Corporate Cowboy (19 page)

“Your submissive.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about. Emma, you know how I operate. Everyone is—”

“Temporary. Like me. Gage, you have no idea how temporary I am right now.”

His shoulders slumped, his voice quieted. “No, Emma. Not like you. You’re…” He didn’t finish.

“You can’t say it, can you?”

He shakes his head. “Say what?”

“You almost said something and then you backed out of it. You almost said something like ‘I’m different,’ or maybe that ‘I’m more.’ But no, you couldn’t finish it because you fucking can’t. You don’t know how to tell people how you really feel.”

He steps toward me, grasping my elbow. “Emma, let’s talk. Let me tell you about Amanda.”

I huff. “
Amanda
approached me at the Mexican restaurant yesterday. She also found me in the park a few minutes ago and told me a whole lot of things. She has pictures, Gage, of you and me having sex. And I saw video of you fucking her and doing other…things to her. My God…is that what you want to do to me?”

Gage’s eyes widened. “No. Goddammit, no. She didn’t. I warned that bitch…”

“Oh, so it’s true.”

He shook his head. “Amanda is not my submissive, but we have had a relationship for many years. She knows I am not committed and I’ve never wanted to be committed to her. She wants a Dom/sub relationship. I don’t. She is not my submissive.”

I stare at him. “Keep going.”

“She’s just…convenient. When I need to fuck something and I don’t have anything lined up.”

My stomach turns. I stare at Gage a minute. “Do you have any idea how awful that sounds? You just called her a ‘thing.’ Beds are things, Gage. Chairs and pencils are things. People are not things. At least in my world. Look, I admit, I’m not very fond of this woman but she is a woman, Gage, not a ‘thing.’”

“Shit. I didn’t mean it like that, Emma.”

I shake my head. “I’m getting it, Gage. I mean, I knew it from the beginning. You told me, warned me. Fucking is business. It’s pleasure. It’s nothing more. Well, go fuck your ‘thing’ Amanda from now on. I’m off your fuck list.”

I open the door and step through it.

He follows me. “There’s more that you need to know, Emma.”

I don’t answer, looking at the elevator. I don’t want to hear one more detail.

“Amanda is why you are here, Emma, in my condo, and why we put the new security system in at work.”

“Excuse me?” I turn around.

“She sent the pictures of us in the truck to me several days ago. I met with her and told her to back off. But she threatened to hurt you and I was worried.”

“You knew she had pictures and didn’t tell me?”

“That’s right.”

“And she had threated to harm me and you never told me?”

“I knew I could protect you.”

I’m trying to process this. “So you didn’t bring me to your home because you wanted to be with me, but because this Amanda was making threats? Well, sorry for the inconvenience.”

“It wasn’t like that, Emma.” He reaches for my hand. I jerk it back.

“So, are her threats why I got promoted and Christina got fired? Dammit, Gage, you do love to manipulate people, don’t you?”

“I’m just trying to protect you, Emma. Keep you safe. I protect what is mine.”

“Stop! I’m not yours. I’m leaving.” I punch the hell out of the elevator call button.

He places his hand over mine, stopping me. “Please. Emma, look at me. I’ll beg if that will make you stay.”

Looking at the elevator doors, I say, “Begging is not becoming on you, Gage.”

“Look, I just wanted you safe. That doesn’t make me a bad guy. I was trying to protect you. Don’t I get points for that? Shit, I’ve treated you a helluva lot better than the other bastards you called boyfriends.”

I whirl back. “You know nothing about the men in my past.”

“Wrong. You told me enough. I find out things.”

I am shocked. “What do you know? Or think you know?”

“I know that your prom date didn’t just take your virginity, he beat you into submission and then raped you. I also know that your college boyfriend cheated repeatedly and tried to break into your apartment.”

Every bad feeling about men I’ve ever had just balled up in a knot in my stomach. “How?”

“I hired a private investigator.”

“My God. You’ll stop at nothing.”

“Not when it comes to you. I… Emma, I don’t know what you saw in the video, but I could never be that way with you. I—I can’t. I care…”

I want to believe him. I don’t. “Care? You don’t care, Gage. You’ve already established that fact. You don’t have feelings. You are without emotion. You are a cold, hard, twisted man. And we’re done here.”

The elevator rattles to a stop behind me. I turn and step into the car and jam my fist on the down button. I pray he will not follow. I pray there is a cab waiting for me downstairs.

I refuse to cry.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Gage’s head was spinning. He had to let her go, of that he was certain. As much as he wanted to hog-tie her and throw her on his bed, lock all of the doors and disengage all of the phones, he knew he couldn’t do that.

Giving up that power, at this particular moment, was incredibly difficult.

He was going to lose her. He knew it was coming eventually, but he thought he had another week. What will she do now? Quit her job and high tail it back to Charlotte? He hoped so because he didn’t think he could bare to see her in the office and not be able to run his hands up the back of her skirt, or look down into her pretty blue eyes.

Then again, he wanted her to stay. He needed to know she was around. Even if she wouldn’t speak to him.

He shook his head. That would never work.

Anger blistered him from the inside out. Fire ate at his gut and almost made him nauseous. He suppressed it best he could as he’d called up his truck from valet parking. He watched her cab leave the parking lot and move into traffic. By the time his truck arrived, she was long gone.

He went to her apartment anyway. Just to make sure she got there all right and Amanda wasn’t following her. He parked and called into the front desk. Yes, he was told, Ms. Lavender had arrived a few minutes earlier and headed upstairs to her apartment. Gage asked for security to follow-up and make sure everything was okay and call him back.

He waited and watched for several minutes and finally the return call came.

“Ms. Lavender is in her apartment, and all is well, Mr. Parker.”

“Did you speak with her?”

“Yes, sir. I told her it was customary for us to check in when someone has been away for a few days. That I just wanted to make sure all was well with her place. She said she was fine.”

Gage closed his eyes. “Good. Please keep an eye on her and her place. If you need to hire more security, call me.”

It was all he could do. He could have her tailed again but thought better of it. Emma would be fine. And Amanda shouldn’t be a problem in a few hours.

He started the engine and left. Before he rolled into traffic, he punched a number into his cell phone. When the answer came, he said, “All right. You win. Meet me at the ranch in two hours.”

He clicked off. “Fuck.”

****

An hour later, Gage pulled up to the barn and parked. He got out and went directly to the tack room, unlocking it and throwing back the door. He charged in like a bucking bull and pushed over the spanking bench. He kicked at the cabinet that held his floggers and whips, and then picked them up one by one and whirled them toward the other side of the room.

Slap. Slap. Slap.

He growled and yelled as he approached the St. Andrew’s cross, and with several aggressive jerks, ripped it from the wall and toppled it to the floor, shackles and hooks rattling and bouncing against the plank wood floor.

His anger boiling over now, he rapidly crossed the room to the wooden chest where he kept his toys. He pulled out drawer after drawer and flung them. Vibrators, dildos, cuffs, clamps, chains, ties, ropes and more flew.

He was getting rid of it. All of it. Never did he want to cross the threshold of this goddamned room again.

Out of breath, his chest heaving, he bent at the waist and put his hands on his knees. For several minutes, he stayed bent over, just trying to breathe, feeling like he’d just been sucker-punched with the wind knocked out of him. Feeling like the burning ache underneath his breastbone was going to eat right through him like acid. He heard footsteps and slowly lifted his gaze to the door, framed with the morning light. The silhouette of a man moved toward him.

He shielded his eyes against the light. “Cole?”

“Yep. Goddamn man. You feel better?”

Gage stood up and exhaled. “Not sure yet.”

“Bad day already?”

“Yes.”

“Emma?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you doing here, when you should be off fixing things with her.”

Gage sucked in a breath and pulled the back of his hand across his forehead, wiping away the sweat. “Trying to figure out what in the hell I am doing with my life. Got a minute?”

Cole stepped up and Gage could more easily see his face now. His friend smirked and tipped back his hat. “I think that’ll take more than a minute. Coffee?”

Gage agreed.

They left the tack room, and Gage locked the door behind him. Silent while they walked to the house, they went inside and Cole tended to the coffee-making. Gage just paced and washed his hands over his face. He was antsy and irritated, anger still curled up inside him like a snake coiled to strike.

But more than that, he was hurting. Hell.

He rubbed his chest, trying to push out the ache. It wasn’t working.

Cole looked at him. “You’re too young to have a heart attack, but if you don’t let up, you’re going to have one. Tell me what’s going on.”

Gage just shook his head. He couldn’t look at Cole. “Not sure if I can.”

With the coffee made, Cole poured a mug and sat it on the side of the table closest to where Gage stood. “Sit down, Take a sip. And then let it go, brother.”

“I need to fuck something.” Gage pushed away from the kitchen counter and headed for the coffee. Immediately, he regretted saying that, thinking of what Emma had said earlier. “No, I don’t. I need to figure out how to handle my problems without fucking anyone.”

Cole whistled through his teeth. “Now, that’s a revelation if I ever heard one. What made you come to that conclusion?” Cole sat across from him at the table, his coffee cup warming his hands.

Gage sat and closed his eyes. “Emma.” He rapidly drummed his fingertips on the table.

“Man, you gotta talk before you drum a few holes in this wood table and notch the floor with your boot heel where you’re shaking your leg. What the hell happened?”

Gage inhaled and let out a long breath. “I’m trying not to explode.”

“I thought you already did in the tack room.”

“That was just getting started.”

“Well holding it in isn’t going to help. Maybe you need to try a different tack. Instead of throwing things, how about you just talk. I’m going to sit here and listen. You hear me? I don’t want to put you in a grave. You’re worrying me.”

Gage looked as his friend. “I’m worrying myself.”

“It’s not a weakness to ask for help.”

“Don’t need help. Maybe advice.”

“That’s good too. Now talk.”

Gage exhaled again. Where to start? Just anywhere, he guessed. “Amanda got to Emma.”

“Is she okay?”

“Emma is fine. She’s back at her apartment.”

“I thought she was staying with you?”

“She left. She left—me.”

Cole’s head dipped in a slight nod. “Okay, so Emma is out of the picture now.”

“I want to fucking kill Amanda.”

“No you don’t. You want to get her out of your life. You want to yell and scream at her. Hell, you might even want to take a whip to her. But you don’t want to kill her and you won’t. That’s crossing the line. In fact, taking a whip to her is crossing the line, too, because you want nothing to do with her right now that is sexual. Do you hear me, Gage Parker?”

Gage stared at his friend. “Yes. I do. You’re right and I know it. It’s just how I’ve dealt with things for so long and right now, I’m feeling pretty much out of control and I am fighting to get control back.”

“Fucking Amanda isn’t it. You learned that lesson a couple of weeks ago.”

Gage nodded. “You’re right. I actually don’t want to be anywhere near her.”

“Then don’t.”

“But I have to, at least one more time. I’ve called her and told her to meet me here.”

“Ah hell, Gage.”

“I need her off my back, Cole. She threatened to expose my lifestyle. She threatened to hurt Emma, and goddammit, she got to her today. I can’t let that happen again, and I don’t know how to stop her.”

“What is it that she wants? Besides you, that is.”

“Nothing. She wants Emma gone, and she wants me to be her Master. Hell. Subs don’t act this way. She’s acting more like a Domme than a—” He paused, thinking. He caught Cole’s gaze. “She doesn’t know what she is, does she? Hell, she’s probably a switch or a Domme. Why in the hell has she submitted to me all these years?”

“Because she loves you, Gage. She always has.”

Gage shook his head. “No. She’s like me. We’ve talked about it. We both wanted nothing to do with love or relationships. That’s why for a lot of years we were good together in a D/s way. She doesn’t love me.”

Cole picked at something on the table. “Gage, Amanda has always been in love with you. She learned to take whatever it was that you would give her. She always hoped you would somehow realize you could love too. But you never learned how.”

Gage stared off. He was silent for a minute, and then said quietly, “Yes, I did.”

“When?”

“This week.”

Cole stared back. “You’re in love with Emma?”

“I think I’m trying to learn how to be in love with Emma.”

“Then that’s what you have to tell Amanda.”

Gage slowly returned his gaze to Cole. “It can’t be that simple.”

“Try it. Set her free, Gage.”

****

Amanda McIntyre’s smile stretched from one cheek to the other as she exited her old pick-up truck. She leaped forward, her face aglow, then caught Gage’s stern face and her smile fell. She stopped up short.

“Why the business face, Gage?”

“Because we have some serious business to discuss.” Gage stood on the porch, waiting. “Let’s go inside, Amanda.”

She turned and glanced back at the barn. “But what about the tack room?”

“We’re not going there.”

“Not at all? Gage, you said—”

“I said nothing to indicate we were using the tack room. We are going to talk. Get in the house. Now.”

He figured she’d respond best, at least right now, with him taking a dominant stance.

She moved up the steps and across the porch. He followed her into the kitchen. “In the great room,” he told her.

“Fine.”

Amanda plopped on the sofa and crossed her arms. Gage sat in a wingback leather chair across the room.

“Pouting is not going to get you anywhere, Amanda.”

She sat up. “Did you get rid of her?”

“She’s gone.”

“Back to wherever she came from?”

“No. She’s back at her apartment, and what she does from here on out is up to her. We are not together.”

“Good.” The smile was back.

“You have been way out of line the last week or so. The pictures, approaching Emma, threatening to expose me. It stops now.”

“Good. She doesn’t deserve you, Gage. I’m the one who knows you and has put up with you all of these years. I’m the one who knows what you like and how you like to get off. I can take it. I was doing her a favor by showing her those things.”

“What
did
you show her?”

Her mouth clamped up tight.

“Amanda.”

“Video of a scene in the tack room.”

He exploded up off the chair. “Shit, Amanda! When in the fuck did you do video? You know that violates everything we’ve agreed on!”

She waved her hands about. “Calm down. I turned on my cell phone one day and just let it run. It was perched against something and caught a scene on the cross. I just wanted to be able to relive what you were doing to me. It was for me, nothing else.”

“Where is it?” His blood pressure was shooting up again.

“In my phone. I haven’t done anything else with it, Gage, and I don’t have any more.”

“Better not. Delete it, Amanda. Better yet, give it to me.”

She sighed and handed her phone over. He scrolled through all of her media and found the pictures of him and Emma in the truck and the video. He looked up at her. “I should throttle you.”

“I would enjoy that immensely.”

Gage stuck the phone in his pocket. “This phone is lost. I’ll buy you a new one but you’re not getting this back, and I need to know exactly how that video and the pictures are stored.”

“They are not backed up anywhere.”

He had to be certain, though. Of course, could he ever be certain?

“Amanda, I’m only going to say this once. If you approach Emma again, I’ll have you arrested, and I don’t care if it exposes my lifestyle. If you attempt to show any of those pictures or video to the media, or the authorities, or anyone else you are thinking of bribing me with, I will fucking see that you are put behind bars for extortion.”

She laughed. “You can’t do that. I didn’t demand anything in exchange for not releasing those.”

“The hell you didn’t. You demanded
me
. You want to hold me hostage in order to save my business and protect Emma. That is not happening. You have no power over me, do you understand? Make no mistake, my network is wide. If you pursue any of the things you threatened before, I will ruin you. I will take every last cent and every inch of land your daddy left you and then some.”