Going to California?

Chapter 6 – Silks and Reactions

Homelander showed up in my office the next morning to lock the door and flop onto my couch again, patting the space next to him. "Come here, Ashley."

"You were serious about the lying down thing?" I asked.

"When have you known me not to be serious? Every morning from now on, like I said."

I'd been between e-mails when he came in, so I locked the screen and went over to lie next to him. "We're making progress," he told me. "This time you didn't even get close to fainting when I locked the door."

"I do better when I know what to expect."

"I'll make a note of that." I rested my head on his shoulder and tried to relax. "You're not wearing the dark lipstick today."

"You said you didn't like it. Seeing as we're having our scene at lunch…" I let my voice trail off.

"You could have wiped it off before we started."

I shrugged. "It's just as easy to wear lipstick you like."

Homelander changed the subject. "How come you didn't want me to use the same safeword as Adam? I mean, I doubt I'll use it at all, but I don't get that."

"Three's a crowd."

"Still don't get it."

"If you had to use the safeword, you'd remind me of Adam. That would bring him into our space, and it needs to be just you and me there. It's the same reason I wouldn't let him use your safeword if you'd gotten to pick first, because that would bring you into the space I have with him."

He didn't like that, but whether that was because I'd reminded him Adam and I had a relationship or because he hadn't gotten his own way I couldn't tell. "Are you going to see him this weekend?"

"No." We'd set things up for next weekend, but I didn't want to get into that with Homelander, not before we had our scene.

"Why don't you come over on Saturday, then? We can have dinner and watch that movie you mentioned, Duplicity."

How did he even remember I liked that movie? And this sounded like a date, an official date where he asked and I could say no if I wanted, not one he had to lie by omission to get me to show up for, or order me to appear. All this went through my head in a second before I said, "Okay." It seemed silly to refuse to eat a meal and watch a movie with him when we were going to have a scene in a few hours. Maybe he just wanted to get one up on Adam.

The knowledge of what would happen over lunch had me a little edgy, which he noticed. "You're tense."

"Sorry. I'm…a little nervous about lunch."

"What's making you nervous?"

Did I want to tell him before it happened? "Well, it's just that…I've only dommed a few times before this. I'm not somebody with tons and tons of experience, so that worries me a little."

"You'll be fine." His arm tightened around my shoulders. "I'll be happy with whatever you do."

"But I don't think you have that much experience in this area either."

"Are you going to make me come?"

It took me a second to recover before I said, "I was planning on it."

"Then I'll be happy with it."

"I forgot to ask earlier—if you don't want to do something I want you to do and it's not a safeword situation, did you want me to use any physical discipline with you? I know I can't hurt you—"

"No." The refusal was instant and I wondered what had happened to him to get that kind of knee-jerk response.

"Okay, I won't do anything like that. This is the kind of thing I need to know about in advance."

"Appreciated." We lay there without speaking for a few minutes before he asked, "Where's your outfit?"

I gestured toward my desk. "I brought it in a duffel bag, with the scarves."

"The ones you'll use to tie me up."

His breath tickled my ear and I shivered. "Yes." My voice wasn't exactly steady.

"Looking forward to it, I think." His voice had a warm, lazy edge to it.

I nodded, not trusting my voice. Desperate for a distraction, I asked, "You know, I never really understood why your outfit is textured the way it is. I would think if you're trying to keep someone from grabbing you, it should be glassy-smooth so their hands just slide off."

Homelander's lips twitched and I thought he was trying to suppress a smile. "Madelyn thought it would feel good against her skin when we fucked."

My mouth dropped open. "Is that what she told the design team?"

He laughed, surprised, and I thought it was the first unguarded laughter I'd ever heard from him. "Doubt it. But she did enjoy the sensations." His eyes shifted to my face. "Do you want to try it?"

"Uh—" I had no idea what to say. The thorny question hovered in my mind: how long had Homelander and Madelyn Stillwell been fucking? Had she been his first lover? Probably—it would be an excellent way to keep him under control, after all.

"It's easy, Ashley. We still have time before your secretary gets here. Just unbutton your blouse, lean over, and rub yourself against my chest. I know you aren't wearing a bra."

"Have you been looking through my clothes?" I hissed, a little scandalized.

He scoffed. "Oh, please. You don't have double-D knockers, but I can still tell without X-ray vision. Most men can." I hesitated, although the idea had some…interest, and he knew it, just like he always did. "Consider it a little warm-up for the lunch scene. See if you like it, and we can do it again if you do." I still hesitated, and he said, "I'm going to see them at lunch anyway when I suckle them."

"Good point," I said, and raised myself on one elbow to unfasten the first button on my flowered silk blouse. He put one hand behind his head and watched, smiling a little. My nipples already stuck out against the material, tingling from his gaze and the knowledge of what I was about to do. I pulled the blouse out of the waistband of my skirt and removed it completely.

I started to lean forward when he said, "I changed my mind." I flinched—what did he mean? Had he cooled on the whole idea of a scene or just me trying out what Madelyn had enjoyed? He might be protective of her memory, of things he associated with her. Before I could ask, he went on. "I want you to straddle me while you're doing it."

The wave of relief I felt at his words troubled me. It shouldn't matter whether he wanted to do this with me or not. He was the one who'd introduced the idea, after all, so if he decided it was a bad idea it shouldn't bother me. But it did, and I didn't like that.

I hiked my skirt up to mid-thigh and slung one leg across him. His hands came forward to grip my hips as I settled on top of him. Once he was sure of my balance, his hands slid upward to my waist and rested there. The feel of his leather gloves against my skin sent a ripple of arousal through me. I put my hands on his chest, sliding them across the nubby fabric, then I leaned forward and let my breasts brush against him, the material teasing the sensitive nipples. And Madelyn was right—it was very stimulating. A little noise of pleasure escaped me, and he said, "Told you."

"Yeah, we'll be doing this again." My voice was breathless, but for once he didn't gloat about it.

Homelander was gone by the time Gina got to her desk, but gone didn't mean forgotten; far from it. None of the pre-lunch meetings held more than a sliver of my attention because all I could think about was what would happen over lunch. I tried denying it to myself, but I spent the entire morning feeling physically aroused. The scene wasn't for me, though, and I had to keep my own feelings under control to insure a satisfactory experience for him. When he'd first suggested this, I hadn't thought my own responses would prove an issue.

My breathing was quick and my heart rate up when I locked my office door at noon. "Gina, I may be a little late getting back from lunch today. If so, just push all my appointments back. If I'm really late, reschedule anybody who's important and cancel anybody who isn't."

"Yes, Ms. Barrett," she said.

Homelander had taken the duffel bag with him when he left this morning so nobody would see me taking it into his apartment and start wondering. I'd stowed my own soap and a makeup kit in the bag, so I could shower after and not smell like Homelander's soap if anyone else had as sharp a nose as he did. There was no real way to hide this long-term, but I doubted it would get that far. He would satisfy his curiosity and that would be that, and then he might be willing to let me go. Most men don't like having to work with an ex, and he wouldn't have any desire to get back together the way he had with Queen Maeve.

The door opened before I could knock. Homelander looked—nervous? Eager? "Come on in," he told me. As I moved past him, he ran his hand down the length of my back and I shivered. "I got a pizza so we can have lunch. Before or after, whichever you want."

"I think after. We'll both be more relaxed then." He gave me a knowing smile and my lips twitched. "Do you have a bathroom attached to your bedroom?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'll get changed and then we can get started. Okay?"

"Sure. The bathroom's upstairs."

I started toward the spiral staircase toward the upper level, but he said, "Wait." I felt his arms wrap around me and my feet left the ground as he rose into the air toward the second floor. I started laughing as we followed the path of the stairs in our ascent. "You don't laugh much," he observed.

"Not much reason," I replied as we emerged onto the second floor. There was a hallway with five doors, one of them having a printed sign reading "Ryan's Room" in shades of red and blue. "What's up here?"

"Ryan's bedroom. My bedroom. Two empty bedrooms and a bathroom. I have an ensuite bathroom, but this is one you don't have to go through my bedroom to get to."

"Why do you have four bedrooms?"

"I thought I'd have more children." His expression darkened and I cast around for a way to lighten his mood and found nothing. I'd never been able to take his mind off anything.

"Well, you're not dead yet," was all I managed to say.

Somehow that made him laugh. Why? But it had served to get his mind off his nonexistent pure supe children and back to the moment. "True. And who knows? I might have more children later on."

"You never know."

Homelander rested one hand on the small of my back and inclined his head toward the door at the end of the hall. "My bedroom's that one."

I tried to keep my breathing steady and walked down the hall, acutely aware of his presence behind me. At this point I couldn't tell whether it was nerves or arousal that had me so jittery. He reached around me to open the door and his arm brushed against me, the nubbiness of the sleeve of his costume bringing back memories of the couch in my office, which I tried to suppress.

The bedroom itself was spartan, looking mostly the way I imagined it would have looked the day he moved in. His bed was a California king with a navy-blue comforter, which matched the two armchairs in the room. The dresser was dark cherrywood, and the carpet medium blue pile. The only non-generic thing in the room was a painting on the wall, about four feet wide and three feet high. A woman with straight, flowing dark auburn hair and perfect creamy skin held a green-diapered baby against her breast while two men in Greek togas looked at her while holding the sides of the wooden chest she stood in, the implication being that they were pulling the chest out of the sea. The background was a rocky beach, with choppy gray-blue waves rolling in and grayish-brown stone outcroppings in the far distance. The woman wore an off-the-shoulder dark blue gown with white figuring. I could see why Homelander liked it. I moved across the room toward it to have a better look. "This is John William Waterhouse's Danae."

"It is." He wore a neutral expression as he watched me.

"It was stolen from a private collection in New York in 1947 and never recovered. The only way we even know what it looked like is from a black-and-white photograph. What's it doing in your bedroom?"

"From what I understand, Frederick Vought had a liking for art and a dislike of having an offer refused. That was the year Vought Corporation was founded, so he might have been giving himself a present. I didn't know you were interested in art."

"My father's into art and I got a decent art history background through osmosis." Danae's gown was strikingly similar to the gown from Circe Invidiosa, which was painted the same year, 1892, and the sea with its stone formations was similar to what Waterhouse had painted in Ulysses and the Sirens the year before, but it also reminded me of his Miranda – The Tempest from 1916. I wanted to take a picture of it with my cell phone but restrained myself. "I never thought I'd see it in color."

"If you're interested in art, why don't you have a look at my collection downstairs while we're having lunch?"

"Are there any other stolen paintings in it?"

He gave me a half-smile. "We'll see. Your duffel bag's in the bathroom."

Not very subtle, but lunch was a-wasting. I nodded. "Okay. Just be aware that when I come back out of the bathroom, you're John and I'm Mistress and you do what the fuck I say."

"Game on, then. Good times."

"Do you remember your safeword?"

"Yes." I gave him a look. "Roosevelt. It's Roosevelt."

"Do you want my wig on or off?"

That seemed to catch him off-guard. "Whichever you want."

I turned and went into the bathroom, which was all black marble, with a bathtub as big as a Jacuzzi and a glass-walled rain shower. The duffel bag sat next to the sink, and I pulled the champagne-colored cocktail dress out, along with the silk scarves. They were as blue-green as the ocean in the Waterhouse painting, which I chose to interpret as a good sign. The Louboutin stilettos with their red soles came out of the bag next, then a bottle of my soap and makeup kit.

When I opened the shower door to put my soap next to his, I gave in to an impulse and sniffed at the soap he used. Very masculine, leather and amber and spice, and I liked it. The makeup kit I left on the bathroom counter as I started undressing. I folded my blouse and skirt and put them on the counter near my makeup kit, and tucked my panties and pantyhose underneath the pile. I hadn't thought to ask him if he had any jewelry he wanted me to wear, any particular perfume; I'd have to remember that after the scene. When I shook the champagne-colored dress out, I noticed the long tear in the bodice seam that Adam had left and rebuked myself for forgetting about it. But what were the chances that Homelander would notice the rip? He should have other things on his mind. I gave myself an impish smile in the mirror and pulled the dress on over my nakedness. Sliding my feet into the Louboutins, I stood there staring at myself for a minute. Wig on or off? With Adam, that wasn't even a question—he didn't know I wore one as I'd never taken it off in front of him, never even mentioned it. But Homelander—he knew more about me than Adam did, and as a result I could be freer, if I wanted. Did I want that?

On impulse, I removed my wig and set it atop my clothes. Maybe he would see it as a jab at him, maybe he wouldn't. If he didn't want to see, he should have told me to keep it on.

Homelander stood at the foot of the bed when I emerged from the bathroom, the silk scarves in one hand, wigless. The stilettos I'd chosen to wear evened up our height difference; I wasn't eye-to-eye with him but it was closer than when I wore flats. I'd put on the Mistress persona and my stride was slow, predatory, like a tiger. I made sure to keep my face serene, with a hint of a knowing smile around my lips. "John, why haven't you undressed? We don't have all day."

He looked uncertain. "You didn't tell me to."

"I didn't tell you to what?" My expression sharpened.

"Uh—mistress. You didn't tell me to, mistress."

I smiled at him, the previous sharpness dimming a few degrees. "That's right, John. I thought you might be able to figure out that you'd need to undress for what we're doing, but apparently I was wrong. In the future—if there is a future—when I come out of the bathroom you will be naked and waiting for me. Do you understand?"

"Yes." When I opened my mouth, he added, "mistress."

"Good." Moving past him toward the bed, I was careful to let the fingers of one hand graze his groin. He already had a respectable hard-on, and I had to suppress a smile. The headboard of the bed had places where the scarves could be secured, but the footboard didn't, so I would have to tie his feet to the legs of the bed. I flicked my skirt to one side, baring my leg to the thigh, as I knelt on the bed and tied the scarves to the headboard and around the legs at the foot. I didn't check to see if he was looking. If I was any judge, he was.

Once the scarves were fastened, I slid backward off the bed, letting the skirt ride up. Homelander still stood where he had, his expression a little dazed. "You haven't started undressing, John. I hope you don't expect me to do it for you yet. You haven't earned it."

"But I will be able to earn that…mistress?"

I smiled. "Yes. All you need to do is be a good boy." His expression changed, but he masked it quickly. I had the sense that something in him had responded powerfully to what I just said. I could work with it. "Now take your clothes off, John."

He swallowed and his hands went up to his neck and unfastened his cape, letting it drop to the floor. "Please, a little neatness," I told him. "Fold your clothes neatly and put them on the chair. There's no reason for them to get wrinkled."

He picked up the cape and did what I said. I was curious as to how the top part of his costume came off, as I'd never been able to see any zippers. Homelander put his hands to the neck of his suit and ripped. The front part came away and I realized it fastened with Velcro. He started to pull his arms out of it, but then stopped. "I…have a concern, mistress."

"Go ahead," I said. "Anything you say in this room is just between us. I'll never repeat anything."

"Uh—I was thinking maybe you'd want me to keep the shirt of the costume on. Madelyn didn't like me to take it off. She didn't like me to take off the pants much either."

I decided to ignore the fact that he hadn't called me mistress. "Did she tell you why not?"

He kept his gaze directed at the floor. "You've seen me naked before. I'm thin. I don't have the kind of muscles women find attractive because I'm too strong to build up the mass. That's why they're built into the suit. She didn't find me physically attractive naked."

"What about Queen Maeve and Stormfront?"

"I never took the shirt of it off in front of them. Not with any of the groupies, either. They all liked the way the texture felt, so it was never a problem."

Goddamn Madelyn Stillwell. I'd bet money she'd fucked him when he was well underage, and she also saw fit to make him feel ugly when he was nothing of the sort. At least I knew why he'd suggested I rub my breasts against his costume earlier. "Did you know that I wasn't physically attracted to you until I saw you naked that day, when I came in without knocking to give you your numbers?"

"No…mistress. May I ask why not?"

Well, he was learning. "Yes, you may. Different women have different tastes, different things that appeal to them. I don't like health club muscles and dehydrated six-pack abs, no matter how popular they are right now. I like tall, lean men. I didn't realize the muscles were in the suit and that you actually fit my physical type to a T. The first thought I had, when I rushed into your apartment and saw you, was 'Damn, he's beautiful.' So you can be assured I don't share Madelyn's opinion, and in this room only my opinion counts. I want to see and touch your beautiful body, and Madelyn can go to hell."

He looked stunned. If he'd been a cartoon his jaw would have been on the floor. "If I've handled the concern, go back to undressing."

It took him a moment to recover, to pull his arms out of the top part of his costume and fold it as I'd instructed him. I could still see his nerves at being naked in front of me, but I felt sure I could cure that pretty quickly. He kept shooting little glances at me, and I let my eyes roam all over him and thought again that Madelyn was a fucking fool. "Why weren't you concerned about me seeing you naked when I walked in on you that day? You didn't seem uncomfortable at all."

Homelander shrugged. "It wasn't a situation like this one. And you were so agitated I thought it was an emergency. I've never had much privacy, so I'm more comfortable with being naked when it isn't about sex than most people. Mistress."

Vought must have had his cell wired for sight and sound twenty-four seven. It sounded like hell. Every decision about him that they made had been the worst possible one, unless they wanted to create a sociopath who could destroy the world. It was an amazement that men who were as intelligent as they were could be so dumb.

He'd unfastened his belt when I said, "Boots first. You always want to take your boots off before you try to get your pants off." With a sideways look at me, he sat down on the bed and pulled his boots off. "You can put them by the chair where your clothes are." He didn't reply, but did what I said, and removed his belt, coiling it up and placing it with his cape and costume shirt. Without any hesitation he removed his pants and folded them as well. A slow, shuddering breath left me. He was as hard and ready as he'd been that day in his living room, riding the high of his elevated numbers.

"Very good, John," I told him, hoping my voice was steady. "Now lie down on the bed, face-up."

"Yes, mistress." When I wrapped the scarves around his wrists and tied them, I left the one on his right wrist loose enough for him to slip it if he needed. It was possible that he might panic over something and forget his safeword, and Homelander panicking was nothing I wanted to deal with, now or ever. I kept the bindings around his ankles tight.

Now that he was restrained—or as restrained as Homelander could ever be—I climbed onto the bed and straddled him, the way I had this morning, but now nothing separated us except the flimsy material of my dress. I leaned forward until my body was pressed against him and ran my hands up his arms as I kissed him. There was an instant of hesitation on his part, then he was kissing me back, his tongue in my mouth, and I shuddered. Along with the pleasure came a distinct sense of unreality—how was it even possible that I was in Homelander's bed with him? Two weeks ago the very notion would have been insane.

When I broke the kiss, my breathing was noticeably heavier, as was his. I shifted my mouth to his neck and kissed and nibbled and sucked. He groaned and let his head fall back to give me better access. I slid down his body, my hands moving over his shoulders, chest, stomach, but careful to avoid the hard thrusting erection between his legs which demanded attention.

I straightened into a sitting position and kept running my hands over his chest and stomach, sometimes using the pads of my fingers, sometimes teasing him with my fingernails. "Your body is perfect, John. I want to kiss every inch of it."

"You can start with my cock, mistress."

I almost laughed but gave him a severe expression. "Are you being sassy with me, John?"

He looked down. "No, mistress."

"Well, I think you were, and I think I need to deal with that right now." It didn't surprise me; I figured that when he got a little more comfortable he'd start sassing me. Since he didn't want any physical correction, I'd have to go the psychological route, carrot and stick.

I sat back on my heels and ran my fingers up and down the insides of his thighs, careful to avoid his cock and balls, teasing his inner thighs with my fingernails flicking over the sensitive skin, and it pleased me to notice he spread his legs a bit to give me more room to play. "Do you like this, John?"

"Yes." His voice was unsteady. "Yes, mistress."

"Do you want me to keep doing this? Because if you're going to be a sassy, disobedient little boy, I'll just get up, get dressed, and leave, and we'll never do this again. You'll never feel me touching you again, or kissing you, and you'll never, ever fuck me. Are you going to be naughty and sassy to me, or do you want to be my good boy?"

"I want to be your good boy, mistress." He was getting into it more now, I saw, and I kicked off the Louboutins before standing up on the mattress.

"I don't know if you do, John." My feet sank into the mattress as I took a step forward, toward the head of the bed. "I know you're trying, but I don't know if you can restrain yourself from disobedience." He'd frozen as I kept walking up the mattress, slowly as I needed to maintain my balance. It wouldn't do for Mistress to fall off the mattress and do a faceplant straight into the floor. The hem of the cocktail dress brushed over his aching cock and he moaned. In a few steps, my feet were on either side of Homelander's head, the hem of the dress veiling his head, and he was looking straight up my skirt. I widened my stance a bit as I put my arms out to brace myself against the wall. "Do you see that?"

He had to swallow before saying, "Yes, mistress."

"You aren't getting that. Sassy, naughty, disobedient boys don't get that. Only good boys get that. And I just don't know about you. I don't know if you can be my good boy. I don't know if you really want to."

"I do. I do want to be your good boy, mistress. Don't make us stop." His voice was as shaky as I'd ever heard it, so I decided to dial things down a little bit. I was sure I was already late getting back from lunch, so it wouldn't hurt to wrap things up now.

"I can't help but want to believe you. I still have some faith that you can be my good boy." I started backing up, the dress hem drifting over his face, and he was gasping for breath as the hem teased his chest and stomach and cock with my passage backwards. At his thighs, I seated myself again. I reached out and slid my fingers over his cock, which caused his hips to buck upward. "Because I think you may be able to be a good boy, I'm going to give you something that good boys get. Do you want that?"

Homelander nodded, still gasping, and I wrapped my hand around his cock and began sliding it up and down. He started bucking upward, but my weight on his thighs kept me from losing complete control. I did my best to keep my breathing under control, but the sight of him, lost in the pleasure of what I was doing to him, set me to throbbing with desire. "Like this, John?" I hoped I'd kept my voice steady.

"Yes. Yes." He was so deep into the experience that I didn't take him to task for not calling me mistress. Wetness was leaking out the head onto my hand, and I wanted to lean over and take him in my mouth and suck him dry, but this time was only the hand job. The blowjob was for next time.

"You're my beautiful boy, John. You're my good boy, and no one could ever be as good as you are. You're such a good, good boy—" and I didn't even get the chance to finish what I was saying before he cried out and arched up against my hand, coming in hard spurts, and I tried to make it last for him as long as I could. Eventually he sagged back onto the mattress, eyes closed.

I untied the scarves from his wrists and ankles and settled onto the bed next to him, shrugging out of the top of my dress. His eyes were still closed as I leaned over him and brushed my nipple against his lips. "Do you still want to suckle me?"

He moved like a striking rattlesnake, catching me in his arms and rolling me on top of him as he latched onto my breast and started sucking. I couldn't stop the moan that the sensation caused, and if I'd still been in the Mistress persona I would have scolded him for not asking permission before taking my nipple in his mouth, but the arousal I felt made everything hazy, and I just wanted him to keep doing what he was doing.

His hands still gripped me at the waist, so my hands were free to stroke his hair as he suckled me. I felt every pull on my breast between my legs, but I did my best to keep my urges under control. This was for him, to satisfy him, his curiosity about what it would be like to be dominated. "As much as you want," I whispered. "You can do this as much as you want." Belatedly I hoped he didn't think I meant he could do this for the rest of the day—what was Gina going to think if I didn't make it back for the rest of the day? What excuse would I make? But the gentle pulls on me gradually made me forget my concerns, and I barely noticed as he changed our positions so I was underneath him and he switched his mouth to my other breast. I didn't even know or care how long it took for him to release me and roll over to lie next to me.

As soon as I felt composed enough to speak, I told him, "If we had more time, I'd run a bath, but I think a shower will have to do."

"That's fine." Homelander's voice was lazy and satisfied, and he kept running his fingers over my arm. "We'll have a shower, then we'll have lunch."

I'd forgotten all about lunch. I hoped Gina had gone to the reschedule/cancel instruction I'd given her. "Good thinking."

I started to get up, head for the bathroom, but he caught my arm and pulled me back to him. "Do you think that went well?"

"Uh—yes. For your first time, I think it went quite well."

"Next time I want my cock in your mouth. Does that sound good to you?"

How had he guessed what was in my mind when I was jerking him off? But I didn't lie; I wanted that too. "Yes, next time I can suck you off."

He ran his thumb over my lips. "You're such a good mistress. And I didn't even know I needed a mistress.'"

I laughed. "I'm glad you're happy."

In the shower I made sure to be gentle with him as I washed him with his soap, and he was drained enough to let me without making any remarks. I started to scrub myself and he said, "No, let me do that."

"You don't have to," I said.

"But I want to take care of my mistress. You wouldn't stop me, would you?"

I laughed a little. "Okay, but we have to be quick. I have to be back in my office and you have to do—whatever you have to do."

Homelander put some of his shampoo in the palm of his hand and rubbed it over my scalp. A sharp stab of pleasure went straight into my groin at the contact, and he smiled. "Your hair feels nice."

"It's too short, it's spiky and sharp."

"I like it. I wish I'd rubbed my cock on your scalp while we were in bed."

That made me giggle. "I'd never have thought of that."

"I have good ideas too. Especially the one about you dominating me. That was the best idea I've had in a long, long time."

"Glad you think so." Then I closed my eyes and let him shampoo my hair, and let him soap a washcloth and begin scrubbing me. It felt good, and I lost myself in it until he handed the washcloth over.

"I know you said you didn't want me doing anything for you sexually, and if I put my hand between your legs I don't think I can keep enough control not to do any number of pleasurable things to you, so I think you should do that part yourself."

"That's sweet of you. I appreciate it." And I did—it was one of the first times he'd actually respected my boundaries. He seemed pleased by what I'd said. When we got downstairs and I could see a clock, it proved I was right—I would be forty-five minutes late for work if I left right now and an hour late if I stayed long enough for lunch, which I planned to do since he'd been considerate enough to get food for us.

I didn't see any stolen paintings in his art collection downstairs, at least none I was aware of, but I may have been distracted by Homelander not bothering to put on any clothes after the shower and walking around his apartment naked. Some other time, when he had clothes on, I'd recheck the collection for stolen art. Before I left, he wrapped me up in his arms and kissed me until my head was spinning. "We're still having our dinner and a movie on Saturday?"

"Yes," I told him. "If anything changes and you need to reschedule, just let me know."

He laughed. "That's not going to happen."

Homelander had been right about my lipstick; the last kissing session at his front door would have been much more obvious if I'd been wearing dark lipstick, but the rose lipstick kept my secrets. I was smiling as I approached Gina's desk. "Ms. Barrett? There was a call for you at lunch. The man said he was your father. I just took his number and said you'd call back. Was that all right?"

I did my best to seem casual as I recovered from the shock. "Yes, Gina. My father doesn't call very often so there's no reason you'd know his voice." Once I was inside the office, I unfolded the slip of paper that I'd crushed in my grip. Might as well get it over with, I told myself, and called the number.