He went to the coffeemaker, tore off the Post-it and flipped the switch.
Then he read the note.
MBB,
Recuperate well, honey. You left me in a certain mood. Get yourself fed. I’ll text when I’m on my way home tonight and then I want to find you in the studio, like you always wait for me.
I’ll see you then.
Can’t wait for my show.
Have a great day!
xxx E
It was Branch in a certain mood after he read the note, even not having a clue what was to come because Evangeline wasn’t about routine. She liked to switch things up even if she clearly had a few of them she liked to repeat (like tying him down on the bolster). She also had a vivid imagination.
So he didn’t know what was to come, he just knew without a doubt he’d get off on it fucking huge.
He also had to stop himself from thinking about it at all because just thinking about Evangeline wanting him in the studio waiting for her, which meant she wanted to find him naked, ass to the door, draped over her horse, was making his dick start to stand at attention.
Though she usually ordered it after they’d come home and had downtime. Not before dinner.
And he wasn’t big on missing dinner with her.
For her, though, he’d do it.
As he crumpled the note in his hand and threw it in the trash, Branch was able to make himself stop thinking about it.
He’d received intensive training in a variety of skills.
And in the last three and a half weeks, he’d found he’d acquired a new one.
That being the ability to stop himself from thinking about a number of things.
Especially the fact that, the longer he let this last with Evangeline, the more deeply he was perfecting the art of being a motherfucking asshole.
They’d found their rhythm. Food. Sleep. Sex. Play. Communication. Relaxation.
Fuck, the last two weekends he’d helped her with laundry and had run the damned vacuum over the rugs covering her wood floors.
And he hadn’t done it as her sub. He didn’t get off on that kind of play anyway but it wasn’t about that because he sensed she knew that, so it wasn’t that she’d asked.
He did it because the sheets he’d put in the washer, he was sleeping on, and the rugs he was vacuuming, he was walking on, and she was cleaning a house he was living in, he’d been around when she was doing it, so he’d helped.
In the last three and a half weeks he hadn’t once slept in his own bed, going to his condo only to change clothes, but he had a razor at her place, shave cream, a comb.
They lived their lives and they lived them together, sharing time, sharing space, sharing a bed.
Sharing everything.
Including their first fight …
No, not a fight.
An argument.
Something that started with him reminding her she hadn’t bought the motion sensor lights he’d told her to get and her blowing him off, saying, “I’ll get to it.”
“What’d I say?” had been his response, to which—both of them engaged in preparing a meal in her kitchen because it was her turn to cook, but she’d asked him to grill—her eyes slid to him.
“It means something to you, I know that, honey, but I’ve been busy.”
He’d looked away, paying attention to the fries he was pouring in the basket of her deep fat fryer, stating, “Then I’ll get them.”
“They have to work with the house.”
He looked back to her. “Then buy them, Evangeline.”
“I will.”
“Tomorrow,” he demanded.
She shook her head. “I don’t have time tomorrow.”
“Then tomorrow you’ll come home to what I think’ll work with the house.”
She turned to him, not hiding she was losing patience. “We’ll go out this weekend.”
Anyone out there he might not want to see him, seeing her with him?
They would the fuck not.
“If you can’t carve out time to go to the store, look online,” he commanded. “When they arrive, I’ll install them.”
“I don’t have time to look online either,” she’d retorted.
“And again, I do have time to go out and get them so they’ll be up when you get home tomorrow, babe.”
“Just go to the store with me this weekend.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
Her mouth set and her eyes flashed blue fire. “Because you can’t be seen with me.”
He turned fully to her and stated simply, “Yeah.”
“And you can’t share with me why,” she kept at him.
“Correct again, baby,” he fired back.
She nodded her head repeatedly, still doing it as she looked down at the Asian slaw she was making, saying irately, “Then I’ll go alone. You just have to wait for the weekend. It’s, like, three days away.”
“And that’s, like, a month since I told you to get the fuckin’ things in the first place,” he returned, mimicking her speech pattern.
Her gaze shot to his. “Don’t be an asshole.”
“Already a motherfucker, beautiful. Well beyond an asshole. You know that and you still tie me to your bed.”
Her face arrested but she didn’t call him on a remark that was edging over the line.
She said softly, “You’re not a motherfucker, Branch.”
“You’re wrong, Angie.”
“You’re not. You’re mine.”
He shut his mouth.
“I’ll find time to go out and look tomorrow,” she promised. “But, honey, if I don’t find something I like, I’ll need to look online so it’ll take time for what I ordered to get here and I want you to be okay with that.”
What Branch wanted was not to see the hurt she was trying to hide in the backs of her eyes when he took them out of the easy they’d had, the easy he was giving her when he damned well shouldn’t, and reminded her exactly how it was between them.
What he also wanted was not to learn that she had a way with an argument and that was to nip it in the bud when it started to turn into something that could get ugly and cause damage they couldn’t fix.
Yeah.
He wanted neither of those things.
He wanted reasons to go.
Not more reasons to stay.
“I’m okay with that,” he grunted.
“Thanks, baby,” she murmured.
He didn’t reply.
He dropped the basket into the fryer, flipped its lid closed, went out to check the brats he’d put on the fucking grill like he was the modern-day Ozzie who liked his bare ass slapped to her modern-day Harriet, who got off doing the slapping.
Christ.
And then she’d given him better, which made it worse, because with that, it was done. She didn’t settle into a mood, pout, act bitchy, give him looks, turn distant.
Nothing.
They’d had their words.
And when it was done, it was done.
Jesus.
She was a dream come true not just in reach but sitting beside him on the couch, tucked to him in sleep, and he still couldn’t live the dream that was her.
He wasn’t a submissive masochist.
He was just a fucking masochist.
Because just like everything else she gave to take him there, he was getting off on living a dream that he couldn’t allow to be real.
Which meant now he was cooking her brats and coming home to her after going out to drinks with the guys, getting his kink better than he’d ever imagined he’d have it, and they’d slid so deep into normal, into easy, they were in discussions about whether she should get a cat or a dog.
Yes, they fucking were.
A cat or a dog.
And fucking fuck him, like they were normal, like they were easy, like they could have mutual friends that were a part of their lives, this was involving Amélie and Olly because it was Leigh who was pushing it with Angie, seeing as she intended to adopt from the vet where Leigh worked, and Leigh wanted her to get one of each.
Considering how often she was away from home, Angie just wanted a cat.
For her protection, Branch wanted her to get a dog.
Olly, colluding with his woman, was pressing Branch to push Evangeline into getting both.