Page 4 of Hard Discipline

Then just when I think I’m going to have physically pick her up and dump her in the hall outside, she abruptly comes towards me, her gaze still averted. She reaches for one of the tumblers of scotch I poured in preparation for my evening and before I can say anything she knocks it back, including the ice, then slams the tumbler back down and stares at me.

“I’m not going to be able to do this again,” she says almost furiously. “It took everything I had just to walk through the fucking door and I’m not leaving now. So, Mr. Fairfax. Are we going to do this or not?”

3

Odette

I’m still trembling inside, but the whisky is settling in my stomach and the burst of shock that went through me the moment I saw his face— that turned to anger as he basically ran a sword through my relationship with Lucas— has intensified, drowning my previous anxiety. All I can think isfuck him.It wassohard to get here, he can’t possibly understand just how hard, and I won’t be dismissed like a child. I just won’t.

I know I stood there gaping at him like a fucking idiot the minute he turned around, and yes, that Master Six is also apparently Mr. Fairfax, made the whole weird situation even weirder and even more embarrassing, but what with the whole shock thing and then my brain screaming at me, I just couldn’t move.

Then when it became clear to him that I was Artemis (my stupid handle in the app), his look first of shock, then second, disappointment, hit me like a kick from a mule. And something woke inside me, a lost, angry part of myself that had beensleeping since the attack. Before I knew what I was doing I’d opened my mouth and a whole lot of stupid words had come flooding out. He’d been unmoved, because of course he was. But I couldn’t stand there, listening to him tell me how Lucas wasn’t in love with me and that I wasn’t his type. I wasn’t that much of a doormat. Lucas had told me many times how distant his father was and how he preferred working to spending time with his son, and so I couldn’t help pointing that out to him.

I mean, I knew that Lucas didn’t love me already, but there was no need for his father to rub it in. Then telling me to get the fuck out, when it had taken all my meager courage to even get here had been the last straw. Apparently grabbing a whisky tumbler and swallowing the whole lot, then demanding an answer about whether we were going to do this or not, was the thing I needed to do.

It was a mistake, but I didn’t understand that until now, becausenowI’m standing close to him and he’s beside me, dwarfing me with his height. He’s like a redwood to my bonsai, except redwood trees don’t have eyes the intense blue of lapis lazuli, or a face that looks as if God himself has carved it. He’s got slightly winged dark brows, a fierce blade of a nose, and a drop-dead beautiful mouth. There are lines around that mouth and those eyes, and he has white at his temples, and a slight salt and pepper scatter to the stubble on his strong jaw, but all those things just make him sexier. He’s got the first two buttons of his shirt undone and I can’t stop staring at the olive skin of his throat, remembering him mostly naked on the beach, where I could see more than his throat. I shiver, watching his pulse there. It’s regular and strong, unlike mine, racing like a terrified rabbit under my skin.

“This?” he demands in that deep, sexy-as-hell voice. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I swallow, hypnotized by the column of his throat and neck, trying to remember what words are. “Uh…um…you know….”

“Eyes up.”

I obey without thought, lifting my gaze to the blue of his eyes. They pierce me the same way they did the summer I met him, making me want to drown myself in them.

“What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Talking. About?” He enunciates each word, biting them off as if each one is a coin from his hoard that he doesn’t want to give away.

The angry part of me bristles, because goddamn it’s patronizing.

“You. Know. What. I’m. Talking. About.” I say, mimicking him before I can think better of it. “BDMS.”

“BDSM,” he corrects. “Do you even know what that means?”

I flush. “Yes, of course. I did my research before I signed up.”

His gaze narrows. “But you’ve never done it before, have you?”

“Of course,” I repeat far too quickly, and once the words are out of my mouth, the flush in my cheeks deepens, betraying the lie.

He says nothing for a long moment, his gaze searing in the same way the back end of a rocket is searing. I want desperately to look away, but I want to show him he can’t intimidate me, so I don’t.

“Listen,” he says finally, his voice hard. “There are a million different reasons why this is not happening, not least of which is that you lied in your bio, but here’s another to add to the pile. I’m not into training new submissives. I want someone experienced and you are not it.”

Wow, okay then. He’s not a man who minces words. He purees them. Lucas did mention that his father wasn’t a nice man and he’s certainly making no allowances for me.

Isn’t that what you wanted?

Well, yes, it is, but I can’t deny that it also stings a little. Though really, he’s got every right to be annoyed. The woman he thought he was getting tonight isn’t the woman he thought he was getting tonight and he’s pissed about it.

I take a breath, trying to calm the rushing beat of my heart. Okay, so, he doesn’t want me here, that’s obvious, and he probably isn’t attracted to me in the slightest, not the way I am to him, but I can’t leave now, not when it took so much of myself to get here.

You should leave. Luc will hate it if he ever finds out what you’ve been doing.

Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t keep standing here. I shouldn’t push myself on a man who clearly isn’t interested and who is, yes, Luc’s fucking dad. And yes, Luc will definitely hate it should he ever find out. And I could find myself another match on The Club, though I’m not sure I’ll be able to force myself to do this a second time….

But….

He’s just looking at me and I can see anger flickering in his eyes, and he’s so fucking hot, and now I know that he’s into this whole BDSM thing… God all I can think about is the way he spoke to that horse, his voice very firm, his hand stroking the horse’s heaving sides, and how slowly the animal settled.

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