Page 33 of Long for Me
Chapter Eleven
Bennett
Okay, so that was a major fuck up on my part. Not just because I’d driven Rebecca over the edge straight to crazy town, but clearly she had deeper-seated issues with BDSM than I was aware of, and that was on me.
Every step I took to my office, further from where I’d left her, moved me slower. Go back and calm her down. Leave her and give her space. As a Dom, even if I’d only been her Dom for one night, my job was to get to the heart of why she wanted to explore. That failure to do so was on me. Whatever had caused that emotional rant of hers was on me, and before I pushed her too far I needed to regroup.
Plus, once she used a safe word, my first job was to end everything. Clearly I’d thrown her for a wild loop and yeah, that hadn’t been my plan, either. But hell, Rebecca anywhere within twenty feet of me made me do messed up, insane things.
Like thinking I could ask her to be my partner, in both work and life.
“Some idea, asshole,” I muttered to myself. Blowing out a breath, I entered my office and closed the door. Once behind my desk, I pulled up business plan after business plan on my computer screen. I pulled up budgets, clicking like a confused and maimed animal with no sense of purpose. Everything blurred together until my eyes burned and I glanced at my clock.
Shit. I’d been in there for an hour and outside my office, there hadn’t been a single sound coming from Rebecca’s office. Odd.
I pushed from my desk, intent on investigating when I paused.
She didn’t want to see me. Well, too bad. I wasn’t leaving the office without setting things straight.
A light glared next to her phone line. At least she was there. After I pissed her off earlier, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she went back to her office and packed up her stuff, quitting on me without notice.
The very idea sent a pain to my chest and I rubbed the area.
I headed toward her office, stopping as I heard her quiet voice filtering through the doorway.
“No, Miranda. I appreciate it but a girls’ night isn’t exactly what I need tonight or any night.” Then, “I just want to forget all about it. Honestly, this isn’t something I want to relive ever again.”
Her eyes darted up and she gaped as she saw me, shoulder braced against the doorway. I hadn’t intentionally been trying to hide, but the way the blood drained from her face told me I’d surprised her all the same.
“I have to go. Call you later.” She hung up the phone, the receiver clinking on the base. “Can we not do this now?” she asked, turning back to her computer screen. Her hands froze on the keyboard before she glanced back to me. “Please? The day has been bad enough.”
I nodded toward the chair on the opposite side of her desk. “Can I come in and talk for a minute?”
“You can do anything you want; you’re the boss.”
Ah, at least I hadn’t killed her sass.
She hadn’t meant it but I took the opening and pushed off the doorway.
I folded into her comfortable leather chair and leaned forward, elbows on my knees, hands clasped together. “I owe you an apology.”
“Yeah, a few of them, I think, but what specifically are you talking about?”
“All of it,” I started. “Rebecca—”
She sliced a hand through the air. Flickers of her red painted nails slashed in a straight line. “Forgiven.”
A growl rose in my throat and I pushed it down. “For what?”
“All of it.”
Yeah, she wouldn’t be that easy, even though it’d be nice to get out of this. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
“Perceptive son of a bitch, aren’t you?”
She infuriated me like no one else. This was why I couldn’t get her out of my head. She pissed me off and turned me on and inside out at the same time.
“As your boss, Rebecca, I’d appreciate some respect—”
