Page 78 of The Southern Submission

“You were so beautiful coming apart tonight. Drink this.”

He untwists the cap from a bottle of blue Gatorade and hands it to me. I dutifully take it and realize how thirsty I am when it tastes like the most amazing thing ever.

“You weren’t fighting me as much, letting me take you where you needed to go.” He hands me a chocolate cupcake next and I laugh.

“Am I being rewarded with tasty treats for coming so hard I passed out?”

“Honey, this is aftercare, it’s a necessary part of bringing you down from that fun, floaty subspace you drifted off to before you passed out and came back to me in the shower.”

I’ve read about subspace—something that can be experienced as feeling floaty or high on endorphins from the pleasure of sex, the rush of a scene, or the pain of an impact session. I never thought I’d get there, but that’s exactly what it felt like. Payton is bringing my endorphin levels back to baseline so I don’t experience the negatives of too much oxytocin, endorphins, and adrenaline flooding my system only to be left depleted and feeling like shit later, which is subdrop. He’s such a good Daddy.

I enjoy my cupcake and Gatorade while he massages my scalp and gently runs his fingers along the neck of my shirt. I’m not even surprised when the doorbell rings a short while later and he leaves me in bed to get the food delivery he ordered. Of course he did. He always considers all of my needs, sustenance beyond chocolate at the top of the list.

Forty-six

Payton

“What the actual fuck,” Hayes growls, his eyes snapping to the screen that just went active on the wall of the boardroom at the push of a button from my laptop.

“Jesus, fuck, Pay, where the hell are you and why are you playing Big Brother with us?” Zander quips from across the room, taking a napkin from his assistant to clean the coffee he spilled over his hand when I scared the shit out of him.

“Good morning, dear brothers. I’m working from home today but didn’t want to miss our morning meeting.”

“You’re…what?” Hayes asks, leaning onto the table toward the screen like he can intimidate me into materializing in the room.

“Working from home. There’s no need forme to be in the office all the time, and I wanted to give Ainsley extra support today, so here we are. Now, to get started with the status report—”

“You’re shitting me,” Zander cuts in. “You’ve never missed a day of work, always the first one into the office, and you’re changing it now because of your girlfriend? Dude, you’ve got it so fucking bad.”

“I don’t see a problem here,” I retort calmly. “This is exactly whatyour wifewas trying to accomplish a few months ago but I managed to find on my own while avoiding her scheming. Ainsley’s my girlfriend now, the love of my fucking life, and I’ll eventually make her my wife if she’ll let me, so expect my priorities to shift accordingly, work included.” I pause for their reactions.

Their faces are priceless, both shocked into silence and staring at me like I’ve been abducted and this is my attempt to ask them for help.Blink twice if you need helpkind of shit.

Hayes shakes his head slowly, an annoyed look replacing the shock.“It’s not ideal right now, but it’s about damn time.” He was the first of us to fall and he’s been deeply under the spell of his sweet debutante bride ever since. It doesn't surprise me that he’d be the most accepting of my decision to put Ainsley first.

“I can’t fault you. Good pussy and a woman who keeps you coming back for more are hard to argue with,” Zander says, predictably steering the conversation to a sexual avenue. “We can shift our priorities and the team’s focus to better adjust for us all having home lives that are more important than work, now.”

“Already done.” I share my screen so they can see the new restructuring plan I’ve laid out and the timeline for our ongoing projects with who’ll be running point, which SVPs will pickup the slack, and what teams will align as support. As COO, this is my job, so it was no problem to look at it as another puzzle to solve. “The only inconsistency with an unsure timeline is the sports complex and entertainment district the city put on hold due to the bad press we received with the implosion of the Atlanta Haute List.”

Ainsley chooses that moment to enter my office with a fresh cup of coffee. When she hears the name of her website, she pauses and her face goes beet red. She lifts her head and swallows, taking tentative steps toward me, and sets the cup on the edge of my desk, then turns to leave. Before she can flee, I grab her by the hips and pull her into my lap. She’s still in my MIT shirt and panties, but you can’t see below her waist on camera, and I keep her tucked into my chest with a reassuring arm banded around her. This is why I wanted to be here with her.

Zander snickers. “I see why you wanted to work from home. You start this shit and we’re all going to be calling in from the home with a woman in our lap.” He shakes his head before allowing me to return to business.

“The city stalled our plans for the arena project after green-lighting everything leading up to this point because we’ve offered a lucrative deal. They’re keeping us from starting the actual construction now, which will cause a huge delay and unnecessary backlog for the rest of our plans, and we’ll hemorrhage funds if we can’t get their approval to begin as expected. I’m working on a proposal that’ll entice them to reenter favorable negotiations that will end with us breaking ground and beginning the build phase this fall as planned.”

“They’re hesitant to restart negotiations, and rightly so. We have a track record of bad publicity, with this latest fake dating scandal being the cherry on top. I don’t see how we can comeback from that and get them to move any faster,” Hayes says. “We’ll have to move the timeline back and take the financial hit.”

Fuck. If Hayes, our CFO, is willing to take a hit to the bottom line, he really can't see a way out. This doesn't look good.

Ainsley’s fingers trace a pattern along my thigh that feels too good as her teeth work over her bottom lip. I cup her chin and pull her lip free, tapping it as a reminder of what that does to me. She sticks her tongue out at me before she grows serious again, looking between me and the screen where my brothers are contemplatively looking at the project timeline.

“Your project is going to gentrify a portion of the city that’s home to a ton of small, family-owned businesses that won’t be able to afford increased rents, or be able to renovate to attract the same crowds as the fancy new bars and restaurants your project will lure in,” Ainsley begins softly.

I nod, encouraging her to continue. If she has an idea, I want to hear it. She knows the area better than any of us. She spent two years reporting on those small local businesses, collecting stories from the people and area. She has a unique perspective as a journalist that we don’t have from a development lens.

“Why don’t you offer to retrofit the local businesses and utilities around the sports and entertainment complex so they’ll benefit, and the city won't have to do any work to ensure the surrounding areas are up to par when your new project is complete?”

“What would that do?” Zander asks.

---