She’d felt small in the dungeon. Like she was the nerd back in gym class. Of course back then she’d had Deke, who would deal with anyone who tried to make her feel bad.
She stood in his kitchen, the moonlight filtering through the filmy curtains that covered his living room windows, and she wondered who’d decorated his place. It was well done. It wasn’t overly masculine. It was comfortable.
Why hadn’t she been comfortable in the dungeon? What the hell was she going to do if she couldn’t figure out a way to not be so fucking awkward?
Why was he mad at her?
It shouldn’t matter. This wasn’t her world. It was his. He’d made a conscious decision to belong to the D/s community and she’d stumbled into it for reasons that had nothing to do with her own needs, and now he was pushing her.
When she thought about it, he’d been the jerk. He’d been fine during the day, but after the club had opened, he’d changed. Like the lights going down and music starting up brought about a transformation in him. Like a werewolf on a full moon, he’d gone from mild-mannered, nice guy to a hungry predator who was sure he would get fed.
He’d been bossy and obviously annoyed with her and her questions. He wanted her to simply go along with everything he said, and that wasn’t who she was.
She didn’t belong here but she wasn’t sure what to do, and that was an awful position to be in. This wasn’t who she wanted to be, and perversely, she blamed Deke for putting her in the position. He was the one who pushed her to wear things she wasn’t comfortable in and then got angry with her that she was awkward.
It would be far smarter to go to bed and start over in the morning, but she couldn’t do it. She marched to the balcony doors and walked through.
Deke sat in the shadows, one leg over his knee and a grim look on his face. “Maddie, go to bed.”
He said it in that low growl that made her want to obey him and also to defy him just to show him she could. “I don’t appreciate the way you treated me tonight.”
A brow rose over his eyes, which seemed so much darker in the moonlight. “Then we’re going to have a problem because I was nothing but polite to you this evening.”
When she thought about it, he had been polite, but she’d been able to feel his disappointment. “You were passive aggressive.”
“Well, I would think you would appreciate that I managed to not be aggressive, aggressive.”
He was frustrating her. “You can’t be either. You’re working for me, and I expect some professionalism.”
He stood suddenly, the move so easy and graceful it seemed almost preternatural. It made her take a step back.
“All right. If that’s how you truly feel, then we need another plan. If it helps, I was probably going to suggest another plan anyway. I’ll let you sit down with Ian tomorrow and explain that you need a different approach and definitely a different lead investigator.”
His words felt like a kick to her gut. “What? You’re leaving me because I asked you to be professional?”
“I’m leaving you because you can’t work with me.” Every word sounded ground out of his mouth. “You don’t trust me, and that’s why this cannot work. I tried several tactics today. I tried to follow your lead. It got us nowhere. I tried to take the lead. You fought me at every turn.”
That’s not how she remembered things. “I didn’t fight you. I did everything you asked.”
“You argued with me constantly.”
Once again she felt like a kid in class. She’d been the one the teacher got frustrated with because she wanted to delve deeper into the subject. “I had questions.”
“Questions that could get us both killed out in the field.”
“You can’t expect me to simply follow orders.” It wasn’t who she was.
“Oh, but I do, and that’s why I think the absolute best course of action is for you to stop investigating entirely. I’ll let Adam know he can send his own team in if he and Chelsea want to, but you’re out of it.”
How was she supposed to drop the investigation? “You can’t do that.”
His face looked like it was made of granite. “Watch me.”
He wanted to be stubborn? She could show him stubborn. “What are you going to do, Deke? Kidnap me? Force me to quit a job I worked hard for?”
Was this some kind of revenge for him? She wasn’t sure why he would need revenge. He was the one who’d left her, but she knew some men could be irrational about the women in their lives. Even the ones they’d kicked out. It was a surprise to find out Deke was one of those men.
He sank down on the couch, and his eyes went back to the shadows and the energy seemed to flee his body. “For one thing, I thought I’d call your parents in the morning and let them know that you’ve gotten involved in a dangerous situation. Then I’ll call Nolan Byrne and tell him you’ve lied to him all along and that we have no connection, and he will never be allowed into The Reef.”
She stood there for a moment trying to process the threat. He was willing to ruin her career? “How could you?”
He simply shrugged. “It’s that or we find someone you can trust enough. Someone you feel comfortable with. Right now, I don’t think your plan is going to work. We can try some training with Kyle in the morning. There are a couple of other Doms who might work, but Kyle is already on the team. He would be the easiest replacement. MaeBe can be a friend of yours, and Boomer can be his brother. You never showed Byrne a picture of your Dom, so it could work.”
She didn’t want to go in with Kyle. She didn’t even know Kyle. If Deke called her parents, she would never hear the end of it. They would show up on her doorstep and hound her until she convinced them she was safe—something that might be hard to do considering her situation. If he called Nolan, well, then everything was probably over, including her career.
She’d made a terrible mistake. Coming here to talk to Deke had seemed like a good idea, but it was obviously never going to work. “I’ll go. There’s no need to have another meeting tomorrow. We can pretend like this never happened. I’m sorry I didn’t do what you wanted.”
Maddie started to back away.
“I’ll call them tonight if you try to leave,” Deke vowed. “I’ll find Byrne’s personal number and I’ll have you fired by morning.”
She turned on him, an ache inside her opening up. “Why? Why the hell would you do that? Because I didn’t obey well enough?”
“Maddie, I already offered to sacrifice a job I adore so I didn’t have to lie to you.” There was fire back in his tone. “I wasn’t joking when I told you what Adam asked of me. Hell, I gave you classified information. It could be more than merely my job on the line. I could find myself in jail or worse. And I knew it when I told you. I made that choice. What do you think I’m willing to do to keep you alive?”
She didn’t understand him. The anger and outrage she felt fled, and she had to face the fact that she didn’t know what she was doing and she couldn’t get anything at all done without him. “What did I do wrong?”
He sighed, a weary sound. “I thought you were submissive and you’re not. I was making assumptions based on who you were in high school and how our sex lives went back then, and I was wrong. Someone could teach you to play the role, but it would take far more time than we have. I say we give Kyle a shot to see if it’s just me you’re opposed to and if it doesn’t work, we figure something else out.”