Shades of Pleasure: Five Stories of Domination and Submission by Tawny Taylor Page A

leave.
He’d take care of everything.
    She should be home now, preparing. Checking in on her
brother. And looking to see how much cash she had in her stash, getting ready
to pack up and leave town in a hurry.
    But she wasn’t. She couldn’t. Why?
    First, because she wanted to know who had told Kyler she was
sleeping with Matt Becker. That was so far from the truth. Just the thought of
that man touching her made her gag.
    As she sat there, trying to work up the nerve to leave, a
million thoughts kept running through her head. Should she go to work on Monday
and plant the evidence? Or should she just pack up and leave town? What exactly
was Kyler thinking?
    Finally, she decided to go back up to the house and ask him.
There were too many things hanging in the air for her to know how to plan. She
cut off her car’s engine and hurried back up to the front door. Rang the bell.
And waited.
    Kyler looked so shocked to see her, she swore she could’ve
knocked him over with a feather.
    “I can’t leave yet,” she explained, coolly.
    “I’m…surprised. Ummm, come in.” He raked his fingers through
his hair again as he stepped aside to let her in. “I’ve been thinking this past
hour. And, well, earlier. When you…I had no right… Shit, I’m sorry. Not that
I’m making an excuse, because there are none. No matter what, I have no right
to treat you the way I did. But I’d heard one thing from you and something
different from another person, and I was having one hell of a time knowing who
to believe.”
    She could understand that. She nodded. “Who told you I was
sleeping with Matt?”
    “It doesn’t matter who said what or who you’re sleeping
with. That’s none of my business.”
    Wasn’t his business? That was true, but she still felt like
he’d punched her in the gut when he said it.
    His gaze dropped to the floor. He shook his head. “I’m so
fucked in the head.” When he finally lifted his head again, his jaw was set.
His expression was so dark, she didn’t know what to think. Suddenly, he turned
around and headed toward his office.
    She stood in the foyer for a few minutes, not sure whether
she should follow him or just forget it and head back out to her car. Finally,
she decided to try to get the answers she’d come back for. She stopped at his
office door and, leaning on the doorframe, peered in. “What are you going to do
about Matt blackmailing me? I just need to know, so I can make plans.”
    He was sitting at his desk, his face buried in his hands.
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
    “Maybe I should just go away. Leave town. Start over
somewhere.”
    He tipped his head up, looking at her. “Where will you go?
What will you do?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know yet. But I might not have a
choice. Once Matt takes the proof he has about my cousin, I’ll be fired. I
wouldn’t put it past him to take the information to the police too, like he
threatened. He’d do that.”
    Silence.
    “Not if I give him what he wants first.”
    “What do you mean?” She followed Kyler with her eyes as he
stood, ran his hands down the front of his creased trousers.
    “I could quit. It’s a fucking shame. I didn’t want to leave
my job. It’s the first thing I’ve accomplished without my father’s help, and
it’s taken me over ten years to get where I am. But keeping my pride isn’t
worth the price you’d have to pay.”
    Did she just hear right? Kyler was willing to give up his
job—the one that clearly meant more than she had ever guessed—for her?
    She sat there, stunned, as he called Matt and told him he’d
won, the VP position was as good as his, but only if he brought the evidence he
had against her…all of it…to his house by six o’clock tonight.
    No one had ever done anything that selfless for her. “Thank
you,” she said. It seemed so inadequate but she didn’t know what else to say.
She didn’t have the means to pay him back.
    He nodded, toyed with the cordless phone.