Page 18 of Whispers in the Dark

She’d scored the shirt at a thrift store six years ago and it had been a favorite to sleep in. I inhaled and swore I could still smell her perfume on it, but figured my imagination was playing tricks on me. Daddy had washed the shirt and it had been in a drawer for months, so it was doubtful I was smelling anything other than laundry detergent.

I rooted around in the bag again and located the flat box he had placed on the dresser and made sure I had seen while I was packing this morning.

When I had turned sixteen, Blair and I celebrated by getting matching necklaces. Each one was a thin gold chain with a dangling ‘B’ and our respective birthstone on it. They weren’t anything overly fancy, but we had picked them out together and it had meant a lot to me that my big sister wanted to match me.Opening the box, my vision blurred a bit as tears gathered while I ran my finger over the thin chain.

We had jokingly called ourselves “the killer Bs” back then, and Blair had said she would kill any boy who dared break my heart. I’d sworn to do the same for her.

“I wish I could have made good on my vow to you, B,” I whispered.

Placing the box on my dresser, I made my rounds for the evening, checking the locks and setting the alarm. Once the dog had done his own check, we both went back to the bedroom where I settled into bed with another diary and he flopped down into his large dog bed, beginning to snore after a few minutes.

This journal contained more stats and notes, along with dates and times. There were physical descriptions of club members right down to what each was wearing, or not wearing when it came to the women. How the fuck was she able to get so much detail while she’d been at the club? We weren’t allowed to have phones and it’s not like there was any place to hide something like a camera or a recording device because we were naked. This put the term photographic memory on a whole different level.

It was like she was tracking but I wasn’t entirely sure what or why. It was more pairings of this submissive going with this Dominant at Lotus. She also noted her own interactions with different Doms, though she really only scened with the other men for appearances sake.

It made me more than a bit uncomfortable to read the entries where she’d been with Adrian, so for the most part, I skipped over those. I didn’t need to read what they had done together or how he had made her feel, and I didn’t want to come across anything that might make me doubt things more than I already did.

Blair had been much more experienced than I was, so I didn’t need any voices in my head driving me crazy. Adrian had told me before that he desired me, and his behavior indicated in certain circumstances that he was acting out of the norm… showing up to watch some of the Halloween party… coming to my house to apologize… hell, the very fact that I knew his identity was the biggest one. No one else on Olympus or at Lotus knew who he was. My own sister didn’t know who he was beyond his server name. That had to mean something.

I saw the name Kyrios again in several places and that she’d spent quite a bit of time chatting with him at the bar. Blair mentioned that he was becoming a good friend and that if she wasn’t so head over heels for EREBUS69, she would have given him a chance.

Sighing, I closed the diary with a firm snap. It would be a good idea for me to just go ahead and turn in for the night. Mondays were normally very busy at BT. I did have one thing I wanted to do before I forgot, though.

Pulling up an online language course, I found the one for Japanese and went ahead and paid for it, knowing I would need to know it sooner or later. The course was self-paced and came with a guarantee that I would be conversational in a matter of weeks. I certainly hoped so. My goal was to make a good impression and to prove to my boss that the risk he had taken on me was worth it.

Once the course had been paid for, I went lights out, smiling as I heard Lug Nut giving soft barks in his sleep.

“My baby must be chasing squirrels again,” I murmured softly so as not to wake him. “You get that squirrel, Lug Nut. You get him!”

A deep, old man sigh came from the direction of the dog bed and that was the last thing I remembered before I was the one chasing things in my dreams.

13.Adrian

The next six weeks passed by in a boring, yet comfortable routine. I spent the majority of my time in the office, often arriving before the others, and staying until everyone else in the building had left. Brynn usually tried to hang around, well after she should have, and I’d have to formally dismiss her.

I couldn’t help but remember the last two conversations we’d had outside of work stuff, and as I leaned back in my chair, a groan escaped my lips. I’d apologized for my words, but my actions hadn’t backed up any of them to this point. Knowing that, it lingered in my thoughts. Actually, it consumed them, or was that Brynn herself?

Conjuring her up, an email notification caught my attention. She had confirmed my late night appointment with some investors in Thailand. Initially, I had brought her here for a much different purpose, even if wasn’t all too clear in my head. She was one hell of an executive assistant, though. Even that was something I couldn’t deny.

This awkward tension between us was also something I couldn’t deny, and intending to do something about it, I rose from my chair and walked to my door. When I opened it, she wasdeep in concentration as her fingers flew across the keyboard. Drawn to her, I stayed in the doorway and watched her.

Brynn’s head moved as well, and when it did, she haphazardly brushed the fallen locks of chocolate silk from her face. It was then when I noticed the necklace she was wearing. Something was familiar about it and wanting to get a closer look, I took a few steps toward her.

She sensed my presence by the fourth step, and looked up at me. “May I help you with something, Mr. Benedict?”

“I... ahh... I was just going to get another coffee. As you’ve seen, it’s going to be a long night for me.”

“I did notice that meeting was fairly late for our time zone, but I’m sure you’re used to that by now.”

“Something like that,” I murmured while never taking my eyes off of her.

She was so damn beautiful and dangerous to me. Whether in lingerie I’d hand-picked for her, or those long, tight skirts and buttoned-down shirts she liked to wear, Brynn turned me on more than any other female had in a long time, and possibly ever.

“Do you want me to get it for you?” She asked me, and I realized I was staring at her, although I didn’t hear what she had said. My thoughts were on her mouth, but for what it could do, and not what she was using it to say.

“Get what?” I asked.

“The coffee,” she said as she stood up. “I’ll bring it to you once it’s done.”

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