Queen (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (85 page)

“You’re safe,” I say to reassure her.
“Everyone just saw what you did. No one will mess with you, besides the Boss put out notice.” I inwardly smirk at the ridiculousness of the situation.

I lean back in the booth and Fate brings our drinks. I pull out my cellphone and bring up the live-feed of Ezra’s office.

Fate and I watch with amusement as Ezra yanks Katya into his office. I worry when he pushes her up against his door and feels her up. He looks happier than I’ve ever seen him and she seems thrilled by his attentions. I’m slightly jealous, but at the same time I’m glad that Ezra finally gets his girl.

When Ezra starts to grind on her behind I call Aaron to book it to the office and interrupt. Ezra dotes on the kid, so he’s safe from Ezra’s wrath. If I interrupted he’d take his frustrations out on me.
The look in Ezra’s eyes is one I’ve seen many a time. It signals that he’s about to blow. He startles and I know that Aaron has arrived just in time.

Fate and I share a giggle at his frustration. We try to compose ourselves before Katya returns. We’re sitting here with shit-eating grins when she comes back.

Katya falls into the booth with an astonished look on her face. Her lips are parted and ruby-kissed. Her green eyes are heavy-lidded and glazed. Her pale skin is flushed with pink. The poor girl is panting through intense arousal.

I smile because she loved Ezra’s game as much as he did. I love the arrogant bastard enough not to get jealous, but it does make me feel lonely. Fate’s fingertips connect with my hand showing me that I’m not alone. I may not have a partner, but I have a lot of loved ones and it should be good enough. It’s not, but I am thankful for all of them.

“Looks like someone met the Boss,” I chuckle and a satisfied smile stretches across my face.

“Yeah, I guess I did,” slips past
Kat’s lips. She slurs and I know her lips are numb.

She
runs a hand over her face and into her hair. Kat’s eyes widen in shock when her fingers meet resistance. Kat yanks the barrettes out of her mass of gorgeous red curls and it falls in a wave to her waist. She shakes her head in bliss and it settles her hair.

I smirk at her reaction to her new bracelet hitting her in the nose with her movement. She stares wide-eyed at Ezra’s ownership of her, and I can tell that she knows exactly what it represents. An ache deep inside my chest thumps in annoyance. I’ll never know what it means to be owned. I’m as dominant as the Master of the Universe, but I still want to know what it would feel like to have someone care, love, and worship you enough to want to mark you as their possession.

She examines the bracelet with a shocked expression. I yank her hand across the table because I want to know how different her bracelet is to my own.

“Holy fuck
, girl, what did you do?” I whisper and she gapes at me like a startled colt.

I look at her, but her eyes are locked on Fate. She doesn’t speak as a myriad of expressions cross her face as she stares at my submissive and fate stares back at her in turn.

“I didn’t do anything. What? He just gave me the membership bracelet.” She says in denial sounding like a small, disillusioned child.

“Lookie, lookie…”
I tap Kat’s wrist and grin.

She looks with horror-filled eyes as the gravity of the situation hits her.

“Don’t take that off…ever,” She imitates Master Ez’s voice and accent. “No, shit! I guess he meant that. I wasn’t even given an option. He hijacked me in the hall, and pulled me into a dark room, and clicked the bitch in place. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she hisses at the ceiling.

Fate and I both look to the ceiling, too. Fate looks scared to death and I’m sure I look highly amused. I wink and blow Ezra a kiss. I’m sure he is beside himself with bliss as his kitten grows fangs and flexes her claws.

Kat gently thumps her forehead onto the booth’s tabletop mumbling
stupid, stupid, stupid
with every hit.

“I’m stupid…” thumps head. “Stupid...” thumps head. “I let him distract me,” she chastises.

I laugh excitedly. This is exactly what I needed. I needed something to distract me from my shitty life, and Katya and her man troubles outweigh mine exponentially. I laugh harder when Kat glares at me.

“Tha
t’s not all, look at the lock.” My eyes drift towards Fate’s wrist cuff until Kat looks at the padlock with my emblem adorning it.

Kat raises her wrist and swears under her breath. The expression on her face and the glint in her pale green eyes screams that she understands that she is caught in Ezra’s trap.

“Jesus, I’m wearing thousands of dollars’ worth of bracelet on my wrist, no wonder there is a lock on it.”

“That’s not why there is a lock, Ho
ney.” I gaze at her out of pity.

An expression flashes across her face that I can’t interpret and she breathes
fuck.

“I’ve been pwnt by the Boss.”
She glances around the room looking for Ezra. Kat whispers, “Game on, bastard.”

Chapter Twenty

Life keeps on rolling no matter what is going on in our lives. I sometimes feel like I’m the owner of a large daycare center filled with all the people in my life. I’m exhausted from running interference between everyone.

Now that Marcus and I aren’t partners anymore I fully understand him. I understand the loneliness, the desolation, the panic of running all the lives around you. It’s been three months with no word from him. I do more now than I did when I was standing side-by-side with him. But I realize now that he was holding me up before. Now I truly am his equal and that isn’t what he wanted from me.

I thought I was strong before. The Regina I was at eighteen would have marveled at the one I was six months ago. The Regina that unflinchingly looks at me through the vanity mirror today would have frightened both the innocent and jaded versions of myself. I smirk at my mirror-image- it’s a little bit evil and a lot sarcastic. I don’t even recognize myself.
The conversations between Jamie and I are filled with tense unease. It’s amazing what emotions can still be felt in a text. It’s just simple digital words, but they pierce like the dullest knife. The sensation is sharp and biting, but the pain in debilitating.

Our conversations center around three people: Whitt, Niel, and Ava. He speaks of his life more now than ever. I know of his hopes, dreams, his writing career, and how he sees his future. He asks me things trying to get me to speak of similar desires. I evade and tell him of Fate and Kris or our children.

Since I met him face-to-face I do not share anything personal with him- anything that has an emotion attached. It hurts worse as he opens up to me and I close myself off to yet another human being that I love.

One person is absent from our conversations, and he never pretends to be Jamie anymore- Marcus. I don’t know if he is respecting our privacy or not, and I don’t care. I never speak of myself for two reasons- three reasons: Trust: I trust Jamie to show Marc our texts. Pain: It’s painful for me if either of them knew one single emotion I feel. Comfort: They would be uncomfortable if their difficult choice used them as a shoulder to cry on. I have wide shoulders that can carry the brunt of my weight.

I wander through life with a ball of pain coiled deep within my gut- Marcus and Jamie. My outward appearance never betrays the agony I feel with every breath. I miss my parents and I thought that was true pain. I’d mourned Jamie for nearly a decade. It was debilitating, but that was mild in comparison to the torture I feel with ever beat of my heart and every contraction of my lungs. Heart and lungs are controlled by my brain. I am thankful that my soul doesn’t enable their function or I would’ve been six-feet under months ago.

I push all my pain away and focus on those I love.

Kristal is happier than ever even though Dalton is avoiding her seductions. Roman is looking at her differently and it curiously looks like affection.

Fate is sad and lonely and frightened. If only I knew what she wanted I could give it to her and make her happy too.

My children are forging a bond that will never break, and Niel is looking at me as a son looks to his mother. This should make me ecstatic and it does. It’s that I have no one to share these emotions with, the joy I feel when my son calls me mom or when he asks my advice. This is where I should depend on Jamie. But he is Jamie and, therefore, undependable.

While Whitt is the closest person I have to a partner- he isn’t. I dream of the day he meets the love of his life. I dream of living vicariously through him as he falls in love for the very first time. I know he would shoulder my burdens and that he wants to shoulder them. But it isn’t his place, so I censor myself around him. Whitt and I have fought constantly as we live within a bubble of frustration. His frustration is because he knows I’m miserable and he wonders if he is the cause, and I’m frustrated with him because he keeps missing the signs that Dalton is crushing on him. He’s letting his happiness slip through his fingers and I have yet another responsibility to harbor.

Ezra and I have grown closer in Marc’s absence. At first I worried that I was using him as a replacement. But it isn’t like that. While our tenuous relationship started out with sexual manipulation, we’re friends now. I understand him. We’re slowly building trust. He speaks of his pain and I want to take it away. He speaks of his past and I understand how he turned into the man that he became.

Katya is what we bonded over. I see her as one of my ladies and I know Ezra loves me for it. Every affectionate
Mom
and
Katya will be your daughter-in-law someday
hurts me so much. I never explain why I wince as the pain pierces my heart, but somehow I think he knows the reason.

Cort tries to maintain our friendship and has expressed his jealousy that Ezra and I spent so much time together stalking Kat. I brush off Cort more than I give in. I make excuses that Ezra and I are only watching Katya, and I’ve had to swear on my children’s lives that I’m not sleeping with his man. The thought is laughable, but Cort didn’t find it funny. I miss him, I love him, and I still see him as one of my best friends. It’s painful to be around him. It reminds me of a time I will never recapture. When Cort looks at me with smiling gray eyes and a sarcastic grin, the memories flow and it feels wonderful. The connection, the companionship, the laughs, and comfort warm my soul. As soon as our visit concludes it hurts worse than if I hadn’t seen him. It’s a reminder of all that I’ve lost. Time doesn’t heal the wounds, but it deadens the nerves. Cort’s smile and laugh reawaken the nerves and the pain is pure agony.

Later as I try to sleep the truth screams though my thoughts. It was all fake-a lie- every second of it. Marcus’ declarations, Jamie’s constant lurking, and Cort’s friendship was all a figment of my imagination. I remade it into something that never existed just as I did my past with Grant. Marc was using me to get what he needed. Jamie was curious to see how I turned out or he was testing his resolve. Cort- I have no idea if his friendship was real.

I think this is why I find myself drawn to the broken man- Ezra. Nothing is more real than rape. There is no lie in that. There is no way to make it more or less than it was meant. He manipulated me, used me, violated me, and emotionally and mentally hurt me. I see the profound change in him that my presence has created. It gives me a purpose in life. It’s raw, real, and brutal.

My job fulfills me. My children love me. Katya is my sole source of amusement and my largest source of frustration. I’ve watched her blossom as Ezra and I play Cat to her Mouse. Her curiosity, tenacity, and inner-strength drive her. I’m awed as much as I am jealous. I see things in her that I wish I could be. I sometimes want to shake the shit out of her and slap her silly. Other times as I watch her on the live-feeds I want to find her and hug her- comfort her. Allow us to comfort each other. She’s gorgeous in that way that drives men mad because she doesn’t see it. She’s confident, tactful, and commanding. Katya knocks Ezra off his feet like a wrecking ball to the heart.

Yesterday I watched as she played both Ezra and Cortez. It was the most frustratingly amusing twenty minutes of my life. It was worse than watching Kat stalk Kayla and take her on her desk as Cort, Ezra, and I watched from Ezra’s office. The boys nearly exploded, and it was the first time in almost four months that my libido made itself known. I had to leave because the guys noticed my reaction, whether it was scent or body language, they stalked me to the door and nearly chased me down the hall.

As soon as Katya left her office yesterday afternoon Cort demanded that I sneak into her office and hack her treasure box. Her idea was ingenious, but it only took me fifteen seconds to open the box containing our chess board- and it is
our
chess board. This has been a long time coming, and a huge collaborated effort on all of our parts- Ezra, me, Cort, Aaron, Kayla, Roman, Kris, Fate, and Marcus. We’ve all played a small part, and in my case- a huge part. I just hope it isn’t a mistake.