“I tried so many times, dahling,” she said quietly. “Did acupuncture and visualisations and all the science-y things. I thought I’d die from all the needle pokes at one point, but it just never came to be. I wanted to adopt, but none of the husbands would hear it. It had to be their blood, you see, their DNA. And then it was over. The last one ran off, and I just… stopped hoping, really...”
Maisy stared out the open window. She was embarrassed at having revealed so much to him. Deciding to do something useful, he flagged down a nearby waiter. “Hi, can we get two more vodka rocks, please?”
“You charmer,” Maisy said, stirring from her reverie. “Anyway, that’s my sad tale. And if I can now segue it back to you, a subject I actually want to discuss, you should think about what you want from your life, dahling, because it seems to me you’ll have little Tabitha DaSilva soon enough, and you don’t need to work anymore, so you’ll have to have goals and hobbies to bide your time while you’re not in bed together.”
“You’re counting a lot of unhatched chickens there, Mais.”
“We’ll see. Anyway, I’m not saying give all your money away, but you should be doing something you care about, something that interests you.”
“Finance interests me!”
“Finance interests no one, dahling.Moneyinterests people, but only vulgar people. You’re a good man, and you should aim much, much higher.”
“Should I, though?”
“Yes,” Maisy said fiercely. “Don’t get me wrong, I love having you around, gabbing with us old hens and the little Zoomer boys at the office, but I want you to be properly happy. I’ve watched far too many lively, beautiful boys throw their lives away on nothing more ambitious than crude entertainment, and you’re the best I’ve met in thirty years. I don’t want that for you.”
She smiled at him, a softer smile than she wore at work and around her friends, and something occurred to Toby. Something he couldn’t believe he hadn’t said earlier.
“Youarea mother,” he said. “You’re my... you know. You’re my…”
Maisy frowned as much as her Botox would allow, and Toby’s ears went red-hot. “Sorry. If you want to be. If that’s okay. You don’t have to?—”
“Dahling,” Maisy said quietly. “Please shut up.”
“Yeah, fair. I understand?—”
“You don’t.” Maisy pushed a fingertip into the corners of her eyes. “I got my lids done in December, and crying isterriblypainful for me.”
Toby’s face broke into a huge smile. “I forgot.”
“Of course you did,” Maisy said, still dabbing at her corneas. “I mean, you’d think my ownsonwould know such an important piece of my medical history, but…”
“Sorry, Mum.”
“Ohreally, Toby.” Maisy turned her back to him, pinching each tear away before they could fall.
9
You can’t be Toby Tennant’s sex slave.
But I want to.
You can’t.
But I want to.
The thoughts rocked back and forth like a see-saw with two hyperactive toddlers on each end.
Tabby wasn’t typically a macro thinker, but even she had to question how giving into Toby’s ‘big dick on campus’ fuckhead routine and letting him put her through her BDSM paces was going to end in anything but tears. They were so different now, not even friends. And she wasn’t exactly in a good mental place. If she’d had to describe it, she’d have said she was about as stable as a broken table.
Buuuuuut…
He’d looked so fucking good on his couch, holding out his bottle of tequila. He’d sounded so good offering her money for a kiss, all cocky and confident—precisely the way a hot guy bribing you into sex in your fantasies should be. And the way he’d made her come…
As much as she’d wanted to fuck him that night, she respected him for calling time on their hookup. His cock had been at full salute, and he’d still left her at his front door, and that kind of control… It was fucking sexy. Everything about the man was too fucking sexy. Despite how they’d left things, she’d floated home on a cloud of horniness, and when she’d gotten into bed, she’d run two of her vibrators dry thinking about it. Him.Everything. And then she’d fucking dreamed about him. He’d been in a tuxedo, and she’d been naked, and thethingshe'd made her do. Tabby had always thought of herself as an ‘up for anything’ gal rather than a submissive, but who dreamed about a guy making her lick his black leather Oxfords before forcing her to service him in front of his window where any and all beachgoers could see her humiliation?
The only conclusion was that she was losing her head. Or Toby Tennant was using chemical warfare to warp her mind and turn her into his willing sex doll.
