Sanctum (2 page)

Could she work at a club Ryan frequented? Could she watch him with his latest sub? His new sub would probably be younger and hotter. Way better looking and very likely thinner.

“Why the hell aren’t you with Keith?” He held up a plain manila folder. “Why would you need a job?”

She felt her eyes widen. He had her job application? “That’s supposed to be private. And what I do or don’t do isn’t your business any longer.”

“Oh, sweetheart, this application is totally my business. I am the manager.” He said the words with a deeply bitter huff.

“You own the club? I thought that big guy owned the club.”

“He’s my boss. I run Sanctum for him. I’m also the Dom in Residence. Why don’t you sit down, Jillian?”

She practically fell into the seat. Her head was reeling. “Why are you running a club? You’re a CEO. You own your own business.”

His face closed off, his eyes going cold and that sensual mouth of his flattening. When she’d been his submissive, this was the expression that would send her to her knees, her head down, palms on her thighs. It was an expression that told her he was very displeased. “I don’t anymore.”

“What?”

He opened the folder, his eyes looking down at the application there. “It’s not important. When did you leave Keith? I heard he went to New York. I assumed you went with him.”

She was expected to lay out her life story when he wouldn’t even answer a simple question? At one point in time, this man had been her comfort. Now she just kind of wanted to slap him. And that wouldn’t get her the job. “Like you said, it’s not important.”

His eyes came back up and her old Dom was right there, all dominance and willpower, and complete unwillingness to have his orders ignored. And then he was gone, his mouth turning down and his eyes finding the papers in front of him again. “You went back to work…seventeen months ago.” He took a long breath, and she knew what he wanted to ask.

The last time he’d seen her, she’d been getting into Keith’s car. She was supposed to go back to Keith’s mansion and continue her life as a rich man’s pretty slave. He’d thought she just wanted to be taken care of. She was sure he’d even patted himself on his Armani-clad back for being so kind as to find her a new keeper when he’d gotten bored with her.

She’d had Keith drop her at the bus station.

“It took me a few weeks to find a job, but I worked at The Steak House in Bend River for six months before moving back here. My references from there are excellent. I put the restaurant manager down as a contact. While I was there, I implemented a new POS system and managed to modernize the bar and the way bartenders communicated with servers.”

She sounded like a robot. This was her spiel, the one she gave all potential employers.
Look at me. I’m so great. You want to hire me, not those other people.

It was different when the potential employer in front of her was a man who had been inside her, who had taken her every way it was possible to have taken a woman.

Why did this damn job have to pay so well? She continued to talk about her past jobs, the words so rote by now that she’d memorized them. But all the while she was drinking him in. Now that she really looked at him, she could see all the ways he’d changed. He was wearing a T-shirt. He never wore anything but designer suits before. And his leathers. His face was harder, as though he’d lived rough the last year and a half. His hair, before so perfectly cut, was almost curling over his ears. She’d always known that hair would look like black silk if he hadn’t kept it so ruthlessly under control.

She finished her spiel and a heavy silence dropped over the room. The air suddenly felt thick and coated with the burden of their past.

“Do you honestly think you can work for me?” Ryan’s question was asked without a hint of inflection, as though he couldn’t care less about the answer, merely was required to ask.

He was going to turn her down. And why shouldn’t he? The whole time they had been together she hadn’t shown him a single instant where she’d been really competent and in control. “I think you should talk to my former employers.”

“Your work history is a whole seventeen months, Jillian. I need an experienced bar manager. You’ve only managed in small towns. This is Dallas. These are very wealthy people.”

You can’t do it
. Yeah, she got the message. And it had been dumb to think he would hire her. She should have walked right back out the door, but the idea of having health care in a couple of months and working shorter hours for more pay had made her a little crazy.

She’d also been attracted to the Sanctum job because she loved this lifestyle, and she’d been ready to put a toe back in. The fact that the reason she’d jumped out of the BDSM pool was sitting in front of her should tell her to stay out all together. Forever and ever. She stood up. “You won’t find a better manager than me. I would bet your waitstaff is almost entirely female and all submissive. If you hire someone who doesn’t understand the lifestyle, they won’t accept him. If you hire someone who does, he’ll likely be a Dom and he won’t really understand them.”

“So a Dom doesn’t understand a sub?”

She shrugged. “He can if he cares, otherwise, he’ll just use her and toss her aside. I can make those subs feel happy and supported. I can make the team cohesive, and I can run that bar like no one else. But you’re going to do what you want, and we both know that you’re not going to want me. Thank you for your time, Sir.”

She turned and started to walk out. Yeah, that “Sir” had been a little bitter. She’d kind of hoped she was over this. She’d stopped thinking about him every minute of the day, stopped dreaming about him every night.

Just as she got her fingers on the doorknob, she felt a hand on her arm and she was turned into Ryan’s big body. Wow. He’d been working out. A lot. His chest looked different in the T-shirt than when it had been hidden behind designer shirts and suit coats.

“Why do you want to work here? Did you find out I was here? Did you come back here for me?”

Yeah, he would think that. God, she’d been pathetic, giving him everything she had and never asking for anything. She’d been so stupid in love with him that she’d nearly given up her identity. “I had no idea you were here. Do you want to know why I’m looking for another job, Ryan? Because I’m working at a strip club right now. It’s the only job I could find when I got here, and I needed the money. The ‘gentleman’s club’ I work at is shockingly light on gentlemen.”

“What?” The question came from between clenched teeth. “Strip club?”

Wow. He still got that tic over his left eye. When he got really upset, a vein over his left eye started to spasm, and she knew she had to soothe him. Her hand moved as though she had a muscle memory of how to fix the problem. She used to run her hands over his face and kiss him from his forehead to his chin, and slowly he would calm down.

“Jillian.” He breathed her name. He was so close. So close. Her whole body responded to him, her nipples hardening and her pussy beginning to soften, ready to welcome him home.

She remembered how he’d looked at her and calmly explained that she would go with his friend. He’d uncollared her and handed her over to another man.

Tears in her eyes, she stepped back. “I need to get to work. Good-bye, Ryan. Best of luck with the rest of the interviews.”

She managed to get the door open this time.

“You’re hired.”

She didn’t turn around, couldn’t look at him again. Damn it. She should walk. This was a bad idea. She couldn’t work for him. Fuck all, she was still half in love with the man and she knew she hated him too.
Walk out. Show him you don’t need him.

Except she did. All of her sister’s medical bills were piling up, forming a little tower on her bar that she might never be able to climb. Ashley wasn’t ready to move out on her own. She had to take care of her baby, and they were both counting on Jill to feed them all.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
“When do I start?”

“Tonight. Do you have to give notice at that place?”

She turned to face him. She would have to do it a lot if he was her boss. God, he was her boss. How the hell was she going to manage that? “No. They don’t expect much there.”

His jaw tightened and that tic started up again. Did his current sub know how anxious he could get? Did she calm him and offer him peace? Did she sit in his lap and kiss him and hold him? Did she give him his favorite Scotch and rest her head on his chest while he relaxed?

He nodded. “Good. Fet wear only at night. I ordered for this week, but you’ll have to do an inventory before next week. We do parties on occasion, and we have one coming up for a VIPs birthday. I’ll fill you in later.”

Ryan sighed heavily and ran his hand across his face, his thumb massaging his left eye. He sat back down behind his small desk and she couldn’t help but wonder again how he was here. What had happened? Why did she still want to go and sit in his lap and comfort him?

“All right. I’ve worked plenty of parties.” She stood in the doorway feeling more awkward than she’d ever felt. She needed to walk. But she stood there. “Thank you, Sir.”

The saddest look crossed his face. Pain and weariness and regret were all painted right there. “I’ll see you tonight. Don’t go back to that club, Jillian. If you need something from there, I’ll send someone over. All right?”

The fact that he framed it as a question slammed into her. Somehow, someway, he’d remained her Master in the back of her head, but he wasn’t. He was just her boss. If she had half a brain she would walk away, but she couldn’t. “All right. I was going to clean out my locker.”

“Joe can do it. Consider it a part of your compensation package. You’ll also have an escort to and from your car every night.” He flipped open his laptop. “That is not negotiable. It will be in your contract. Taggart insists on it for all female employees.”

Taggart. As in the owner. Not him. “All right. I’ll be back at six thirty.”

“Five. Staff meeting is at five and it’s catered. Don’t worry. Taggart takes care of that too. No sandwiches. It’s pure five star around here.”

Her stomach nearly groaned in joy. She and Ashley had agreed that paying the bills and making sure Emily had formula was more important than their bellies. She’d been living off ramen and mac and cheese for months. “Thank you.”

He nodded and looked to his laptop, obviously dismissing her.

She turned and walked out, totally sure she’d just made a mistake and completely unwilling to take it back.

Jill looked up from her paperwork to stare out at the dungeon. From her little bar home, she could see the stage area of the dungeon, a slightly elevated space where the club ran major scenes. It was dominated by three St. Andrew’s Crosses mounted to the back wall and normally held any number of nasty apparatuses, from sawhorses to spanking benches. But today, all of that had been shelved in favor of folding chairs and a PowerPoint presentation. It was the start of Dom Kindergarten, as she liked to call it.

“Adam? Do you need some coffee? Because you’re snoring.” Ryan was not amused.

She couldn’t help the grin that slid over her mouth. Ryan actually looked totally hot when he was not amused. Three weeks into her new job and she was already obsessed with the boss. He was standing there in his leathers and a white T-shirt that he would take off in a few hours in favor of a leather vest, and all she could do was count the hours until she could see his chest again.

“Damn, that man is hot.” Joe set a case of vodka on the bar. “Too bad he’s celibate. I thought he might play for my team for a while, but I’ve tried everything on him. If he’s not attracted to me, he couldn’t possibly be gay.”

Jill rolled her eyes. Joe was sure every hot guy who walked in was gay. “I can assure you, Ryan is not gay.”

Joe’s dark eyes flared. It really was an affront to women everywhere that he only liked other men. He was a hottie of the first order, as her little sis would say. “Then the rumors are true. You two have a history.”

Shit
. How had that gotten out? She hadn’t talked to anyone. “I knew him a little from before.” She was a horrible liar. The words started to roll out of her mouth like a snowball picking up steam and crap along the way down a mountainside. “I mean, I saw him a couple of times. You know. From afar. Uhm, we used to work in the same building, and I would get coffee and he would be at the florist getting flowers and stuff…”

Joe snorted a little, incredulity plain on his face. “That man hung out at a florist?”

“They were very masculine flowers.” She bit into her bottom lip, hoping he would let it drop.

“So you were sleeping with him,” Joe concluded.

“Fine. We had a relationship once. We don’t now. End of story.”

“Really? Because I don’t know if that story is over. When you’re not looking, he does that ‘longing stare’ thing. Oh, it’s all properly dominant, but he looks at you like you’re a juicy steak and he’s been on a vegan diet for a month.” Joe sighed. “I did that once for a boyfriend. Tofu. The things we do for a little sex.”

She’d done way more for a little sex. A lot of sex. Loads of filthy, gorgeous, amazing sex. She’d had two lovers before Ryan, but nothing compared to him. She hadn’t really understood what making love meant before she’d found her way into his bed.

Sex. They’d had sex. She’d given up her identity for a little sex.

“What do you know about him?” She shouldn’t ask the question, but the temptation was just too great.

Joe leaned against the bar, his eyes narrowing as though he was trying to figure out just how much to tell her. She couldn’t blame him. She was new, and the club was a little family. They protected their own. “I know he seems to be a good guy. He’s been fair with all of us. He’s a good Dom, but he doesn’t have one sub in particular he likes more than the rest. I don’t know. The guy’s a bit of an enigma if you ask me. He holds himself apart.”

He always had. The whole time they had been together, he’d always been the boss. She would talk to his employees and they were always intimidated by him. Even when they used to go to staff parties, there was a piece of Ryan that had been untouchable, as though he’d warded and placed walls around himself. He would be pleasant, charming even, but the essential Ryan Church had been saved for when the doors closed and they had been alone. Then Ryan had been true.