Wrecked (The Blackened Window) (15 page)

As she walked away, I pulled my cell out of my pocket and called Jason.

He answered with no hello, just, “Why are you calling me while you’re on your date?”

“You haven’t spoken to Stacy, have you?”

“Fuck that skank.”

“So that’s a no.”

“Of course, it’s a no. You know I hate her. Why?”

“She showed up at the restaurant that Leda made reservations at and I wanted to see if you knew how she would have known.”

“Dude, fuck you. Why would I…? Just fuck you.”

“I know, man. I’m sorry. But you did help Leda plan this right? Because, there is no way she just picked Soona Mee randomly.”

“Yeah we helped.” It was Christy. Jason had put me on speaker. “Stacy showed up?”

“Yeah, and it pretty much ruined the night.”

“That’s ’cause she’s a ruiner. Want me to slap her?” Christy was cute when she got pissed.

“No, I handled it. But I think she went to a new psycho low and called places until she found our reservation. She was here with her
dad
.”

“Ooh yuck,” Christy said at the same time that Jason said, “Shit.”

“All right, I’m gonna go try to salvage tonight. Wanna give me a heads up on the rest of the plan?”

“There isn’t one.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay…cool. I will make it work.”

After I hung up with them, I sent Stacy a text.

Leave Leda out of our shit. I’m done with you. Fuck off, or I will find a way to make you realize how much you regret me.

I left a hefty tip to try to clear my conscious a little and got up. I channeled my irritation into my dominance, my lust for Leda and control. Each step across the restaurant brought me more control and I felt my spine straighten and shoulders drop back. I felt the scowl leave my face and the blankness settle there.
Where’s my little girl so I can take all this out on her skin?

She walked out of the ladies room just as I rounded the corner into the long hallway that went along the back of the dining room, next to the kitchen. She met my gaze and her eyes widened. Each time that happened, it sent a thrill through my chest. Her lips parted in a gasp and my cock twitched. My stride lengthened and I met her where she was, sliding my hand into her hair and pulling her head back. I flattened her against the wall with my body.

Smashing our lips together, I refused to let her move. I ran my hand up her flank, my thumb brushing her nipple, as I brought it up to her throat and squeezed. Once I had her secured with that hand, I took my other hand out of her hair and pulled the strap of her dress away from her shoulder. I kissed her skin there but couldn’t resist biting her too.

“This dress is delicious, I want to eat you.”

She made a soft mewling sound under me.

Jesus Christ, this girl.
I had to get her somewhere else. “Let’s go, Leda.” I let go, fixed her strap, stepped back and grabbed her hand. It was a fast and fluid movement but not so fast that I missed the flush in her cheeks. She was a little unsteady on her feet and stagger-stepped to follow me.

I pulled her to the car and slammed her body against it, pressing against her, my mouth on her again. I knew she felt my hard-on and I didn’t care. I wanted her to know how much I wanted her, wanted inside her. But, even as I thought it, I knew it wasn’t time yet. She was special and I wanted her to want me as much as I wanted her before I claimed her.
Fuck that,
more
than I wanted her. Losing control.

“What’s next, Leda?” I whispered into her neck. She didn’t answer and I felt my self-control cracking. “Leda, I’m trying.” My voice was harsh and a little hoarse. “I’m trying to let you have tonight, but you need to get me to our next thing now, or I am going do some very bad things to you.”

I felt her tremble under my hands and I just wanted to feel it again and again. I kept kissing her, waiting, but not waiting for an answer.

“Well,” she kind of sputtered against my skin. “Wait, wait. Xander, wait.” She was stopping me, pushing my shoulders back a little and for a moment, I flashed to a take-down fantasy, pushing her into the car and pulling her panties off. I paused, letting all my air out to deflate myself.

I stood up tall, the master of myself again. My voice calmer, I asked, “Okay, baby girl. What’s next tonight?” I asked it hoping that she had something, even though Christy and Jason weren’t aware of anything else.

“So that’s the problem. I only planned this far and was expecting that we could play it by ear from here.”

Oh, goddamnit.
I wanted her so much
.
I made myself solid, refusing to let my cock be a weakness.

She went on, “I had a few ideas. Take a walk in the park—”

Too late to be there now.

“Back to Nest—”

Already did that.

“Back to Jason’s place—”

Already did that tonight.

“A late movie…”

Too late and I want to see you.

“Do any of those sound good to you?”

No, what sounds good is tying you up and making you suffer a bit. Getting my hands on you.
But I couldn’t let myself be that much of a dick, so I tried to make my words soft. “Baby girl, I wasn’t planning tonight, remember? You’re so sweet.” I stepped back, brushing the hair away from her face. “I want to go somewhere quiet where we can talk. I want to hear your thoughts about my control issues and your submissive tendencies.”

“Well we could go to one of our apartments. Quiet there.”

Really, little one?
I felt one of my eyebrows cock up.

“No. If we go somewhere private, I’m going to fuck you, and you aren’t ready.” While it was true, it probably wasn’t the right thing to say. She drew a quick breath, scowl marring her face.

“Whoa! Holy shit, buddy! Firstly,
you’re
going to fuck
me
? Maybe
I’m
gonna fuck
you.
Maybe neither of us is getting fucked. Jesus, Xander! Secondly, you don’t decide when I’m ready. For anything.”

She was so cute when she got mad and she didn’t get it. Of course I decided all that shit. Of course I would fuck her. In that moment, I made the decision that we wouldn’t have sex until she begged me to fuck her, like a good girl. I started laughing. Again probably the wrong response, but it was like a bunny telling a wolf what to do. It was just absurd.

“Okay, baby girl. You’re so fucking cute.” That mollified her a little. “You know that’s not how it is with me. But this is exactly what I want to talk about. Give me the keys.”

She gave me the keys and I walked her around the car to the passenger side. I took her to the Cat’s Meow.

Chapter Fourteen

Leda

Goldfrapp,
Strict Machine

Once we were settled in a booth in the back of the restaurant, Xander took one of my hands and started tracing designs in my palm and over the inside of my wrist. “Tell me what made you so mad back there,” he said quietly, without looking up at me.

“I don’t know. All of it, I guess. We can’t be alone now because you can’t control yourself? And I don’t get a choice? And you deciding if I am ready for it or not. I mean, that’s kind of fucked up, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think it is, Leda. This is me. This is how I work. This is what I meant by demanding, and we’re barely scratching the surface here. What bothers me about this is that I really do think that you are a sub at heart. Tonight just really confirmed it for me. You decide to plan our date, and at least half of the night is left up to what
I
may want to do after the initial things you plan. You adjust your body to me all the time. You give in. You follow my directions. You accept what I tell you is going to happen. You accept the way the I touch you, in fact I think you really like it. You are submissive.” He paused, looking up at me.

I felt stripped naked in front of him. Too bare. “Xander, I don’t know how to do this. Yes, I like… I like to take you into consideration when I think about things. I want to do things that…please you.” I was searching for the words and they sounded all wrong, so stupid, but they were the closest thing to being able to sum up what I was feeling for him. “I don’t want you to be disappointed in me or with the things I do.”

My eyes watered a little and I felt my face twisting up in the pre-cry panic that always happened. The waiter brought our desserts with a look of concern on his face. He gave Xander a look, and Xander completely turned his body toward the waiter with challenge on his face, but never let go of my hand. They held each other’s gaze for a few beats.

“Thanks. She will have another cup of tea in about ten minutes. Otherwise, we’re all set.” He said it coldly, with some amount of contempt in his voice, and the waiter seemed to shrink in front of him. Xander turned back to me, trusting the waiter to see to the orders. Xander’s voice and face were softer for me. “Finish what you need to say, Leda.”

“I don’t know what else to say, but I’m freaked out by the idea that I wouldn’t be in sexual control of myself. But when you said you’d fuck me, I think that would have been okay with me. I think I would have let you.”

“Why would you have let me? Because I wanted it or because you wanted it too?”

“I think both, but then I feel like…we’ve just met! Seriously, we just met! What the fuck am I doing?” My tears had stopped and I pulled my hand away to brush them off my cheeks.

“See, honey girl? This is what I meant. You aren’t ready yet.” He brushed his fingers across my knuckles and went on, in a rush, “And that’s just fine. I love that you want to make me happy. All these things you’re talking about are part of your submissive nature. And the part of your brain that rebels against is the part that is trained to believe that men will devalue and degrade a woman who submits completely. And of course there are assholes out there that do that, but I’m not one of them. A sub is a treasure and should be cherished. Leda, I was serious.
No
harm will come to you from me. I may hurt you sometimes, but I think you’ll like it.”

I got a quick mental flash of him biting my shoulder earlier tonight and felt a self-conscious warmth in my throat and pelvis.

“The hardest thing for most submissives early on, is admitting that they are submissive and really owning it. Reveling in it…and the trust. That’s hard too.”

The waiter brought more tea for me, but wouldn’t make further eye contact with either of us. The dessert was delicious. I had some sort of berry pie with a honey crumble topping and Xander had a fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie, a la mode. We were quiet for a time, just tasting our food and each in our own thoughts. After a few minutes, I spoke up to ask him to tell me more about the military and FBI life he had before medical school, needing to change the subject to something less intense.

“After high school, I went to West Point and straight into the Army after graduation. I did that for a few years and left when my commitment was up. Then I got a job at the FBI for another three or four years. I took some time off before medical school. It really isn’t all that interesting.”

“Where were you stationed after you left West Point? Were you a medic?”

“Oh, no. I was stationed at the Pentagon as an underling in the Army offices there. I worked in a counter insurgency program,
very much
as an underling—note-taker, coffee lackey kind of position.”

“Really, even as an officer?” He murmured assent and I asked him more about his work. “Counter insurgency sounds interesting—kind of scary, actually. I mean, that’s like counterterrorism, right?”

“I wasn’t really involved in active operations. The commander I worked with was involved in counterintelligence and some preemptive neutralization scenarios. When I moved to the Bureau, I did similar work. Because I had some experience with it.”

“Sorry, pretend you are talking to someone who doesn’t know what the hell you are talking about. What is preemptive neutralization?”

He looked like his stomach was upset and pulled back from me, draping his arms across the back of the booth. “Basically, we generated ways to fuck with the bad guys and make it less and less worthwhile to oppose American interests.”

“Oh. I think I understand. Are you okay? Does it bother you to talk about this?”

He just looked so uncomfortable. “It is…a part of my life that…allowed the darkest parts of my psyche to flourish. It’s work that matters and it’s good that someone’s doing it, but it’s the stuff you don’t want to actually know about what the military does. Guantanamo Bay was one of the things people found out about. You just don’t want to know how those things happen. You know what I mean? It’s like hot dogs or plastic surgery—decent end results usually, but you really don’t want to know the process.” He looked up at me with unreadable eyes. They weren’t really haunted looking, but they weren’t clear either. “Excuse me,” he said and got up for the bathroom.

After a minute or so, the waiter came back to the table, speaking in a hushed tone, “Miss, are you okay? Do you need help?” He paused then added, “Is that man hurting you?”

I was so startled that I was momentarily speechless. “What? No. I’m fine. I’m fine. I don’t need help.” I laughed uncomfortably and looked up to see Xander standing behind the waiter, anger plain on his face. There was a horrible slowing of time as the waiter turned and nearly walked into Xander, who had clearly heard at least part of the exchange. I held my breath, but Xander smoothly passed the waiter.

“You okay, honey girl?” Xander murmured to me as he sat down.

I grimaced. “Yeah, I’m fine.” It was the most uncomfortable I had ever been on a date, but Xander seemed unperturbed.

He smiled at me before he glanced at the waiter. “Thanks, man. We’ll just take the check when you have a chance.”

The waiter still looked mortified, but he answered, “Sure. My apologies.”

Before the waiter could turn away, Xander responded, “None needed. It took courage to ask.” Once he was gone, Xander turned back to me, his smile fading from his lips even as his eyes twinkled with some sort of deviant lust. “Now, this is a good chance for a little lesson.”