Page 31 of Past and Present

“Guess I should go grovel,” Marissa said.

Dakota gave her a shove toward the door. “Admit it, you’re looking forward to whatever he does to you.”

Marissa grinned. “I really am.”

14

Saturday, December 22nd

Lance

“Time’s up, Riss,” Lance said, holding out his hand for her phone.

“You’re an asshole. What did you put on it?”

He grinned. “Combination of a new child friendly filter lock I’m working on and a jacked up piece of distraction free software.”

“And why am I not working on this project with you?”

Lance shrugged. “I picked it up while you were working on your own stuff. Now hand it over. A deal’s a deal.”

Marissa huffed but handed him the phone. After Samuel had given it to him and she came asking for it, he’d given her a choice. Let Samuel come up with her punishment or play a game with him. Of course, his competitive girl had chosen the game. So, he’d played a few tech tricks on her phone and given her a full twelve hours to unlock it or he got to keep it the rest of their trip. Not that the woman didn’t have a bag full of tech stashed in their room. That wasn’t the point though. She wanted her phone and couldn’t back down when issued a challenge. So of course she’d stayed up all night trying to crack it.

“An unfair deal. How did you get the two apps to work together like that? I see what you did now. I just don’t understand how.”

Lance smirked as he unlocked her phone and showed her the home screen just to annoy her. “Guess you’ll have to wait until we get home to find out. Now get dressed. You have plans with Lana and Bethany and I have to go help David fix things for Tamara.”

Marissa scowled. “I was supposed to get to help you with that.”

Lance hummed and trailed a finger down her cheek. “And you could have if you weren’t so busy trying to unlock your phone.”

She raised her hand as if she were going to smack him, but he caught her wrist. “Watch it, Kitten. I’m not the one who got another sub in trouble. And if you would have listened to what I was saying last night, you would have known the secret to unlocking your phone was to leave it alone. It was on a timer to unlock itself after an hour if you stopped touching it.”

Marissa’s mouth fell open. “Sneaky bastard. Why is that hot?”

“Nerd,” Lance said when she crawled into his lap to kiss him. “No sex. Not right now. We have shit to do.”

She flopped off of him and onto the mattress. “Can I just sleep?”

Lance shook his head. “Nope. Consider it part of your punishment.”

When he finally dragged her out of bed and they were both dressed, they headed for the door to go downstairs.

“What if you need to get ahold of me or I have an emergency while I’m with the girls?”

Lance laughed. “They both have my number, as does everyone else here. I’m sure Erin will let you borrow her phone.”

Marissa shook her head. “Rotten.”

Lance held her hand and squeezed gently. “But you love me.”

Marissa shrugged. “I guess you’re alright most of the time.”

Downstairs, he kissed Marissa goodbye and settled in at the conference table. Most of the girls were going into town for breakfast at the hotel and then to a spa or something. He’d left the details up to Lana and Bethany. They just had to keep an eye on the weather.

He spent the rest of the morning putting a package together for David to deliver to Martin Terry. If the man didn’t back off Tamara, his name would be all over the evening news by Christmas Eve and he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. It turns out he’d been a very bad boy and there was plenty of dirt to hang over his head.

“Need any help?” Samuel asked. Lance looked up to see him standing in the doorway holding a cup of coffee.

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