Amy Valenti - Not Your Damn Submissive (Denial #1) (6 page)

Cynthia had never been one to pry, though I could see she was curious. Giving
me a slightly bemused look, she asked, “How long do you have before he needs you back?”

“
I dunno. He’s filming. And if you could find something you can’t take me away from for the rest of the day, so much the better.”

Doug the props guy leaned backwards i
n his chair, nosey as always. “Is Connors a diva or something?”

“
No, just a dick.” I fixed Cynthia with a pleading stare. “Anything I can do?”

She relented.
“We have to redesign Dale’s bedroom before we get to shooting part two of the pilot. Speaking of divas, the author of the books really is one. Apparently there’s no way the heroine can lose her virginity on anything less than black satin sheets under a red velvet comforter.”

I grimaced.
“We’re going stereotypically Goth for the vampire’s bedroom, aren’t we?”

“‘
Fraid so.” Cynthia obviously didn’t like it any more than I did. As a set designer, she’d made a name for herself by subverting obvious tropes, while still keeping the decor of the sets within the parameters specified by the scripts. Our original set design had been modern and minimalistic, with plenty of stark contrast—blacks and dark blues on white. Now the author had thrown a tantrum, it looked like we’d be replacing that with wall sconces and a canopy bed, velvets and silks and heavy drapery. Classic vampire shit.
Boriiiing.

Still, it
’d take my mind off the argument I’d had with Callum. “What do you need?”

Cynthia motioned for me to pull up a chair, and together we went through her new, author-approved sketches for the set. After that, I threw myself into sorting through  fabr
ics in the costume department—we tended to poach from each other occasionally—to find cloth we could successfully turn into a throw to cover our minimalistic couch. Why a vampire with a supposedly sprawling house would bother to have a couch in his bedroom, I wasn’t sure, but the sex scene choreography called for it so I wasn’t going to argue the point.

Unfortunately, the brainlessness of my task gave me plenty of time to fume over my argument with Callum. What the hell did he think he was doing, getting Darren to force me to babysit him when he didn
’t need a damn assistant anyway? It didn’t make sense. Yes, we’d kissed. Yes, it had been amazing. Oh, God, had it been amazing…

I shifted guiltily as my panties grew damp, hoping no one in the costume department would glance over and notice I was daydreaming. It made me wet just to think of hi
s lips on mine, the raw need surging between us, the way he’d cupped my ass as I’d ground against his cock—

Stop. Now. Seriously.

I switched gears with an effort, turning my mind back to how furious I was with Callum. He’d known I was only there for a few hours to help out, and somehow he’d come up with a way to throw us together for two whole weeks, despite me telling him outright that I wasn’t interested in submission or in him.

But then you kissed him.

And I was right back to that again. What had even possessed me to do it? I didn’t even remember who was the one to start it, me or him—just that I’d brushed against him and then we were crushed together, trying desperately to get closer, closer…

Maybe I should have told him no again after the kiss, but I
’d just wanted to escape before he tried to take it further, because God help me, I hadn’t thought I’d be able to resist him.

And then you let him
—

“
Hello? Anyone around?” a familiar voice called over the distant whirr of the sewing machine, and my heart leapt.
What the hell is he doing here?

The sewing machine stopped as I placed some
scraps of golden-hued velvet back on the shelf I’d pulled them from. Angelique, the head costumer for the production, headed past me and out towards the door. “Callum Connors, I presume. What brings you here?”

As I ducked between a couple of rails of clothing that would hide me from him, Callum said,
“We took a quick hot dog break and I got a little clumsy with the tomato sauce.”

I held back a snort. He couldn
’t even eat a hot dog without my help?

Angelique was a snappy dresser and a born eccentric, but when one of
her costumes met a messy end—or had to be put through the laundry—she was rarely pleased. She clucked like a disapproving hen. “Off with that. You’re lucky we have every costume in triplicate, young man. Let me just find another.”

“
Yes, ma’am.” Callum’s voice sounded faintly amused.

Angelique wandered past me, concentrating on her task, and as she rifled through a rail a couple of rows behind me I peek
ed around my hiding spot, a mixture of guilt and voyeuristic pleasure filling me. Callum stood with his back to me, his attention on the various swatches and sketches on the table just inside the door. His shirt was held loosely in one hand, his naked back and shoulders showing the subtle outlines of muscles in all the right places.
Turn around
, I mentally begged, craning my neck as if that would give me a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of his body.

As though he
’d heard me, he shifted so that he was in profile. Careful not to move in case he noticed my peeking head in his peripheral vision, I feasted my eyes on his lean but fit body. I’d never been a woman who loved bulging muscles on top of yet more muscles—I preferred my eye candy to have definition, but not extra bulk and prominent veins.

Callum was perfect, even more delicious in the flesh than when I
’d ogled his half-naked image on TV. I’d already felt him pressed up against me, but clothing had been in the way. Now I ached to know how his skin would feel against my palms, my fingers, my naked breasts—

Heat flooded my pussy as I shamelessly fantasised about the man I was supposed to have a major grudge against. If he ever chose to strip his shirt off during an argument I would be completely powerless
to do anything…except maybe beg to lick the ripples of his abs.
Heaven…

Angelique returned to the front of the department
, holding a white shirt out in front of her. “Put this thing on before I decide you shouldn’t be allowed to wear clothing at all. My, my, what a terrible job I have!” she teased.

He laughed and took the garment from her.
“Sorry to have to break it to you, but the scenes we’re shooting today don’t really call for nudity.”

“
Well, that’s a shame. Ratings would go through the roof!”

Angelique and I both admired his physique as he pulled the shirt over his head and down. It was tight enough that I could just make out hints of his muscles shifting as he moved.
I wanna be that shirt.

“
Well, guess I’d better get back. Thanks.”

“
Let me know if you need help taking that back off later,” Angelique said cheekily, and I rolled my eyes.

Callum just grinned and disappeared from view, to my relief.

Angelique fanned herself and called out, “I see you hiding there, missy… What do you think? Fifteen out of ten?”

S
hamefaced, I came out of my hiding spot. “At least.” Then terror seized me. “You don’t think he noticed me looking, do you?”

She shrugged.
“Doubt it. I only noticed you ‘cause I work here every day and I know when things are out of place.” With a sly glance at me, she added, “Heard you’d been made his impromptu assistant. What are you doing hiding away in here instead of waiting to cater to his every whim by the side of the set?”

The way the grapevine worked in this place, she
’d probably already heard how I’d cussed him out this morning. There was no point pretending it hadn’t happened—she’d only steer the conversation around to it.

“
I asked if I could go and help Cynthia while he was shooting. There’s not much for me to do but watch while the cameras are rolling, and it gets boring after a while. We had a disagreement about it but he let me come over here anyway.” I shrugged. “It’s not as dramatic as you’ve probably heard.”

Angelique tutted.
“You do know how to take the fun out of a girl’s day.”

“
Sorry. Cynthia’s got me looking for Gothic couch throw fabric, so I’m passing on the boredom.”

That helped deflect the conversation away from Callum, thank
God. Angelique sent me back to Cynthia with four different rolls of fabric left over from a period drama she’d worked on.

Callum sent me a text message about two hours later, when I was making a note of the new paint shades we
’d be using on the set’s walls.
Finished for now. Come to my trailer, please.

I stared at the message for a second,
hating the way my pulse had already kicked up a notch at the thought of seeing him. I didn’t want to react this way towards a man with so little respect for my time and my wishes, but my body had a mind of its own when it came to Callum. Would he want to spank me again, or something even more intimate?

I yelled a quick goodbye to my usual co-workers and set off towards the cast
’s trailers, trying to pull my irritation back to the forefront of my mind. I wasn’t about to forgive him for being an ass just because he looked fantastic without a shirt. He’d admitted outright that he wasn’t keeping me around because he needed an assistant, which meant I could probably sue the hell out of him for sexual harassment. Not that anyone could corroborate that was what this was. At the moment it was my word against his, and Darren would probably come down on Callum’s side if questioned.

And it
’s not as if you weren’t willing yesterday.

That really
did
piss me off, and by the time I reached the trailer I was safely cloaked in my anger once more.

Callum was sitting on the trailer
’s step when I approached, frowning slightly up into the sky. Noticing me, he smiled and stood up. “Thanks for coming back so promptly.”

What could I say to that? I kept quiet and followed him inside his trailer, remembering with trepidation the
post-spanking conversation we’d had last time I’d been in here.
You’re not my damn submissive
yet
.
A slight shudder ran through me, and I didn’t know whether it was from arousal or fear.

Chapter Four

Callum

Kat’s expression was slightly mutinous as she followed me into the trailer. Maybe she was hoping to pick up where we’d left off earlier, and although that held appeal—she was beautiful when she was giving me hell—it would probably only drive her farther away from me, emotionally speaking.

She sat down at my request and regarded me warily.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” I said, not bothering to beat about the bush. “And about yesterday.”

Kat blinked at me,
clearly thrown off guard. “I… Um, good.”

“
I need to be completely honest with you. No games, no verbal sparring, no physical contact. Just hear me out, okay?”

She sighed.
“You’ve already been very explicitly honest about what you want from me, Mr. Connors. What possible reason could I have to want to sit and listen to more of it?”

I
’d debated whether or not to say these words during every spare minute I’d had all morning. Now that it came down to it, I didn’t have a choice. She’d be well within her rights to walk away from this conversation, and she would—unless I gave her a reason not to.

“
If you hear everything I have to say and you really don’t want to continue this arrangement afterwards, I’ll go to Darren and get him to release you from it.” Fuck, saying the words made me queasy. I’d just offered her a chance to get away from me for good, and I was goddamn scared she’d take it and not look back.

I
’d startled her; that much was plain. The usual Dom routine didn’t come across as especially reasonable, and up until after the spanking yesterday I’d thought she’d respond to it the way most subs with an interest in me did. It was time to can that approach, though, because it wasn’t working and could lead to accusations of—

“
Okay, I’ll listen. But go easy on the sexual harassment.”

Yeah, I
’d overdone it.
Damn.

Was it my imagination, or had her face softened a little? Maybe her seeing how genuinely uncomfortable I was had scored me a few points in the plus column.

I tried to keep things as simple as possible. “I shouldn’t have pushed as hard as I did, and for that, I really am sorry. Yesterday in the trailer…was I wrong to think you enjoyed it?”

She folded her arms and stared down at her
lap. “I promised to hear you out, not have a discussion.”

I tilted my head, conceding the point.
“Then I’ll rephrase. I got mixed messages from you yesterday, and maybe it’s because I’m so damn attracted to you, but the way you kissed me yesterday morning…it made me think I had a chance. That’s why I pushed in the trailer, and up until afterwards it never crossed my mind that you had doubts about being spanked. Again, I really am sorry about that, for what it’s worth.”

I hesitated, hoping like hell that she
’d throw me a bone, admit that she’d wanted what I’d done as much as I’d thought she had. She stayed quiet, attentive but not willing to contribute. The weight of guilt in my chest grew heavier.

“
My instincts told me you’re a submissive, and that you want me. You already know I’m a Dom, and you make me want…” I caught myself before I went too far back into Dom mode, and sighed, backtracking. “I haven’t had this strong a reaction to a sub before. Not just sexual. There’s an emotional component that’s difficult to explain. ‘Protective’ is probably the closest word to describing it.”

Kat was gazing at me now, a frown creasing the skin between her
eyebrows. The defensiveness that had been radiating from her since the first time I’d seen her was still there, but diminished somehow, as though my words were getting through.

“
After we kissed on the set, you ran off before I could get your number, and you said yourself that you wouldn’t be around for the rest of the time I was filming. I shouldn’t have gone to Darren the way I did, and I apologise for the situation I’ve put you in. But I’m not sorry that I’ve had more time to be around you.” I shrugged. “Okay. I’m done.”

Kat twisted her hands in her lap, a clear sign that she was nervous.
“I…don’t know how to react to this. I don’t know what to say.”

Her conflicted demeano
ur gave me hope. Maybe I was deluding myself, but I wanted to believe her attraction to me was as strong as mine to her. It almost killed me to give her the space she so obviously needed, but part of her wanted to shut me out and I wasn’t going to give it any extra reasons for doing so. “Head home early. Take some time to think and let me know your decision.”

She nodded slowly, getting to her feet.
“I don’t even know what my choices are right now.”

You don
’t have a choice. You’re mine.

Wishful thinking wasn
’t going to get me anywhere. “The way I see it, you have three options. One, you get out of this completely, take your vacation time, and by the time you get back I’ll be gone.”

From the way her eyes flickered, option one wasn
’t as attractive as her Little Miss Badass persona would have had me believe. The part of me that was afraid I’d pushed her too far yesterday relaxed slightly.

“
Two, you continue as my assistant for the time you’re here. Granted, I don’t really need one, but you’re being paid to do virtually nothing, and from what I overheard of your conversation with Darren, you get an extra week of vacation time when my contract expires. Working together, we’ll get to know each other a little more and the ball is entirely in your court. I won’t be anything less than professional with you unless you tell me otherwise, even if it means I have to act around you.”

Kat shifted from one foot to the other. I couldn
’t quite get a read on whether option two appealed to her. “And the third option?”

“
You stop pushing me away. I can tell part of you wants to kneel at my feet, Kat, and I won’t lie to you—I want you there. But unless you ask me to, I won’t go into the details of everything I’d love to do with you.”

For a second I thought
she’d made her decision; hunger flitted across her face. But just as quickly, it disappeared as though she’d completely shut down her emotions. “Thank you for your honesty. I…I do need some time to think.”

It half killed me that I couldn
’t reach out to her, to cup her face in my hands and search for the truths she was hiding. Instead, I indicated the door. “If you need more time after tonight, then we can make option two a temporary one, until you’re ready to give me an answer.”

“
That…sounds fair,” she admitted grudgingly, as if she wanted me to be the bad guy in all this and was perplexed that I’d shown her a new side to me. She paused beside the doorway and took a breath. “Earlier you asked me a question. You weren’t wrong.”

She left before I could ask her
what she meant, or figure out what question she was answering. It was almost ten minutes later that I remembered what I’d asked her.

Yesterday in the trailer…
was I wrong to think you enjoyed it?

I pushed the script I was trying to memorise aside and got up to make some coffee, my mood lifting considerably.

You weren’t wrong.

* * * *

Kat

Goddamn him! Now I can’t even be angry at him.

I flung myself onto my couch, kicked off my shoes and
sighed. It was like Callum could see into my soul, knew exactly how to get past my defences and chip away at my conviction.

He
’d apologised. Really? Who
did
that?

Decent, reasonable, caring people.

I didn’t want him to be any of those things. It had been so much easier when I’d had a nemesis, someone to hate while I’d raged at a situation I couldn’t get out of.

Now, he
’d given me three choices, including the ‘get out of jail free’ card I’d been longing for. Only now, I didn’t want to take that option. I was going to have to face the truth—I’d become hooked on Callum Connors after just one kiss, solidified the addiction when he’d spanked me and brought me to a toe-curling climax, and though I knew I should just walk away, his ‘option three’ kept calling to me.

I wanted to kneel at his feet.

Fear and elation swept through my system in tandem, making me shudder. How could I be considering this? Hadn’t last time been enough of a lesson? I didn’t allow myself near books or movies with BDSM in them these days, let alone people who might be interested in doing that stuff. With me.

It might be different this time. He didn
’t hurt you yesterday. Well, not the bad kind of hurting.

I needed some time for this to sink in before I made a decision.

I picked my sketchbook up from the coffee table and dug in the pot on the windowsill behind me for a pencil sharp enough to sketch with. Flipping through the pages, I examined a few of my latest sketches critically before turning to the first blank sheet of paper. Since I’d gone into set decoration with Cynthia, a lot of my drawings were of interiors—rooms from books I’d been reading as I’d imagined them to look. Sometimes I went off the realism track and into the realms of fantastical, Escher-like constructions that’d be impossible to pull off on the budgets we had to work with, and stuff that was just physically impossible. On the rare occasions I wasn’t drawing interiors, I drew people, just to practise my technique.

With no particular design in mind, I started to sketch, shoving as
ide the troubling thoughts of Callum and BDSM whenever they started to nudge back into my consciousness. A room started to take shape on the page, and I sketched in a bed without thinking about it. It made me remember the way Callum had lounged back on the bed in the bedroom set yesterday, beckoning to Jacie to join him while the cameras rolled. He’d looked so sexy, and that was just while he’d been fully clothed. When I’d seen him in the costume department without his shirt today, my ovaries had nearly exploded from the sheer hotness of it.

I flipped to a new page absentmindedly as my traitorous imagination took over. What if Callum had been shirtless on that bed, and it had just been him and me there? How would it feel to have him pull me down beside him,
cover my body with his and kiss me like there was nothing else in the world that mattered to him?

Then it really registered that I was now halfway through drawing a reclining, shirtless Callum Connors, one hand extended in invitation and a knowing smile te
asing the corners of his lips.

I threw the sketchpad aside with a groan of frustration.
Goddamn hormones!

I needed a wake-up call.

* * * *

Two hours later, I was keying in the code to the door of an abused women
’s shelter downtown. It didn’t advertise itself as such, in case the abusers of the women hiding there tried to get to them, but the knowledge was out there if you were female and knew where to look.

The keypad beeped and something in the heavy-duty lock clicked open. It had bee
n a while since I’d been here—I’d always meant to come back and volunteer someday, but every time I thought I was up to it, I got halfway up the pathway leading to the front door and realised I wasn’t.

Today I
’d forced myself to come here, and although my stomach was churning, I’d screwed up every bit of courage I had.

I cancelled out of the text message the owner of the shelter had s
ent with the latest door code—it changed often, out of necessity—and put my phone back in my pocket as I crossed the threshold. A small, solemn-eyed little girl was the only occupant of the entrance hall, sitting on the low bench that ran along one wall, and she stared at me over the top of the tattered paperback she’d been reading.

I shut the door behind me gently and smiled at
her.

“
You’re new. I don’t know you. But you knew how to get in.”

“
Don’t worry.” I approached slowly, so I wouldn’t scare her. She was probably the daughter of one of the women sheltering here, and kids from that kind of background were often traumatised to some degree. “I used to live here, like you, and I came to see Trish. Do you know where she is?”

The girl was quiet for a moment, her gaze analytical.
“You don’t have no bruises. Least, not where I can see. Are they under your clothes, like mine?”

I want
ed to cry, or hug this poor child and reassure her that one day, life would be better for her. But invading her space would be the worst thing I could do, so I stayed where I was. “It was a long time ago that I lived here. I got away from the man who gave me bruises”—
and much more
—”and now I have a new home. And nobody gives me bruises now.”

The kid nodded slowly, like I
’d passed some kind of test. Then, without taking her eyes off me, she yelled loudly enough to make me wince. “Tri-iiish!”