“I wouldn’t say that, no. And I think it was too long a break, although perhaps…” I run my hands through my hair and regret it immediately, yanking them down to my sides. “Perhaps I should never have come back to it at all. I used to hear the music in my head, used to feel that I was a mere conduit for it, that it came from some other place, but these days…” My hands are now clenching and unclenching by my sides, and I make a conscious effort to stop them. “On Sunday night, after you fell asleep, I heard it again, clear and true, for the first time in—inyears. And so I had to set it down before it left me. When the sun began to come up, I didn’t want to disturb you—you looked so peaceful. I went into the adjoining room to lie down on the bed, just for a moment, and rest my eyes. And then…”
“You fell asleep?” he guesses.
“I’m afraid so. Yes.” The truth is, I would not have been able to resist kissing him if I’d gotten into that bed with him. Kissing him and begging him to stay, stay on at the house, continue serving me.
But it would have been entirely selfish of me to act in such a manner—and entirelydangerous. I know where feelings like that lead.
The half-smile Oliver gives me is genuine. “That’s alright, my lord. A lot of my friends here in LA are creatives, so I understand. I’m just glad your music has returned to you. And, well, I guess we justbothslept in when we didn’t mean to.”
I’m about to say something searing about the “creatives” of Los Angeles, but bite it back. “It’s gone again,” I say instead. “The music. I thought I had it, but…”
“Maybe it will come back again,” he says gently, “if you allow yourself some time torelax.”
I frown, thinking back to last weekend. He’s right; for the first time in a long time, I had taken time during the day to relax my mind. Our walk in the maze had not beenentirelyenjoyable, but it forced me into the fresh air, got my blood moving, helped release some of the tension headache from staring at black bars on a white sheet for hours on end.
“Perhaps,” I allow.
“While I’m here serving you this weekend, I could remind you to take breaks? If you think that would help, my lord?”
“That would be…helpful.” But something in his wording catches my attention. “Are you leaving again after the weekend?”
“I have to, my lord. I have other responsibilities. So I’ll be leaving on Monday morning again. While I’m here, though, I’m at your service.”
It’s Saturday morning. I’ll have him until Monday morning. And at least Oliver knows how to iron a shirt.
Still, something in me roils at the idea that he intends to leave—again.
“Now, my lord,” Oliver is saying, “we’d better get you dressed, so that you can come down to breakfast.”
“I’ll breakfast here, in my rooms.”
“No, you’ll breakfast downstairs.” Before I can say another word, he adds, “You said yourself that you need to take breaks, let yourself rest. Let’s start with breakfast.”
If it were any other member of staff speaking to me like this…
But I nod and stand. “You make a fair point.” He stays right where he is for a moment, his gaze traveling up and down my body. The only break I usually take is for an hour-long session in the gym daily, to ensure cardiac and muscular health. I’m glad of those sessions now, as Oliver’s eyes widen, linger over my taught belly, dropping lower…
It’s a good thing I kept my trousers on while I was having my tantrum about the shirt. We haven’t personally negotiated nudity yet, and since he was only to be here for the weekend last time, I hadn’t bothered. Now, though…
“After breakfast, we have some issues to attend to, you and I.”
His eyes come back to mine. “We do, my lord?”
“We do. Negotiations, Oliver.”
He bites his lip. I think it’s to keep from smiling. “Isn’t that what the contract and all questionnaires were for? All my preferences wereverythoroughly spelled out.”
“I want to hear them from your own lips.” Those lips that I keep imagining around my cock…
“Yes, my lord,” he murmurs, and moves over to hold up the shirt so I can put it on.
In the back of my mind, the same melody that haunted me when he was here last begins to play again. I grasp at it, almost turn aside to the piano again—but Oliver is there instead, a determined set to his mouth, shaking the shirt at me like a matador tempting a bull.
“Breakfast, my lord,” he says firmly. “Then negotiations.Thenwork.”
Any other member of staff would be overstepping averyhard line with that sort of attitude. But I’ll let him get away with it for now. During negotiations I can lay out my expectations, and then he’ll have no excuses.
For now, I allow Oliver to re-shirt me, and then I make my way down to the breakfast table.
