From Sanctum with Love (Masters and Mercenaries #10)(71)

“She also told me you lie. Apparently you were Morgan’s assistant but you tried to get into bed with him, too. You thought you could control him with sex. Do you even look at yourself in the mirror? Jared doesn’t want you. He’s only being nice to you because you work for his brother. I don’t believe you and he have anything going on. He’s not as hot as Jared but he’s attractive. He’s never going to be with you.”

This was so sad. “Okay, let me tell you all the ways you’re going wrong here. First, I’m mostly bored by this dialogue. I can turn on a Real Housewives episode and hear this crap. At least flip a table or something.”

“What?” Lena’s eyes went wide.

She was likely used to running off lots of women with her rapid fire but deadly dull dialogue. Like that was the first time someone had told Kori she wasn’t attractive enough. She’d lived in LA for years. She’d been told a thousand times she wasn’t smart enough, attractive enough, thin enough. If she’d believed any of it she would never have gotten a film made.

“I’m going to give you some advice. Here’s the key, when you’re trying to intimidate someone, you have to make them believe you’re the tiniest bit batshit crazy. This ‘you’re not pretty’ crap is only going to work on girls who just got off the bus. For real women, you have to dig deeper. You have to scare them. Like you’ll do something really bad. I’ll give you an example. Lena, if you don’t get out of my face in the next two minutes, I’ll make sure Jared never speaks to you again. You see, I have some actual leverage. He wants a relationship with his brother and I can give that to him. You’re a piece of crap in last year’s Pradas, and he can pick up another one of you in the lobby of any production office. So maybe you should turn around and walk out of here and the next time we see each other, you’ll smile and be polite because I can have your job in two minutes.”

It was an empty threat. She would never once do that. She wouldn’t come between the brothers like that.

“You wouldn’t. You couldn’t do that,” Lena sputtered.

“See, now we’re having a smack down. It’s so low to go after a woman’s looks. She gets that from every side. You have to go after her intelligence or her job, or sometimes you can score points by sounding like a crazy bitch. That prostitution-whore stuff can throw a girl off because she’s trying to figure out what the hell you just said. Like if I called you a skanky ho-bag who’s one step above assistant crack whore, you would try to figure out if I was calling you a slut or a prostitute. Mix it up. It throws people off.”

“You’re a bitch,” Lena said, proving she couldn’t even do comebacks well.

Kori sighed. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. And now I’m bored again. Scurry off, sad woman. I’m sure you’ve got something to do with your time.”

Some people couldn’t learn. It took the right amount of intelligence and pure quick wit to be able to truly insult someone.

The door opened and Lena gasped.

“You should probably leave now,” a familiar voice said.

Shit. Kai was here. Kai had heard her. Oh, shit. How the hell was she going to explain what she’d said? She heard the clack of Lena’s shoes against the floor and then the door swung open. Kai stood there still wearing yesterday’s clothes. Somehow he made the walk of shame look so damn good. The shirt he wore was slightly wrinkled, but she couldn’t help but think about the chest underneath it. His hair was pulled back now and his glasses were perfectly placed, but she knew what he looked liked right before he bit her, when he was predatory and fierce. And she knew what he looked like when he was mad.

Like now.

“Are you all right?” His voice was quiet, but she could hear the edge to his tone.

“Kai, I was telling her off. She was being a bitch. That was all there was to it.”

He held a hand out. “I need you. I’ve had a disturbing morning. I need…you.”

Her body already ached. She wasn’t sure she could take more. Still, she found herself reaching for his hand and letting him lead her to his office. What was he going to do? Spank her? Bring out his whip?

She’d agreed to a D/s relationship with him. This was what she was supposed to do. She was supposed to give him what he needed even as he gave to her.

She could handle it. Hell, she might like it. If she spent the rest of the day not being able to sit down, maybe she would remember that she shouldn’t even joke about using Kai’s brother to further her own ends.

He strode through the door and right to the big couch in his office. He sat down and she was certain he would command her to lift her skirt and let him spank her. Instead he dragged her down, laying her out before wrapping himself around her.

“Stay with me for a while.” His head found its way to her breast and he sighed as though he needed the contact. “Did you think I was mad about what you said to Lena?”

Almost immediately all her stress fled and she found herself relaxing. He wasn’t the only one who needed this. They’d been disrupted this morning. They hadn’t spent enough time exploring the new intimacy between them.

Because she had to face the facts. She hadn’t simply started a new D/s relationship with Kai. She’d started a relationship with Kai. A real relationship where they played and worked and relied on each other. One where he needed comfort and could ask it of her.