“Yours,” he said. “It’s bigger.”
I wiggled my brows then turned aw, but he’d definitely seen me. It was just a flirtation that shouldn’t have happened. “That happens when Mercy trusts you and you’re bringing in the big bucks.”
“We never spoke about money much, other than you saying you have a lot in offshore accounts,” he said as we walked into my place. “But how much does she pay you?”
In my room, I grabbed two waters from the fridge. My room came with a loveseat sofa, which I lead him to by holding the bottle of water over it and taking a seat. “You’re never gonna get the jobs that pay if you don’t learn some general rules of professionalism,” I told him. “And sinceyou’re mine, it’s only right I teach you.”
“I’m not yours,” he said, taking the water and struggling to open it. “I mean, once upon a time, sure I said stuff like that to you.”
Opening his water for him, he tried staring me down. It was like a bunny trying to stare down a fox. “I want you to address me as Sir,” I told him.
He pouted. “If we’re going Sir, I might as well just go back to calling you Daddy.”
My tongue rubbed against my top teeth, swelling in my mouth at the word. It was a relic of our past—and if he hadn’t joined Sanctum, perhaps we could’ve gone back there. “Whichever you prefer,” I said. “As long as you know I’m in charge of you, that means you do what I say, and you don’t sayno.”
“What aboutred?”
“If we’re engaged in something sexual, I’ll accept red.”
He was chugging down the bottle of water like he was on fire. “Ok,” he finally let out with a deep gasp. “But you want to be professional about all of this,” he said, nodding like he was trying to coax a definite response on how I felt towards him.
Ignoring it, I jumped back into it. “We’ve been doing this for a week, and I’ve been pushing you, but I know I shouldn’t. I know better.”
Art’s eye twitched, that inner brat was trying its hardest to come out. “I knew you had.”
It wasn’t as hard as I could’ve been pushing him though, there was much more I could’ve done in an attempt to get him to quit. We’d punched training bags, lifted the heaviest weights, and I’d even wrapped his knuckles a whole bunch with the wooden weapons during drills. “Starting tomorrow we’re going to do some breath control exercises,” I said. “You were shaking a lot, you need some more mental resilience.”
turning his head slightly as if I couldn’t see him roll his eyes. I palmed his knee, my fingers outstretched into his inner thigh, gripping him. “You’re gonna tell me your hands weren’t shaking?” I asked, my other hand at his chin, pulling his view back to me. His mentor. “If you’re going to be out there, holding a gun, waving a knife around, whatever it is you decide is your poison. You’ll want your hands to be still doing that.”
“I will,” he said.
“You need to learn your place,” I whispered. “You remember how I took care of you, I was soft and sweet, but I could be a bit mean. Well, we’re switching that around. I’m going to be a whole lot mean, and you can work towards my sweet side.”
“Or else?”
With my hand slipping under his thigh, I squeezed tight. He flinched his knee up only forcing the grip on his thigh tighter. “Noor else,” I said. “Or I’ll squeeze harder.”
Art couldn’t look menacing even if he tried—at least not in my eyes. I just wanted to cup his cheeks and tell him to undo this mistake. I wished I could’ve done it to myself as well, for leaving him, but I wasn’t in the business of thinking on my mistakes. “Ok, fine.”
“Good boy,” I said, releasing my grip on him. “Now that’s called a cow bite, it’s when you pinch someone’s muscle with the entirety of your hand. Hurts, doesn’t it?”
He rubbed at his thigh with his knees tucked in at his chest, his chin on his knees, as if that stopped me from finding more of his pressure points—it opened more of them up, specifically in the groin. His ass stretched out his sweatpants in a way that I didn’t need to be staring at.
We went over more rules and protocols he had to follow while he was under my training at Sanctum. If he was going to control his urges to be a brat and sass people, and if he was going to learn how to act, then we’d have to change how we saw each other. Not as ex-partners who had recently fucked, but as trainer and trainee, although I definitely preferred Boss, Master, and Sir.
***
I met up with Reaper in the wellness bar. Sanctum didn’t officially sell alcohol, but they sold a lot of herby drinks which gave you a high. Mercy was strict on a no drugs and no alcohol policy—except on the medical bay.
The lights were dimmed to a purple and pink as we sat on comfy bean bags, sipping our green smoothies. Reaper’s arm was in a sling and his face all bandaged up. We were going through those drinks like they were endless, they were delicious, but oh-so bloating.
The bean bags made for perfect relaxing seats, especially as I pushed my stomach out from the bloat and made it look like I was heavily pregnant.
“You wanna tell me about the kid,” Reaper asked, licking at the cut on his lip.
Glancing around, I thought he was talking about Artemis being here. “He’s—”
“Your ex,” he said. “We know. Everyone knows.”
