Adored (Masters and Mercenaries #8.5)(33)

“Laurel?” He stepped back down and stared at her for a moment. His eyes were cold and she felt frozen in place.

He was going to give her an ultimatum now. It was what he did. It was how they seemed to work, or rather how he worked. She’d figured out that she had to adapt to him if she wanted to be with him.

Maybe that wasn’t the best way to live.

He stepped up close and she waited for him to tell her to get on the stage or accept whatever punishment he was going to give her, and then she would have to make a choice. God, the moment was here and she wasn’t ready for it. She wasn’t ready to leave him, but she also wasn’t sure she wanted to go on that stage.

His hands sank into her hair, but instead of tugging on it and forcing her to look at him, he pulled her close and settled her against his chest. “Baby, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Shhh. If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. We can spend the rest of the night watching scenes and then go down and have a nice dinner. It’s going to be all right.”

“But you set up the scene.” He didn’t back down. He plowed through. He did what he said he was going to do.

“And someone can take over.” His hand smoothed down her hair. “Laurel, baby, what are you afraid of? I would never hurt you and I certainly won’t make you do a scene you’re uncomfortable with.”

He was making everyone wait. He was holding them up so he could comfort her.

“There are a lot of people here,” she admitted. “And I thought about the fact that I’m pregnant and I’m going to be a mom and god, Mitch, what are we going to do when the baby gets here? What are we going to do?”

She wasn’t sure why it hit her then and there, but it did. Weeks of holding it together culminated in her shaking and crying and making a complete idiot of herself in front of all the Doms in Sanctum.

Mitch swept her up into his arms. “Alex, could you take over for me?”

Now they would have to go home and talk about why she’d ruined the scene. She wasn’t looking forward to going into the locker room alone and having to change back into street clothes. She wasn’t looking forward to an awkward discussion.

She held on when she realized he was going up and not down. He was heading to the third floor.

A man was stationed at the top of the stairs. He looked up, his eyes registering surprise. “Master Mitchell? I wasn’t expecting you for another hour.”

“Sometimes aftercare has to come first, Mike. Is there a room open?”

“You’re lucky. I already prepped your room. It’s number five, but I gotta warn you. The big boss is in four and he will neither turn the music down nor change it.”

Mitch nodded and before she knew it, she could hear the strains of a familiar song as Mitch opened the door and strode in. “Sweet Child o’ Mine.”

She was having a baby.

She found herself on his lap, sobbing against his shoulder. How had she gone from getting all hot and bothered to weeping openly?

He rocked her, his arms encircling her. “It’s going to be all right, Laurel. Baby, it’s going to be okay. I’m going to take care of you and the baby. You don’t have to cry.”

He sounded almost as broken as she felt. She wrapped her arms around him and let go completely.





Mitch had never felt so helpless in his whole damn life, and there had been plenty of times when he’d felt helpless. But Laurel sobbing in his arms…he would rather pull his heart straight out of his chest than have her so utterly heartbroken.

She’d seemed happy. She’d wanted to come to Sanctum. She’d been looking forward to it all week. But something had happened to her as she stood in front of that stage. She couldn’t be afraid of him or the ropes. He loved to tie her up. Sometimes he practiced as they sat together at night. She would sit in front of him and he would weave the rope into her hair or have her lay across the couch and let him bind her legs before he would ease her to the floor and f*ck into her from behind.

It couldn’t be the ropes. She’d said something about all the people.

“Baby, were you scared of people looking at you?” He asked the question knowing that women sometimes got weird ideas. Laurel was simply the most beautiful woman in the world, but that didn’t mean she believed it. She was so sexy he couldn’t be in a room with her and not have his dick get hard. Just thinking about her made him erect, but women often didn’t see themselves the way men did.

He’d never actually gotten her naked during a scene before. He’d taken it slowly, tried to allow her to adapt. He was well aware she would still be considered in her training period had he not collared her. She would have been given a training Dom who couldn’t undress her or do anything more intimate than hug her or let her sit on his lap. He’d gone much further than that. He’d stroked her * in full view of the club, forced her to show herself off.

Had that scared her?

She shook her head. “I’m not scared so much as confused. I don’t know what happened, Mitch. I got to the bottom of those stairs and I realized that I was pregnant and I don’t know what’s going to happen. Am I going to be up there getting tied up when I’m as big as a whale? Or is this temporary and I’ll only play while I’m still somewhat small and you won’t want to play with me when I’m huge. Maybe you’ll want another sub. One who can see her feet. Serena told me by the end of her pregnancy she couldn’t see her feet.”