Dallon halted on the way into the living room, shot me a dark look. “You’re not paying me back for anything. I’m your boyfriend, Amy. Get used to it.”
I sighed and sunk into his chair, using my right foot to rotate it in circles. What was it like being Dallon, a young, wealthy CEO spending his days in his penthouse apartment, playing with money?
I bet it felt pretty damn good.
Chapter Twenty
“How did you meet Brendan?” I asked as we drove into Brooklyn.
Dallon glanced at me briefly before responding. “I don’t really talk about it with people.”
I frowned and looked out the window. Eventually, he sighed.
“I’m sorry, I’m not used to sharing my life with someone.” He reached over and squeezed my bare knee.
It tickled, and I pulled away, laughing.
“You’re ticklish? You shouldn’t have let me find that out, Miss Clair.” He reached out and tickled me so that I was pressed against the door in an attempt to escape him.
“Stop, please stop,” I said breathlessly. “Sir.”
He grinned and released me. “Not exactly a safeword, but it will do for now.”
“Safeword?”
“All in good time,” he smiled as if to himself, and came to a stop beside a park. There was a small playground and a few basketball courts. It wasn’t the nicest area of Brooklyn.
We were a few minutes early. Dallon turned off the ignition, staring out the windshield at the park as he spoke.
“A few years ago, I went down a very dark road, Amy. I don’t have time to discuss it with you now, and it’s not something I really want to talk about in general. I ended up in hospital where I met Brendan, a thirteen year old boy admitted for drug abuse. He was tight-lipped then—he can still be tight-lipped—but I managed to get him talking. Like me, his mother abandoned him at a young age and he lives with an absent father. He ended up with a bad crowd. The rest is history. I see him once a week and we play ball.”
“That’s really nice of you,” I said softly.
He turned to look at me. “I wanted to be that person for him—the person I didn’t have growing up.”
I nodded sadly, picturing Dallon as an abandoned, insecure little boy with wildly blue eyes and disheveled hair. The image saddened me to my core. It was in such contrast with the man sitting beside me: masculine, strong, proud. He hadn’t had anybody to save him, but he’d managed to save himself.
A blond boy appeared on the court, wearing a gray hoodie with the hood pulled up, earphones leading into his hoodie pocket.
Dallon grinned. “That’s him. Let’s go.”
I stepped out of the car and approached where Dallon was waiting, his hand held out to me. I took it and as we made our way across the park, Brendan pulled down his hood and removed an ear bud, a smirk on his face. If I hadn’t known better, he could have passed for Dallon’s biological baby bro.
“So you’re not gay after all,” he said to Dallon, who laughed and gave my hand a knowing squeeze.
Brendan whistled playfully. “Good work, man,” he said before putting out his hand to shake mine.
Then he was off, dribbling the ball across the court.
I sat on the top of a nearby picnic table as Dallon rushed after him. Watching them play, it was hard to believe that either of them had experienced what Dallon had described; they looked so young, so carefree, their cheeks pink and hair ruffled. Brendan faked Dallon out and jumped, tossing the ball through the hoop with one hand. Then he turned and yelled to me that I should dump Dallon, go out with him instead. Dallon was on him in a second.
I wrapped my arms around my middle as I thought about what Dallon had said about going down a dark road. How had he ended up in hospital? I could only assume he had been admitted for a drug overdose like Brendan. If that was the case, what had led him there?
They ended the evening by forcing me to shoot hoops. Dallon stood behind me and showed me how to hold the ball and then he stepped back, gesturing for me to go ahead. To both our surprise, I got it in the hoop. I cried out excitedly and jumped on the spot. Laughing, Brendan caught the ball and tossed it back to me.
“Again.”
We continued like that, and for some reason I was in the zone; we counted into the thirties before the ball bounced off the rim and shot into the park. Dallon sauntered over to me and put his sweaty arm around me playfully.
“Yum,” I said and made a face, grinning at the same time.
“Do you want to grab a bite to eat?” Dallon asked as Brendan returned.
“I ate before I came.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Thanks. I have homework to do, too.”
A look passed between them and I suspected that was Dallon’s way of making sure Brendan was taking care of himself.
Brendan turned to me and put out his hand again. “Nice to meet you, Amy.”
The guys slapped each other’s backs in a man-hug and then Dallon took my hand again, walked me back to the car.
“He’s a nice kid,” I said softly.
Dallon nodded and opened the passenger door for me. “Some of us go down dark roads and just need a little help getting back.”
***
To my surprise, Becky Platt didn’t wait until Friday to send me the job offer. As Dallon started the car, I opened my email to find the job offer. It wasn’t close to the amount of money Dallon had offered me, but it was more than I’d expected.
“I got my offer!” I announced cheerily.
“And?” Dallon asked, eyes on the road.
“I’m happy.”
“Good.”
“I start on Monday,” I said, stretching in the seat like a cat. “I’m super excited but also super nervous.”
“So you’re accepting it.”
“Yes.” I shot him a puzzled look before adding, “It’s not like I have multiple offers knocking down my door.”
His mouth stretched into a lop-sided grin. “Only two that I know about.”
“I’m taking it,” I said matter-of-factly. “I’ll just wait until tomorrow to let them know.”
Dallon glanced over at me. “Do up your seatbelt.”
“’Kay.” In all the excitement, I hadn’t realized I wasn’t wearing it. My phone vibrated with a message from Sam asking if I’d talked to Dallon about Friday night, and I responded quickly to let her know that it was on.
“I told Sam that they can come for drinks tomorrow night at… our place.”
In response, Dallon reached across me and grabbed the seatbelt, securing it across me.
“Hold your horses, bossy-pants. I was just responding to a message.”
“Do you think you could do what you’re told for one day?” he snapped.
What the hell? I glared at him, insulted yet flattered at the same time. “Do you think you could stop be controlling for one day?” I shot back.
“No.”
It was stated with such honesty, I stopped smiling. No bullshit when it came to Dallon King. We drove in silence for a few moments as I struggled to understand why he had reacted so strongly.
“I’m curious if you would be willing to try, Amy,” he sai
d softly.
I looked at him. His eyes were on the road, the night shrouding him in darkness so that I was unable to read his expression.
“What do you mean?”
“This Saturday. I would like you to agree to try for one full day.”
“Try what?” I didn’t mean to be difficult, but Dallon’s answering sigh let me know I was. I flinched a little.
“Submitting to me. Letting me call the shots for one entire day, no questions asked.”
I bit my lip. It felt to me like he was always calling the shots, but I didn’t dare say that. That would only reinforce his opinion that I was a control freak like him. “Okay.”
“Okay?” He turned to look at me, and in the light of the moon, I could see the excitement glinting in his eyes.
I shrugged like it was no big deal. “Yeah.”
I could hear his answering grin. “It’s not as simple as that, Miss Clair. There will be consequences to disobeying. Do you really think you can make it an entire day without arguing with me?”
I squirmed a little in my seat while I thought about that. “What do you mean, consequences?”
“Punishments,” he said simply. “That’s part of the fun.”
“Fun? So you would enjoy punishing me?”
Now he shrugged. “We discussed this earlier—it’s a means to an end. Fear of punishment is powerful.” He swung his head to look at me, a smirk on his face. “Though I’m not sure how much of a motivator it is for you. You tend to resist me anyway.”
I worried my bottom lip, letting it slide under my top teeth until it popped free. He was right; it was as if my pride wouldn’t allow me to just let him get what he wanted. I had to fight him the whole way.
Even if it made things harder on me.
He faced the road again, and I did too. It wasn’t very late but the road was mostly empty.
“What would the punishment be, spanking?”
“One of them, yes. But not like you’ve had before. Those were for pleasure.”
Pleasure? I unconsciously reached for the door.
“Punishment spankings are harder and last longer,” he said conversationally, as if we were talking about business. “After a punishment spanking, you would be quite sore and unable to sit comfortably. The ones you have had pale in comparison.”