learn that she had a way with an argument and that was to nip it in the bud when it started to turn into something that could get ugly and cause damage they couldn’t fix.
Yeah.
He wanted neither of those things.
He wanted reasons to go.
Not more reasons to stay.
“I’m okay with that,” he grunted.