He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “I’m not happy with you. Houseboys who lie don’t get rewards. Sleeping with me is a reward. The floor. You’re out of my bed for now.” He yawned again, and I was both enraged and stupidly relieved.
“Mister, please. I always do what you tell me.” I groped under the blankets for his hand and squeezed it. He brought my hand up and kissed it before he bit my palm—hard. I hissed.
“Oh, you want to do that? You lied and you got a little reward this afternoon you didn’t fucking earn.”
I cringed when he pressed a kiss to the spot he’d hurt.
He dropped my hand and studied me.
I crossed my arms. “What does it fucking matter anyway?” My breaths came too fast, and I felt like yelling. I held it in, but barely.
He ran a hand through his hair and stared at the ceiling while his Adam’s apple bobbed, and he continued to make that awful grimace. When his face smoothed out, I shrank away from him because I could tell he’d made some sort of decision. “I’m going out tomorrow night. You can stay here. Don’t wait up.”
My heart dropped and I slid out of the bed away from him. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been looking forward to time out of the apartment with him until it was snatched away.
“You can take your pillow out to the couch or stay there on the floor. I don’t care which,” he said and snapped off the light. I stared around the dark room, both indignant and miserable, and… also slightly glad I’d been caught. The guilt had already weighed a ton. It would have been even worse tomorrow. I sighed and scowled around as my heart twisted. Stay here while he went out?
I walked around the bed and sank down on the floor by the pillow. I was tempted to go to the couch but didn’t want to be in a completely different room. “Mister, why are you so mad about one stupid job application?”
“You don’t lie to me, Pookie. Fucking ever. This is one lesson you will learn, and now. You will have extra chores for the next ten days, and they will all be done before you go to bed. I don’t care if you have to stay up half the night. I will inspect each job, and if it’s not done the way I think it should be, you’ll redo it. You will not come. You will not do anything for pleasure unless I explicitly tell you, not even eat a fucking piece of candy. You will be my bitch and please me, and I will know if you don’t follow my directions.”
I flopped down onto the pillow, and a blanket was shoved off the bed onto me. “Yes, Mister.”
Not long later, Stormy’s soft sighs, not quite snores, let me know he was sound asleep. I stared at the ceiling and fumed, but I wasn’t sure who I was more pissed off at: me or my Mister.
16
Lane
I was ignoringRoss in every possible way the next morning. I didn’t write him a list like I usually would, and I made my own breakfast. Those doe eyes he gave me nearly made me break, but I kept to my guns and went to work without so much as a goodbye.
He texted me at some point during the day, but by the time I saw it, I was heading home again.
I’m sorry, Mister. Please forgive me.
No. I wasn’t going to forgive him, and he needed to learn a lesson. I’d been too lenient on him, not like a Dom should be. I didn’t want to go out tonight without him, but I’d made plans with Eli, so I didn’t relent under his sad gaze. The little voice in my brain told me I was being childish, but it was about punishment. This was the penalty for not doing what I’d told him to do. He had a safeword and he hadn’t used it, which meant everything I said was law.
The moment I stepped through the door, he pouted, but I walked straight past him and toward the shower. Sweat clung to me after a workout with Kellan to study some exercises, and I needed to wash off before I got ready to go.
As soon as I stepped into the shower, Ross was at the door, bottom lip pulled into his mouth and lashes lowered. A typical sub-in-trouble expression. I’d seen it on subs before, and Ross Midberry was no different. I didn’t know how I hadn’t seen his sub persona when we were messing around in the past. Sure, I was paid to see what the clients wanted me to, but Ross screamed submissive, and the kind of person who wanted praise. He’d always asked me to tell him how good he was in the sack, and I happily did.
“Mister….”
I saw him straight through the fog-clouded shower glass. “You know what you’ve done wrong, Pookie. I will not discuss this with you again.”
“I’m sorry. I applied for the job today, and I did the cleaning without the list.”
I knew, I’d seen how spotless the apartment was when I’d walked into it. Even though I’d left my dirty bowl in the sink after breakfast, it’d been cleaned with the rest of the kitchen. The stone floors sparkled like he’d scrubbed them.
Opening the door to the shower, I glared at him. “You should have done that yesterday.”
He tugged at his apron and stared down at himself. Naked except for the apron, he was captivating as always. I never had any control of my body around him, so it wasn’t a surprise that my cock hardened at the sight of him looking so handsome and vulnerable with his cock making a tent of the apron. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just….” He sighed and ran a hand over his short dark hair. “I keep getting rejected. No one wants to hire a dirty mayor, and this guy whose job you wanted me to apply for, he’s famous. I’ve seen his YouTube videos. He’ll have a lot of people applying for the job. I won’t get it.”
“You don’t know that unless you try,” I argued. Heaving a sigh, I crooked my fingers at him. “Get rid of that and come shower with me.”
He quickly untied the apron and slid it over his head, throwing it on the bathroom sink before he stepped toward the shower. I moved out of the way and made room for him to step under the steaming water with me. He sighed, and I opened my arms, tugging him toward me until he was pressed up against my body. I couldn’t stay angry at him, no matter how much I tried. Ross made my heart ache and belly warm. He drew reactions out of me no one had in the past.
I also couldn’t lie to him. “I omitted some of the truth. Not exactly lying….”
