Exposed to You (23 page)

“Yeah, I am. If you
order me some spring rolls, I’ll pay you back with my first paycheque. For the
cab money, too.”

Dallon halted on the
way into the living room, shot me a dark look. “You’re not paying me back for
anything. I’m your boyfriend, Amy. Get used to it.”

I sighed and sunk into
his chair, using my right foot to rotate it in circles. What was it like being
Dallon, a young, wealthy CEO spending his days in his penthouse apartment,
playing with money?

I bet it felt pretty
damn good.

“How did you meet
Brendan?” I asked as we drove into Brooklyn.

Dallon glanced at me
briefly before responding. “I don’t really talk about it with people.”

I frowned and looked
out the window. Eventually, he sighed.

“I’m sorry, I’m not
used to sharing my life with someone.” He reached over and squeezed my bare
knee.

It tickled, and I
pulled away, laughing.

“You’re ticklish? You
shouldn’t have let me find that out, Miss Clair.” He reached out and tickled me
so that I was pressed against the door in an attempt to escape him.

“Stop, please stop,” I
said breathlessly. “Sir.”

He grinned and
released me. “Not exactly a safeword, but it will do for now.”

“Safeword?”

“All in good time,” he
smiled as if to himself, and came to a stop beside a park. There was a small
playground and a few basketball courts. It wasn’t the nicest area of Brooklyn.

We were a few minutes
early. Dallon turned off the ignition, staring out the windshield at the park
as he spoke.

“A few years ago, I
went down a very dark road, Amy. I don’t have time to discuss it with you now,
and it’s not something I really want to talk about in general. I ended up in
hospital where I met Brendan, a thirteen year old boy admitted for drug abuse.
He was tight-lipped then—he can still be tight-lipped—but I managed to get him
talking. Like me, his mother abandoned him at a young age and he lives with an
absent father. He ended up with a bad crowd. The rest is history. I see him
once a week and we play ball.”

“That’s really nice of
you,” I said softly.

He turned to look at me.
“I wanted to be that person for him—the person I didn’t have growing up.”

I nodded sadly,
picturing Dallon as an abandoned, insecure little boy with wildly blue eyes and
disheveled hair. The image saddened me to my core. It was in such contrast with
the man sitting beside me: masculine, strong, proud. He hadn’t had anybody to
save him, but he’d managed to save himself.

A blond boy appeared
on the court, wearing a gray hoodie with the hood pulled up, earphones leading
into his hoodie pocket.

Dallon grinned.
“That’s him. Let’s go.”

I stepped out of the
car and approached where Dallon was waiting, his hand held out to me. I took it
and as we made our way across the park, Brendan pulled down his hood and
removed an ear bud, a smirk on his face. If I hadn’t known better, he could
have passed for Dallon’s biological baby bro.

“So you’re not gay
after all,” he said to Dallon, who laughed and gave my hand a knowing squeeze.

Brendan whistled
playfully. “Good work, man,” he said before putting out his hand to shake mine.

Then he was off,
dribbling the ball across the court.

I sat on the top of a
nearby picnic table as Dallon rushed after him. Watching them play, it was hard
to believe that either of them had experienced what Dallon had described; they
looked so young, so carefree, their cheeks pink and hair ruffled. Brendan faked
Dallon out and jumped, tossing the ball through the hoop with one hand. Then he
turned and yelled to me that I should dump Dallon, go out with him instead.
Dallon was on him in a second.

I wrapped my arms
around my middle as I thought about what Dallon had said about going down a
dark road. How had he ended up in hospital? I could only assume he had been
admitted for a drug overdose like Brendan. If that was the case, what had led
him there?

They ended the evening
by forcing me to shoot hoops. Dallon stood behind me and showed me how to hold
the ball and then he stepped back, gesturing for me to go ahead. To both our
surprise, I got it in the hoop. I cried out excitedly and jumped on the spot.
Laughing, Brendan caught the ball and tossed it back to me.

“Again.”

We continued like
that, and for some reason I was in the zone; we counted into the thirties
before the ball bounced off the rim and shot into the park. Dallon sauntered
over to me and put his sweaty arm around me playfully.

“Yum,” I said and made
a face, grinning at the same time.

“Do you want to grab a
bite to eat?” Dallon asked as Brendan returned.

“I ate before I came.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Thanks. I have
homework to do, too.”

A look passed between
them and I suspected that was Dallon’s way of making sure Brendan was taking
care of himself.

Brendan turned to me
and put out his hand again. “Nice to meet you, Amy.”

The guys slapped each
other’s backs in a man-hug and then Dallon took my hand again, walked me back
to the car.

“He’s a nice kid,” I
said softly.

Dallon nodded and
opened the passenger door for me. “Some of us go down dark roads and just need
a little help getting back.”

***

To my surprise, Becky
Platt didn’t wait until Friday to send me the job offer. As Dallon started the
car, I opened my email to find the job offer. It wasn’t close to the amount of
money Dallon had offered me, but it was more than I’d expected.

“I got my offer!” I
announced cheerily.

“And?” Dallon asked,
eyes on the road.

“I’m happy.”

“Good.”

“I start on Monday,” I
said, stretching in the seat like a cat. “I’m super excited but also super
nervous.”

“So you’re accepting
it.”

“Yes.” I shot him a
puzzled look before adding, “It’s not like I have multiple offers knocking down
my door.”

His mouth stretched
into a lop-sided grin. “Only two that I know about.”

“I’m taking it,” I
said matter-of-factly. “I’ll just wait until tomorrow to let them know.”

Dallon glanced over at
me. “Do up your seatbelt.”

“’Kay.” In all the
excitement, I hadn’t realized I wasn’t wearing it. My phone vibrated with a
message from Sam asking if I’d talked to Dallon about Friday night, and I
responded quickly to let her know that it was on.

“I told Sam that they
can come for drinks tomorrow night at… our place.”

In response, Dallon
reached across me and grabbed the seatbelt, securing it across me.

“Hold your horses,
bossy-pants. I was just responding to a message.”

“Do you think you
could do what you’re told for one day?” he snapped.

What the hell?
I glared at him,
insulted yet flattered at the same time. “Do you think you could stop be
controlling for one day?” I shot back.

“No.”

It was stated with
such honesty, I stopped smiling. No bullshit when it came to Dallon King. We
drove in silence for a few moments as I struggled to understand why he had
reacted so strongly.

“I’m curious if you
would be willing to try, Amy,” he said softly.

I looked at him. His
eyes were on the road, the night shrouding him in darkness so that I was unable
to read his expression.

“What do you mean?”

“This Saturday. I
would like you to agree to try for one full day.”

“Try what?” I didn’t
mean to be difficult, but Dallon’s answering sigh let me know I was. I flinched
a little.

“Submitting to me.
Letting me call the shots for one entire day, no questions asked.”

I bit my lip. It felt
to me like he was always calling the shots, but I didn’t dare say that. That
would only reinforce his opinion that I was a control freak like him. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He turned to
look at me, and in the light of the moon, I could see the excitement glinting
in his eyes.

I shrugged like it was
no big deal. “Yeah.”

I could hear his
answering grin. “It’s not as simple as that, Miss Clair. There will be
consequences to disobeying. Do you really think you can make it an entire day
without arguing with me?”

I squirmed a little in
my seat while I thought about that. “What do you mean, consequences?”

“Punishments,” he said
simply. “That’s part of the fun.”

“Fun? So you would
enjoy punishing me?”

Now he shrugged. “We
discussed this earlier—it’s a means to an end. Fear of punishment is powerful.”
He swung his head to look at me, a smirk on his face. “Though I’m not sure how
much of a motivator it is for you. You tend to resist me anyway.”

I worried my bottom
lip, letting it slide under my top teeth until it popped free. He was right; it
was as if my pride wouldn’t allow me to just let him get what he wanted. I had
to fight him the whole way.

Even if it made things
harder on me.

He faced the road
again, and I did too. It wasn’t very late but the road was mostly empty.

“What would the
punishment be, spanking?”

“One of them, yes. But
not like you’ve had before. Those were for pleasure.”

Pleasure? I
unconsciously reached for the door.

“Punishment spankings
are harder and last longer,” he said conversationally, as if we were talking
about business. “After a punishment spanking, you would be quite sore and
unable to sit comfortably. The ones you have had pale in comparison.”

My hand tightened on
the oh-shit handle. “And you want me to agree to that?”

“You need to know what
you’re getting yourself into. We need to draw the line between our sessions and
reality because I’m losing it with you.”

I looked out the
window, and he reached out and took my hand, bringing it to his lips. The
gesture was so chivalrous and in contrast with what he was saying.

“I promise I won’t do
it if you’re good.”

“I don’t know how to
be good,” I whispered.

He laughed. We passed
under a streetlight, and I saw the smile still on his lips. “Either way I’ll be
a happy man. I just want you to give it a chance.”

“How did you learn all
this?” I asked after a while. We’d discussed his need for control, but I
realized we hadn’t gotten to the crux of it.

His jaw tightened, and
I shrugged. “The other day you didn’t really answer how you got into this
lifestyle, and here I am learning about it from you.”

It took him a moment
to respond, and when he did, his voice was wary. “I met a woman a few years
back. I wouldn’t call it a relationship, but we went out a few times. She was
into it and I tried a few things.”

I was surprised at the
surge of jealousy I felt. “But it didn’t continue?”

“No, Amy, it did not.”

I knew I was being
nosy, but I didn’t care. “Why not?”

He shifted. “Because at
the time, I thought it was wrong. I felt guilty.”

“But now you don’t.”

“I was in my
late-twenties then. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.”

I hadn’t. I crossed my
arms, suddenly feeling very petulant. I kicked off my sandals and stretched my
bare legs up onto the dashboard, letting my dress fall to my waist. Dallon
inhaled through his teeth but I pretended not to notice.

“So she asked you to
spank her and tie her up and stuff?”

“Pretty much.”

I opened my legs
wider, pressing the sole of my foot against the cool surface of the windshield.
“And then after that, you started tying up random chicks.”

It took him a moment
to respond. “Yes.”

“But if I give you
what you want, for some reason you’ll stick with me.” I didn’t try to hide my
sarcasm.

Suddenly, Dallon
veered off the road, pulling onto the shoulder. I quickly removed my legs from
the dashboard. I’d gone too far.

He slammed the car
into park, swiveled to face me. “You’re trying my patience, Amy.”

I didn’t say I was
sorry. I couldn’t speak; my heart was beating in my ears.

He reached into the
glove compartment and pulled out a black, silk tie. “Give me your wrists.”

“What?”

“Now, Amy. We’re
solving your dilemma.”

With a click, the
interior light turned on, and I could see Dallon clearly. He was pissed. And he
was waiting, tie in hand.

I put out my arms, and
he moved quickly, roughly, and bound them tightly. It hurt a little but I
didn’t even wince.