Page 24 of Bought

This company isn’t really big enough for the two of us anymore. Used to be, when it took the both of us working full time just to get our heads above water. Now we’re in maintenance mode. But Jack’s getting bored and it’s starting to show. You can’t go on vacation forever. I’m going to have to find something for him to do, to keep him out of my hair and distract him from his murderous designs on Casey.

“I will tell you something, Jack,” I say, keeping my voice conversational. “If so much as a hair on Casey’s head is hurt, things are going to go very, very wrong, very, very quickly. If you’re worried about what her talking would do to our stock price, it would be nothing to what would happen if something happened to her.”

His brows dip at the threat, but I know he respects displays of strength. He and I have gone toe to toe enough times in the past to know that neither one of us will back down when we mean something.

“Jesus,” he swears under his breath. “You’ve got it bad. This is like that Christian girl in Hawaii.”

“Again, that was you.”

“Ah,” he smirks. “Fine. Keep your girl. Just keep her on a short leash. Literally if you have to.”

“I don’t need your permission, Jack,” I remind him.

“Uh huh.” He stands up. “I’ll be around more often. Help keep an eye on things.”

I really wish he wouldn’t, but I can hardly tell my business partner to fuck off. Jack has as much to lose as I do, and he knows it.

“See you around, Jack.”

He gives me a casual wave and heads back out to where he came from. I go looking for Casey.

Keeping Casey on a short leash isn’t easy. And as much as I’ve come to be thoroughly irritated by Jack most of the time, his suggestion of putting her on a literal one isn’t a bad idea. If she keeps her rebellion up, it might just come to that.

Forsyth has managed to get her to her room without issue. As I go up the stairs, I can hear from a distance that Casey is doing what she loves to do: argue.

“In the library,” she’s saying. “With the candlestick.”

Mocking him using Clue references. Nice touch, but I make sure I’m not smiling when I walk into the room.

Forsyth is unimpressed. She took an instant dislike to him the minute she got here and the feeling is probably mutual, though Forsyth has the professional self-control not to show it.

“That’s enough,” I say, intervening. “Stop tormenting the man.”

She shoots one of her ‘aha’ looks at me, the ones she gives me when she thinks she’s realized she has something useful on me. She now thinks she can get leverage by acting out with Forsyth. Time to knock that idea on the head.

“I’ll give the man a cane and let him whip your rear for insolence,” I threaten.

She pales. I’d never let anyone else besides me so much as touch her, but she doesn’t know that, and it’s probably better she doesn’t. As far as pecking order goes in this house, at the moment she’s right at the bottom. Her attempts to bully Forsyth are attempts to get control, because my sweet Casey doesn’t like being low on the totem pole, not at all.

That’s another thing she doesn’t seem to know about herself. She’s a dominant little bitch. She thinks she likes to be independent, but really she just likes being on top. That’s why she takes so much offense to me. Because she’ll never be on top where I’m concerned.

“Do you want a spanking right now?” I let my voice drop into a paternal register. She blushes and starts to squirm.

“No,” she whimpers, her face as red as her ass should be. I should pull her panties down and spank her in front of him. I will if she doesn’t roll over and show me her belly like a good girl.

“Then apologize to Forsyth. And make it a good one.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Forsyth,” she says through gritted teeth, her face getting redder with every passing moment.

“No,” I insist. “That’s not how you apologize. You look him in the eye and you say it nicely, like you mean it.”

“But I don’t,” she mutters under her breath.

I don’t care if she’s sorry or not. I don’t even particularly care if she wants to annoy Forsyth. What I do care about is making her feel, to her core, how very much mine she is. Sometimes I do that by holding her down and fucking her until she drools and begs for mercy. And sometimes I do it like I’m doing now, by not letting her get away with a single thing.

“Casey!” I snap her name. “You are two seconds away from being over my knee. Apologize properly. Now.”

Her face turns a perfect crimson. Then she looks at me, not Forsyth, and seals her butt’s doom.

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