She put the spoon aside for the meat sauce, looked at the clock and turned on the flame under water she’d already boiled so when she needed it ready to roll, it would be.
Her phone buzzed in her hand and she looked down at it to read Barclay’s reply of, You’re on, beautiful.
She grinned.
Then she moved her thumb on her phone to get to her list of texts and touched the listing titled “MBB” (My Big Boy).
The text string came up.
9:01: Starting.
9:13: Done.
1:03: Again.
1:12: Done.
Branch whatever-his-name-was.
Man of few words, even in texts.
Reading it (again), Evangeline’s grin turned into a huge smile.
She’d had hope, but she couldn’t be sure. He’d left with her toy inside him and a promise to text and come back that night to let her finish him off.
This could have been a tactical error. He was no novice submissive. He would know, regardless of her assertions she owned him, that her giving him instructions to carry out during the day meant something deeper. And he’d know what that deep meant.
And for Branch, that could be a big problem.
Not to mention life, separation and time had ways of messing with your head. Considering what Evangeline had run into last night at the Pound, Branch’s head was already messed up with something she’d decided she was going to straighten out.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to think that, being away from her, he’d let that mess talk him into not coming back to get what he needed.
But he’d texted. He’d done what she’d told him to do (she was sure of it—if he wanted to be a good boy, she was realizing he could be very good).
Even so, between 1:12 and—she checked the clock again—6:52, he could change his mind.
Her heart was telling her he wouldn’t.
Whether it was his heart, his head or, the biggest probability, his cock telling him to come back, she would probably never know.
But she was betting one of them would.
On this thought, she started to put her phone down in order to pick up her wineglass to take a sip when it rang.
She looked at the number. It was out of state and she didn’t recognize it, but seeing as her business was her business, that happened often, therefore she answered the call with, “Evangeline Brooks.”
“Evangeline.”
Damn.
She knew that voice.
“Damian,” she replied.
He’d gotten a new number, e-mailed it to her, but she’d never programmed it in.
Obviously he hadn’t lost her number.
“How’s it going, my beautiful girl?”
She looked to the clock again, not needing to be on the phone with Damian when Branch arrived but needing to do a variety of other things to finish off dinner and she had to have it all as ready as possible when Branch showed.
She was suspecting he wasn’t big on domesticity and getting-to-know-you activities so she had to be resourceful, because to break through why she was guessing he’d formed that marble around him she had to find a way to make this not (entirely) about how hard she could make him come.
She had to make it about who they were and how what they had could fit into life.
“It’s going good, Damian,” she replied, rechecking that the oven was preheating for the bread. “Aryas told me you were back in town.”
“Yes. I’ll probably be here for a year, depending on how this project goes, maybe longer.”
“It’ll be good to have you back.”
“It’s good to hear you say that, Evangeline.”
She drew in breath and tucked the phone between ear and shoulder so she could dress the salad, doing so now not only to have everything ready when Branch arrived but also to avoid her guilt that she’d given Damian any impression she might not want him back in her life.
“Listen, I’ve got something happening in about five minutes so it’s great to hear from you, honey, but I can’t talk long,” she gave him the truth, if not a detailed one. “Maybe we can do lunch sometime soon? Catch up?”
“It’s good to hear you say that too, sweetheart,” he murmured, sounding like he meant that a good deal.
She drew in another breath.
Damian kept talking.
“Aryas said you’d checked out. Word is, you’re checking back in.”
“Yes, well, it was time,” she shared. “It was actually time months ago but I got addicted to selling houses and being able to pay for the new shake-style roof my house needed about seven years ago that looks so amazing, if I wasn’t scared of heights, I’d climb up a ladder and kiss it, so I let it go but, well … now I’m back.”
“Glad of that, Leenie.”
“So we’ll do lunch.”
“You should come to the club.”
Damn it.
“Damian—”
“Aryas says you’ve checked back in but not that far in.”
“Taking baby steps,” she lied.
Last night, she’d taken one giant leap for Mistress-kind.
“Take one with me. I’ll hit the Honey. Find a sub. Let you know. You can come, outside the glass, Evangeline. Watch me work.” His voice lowered. “I know how you like to watch me work.” Before she could get a word in, his tone returned to normal, with a hint of amused when he finished, “Get your juices flowing again.”
She cut her eyes to the door when she saw headlights beaming along her driveway.
Oh, her juices were flowing.
Damn it!
“We’ll talk about it later.”
It was like she didn’t say anything. “Or we can watch Leigh with her stud and do it together. I hear the work she does with him is sensational.”
This made Evangeline press her lips together.
Although it could not be said she didn’t like to watch (because she very much did), she, personally, was not into exhibition. It was just something she wasn’t big on doing. If a sub had earned a punishment, she might work with them with the blinds up in a playroom at the Honey, but she, herself, would not perform. She’d make them perform.
But this kind of occasion was rare.
When she interacted with a submissive in any real, intimate way, she wanted privacy, for her, for her sub, for the focus she wanted them both to have on each other and what they were doing, feeling, sharing.
She had seen Amélie play with many of her toys.
But the idea of watching her play with the man she lived with, the man who, if how she talked about him, how she looked when she talked about him, and how others looked knowingly at her when she talked about him, would be in her life for the rest of it, didn’t appeal to her in any way.
Both, she would assume, very much enjoyed showing off the beauty they could make together.
It was just Evangeline that felt that was an invasion she couldn’t perpetrate.
“I’ll call you,” she said hurriedly, moving to the packet of spaghetti to put it in the water. “We’ll make lunch plans. Talk about it then. But now, Damian, I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”
“All right, Leenie. Dinner, sometime soon.”
Dinner?
She didn’t say dinner.
“I’ll call you,” she promised.
“If you don’t, I’ll find you.”
She stilled
He’d find her?
“’Bye, Leenie.”
“Goodbye, Damian.”
He disconnected.
She tossed her phone down, dumped the entire packet of spaghetti in the rolling water (who knew? Branch wasn’t a huge guy but he still had a lot of muscle to fuel, so he could be a huge eater) and the door to the kitchen opened.
Branch walked in and stopped dead, hand on the door handle, not even closing the door, eyes to the stove, nostrils flaring at the smells in the air, the entirety of his manner alert and on edge.
Nope.
Not into domesticity and getting to know you.
His gaze cut to her. “Dinner?”
“I’m hungry,” she replied.
“Evangeline—”
“I got home only half an hour ago.”
Lie.
For the herbs and diced pepperoni she added to her meat sauce, that enhanced the flavor exponentially, to do their job, it needed at least that amount of simmering, usually more. She’d been home an hour and a quarter and hadn’t even taken off her skirt and blouse (but she did take off her shoes) before she started cooking.