Page 35 of Going Deep (Odyssey #3)

M ichael sat at the bar, nursing a scotch and wishing he were anywhere else.

Saturday night at Odyssey was in full swing, but the crowd didn’t bring him the usual pleasure.

He didn’t want to watch any of the scenes taking place, didn’t want to avail himself of any of the submissives who vied for his attention.

Word had gotten around that he was no longer with Ginger , so he’d had plenty of offers, but none of them interested him.

Nothing interested him.

It had been a week since she’d walked away, and he was fucking miserable.

He raised the glass to his lips and drained it in one swallow.

The clap on his back nearly made him choke.

“Michael. Good to see you.”

His eyes watering, Michael glanced up into Simon’s face. “ Simon ,” he rasped.

Simon sat on the neighboring barstool, golden eyes assessing. He signaled to Skip for a drink, then turned back to Michael . “ You look like shit.”

Michael barked out a laugh. “ Thanks .”

“Not sleeping well?” Simon asked mildly.

“I sleep fine,” he muttered.

“Sure you do.” Simon nodded his thanks when Skip set a beer in front of him.

Simon sipped his beer and shot Michael a look of disappointed pity. “ You ass.”

Michael glowered. “ Are we really going to do this?”

Simon just shook his head. “ I can’t believe you fucked this up so badly.”

Michael signaled for another drink. “ She lied to me, Simon .”

“And you lied to her. There , you’re even. You say you’re sorry, she’ll say she’s sorry, and you can start fresh.”

Michael accepted the fresh drink and knocked it back. “ It’s not that simple.”

“It’s exactly that simple,” Simon corrected him.

Michael’s hand clenched on the empty glass. “ You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you’re miserable without her,” Simon countered. “ Go ahead, tell me I’m wrong.”

Since he couldn’t, Michael said nothing.

Simon shook his head. “ I never took you for a shit coward. She lied about getting a job offer, Michael , not about killing someone. Get some fucking perspective. And lest you forget,not all the lies here are hers.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Did you tell her, when she said she was interested in working at the Center , that you own it?”

“I don’t own it,” Michael began.

“Yeah, yeah, the family foundation owns it.” Simon waved a hand. “ Blah fucking blah. Did you tell her or not?”

Michael gritted his teeth. He wanted another drink, but he was already having trouble following the conversation. “ No .”

“Why?”

“You know I don’t talk about that,” Michael evaded.

“And why is that, Michael ?”

“Because people get weird when they know you have that kind of money.”

“You don’t have it, the foundation has it,” Simon reminded him.

“You know what I mean.” Michael stared into his empty glass. “ People get weird.”

“They probably do.” Simon waited a beat. “ Did Ginger ?”

Michael blinked. “ What ?”

“Did she get weird?” Simon repeated. “ Lola said she spilled the beans weeks ago, so Ginger’s known for a while, right?”

Michael frowned. “ I guess.”

Simon gestured with his beer bottle. “ And did she get weird?”

“No.” Michael dragged a hand through his hair.“ It’s not the lie.”

“What?”

“I said, it’s not the lie.” Michael swiveled on the stool to face his friend. “ You know why I stopped that scene?”

“No, but I’m hoping you’ll tell me.”

“She was floating,” Michael remembered. “ Barely half tied up, and already rope drunk.”

“Okay,” Simon said, clearly not understanding.

“I was tying her legs and watching her, and thinking, ‘ Jesus , in a couple minutes she’ll be so gone I could stand her on her head and she’d happily go along with it’. She was that loopy, you know?”

Simon shook his head. “ I’m not following you, Michael .”

Michael swallowed the bile in his throat. “ And then I thought, just for a moment, that with her that far gone, that rope drunk, I could get it out of her. What happened at the job interview, why she turned it down—she’d spill it all if I took her deep enough.””

Shock froze Simon’s expression, and something akin to horror crept into his eyes. “ Jesus , Michael .”

Michael nodded. “ Exactly .”

Simon clamped a hand on Michael’s arm before he turned away. “ You didn’t though, right?”

“Of course, I didn’t,” Michael snapped. “ I stopped the scene.”

“Which was the right thing to do,” Simon said, his breath soughing out in relief. Then his face hardened. “ That’s when you broke up with her, isn’t it? You ass.”

“I almost violated every code I know, everything I believe in,” Michael began.

“But you didn’t,” Simon insisted. “ You pulled back, you stepped back. You’re the most ethical Dom I know, Michael . It doesn’t mean you’re not human.”

“The thought was right there, and I was so tempted. How can I trust myself?”

“Human beings get tempted, Michael . You didn’t do it.”

“No, but?—”

“How’d you feel?” Simon interrupted.

Michael stared at him. “ What ?”

“When you realized what you were thinking about, taking her deep so you could interrogate her—that’s what it was, right?”

Michael swallowed. “ Right .”

“How’d you feel? Physically , emotionally?”

“Sick,” Michael admitted. “ Queasy , a little dizzy. It took me a minute to get my balance, so I could get her out of the ropes.”

“What does that tell you?”

Michael just stared. He’d felt sick, off, and he’d called the scene. “ I wouldn’t have done it.”

Simon sat back with his beer. “ That’s how it reads to me.”

The relief was a physical sensation, like a rush of oxygen after holding his breath, followed quickly by another wave of sick. “ I really fucked this up, didn’t I ?”

“Yes, you did,” came a dry voice. Lola strolled up to stand next to Simon . When she looked at Michael , her gaze did not hold welcome.

“Michael,” she said politely, and he’d have sworn the words had frost on them.

Dismissing him, she turned to give Simon a loving smile. “ I’m going to check with Edward about our lesson time for this week. I’ll meet you upstairs in ten?”

“Sounds good.” Simon pressed a kiss to her mouth. “ Love you.”

“Love you,” she responded. She turned to Michael , frosty once again. “ Michael .”

“That’s my woman,” Simon said, watching her go with a smug smile. “ Isn’t she something?”

“She’s something, all right,” Michael murmured and resisted the urge to check himself for frostbite.

Simon waited until Lola had disappeared into the crowd, then swiveled on his stool to face Michael . “ All right, back to you. Where were we?”

“I fucked up.”

“Right. What are you going to do to fix it?”

Agitated, Michael shoved his empty glass away. “ I have to apologize.”

“An excellent start. For what?”

Michael frowned. “ What do you mean, for what? For lying about the Center .”

“And?”

“And dumping her.”

“And?”

“And, what?”

“Jesus, you suck at this. You think that’s all she’s mad about?”

He almost wished Lola were here. He’d rather deal with the frost than riddles. “ Isn’t it?”

“This is just a wild guess, but maybe, just maybe, she’s mad about why you lied.”

Michael scowled. “ You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“She also might be mad about you trying to buy her a job,” Simon continued gleefully, “but a consensus on that has yet to be reached.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Michael muttered. “ I just got her the interview. I wasn’t going to insist Miriam hire her.”

Simon held up his hands. “ Don’t tell me, tell her.”

Michael pushed back from the bar. “ I need my phone.”

“Go get her, tiger,” Simon called after him

Michael just shot up a middle finger and kept walking, Simon’s laughter following him. He wove through the crowd, impatient to get to his office, and his cell phone. I need to talk to my woman.

* * *

Which turned out to be a lot more complicated than he’d expected.

He called, but she didn’t answer her phone, and his texts went unread.

Not wanting to risk driving on three whiskeys, he called a ride share, and after a stop at an all-night convenience store for some very expensive flowers, went to her apartment.

But after fifteen minutes of knocking on her door, he finally accepted that she wasn’t home.

Where could she be?

Simon and Lola were likely still at the club, so knocking on Lola’s door wouldn’t get him anywhere. But Anna and Grant hadn’t been at Odyssey . Grant had been out of town for most of the week, and he often preferred the quiet of home after travel.

She could be there, and if she wasn’t, Anna might know where she was.

Out on the street, Michael dug out his phone and dialed Grant’s number.

After two rings, the line engaged and Anna answered. “ Hello ?”

“Anna,” he began, “it’s Michael . Can you?—?”

Click.

He frowned at his phone, the display showing the call had ended. Odd . He hit the button to place the call again.

“Hello?”

“Anna, I’m sorry. I think my phone?—”

Click .

Shocked, he stared at the blank screen. That wasn’t a dropped call. She was hanging up on him.

Torn between laughter and frustration, he brought up his rideshare app. If Anna was going to hang up on him, he’d just show up on her doorstep. “ See how she likes that,” he muttered.

Twenty minutes later, he found out when she slammed the door in his face.

He burst out laughing, shaking his head. She’d moved so quickly he hadn’t even had time to wedge his foot in the door. And the look on her face? Flaming fury. Dragon at the gate.

He determinedly rang the bell again. He’d stand there all night if he had to, but he’d seen Grant’s car on the street. Eventually , his friend would get suspicious and come to see for himself what was going on.

When the door opened, he braced himself for a confrontation. But it was Grant , not Anna , on the other side, with the faithful Henry beside him.

Surprise flashed in Grant’s blue eyes. “ Michael ? What are you doing here?”

“Cutting my own throat, most likely,” he answered drily, and since Henry was shoving his head under his hand, gave the dog a pat.