Atonement (Master's Protege 2)

Oh God. Men.

There’s a smile in his voice though.

He wants me naked and at his mercy, begging for him to touch me or allow me to come… because that’s when I’m at my most submissive with him, and he knows it.

I sit up straighter on his lap, as if to remind both him and me that I’m not going to cave so easily.

“I know there doesn’t seem to be a pattern about the cases I’ve been taking, but there is. You think I’ve been wasting time or taking random cases, but I haven’t. Every single one of these cases were related.”

“Were they?”

He nods, gently kneading my shoulders, and my rigid spine begins to soften. It doesn’t take long before I nestle up against his chest, and he weaves his fingers in my hair. “They were.”

“How so?”

“I’d like to see if you can put it together like I did.”

“Checking on my intellect and ability?”

“Violet.”

His tone is a warning he underscores with a sharp tug of a lock of my hair, but I don’t back off. I want to know.

“I’m serious. Are you checking to see if I’m as astute as you thought I was when you hired me?”

He leans in close, gathering my hair between his fingers, and pulls me to him so that his eyes bore into mine. “No. You’ve blown every fucking employee I have here out of the water. I want to go over the facts, because I want to be sure I didn’t miss anything.”

“Alright, then,” I say, very, very aware that I’m naked, and he’s not, and I’m at his mercy.

When he’s got me good and secured on his lap, he wraps his hands around my waist like a seat belt. The concept amuses me, even as my body thrums with need. His thick fingers graze the very edge of my sides. As he talks, he strokes the pad of his thumb down my side.

“You assumed I’d forgotten about your parents.”

“Well… no, I wouldn’t go that far.”

He stills the gentle massaging. “Why the tantrum then?”

I sputter. “I didn’t have a tantrum.”

“Babe, you stormed out of the house. You went to the training field. You grabbed a fucking cudgel.”

“I love working out with a cudgel.”

He holds still, his fingers still wrapped around my body before he continues. “You like working out with a cudgel when you’re angry.”

I don’t deny this.

“And you’re angry because something set you off today, reminding you that we’ve made no headway with your parents.”

I’m glad his back’s to me since I don’t really want to look in his eyes right now. He has a way of peeling back every defense mechanism I have with his eyes alone. If he had a superhero talent, I’d hazard a guess it would be x-ray vision.

I stare at the painting on the wall that hides his safe. When I speak to him, my voice is low, tremulous. “I know how to move that painting, Cain. The one that hides your weapons. I know the numbers to push to unlock the safe. I know when the safe door opens, the exact pile of weapons that will wait for me, the heft of the knife or the barrel of the gun when it slips into my palm. To others, the closed safe looks like a work of art. I, however, know it’s only a doorway.”

His arms tighten an infinitesimal amount. He doesn’t speak.

“Anyone else would think it’s only something pretty to decorate your wall. I know better, though.” I draw in a deep breath. “Do you know that you’re the only one in the world who’s ever found me out? The only one who knows how to manipulate me so that I open up, revealing my inner truth.”

My eyes flutter closed when he kisses my bare shoulder before he grazes the sharp edges of his teeth along my bare skin. A pulse of arousal thrums between my legs when he licks the place he bit.

“Don’t I fucking know it,” he says in a low whisper. “And feel honored that you’d trust me with that.”

I close my eyes, trying my best to hold onto the truth, to really push him to reveal everything he knows to me. I decide to let him in a little more.

“Today, when Skylar began pulling out the decorations, it reminded me that Christmas is coming. Every time the door opens, and the freezing cold air rushes in, it reminds me that Christmas is coming.” I draw in a breath, before I release it slowly. “My parents were killed at Christmas.”

I can still see the bloodstained carpet in front of the tree, the flash of brilliant red that told me they were gone. I had been only four years old and remember hardly anything else about that time, but I can’t forget those few details.

He nods slowly. “I know.”