Page 35 of Ryker

This woman is fuckery personified. She’s messing with my head.

I’m messing with my head.

The sheer force of will it took not to rip the door off its hinges when Tara left her suite, in nothing but her skin and attitude, rocked me to the core. I think I would have gouged out the eyes of everyone who saw her had she made it all the way to the kitchen.

I can’t afford to lose that much of my fucking staff.

And Tara might as well have kicked me in the balls for saying she was “getting shit done,” as if implying I’d slacked in taking care of her.

She was right.

I might have ordered food to be sent to her suite, but I should have known it wasn’t going to happen. It’s my job to take care of the Butterfly, no one else’s, which Dmitri took great joy in reminding me when he brought the coffee and meds for her. That motherfucker had the nerve to tell me she was my responsibility and mine alone.

He’s also right.

That I let Tara go this long without the basic necessities is unforgivable.

Jesus fucking Christ, I’ve been her Master for less than twenty-four hours and have fucked up so much, I should be fired.

And beaten.

And left out in the desert for dead.

I know better than this. Why am I losing my decency and head?

Fucking hell, I can’t stand the thought of Tara going hungry. Her headache only added salt to my reopened wound. And she didn’t have meds she needed to get better faster.

It hits too close to my past that I can never escape.

Logically, I could tell Tara I can no longer be her Master. But what good would that do other than get me off the hook as her Dom?

And put someone else in my place.

The notion makes my blood boil.

Part of me fears if I walk away from this arrangement with my tail between my legs, the bricks holding this place up will crumble and bury me alive. And a very feral, territorial part of me can’t imagine her with another Dom.

What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

“You okay?”

I don’t bother looking at Dmitri when I answer with a ragged, “No.”

“You want to go down to my room for a while?”

Beating the shit out of a punching bag sounds amazing, but I’m too drained for it. And I still can’t move from this spot on the wall, three feet from Tara’s door, either. “This is a mistake,” I whisper.

“Only if you make it one.”

Sighing, I push away from the wall and scrub my face. Now I’m getting a headache too, for fuck’s sake. “You knew what she needed.” It’s a warning, not a statement.

Dmitri doesn’t deny what I’m implying either.

He was watching us from the video feed in her suite. Just like he said he would, even after I told him not to. For once, I’m grateful he followed protocol instead of whatever possessive shit I’d said to him earlier about it.

“Look,” he sighs. “Maybe this is a good thing.”

“Maybe. I didn’t have to cheat and lose my integrity for Tara to win. We raised a lot of money for the charity. My reputation is still intact. My club is still running.”

---