“Oh, like watching the two of you would be a hardship? Participating was even better.”
He swirled the remainder of the whiskey in his glass. “I won’t interfere again. I shouldn’t have in the first place. I’m happy for him that he’s found someone he trusts to let closer.”
They lapsed into silence, but Minnow was so wrapped up in her own thoughts, replaying what had happened, she hardly noticed.
She came back to herself and pressed a tentative hand to her breast, then winced. Rodrigo shifted in his seat.
“If he wasn’t so upset, I wouldn’t have regretted any of this,” Rodrigo admitted.
“I feel the same way.” She pressed her lips together and drew a long breath. “It was fun while it lasted.” Whether she meant this afternoon, or her entire relationship with Severin, even she wasn’t sure.
“Fun, yeah.” He snorted. “You can say that because you’re not sitting here with blue balls.”
Glaring, she grabbed a pillow and threw it as him. He deflected it and raised a brow.
“You doms and your dommy eyebrows.” She grimaced. “It’s your own fault – you and Severin. I was lured here under false pretenses.”
“Poor Minnow. You got off when I pierced your nipples. There I was just trying to do my job.”
“Your job is to force orgasms on unsuspecting submissives?”
“You were more than a little suspecting by the time it happened.”
“If that’s the usual process for piercings and tattoos around here, I’m surprised there isn’t a huge lineup.”
He laughed. “There is, but it’s an exclusive club. Severin only. He paid for that room and everything in it.” He shrugged. “After I graduated from finance I never thought I’d tattoo again, but Sev has ways of getting what he wants.”
“Oh? How?”
“He asks people who like him too much to say no. I used to cut his hair too, when he used to bother cutting it. Never had a lesson.”
She sighed. “He’s such a broken boy, but so fucking pretty.”
“Pretty?” He furrowed his brow. “Not a word I’d use for that ugly bastard.”
“He makes the ugly work for him, somehow.”
Rodrigo saluted her with his glass. “I like you. Anyone who can find a soft spot in their soul for a man like Severin has to be good people.”
“Well, I try to be a good person. I’m not out to hurt him. If he can get past whatever spooked him just now, I might be lucky not to lose him entirely.” What on earth was she supposed to do now? Call him? Follow? Look for an apartment and a new job?
“I don’t see him more than about once every week or two. If you can at least try to smooth things over between him and me, I’d be eternally grateful.”
“Eternally, huh? I’ll have to get that in writing.” She tapped her chin impishly. “Having you owe me could be a good thing. Payback might be a bitch.”
He shifted in his chair again, frowning at her. “You should know better than to brat around a dominant.”
“You’re not my dominant.”
The gleam of interest in his gaze held a meaning she decided to ignore. Rodrigo was hot and fun, but he wasn’t the one who made her giddy and afraid.
“No, I’m not. I’m going to give you a ride home now, before I can’t resist flirting with you anymore.”
A feeling of foreboding made her stomach clench. Time to find out if the man she was half in love with now hated her.
*
The ponderous clang, clang, clang of Severin hammering a piece of metal influenced Minnow’s gait as she walked toward the garage. Two steps for every hit. The heat of the covered plate she carried was welcome, considering the nip in the air. It hadn’t been long since they’d gone swimming together at the lake, and yet the idea of swimming now seemed completely absurd. She should have worn a coat, but for the past week the garage had been almost too hot to bear.