Assumed Master (6 page)

"You arrogant bastard," Dante
hissed. "I think your attitude warrants time in the play room later. I
think it’s been too long since I set your ass blazing with a cane."

Blake made the humming noise again in
agreement, holding Dante in his throat.

"Oh, fuck," Dante grunted. "You’re
so good, slave.
So.
Damn. Good."

With every muscle in his body taut, a warm
surge ran down Dante’s cock and he growled, thrusting his hips as he emptied
himself into Blake’s welcoming heat. Sweat trickled down his back as he
collapsed against the door, heaving for air. While he tried to find center,
Blake pulled off, patiently cleaning every inch of him with his tongue before
tucking him away and scooting back to sit on his knees with his head down.
Dante took one last, long breath and went to one knee in front of Blake.

"Thank you," he said quietly, taking
Blake by the chin and lifting his face to look into the other man's eyes. "I’ll
take care of you tonight." Running his tongue along Blake’s lips before
slipping it between them, he tasted himself mingled with the sweetness that was
uniquely Blake. This time Blake returned his affection and the crack in Dante’s
heart sealed up just a bit. "Thank you," he repeated before standing and
sinking into the chair in front of his desk. "Would you go wake Julie and
let her know she needs to get ready to go to lunch?"

"Yes, Master." Blake stood and left without
looking back.

****

Dante watched Julie’s eyes wander across the
chokers gleaming under the spotless, streak-free glass case. They darted along
the row of precious metal chains of all shapes and sizes before settling on
one. He couldn’t help but smile. She was such a girl and had high quality
taste. Could he really expect less after she’d been married to someone with
more money than God?

"We’d like to look at that one,"
Dante said, tapping his finger over the necklace comprised of tiny, interwoven
platinum hearts. One larger heart of the same metal, but encrusted with tiny
diamonds, looped through the two hearts at the ends of the choker and snapped
shut, locking the creation around the wearer's throat.

"Dante," Julie said so low he barely
heard her. "No."

"Why not?" he whispered
back.

"It’s too expensive," she hissed.

"We’d like to see that one," Dante
reinforced to the sales clerk.

"Don’t try to argue with him, pumpkin,"
Blake said from her other side. "He’s like a pit bull. Once he latches on
to an idea, his jaws lock and there’s no turning loose."

"It’s too much," Julie insisted,
crossing her arms under her breasts and hugging her middle. "You don’t owe
me anything."

"I know I don’t." Dante took her
elbow and steered her away from the counter as the clerk worked on getting the
piece he wanted to see out of the display case. "Jules, why on earth would
you ever think I’d do something for you out of a sense of obligation? I want
you to have something nice."

"Aren’t you just
keeping
me because you feel obligated? Why would this piece of
jewelry be any different?"

Dante wondered if he could ever kick his own
ass enough to make up for what he’d done to Julie and Blake over the course of
a few short hours. It hadn't occurred to him at first that his reaction to
Mason’s announcement probably made her feel unwanted and unloved, not just by
him but by her own husband. It never occurred to him that she might have heard
his answer to Drake when he told him he didn’t have to do his father’s bidding.
Of course she probably felt like a piece of property, not a person with
feelings. No wonder she was reluctant.

"Listen to me. You are
not
just an obligation to me. Yes,
finding out what Mason deemed was a shock.
But not because I
don’t want you.
I just can’t believe he never thought to discuss any of
this with anyone. I’m sorry, Jules. As much as I love you and as much as I
loved Mason, this sort of put him in the asshole column of my list of friends.
True, you’ve been a slave for years, but you’re a person first. I’m not sure he
took that into account when he did this. Had he asked, the answer would have
been irrefutably yes. I want to take care of you." He pulled her to his
chest and kissed the top of her head. "I’m sorry I made you feel that way.
I want to make this work, but not because I feel I owe it to
him
. I owe it to
you
out of love, Jules. Would you please just try the damn thing
on?"

All those things were true. He did want to
take care of her and make it work, but Dante also understood he no more knew
how
he was going to do any of that than
the man in the moon. She was so fragile and soft and different from Blake.
Well, hell, she was a woman. Of course she was those things. Wasn’t that why he
loved her? But he was set in his ways and had no idea if he could change. He
felt like he was making empty promises based on vapors of half-truth.

Once the choker was paid for and secured
around her throat, Julie reached up and fingered it and the most amazing thing
happened. For the first time in days, she smiled and Dante swore she breathed a
little easier.

It was after Julie ate more in one sitting at
lunch than she’d eaten in the past week combined they made their next stop at
the boys’ school to pick them up and deliver them to Drake’s for the evening.

Spying their sons standing on the sidewalk
surrounded by a bevy of girls of all shapes, sizes, and colors, Dante shook his
head as he came to a halt at the curb.

"We definitely have our hands full,"
he said, honking the horn to get their attention.

"Please tell me you’ve had the talk about
a million times," Julie said, waving as the boys jogged over. "Do you
need me to conjure some horror stories from my teen years to convince them
rubbers are a must and girls are the devil?"

Blake snickered from the back seat just as
Gavril pulled Julie’s door open.

"Aunt Julie," he said, leaning in
and kissing her on the cheek. "How do you feel, love?"

"Taking lessons from Papi I see,"
Julie answered, cradling his face and kissing the end of his nose. "I’m
okay." Although Dante noticed her eyes grew cloudy again.

"Can we come home?" Lucien asked,
shoving his brother away and leaning in to hug her. "We’ll be quiet while
you…" The boy grew still as if not knowing what to say next.

"We need some time, boys. Aunt Julie
needs time to recover a bit, but we do need to talk," Dante said,
motioning them to get in the vehicle.

Chapter Six

"So, Aunt Julie will be living with us,
too?" Lucien asked, reaching for another chocolate chip cookie. "Cool."

"Hello, Luc. Don’t you get it?"
Gavril said
,
sitting back with his eyebrows knitted
together. "She’ll be Papi’s like Dad is Papi’s. Is that right?"

"Well, yes," Dante answered, wishing
he had a beer in hand instead of a cup of coffee.

"I guess Uncle Mason was a big ass then,"
Gavril said, reaching for his vitamin water.

"Gav," Lucien gasped. "Take it
back. Uncle Mason was tops. He’s just looking out for Aunt Julie’s welfare.
Would you want her living all the way out there on the river by herself? Look
at her? She’s a girl for piss sake!"

"Boys, my God!" Blake scolded. "Watch
your mouths."

"Well, it’s true," Lucien defended. "She's
a girl and you and Papi have always taught us to respect them and protect them
at all cost. She’s a mess and she needs us. I’m glad she’s going to live with
us. Gav’s the ass."

It seemed to Dante maybe they were teaching
their boys just a little too well if they were that perceptive of the
situation. In some ways, he thought they might understand it better than he
did. Gavril decidedly knew Mason was an ass and Lucien clearly saw through
Julie’s attempts at being strong while Mason was ill. Dante didn’t remember
being that attentive until he was at least thirty.

"I’m the ass?" Gavril asked, clearly
put off by his brother’s assessment. "And speaking of respecting her, it
seems to me no one does."

"And what makes you say that?" Dante
said, hoping to God this conversation ended soon so he could get his night
class over with then go home and get the beer he so badly needed.

"Did anyone think to ask Aunt Julie what
she
wanted?"

Silence fell across Drake’s kitchen and not
one person looked another in the eye.

"That’s what I thought," Gavril
deduced. "How the hell is that respecting her?"

"Gav, language," Blake hissed
through tightly drawn lips.

The boy posed a good question. One Dante had
no answer for.

"I was wondering what you boys would like
to eat when you come home next week," Julie spoke up, giving Dante a
sideways glance that told him move on, this argument wasn’t worth it right now.
"I’m going to be the one cooking for a while and I need to do some
shopping."

It sickened Dante how well Julie was around
kids and she didn’t even realize it. She’d have made a wonderful mother, would
be now to his boys.
 
She should have had
a dozen running around behind her. But instead, when the devastating news came
that a dozen would never be borne of her womb, something seemed to die inside
her and all talk of her and Mason having children ceased. He wondered now whose
idea that had been. Was it Mason’s? Every attempt Dante ever made to broach the
subject with Mason had been met head on with a wall so high a professional
climber would have had issues getting over it. He’d not exactly proven himself
a worthy keeper as far as Dante was concerned. If he found truth in his
assumptions, it would only further cement Dante's conclusions about the man
he’d held as his best friend for so many years.

"May I have some paper and a pen?"
she asked Gavril, clearly trying to redirect the boy’s attention. "Do you
still like pasta as much as your dad does?"

That seemed to get Gavril’s attention and
within the course of a few
minutes,
Julie had a list
of requests and ingredients a mile long. Dante glanced at his watch and
realized they needed to get going or he’d be late for work.

"Boys, I’ve got to get going," he
said, standing.

Clearly ignoring him and Blake, the boys
flanked Julie and walked her to the car. While Blake climbed in the back seat,
Dante slid behind the wheel, allowing the boys to fawn over their newly
acquired cook.

"I love you, Aunt Julie," Lucien
said, planting a kiss on her cheek.

"I love you, too," Gavril said,
kissing her forehead. "I’m glad you’re going to live with us because of
what Luc said, but I still think it’s a crock of shit no one asked what you
wanted."

Before Blake could get a word out about his
language, Gavril tucked tail and turned toward the house, Lucien aiding Julie
in the front seat and helping her with her buckle. Any doubt Dante had ever had
that they weren’t raising respectable boys was erased at the sight of the
tender care they rendered her.

****

At half-past ten Dante walked through the
door, completely wrung out. Until he looked up and found a naked Blake on his
knees beside the recliner awaiting his Master. Maybe, just maybe, things were
going to slowly return to some semblance of normal, or what would pass for the
new normal anyway. A heavenly smell wafted through the house, nudging Dante’s
awareness that the new normal included a beautiful, heartbroken woman.

He placed his leather messenger bag on the
entry way bench then went to the chair where Blake waited and sank into it.

"I missed you, Master," Blake said,
immediately going to work on Dante’s shoes, removing them and setting them to
the side. He then placed Dante’s left foot in his lap and massaged his instep. "She’s
been cooking all evening. It seems to be an obsession, Master. I’m not sure
what we’ll do with it all aside from calling in a regiment from the base to eat
it."

"How does she seem otherwise?" Dante
asked, rubbing his forehead at this latest development and eyeing the liquor
cabinet. No, it wouldn’t do to be slamming shots. He’d promised Blake play time
and drunk was definitely not the right way to do that.

"She seems content, Master."

"Well, that’s a step forward I suppose,"
Dante answered. "I need a beer."

"Yes, Master." Blake placed Dante’s
foot on the floor and left to retrieve a Breckenridge Vanilla. When he
returned, Dante took the beer he offered and drew a long pull off it as Blake
resumed his position and picked up Dante’s right foot. "I don’t think
she’s sure of what to do, Master."

"About what?" he asked, leaning his
head back against the supple leather headrest and closing his eyes. Normal or
not, it was becoming more and more apparent that normal might include little
sleep or even less peace of mind with two subs to worry about every second of
the day.

"I think she thinks this is our routine
and she doesn’t have any business being involved in it. She refused to come out
of the kitchen, Master. She said this was our time when I told her you were
home and just kept stirring her Bolognese."