I forced myself on the elevator, locking the floor entry behind me for good measure.
I would give her some time, just like she’d asked, and then she’d understand. And if she didn’t...
I’d spank her until she did.
Anastasia
I sat in the dark hunched over, my back against the door. My voice was hoarse and my hands were tired from beating on the wood.
He’d locked me in the freaking room. Like an errant child. How could he?
Usually, I didn’t like the dark. In the shelter I’d gotten used to sleeping with low overhead lights on at all times. Camden always left the closet light on with the door cracked when we slept.
I guess that was childlike, too.
I groaned as I wiped my eyes. They felt like sandpaper after I’d spent the last hour crying.
And for what?
That was what I was really struggling with as I sat there. Charlie’s had been important to me because it had been a symbol of my independence. It was attached to my fear of not owing something to someone.
Camden was right—I had been working myself to death. I’d been working so hard that I’d been miserable. Now that I was just doing ballet, I was still exhausted, but I was satisfied every day. While I’d been working at Charlie’s, I’d just been exhausted. And it had seemed like no matter how hard I worked, I never got ahead.
I think part of it was how genuine he’d seemed after I told him I was fired. His anger had seemed real. All of his emotions had seemed real.
There’d been no sign that he was the one responsible for it in the first place.
He’d shown he was trustworthy in every other way though, hadn’t he?
Michael was behind the note. I knew he was. This was his goal, to push Camden and I apart, so I’d be alone…and he could get to me. He loved psychological things like this, things that would twist up my insides, make me second guess myself and everyone around me.
I tried to picture what it would have been like over the last few months if I’d still been at Charlie’s.
Misery.
That’s what it would have been like. I still wouldn’t have been making enough to get my own place.
I would have just continued to go...nowhere.
Even my leg had begun to improve since I’d stopped working there. Being able to rest it at night rather than work on it—it had made a huge difference. I’d been able to push much harder as I practiced for the Showcase.
Every day since I'd known him, Camden had wanted what was best for me. He'd just wanted to love and take care of me.
Getting someone fired…that was crazy. I couldn’t deny that. But it had come from a place of love. Right? I could at least be confident in that.
Could I forgive him, knowing that he’d done it because he loved me?
It felt like I could.
My eyes were getting drowsy, and I pushed off the floor and got onto the bed, burying my face in his pillow because even mad at him, I wished he was here.
Eventually, I fell asleep.
I woke to an orgasm, gasping as pleasure surged through my entire body. My eyes flew open to the sight of Camden between my legs, leisurely eating me out.
I wasn’t sure how I’d slept through the start of this, but oh my gosh, it felt so good.
My head fell back into the pillow as my hips began rocking against his face, chasing the high that his mouth was so good at giving me.