Page 18 of Magnum, Volume 1

His voice stayed patient but precise. He expected things to be done a certain way, and he took the time to explain why. Every detail mattered. The expectation of getting it exactly right hit my libido in completely expected but horribly problematic ways. I did my best to ignore my body’s reactions and told myself to pay attention to the actual instructions instead of the way his hands moved when he demonstrated.

Because damn, did I want those hands on me. Wiping me down, turning all my handles.

Fuck, I had it bad, and I needed to figure out how to deal with that so it wasn’t a problem.

I’d noticed his rolled towels when I’d showered, and now he opened the linen closet and pulled a towel out to show me how he rolled and tucked them.

I watched and then tried it, but he shook his head, laid it flat, and rolled it again, explaining in that oh-so-patient voice where I’d gone wrong.

I tried it again. Still not right. The third time my fingers fumbled, and I had to start over. By the fourth attempt, my face felt hot, but I finally managed to get it right.

And when he finally nodded, the approval hit like he was my Dom, pleased at last — when he was just showing me how to roll a motherfucking towel. Shit, I needed to get out of this sex-fueled funk. I needed a string of orgasms, but that wasn’t going to happen until I was safely behind a locked door.

“Is that enough for one night, or can you handle a little more?” he asked. “I can show you how I like my clothes folded, since my laundry is on the list for tomorrow.”

Before my libido told him I can handle whatever you want to give me, I said, “I’m good. Let’s get it out of the way.”

I’ve never seen a man’s closet so fucking organized. Shelves of T-shirts folded so perfectly they looked like a high-end store. He grabbed one off the top along with a plastic folding board, and when he opened the board and demonstrated its use, I remembered Sheldon from The Big Bang using one like it.

I managed to get this right on the first try, but when I put the shirt back on the stack, he took it off and put it on so the corners lined up better — and I should get an award for not rolling my eyes at him, which makes the fact my nipples and clit both frantically pulsed and desperately needed touch so much more frustrating.

I mean, it wasn’t like he was going to belt me for not getting the shirt stack exactly right. I was doing this to help out, not as a fun exercise in power exchange.

He showed me how his jeans were hung straight on the hanger while his dress pants were hung sideways — still on the same style of hanger, but one attached so there were no front creases, the other hung to keep the front pleats crisp.

I showed him how I hang dress pants, so the pleats stay sharp but you don’t have to fiddle with folding them exactly right before you hang them, and the look he gave me was… fuck, it made me want to crawl into a hole. He clearly was not looking for suggestions. This was a ‘my way or the highway’ kinda man.

But he only gave a small headshake, released the pants from the clamps, rehung them his way, and moved on.

I’d been on a slow burn since the kitchen and all through the bathroom, but that look sent me through the stratosphere. His general air of authority and superiority both turned me on and annoyed the bejeebers out of me, and yet the irritation sent heat all through my nether-regions — which annoyed me all over again because… fuck.

My nipples ached against the inside of my bra, and I wanted to cross my arms over them, so I pulled my ponytail out and put it back in to give me something to do with my hands while the heat between my legs grew more and more insistent.

His sock drawer was just a bunch of squares he folds his socks into, and then he stopped for a good five seconds with his hand on the handle of another drawer before he dropped it and said, “Just leave my underwear in the basket. I’ll handle it.”

I wanted to tell him we’re adults and I could fold or roll his underwear to whatever crazy specifications he might have, but I nodded and let it go because I was suddenly wondering the old boxers-or-briefs thing, and assuming boxer-briefs, which made me think perhaps he had the right idea. Plus, I’d see them in the basket tomorrow, so I’d know soon enough.

I was going to have to live with this man and his schedules and his specific way of doing every single thing, and my body had already decided it liked the way he expected me to get it right.

I was so fucked.

Chapter 8

Magnum

Storm started the conversation the second Skippy arrived, before we’d even headed to the office. “I’d like to figure out if the fighters live on-site, if they’re housed and trained there permanently, or just brought in for fight weekends and trained elsewhere. Ideas on how we can do that?”

It was a really good investigative angle, and I was suitably impressed. I’d considered returning to the crypto logs today, since that’s kind of my forte, but her question needed answering before we could start planning how to rescue the fighters. If they’re only there on fight weekends, unless we could figure out where they are taken between times, we’d have to go in for a rescue when the place was packed with people.

Also, when we arrived in the office, she sat in one of the extra chairs, pulling it so she could see the screen. She’d already worked out that however we went at this would likely involve hacking, and since that isn’t her forte, she wasn’t going to try to claim the keyboard.

I noted a few specks of dust on the monitor and resisted wiping it down. I hadn’t shown her the dusting protocol yet, but since it arrived on the schedule in two days, we’d have to do that soon. Hopefully she was better at dusting than she was at stacking shirts.

Skippy sat in the desk chair and brought me out of my reverie. “Housing and training a couple of dozen or possibly even more fighters is a big operation. Rooms or jail cells? With that many, I figure no one gets the privacy of walls, so probably cells. Also, they can’t feed them cheap crappy stuff. Athletes need real, quality food with the right amount of carbs and protein. They likely have a doctor on the staff, or at least an RN, possibly a nutritionist. Let’s figure thirty fighters, and the trainers can also be security, so maybe five or ten men for that. Another half-dozen for feeding them.”

Storm pursed her lips. “Electricity usage would tell us something. Water might tell us, too.”

Skippy leaned back, fingers laced behind his head. “Power for housing and training won’t be as high between fight weekends, but it’ll be more than just whatever it takes to keep the security systems running and the HVAC usage to keep the temperature even. Water volume might not be relevant if they have expensive landscaping that needs watering, though I guess it might give useful data in the winter months.”