Never Have I Ever (13 page)

“I’m pretty confident I can handle that, Sir.”

Noah’s smile fell somewhere between tender and devious. “So am I. Now, I have two assignments for you; I will help you with both of them this time.”

I teased, “Assignments? Will there be a test at the end of the semester then, Sir?”

“The entire experience is a test, sweetness. At the end of the test, provided that you perform well, you will be rewarded with a collar.” He pointed the spatula in his hand at me. “That is your goal. At that time you will be able to officially call me
your
Master.”

So, that was the reason he wanted me to call him Sir instead of Master. “I see,” I said. I was up for a challenge, especially if it meant that it would make him happy. I gave him a resolute nod. “All right, Sir, give me the first assignments.”

“Excellent,” he said. He flipped the bread in the pan. “We need a l
ist of Nevers. After breakfast,
we’ll make one. Places we want to go, people we want to meet, food we want to try and experiences that we want to have. We’re going to make them all happen.”

I stuttered, unable to believe what I was hearing, “Really?”

“Really.
Oh, grab the syrup from the fridge.”

I found the bottle in the side of the door. Mild pet peeve that it was; I never stored syrup in the fridge. Not only did it usually have enough sugar in it to keep it fresh in the pantry, but it was a bitch to open and a chore to force out of the bottle. My fingers worked against the clasp at the top to pry it off as I turned back to him.

I said, “I don’t know if I’ll have enough time or money to do all of the things I want to, Sir.”

“Don’t worry about the cost, pet. I have that covered.”

“Maybe so, but I’d still like to help pay my own way.”

God damned bottle—and then it opened. I was clutching it so hard that some of the contents shot from the bottle and straight onto Noah’s chest. My hand flew to my mouth to cover the shock of my laugh.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” I said. But I was still laughing.

He slid the French toast from the skillet onto a plate and he looked at me with a Cheshire cat grin. “You’re so going to pay for that.”

I set the bottle on the counter and started to slowly back away, consciously aware that he was wiping it off on his finger and getting ready to come after me.

“Come here,” he said with a laugh.

Out of instinct I backed away further until I stepped off the small drop into the living room and started to bolt, near to squealing, “I said sorry, Sir!”

He clicked the burner off on the stove and chased me through the open living room. “Don’t you run from me
now!
”

I knew it was futile. What was I going to do, run to the elevator in a robe? I led him around the couch, tried to hop over the corner of the coffee table and double back. He jumped across the table like it was not even there, grasped me around my waist and tackled me to the sofa like a linebacker with a playful growl. I struggled against him, still trying to contain my own laughter at the whole situation. I squeaked when he started tickling me with the hand that wasn’t covered in syrup, and squeaked even louder when he wiped the syrup onto my neck and buried his mouth there to suck it from my skin.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“You better be,” he said when he came up for air. He was smiling, but his next words were a little more serious. “You also ran from me when I told you to come to me, pet. I will have to punish you for that later.”

I bit my lip, almost all of the laugher gone from my voice as I said, “I’m sorry,” one more time.

Noah smoothed my hair away from my eyes. “Never run from me, sweetness.”

I gave a silent nod. It was only a matter of time before I fucked up. As minor as it was, I hated seeing the look of disappointment on his face.

He must have caught the sadness in my eyes because his own softened a bit. “I’m not angry at you, my dear, but it’s a lesson you need to learn now that you belong to me.”

“Yes, Sir,” I replied softly.

He answered me by licking at the remainder of the syrup from my neck. His tongue was replaced with his lips as he kissed down to my collar bone and along the long V shape of showing skin the robe created between my breasts. He held me tight to slip one side of the robe over my shoulder and expose more of my skin.

“I don’t care if breakfast gets cold; I want you so bad right now I can’t see straight,” he said. His words sent a tingle of delight through me.

Then there was a knock at the front door.

Okay, it was not a knock; it sounded more like an explosion in the shape of a fist against the steel. A male voice shot into existence behind it, “Noah! Open this goddamn door right now!”

Noah lifted his attentions from me and closed his eyes like if he wished hard enough the voice would just be a very bad dream. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” He turned his head so he wouldn’t be yelling in my face when he hollered, “Go away!”

“Two options, Noah! Open it or I break it down!”

I looked at him quizzically. “Who’s that, Sir?”

He sighed and kissed me. “I need you to listen to me very closely. That’s Ethan. Under no circumstances are you to address me as Sir while he’s here. Ethan is the absolute last person I want to know that you’re my sub.”

“I don’t understand.”

Noah clarified, “Complicated just joined us for breakfast.”

That much I could appreciate. He lifted me up off the sofa. While I adjusted the robe around my shoulders to cover myself again and made my way back into the kitchen, he jogged to the door and opened it.

He barely got, “Good morning,” out of his mouth before the door was shoved open by the man on the other side. The annoyance on Noah’s face was clear. “No, come right on in, I don’t mind at all.”

At one glance
I could tell these two were siblings. Their facial structure was almost the same if Ethan’s jaw a little wider. His hair was a couple of shades lighter than Noah’s at a deep brown instead of almost black with a touch more wave to it. He was a little taller and slightly broader, too. They had the same nose and even the same eye color, though Ethan’s eyes seemed a smidge closer together.

Ethan was dressed in a gray suit and slate tie. Were he not scowling like a dejected child, I might have thought he was just as attractive as Noah. He didn’t even acknowledge my presence at first, only set the briefcase in his hand onto the island in the kitchen and swung around to Noah.

“You missed our meeting this morning. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Noah shut the door and meandered back towards the kitchen. “I’ll talk to Heather tomorrow. I told her to call you and cancel it. She obviously didn’t.”

Ethan turned to continue talking to him as he walked. “Oh, no, she tried to. I told her the meeting wasn’t optional. You knew, by point of fact, that the meeting wasn’t optional. That’s why it’s called a
mandatory
meeting.”

Noah waved Ethan’s chiding away as if it were a mosquito. “I had plans.”

That’s when Ethan finally took notice of me. His eyes flitted over me in my robed state, standing beside the coffee pot and attempting to look like I was a fly on the wall.

“I see,” Ethan disapproved.

“Who sets up a business meeting on a Sunday morning anyway?”

“I do. Would you like to know why? Because my schedule is full for the next two weeks and this morning was the only time that I could free up to placate these people. And you weren’t there to have my back, you asshole.”

Noah took a deep breath. He pulled three coffee cups from the cupboard beside me and set them on the counter. “Would you like me to smooth things over?”

“No, I took care of it.
On my own.
While you were out whoring around.”

“That’s not very nice. I wasn’t whoring around. In fact, I was with the same lovely lady all night long.” Noah wrapped an arm around my shoulder and kissed my forehead. “This is Piper, by the way. Piper, this is my brother Ethan.”

“Good to meet you,” I said. I even managed a genuine smile.

Ethan nodded to me, but continued to speak to his brother, “I need to talk with you in private.”

“Piper’s good people.
You can trust her with anything you have to say.”

“Dammit, Noah.”

But Noah was unmoving in his decision. “It’s Sunday morning, Ethan. Now,
your
two options are to join us for breakfast and relax that stressed skull of yours or turn around and walk right back out and talk to me when Monday rolls around.”

“I can’t even if I wanted to. I have a lunch meeting in San Diego in two hours.” Ethan popped open the briefcase and pulled a small stack of files from it. After slapping them on the island, the briefcase was closed up tight again. “Look, the remainder of the
Soresen
contract is in your hands. I’ll be in Chicago all week.” Ethan made his way to the front door and pulled it open. “There are two of us so that we can be in two places at once. Your flight leaves tomorrow at five. Don’t fuck this up.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Noah said sardonically. He put one of the coffee cups back on the shelf as it was obvious Ethan wasn’t staying, and shut the cupboard.

“Oh, and Piper,” Ethan said.

I was a bit shocked he finally addressed me. “Yes?”

“Don’t get your hopes up about my brother. He’ll kick you to the curb soon enough.”

The door shut tight behind him as he left.

Wow, what a douche.

I turned to Noah. He was silently busying himself with cleaning what small mess we made with the preparation of breakfast. Stoicism laced itself across his face so I was unable to tell whether he was angry or just deep in thought.

“Hope I’m not prying here, but is he always on edge like that?” I asked as I portioned out the coffee.

Noah snorted. “Yes. We aren’t old money. We built our business from the ground up together. It’s been our baby for the past ten years. Well, his baby. I’m just along for the ride. Come to think of it, I don’t think Ethan has taken a vacation in all that time. Incidentally he also doesn’t believe in days off. If that man could work in his sleep he would do it. Knowing him, he probably has.”

That made me feel
sort of bad.
For the both of them.
Here Noah was, no doubt the more social of the brothers, trying to find some measure of human companionship amidst the fervor of running a tumultuous, however successful, business. And there Ethan was, a hard-headed man with narrow vision of what the measure of success meant to him who was doing the only thing he probably knew how to. Anyone, even the strongest among the people I knew, could only endure that sort of strain on their shoulders for a short time before it buckled them and brought them to their knees.

“I don’t believe him, Sir,” I tried to reassure him. “I don’t believe that you would throw me away like that. Not after everything we talked about.”

Noah slipped the skillet into the sink,
then
came back to me. He ran his hands over my shoulders and down my biceps in a subtle way of reassuring
me
this time. “Good because I am not planning on it. This does mean, however, that I have to leave for a while.”

My stomach knotted in on itself. “How long will you be gone?”

“I have to go to Paris for this contract. For three weeks. I would have told Ethan to take a long walk off a short pier, but he doesn’t speak French so I’m kind of obligated.”

Between breakfast and his sudden trip to Paris I was beginning to see a building theme for the day.

“You speak French?”

He brushed his lips against mine. “
Oui
,
mon
cher
.”

Selfish as it was, I didn’t want him to go. I would have gladly given up all
normalcy
in my life to be with him twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Life, though, was crashing back in around us after our insane, wild, beautiful weekend together. I had to hold onto it for a little longer before he slipped away for the better part of a month.

“Would it be too forward of me to ask to stay another night then?”

He smiled. “I have a better idea, my pet. Come with me.”

My eyes bulged. “What?
To Paris?”

“Have you ever been?”

I shook my head.

“It’s glorious. You’ll love it.”

Yes! Absolutely! But just as I thought it, reality set in. Fuck reality. Reality is a cold-hearted whore. This was the fantasy-land I wanted to reside in forever. I groaned a little and lowered my gaze. “I wish I could, Sir, but finals are in two weeks. I have to be there. I’m so sorry.”

“Graduating with a Master’s degree is more important than being whisked away by me for my own self-centered reasons, isn’t it? Still,” he sighed and wrapped his arms around me in a caring embrace. “Three whole weeks without my newly acquired and most prized possession… I guess that just means I’ll have to torment you mercilessly today and leave you waiting for my return.”