24. Lia

24

LIA

"He's mine," Jessica said, as she stubbed out her cigarette. "He's mine and you'll never have him. He's too good for you."

I wasn't sure what I hated more—the certainty in her voice, or the fact that she was right.

—Sarah, from One of a Thousand Wishes by A. R. McGeorge

I 'd been looking forward to seeing Rhaim again all weekend, although I was disappointed when I looked up the address he'd given me. No one hung out in Times Square willingly, everyone knew it, so I took an Uber rather than face my driver's disbelief.

And then when the address itself had taken me to some horrible chain restaurant, it was hard not to think he was having me on. Luckily I'd had some common sense and I hadn't dressed up, but it was clear that whatever this was it was not what I wanted it to be: a date.

When I got there, he was already at a table, wearing something like I'd caught him in that one morning—dark blue jeans, and a dark gray T-shirt with a V-collar that fit him snugly—I knew he'd had muscles beneath all those well-tailored suits, and now I could see them. It didn't look like he'd shaved since Friday morning. I begged off at the hostess stand to sit across from him, stringing my purse up along the back of my chair before giving him a questioning look.

"I take you someplace classy, people recognize me. I take you someplace dive-y, and people recognize me, only for much worse reasons. So this is safest, trust me," he said.

"Okay," I said, looking around despondently before returning my attention to him. "Then why are we here?"

"Because it's time to play twenty questions—but figure out what you want for lunch first, so we won't be interrupted." The waitress swung by and took my order—I picked a salad out of the lineup quickly. After he'd placed his order and the waitress was out of hearing range he said, "You'd better not be ordering that because you think I give a shit what you eat."

"Is that a question?" I asked, with maximal innocence. "Are you now down to just nineteen?"

A wicked smile played across his lips. "Well, if it's like that," he said, then came for my jugular. "Who taught you how to crawl?"

My eyes just about fell out of my head—but the restaurant we were in was crowded, full of tourists, no one else had heard a word. "N—no one," I stammered.

"No one's ever taught you or trained you?"

"In what?" I asked. He shook his head like it didn't matter.

"How many guys have you slept with?"

I stared at him again, aghast that he was asking me that in broad fucking daylight. "Five," I said, as he eyed me contemplatively. I'd picked an arbitrary number, so it'd make it sound like I'd had more experience?—

"Think again," he pressed, apparently seeing right through me.

"Three," I spitefully confessed. "But I've had a lot of sex," I said, because that was true, it was just that most of it hadn't been consensual. I bit my lips before I could make any manic laughter, and closed my eyes briefly to center myself.

I was not letting my fucking uncle ruin this for me.

"You okay?" he asked, when I opened them again.

I checked in with myself and released a tense breath. "I guess I just expected there'd be more foreplay."

"If foreplay was a priority, you shouldn't have run into me at a sex club," he said, at an entirely normal volume, and even though I knew no one else was listening, there were kids just one table over. "What did I tell you?" he asked, at an even louder volume, snapping me out of my panic. Some people did look over at that, and he must have known it—it was just that he didn't care.

And I—I didn't even know anymore. This whole situation was so strange, it was hard to think back—but then I remembered him standing above me in his office, telling me I couldn't be embarrassed again unless he told me to. "I'm sorry, sir," I said, contrite.

He made a dismissive growling sound. "Don't ever say that to me again, either."

"What?" I asked, in a high-pitched voice, as the waitress brought our drinks.

"I'm beginning to wonder if you might be deaf," he said, when she was gone again.

I grit my teeth together. "And why can't I say I'm sorry?"

"How many times have you said ‘I'm sorry' in your life?" he asked, but it was clear it was rhetorical as he lifted his hand up a decent height. "You know how many times I've said I'm sorry?" he asked—and I shook my head rather than answer him. "Maybe this much," he said, cutting the distance of his first hand in half by four-fifths, hovering his palm just above his silverware. "So you're done with that, too. You've used them all up."

I didn't know whether or not to find his comment brash or asinine—I supposed it depended on whether I wanted to put my trust in him or not.

"At the age of twenty-three? That seems very young."

"I was out of fucks by the time I was sixteen. You'll get used to it, trust me." He grinned again, wolfishly, and then leaned forward with a dangerous intensity. "You are what you are now. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Clearly you don't know me," I murmured, looking down.

"Yet," he said, that one word clear as a bell—and it rang me. I lifted my gaze to his and didn't know if I should be frightened or ecstatic; all I knew was that everyone else in the entire restaurant had just melted away, and it felt like he and I were the only ones in the room. "You don't drink or do recreational drugs?" he asked. I shook my head quickly, as he went on. "Don't start, then. I always want you clear headed around me. For my part, you might make me start smoking again, but no more than that."

I blinked at him. "What are we doing here, Rhaim?" I asked, because I wanted to know precisely.

"Setting down ground rules in neutral territory."

"Oh," I breathed.

He nodded, slow and deep. "I need you to know some things, Lia," he said. "Because this is the part where you still get to walk out. It's not too late—you and I can go back to being whatever the fuck it is your father wants for us to be. Do you understand me?"

He seemed so intense I felt the need to joke. "Let the record show I'm here of my own free will."

His eyes narrowed at that. "Take things seriously, little girl, or else."

I inhaled to apologize, and then caught myself. "Yes, sir," I said instead, and the corners of his mouth twitched up.

"Fast learner," he said. "All right. You wanted Corvo. I'm going to give it to you, but at a price."

I sat up straighter. Whatever it was, I would pay it. "Which is?"

"Pleasing me."

My mouth went dry at the thought. "What does that entail?" I managed to ask, without a quaver in my voice.

"It means I become your sun and your goddamned moon." My heartbeat took up all the space inside my body, turning all of me into a drum—and there was no longer anyone left in the restaurant—in fact, we were the only ones left on the planet. "And no brat shit—because from here on out, you and I are on the same team. I don't want to worry about your loyalties or intentions—nor should you worry about mine. Your only job is making me happy, and I will give you very clear rules and instructions toward that end."

All of my blood sank. Not into my feet, to escape, like a normal girl's would have, I thought, but instead to the parts of me that had wanted this for almost my whole life. I felt heavy with need for him. My breasts ached, my core melted, and my jaw fell slightly open as my breathing shifted into far more shallow panting.

"And if I don't?" I asked so quietly he must've read my lips.

"Accidentally? Redirection. On purpose?" he said, and then paused. "Punishment. And my punishments are actual punishments, Lia. When they happen—if they happen—you will regret having crossed me. Do you understand?" he asked. I nodded so quickly he went on. "And you still want to do this with me?"

I hesitated, but in the end, I had nothing to go on but his word. We were either starting this, or we weren't, and it was very much literally his way or no way at all.

Not that I thought I would mind his methodology.

"Yes," I said, with an intensity that frightened me, and that he noted. "If you give me Corvo," I added quickly, for cover.

He laughed darkly. "Yeah. I will."

"How?" I asked, then realized he might construe my astonishment as rude.

But instead of becoming angry at my doubt, his expression softened ever so slightly around his eyes. "Because in Mrs. Armstrong's office, you'll be Business Lia. I'll teach you everything you want to learn. Even the things I'm not supposed to— Sopranos shit," he said, with a bemused snort.

And this was what I had spent ten years waiting for.

For someone to take me seriously again.

It was every bit as much a turn on as anything else we could possibly do.

"And in your office?" I pressed.

"You'll be my little girl," he said simply. "But don't think we're not going to investigate that further," he went on as our lunches arrived.

He'd ordered himself a burger, which he tucked into without shame—and I had no idea how I was going to eat a salad in front of him, with the way my stomach was doing loop-de-loops.

He mistook my silence for concern.

"It's not on you," he said, after he'd taken three bites. "And lord knows I'm not judging you for the things that you need. It's because I've never had a little girl before. I don't want to fuck things up."

"Oh," I said softly. Of course he hadn't. Because surely his beautiful dead wife, who was a highly valued member of the community, had been respectable.

"Don't worry," he said, and when I looked over there was a slight smirk on his lips. "I appreciate challenges. But you don't get to call me Daddy for a while yet—that's something you need to earn. You okay?"

It wasn't till he asked me if I was that I realized I was not. Suddenly the rest of the noisy restaurant, which had seemed so far away, rushed in, all around me, all at once. I was dizzy and there wasn't enough air—I threw my napkin on my salad and ran out of the place.

It took him a bit to follow me, but he was faster than I was, because he wasn't running in heels. He didn't lay a hand on me though, he just caught up and jogged alongside till I felt foolish and slowed.

"Lambo?" he asked, giving my safeword back to me—along with my abandoned purse.

I took it from him, so overwhelmed in the moment that I wanted to sob. "No," I said, refuting him.

"Then what happened? And don't you dare apologize—I don't want I'm sorry s—I just want the truth." He was standing in front of me now. He'd moved to block out the sun so I wouldn't have to squint, possibly without noticing, but all I could think of now was how it gave him a halo.

It took me a moment to assign the appropriate feeling. "I got scared," I said honestly, because he'd asked for it.

He didn't seem angry at that—and I didn't have words to express to him what his safety meant to me. "Of which part?" he asked.

I ran the back of my hand beneath my nose, hoping that I wouldn't cry. "The good parts." Because it sounded like I was getting everything I'd ever hoped for and it turned out, when you were wired like me, that that was frightening too.

Rhaim leaned forward then, casting the half of his face nearest me in shadow. "Mmm. They won't all be good, Lia. In fact, sometimes your new Daddy can be very, very mean."

His words traveled over my skin like electricity, burning everywhere they touched, making me shiver and clench. "Understood," I softly agreed.

He straightened back up with a nod. "Sounds like I'll be seeing you tomorrow, then. Don't wear any underwear," he said, and walked off.

I masturbated like a fiend that night, because I was fucking turned on, but also in the hopes that I would get it all out of my system. I wanted to pretend to be sane at work the next day, and it was going to be hard. I knew I couldn't just waltz into Rhaim's office and expect to be fucked senseless...except... maybe? I laughed at myself after my fifth orgasm and stared at my ceiling, illuminated by my many gentle nightlights. I was breathless and sweaty, and I'd just about convinced myself to set my toys aside when my phone beeped.

Maybe Rhaim had figured out my phone number too...

Except it was another number I didn't recognize.

We got off on the wrong foot.

We should go out for drinks sometime and get caught up.

I blinked and sobered, all the good my multiple-Os had done me washed away in a moment of panic before I realized that while it was still from an unknown number, it must've been from Freddie Junior.

And I would have drinks with him when hell froze over.

I decided to ignore the messages, and turned back to the business at hand, which was me, figuring out which setting on my Thunder 3000 would feel most like Rhaim plundering me.