Perception (27 page)

Day
Five…

Monday

Tossing
and turning as the dream pulled her deeper, no matter how hard she tried,
Mercedes couldn’t force herself awake so she let it consume her.

The
clock on the wall read just after five when Mercedes stepped into her condo.
Having just finished with a rather intense meeting with a pain in the ass
client, she was ready for a little downtime.

More
than ready.

Glancing
around, she noticed that everything seemed the same as when she’d left early
that morning. Her housekeeper had come by, but that was the only evidence that
anyone else had been there.

But
there was someone else who was supposed to be waiting for her. Because she’d
instructed him to before she’d left that morning.

Xander
would be there. She knew it.

Because
that’s what he would do. He would follow the rules to the letter, do exactly as
she instructed. Without question. Without argument.

It
wasn’t real. He wasn’t a sub. But she was sure he’d play the part because that
was what they’d agreed to.

Of
all the subs she’d taken in the years she’d been a Domme, Xander would be by
far the most obedient, even if he’d only been acting as her sub for just a few short
hours.

For
whatever reason, his unerring ability to please her was starting to drive her a
little crazy. First it had been a phone call, his easy ability to call her
Mistress. And the emails from him, letting her know what he was doing and where
he was going.

He
was the perfect pet. Compliant, obedient, always agreeing. She knew she should
be counting her blessings, but found even that difficult because this wasn’t
Xander. The man whose body had become that of a subservient submissive lacked
something.

Emotion.

Then
again, she was pretty sure Xander did that on purpose, although she would never
accuse him of topping from the bottom. He knew what she wanted, what she
expected. And vice versa. They’d been friends long enough that they understood
each other that well.

During
their brief few days together, Xander had allowed her to explore a part of
herself that she hadn’t known still existed. He had driven her to want things
she swore she didn’t want. But it was him. Only him who made her want these
things.

But
today was supposed to be the day that everything would change.

For
both of them.

Quickly
ridding herself of the killer heels she’d been wearing for the last few hours,
Mercedes snatched them up in her hands before carrying them into her bedroom.
When she stepped into the master bedroom, her beautiful sub was kneeling on the
floor facing the door, his glorious body on display for her. She shut the door
with a gentle click to alert him of her presence and then let her eyes roam
over him.

His
hands rested on his thighs, his cock semi-erect between them. His collar, the
one she’d surprised him with just that morning, was around his neck; a thick,
black leather collar that fit him perfectly. She’d left it on the dresser
before she left for work. Another point in his favor – he’d found it and read
the instructions.

The
only other things on Xander’s incredible body were the nipple piercings and the
magnificent tattoos that decorated his otherwise perfect skin.

As she
moved slowly across the room, she could see the word “Trust” tattooed on his
side, following the rigid line of muscle that arrowed down toward his groin.

“Have
you been there long?” she asked as she moved toward the bathroom.

“No,
Mistress.”

She
didn’t say anything more even though the fact that he’d referred to her as
“Mistress” should have thrilled her immensely. Just like every other time he’d
said it throughout the day, it sounded hollow, and that bothered her.

Instead,
she left him kneeling while she went through the oversized bathroom to her
closet. Once inside, she put her shoes back in their place and then proceeded
to change clothes. Her office attire wouldn’t do for tonight. She had an image
to uphold after all.

Twenty
minutes later, she ventured back into the bedroom, completely dressed. On the
other side of the room, lying on the top of her dresser were the clothes she’d
personally picked out for him to wear to the club tonight. After retrieving the
pair of leather pants, a black t-shirt which would be removed as soon as they
were inside, and his black lace-up boots, she returned to where he was still
kneeling on the floor.

Before
she asked him to rise, she admired him some more. Hell, seeing him on his
knees, doing exactly as she’d instructed was heady enough, but the idea that he
might be doing it solely to please her made her burn for him.

Sub or
not, Xander truly was the most immaculate male specimen she’d ever seen.
Without an ounce of fat on his body, the man weighed somewhere near
two-seventy-five, give or take a few pounds. At six-foot-six-inches, he was
massive, and Mercedes, not being one of those slight, skinny women, appreciated
every single inch of him. In comparison, she felt incredibly feminine and
sometimes even fragile when his arms were around her.

 “Stand,”
she instructed as she set his clothes on the bed next to where he was kneeling.

When
he was upright, Mercedes moved in close, letting her body brush slightly
against his nakedness. Even at five-foot-eight-inches with her five inch heels
adding even more to her height, Mercedes had to look up into Xander’s eyes.

The
heat she hoped to see reflected there would’ve made her body warm another
degree, but that’s not what she saw. No, what she witnessed in Xander’s
beautiful green eyes was a void, as though he couldn’t think or feel for
himself unless she told him exactly what to do.

She
wasn’t fond of that look.

Their
previous conversation rang loud in her head.

“Remember
that night at Kink when you volunteered to let Mistress Desiree demonstrate on
you because no one else had the balls to do it, how did that make
you
feel?”

“Like I
was in someone else’s body.”

That’s
exactly what it was. He was somewhere else, but his body was there for her
taking. He was doing as she wished, but his heart wasn’t in it.

Did
she expect it would be?

Pushing
the question out of her mind, she slid her hands, palms down, over his taut
stomach, up over the thick planes of his chest and then around his neck,
pulling his head down easily until her mouth met his.

“I
missed you,” she whispered before pressing her lips to his. The kiss rapidly
escalated, and Mercedes had to force herself to pull away from him. “Get ready,
and we’ll leave in a few minutes,” she told him as she planted another short
kiss on his lips.

“Yes,
Mistress.”

That’s
what she heard when he called her Mistress... Absolutely nothing. The word was
right, but it was hollow.

Needing
a moment to herself, Mercedes left the bedroom and headed to her guest bedroom
where she kept her toys. She’d also stashed a few things she’d retrieved just
that morning from Xander’s personal dungeon.

She
wanted to add a couple of things to her bag tonight, toys she knew he had in
his vast arsenal, the ones she’d eyed when they had previously visited his
dungeon. Not that she needed any other toys for Xander because she’d already
stocked up from her own collection, choosing exactly what she thought would
make him lose his mind.

And
that’s what she was going to do. She’d only been anticipating it since the day
they’d made their deal. To prove to him that she wasn’t what he wanted her to
be. She was a Domme.

Not
wanting to waste any more time, she grabbed the items and made a beeline for
the front door. It was time to do this.

Mercedes
woke with a start, glancing around the room to find herself alone.

Holy
crap.

Covering
her eyes with her hands, she tried to calm her breaths. She was slowly going
crazy, and that dream wasn’t helping.

It’d only
been four days that she’d been practically glued to Xander’s side, pretty much
handing herself over to him on a silver platter yet that dream continued to
torment her and had since the first night she slept in his arms.

She could
close her eyes and still see how incredibly handsome Xander looked with her
collar around his neck. But it had been his responses in the dream that always
tripped her up night after night. Every time, she expected to see something
different, but it was never there. It was like he was just a shell of himself.
Like his body was there, but someone else had entered the right response, the
right actions, hell, the right way to breathe into his brain, and that was all
he knew how to do.

Sighing,
she rolled over to her side.

Was this
a sign? Was her subconscious telling her that she couldn’t do this anymore?
Being a sub was… shit. It was confusing is what it was.

The dream
seemed surreal, sort of like a premonition. She couldn’t help but compare her
own responses to Xander’s domination against the dream version of Xander and
his responses to her. There were no similarities. She seemed suited for
submission, while he… did not.

There was
no way to deny that her body was eagerly anticipating Xander and his commands.
She burned hotter and brighter than ever before when she gave herself over to
him completely.

But she
had a difficult time accepting her desire to submit. Especially considering
what she’d been through as a child. The hell that her father had put her
through every single day of her life. She didn’t want to get herself in that
position ever again. Never could she allow someone else to have that sort of
control over her.

It didn’t
feel that way with Xander, but the fear was still close, coming to the surface
with every passing minute.

“Let
her go out with her friends, Phillip,” Priscilla argued while Mercedes stood
just around the corner, watching her parents in their kitchen.

“I
told her no,” Phillip yelled. “I don’t want her out of the house.”

“She’s
sixteen. She needs to spend time with her friends.”

“She’s
too stupid to have friends,” Phillip screamed and Mercedes flinched as though
she’d been slapped.

Too
stupid? Had her father really called her that?

Sure,
he’d called her many names before – pest, tramp, pain in the ass, not to
mention some much, much worse. But stupid?

She
made straight A’s; she didn’t miss school, didn’t even ask to stay home when
her temperature had been over one hundred, and she had been throwing up all
night.

She
knew better. Her father would’ve stayed home, keeping her right under his
thumb, telling her to quit faking it, to grow up. And if that didn’t work, if
he didn’t get the reaction he wanted, he would hit her.

Never
did he spank her like she’d heard some parents did to their children when they
were bad. No, he back handed her. Once he had even punched her in the stomach.

Just
like he did to her mother.

And
that’s what made this situation all the more surprising. Her mother was
standing up for her. She was sixteen years old and for as long as she could
remember, Priscilla had never stood up for her against her father. Not once.

But
here Priscilla was, standing up to her father, a gleam in her once pretty gray
eyes.

“Let
her go out,” Priscilla said through gritted teeth, shocking Mercedes with her
boldness.

“Fuck
you,” Phillip argued. “She’s staying right here. Until she turns eighteen. Then
she can do whatever the fuck she wants. She can go out and fuck the defensive
line for her school’s pitiful excuse for a football team for all I care.”

What?
Mercedes couldn’t believe her father was saying such disgusting things. She was
a freaking virgin.

“You’re
too hard on her,” Priscilla said, that eerie glow still in her eyes.

“And
you’re a pitiful excuse for a human being,” he barked. “But I fucked you once
and you fucked me for the rest of my life. So this is what you get. But don’t
worry, the day she turns eighteen, neither of you will see me again.”

“I
hate you!” Priscilla yelled.

“Not
nearly as much as I hate you,” Phillip growled.

Mercedes
didn’t stick around to listen to more. She turned on her heels just in time to
hear the loud smack that she’d been waiting for. He’d hit her mother. Again.

As she
closed her bedroom door, Mercedes took a deep breath. It wouldn’t last long,
she knew that much. Even abusing them took too much effort for Phillip. Instead,
he would leave her mother lying on the floor wherever she fell. And once
Priscilla pulled herself up off the ground, she would head to the medicine
cabinet to find something to alleviate the pain.

That’s
how it always happened.

 
Mercedes
blinked, and the room came into focus.

God, she
hated thinking about her parents. She wanted to scream at them for all they’d
put her through. It was their fault she was the way that she was.