Page 86 of Snow Bound

He trotted downstairs, still in his tux shirt and slacks, and headed back to the basement. He’d left the cameras on, his focus on getting Anna upstairs and settled, and he was unsurprised to see Michael still sitting at his desk.

“Hey.”

Michael looked up from the pages he’d been reading. “Hey. Get her settled?”

Grant sat heavily in the chair. “Yeah.”

“She okay?”

“She’s fucking fantastic,” Grant said with a sigh.

Michael set the pages aside. “I’ll say. If I’d known that was lurking under the surface when she started coming to the club?—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Grant warned, but he was smiling. “Jesus, that was hot.”

“Understatement of the century, my friend.” Michael barked out a rough laugh. “She spit in your face.”

“I should’ve seen that one coming,” Grant admitted and grinned at the memory. “I will next time.”

“Bring her to the club,” Michael suggested. “The woman likes an audience, and I can guarantee she’d get one.”

“When she’s ready.” Grant folded his hands over his belly as he regarded his friend. “She did okay with you there, because she already knows you, and knows I trust you. The whole club might be too much.”

“Well, you know your submissive.” Michael paused a beat, one eyebrow raised in question. “Is she your submissive?”

“Hell, yes,” Grant grumbled, “so don’t get any fucking ideas.”

“Just checking.”

“Right.” Grant smiled. “Thanks for doing this.”

“It was my very sincere pleasure,” Michael told him. “But next time you decide to give me blue balls, do it a little closer to opening time, would you? It’s going to be hours before I can do something with this boner.”

Grant laughed. “What, you don’t have some sweet young thing under the desk, waiting to worship your dick?”

“I see why she spit in your face,” Michael told him.

Grant pushed up from the chair, still laughing. “I’m going to go have a nap with my woman. See you later.”

“Later. Hey, Grant?”

Grant paused, his hand on the monitor’s power switch. “What?”

“She suits you.” Michael smiled when Grant blinked in surprise. “Try not to fuck it up.”

Grant rolled his eyes. “Goodbye, asshole.”

He shut off the monitors, then disconnected the cameras and set them aside. He’d bring them back to the office when he got back to Chicago, but first he wanted to make sure they were wiped clean. He’d set them so they’d project without recording, but he liked to cover his bases. The last thing he wanted was for any footage of that scene to be viewed by anyone else.

He set the electronics aside and surveyed the rest of the basement. It would need a more thorough tidying, but he could put that off until later. He wanted to be with Anna when she woke from her nap, wanted to spend the rest of the day cuddling and coddling her.

He flicked off the lights and started up the stairs. She’d been amazing, getting into the role play and taking it farther than he’d ever dreamed possible. It had been one of the best scenes of his life, and he only hoped she could say the same.

She was still asleep when he crept into the bedroom. He quietly shed his clothes, letting them fall to the floor, then slipped under the sheet beside her. She turned to him, seeking his warmth. He pulled her close and, comforted by the warm weight of her in his arms, drifted off to sleep.

When they woke he ordered a pizza, and spent the rest of the day as he’d planned, pampering her, feeding her, and cuddling with her on the sofa. When she fell asleep during the movie, he carried her up to bed and tucked her in, then crawled in beside her. Content, happy, he closed his eyes.

When he opened them the next morning, she was gone.

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