“I couldn’t go back to the penthouse after Landon told me you’d left. I…just couldn’t. I didn’t want to see all the reminders of…of what I’d never have. Last night when Ari started digging through the boxes that they’d brought back from Miami, he found the letter and gave it to me.”
“Who the fuck is Ari?” I demanded, angrily. I could just imagine some hot little twinky sub digging through Seth’s personal belongings in between scenes.
He laughed. “Ari is Arizona—Landon’s son. His desk is next to mine at the office. That’s where the boxes were.” He dropped his head, shook it, and said, “Fuck, Baker, I almost tossed those boxes without ever looking inside.” Despair made his voice sound raw. “What if I’d never seen the letter? What if we’d both just gone our separate ways, each believing the other didn’t want us?”
“That wouldn’t have happened, Tart,” I mocked. “The minute my wrists were healed, I planned on flying to Colorado to kick your ass. I think the truth might have come out then.”
He nuzzled my lips and whispered, “I’ve missed your sweetness and especially the tartness. I’m never letting you go, Baker. I hope you know that. I’ll move, or you’ll move. One way or another, we’re together. Got it?”
“Just try to shake me, big guy,” I answered.
“No more misunderstandings, lies, half—-truths, or assumptions,” he added. “We tell each other everything and never assume anything.”
“Oh, shit, guys!” Landon’s voice interrupted our private love fest. “What in the fuckity fuck is the director doing here? She just pulled into the driveway. I swear on all that’s holy that I had permission to use the company jet.”
Uh oh. There might have been one more thing I hadn’t told Seth. When I heard Sammie stomping up the stairs, I knew it was too late to try and cover my ass now. The shit was about to hit the fan.
“The director? How do you know the director?” Seth asked.
Before I could answer, Sammie rounded the corner, hands on her hips, and looking ready to rip some heads off. I wasn’t even certain it was the heads that sat on top of shoulders, either.
“Landon,” she nodded in his direction but never took her eyes away from Seth. “Agent Wilkinson,” she moved in closer, her eyes glaring, “it’s finally nice to meet you in person instead of talking on the phone.”
Seth rolled off the bed and stared at her, a confused expression on his face.
“Uh, Seth, this is Sammie,” I said. “She, uh, yeah, she used to be called Mistress Samantha.” I grinned sheepishly. “You know, before I met and fell in love with you.” When I’d returned home from Miami, I’d been up front with Samantha right away, and told her our professional relationship, in the clubs, not at work, was officially over. I’d gushed about having fallen madly in love with Seth and revealed my hopes and prayers that he felt the same and would come for me. She’d promised he would, there was no way he did not love me back, she’d vowed. As the days passed with no word from him, she’d gotten madder and madder at Seth, threatening to fire him. I’m sure she was joking, but she also mentioned having him ‘knocked off’. Just in case she hadn’t been kidding, I’d quickly explained I’d have her ‘knocked off’ if she did. My threat hadn’t seemed to bother her much, so I added Esmerelda, her beloved dog into the mix. She totally got the picture then and never mentioned making Seth vanish again. After that conversation, it was merely chopping his balls off and feeding them to him.
It was during those conversations that I’d taken to calling her Sammie. Mistress Samantha didn’t work anymore and after all we’d shared together, Miss. Strickland didn’t fit either. We’d both settled on Sammie. I would always love her but had never considered being in love with her…not like I was with Seth. I’d known there was something different from the very first scene Seth and I shared together but had tried to chalk it up to him being my first male Dominant. It hadn’t been that. It hadn’t been that at all. My heart had recognized him immediately as my soul mate. The rest of me had caught up and agreed with the revelation fairly quickly. It was hard to imagine that we’d only been thrown together for a few days, but he’d managed to change my entire world.
Seth’s eyes were suddenly as round as silver dollars. “Your Mistress is the director of the agency? You never thought to mention that to me, Baker?”
“Thought about it,” I squeaked. “Then thought maybe I shouldn’t. Anyway, she’s my ex-Mistress…and she owns the company.”
“Oh, shit,” Landon, who had tried to be invisible up until this point, muttered. He was standing in a corner of my bedroom, trying to blend in with the navy walls. Hmmm, it wasn’t working for him. “Couldn’t you have shared some of that information with me, Director Strickland? It might have made things easier.”