The Exposure (The Submissive 9)

“I didn’t have a hot-teacher crush in high school.” She did actually, but she wasn’t about to tell him about it.

“No?” His eyes seemed to pierce right through her and she knew he realized the truth. “I don’t think I believe you. Tell me who he was.”

She crossed her arms as best she could over her chest. “No.”

“Now I can tell you’re lying.” His smile grew even bigger. “I spank girls who lie to me.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Spank?” Now she knew for certain he had a daddy fantasy going on. “I thought you said you didn’t do the daddy thing.”

“I don’t.”

“But you want to spank me and have me call you Sir.”

“Which has nothing to do with a daddy fantasy.”

“What does it have to do with then?”

“Have you heard of BDSM?”

She told him no and for the next twenty minutes, they talked. She still wasn’t sure she understood everything, but it made a bit more sense. And the way he talked about it made it sound hot.

It became even hotter when he took her over his knee and spanked her.

She lost track of the number of times she came that day. And when she woke up in his arms on Tuesday, he took her again. Tessa laughed when Meagan called her over breakfast and told her she wouldn’t be home just yet.

“Seems like the dress worked,” Tessa said.

Something certainly did, Meagan had to agree. She wasn’t so sure it was the dress, though. Probably, it was that shirt made out of rope.

She ended up begging him to put her in bondage again and he gladly did so. On Wednesday, he wove the rope around the lower part of her body. It was during that hypnotic time that he was binding her, that she began to imagine their future. They could work together as a team: he’d take the pictures and she’d model. Then at night, he could tie her up and have his wicked way with her.

She’d even call him Sir.

It was so perfect. So right. Together they’d be unstoppable. They’d be on top of the world. Heck, they’d own the world.

“Why are you smiling so big?” he asked at one point.

But she wasn’t ready to share her dream just yet. It seemed too soon and she didn’t want to freak him out. Maybe in a month or two. Or six. When they’d been together for long enough that he’d see how good they were together. How much better they would become. Then they’d talk and he’d agree how perfect they were, and then they’d be together forever.

She got giddy just thinking about how wonderful it was all going to be.

“Nothing,” she answered. “Just happy.”

“Me, too,” he said, and her heart soared because it sounded as if he was already well on the way to seeing how good they were going to be.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, needing to feel him.

He pulled her close and gave her one of those kisses that made her entire body feel electric. She wondered idly if any of the crew at their next photo shoot would be able to tell they were together.

“Do you have another job lined up?” she asked when he pulled back.

He resumed working the rope around her left ankle. “I have a few meetings set up later this week that I can’t blow off. Do you have anything?”

“No.” She didn’t, but she knew the pictures from their shoot were going to be fantastic. It was only a matter of time before people came knocking on her door. She just had to be patient.

She looked down and caught Luke staring at her. He leaned down and nibbled on the inside of her ankle bone. Gah. That felt good. She sucked in a breath and leaned her head back.

She had no problem being patient. No, not at all. Not with Luke here to distract her.

She finally made it back to her apartment on Thursday. Tessa laughed and shook her head when Meagan headed straight to the bathroom for a long, hot soak in the tub.

When he didn’t call that weekend, she told herself it was because he had all those meetings he’d brought up. And she knew how those could be. Get a bunch of creative people together in a room with a bunch of number crunchers and nothing was getting done anytime soon.

He’d call soon, though. She felt certain.

On the following Monday night, she called her answering machine herself, just to make sure it was working. He had to be really busy, right? It was getting harder and harder to believe.

She was torn when Friday night came and Tessa invited her to a club. She didn’t want to go out. What if he called while she was gone? So she told Tessa that Luke came down with the flu and she was staying home.

When Tessa gave her that I can see what you’re doing look, Meagan explained that she couldn’t go out because her throat was scratchy and it wouldn’t be very responsible of her to spread germs around all of Manhattan, would it?

Either Tessa couldn’t come up with a counterargument, or she saw the truth and didn’t want to push. She gave Meagan a hug, told her not to wait up, and left.

As soon as she was gone, Meagan raided the freezer and downed an entire pint of chocolate chip cookie dough. Through her tears, she thought back to their time together, trying to figure out what she’d done wrong. She couldn’t think of anything. Everything had been so wonderful. So fulfilling. And she hadn’t done anything stupid like talk about the future.

All she could come up with was that he wanted someone with more experience in the bondage scene. He probably wanted someone who wouldn’t balk at calling him ‘Sir.’ For all she knew, he might have taken it the wrong way when she asked about the daddy fantasy thing. With that remark, maybe she’d disrespected him.

She hadn’t looked any further into the BDSM scene, hoping that he’d be the one to instruct her in everything. If she had truly scared him off, should she research the topic more herself? Was it something she’d want to pursue without him?

She decided to think about it later, when it became obvious he didn’t want her.

Damn it, her heart hurt just thinking about it and she couldn’t help but hold out some sort of hope that she was wrong.

By the time he showed up at her apartment unexpectedly a week later, though, she knew the truth. He didn’t want her. And that was unmistakable when she opened the door at his knock and let him in. His eyes said everything before he even spoke. She was glad Tessa had gone away with her sister for the weekend. Meagan had the feeling she was going to have an ugly cry when Luke left and she’d rather be alone for it.

She let him in without saying a word and neither one of them said anything until she closed the door.

“Meagan—” he started, but she cut him off.

“You know,” she said. Fuck, he looked so guilty. “You could have called. I’m a big girl.”

“I know you are.” He hung his head, as though he didn’t want to look at her. “It’s just that after that week . . .”

She waved her hand, telling herself to act as if those days and nights together were something she did all the time. Pretend she had torrid affairs every night of the week. “Please, it was just sex. You didn’t propose or anything.”

His head shot up in surprise and he studied her with those eyes that had been so inquisitive before. She schooled her features and forced her body to remain neutral. She could do this. She refused to show him how hurt she was.

“Oh,” he finally said.

“You feel the same, right?” she asked

. “I mean, I just assumed you did. Especially after I didn’t hear from you.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s complicated.”

She snorted and it sounded so real, she was proud of herself.