Page 39 of Wanted
“You’re under my protection,” Marcus told her, from the driver’s seat. It was night, a little past eight and they’d just come into D.C. It was the first time she’d been back since he’d taken her from the hospital. What was it, only three weeks now? It felt like a lifetime ago.
Her hands folded in her lap, Pony sat straight and tall, rubbing her palms together, trying not to be nervous.
“Did you hear me?” he asked, his tone dropping testily.
He must be nervous too, a realization that only hiked her anxiety. What did he have to be nervous about? He wasn’t at all attached to Ethen. People wouldn’t look at him the way they were bound to look at her. Would they even recognize her without her harness and pony mask? When she looked in the mirror these days, she barely recognized herself.
“Yes, Sir.”
Twelve pounds. That’s what she’d gained so far. She was still skinny. Sometimes she could see it in her reflection, but she was almost a hundred pounds now and that was close to what she’d been when last she’d accompanied Ethen to Black Light.
They drove in silence for a time before Marcus leaned forward and turned on her seat warmer. Though she watched the light come on under the button he’d pressed, it didn’t hit her what he’d done until the cushion beneath her and at the small of her back began to heat up.
“Why did you do that?” she asked. Early spring in D.C. was practically still winter. It was cold, but the heater had been running since they’d left his house and she wasn’t at all chilled.
“To remind you exactly what you’ll be feeling if you decide to break any—and I do mean any—of my rules tonight.” The look he cast her out of the corner of his eye said he wasn’t kidding, despite his choice of words, but instead of scaring her, oddly, she relaxed a little.
“I won’t embarrass you,” she promised.
“I’m not worried about being embarrassed.”
It wasn’t her imagination, then. He really was testy.
“What are you nervous about?”
He didn’t answer for a long time, not until they reached the right highway exit and he took the offramp onto regular city streets.
“You can talk to anyone you like,” he told her. “But if someone makes you uncomfortable and you don’t want to talk to them, you tell them they have to get my permission to talk to you. Anyone comes to me with that request, I’ll know you’d rather not and I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen, got it?”
She understood he was setting himself up to be a buffer between her and anyone likely to blame or harass her for her past association with Ethen O’Dowell. She relaxed even more. “Yes, Sir.”
“If you want to stick by me all night, that’s fine,” he said, and the rules continued on, each one feeling less like a restriction and more like a comfortable blanket wrapping securely around her. “If you want to go off on your own, you can do that too. But you don’t play with anyone without my knowledge and permission. You don’t arrange your own scenes. You don’t negotiate with anyone. You don’t say yes or no if someone comes and asks you. You say you are under my protection and all scene negotiations take place with me. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, Sir.” She really didn’t think she was ready to scene, although there was no mistaking that old familiar zing of excitement just the thought of being asked sent through her. Tiny tingles had lit in the tips of her nipples. She rubbed her hands on her skirted thighs. “Are you going to scene with me?”
He shifted in his seat. “No,” he said gruffly. “It wouldn’t be appropriate. Not to mention, you deserve a dom who won’t fall over if he misjudges his balance in the middle of throwing a flogger.”
She looked at him in surprise. “You don’t fall over.”
“I have,” he grimly admitted. “I could. If you scene tonight, you’ll do it with someone who can keep up with you.”
Blinking twice, she all but turned around in her seat to face him. “You’ve never had a problem keeping up with me.”
If anything, she was the one who always seemed to be running to keep pace with him.
He cast her a stern glance. “I’m not arguing with you about this.”
“Good.” Facing forward, she folded her arms. “It’s a stupid argument. Quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
He did more than throw her a glance now. His own surprise giving way to a low, laugh, he adjusted his hands on the wheel. “Say that to me again,” he warned. “See how fast I pull this car over.”
She didn’t doubt he would. Just like she didn’t doubt at least one passing motorist would call the cops to report him for paddling her bare ass on the side of the highway. She did, however, roll her hand at him, as if to say ‘see, point proven.’
His chuckle grew both softer and darker. “I’m counting that as a word. I also expect you to remember you said it, because just as soon as we’re in a place where we won’t scandalize the vanillas, we’re going to discuss it.”
It was still a ridiculous thing for him to say and she regretted nothing. She also let it drop.
Clearing his throat and rolling his shoulders, so too did he. “You can have one drink. One,” he continued, laying out the rules, “but you’ll come to me to ask for it.”
