Mastering Lexie (Stronghold Book 4) (3 page)

Fuck she'd been perfect.  

Defiant.  Submissive.  Needy.  Eager. 

It had killed him to pull back, to pull away, but he'd known that
if he hadn't gotten himself under control, he would have taken her right then
and there.  Bent over his desk.  And then what would he have said to
Jake?  

With a groan, Patrick pushed away from the desk.  He needed
to get out of this room.  As if he was ever going to be able to sit in
here ever again without thinking about Lexie and picturing her perfect, hot
pink ass, bisected by that tiny black string, in his mind.  Or her shock
and hurt at his rejection.

When Jake finally got home, if he didn't punch Patrick in the face
for even daring to think about Lexie in a non-brotherly way, Patrick was going
to have a lot of making up to do.  Maybe it was a good thing that she'd
quit, now he wouldn't have to deal with temptation on such a regular basis.
 On the other hand, he was going to miss having her around too.

He just couldn't win.

Girls' nights were the best.  As soon as they saw she was
upset, Lexie's friends surrounded her with their love and warmth.  They'd
put her in the center of the couch, with Angel and Olivia on either side of her.
 Both of them were the mother-hen type.  Olivia was the only Domme in
the group, but unless Adam was around, Angel was more than a match for her
bossiness.  Across from her, Jessica and Hilary were looking at her
worriedly, while Maria, Rick's girlfriend and the newest member of their group,
kept glancing at everyone else as if trying to figure out what was going on.

Olivia brushed a strand of hair back from Lexie's face, her touch
so gentle and caring that it made tears spring to Lexie's eyes again.
 "What happened honey?"

"Okay..."  She took a deep breath, glancing at
Maria again.  Although she was pretty sure the other women knew exactly
how she felt about Patrick, she didn't want Maria to feel left out just because
she didn't know the background.  "I've never actually come right out
and said, but I think everyone knows I have a thing for Patrick."
 Ha, that was putting it mildly, but saying that she had a crush seemed
like understating the issue and saying that she was madly in love with him just
sounded overdramatic.  Everyone nodded, including Maria, which made her
smile just a little bit.  Yeah, as she'd gotten more desperate for Patrick
to wake up and smell the coffee, she'd also gotten a lot more obvious.
 "So today, I decided to go for it.  I showed up at Stronghold
and told him I had something I wanted to show him..."

Recounting it for her friends made her heart ache, even though she
kept the story to a bare minimum.  Their excitement over her nipple rings
helped though, especially when they started laughing about the probable
reaction of all the guys.  By which they meant, their men.  All of
whom were Jake's friends and acted like her big brothers.  Her Sentinels.
 

It fit too, because they all just blindly followed orders (mostly
Patrick's) about her, whether it was what she wanted and whether it was even
necessary or not.  She called Patrick Master Mold, after the lead
Sentinel.  Because that's exactly what he was.  Even Jake wasn't as
protective of her as Patrick was, which she used to think was a good thing.

"I did everything perfectly dammit.  I did exactly what
he told me to, but all he did was spank me and then kick me out of his goddamn
office.  He told me I wasn't allowed to dress like that in the club, 
ever
,
as long as I was working for him... so I told him... I told him I quit."

It wasn't exactly professional, quitting without notice, but she
still couldn't regret that she'd done it.  As soon as she told them, Angel
pulled her into a hug, and then Olivia came in from the other side, and
suddenly Lexie found herself in a pile of women, all telling her how awesome
she was and that she'd done the right thing and that if he couldn't see what
was right in front of him then he was a blind idiot.  The tears that Lexie
had been holding back surged, and she found herself sobbing into Angel's
shoulder, surrounded by the loving warmth of her best friends.  

They might all be older than her, but she'd always been more
comfortable with people who were.  Probably Jake and Patrick's fault,
since they'd always let her hang out with them, and their friends had done the
same.  

Her sobs finally started to slow, and the other women pulled back;
Olivia handed her a tissue to blow her nose.  Angel kept her arm wrapped
around Lexie, lending her support.  

"I just thought... I don't know what I was thinking.
 I've had a crush on him for so long, and then I grew up and I think I
might be in love with him, but how can I be in love with someone that I've
never done anything romantic with?"  She sniffled again.  Not
that it mattered.  She'd tried to date other guys, to get over him, but
everything always came back to Patrick.  Besides, would she feel this
heartbroken if she wasn't at least a little in love with him?  "He
was just always my white knight, you know?  Rushing in to save me from
whatever... but then instead of getting kissed, I always got a pat on the
head."

Angel squeezed her.  "I'm sorry honey, but sometimes
your knight in shining armor is just another idiot in tinfoil."

Staring up at her, Lexie choked on a giggle.  Then giggled
again, and then suddenly everyone was laughing hysterically... it was somehow
all too easy to picture Patrick wrapped in tinfoil, stomping alongside her or
hovering over her in the lobby of Stronghold.  Scaring off all her other
potential suitors along the way.  Like he'd done whenever he thought one
of them wasn't good enough for her.  Which seemed to be all of them.

"I think he definitely has more than friendly or brotherly
feelings for you," Olivia said, looking around the room for support, and
getting a bunch of nodding heads in return.  The redheaded Domme had known
Patrick for a long time, and she was really good at reading people.  Lexie
felt a little surge of hope that Olivia thought Patrick was into her.
 Yeah, she'd gotten hope today when he'd been turned on, but maybe that
had just been a standard male reaction to a naked woman.  She'd started to
doubt that it had anything to do with her personally.  "He just doesn't
know what to do about them.  He’s the biggest control freak out of the bunch,
and he has no control over how you’ve grown up.  My guess is that he has no
idea what to do now that he sees you as a woman and not a little sister."

Lexie rolled her eyes.  "It's not that hard.  Naked
girl in front you, insert penis here."  She pointed between her legs,
at which point Angel lost it completely and burst out laughing again, setting
off another round of hilarity.  Lexie smiled, a little reluctantly,
because she hadn't actually meant it to be funny.  She was still hurt that
she'd been so thoroughly rejected... seriously, what guy didn't want to stick
his dick in a naked and willing chick when she was standing right in front of
him? 

"So... if you quit, are you able to go back to the
club?"  Maria asked, once they all got their giggles under
control. 

"I can bring her, any time she wants to go," Olivia
said.  Her smile was almost evil.  "In fact, it would be my
pleasure."

"Yeah, but that's not really going to help the issue,"
Lexie said sadly.  It wasn't like she hadn't thought about that in the
past, but it just wasn't the same.  "All the guys still see me as a
little girl.  What I need is to actually do a scene at the club; prove to
them that I'm old enough to know what I want, that this 
is
 what
I want, and that I can handle it, but there's no way Patrick would approve
me for an Introductory Scene."

"I could do a scene with you," Olivia offered, although
she didn't look very enthusiastic about it.

Lexie immediately shook her head.  "No, although thank
you.  But it's the same problem.  They'll see you as safe because
we're friends and no matter what you do, they'll feel like you're going easy on
me.  Plus it's not like there'll be any sexual tension.  They'll
think it's like play time or something, or like you're placating me... Patrick
will find any excuse to see something other than what I'm trying to show him. 
I’ve learned that lesson by now.  I need to shove it in their faces, in a
way that they can't ignore, but there isn't a single Dom there that would help
me do that.  Whenever I've been on the main floor, no one even approaches
me.  They're all too intimidated to do something that might cause trouble
with Patrick or the rest of the Sentinels."

Silence fell over the room, and Lexie curled in on herself.
 She'd been going over all these same problems in her head for far too
long and hadn't been able to come up with a better plan than the one that had
failed so miserably today.  Obviously the other women were at a loss too.
 Jessica and Hilary were looking at each other like they were having a
silent conversation, but they didn't know any more Doms than Lexie did.  Definitely
none outside of their group of friends.  Jessica was in a threesome
relationship with two guys, but they were two very possessive guys who didn't
share with anyone but each other.  Hilary was even newer to the scene than
Jessica and newly engaged to her fiancé, Liam, and she'd never had a chance to
get to know any of the other Doms either.

Olivia had been at the club the longest, but Lexie knew all the
same Doms that she did, and she knew they wouldn't help.

"I know someone who likes to cause trouble," Angel said
suddenly.  Lexie turned to look at her, but she was looking thoughtfully
out into the distance, straightening her posture as she began to look more and
more excited.  Her slightly almond-shaped eyes, compliments of her
half-Asian heritage, narrowed even further as a gleeful little smile spread
across her lips.  "I know someone who likes to cause trouble, has a
membership, all of them would take seriously, and would probably be happy to
help..."

Hope
rushed into Lexie's chest, making her heart pound as Angel jumped up and ran
over to her purse, all eyes following her.  The beeping noise of the phone
as Angel selected a contact and hit the call button seemed incredibly loud in
the silent room. Holding the phone to her ear, Angel's eyes lit up. 
The room was so quiet that everyone could hear the deep murmur of a man's voice
answering the phone, but it wasn't one that Lexie immediately recognized. 
She grinned at them, eyes dancing with mischief.

"Hey
pretty boy," she purred.  

That rush of hope clawed its way up Lexie's chest and into her
throat, making it hard for her to breathe.  Angel was a freaking
genius.

******

Having barricaded himself in his office, Patrick did his best to
ignore the little bit of noise that made it through his thick door from the club. 
Last night had been the first night without Lexie at the front desk, knowing
that she wasn't going to come back.  She hadn't answered his call today
either.  He hadn't expected her to, but some part of him had still hoped
that she would.  It had surprised him how much he missed having her at the
club.

Even though he'd become used to her presence, he didn't think he'd
actually miss her.  Perhaps worry about what she was doing, now that she
wasn't right where he could look at her whenever he wanted, but not miss
her.  He kept reaching for the phone, wanting to call up to the front desk
to share things with her - funny thoughts or observations - the way he always
did, only to remember that she was no longer there.  Every time he glanced
at the security camera display he expected to see her, and felt the
disappointment when he didn't.  It was different from the way he felt on
her nights off, because this time he knew she wasn't going to be coming back.

So tonight he'd started to ignore the screens entirely; for once,
completely trusting the Dungeon Monitors to handle everything, without him
overseeing the whole club.  The less he looked, the easier it was for him
not to think about how Lexie was never coming back.

Not that she was ever far from his mind.  How could she be
when he was sitting at the desk that he'd spanked her over?  Flashing
silver rings seemed to glint at the edges of his vision, his memory turning
over how fucking hot she'd looked as she'd submitted to him.  How fucking
bad he'd wanted her.  How much it fucking sucked to have to wait until her
brother got home.  He should really Skype Jake and see if he knew when he
was coming home yet.  The last time they'd talked, Jake had thought
sometime in October or November, but he hadn't had a hard date yet.

The phone rang, distracting Patrick from his musings.  He
realized that he'd been staring at the same sheet of numbers for the past five
minutes without even seeing it.  So much for doing the accounting. 
With a groan, he reached out to pick up the phone without even looking at
it.  If someone was calling into the office, it usually meant something
had gone wrong.

"What?"

"Get out here.  Now."

Andrew's voice was thick with the kind of tension that had Patrick
springing to his feet.  He didn't consider asking what was going on, he
just slammed the phone down and headed straight for the door from his office
into the club.  The bouncer on duty tonight was a newer Dom, named Eric,
who couldn't quite afford the membership dues to the club, so was working in
exchange for lower fees.  He was a good man, a steady man, but he wouldn't
be as good at spotting trouble as the long-time members.

There was no way Andrew would be calling Patrick out of his
office, sounding like that, for anything small.  

The second he entered the
main floor of the club, Patrick's eyes darted around.  He was used to
taking in the big picture and focusing on whatever was out of place, but right
now it wasn't hard to figure out what the problem was.  The Lounge area
where unattached subs congregated was almost empty, and those that were still
kneeling there were watching the bar with the same interest as the few couples
who were on the dance floor.  Some of them weren't even dancing, they were
just swaying slightly, their attention too caught by the drama at the
bar. 

That's where most of the
people in the room were, the majority of them clustered at the center of the
bar.  

Possessive fury flamed
sudden and hot inside Patrick's chest as he focused on the combatants in the
center of the stare down.  Andrew had his arms crossed over his chest,
glaring at Michael Waverly, who had one hand on the back of Lexie's neck. 
Her short black hair was clipped back from her face, so that he could clearly
see her mulish expression as she glared up at Andrew, who didn't take his focus
from Michael.  The short black skirt and bright blue bustier she was
wearing screamed "Ready to Play," to any Dom who observed her.