I kissed him. “What I wanted tonight was to get you off.” I settled back on the other cushion. “Mission accomplished, I’d say.”
“But I…” He held my gaze. After a moment, he rested his hand on my thigh. “Then all you have to do is say the word when you want me to get you off.”
“Believe me.” I touched his face. “I know.”
“Haven’t had too many Doms who like sucking cock,” he said, still slurring a little.
“Their loss.” I kissed his cheek. “There aren’t many things hotter than a man who’s getting a blowjob and isn’t allowed to come.”
“Except you let me come this time.”
“This time, yes. But not every time, if you recall.”
He nodded vigorously.
“Thing is, I’ve known a few who think blowjobs are for submissives.” I draped my arm around his shoulders. “I happen to disagree. It’s just up to me whether I do it because I want to get you off, or because I want to torture you by not getting you off.”
“So I see.” He studied me. Something in his expression faltered slightly, as if he were starting to see through the fa?ade. There was only so long I could keep hiding it, so I took the direct approach. Sort of.
I squeezed his shoulder. “Listen, I’m sorry I’m still ‘off’ tonight.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He kissed me and smiled. “We’ll get back to the kink just like we did before, after work bogged you down for a while. I’m not going to complain about this part.”
It was supposed to be reassuring, but it hit me right in the gut. Right in that knot of guilt and disgust.
I could still please him. Physically, anyway. But what about when he wanted me to top him again? When he wanted the Dom he’d signed up for in the first place?
As Rick laid his head on my shoulder, and we held each other in the lazy afterglow, I felt even worse than I had in the conference room this afternoon.
Well, Mitchell. I’m keeping him happy…
*
In the NSFW Zone the next day, the banter continued as it always did, and it kept me somewhat grounded while I worked. The crew didn’t even realize how much they kept me in the here and now instead of letting me drift into freaking out about my bosses and the man they wanted me to keep fucking.
Or how difficult it was to even think about fucking him with all this hanging over my head. I couldn’t even tell if my Dom side had anything to do with it. Dom or not, this guy did not take kindly to being treated like a prostitute. Sex with strings attached wasn’t fun, especially not when those strings felt a lot like puppet strings.
I shuddered.
Glancing around the room, I fought back the queasy, paranoid feeling that was trying to settle in my gut. Teagan knew what was going on. No one else did. I was certain if I so much as opened my mouth, it would all come spilling out and everyone would know.
This wasn’t even the paranoia I’d had when we’d first slept together. When I’d been convinced that I’d walk in the office and everyone would just know. This was more like the time, back in my much younger days, when I’d smoked a little too much weed the night before work. Though I’d been coherent when I came into the office the next morning, the buzz was still there, and I’d spent my whole fucking shift being convinced someone would drag me down to HR, tell me to piss in a cup and send me packing for being a druggie. I hadn’t smoked after that. Lesson learned.
But this wasn’t a panicky paranoia that could straighten me up and make me change my ways. All I had to do was slip up slightly, and someone somewhere would know that Mitchell & Forsythe was forcing me to continue my relationship with Rick. Someone somewhere would know that last night, I could barely keep my dick hard, never mind please him. Someone somewhere would know that I was losing my shit, falling apart and had no idea how to fix it.
But that was crazy. No one had any reason to suspect anything. I was just going insane because…because who wouldn’t be going insane in my position?
I laid down my X-ACTO knife and dug some change out of my desk drawer. “I’m going to grab a soda. Anyone else want anything?”
“Bring me back a beer,” Cal piped up.
“Yeah right,” Bianca said. “As if you’re old enough.”
“Hey!”
Even that couldn’t get a laugh out of me. As I started for the door, Teagan met my gaze, and the unspoken Are you okay? was loud and clear. I broke eye contact and kept walking.
On autopilot, I made it to the vending machines. After a good minute of staring at the options—none of which had changed in the last five or six years—I settled on a Coke. A Red Bull would just make me too jittery, and the last thing I—
“Hey.”
My heart dropped into my stomach, and my stomach dropped into my feet.
Rick. The last person on earth I could face right then. But what choice did I have?
Shame and guilt burning in my throat, I turned around. “Hey.”
“How are you?” He lifted his eyebrows—it wasn’t just benign small talk. After last night, I supposed he had every right to be concerned.
If you only knew…