Free Sanctum by Lexi Blake Page A

because Ryan is planning on leaving Sanctum tomorrow so I have to find another Dom in Residence. Do you know how hard that is?”
    “No.” He couldn’t leave. She knew she was utterly perverse, but the thought of not seeing him again made her ache. “No.”
    “You don’t know how hard it is because you’ve never tried to hire one. Once I weed out the freaks, and there are a fuckload of freaks, let me tell you, I have to start in with the interviews. Have you seen the geriatric guy with knives on FetLife? Yeah. He applied the last time I was looking. I get a bunch of idiots who call themselves Master Blaze and Master Storm. The last guy peed himself when he had a gun put in his face. If you’re going to call yourself Storm, at least hold on to your fucking bladder.”
    “Why is Ryan leaving?” It was a stupid question. She knew why Ryan was leaving. She’d pushed him away. She’d done so just as surely as he’d pushed her away. She’d been aching and scared when she’d woken up, and all she’d wanted in the whole world was to have his arms around her. She’d opened her eyes and seen him standing there, waiting to comfort her.
    And she’d told him to leave because she couldn’t trust him.
    Taggart’s blue eyes rolled. “He told me it would be easier on you if he left before you came back. I asked him why. He told me it was none of my fucking business, which seems to be a theme with the two of you, and he handed me his resignation. It didn’t take me long to figure out the whole sordid mess. Let me see if I can simplify this. You signed a contract with him. When he could no longer fulfill his side of the contract, he made arrangements for you to get what you needed.”
    He was oversimplifying things. She wasn’t the bad guy. “Uhm, he pawned me off on his friend.”
    He leaned slightly forward, and suddenly Jill felt like there should be a light shining down into her face. This was a little like an interrogation. “Did he tell you you were supposed to have sex with the new Dom?”
    “No.” He’d been very specific about that. Keith was simply supposed to take care of her. When they’d been in the car, Keith had explained that he would make sure she was happy and taken care of until such time that she no longer needed or wanted to be taken care of. He’d mentioned offering to send her to college or training, but she was welcome under his roof while she was doing it.
    “So he tried to take care of you. Doms can be dumbasses. See, they sign this contract and they take it pretty seriously.”
    She was sick of hearing about that contract. She’d signed it because he seemed to need it. “I took the contract seriously.”
    “Did you tell him what you needed?” Taggart asked. “Because I got a copy of your contract, and that was rule number one. ‘The submissive will always communicate with the Dominant. In all areas of life, the submissive will let the Dominant know what she needs in order to be happy and fulfilled.’ So did you throw a hissy fit when he passed you on to a man who could take care of you when he couldn’t? Because I have found that hissy fit throwing actually works more often than you would think.”
    She’d never realized just what an arrogant ass the big boss was. “He treated me like a piece of property.”
    “So he ignored the hissy fit? Wow. I actually would have pegged him as a Dom who would bow to the fit. Huh, that makes me like him even more. Even Sean bows to the hissy. You should have seen how fast he gave in when Grace started yelling about his poker night versus her baby shower. Dudes aren’t supposed to have to go to baby showers. Sean’s job was done. She was pregnant, but now Sean had to show up and unwrap shit and we all had to be there because Sean doesn’t like listening to his wife scream. Pussy.”
    “I didn’t throw a hissy fit. Damn it.”
    A single eyebrow arched.
    “You’re cussing like a sailor,” she pointed out. He still stared until she added