Page 23 of Magnum, Volume 2

So we’d survived, in her words — her heaviest workload ever.

And she didn’t know it, but I’d be on the phone with her that night, and she was going to have an orgasm on a video call, so I could watch her face when the pleasure overtook her.

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Storm

Watching him drive away was damned hard, but I threw myself into my work, and then drove to fucking Virginia early the next day so I could handle interviews with the first responders.

And my crazy boyfriend… fuck, that sounded odd in my head. Boyfriend. I mean, society was going to call him that, but he was so much more than that.

So, my crazy Magnum called me the night he left and talked me through masturbating with the huge vibrating dildo he’d ordered for me a few days after he arrived.

Over the next seven weeks, he visited three times — two long weekends and a six-day stretch.

And now it was my time to visit him. I tried to argue against him sending a plane to get me, but he said he didn’t want to risk flight delays that might steal one of my days with him.

I was going to be there for thirty days. Four weeks and two days. I was chasing a story in Huntsville, Alabama, yet another scientist who’s gone missing, and barely two hours north of Magnum’s home.

I’d also be talking to some of the victims in Alabama, and checking in with the family members I’d talked to in my original investigations, long before I figured out where the people were.

Our high-protocol schedule was going to be a work in progress. Unless I had something big come up, I’d stop working at seven in the evening. If I could get away earlier, I’d text him and let him know, in which case, he’d put me in my slavewear earlier, and I’d cook dinner. If not, he’d cook it, and I’d clean up after.

But I’d be in high-protocol from seven in the evening until either seven or eight in the morning most days, depending on how early I needed to begin my day. We were going to start with me being responsible for cooking breakfast daily, and for my laundry and the towels, plus cleaning three bathrooms weekly. This would be handled on Tuesday and Wednesday unless my schedule didn’t allow it, in which case it was my responsibility to write it into the schedule around my other responsibilities.

I felt like I could make that work, but if not, communication was crucial.

I wanted to make it work, and I really thought it would, most weeks. I was concerned, and would be until we tested it, but I appreciated the ways he’d written communication into the deal.

But the part that made me the most… uncomfortable, was maintenance.

We had to do it. Giving me the ability to say I don’t need it and we can just forgo it would spoil everything. Our power-exchange works because I hand him the power. Letting me pick and choose would make everything fall apart.

I’d stated strongly, and came close to arguing, that I only need it every third month, but he’s the one who decides how often we need it. How often our relationship requires it.

Granted, if he makes too many rules I can’t live with, it’ll screw things up, but I had no reason to think he would. Still, it puts a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, but that’s the way these things work.

And Magnum, as the Master, had decided maintenance will happen on the thirteenth day I’m with him — the second Tuesday. It was on the calendar, so I’d once again watch it get closer and closer.

And maybe it’s wrong of me to have planned for this, but if I figured out that we weren’t going to work, then I wouldn’t stick around for maintenance.

Basically, this meant if we’re still together fourteen days from me flying to him, odds are good that I’ll be selling my house in the coming months.

And honestly, we did okay during the biggest workload I’ve ever had, those first two weeks he came to visit me, and then we did fine one weekend when I worked maybe three hours the entire time, and we spent the rest of the three-and-a-half days together, both in and out of high protocol.

And we love each other.

Not only that, we are mega-compatible in nearly every way — kink, OCD about cleaning, we like mostly the same foods, and it turns out we’re both really good at ping pong. Crazy, right? But then there’s the whole biker and investigative reporter thing, and I was just going to have to spend time around his club before I could figure out if that was a dealbreaker.

The pilot was really nice, and she offered to let me sit up front with her, but I’d planned to read through the complete bio of the missing scientist, and that involved digging into learning more about the missile guidance systems this gorgeous, healthy, intelligent woman had specialized in. I had an insider feeding me information, but they were being careful to point me in the right direction without giving away so much, it was obvious someone was breaking protocol and telling me things I shouldn’t know.

The problem is, nearly everything about this scientist’s job was classified, so I was having to mostly learn from the very little open-source stuff I could find. Still, I gave myself a crash course in what I could.

Magnum had told me to wear jeans and to dress casual. We were well into fall, so a sweater would’ve been fine at home, but it was still eighty-eight degrees in Birmingham. I opted for my sport sandals and a cream-colored V-neck tee that showed lots of cleavage, because I was dressing for him. I didn’t know he was going to take me straight to the clubhouse until I realized we were headed into the city and not toward the lake.

“Didn’t want you to stress over it,” he told me when I pointed it out and he explained where we were going.

And when I glared at him, he only said, “You’re welcome.”