sitting there. He held my cel phone in one hand, the screen
flipped open. I hadn't heard it ring.
"What are you doing?"
Austin slowly closed my phone and set it on the desk. He
stood. He was too big for my room, too.
I wished I'd taken the time to pul on my robe. A towel
didn't seem adequate protection against the way he was
looking at me. I grabbed for my nightgown, but it had
tangled in itself when I threw it on the floor, and I couldn't
tangled in itself when I threw it on the floor, and I couldn't
easily slide it over my head.
"You got a message," Austin said. "While you were in the shower."
"Since when are you alowed to listen to my messages?" I
yanked the cotton into place and tugged it over my head.
With it covering my face, I closed my eyes, wishing when I
opened them I'd discover this was al an inconvenient
dream.
"A text message," he said.
I yanked the nightgown down on my shoulders and glared.
"Since when are you alowed to read my messages?"
I stalked to the desk and grabbed up my phone but didn't
look to see who'd caled. I cradled it to my chest, though,
the metal chil through the cotton. Austin didn't move.
"Wel?" I demanded. "What the hel, Austin? Who the hel do you think you are?"
"Apparently, I'm nobody," he said.
I'd braced myself for anger, or accusations. A message
I'd braced myself for anger, or accusations. A message
from Kira or my mom wouldn't have bothered him. It had
to have been from Eric, though I hadn't told him to send
me anything.
"I have to ask you, Paige. Is that what you want?" He
gestured at the phone, but since I didn't know what the
message had been, I couldn't answer.
I refused to look now. "You'd better leave."
Austin shook his head. "Answer me first. I think I deserve
an answer."
"I don't owe you—anything." My voice tore on the last
word and I shut my mouth tight to keep from breaking
totaly.
"Is that what you want?" he asked again, lower now.
To my horror, I saw he wasn't angry. Austin was close to
tears. I'd never seen him cry, not even when the dog he'd
had since toddlerhood had died. I'd watched him bury that
dog without a tear. But now…now, he was almost
weeping.
I had done this to him.
I had done this to him.
I didn't need to beat his ass with a belt to hurt him.
I felt like the worst kind of bitch.
"Is it what you like? Is it what you need?" He looked
helplessly at the headboard, where his hands had left no
marks. I looked, too. We didn't need scratches in the
wood to remember how he'd clutched it.
"I…think…I don't want to talk about this," I gasped out
around tears of my own.
Austin had seen me cry plenty of times. If my tears moved
him, he didn't show it. "Talk about it to me. I want to
know."
He paused, moved forward. Reached for me, though I
backed away.
"Please," he said.
I shook my head and covered my face with my hands, so I
didn't see him getting on his knees in front of me. I only felt
the thud as he hit the floor and the warmth of his hands as
he grabbed my hips. I couldn't look, not even when he
he grabbed my hips. I couldn't look, not even when he
pressed his face to my pussy and whispered my name, his
breath hot through the cotton. I didn't want to feel the wet
of tears against my skin. I wouldn't look, not even when he
inched the fabric of my nightgown into his fists and kissed
my bely, then my thighs.
"Tel me," Austin said. "Is this where you want me?"
A strangled sound launched itself from my throat. I tried to
take a step back, but his hands held me in place. He
kissed me again, slow and lingering. Heat and wet against
my cunt. Heat and wet against my thigh as he turned his
face to press against me there.
my knees for you any time you want it. I'l let you do what
you want. If you tel me what you want me to do, I'l do it.
Whatever it takes, remember? Just…tel me. Please."
"I want you to shut up and go," I said as best I could
without breath. It had stuck in my throat, too, my world
spinning dizzily as I tried to draw in more air. "Just go,
Austin!"
"If that's what you want." He stood and his hands slid up
"If that's what you want." He stood and his hands slid up
my body to pul me closer to him.
My nightgown fel back down, but it was no protection
against him. His belt buckle pressed my bely. The denim
of his jeans scratched my bare legs. I had my hands
between us, pushing at his chest, and he snared them both
in his. Too late, I realized I would have to look at him
now.
"I love you," Austin said. "Don't you know that?"
I opened my mouth and he kissed me until I turned my
face.
"You don't want to know it," he said.
"We've been through this before," I whispered. "It doesn't work with us."
"I want it to work. Things are different now. Aren't they?
I'm different." He paused and tugged me half an inch
closer. "You're different. You know you are."
But I hadn't wanted him to know.
"We weren't al bad together," he said.
"We weren't al bad together," he said.
I looked at him again. "We weren't al good together,
either."
"I want to be with you. Not just to fuck you once in a
while. Again, serious. You and me. I'm wiling to try."
I almost said yes. But then I said no. "Leave."
"Whatever it takes," Austin said, and kissed me until I
couldn't breathe.
I didn't walk him to the door. I waited until I heard it close
behind him before I looked at the message on my phone.
It was from Eric, as I'd thought.
If I were with you right now, I'd be on my knees for you.
Your slave. I'd worship you. I wish I could be with you
right now.
It's easy to look back and blame a lot of things on
circumstance, and I could blame what had just happened
with Austin for my response to Eric. But I'l own what I
did. I answered him.
I think it's time we meet in person.
I think it's time we meet in person.
Then I wiped my face and refused to cry anymore.
Chapter 31
"Paige, I need you to come and stay with Arty next week
while I go away for a few days." My mom, for once, didn't
start with any sort of preamble.
I didn't stop to think about why she was asking, just that
she was. "Stay at the house?"
"Yes." She sounded tired and cranky. "I need you to be here to get him on the bus in the morning. He has that
after-school program until you can get home from work."
"What time does he get on the bus?" Already I was
calculating excuses, thinking only of the torture of having to
stay in my mother's house for any len
gth of time.
"Eight. Plenty of time for you to get to work. And it's only
five days, Paige. Sunday through Thursday. I should be…
I'l be home on Friday."
Her assumption that I'd put my life on hold to do this
rankled. I was already in a bad mood from my fight, if you
could cal it that, and I did, with Austin. My mind was on
other things, like meeting Eric and teling him the truth
other things, like meeting Eric and teling him the truth
about me and his unknown her and what would happen.
"Where are you going?" I asked. "It's not like I can just drop everything, Mom."
"I'm going away for a few days. To a spa," she said
defensively. "Some me time."
I gritted my jaw and turned off the heat under my pan of
reheated spaghetti. I wasn't hungry for it, anyway. "You
couldn't have let me know sooner?"
"They had a last-minute opening. Don't argue with me
about this, Paige."
Her tone, the one she'd used often on me as a child, set
my teeth on edge even more. I dumped the pasta onto a
plate and slammed it onto my table, but I didn't sit to eat it.
"What if I can't?"
My mom's voice cracked. "You have to. I don't have
anyone else to take him, and he loves you. You're his
sister. I need you to do this for me."
The tremor in her voice slammed a door on my anger. "Is
this about Leo?"
this about Leo?"
"Why would you say that?"
"Because you lived with him for five years, Mom, and you
guys just broke up. You have to be upset."
"I am upset. Very upset." She paused. "Yes, it's about Leo. He…he's taking me away. To try to work things out.
It's last-minute because he just got the time off and this
place had an opening. So we're going. I know it's late
notice, Paige, but I don't have anyone else to ask."
I stil wasn't happy, but I was the last person to stop
anyone from trying to repair a relationship. Helping out my
mom might, in some way, redeem my lack of effort with
Austin. Or not. In any case, I sighed and puled out my
calendar from my purse. "What days, again?"
She told me. "You could come for the weekend, you
know. Friday night. We could spend a few days together
before I go."
"Don't push it," I told her. "I've got stuff going on, Mom. I can't just pop over and hang out and get home in ten
minutes."
"You think I don't know that?"
Shit, now she was crying. What was wrong with me, that I
made people around me so upset? "Mom. C'mon."
"I miss you, Paige! I'm sorry! I'm sorry I don't have a big,
fancy house like your dad does," she said more meanly
than I'd ever heard her in my life. "I'm sorry we don't meet
your standards. But it's what we have, and you didn't turn
out so fucking bad, did you?"
I might have shouted back at her, except I was tired of
fighting. With Austin, with her. With myself. So I said
nothing and after a few moments of tense silence, my mom
cleared her throat.
"I need to leave the house by 8:00 a.m. on Sunday. Be
here before then, please."
I held back a groan and reconsidered staying over the
night before. Which would be worse, a Saturday night in
my mom's house in Lebanon, or having to get up at ass-
crack o'thirty in the morning? "Fine. I'l be there."
"Thank you," she said stiffly, and not like my mom at al.
"Thank you," she said stiffly, and not like my mom at al.
"Arty wil be thriled."
That was the saving grace to it al. That my little brother
would be happy to see me. I didn't miss living in Lebanon,
and I didn't miss living with my mom, but I did miss being
close enough to see them more often. I'd spent a lot of
time taking care of Arty when he was a baby and a
toddler. He was as much my child as he was my brother.
"See you then." I didn't quite manage to sound happy.
"I love you, honey," my mom said, and like the bitch-brat I was, I hung up without answering.
Austin didn't cal me, and I sure as hel didn't cal him. Eric
didn't cal me, either, a fact that pleased me less. I knew
why—I'd nudged myself out of the top spot in his pecking
order. It would have been funny if it wasn't also sort of
sad.
It did prove one thing, that whatever we had, or almost
had, it wasn't exactly what he was looking for. The
question I couldn't stop asking myself, though, was could I
give him what it appeared he wanted, ful-time? And
would he want it from me when he found out it was me?
Most of al, did I want to become in real life the woman I'd
created in those letters?
I took my pen. I took the paper, the soft, fragrant, special
paper. I only had a couple sheets left. Maybe I wouldn't
need more.
My mom said she'd be back Thursday, a week from
today. I had Eric's schedule for the month. He worked that
night, as wel as the folowing Friday and Saturday.
Sunday, then. A little more than a week. That would give
me plenty of time to prepare.
You will reserve a room at the Harrisburg Hilton for
Sunday night. When you check in, you'll leave
instructions for the second key to be left for me, under
the name Rose Thorn. You will be in the room and
ready for me no later than three-thirty. You will bring
with you a bottle of your favorite lube, a box of
condoms and a copy of your medical records
guaranteeing your clean bill of health. Once inside the
room, you will shower and shave and smooth your skin
with lotion. I want you clean and smelling of lavender
and mint. You will wait for me wearing only the
bracelet I gave you. Kneel by the bed. When I come in,
bracelet I gave you. Kneel by the bed. When I come in,
you may address me at once and show your
appreciation of my presence by kneeling at my feet.
It didn't sound quite right. My words lacked a certain
rhythm and delicacy, but they were al I had. Eric liked
flirting with public displays of his submission, and he'd have
to give up some of that to the clerk to whom he gave my
name. But he'd be outing me, too, and I wasn't sure how I
felt about walking up to a perfect stranger and caling
myself Mistress anything. Stil, I guessed it was time to try
to find out if I could play this role for real.
"You gonna try for that new position?" Brenda had snuck
up on me, not difficult to do since I was lost in swirling,
deep-purple thoughts of fucking and sucking. I didn't think
that was the new position she meant.
"I don't think so." When in doubt, stal. It took me a minute to figure out what she did mean, but then when she cast a
pointed look at the buletin board on the wal behind me, I
turned. I scanned the papers tacked there and nodded.
"Oh. The marketing position? No. I already said I wasn't
interested."
This gave her pause. "They just put this up about ten
This gave her pause. "They just put this up about ten
minutes ago, P
aige."
Okay, so Brenda hadn't been one of their preapproved
applicants. I pretended to look more closely. "Oh, that
new position. No. I don't think so. I'm happy where I am."
She made one of those noises people make when they
don't believe you but don't want to come right out and say
so. "I think I might go for it. The salary is a lot better, for one thing. I bet the benefits are good, too."
"It's a lot of responsibility, Brenda." Together we left the buletin board to head down the hal toward our respective
offices, but paused in the halway crossroads. Maybe if I
was lucky Brenda would stop to summon a demon and I
could avoid further awkward conversation.
This early there wasn't much traffic, not even toward the
copy room or the break room, which always had
customers. She shrugged and shifted her purse over her
shoulder.
"I think I could handle it. Don't you?" Her eyes narrowed.
"They're looking for a few people, I heard. Not just one."
I laughed to put her at ease. "I'm realy not interested in it."
Some smal tension I wouldn't have noticed had it not been
so obvious when it eased lifted her shoulders. "I'm going to
do it. My sweetie says I should, anyway. He says he
wouldn't mind retiring a few years early."
That seemed like the last reason for her to take a new job,
but I kept my mouth shut. "Good luck."
"Thanks." She nodded and headed off, pausing for a
moment more. "Lunch, today?"
"I can't. I'l have to work through so I can leave early." I didn't explain further, though I could see her curiosity.
Paul, of course, was in the office when I got in. I dropped
my sweater and purse on the rack and powered up my
computer, then moved to the coffeepot to get that started.
The scent of coffee usualy brought him out from the cave
if he hadn't already caffeinated on the way to work, but
since I needed to talk to him anyway I fixed his cup and
rapped on his door.
"Paul? I need to—" I stopped just inside the door, at first convinced he wasn't in there, after al.
convinced he wasn't in there, after al.
He'd puled the blinds down al the way instead of just half.
The overhead lights, as usual, weren't on, but the table
lamp wasn't on, either. The only light came from the blue-
white shine off the computer monitor. I blinked, my eyes
adjusting, and the gleam of Paul's eyes made me realize he
was, indeed, sitting at his desk. He wore his suit coat, his
tie tight to his throat, his shirt startling and white in the