I'd thought I needed a face and a name to make things better. Instead, getting both those things had only made everything worse. Those things dropped a bomb, blowing everything into outer space. Things would never be the same. They couldn’t be. I was too embarrassed, too confused, to ever be able to act “normal” around him. I would always be the out-of-control sex addict who needed someone to restrain me and tell me what do to in order for me to feel like I had any sense of worth.
Hours passed before I realized that I was still trying to fit into his guidelines. Just to spite him, I found an extra hair tie in a drawer and pulled my hair into a low, messy bun to keep it out of my way. It had nothing to do with him. Not really. It was my way of proving to myself that I was the same as I had been before him.
From what I knew, John didn't show up at the hotel on Mondays anyway so it wasn’t like I was doing it for him to see. Yet it gave me a jolt of happiness, knowing that I was defying his command to keep my hair down.
After finally getting through my pile of emails, I had a list of people to call back and things I needed to update in my files for upcoming events. Staring at the list, I had no desire to do any of it. I couldn’t get John off my mind. It was just too much for me to push aside. It was like a dream and a nightmare combined and I couldn’t find my way out of the confusing, painful mess that everything had become.
Rapidly tapping my fingers on the desk, I tried to think of a way to prove that I didn’t need a man who played games with me in my life. I didn’t want a man in my life, but somehow or another John and Master had found loopholes in my security. They might be one and the same, but in my mind they were two totally different people. John was the physical version of my erotic dreams while Master was the emotional support and path maker. Master wouldn’t let me fuck him with my eyes for months on end. Master wouldn’t have smiled with a hard-on catching me masturbating. In my mind, John wouldn’t have been able to handle a crop or spank me the way that Master had. John wouldn’t have kissed me with such a soul-searing kiss or held me so close as I whispered my deepest secrets.
John was the man who was always too good to be with someone like me. Master was the man who knew how to dig through the shy, shamed exterior I’d built around myself to find the sexual, needy woman beneath. I’d never felt as complete, as at ease, as I did when I was in Master’s care. John was a man I’d made up numerous theories and ideas about, but in reality I knew little to nothing about the man. Hell, I’d barely learned his name.
No matter how many times or ways I looked at all that I knew, I couldn’t combine the two men. They were too different to be the same person until I knew more. I had to find out more somehow.
As if beckoned by my thoughts, John walked up to the receptionist’s desk as I lifted my eyes. He wasn’t supposed to be at the hotel. He wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near me. Even if I thought I was finally starting to find some semblance of understanding of the whole situation, I wasn’t ready to have a face-to-face meeting with the man who had thrown my world into a whirlwind in more ways than one.
Chapter 22
John
Alix finding out who I was hadn't happened anywhere close to the way I wished it had. I had slipped away for a few minutes to answer a phone call from a client. In that time, she must have awakened. When I’d returned to the room, I’d been so completely thrown off and surprised to find her standing directly in front of me, barely coving her delicious, nude body with a jacket, that I hadn’t been able to think quickly enough. Even though I had run through how I would explain things and make her understand, the pain in her eyes had made me pause too long. By the time I was able to stumble through any sort of explanation she was done waiting. The shove to my chest as she left had felt more like a bullet than her delicate hand. Pain exploded within my mind and chest as she disappeared from my life. I wasn’t ready, I’d never be ready to lose her.
Somehow I’d managed to gather enough of myself together to rush after her. Even though I may as well have been bleeding out from losing the only thing that mattered in my life, I clumsily tracked her to her car to make sure she was safely away from the club — away from me. As her car escaped my line of sight, I collapsed to the ground, clutching my chest. All the time I’d spent with Alix, everything I’d learned about her, the small details of my life I’d never shared with anyone, but some how managed to let Alix know — everything the two of us shared — flashed through my head making the loss of her shatter every wall I’d ever erected to protect myself. None of it mattered. Not without Alix. Not without the one woman who was able to put up with my dark side. The woman who snuggled deeper into my arms even after I enjoyed bringing her pain. The woman who wanted to experience me as a person more than knowing who I was.
What we had was more than words could express. It was everything you hoped to find in someone, everything someone like me thought they’d ever find.
And I had ruined it.
I was the failure. I let her down. I hurt her and that killed me.
When my legs and back ached from sitting on the asphalt in the parking lot, I pulled myself together enough to retrieve my keys from the club. Feeling as if I were in a cloud, I drove around the city for hours. No destination. No where to be. No one to console me. Worthless, useless…broken.
There was no other way to describe how I felt.
Long after the sun had risen over the city, I made a few circles around Alix’s block. Failing to catch a glimpse of her or any sign that she was even home, I went to the hotel. Dragging my feet, I pulled my sorry ass through the lobby. A sudden spark raced up my spine and I straightened as I glanced around.
There was the source. Alix.
Sitting behind her desk, looking like a beaming ray of sunlight, Alix stared at me with a look of shock mixed with anger. Her cheeks blossomed pink briefly before turning red as all signs of shock disappeared. Anger was the only emotion on her face as I walked closer to the window of her office.
I missed the needy look she normally cast in my direction when I returned home after a long day of work. Hell I already missed everything that was soft and inviting about her — that had been yanked away, only to be replaced with a hard, unyielding glare.
As I watched, she leaned back in her chair and a look that I knew intimately slipped over her features. Her plump lower lip disappeared into her mouth as her eyelids drooped to half-mast.
Clenching my hands tightly, I fought the urge to march into her office. My leg muscles tensed with the need to show her what happened when she blatantly broke my rules. Inside my head, I reminded myself repeatedly that it was no longer my right. She wasn’t mine anymore. The reminder sparked the pain that had been momentarily forgotten.
Her head collapsed back onto the chair as her rapid breathing made her breasts strain against her suit jacket. Before I even realized it, my feet were moving on their own. Slipping into her office before kicking the door closed, I watched as her release rolled over her features. It didn’t matter that she hid it well, that it would appear like she was simply closing her eyes for a few moments. I knew what she had been doing. What she’d done.
Spinning her chair around, I grabbed her wrist before she could pull it from under her skirt — keeping it in place. Slowly, I dropped to my knees in front of her, bringing me to her level.