Page 14 of Wickedly Played (Checkmate #1)

Chapter Twelve

SERENA

Max Fitzpatrick is a total and complete asshole. Fuck him. This hot-and-cold act is getting really old, and I’m done with him. If Jim weren’t such a pain in my ass, I would have fired Max.

You know what?

“Jim, I need to talk to you!” I blurt out and stomp off to my security office.

“Serena. I heard the show went well last night,” he greets.

I roll my eyes. “Yeah. It always goes well. We need to talk about Max. I want a different bodyguard.”

He groans. “Why?”

“He’s an utter and complete asshole.”

“Really? You’ve had him in your home for a couple of weeks, and you already hate him?”

I walk into my gym to have some privacy. I’m well aware that Max is probably listening and watching everything I’m doing. I fight the urge to flick off the cameras I know are littered throughout my house.

“Jim,” I begin, “I need a different one. He hates me. I don’t want to play these games with you.”

“Serena, might I remind you that you have a stalker?”

I hiss. “I’m well aware of that. I’m not completely stupid.” I hear the ping on my phone, indicating that I have a call coming in. I see that it is an unknown number. “Fuck,” I whisper.

He clears his throat. “Are you getting calls still?”

Jim thinks he knows everything about my past life, but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t know what it was like as a child, and he doesn’t know what it was like to be a child in my family’s home.

As soon as I left my ex-husband, my family tried to get in touch with me.

I don’t owe them a damned thing, and that is the last thing I need to deal with.

Of course, it would make sense to involve them to find my stalker but owing them a favor is something I can’t afford.

I can’t afford to fall back into their clutches. It is too expensive to lose myself all over again.

“Yeah, I have been.”

“Did you tell Max about it?”

“Why would I need to?” I snap.

He chuckles. “Because he’s your fucking bodyguard. Serena, stop being difficult and deal with it.”

Jim walks out of my office to go back to the meeting with Max and Adam. I don’t even know why I’ve bothered. Nothing is going to change. Max is still going to be a raging asshole no matter what.

I climb the stairs to my room to see that Stella is still on my bed. After removing my clothes, I climb into bed behind her, scoop her closer to me, and kiss her head. She wakes a little as I stroke her hair.

“Serena?”

“Yes?” I answer.

“Do you ever think about what it would be like to be in a real relationship?”

I feel the wind getting knocked out of me. “With you?” I won’t deny that I have feelings for Stella. She’s sunshine, and I need more of that. Plus, she’s perfect in every way. “Are you asking if I would be in a relationship with you?”

“Yeah,” she whispers against my chest.

I kiss her again. “I’m not good at relationships, lover.

I’m the worst at them. I wouldn’t want to do that to you.

” I answer her honestly. It is true, I’m terrible at them.

The only relationship I have had outside of a D/s one was with my ex-husband.

“If I could have one with anyone, I think I would try with you.”

“I think Deacon is jealous of us.” Stella kisses my throat with a little purr.

I know he is. “Lover, he doesn’t like me. I’m cool with it because I still get you in the end.”

“Can you tell me about why you think you’re bad at relationships? Do you want kids?”

Wow. She’s throwing my world off its axis. “I wanted kids before. It didn’t work out with my ex-husband.”

“Why?”

“You are asking a lot of questions today,” I murmur.

She shrugs. “You are hard to get to know. You have this impenetrable fence around you. I feel like you know everything about me, and I don’t know that much about you.”

The darkness is swallowing me whole. I feel the blackness of the abyss pulling into the middle. I try to dig my way out of it as much as I can. I focus on holding Stella in my arms to bring me back to the world. She’s so sweet. What would she say if she knew where I came from?

Fuck. What if Max found out where I came from?

“I got married young as a favor to my parents and his parents. We were married for five years, but it wasn’t a good marriage. I wanted to have a baby, and he didn’t.”

“Why didn’t he?”

I swallow around the hairball in my throat.

Should I tell her that he cheated on me?

He’s the one who got me into being a Domme and then left me because he couldn’t handle it.

My dissolved marriage is one of my biggest regrets.

Maybe I was too much for him. Perhaps if I had tried to be more submissive to him, he would have stayed with me.

Maybe he wouldn’t have cheated on me with my sister.

I wanted to have a baby to fix everything that was wrong with our relationship.

I wanted one so badly, but he stopped having sex with me.

Now I know it is because he was with my sister, Amanda, and other women.

“I’m not sure. We weren’t good together.”

“Is he the reason why you wouldn’t try to have a relationship?”

“No, lover. It is because of him that I recognize how bad I am at one.”

She’s quiet for a couple of minutes, and I hope she’s going to drop the questions. “I see how much you care for me, Serena. I think you would be great in one if you were with someone who could see how amazing you are. You are so loving. I’m honored to be your sub.”

Well shit.

Choking back a sob, I kiss her again.

After Stella leaves, I’m walking down the stairs to figure out what I want for dinner when I run into Max.

He’s leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen with his arms crossed on his chest. He looks like he just got out of the shower with his hair slightly damp, and he smells like men’s body wash.

“Are you okay?”

I jump a little at how harsh his voice sounds. “Yeah. Why?”

He’s following me around the kitchen with his eyes. I can feel him watching me with every step I take. “Your conversation with Stella sounded hard for you.”

“Max,” I begin. “You need to decide if you’re going to be my bodyguard or if you’re going to be something more than that. You are giving me whiplash.”

He pushes himself off the wall to hunt me. I feel him on the back of me as I pick through takeout menus in my junk drawer. His body heat singes on my back, causing me to shiver. “Why didn’t you tell me you were married before?”

I shrug, slipping out from under his arms. “I didn’t think you would care.”

“Could he be the reason why you’re being stalked?”

“No. I guarantee he is not the reason why,” I answer flippantly.

“Serena,” he murmurs sternly.

I turn to look at him and see how glazed his eyes look at me. “Yes?”

“Fuck,” he mutters.

“What?” I’m holding a menu in my hand when he stalks toward me, but then stops before he reaches me.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

I blink several times. “There is nothing to tell. You’ve been briefed on my stalker. That’s all you need to know. You don’t need to know anything else about me.”

My heart is hammering in my chest. I can see the moment my words sink into his head as he looks me up and down. “Why is everything so fucking hard with you?”

My body tightens and coils around those words. Those are the exact words I have heard my whole life from my parents, Amanda, and Connor. Connor would say that after I found out he was cheating on me with Amanda. He loved to throw it in my face about how I was too needy or too difficult to love.

“I’m just curious,” I snap. “Do you wake up in the morning and wonder how you can be a bigger dick than the day before?”

“Fuck!” Max mouths. “I didn’t mean it like that. Shit. Sweetness, I’m sorry,” he begs.

“Just do me a favor and guard my body. Don’t worry about me at all.

I can’t do this back-and-forth shit with you.

I’m too old and I feel like I’m back in high school.

” My chest is fuming from annoyance. I can’t believe he’s treating me like this.

“I don’t need anything else from you, Max. Just do what I pay you for.”

I’m stomping away before I turn on my heels to look back at him. “If you can’t do the job, let me know. I will find another bodyguard.”

The minute I get into my room, I check the time on my phone. “Shit,” I whisper to myself.

Immediately, I open the cam app to do my next shows for the night.

I have two shows scheduled for the night, followed by a D/s client visit to the club.

It will be a nice distraction, but I can’t stop thinking about what Max said to me.

I don’t know why he is so mean to me. I don’t know what I ever did to him to make him be such a dick.

He keeps luring me in and then shutting the door on me as soon as I peek my head in. I’m struggling with it. Either he wants me, or he doesn’t. There is no reason for the constant tension between us.

My phone chimes in my hand to remind me of my upcoming session with the cam. Max Fitzpatrick can go fuck himself with a cactus.