As much as she craved that, she also hungered for the other side of that mountain. Him removing the restraints, bathing her, brushing her hair, holding her against his body at night. Laughing with her, dancing with her. Sharing everything with her. He was the two sides of that coin, and she just wanted to spin with him, taking either side, whenever, however she could get them.

“Marcie? One more thing.” Jon stepped closer, tipped up her chin with two fingers. He held her in place with a firm, unexpected touch, pulling her out of her reverie. “Hugging my wife, affection, is one thing. But you want to touch her other ways, you need my permission. She’s mine. You understand?”

Wow. His unyielding tone was in direct contrast to the mild conversational attitude from before. It was potent, seeing the Master inside him up close and personal.

“Yes sir.”

He nodded, stepped back. When he retrieved his plate, took it to the sink, other things rose inside her, demanding to be said. “I know I’m out of control, irrational about some of this. I’ve planned this for a while, Jon, and now that the reality has kicked in, I’m following this feeling inside me. The more he tries to push me away, the more it tells me to push back. I know a lot of what I’m doing is wrong, but I can’t seem to calm myself down, make myself take it slower, especially now that I’ve opened the door.”

She’d raised a forkful of eggs, but the more she talked, the more her fingers shook, such that she put it back down, uneaten. That raw feeling was back.

Jon’s brow creased in concern. Coming back around the counter, he slid his stool closer. Picking up her fork, he nodded. “Open up.”

She gave a nervous laugh. “I can—”

“No arguments. Open up.”

She nodded, opened her mouth. As she chewed the first mouthful, he scooped up another, patiently waiting on her. “Breathe, and eat. No talking.”

She obeyed, because his calm command steadied her nerves. It was odd to have Jon feeding her, his thigh pressed alongside hers on the outside of the stool. As she ate, the knot in her stomach loosened. She realized suddenly, with mortification, that tears were trickling down her face. Putting aside the fork, Jon patted at them with the napkin, and then slid his arms around her. Before she realized it, he was lifting her, taking her to the couch to sit her down in his lap.

“Cry now,” he murmured. “Just cry.”

As if a dam broke loose, she did. Nerves and stress, pleasure and pain, all the memories of the previous night, good and bad, were rolled up into her sobs. She buried her face in Jon’s bare chest, held onto his dress shirt and wept. She wasn’t a crier. She really wasn’t. It astounded her, even as she couldn’t stop it.

Jon stroked her hair, her back, the line of her hip. He wasn’t infringing on what was Ben’s, but they all understood this. Ben should be sitting where he was sitting. When a Dom broke a submissive wide open for her very first time, it made her impossibly vulnerable. For a short period, she would be overcome by vacillating emotions, her body hot and cold, aroused and calm, completely unpredictable. The wilder and stronger the sub, the wider that pendulum could swing.

Her Master was the touchstone for keeping a handle on that, helping her find the center, calm down again. Since her Master wasn’t here, Jon would take care of it, at least in this moment. But he thought Ben was going to regret not doing it himself, because Marcie was as wild and strong as they came, fueled by the idealism of youth and the determination of an old soul, a lethal combination.

Faced with the choice of leaving her alone here, waiting for Ben to never show, or taking her to the office and letting her throw the gauntlet down, Jon decided he was taking her to the office. He hoped he wouldn’t regret it.

I’m going to fail sociology. The professor blames everything from cockroach infestation to pimples on corporate greed. I’ve explained to him that corporations are run by people, which means they’re as diverse and generous as whoever is managing them. I also pointed out that since individuals are the largest source of donations in the country, if they don’t have jobs, which corporations provide, they can’t donate. He said I was a corporate drone. He was probably sitting on his ass in his office when you guys were trucking in supplies to Gulfport, MS, after Katrina. Do you still make that industrial spray foam at the Costa Rican plant? I want to fill up his Prius like a cream horn.

Letter from Marcie, sophomore year

I’ll ship you a case of it. Remember to wear gloves and don’t leave fingerprints. And burn this letter. Morons like that don’t realize a good teacher teaches you how to think for yourself. Their job isn’t to impose their own agenda.

Ben’s reply

Chapter Seven

When Marcie walked past Janet’s desk, she could tell from her expression that the admin was surprised to see her. So he’d told Janet she wasn’t coming in.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” she said. “I’m just checking on a few things.”

Janet gave her a handful of pink message slips. “He’s on a conference call right now in Matt’s office. They’ll probably be in there for an hour or so.”

Good. Maybe her stomach would move down from her throat and back into its proper area by then. All she’d been able to handle were those eggs. Jon had packed up the leftover toast, tucking it into a sandwich bag with a small jar of the jam. He’d suggested she eat some of that later. A nurturing Dom. He and Rachel were perfect for one another.

Marcie pulled out the document she’d been unable to finish yesterday and got to work. Her concentration was for shit, though, so she stopped to return some of the messages. She answered the calls on her feet because her ass still hurt enough to make sitting uncomfortable. But other symptoms concerned her more. Remembering the concern in Jon’s eyes as he held her, she wondered at it herself, how shaky she felt today. Her nerves were on high alert, her body vibrating like a hummingbird. She did carry a personal massager in her purse. Maybe she should take the edge off?

That vibrator stays in the nightstand drawer until I say otherwise. She shivered deliciously at the memory, the look on his face as he issued the order. He kept switching between taking over all her decisions, and wanting to cut her loose. It gave her hope and drove her crazy at once.

Her intercom buzzed. Janet. “Yes?” Marcie asked.

“Mr. O’Callahan says to use the pillow on the top shelf of his closet.”

“Did you tell him I was here?”

“No, I did not.”

“Jon told him?”

“Mr. Forte isn’t in the meeting.” Janet’s tone suggested she would very quickly tire of twenty questions. Truth, the woman was kind of scary, so Marcie thanked her and clicked off. How had he known? Was he pissed? Had she messed things up?

“Stop it, Marcie,” she muttered. “Get a grip.”

Going into his office, she found the pillow on the top shelf. When she brought it down, she couldn’t help herself. She pressed it to her face, inhaling his scent. She imagined him using it, the long, powerful body stretched out on the office couch. He’d kick off his shoes, probably shrug out of his shirt, and then flop down, one arm casually hooked over his head, studying the ceiling as he ran through the details of whatever had kept him late enough to decide to sleep here.

Now she visualized herself curled against his body, her head propped into the valley created by that raised arm. Her fingers would play with the light mat of hair across his chest as she gazed up into that strong face. Those beautiful green eyes would shift to her, studying her from such a relaxed position. She imagined waking up together. They could pull all-nighters together, because of course she’d love to work as part of his staff, his investigator.

She wrapped her arms around the pillow, hugging it to her. Folding herself down on the couch, she rested on her hip so she didn’t aggravate her abused buttocks. Just a quick second to lie here, where he had been. He didn’t sleep long hours, she was sure. There was such incredible energy to him.

She remembered the way he’d played with the younger kids on the evenings or weekends when they all got together. He was tireless, wrestling with Nate, racing the girls on their bikes, hauling the younger ones around on his shoulders in the pool. Some of her most intense early masturbating fantasies had to do with the way his broad chest and shoulders looked with beads of water rolling down them. The way the sun played across the dark silken hair that arrowed down to his waist.

He wore those modest oversized shorts that most guys did for a swimsuit, but she preferred to imagine him in far more fitted swim trunks. Ones that would cling to his ass and groin like a second skin when he hefted himself easily out of the pool on strong arms, one of her siblings clinging to his back.

If he was lying behind her now, she’d feel the hard planes of his body, that impressive groin pressed up against her ass. He’d cup her breast, play with the piercing jewelry as he dozed and she got more aroused, until she was squirming against him, rubbing against his cock, waking him up on several levels. Of course he’d probably grumble at her for disturbing his rest, threaten to punish her. Push her down under the blanket so she had to service his morning erection. Maybe he’d let her use her hands, to cup his muscular ass, stroke the taut lines of his thighs.

Her lids were drooping. She really had slept poorly last night. She needed to get up, finish that work. Hold it all together, even though she was afraid everything was falling apart. She was just so tired… If she had a nap, she’d be better off. She wasn’t going to give up, even if she had to go through a hundred days like the last two. Which would technically be two hundred days…

* * * * *

“It’s going to be a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, yeah, bitch, bitch. Stop being such a little girl about it. Think how much better production will be after the turnover.”

“We’ll lose about a million during the outage.”

“You could pull a million out of your ass right now. This will triple our investment in two years.”