Assumed Master (3 page)

Dante still hadn’t moved an inch as Blake
ushered her out of the room, a trail of red droplets following them. This was definitely
more than he was equipped to handle.

Knowing he had to pull himself together, Dante
made his way to the kitchen where Blake had her forearm over the sink under a
gentle stream of water.

"It doesn’t actually look that deep,"
Blake was telling her in soft voice as he probed the cut. "You may not
need stitches after all. There just seems to be a lot of blood. Don’t worry,
pumpkin, we’ll get it fixed. Then we’re going home so you can…"

"We’re not going home," Dante spoke
up, his senses returning all at once. "She needs a doctor."

"Dante, really, it’s not that…"

"Not that kind of doctor," he said,
going to the drawer beneath the kitchen phone and jerking out Mason’s personal
contact book. "What if she tries that shit again? What if we’re not around
and she gets the job done next time?"

"What the fuck are you babbling about?"
Blake demanded, holding Julie’s hand in the air as the blood flow slowed.

"I've sheltered you for too long, haven’t
I?" Dante said, flipping through the pages of the little black book. "She
might think she doesn’t want to live, but I want her to. Mason would want that,
too."

"Of course she wants to live," Blake
argued.

"Then why the hell did she cut herself?"

"I didn’t," Julie whispered. "It
was an accident."

"She’s telling the truth," Blake
added. "If this was an attempt to end her life, it was a sloppy one."

He peeled his fingers back to reveal a jagged
tear along the inside of her forearm nowhere near her wrist.

"Don’t
lie
,
Jules. It won’t help anything." Dante glanced at the cut then went back to
his search. He knew Mason had a few friends that could get her help quickly.

"I’m not lying," she insisted in a
voice that further ripped a hole in his heart. "I threw…" Julie took
a shuddered breath and she sounded like she might choke on her own words. When
they finally came, they were watery and choppy. "I threw the globe."

"You broke the
globe
?" Dante swore under his breath, turning to her. "You’ve
got to be kidding me."

Mason had gone to great pains to have a snow
globe hand crafted with two perfectly constructed miniatures of him and Julie
on their wedding day tucked inside, riding away in a horse drawn sleigh. It was
one of his wedding gifts to her. At the reception when she opened it, Mason
reminded her it was their world, a place where she could escape anytime she
wanted. She only need shake the globe and live in that moment forever.

"Yes," she said, clearly ashamed of
her actions. "I…I didn’t mean it…I want it back," she wailed and
would have fallen to her knees again had Blake not held her steadfast before
guiding her to a chair. Although she might have wished she was dead, in that
moment Dante knew she was telling the truth. She hadn’t tried to take her own
life. "I…tried…to pick…it up…"

Oh, God, Dante felt like a heel. Abandoning
his search for a shrink, he went to her and as Blake continued to keep pressure
on her arm, he wrapped her in his.

"I’ll fix it, love. Don’t cry. Please.
I’ll pick it up and have it fixed."

Chapter Three

"No, I don’t need anything," Julie
said, obviously tired of answering the question. "I’m fine. I can sleep by
myself and I don’t want a pill. You should know by now not to ask me that. I’ve
told you at least a dozen times I don’t want to die so you don’t have to worry
about me bleeding all over your sheets in the middle of the night."

She was curled up in a ball on the chair in
the corner of the guest room. The only thing Dante had talked her into since
bringing her to his and Blake’s house was letting him put a collar on her. She
agreed the weight of had eased her anxiety a bit. It wasn’t much of a one, just
an old play collar of Blake’s and not in great condition, paling in comparison
to the elaborately bejeweled piece she’d worn for years. Dante thought it
looked not only odd on her but ugly as well and determined he’d find her
something more fitting as soon as he could get to a store.

"And I told you I believe you,"
Dante told her, sinking onto the side of the bed.

It was late and he was exhausted. Quite
frankly, he had no idea how Julie was still going. He knew from reports via
Shelby and Layne she hadn't slept for the last three days. He also knew from
long Dom to Dom discussions with Mason there were times the only way he could
get her to sleep under duress was to put her into subspace.

How the hell did Dante achieve that exactly?
Sure, he’d been appointed her Master, in the most unconventional manner he
could perceive, and he technically could do anything he wanted with her, but
how the hell did he take her to a place that neither of them were ready for
yet? Not to mention Dante’s methods of sending someone into that sublime place
between here and now and the outer edges of reality varied greatly from Mason's.
Dante’s involved carefully metered pain tactics, something he knew good and
well Julie had rarely, if ever, been subjected to as Mason wasn’t into that
particular kink.

Damned if he knew what to do for her.

"Then please go to bed with Blake,"
Julie told him, tucking her arms a bit tighter around her middle. "He
needs you."

"Is that why you won’t let me stay with
you? You think you’re going to come between us?" Dante asked, knowing the
answer without really even having to ask the question. He simply didn’t know
what else to do except keep talking to her even if the dialogue was petty and
meaningless.

"Dante, please.
I’ve had people hovering over me for the last
several days. Did it ever occur to you I simply need a few minutes to myself?"
She sounded as if that answer solved everything and tomorrow she’d wake up with
a smile on her face and a bounce in her step.

Truth
be
told,
however, it hadn’t occurred to him that she might in fact need just that.
Time to process without the added weight of a constant barrage of
questions and advice.
It wasn't her nature to deal with things well
alone, but that didn’t mean people didn’t change, particularly in the face of
adversity.

"I’ll leave your door open," he
said, standing. "And ours will be cracked. If you need anything…"

"I’m fine," she snapped, glaring at
him. "Go to bed with your
husband
."

The emphasis she put on the word twisted his
guts.

"How is she?" Blake asked as Dante
stepped into their bedroom and shrugged out of his dress shirt then started to
pull his undershirt over his head.

"I have no idea." He balled the
shirt in a wad and threw it at the hamper, missing but knowing Blake would pick
it up later. "She stopped crying."

"Does she need anything?"

"She says no."

"She’s lying. You do realize that?"
Blake put the book he’d been reading down and removed his glasses.

He’d been none too happy when Dante ordered
him to bed by himself. Dante knew Blake would exhaust himself trying to cater
to Julie. And when they were all to the point of falling over? What then? So
he’d ordered him to bed. What good it had done was a mystery since he hadn’t
bothered following through with the actual sleeping part. What had Dante
expected by not being as specific as possible? He’d learned over the years that
Blake was the most obedient thing on the planet, but would find ways of worming
around what he was told to do on the technicality of wording. Dante remembered
saying
go to bed
but not
go to bed and go to sleep
.

"And what would you have me do exactly?"
Dante asked, shoving his trousers down his legs and kicking his way out of them
then sitting to pull his socks off.

"Go sleep with her." Blake’s
eyebrows shot to his hair line as he pointed one finger toward the hallway.

"Are you fucking shitting me?" He
ran a hand over his head and blew out a long breath. "She just told me to
come
sleep with you."

"I don’t give a damn what she said. I
don’t want you in here either," Blake told him with finality.

Sometimes Dante questioned who the Master was
and who was the slave in this relationship.

Standing, he pinched the bridge of his nose
then went to the bureau and pulled a pair of shorts from the third drawer. He
jerked them on before starting to leave the room.

"I love you," Blake said in a not
entirely believable tone.

"I love you, too."

When he walked back into the guest room, he
discovered Julie had moved from the chair and was now curled up on her side on
the edge of the bed on top of the covers. She’d shut the lamp off, but a soft
glow filtered into the room from around the edge of the almost closed door
leading to the adjoining bathroom.

"Why are you back?" she said
listlessly.

"Because Blake ran me out of our room,"
he told her, pulling the comforter and sheet back and working it from under her
legs. He crawled in behind her and pulled her into his frame, draping the sheet
over them.

"I don’t want you here." Julie
attempted to pull away, but Dante tightened his hold and kept her in place.

"I don’t give a damn what anyone wants at
this point. I’m worn out and if you don’t just lay here and let me do this,
I’ll be forced to the couch." He reached up and ran his hand over her head
then kissed her cheek. "It’s not like we’ve never slept together."

"That was a long time ago," she
reasoned, her breath quickening as if panic might swallow her up at any moment.

"Yeah, it was. And now is now."

"I’m not ready for this."

"Neither am I, but here
we are.
Now go to sleep. Please."

It was while the predawn light was just
beginning to peek through the blinds Dante woke to find Julie slipping out of
bed. He didn’t move in a deliberate attempt to see what it was she was up to
without his knowing. Softly she padded to the bathroom, shutting the door
silently behind her. Waiting patiently, he willed the hard-on that had come and
gone all night at the feel of her soft body against his to stand down.
Again.
Guilt at his reaction to her swamped him and no
matter how many excuses he’d given himself for it, none of them abated his
disgust with himself.

She’d just buried her husband for Christ’s
sake. How could he find reason at all for his dick’s need to find its way into
her? It’d just been so damn long since he’d been with a woman and although he’d
seen women he’d have gladly fucked seven ways to Sunday since he’d decided he
loved Blake, none of them were worth risking his relationship for.
None of them but Julie.
But no matter how much he wanted
her, how much he loved her, he knew deep down she didn’t love him. In fact, he
was almost positive she was a little bit afraid of him. Besides, he simply
couldn’t give her what Mason had.

He heard the toilet flush then water running.
When all went silent again, Julie padded back out of the bathroom. But she
didn’t rejoin him in the bed. Instead, she stole from the room like a thief in
the night and disappeared down the hall.

Shit. What was she doing? Dante threw the
covers back, rolled to his feet, and followed her to the kitchen where he found
her on tiptoes reaching into a cabinet.

"Did you finally get hungry?" he
asked, swallowing at the sight of her stretched out like that, his dick
deciding it had a mind of its own once more.

"Jesus," she shouted and dropped the
bag of flour she’d barely grasped before Dante said anything to her. "What
are you doing up?" She spun around in the cloud of white that floated up
from the floor.

"I could ask you the same thing, Jules.
It’s not even daylight yet," he answered, moving toward the utility
closet. He retrieved the broom and dust pan and started to sweep up the mess.

"Let me," Julie said, grabbing the
broom handle.

"I’ve got it, love. Why don’t you go back
to bed? I’ll be back in a minute."

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Jules, what the hell are you doing up at
this unholy hour?" Dante demanded, relinquishing the broom given she
wouldn’t turn loose.

"Making breakfast," she explained as
she pushed the pile of flour into the dustpan then poured it into the waste
can. She put the broom away and returned back to the cabinets. "Do you
have more flour?"

"Breakfast?
At this hour?"
Dante came up behind her and took her hand from her forehead. "Come on.
This is ridiculous."

"No."

"Again with the no?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It’s what I do." A frown pulled her
lips down, forcing lines to develop around her eyes.