Free Burn for You by Annabel Joseph Page A

was sure of it, but he wouldn’t pry. She’d been doing so well, getting back out into the world, staying busy doing healthy rather than unhealthy things.
    These nightly mealtimes were a ritual he was becoming alarmingly attached to. And disturbed by. The physical pull to her was excruciating, but the emotional pull even more so. He wanted to shelter her. He wanted to improve her. God, he wanted to touch her. By this point he was losing his mind a little.
    He wanted to fuck her raw.
    Don’t. Don’t think about her that way.
He couldn’t let himself dwell on those kinds of thoughts or they’d start to manifest in the way he treated her. He’d start trying to manipulate her, ease her along a continuum so she was giving him what he wanted before she even realized what was up. He could do it every bit as handily as Clayton and he knew it, so he guarded against it. He’d promised Clayton to help her find the life
she
wanted. Molly. Her choice, not his.
    But this was hell. Trying to help her find independence, self-actualization, when it only distanced her more from him and any possibility of them ever being together. So be it. He didn’t want to manipulate her into his service and spend every minute of every scene feeling guilt for the pleasure she brought him. If she came to him—if she ever came to him—it would be with full knowledge, free will, and want.
God, Molly, want me. Damn you.
    Molly was making a mess of the Pad Thai on her plate. Mephisto tried to distract himself from the sight of her delicate fingers, her pursed lips. It was Friday night. He had to be thinking about the club. Friday night was one of Club Mephisto’s busiest nights and the staff would be arriving soon. Molly hid away on club nights, stayed in her room until Mephisto locked the door around two-thirty in the morning, after he checked on her. Then he’d fall into bed, exhausted. Sometimes, before Molly, he’d allow a slave to serve him. Now he slept alone.
    “Are you coming to the club tonight?” he asked when she pushed her plate away. He wanted her to understand the option was there. If she wanted to start playing again, even with someone other than him, he wanted her to understand it was okay. There weren’t many unattached doms of Clayton’s caliber at Club Mephisto. Most were snapped up by savvy submissives within a few weeks, but there were a few worthy ones who were still looking. If Molly wanted to get back into the fray by playing with them, it was fine with him.
    Liar.
Okay, not fine with him. But if she wanted to...
    To his relief, she gave her usual shrug. “I don’t think so.”
    “You could, you know. Even to watch. Even to hang out.”
    She bit her lip and shook her head. “No. Not yet.”
    Not yet.
Interesting. A step beyond her usual flat no.
    “It’s okay. Whenever you want to,” he persisted. “If you want to get back into the scene...”
    “I met someone.” She looked up at him, then down again at her plate. Mephisto waited for more, but nothing came.
    “You met who?”
    She shrugged. Talking to Molly could be a frustrating study in shrugs and shuttered facial expressions. He longed to be able to snap at her to sit up straight and answer clearly. He drew in a breath and let it out.
    “You met someone at the Family Center today? Or at the gym?”
    “I went to lunch at Mack’s Diner. I met someone there. A guy.”
    Mephisto waited. Stared. Felt a frisson of jealous alarm spread wide in his chest. If Molly had met someone who interested her, he would owe it to Clayton to fan the flame. Ugh.
    “What kind of guy?” Mephisto felt himself boxed into the dad role, drawing her out about a new suitor. “Nice guy, I guess?”
    She smiled. “Nice? What does that mean? He was some delivery guy on a lunch break. But he was...yeah. Nice. He bought me some pie. I talked to him a little about Clayton.”
    Mephisto’s eyes went wide. “What about Clayton? Everything about Clayton?”
    “No, just that he