Page 6 of Flog Me, Sir

“Me?” she set my grits down in front of me along with a steaming cup of coffee, and I peered into her dark, smiling eyes.

“Sending that poor girl to my room while knowing I was still be in bed...” I shook my head.

“I don’t know what you talkin’ about.” Mrs. Hummel turned with a huff, and I met Adam’s gaze across the table. One of his brows rose as the revolving door into the kitchen closed behind his housekeeper.

“Lissa,” I explained to him. “The new girl.”

“Oh?” Lilly asked from his right. Adam’s wife had played matchmaker for Jordan and Natalie—and I expected given the chance, she’d do the same for me.

“She sent Lissa to clean your room,” Lily murmured when I didn’t expound.

Adam chuckled. “Mrs. Hummel doesn’t make mistakes.”

“Nope,” I agreed, popping the “p” and dug into my breakfast, unsure if I should be excited or wary as fuck. Mrs. Hummel knew me better than most—not as well as Adam, Jordan, or our friend Rian, but good enough to know what I liked and didn’t. She also knew about my shit parents and tried to make up for it by spoiling me rotten whenever I visited Adam’s estate.

“How long has she worked here?” I asked, giving into the idea of at least getting to know a bit about the petite woman eating away every other thought in my head.

“Almost three months,” Lily replied, “and she’s been nothing but wonderful. But.”

Still shoveling food, I glanced up to find Lily frowning.

“I lost one of my best employees ever to Jordan. I’m not losing another.” She lifted her chin. “I should have hired someone too old for the likes of you, same as I’d done with the twins’ nanny.”

“I’m not looking to get involved,” I said, trying to ease her a bit.

“Imagine if you did,” Adam said, but I ignored him. “Garret Edwards enamored with the help.”

I found myself frowning, but not over the truth he spoke about my parents. “She’s more than that.”

“Sorry.” Adam lifted his hands in my periphery, and I realized the tone I’d used to defend a woman I didn’t even know.

I’m fucked.Scowling into my bowl, I spooned up an overflowing spoonful of grits.

“Your parents would throw a fit.”

“Don’t give a fuck,” I grumbled around my mouthful of food. “You know I gave up trying to please them years ago.”

I scraped my bowl clean, wishing I could lick every trace of breakfast from it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Adam said, and I finally pushed my empty bowl aside and gave him my attention.

“You know me that well?”

“Too well.” He grinned again, his teal eyes full of mischief, the kind that had gotten us into trouble during our college years.

“I don’t suppose it’s about the empty bowl?”

Adam snorted. “Fuck no.”

“So what do I do?” I asked, sitting forward, arms folded and elbows on the breakfast table.

“Go for it.”

Lily slapped his arm, and he shot her a raised eyebrow while sitting back, arms crossed over his rumpled white t-shirt.

“Sorry, Sir.” She dropped her gaze, her lower lip between her teeth. She’d get a reddened ass for sure—not that she would mind. I’d seen her backside handed to her dozens of times, and had gotten off, being the voyeur that I am. Having friends who didn’t mind an audience kicked ass.

“What?” I asked her, wanting to know her thoughts regardless of her husband and Dom.

---