Free Yield by Cari Silverwood Page A

cry.”
    “Well. I think you should do it more. Since I like seeing it. It shows you care, Wren. I was wondering if you were a robot, for a minute. After all that happened, this morning and last night, and then you switch and pretend it was nothing?” He dragged a chair closer, and sat beside me, then pulled me onto his lap.
    I considered protesting, for all of half a second.
    “I’m sorry.” My muffled words were said half into his shirt. “I don’t want to be a robot. It’s just...” I struggled to express something that went against the raison d’être of most of my life. “You just seem too perfect to be true.”
    “What?” His chin rasped in my hair as he shook his head. “Interesting that you regard what I did as perfect.”
    Oops. My eccentricity was showing.
    “I’m not perfect. Nothing like it.”
    He was, though. Or he seemed to be. Fuck it. Women were supposed to articulate better than men, but this confounded me. I liked being here, in his lap, but trusting him was so difficult. I merely grunted, as if agreeing.
    “I’ve got a serious urge to do bad things to you every time I see you, Wren. Which goes so well with this urge I have to keep you safe from all the bad ogres of this world, even if I am one. You don’t want to see inside my head.”
    “It’s got to be nicer than in mine.”
    He chuckled.
    As before, doubts arose. “You really feel that way?”
    “Yes. Yes, I do.” The puzzlement that came through in his voice, as if he’d surprised himself, made me smile.
    “I’m glad you do.” I knew I wasn’t giving as much as he was, and I felt the tug of regret. I wanted to. I just couldn’t. Not yet.
    “Me too.” His hand patted my thigh. “Tomorrow, we’re going to Australia, in my plane. You can phone Hugh and tell him that today. When we arrive at our destination, you can phone him again.”
    Tomorrow? I jolted upright. Though it was nice being on his lap, I had things to do.
    “My passport. It’s in a safe at the hotel.”
    He pulled me back down. “You don’t need it. We’re going illegally.”
    “Shit.” I’d not done anything illegal for years. “I can’t.”
    “Can. Shut up and kiss me.”
    Well, if he put it like that.

Chapter 7
    Moghul
     
    I left the munch early. The hotel was swarming with newcomers eager to learn about BDSM, but I was tired and had business to attend to. I’d missed the late night shoot for Kinkaverse too. Jeff could deal with that. On the drive home, I pulled over to the curb to answer his call. The model had protested doing the anal hook scene with the new hook we’d ordered just for the damn scene. I okayed a bonus payout, made a note to get it in the contract next time, told Jeff not to use her again, then set off home.
    Things. There were always things needing doing.
    Once upon a time, a munch had been a good way to sink back into the semi-normal world as well as check out potential new subs, maybe find new talent for Kinkaverse. Not today.
    I uncapped an ice-cold lager and sat at my desk in the downstairs study. My Vetrov emails, the ones that dealt with the illegal side of work, had attachments, videos. At least one would be verifying punishment had been dealt with at the new House Two.
    There was no pleasure for me in these; I wasn’t like some of the men I employed. My manager at the first House in Papua New Guinea had taken sadomasochism to extremes I’d never suspected him of appreciating. Skinning a cop had been exceptionally brutal. Luckily that manager had died when the place was overrun. I would’ve had him executed if he’d survived.
    These videos were a duty not a pleasure. I lined them up and clicked play.
    Early days at House Two and I’d instructed my manager to be particularly vicious in this punishment to demonstrate the foolishness of breaking rules. A guard had been caught fucking one of the girls. Didn’t matter if she was newly acquired or abducted weeks before and well trained. They were all off limits.
    A