Page 43 of After Dark
Josette woke up in a rush, but Arlo wasn’t in the bed. Her immediate reaction was panic. Had he left? Had she ruined everything?
She came out of the bedroom—maybe she was running—and she only stopped when she heard his voice. When she trailed down the hall toward his office she found him on the phone.
Still him. Still here. Still the center of her world with the Bay Area gleaming there at his feet.
He hung up when he saw her, and smiled.
Josette felt that smile everywhere.
“Come on,” he said. “We have shit to do.”
He was brisk and demanding as he ushered her into the shower—notably, without fucking her—then directed her in how he wanted her hair and what he wanted her to wear. And Josette was glad that he did, because it settled in her like a sweet, warm weight.
She liked him bossy. She liked him telling her what to do. Sometimes she liked that he left in the mornings and she got to miss him all day. Sometimes she liked when he wasaway because their nightly video calls were hot. She didn’t want high protocol all the time, and she didn’t like the lack of it either. She likedallof it.
Josette liked that some days he fucked her so many times that she could barely breathe, and other days it was all set dressing, like this. His domination expressed through choosing her clothing, because that was how it felt today.
And to her, it felt like his arms wrapped around her in a big bear hug that went on forever.
When she was dressed to his satisfaction, Arlo smiled wickedly. Her took her out to the windows that overlooked the bay and made her bend over with her palms against the glass as he fucked her like a sledgehammer from behind.
So that when he drove them to City Hall, where Frederick met them and said that he’d finessed a last-minute same-day wedding, she was still trembling from the powerful orgasm she had, and better yet, could feel Arlo’s come on her thighs.
“All you need to do is handle the documentation,” Frederick told Arlo.
When Arlo stepped away to handle it, Josette and Frederick gazed at each other.
Josette found that what she really wanted to do was apologize. She couldn’t blame Frederick for standing up for his friend. In fact, she loved that he had. But she also didn’t want to defend herself, because that wasn’t his business. If there were apologies to be made, and there had been, they were Arlo’s.
Frederick thrust his hands into his pockets and fixed her with one of those brooding looks of his.
“I want to be clear about something,” he said. His voice was so icy, she braced herself. “If Arlo says that you are exactly the girl he should marry, he means it.”
The import of that hit her hard. That Arlo had told Frederick what she’d said, and more, that they’d discussed it. Arlo hadtoldhis friend he’d said such a thing. It made her head spin.
Good thing, then, that Frederick’s glare was like a tractor beam that brought her back to herself. Fucking dominance.
“If the finest friend I’ve ever had wants you for his wife, Josette,” Frederick said, “then I want you as his wife too.”
Josette felt the strangest sensation inside of her—like something she hadn’t even known was frozen solid was melting.
She was afraid that she would cry, but she refused to give her tormentor the satisfaction of sobbing when she wasn’t naked.
Not her tormentor, she thought. Her lover, if she was honest. And a major part of the freedom she found wasbecauseof the leash she knew Arlo held securely in one hand. He’d been absolutely right about that.
It hadn’t been any fun back out there on her own.
“Come on, Frederick,” she said, with a faint smile. “I know you like me for me. You wouldn’t take such pleasure in pulling me to pieces if you didn’t.”
Master Frederick inclined his head, his gaze intent on hers. “My only objection to you, ever, is that you left him. And you’re correct. I do like you.” He cleared his throat. “As a matter of fact, you’re the only one of Arlo’s women that I ever liked at all.”
“High praise indeed,” she said, but the funny thing was, she meant it. “But Frederick. Leaving him? That won’t happen again.”
Once again, the most feared and revered dominant in all of the Bay Area, and likely beyond, stared her down.
“See that it doesn’t,” he said.
And if she wasn’t mistaken, she could have sworn that she saw his mouth curve too.
