Page 98 of The Dominator

I thanked him. I was taken to an office and offered refreshments and then I sat there, fidgeting with the water bottle I’d been given, until Tommy walked in. Not Jimmy. Tommy. I was shocked and relieved to see him. I jumped up and threw my arms around him.

“Thank God. Are you okay? What happened?”

He gave me a little smile and a big squeeze, momentarily lifting me off my feet. “We’ll talk after. Let’s go.”

Flying colors. She’d passed again. The way she’d handled that was just about perfect. She could’ve hocked the engagement ring and the earrings to get out of here, get away from me. She had at least $250 in her bag, too, as I’d given her pocket money for tips. The jewelry would’ve given her enough money to get gone and possibly even stay gone if she was smart about it. She could also have handled things the wrong way, called the cops and reported me missing, and involved them or something stupid like that.

But she didn’t. I saw her mind working from a security booth; I knew it’d crossed her mind to run. It was almost like I could see the thought bubbles above her head. I could see it in her body language as she chewed her lip, chewed her cheek, looked around herself, blew her hair out of her eyes like she was faced with a dilemma. But she did the right thing. The exact right thing. She called someone she knew I trusted and got advice.

There was only one problem. I needed her to misbehave. I needed her to misbehave so I had a reason to punish her. I was about to crack. Yeah, it was good to see she could handle an emergency, but why I probably really ran this test today was because I knew there would be fall out. I needed fall out.

When she’d put my necklace on me that morning it had floored me, made the reason for my mood swings and my needs so clear to me, and it hadn’t even done much good to wear it. I was tired, yeah, hadn’t had a lot of sleep in the past few nights, but I was craving confirmation and release. Confirmation that she was really mine and fear that she really wasn’t. And sexual release. I was fucking exhausted but had all this unused bottled-up sexual energy.

Last night didn’t help, either, when Ben Goldberg, the real estate developer I’d met with to talk about a new club here in Vegas, lined up some girls for us. I could’ve taken that redhead in the red leather dress wearing the bondage collar and grabbed the collar and fucked her up against the wall roughly. But I didn’t want her. I’d stared at her, thinking about that collar on my Tia.

The desire I had to be ice cream shop guy for her was overshadowing things. It was fucking with my head. That, the sheer fucking exhaustion, and the million things going through my head… overload. So, I got loaded, feeling sorry for myself instead, which was something I didn’t do. I needed a release, to get back to feeling in control again.

Our limo was out front waiting for us. She got in and I told the driver to just drive for a while, so we could figure out where we were going next. I closed the privacy glass.

“What happened to you?” She was wide-eyed and had her palm against her heart, like she was filled with relief, relief that I was okay.

I ignored the piercing sensation in my chest at that and I took a big breath. “I wanted to see what’d happen if something happened to me in a place like this without my security around. You handled it beautifully. If, God forbid, there’s a next time don’t stand around like a sitting duck for an hour, though.”

Her mouth dropped open and I started to feel guilty. I shoved it back.

“If you haven’t figured it out already, being with me means you have to think on your feet and think in a certain way. I thought I’d have to coach you on all of this stuff, so you’d know how to handle things, but it’s like you were made for this life. Good job, baby girl.”

Her fingertips shot up to her temples and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, holding it in for a long time before exhaling. Her mouth was still wide open. I waited. She kept her eyes closed and massaged her temples and then her mouth shut, shut tight. I could see her working her jaw muscles by clenching her teeth.

“Tia?”

“Mm.”

“You alright?” I leaned over and put my hand on her knee.

She recoiled right against the car door, as far away from me as she could get.

“I’ll just give you a minute, shall I?” I suggested and snickered.

Her eyes were still closed but she was shaking her head slowly and I could see she was working up toward a royal fucking fit.

“How many more times are you gonna do this?” I finally asked, eyes closed. I had a throbbing tension headache coming on, a whopper of one.

“As many as I feel I need to,” he said softly, his voice laced with warning. “As many as I think I need to put my mind at ease.”

“Put your mind at ease about me not running away?”

“That, and about you being equipped to deal with emergencies. This was probably more about emergencies.”

I guffawed.

“You got a problem with that?”

His tone of voice grated on my nerves. I should just open the car door and walk the fuck away from him.

“Was that roughing me up this morning part of the test? Piss me off by being a total prick and then leave me alone to see if I run away?” I finally opened my eyes and looked into his.

“That was just me,” he said softly with a shrug. He looked so arrogant, so unapologetic.

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