Page 99 of Heart of Stone

“Oh, is that how it is? Well, let me tell you –,” I started before he abruptly cut me off.

“There were important things that needed to be discussed last night. I only dozed off for a few minutes. That did not entitle you to make an impromptu exit,” he boomed. I felt myself wince. Alexander was not the type to shout, as his quiet authority was enough to get any point across. He must have realized how loudly he was talking, because when he began again, his voice had noticeably lowered several octaves. “Did you talk to your roommate last night when you got home?”

“Um…no. She was asleep when I got in. Why?” I asked, completely thrown for a loop by his question.

“That’s one of the things that I wished to speak with you about last night. Imagine my surprise when I woke up to find that you were gone,” he added with a frown.

“You wanted to talk about Allyson?”

“Not Allyson. My privacy. Remember what I said about keeping my affairs quiet? You cannot tell your roommate about us.”

“It’s going to be sort of hard to hide, Alex. I do live with her after all.”

“I don’t mean about the two of us being together. You can obviously tell her that much at least. I’m referring to what we do behind closed doors.”

I raised one eyebrow at him in surprise.

If I told Allyson the truth about you, she’d hull my ass to a shrink so fast that my head would spin. She would think that I had lost my damn mind.

I loved my friend, but I knew that she’d never understand. Allyson could not know about Alexander’s naughty bedroom antics.

“Oh, no worries there. I won’t tell Ally,” I quickly assured him. But after I spoke the promise, I immediately felt a small pain of guilt over not being truthful with my best friend.

“Nobody else can know either. I’m very serious about this. I am often in the public eye. What I do, what I like…it can be viewed as dirty laundry by most people. I would prefer not to have it aired.”

“Oh, and here I thought I might call the gossip columnist from –,” I stopped short when I saw his face pale. “Alex, I’m only kidding. I’m not the kiss and tell type. Even with Ally. My sex life is nobody’s business. You can relax.”

“Don’t joke about this, Krystina.”

I put my hands up in mock surrender.

“No more jokes. I promise.”

He leaned forward on the desk and pressed his forehead against his palms. Shaking his head as if to clear it, he eventually looked back up at me. He seemed calmer, yet there was a certain level of torment in his eyes.

“I’m not one to lose my head like that, Krystina.”

“It’s fine, Alex. You seem like you’ve had a rough day. Don’t think twice about it,” I blew off.

“No, no. It’s just that…I tend to forget myself with you sometimes. In all honesty, I don’t think that you’ll go running your mouth about us. I’m just pissed off that you left last night. I wanted you to stay. I’m sorry for raising my voice the way that I did,” he apologized, catching me by surprise with his admission.

“I suppose I owe you an apology as well. I’m sorry that I slipped out on you. And since we’re being honest with each other, it wasn’t that I didn’t have a change of clothes – although, that was a small part of the reason. I’m just trying to keep this thing between us as simple as possible. I thought that staying at your place would only complicate things.”

“Only if you allow it to, Krystina.” He smiled wryly at me. “If you’re going to be my submissive, you’ll be doing overnights.”

Whether or not I was going to do overnights was subject to debate, one that I didn’t want to get into at that particular moment. I had just gotten him to calm down and I didn’t want to rile him again. Besides, it was my submission, or rather his freaky-deak ideas about what he expected me to do, that really needed addressing.

“Yeah, about that. I’ll try to keep an open mind about overnights,” I began. “But first, we need to go over the list that you wrote. However, I’m not sure if this is the most appropriate place for talking about it.”

“For Christ’s sake, Krystina. Forget the stupid list! That’s negotiable, and doesn’t even begin to explain what I expect from you.” He got up from his chair and came around to where I was sitting. He pulled me up to my feet and placed his hands firmly on my hips. His heated eyes zeroed in on mine. “The list is only words on paper. Being in a dominant and submissive relationship means more than textbook terms. It’s a lifestyle – one that I want to teach you. For your sake, I’m going to take it slow. As for the overnights, you’ll have to stay at my place if you want to learn. And I’m serious when I say, you’ll have to stay over often.”

“I don’t see why I have to spend the night with you in order to learn anything, Alex.”

“It’s my job as your Dominant to see to your every want and need. I can’t very well do that when you’re not with me. We got off to a more conventional start than what I am used to. But that ends now. You’re staying the weekend with me.”

“It would have been nice of you to ask, rather than order –.”

He placed a finger over my lips to silence me.

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