Reece
“I swear to God, if you post one more half-naked blog rant about him tonight I’m going to kill you myself. You won’t have to worry about Roman doing it first.” Okay, maybe it was a little mean, but Eli was driving me crazy. “So help me, if you try to crash this site one more time when I’m supposed to be off work, I’ll talk to Preston about all this shit.”
“But—” Eli seemed contrite, but I had to remind myself he’d looked sorry the last two times we’d had the same conversation.
“No. I’m done with it. I’ve had to cancel plans and rearrange too many things lately. I even have a kitchen now, but you’ve had me working such crazy hours that I’ve eaten fast food the last two nights. Houston is starting to pout. If I have to cancel his lasagna tonight, he’s going to be impossible to live with.” If that sounded too much like we were in a real relationship, I was going to ignore it.
Eli either missed the underlying tone of the statement or was too dejected to care. “You love him more than you do me.”
His pouting tone didn’t make me feel sorrier for him. “That only works when you’re sleeping with someone. Try again.”
“You’re no fun.” Eli sighed and sank back into the chair, surprisingly fully dressed. It was weird.
Between his normal photo shoot behavior and the bet, I’d gotten used to him running around in just panties. Watching him walk into my office in jeans and a T-shirt made me want to cross myself and start planning for the apocalypse. “Because I’m tired. I’m serious, Eli.”
I was promised a forty-ish hour work week, not sixty-ish.
“I’ll behave.” He gave me a sincere smile, but I was too smart to fall for it—again.
“Just wait a few days. Then you can post again. By that time, I’ll have everything updated and we’ll be able to host a Ticketmaster event without crashing the site.” Preston had finally given the okay for an even bigger upgrade than we’d initially planned. There was no way around it.
Traffic to the site was twice what it had been even three months before, and he knew it was due to Eli’s almost daily rants. If Eli’s gawkers were just looking, then Preston would’ve had more issues with the problems, but Eli’s fans were buying what Preston called spoils of war to support Eli in his fight with Roman.
When Roman said Eli was a moron for taking bets from online strangers, Eli crashed the site again and sold out of the panties he’d been wearing when he made his ranting video post. When Eli had gone on to win the bet—that I still didn’t think Roman really understood—his followers had donated almost five thousand dollars to the LGBT youth center to protest Roman.
I was just tired of all the insanity.
I had a beautiful kitchen waiting for me and a sexy man who was desperate for me to cook for him, and I was stuck cleaning up Eli’s mess. “No more posting after hours. I don’t care how much you’ve had to drink or what Roman said. I’ll freeze your blog at night if I have to.”
I sounded like a parent grounding their teenager, but that was kind of how I felt. My “teen” was in the middle of a bad breakup with a guy he wasn’t even really dating, and we were all suffering because of it.
But if those two didn’t get their shit together, I was going to lose my mind.
Eli finally sat up, insulted. “That’s just mean.”
“You’ve forced my hand. If you’d followed the rules, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” I was officially my mother.
“But—”
“Nope. I’m done.” Yup, I distinctly remembered hearing that come out of her mouth as well. “Now, I am going home, and so are you. Stay off the computer. Find something on TV and order in takeout. No blog posts or pictures or work or anything else you’re juggling. Take the night off.”
As many hours as I worked, it always felt like Eli was doing more, so he had to be burning the candle at both ends. He must have finally understood I was serious because he slouched back in the chair and nodded. It was frighteningly un-Eli-like, and taking him to the doctor was not off the list. Maybe he was coming down with something.
Yup, my mother.
It couldn’t have been my dad, who would have told him to suck it up and move on. Shaking my head to get the mental image of my parents out, I stood up. “Go home.”
Forcing him to stand, I herded him to the door. As we walked through the studio, Eli finally started to look better. “Netflix and a pizza from that new place sounds good.”
“The one with the weird toppings?” We’d gotten menus for a new pizza restaurant dropped off earlier in the week, and some of the combinations had been startling.
“Yeah, I’m going to try something new.” His smile widened. “If it sucks, then I’ll have ice cream for dinner.”
Eli had the metabolism of a hummingbird; some days I hated him. “Sounds like a perfect dinner. If the lasagna turns out, I’ll bring in leftovers tomorrow if I can wrestle them out of Houston’s hands. I put stuff in the crockpot this morning to make homemade sauce, and it’s probably driving him crazy.”
Eli laughed and waggled his eyebrows. “You’ll enjoy wrestling him for it.”
That was not the point. Ignoring the comment, I headed over to the stairs and started for the front door. When Eli started to detour toward the main offices, I stopped. “Go home, Eli.”
He waved off my concern. “I just have a few things to do before I can go. Paperwork stuff, nothing on the blog, I promise.”
Eli seemed genuine, so I nodded. “Alright, but quickly, and then go home. You’ve been working too much.”
“I won’t make extra work for you. Not when you want to please your maybe-master.”
He sucked. “He’s not my anything. Just my roommate who I’m still trying to butter up so I don’t have to move out anytime soon. Big kitchen and bedroom and low rent, remember?” I did not want to move.
Eli laughed. “He’s so into you.”
“He wants a free dinner.” At least, that was all I thought he wanted.
“Go have fun with your roommate.” Only Eli could make that sound dirty.
Throwing up my middle finger while he nearly giggled in the background, I headed out of the office, pleased that he seemed to be back to his old self. I just needed one full night off with no crazy emergency calls from Eli or Preston about the site.
One night to hang out with Houston and maybe get to know what else he was into besides work and the gym…like bondage, discipline…hobbies like that.
****
Houston met me at the door. “It’s going to have to be against the rules to leave something like that in the kitchen all day. The smell is distracting.”
I just laughed. The funniest part was how serious he was. “I’ll keep that under advisement.”
He huffed and started heading back to his office. “Are you sure I’m going to get lasagna tonight? That’s what you said about the stir fry and the soup.”
“You had the soup.” I was the one who’d gotten the short end of the stick on that one.
He turned, frowning, and if it weren’t for his sheer size and generally dominant personality, I would have said pouted. “But you’d promised biscuits to go with it.”
Trying not to smile, I just nodded. “Everything should be fine at work.”
It had to, or I was going to kill Eli.
Houston snorted and shook his head. “I’ll believe that when I see it. You seem to work for morons who have no boundaries.”
Some days I would have to agree with him. “The major upgrades aren’t going to take much longer. After that, it’s mostly going to be maintenance and reorganizing the site a bit to make traffic flow easier.”
He nodded, but clearly didn’t believe me at all. “I just hope they’re paying you adequately for the additional work you’re being required to do. A little bit of unpaid overtime is one thing, but you’ve gone well beyond that.”
Not exactly, but I wasn’t going to say that when he had that look on his face. And since he wasn’t my Dom it wasn’t lying. Hell, he probably wasn’t anyone’s Dom. “I’m working it out with Preston.”
Well, he’d said to keep track of the overtime and he’d tack it on to my vacation hours. So far, I could probably travel to Australia and spend two weeks exploring the outback and not run out of leave. I just hoped he didn’t come to regret it when I actually used the days.
Before I got to use my PTO, something had to be done about Eli and Roman. They were just miserable.
“Make sure you get any deals in writing, Reece. Verbal contracts are not sufficient when working out delicate matters.” Houston must have thought something sounded off because he kept going after a short pause. “Money matters and things of that nature.”
We’d been talking about finances, so he shouldn’t have felt the need to clarify that. Right?
“He emailed me the details, so I think that should work as a contract. If it were something more…personal, I’d make sure to have a contract written out in person. Sitting down to go over…the details is important.” Sure, we were talking about finance.
Houston gave me a long look, and for a moment, I thought he’d say something. But he finally nodded and changed the subject. Was I reading him wrong? Was I just seeing things because that’s what I wanted to be there?
Probably.
“I’ll be out to help you in just a minute. I need to finish a few things up. There probably isn’t a lot I’m qualified to do, but I can clean.” He was serious, but I just grinned. Yes, he could clean.
“Thank you.” Houston didn’t seem to understand what was funny, but he didn’t question what he probably thought of as my insanity. He cleaned more than anyone I’d ever met. I didn’t seem to drive him crazy, even when I put something away in the wrong spot or accidentally left stuff lying around, which I was grateful for. It was just distracting.
I’d leave my keys in the kitchen or on top of the dryer, and he’d go behind me, putting them away where they belonged. Remembering to look for things where they were meant to go was hard. I was supposed to walk all over the house looking for my keys, not just to the table by the front door. His goal seemed to be to keep me organized, but it felt like he was trying to take care of me. It made keeping my distance even harder.
“Yes, Sir” had already slipped out entirely too often, and I was eventually going to say something stupid if I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that he wasn’t a Dom.
Actually remembering to set my keys on the little table where he preferred, I headed toward the kitchen. Houston always did the dishes when I cooked, so there was nothing to clean up, but I took a few minutes to get organized and check the sauce before I got started with everything else.
The slow cooker recipe wasn’t my personal favorite, but it was what I’d had time for, so I tried not to worry. Houston was going to love it. He’d been eating jarred sauce, so there was really no comparison, anyway. Adding a few last-minute seasonings, I turned off the pot and started getting everything out.
Houston’s voice coming from the doorway startled me. “Is there going to be leftover sauce?”
He laughed when I jumped and scowled at him. “Make more noise.”
“Sorry.” But his devilish grin said he didn’t feel bad.
Giving him a frown, I set the eggs on the counter. That could have made a mess. “A little, why? I usually make several batches at one time, but this slow cooker isn’t that big.”
“Just curious.” He walked over to the table and sat down. “I’ve been smelling it all afternoon, and I’ve got a list of things it would probably taste wonderful on.”
“There should be enough to go on a pizza later this week or something like that.” Maybe even a baked ziti or spaghetti. My mental wandering was stopped by Houston’s low moan.
Fuck.
“That sounds delicious.” He licked his lips and gave me a long look. “You sure it’s not too much work for you? I don’t want you to spend all your extra time trying to please me.”
Food, he was just talking about food.
“It’s fine. I…um, I like…cooking for you.” If he wanted me to get the recipe right, he was going to have to stop doing that to me. Distracting me was one thing, but the way he watched me put crazy images in my head.
It’d clearly been too long since I’d subbed, or just fooled around with someone, because turning away from him and going back over to the counter was harder than it should have been. Focus. I needed something to get my mind out of the gutter…or the dungeon, in my case. “How was work today?”
He gave a dissatisfied grunt. “I was looking at taking on a new client. He wants to do an internet startup and needs help with his business plan. I asked for his research and copies of what he has so far. All I got were photocopies of Starbucks napkins and a crazy mind-map type drawing that I think I remember doing in elementary school. Nothing that makes sense, and he’s really not understanding why that isn’t going to suffice.”
Chuckling, I glanced back at him. “Napkins?”
“Yes.” Houston sighed dramatically. “Little notes everywhere. It might be a good idea, hell, he might change the internet, but I can’t understand enough to make sense of it all.”
“What did he say when you told him to redo it?” I gave Houston a sideways glance. “Because I know there was no way you danced around the topic and said it nicely.”
Houston laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I just snorted and waited for him to keep going. Finally, he grinned. “Alright, so I might have suggested that he put some time and effort into really planning the business if he wants it to succeed. Then I gave him some tips. I was very helpful.”
“So you gave him tons of homework and fussed at him for turning his assignment in half-done? I had teachers like you in school.” I grinned as he chuckled but didn’t deny the comparison. “I’m betting it was a very long list.”
“Several pages—and then I sent him a bill for wasting my time.” Houston shook his head. “He was just trying to get someone else to do all the work for him. I made it very clear up front I was not designing his business or finding a new job for him. He chose not to listen.”
“Do you think he’s going to follow instructions and actually get back to you with real information?”
“Possibly. With some people, it’s hard to know if they’re just looking for…help or someone to actually take control. It could go either way; I’m still trying to figure it out.” His voice was odd, and glancing over, I saw he was giving me a curious look.
I smiled at him. “You’ll figure it out. You take charge well enough that I’m sure you’ll have him straightened out in no time.” The curious look continued, and I fought the urge to look down and see if my zipper was open.
His response came out in a steady voice, but something about it made me want to squirm. “I’m hoping I will.”
I was saved by the phone.
We both jumped as the buzzing got louder. Pulling it out of my pocket, I quietly cursed as I saw the name come up on the caller ID. Trouble. Eli’s new nickname in my contact list. Swiping my finger across the screen, I didn’t even say hello. “What did you do?”
His screaming voice came through the speaker. “That asshole said he was glad I finally put on some fucking clothes but trailer trash chic wasn’t the right sort of look for the office!”
Good god, they needed to fuck and get it over with.
“What did you do?” My voice was rising, and I started to hear the ping of notifications coming through, one after the other.
“Well, I told him what he could do with his goddamned attitude and I showed him!” Eli’s screeching voice had me pulling the phone away from my ear.
“Damn it, Eli!”
I could almost see Eli waving his hands, losing his marbles. The yelling wasn’t as bad, but he was nowhere near calm. “It wasn’t that bad, but now I’m getting weird error messages and some kind of host error and my computer is screaming at me. Preston’s losing his shit!”
“I’ll be right there, but this is the last time!” I was going to kill him.
Hanging up, I quickly glanced at the phone, mumbling every curse word I could think of. Preston’s string of expletives made me wince, and I could only imagine how crazy he was. From what he was texting, it seemed like Eli had blasted “that ass” and had gone on a rampage, getting everyone so stirred up the site just hadn’t been able to handle the load. “I told him this would happen.”
Grumbling, I looked up at a confused Houston. He just looked down at the phone, frowning. “I’m not getting lasagna, am I?”
“I’m sorry.” I started cleaning up as fast as I could. “The site is down again, and I have to go fix the mess. I’m going to have everything updated next week, but there just hasn’t been time. Everything was so outdated.”
“You go. I’ll clean this up.” He looked so understanding, and the command came through clearly, but I knew he was disappointed. I had a feeling it wasn’t just about the lasagna, either. He’d been doing his best to give us a chance to get to know each other, but every time we started talking, Eli struck.
“Thank you.” I bit off the “Sir” that constantly tried to escape.
Running out of the kitchen, I called out as I grabbed my keys. “I’ll make you the lasagna this weekend, promise.”
Houston was grumbling something as I ran out that almost sounded like punish and spank. I knew I had to be wrong, but there wasn’t time to ask what he was actually saying. The company did tons of business overnight when most people were off work and in the privacy of their own homes, and every minute down was lost revenue.
Eli was going to owe me big-time.