Free La Brat by Ashe Barker Page B

her manipulate him.
    His mobile rang and he checked the screen. Eugenie. He took the call.
    “I will be ten minutes, no more. Just leaving now.”
    “Then you’ll be twenty minutes. Which will make you half an hour late, Eugenie.”
    “I apologize.”
    She didn’t sound in the least contrite. He wondered if denying her an orgasm for the next two days or so might not be a more effective deterrent for the future. It probably would, but the effect would be to wreck his weekend too. Eugenie’s orgasms were an utter delight, so he was loath to deny either one of them.
    She was lovely, but she was a brat. She tested him continually, pushing, goading, manipulating. His beautiful little Genie was probably worth the bother, though there were times when he wondered.
    He strolled into his kitchen to pour a cup of coffee. He sipped the bitter brew, strong and black, just as he liked it, and contemplated the coming scene. He had planned an hour or so of erotic play featuring a flogger and a rather sweet bullet vibrator. That would be followed by a shower, then they could share an intimate pasta at a bistro down the road. Maybe afterward he could indulge her yearning for a spanking—he’d noticed she always slept better if her bottom was red and sore.
    His phone beeped. A text.
     
    Two minutes.
     
    Puzzled, he pried the slats of his Venetian blinds apart to check if her car was outside already. No, not a sign of her. He finished his coffee and poured another then waited out the two minutes.
    Three and a half minutes later, the purr of her engine in his driveway alerted him to her arrival. He glanced from the window to see her smart little Volkswagen roll to a stop behind his BMW. Eugenie emerged from the car. She looked flustered as she leaned back in to grab her phone from the passenger seat. She reached into the back for her overnight bag and scurried toward his front door.
    Aaron waited in the kitchen. The door was unlocked and she would let herself in. He was thinking, assessing the evidence, and not liking the conclusions he was arriving at.
    How many fucking times did he need to tell her that her safety mattered? It mattered more than anything to him. He knew there was no way her first call could have been made as she was leaving her flat. She must have been already en route. And that text a couple of minutes ago—definitely. Christ, she liked to live dangerously. The copper in him responded to the law breaking, but it was the Dom in him that reacted to the sheer bloody madness of it. She could have been killed, or killed some other innocent road user. This had to stop.
    He heard her voice in his hallway. “I’m here. I’m sorry to be late, but it is only about twenty minutes. I will stay longer tomorrow to make up for it.”
    She burst into the kitchen and dropped her bag to the floor before rushing at him, her face upturned for a kiss. He halted her with one imperious finger.
    “Your phone, please, Eugenie.”
    She teetered before him, her expression uncertain. “My…?”
    “Phone. Now.” He held out his hand. Eugenie placed her phone in his palm. He switched it on, keyed in her passcode then started trawling through her calls log. He really had no need to go through the exercise. He knew exactly when the device had been used.
    “You said you were just leaving?” He quirked an eyebrow at her, his face still lowered to study the small screen. “Where were you really when you made that call?”
    “I, I…” She wasn’t a fool. They’d talked about this before and she knew exactly where he was heading. She had the good sense to lower her gaze. “On the inner ring road. I had stopped at the traffic lights. I just… I did not want you to be worried about me.”
    Fucking hell. Has she no bloody idea at all?
    “And the text?”
    She shifted, her posture betraying her apprehension. “There was a hold-up. Roadwork.”
    Her tone was breathless now. He could tell she was nervous. He wondered if her lateness had