Her bottom lip quivered, and tears slipped silently from the corners of her eyes. “Oh, Chase, you can’t… I…” She closed her eyes.
“It would be a permanent reminder of our relationship, not in the most accepted sense of a collar. You would still only submit to me the way you have been, in little ways during your regular life, and then sexually. It’s…” He paused and had to clear his throat. “It’s a commitment that we would stay together, that you would be mine.”
Her hand tensed in his, but she didn’t protest.
“But also that I would be yours,” he whispered.
He’d never wanted to have anyone else’s permanent submission, and he didn’t want a 24–7 Master/slave relationship. He wanted a more traditional romantic public life with her. Maybe someday involving wedding rings and even kids. But first, he wanted her to say yes. Wanted her to commit and know that she was more to him than simply his submissive.
She shook with silent sobs, as if he was somehow breaking her heart instead of the other way around.
“For fuck’s sake, would you say
something
?”
“I… God, Chase, I have to tell you… Take this.” She shoved the box at him as if it burned her skin. “Please,” she begged when he didn’t accept it.
With a sigh, he took the box from her and set it on the blanket beside him. “What? What do you have to tell me?” It must be the secret she’d been keeping from him. But what could be so horrendous that it was making her shake as she prepared to tell him?
She took a deep breath. “If you still want to give that to me after I tell you this, then…yes. I accept. I will wear it to remind me of your commitment, your dominance, and I will agree to a long-term relationship if that’s what you want.”
She’d say yes.
It didn’t matter what she had to tell him. Nothing could take away from the fact that she wanted him. He crushed her body to his, fusing their lips together and pouring the relief, the lust, the love into his hands and mouth as they devoured her.
“No. Chase. Don’t,” she said, pushing against his chest.
“Get your filthy hands off my daughter!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Elizabeth Leigh Johnson, get away from that deviant this instant,” her father snarled from somewhere behind Chase.
Liz’s stomach dropped, rolling in on itself and threatening to make her sick. Chase tensed with his arms still wrapped around her and his face an inch from hers. She saw the dawning realization in his eyes as he placed her father’s voice and her given last name. Emotions flickered through his eyes faster than she could follow them, but she was pretty sure she saw anger, hatred, and disgust among them. For her?
She wouldn’t be surprised. Couldn’t blame him, really. She licked her Mojave-dry lips and clutched Chase’s shirt where she’d seconds ago been trying to push him away. She was tempted to hide behind him, even without knowing if he would protect her. The urge was strong to let him, and the novelty of that idea, and the way she’d changed so much in the past few weeks, made her whisper, “And that would be part of what I was trying to tell you.”
“I said get away from him,” Senator Johnson threatened in a low, sinister voice.
She released her hold on Chase and blinked, trying to clear her eyes of the drying tears. She pushed back from Chase, and he let her go. She quickly rose to her feet and waltzed to her father, her head held high. “You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore, Father.” Her hand rose, heading for her earlobe, but it was captured midair.
Chase cupped her hand gently for a beat, then threaded his fingers with hers, lowering their joined hands to swing between their bodies as he stood beside her.
“You’re even more of a—”
“Shut up, Daddy,” she said, her voice low, controlled, and full of confidence. She hadn’t called him Daddy since she was very young, and he recoiled as if she’d slapped him.
“Do you…do you have any idea who that is?”
“I do. And you are going to stop your crusade against him and the people like him right now.”
“Like hell I am.”
“Chase?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“Grab my purse, would you?” She glanced at him over her shoulder with a sweet smile on her lips.
He raised his eyebrows, and she lifted her chin.
“Sure, baby,” he said, turning and grabbing her purse, then handing it to her. She slipped her hand free of his and opened her bag, then took out the thick manila folder.
“No wonder that things weighs a ton,” Chase said wryly.
At least he seemed to have some sense of humor left. She couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind right now. For the moment, he was standing by her. Figuratively as well as literally. Calling her sweetheart and baby in front of her dad had been a nice touch, a way to present a united front. Whatever happened between them, he was still trying to protect her. And in that instant, she’d never loved anyone more.
She opened the envelope. “This is a list of your constituents who disagree with your push for new zoning laws in the warehouse district.” She handed the thick stack of bound papers to him. “This is the list of your constituents who are members of the K Club, or clubs like it in the state.” She gave him that list. “Note my name at the top of
both
lists.” She grinned and leafed through the rest of the folder.
“Oh, yes, and this would be the list of public outrage and opposition to your crusade and the proposed bill.” That was an even larger stack.
“And let’s see. What else have I got?” She rummaged through the envelope. “Ah, yes.
This
is the list of your fellow senators who will be voting against your zoning bill, as well as a personal letter from several of them detailing what is wrong with your bill and why it will be detrimental not only to your district, but to theirs as well.”
With each stack, her father’s eyes grew wider, and he spluttered. After a minute, he regained some semblance of his composure and said, “Well, you may have stopped the bill in its tracks for now, young lady, but that doesn’t mean you and your deviant group of friends will have a place to go and debauch yourselves. I do believe the building will be up for auction in no time. Sooner, in fact, after I make a call.”
“Oh, right. That.” She risked a glance at Chase, who seemed almost as gobsmacked as the senator. “Now this…this is my personal favorite.” She reached into her back pocket and laid the unfolded check faceup on the stack in her father’s hands. “I do believe the full overdue loan payment might sway the bank in our favor. Especially since a member on the board also happens to be a new close friend of mine.”
She reached for the stack of papers and tugged them out of her father’s shaking hands. “So, if that’s all you have to say on the matter, I suppose this is good-bye. For real this time.” She swallowed the small kernel of hurt that bloomed as she said this. She didn’t need his approval. Didn’t need his love or affection. Didn’t need
him
if all he could do was drag her down, make her feel inferior and like a deviant. “I will be calling my mother after we’ve all had some time to cool off, and I expect you not to interfere if she would like to come and see her only daughter. You can’t possibly hate her enough to keep her from seeing me indefinitely, can you?” She didn’t think so. Despite all his faults, and there were many, she truly believed he loved her mother.
Her father’s face shut down. No emotion whatsoever. “Good-bye, Elizabeth,” he said, then turned and walked away.
That was when the trembling started, and she doubled over at the tearing in her gut. She’d finally done it. She’d stood up to her father and won. So why did it feel like she was breaking inside?
An instant later, Chase’s arms were around her, and he was lowering her to the blanket. She sank to her knees, clutching him with desperation, sobs racking her body.
“Shh, sweetheart. It’s all right. It’s over now. It’s over.” He rocked her gently, stroking her hair, holding her tight in his arms, almost constricting her. The pressure helped, his soothing murmur of words against her ear calming the vicious pain inside her until it was more of a dull ache. After a few minutes of being locked in his arms, her breathing and heart rate slowed, and she stilled, the lack of adrenaline leaving her exhausted. She took a deep breath, and he moved back from her so he could look at her face.
She flicked her gaze down, focusing on his forearm instead of his eyes. She didn’t know what he was thinking, and she couldn’t be positive if her breakdown had been about her father leaving, or if it was more about knowing Chase was standing there listening to her detail the lengths to which she had gone to help him, and that she’d kept it from him.
His finger lifted her chin. She resisted for a moment until he said, “Elizabeth,” in that commanding Dom voice of his, and her gaze lifted to collide with his.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her voice was soft, almost whimpering. Nothing like the sizzling of confidence and contempt she’d had when taking down her father. Okay, maybe her plans had been more about a personal vendetta than she’d wanted to admit, but it was done now, and she couldn’t go back even if she wanted to. Chase stared at her in silence, still holding her, and she couldn’t tell which emotional response she was going to get, since his face was a mass of all of them.
Then he shook his head. “Did you… How the hell…”
“Surprise,” she said lamely.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” Betrayal first, then. “Did you always know it was your father behind what was going on at the club?”
“I didn’t know what was going on with the club at first. And no, I didn’t know it was something my father was working on. In case you couldn’t tell, we never had a great relationship. I didn’t really have anything to do with that part of his life in the past decade. I realized it the night you said his name, when the club had been shut down by the bank.”
“And you didn’t tell me because…?”
“Do you remember what you were like that night? I was trying to calm you down, not make you hate me.”
He sighed. “Sweetheart, why would his actions make me hate you?”
She shrugged.
“Still working on those trust issues, I see.” He smiled wryly at her.
“Yeah, I guess. And then I thought—I
knew
I had to do something. So I went to him. I didn’t even make it in the front door. Which really pissed me off.”
“Clearly. So you’ve been doing this behind my back the whole time?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “I’m sorry. I was afraid… Well, I was afraid of a lot of things. First that you’d be too damned stubborn to accept my help and in turn ruin everything by being a pigheaded alpha male.”
“Who, me?” He feigned innocence. She swatted him on the shoulder. “Yeah, okay, you’re right. I would have fought you on it. But you could have at least
tried
.”
“I know I should have, but I…”
He stared at her, waiting for her to finish. She found herself rubbing her earlobe again and froze. He tugged her hand down and held it tightly. “Tell me,” he demanded. “The truth this time.”
She took a deep breath. “I was afraid to tell you because I thought maybe you would think I’d known beforehand and come to you under false pretenses. And I figured if I fought you too hard and pressed the issue, you might decide that I wasn’t submissive enough for you or something. Plus I had to do everything behind the scenes. If he’d caught even a hint that I was involved with you or the club or this lifestyle, he would have tried all that much harder to destroy you. And I…” The tears started again. “And I was afraid I would lose you.” There. She’d said it. The real reason behind everything. She’d wanted to protect him, to help him, to save him. But most of all, she’d simply wanted to keep him.
“You are a very silly woman, do you know that?”
She tried to smile, but it was watery, and her lips quivered.
“I can’t believe you did all this…for me.” The awe was clear in his voice, on his face.
“Dusty helped.”
“Oh, that rat bastard. I’m going to have him flogged for this,” he said. “No, wait. He’d enjoy that, damn it.”
She laughed, and this time it was genuine. “So you don’t hate me?”
He shook his head. “Sweetheart, I could
never
hate you.” He kissed her, and her heart burst. She kissed him back eagerly, crawling onto his lap and wrapping her arms around him. “Easy. Easy now,” he said against her lips. “We are still in public, you know.”
She blinked and gazed around. “Oh, right. Oops.” She inhaled his scent and forced herself to loosen her grip and put a few inches of space between them.
“One more thing,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Where the hell did that money come from? You just happened to have fifty grand lying around? Under your mattress, maybe? I always thought it was a bit lumpy.”
She smiled. “It’s, um, part of my advance for the book. And its sequels.”
“I can’t let you do this. It’s too much money. What are you going to live off of? Wait, did you say
part
of your advance?”
“Yeah.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“They offered me half a million for three books.”
“Jesus. I am in the
wrong
line of business. But I can’t do it, sweetheart. I can’t.”
“Because you’re a pigheaded alpha male?” she intoned.
“Yeah, probably. But seriously, you can’t just
give
me fifty thousand dollars like it’s nothing.”
“Fine. How about this. Treat it as a loan, one without interest, and one you have to pay back eventually.”
“No. That’s still too much. What do you get out of the deal?”
You, I hope.
But she didn’t say this aloud. Instead, she said, “What about if you make me a partner in the business? With you and Dusty?”
“I think we could live with that.”
“So it’s settled, then?”
“Not quite yet,” he said, reaching for the velvet box. “Will you let me collar you, Elizabeth? Be my submissive, my lover, my sweetheart?”
“For how long?” she asked. She had to be sure. She was pretty positive of her feelings of him, but what if he didn’t return her affection?
“For however long you’ll have me.”