Perception Read online

She knew it had never happened to her before, but what Xander didn’t seem to understand was that it would never happen again.

  Nev. Er. A. Gain.

  “You’re lying,” Xander said, his eyes locked on her. “You know how I know? Because you can’t look me in the eye when you say it, Mercedes.”

  Keeping her eyes locked with his, just to prove him wrong, Mercedes argued, “I think you forgot one little detail about last night. It was your idea. You’re the one who needed my help on a demonstration. A demonstration, Xander. Nothing more.”

  Xander didn’t say a word in response, so Mercedes continued. “Oh, and get this,” she added sarcastically, recalling the email she’d received just a short while ago. The one that had made her damn near choke on her tongue. “Logan McCoy emailed me a few minutes ago. He wanted to let me know that Sam definitely has an interest in D/s lifestyles.” Mercedes frowned. “Thanks to you and your brilliant plan, he thinks I’ll be a good person for her to chat with. The man thinks I’m a submissive.”

  Despite her outrage, Xander’s expression didn’t change. He just stared down at her, his hands in his pockets, looking as relaxed and comfortable as always, even though the tightening of the muscle in his jaw gave him away entirely. She had to admit, he wasn’t usually so easy to read.

  “And that’s a bad thing how?”

  Mercedes fought the irritation that was eating away at her. “You know good and damn well that I’m not a submissive,” she bit out. “But after your little scene last night, they seem to think I am.”

  “Fine. Do you want me to set them straight? I’ll do that. That doesn’t mean you can’t give her information on the subject.”

  Mercedes didn’t respond as she continued to glare at him.

  Even though they hadn’t talked in depth about what had happened, Mercedes knew there was no way Xander would believe she’d willingly go from being a Domme to his submissive just because he gave her an orgasm.

  Hell, it didn’t work that way. She didn’t want to be a sub. Not his or anyone else’s. There might’ve been a time in her life when being passive seemed natural to her. Too bad life had changed her, and she’d soon learned that taking the reins and being in control was the easiest way to get to the top. She’d made it her mission and somewhere along the way she’d built a reputation as an extremely successful entrepreneur, not to mention, as one of the most formidable Mistresses in her circle of friends.

  She wasn’t looking for a personality overhaul, thank you very much.

  Throughout their friendship, she had reminded Xander that she was the dominating half of her relationships, and she had no interest in switching sides. Not for anyone.

  Especially not for him.

  Nothing had changed.

  She was suddenly compelled to move away from him and to change the subject. Without haste, she went back behind her desk and as gracefully as she could manage slid down into her chair, keeping her eyes on him. She waited for him to sit, which surprisingly he did.

  “I need to know what your initial bid for the Milton building is going to be so I can get a contract drawn up,” she told him, morphing into her role as his real estate agent.

  Business was probably the only safe subject they could discuss at the moment.

  “Get me comps and some information on the company selling and I’ll let you know.”

  “I’ll get right on that.” Grabbing her pencil and a notepad, she focused on the task at hand.

  Mercedes jotted down the notes, taking more time than necessary, hoping he’d get the hint and head out the same way Shane had.

  When she looked back up, she found Xander staring at her, his expression unreadable. “What?” Mercedes asked, her voice soft but insistent. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “No reason,” he grumbled, pushing to his feet.

  Mercedes continued to watch him, holding her breath as she waited to see if he’d say something more or just leave her be.

  When he turned, making his way toward the door, she couldn’t decide whether she was grateful or disappointed that he’d opted to go.

  “Get the comps and come talk to me. I’ll be in my office.”

  Mercedes nodded, and Xander turned and left.

  ~~*~~*~~

  Walking away from Mercedes when he wanted nothing more than to address what had happened last night was harder than he thought. But somehow he managed to make his way out of her condo, into the elevator and up to the penthouse without turning around.

  Barely.

  Once inside, he went straight to his office. It was the only way he’d be able to keep his mind off of the woman who’d single-handedly driven him to distraction.

  “Hey.”

  The moment he dropped into his chair, Xander looked up to see his assistant, Leah, standing in his doorway.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” she told him.

  “Just walked in.”

  “Everything ok?”

  As much as he liked Leah, he definitely wasn’t interested in sharing his personal business with her. She was a sweet girl. Too sweet actually. Why she stuck with him, he had no idea.

  Leah Ingram had been his assistant for the last two years. She was young and cute and so damned innocent, it made Xander’s teeth hurt to talk to her sometimes. He was constantly trying to watch what he said to her, afraid he’d offend her sensitive ears.

  But the woman was the best damned assistant he’d ever had. She juggled college and work and, from what she’d told him, very little else. She was never late, never asked to leave early and never, ever called in sick.

  Strawberry blonde hair, pale brown eyes, a china doll face that looked far younger than her twenty-five years, Leah was the picture of a sweet virgin.

  Xander thought she was absolutely adorable, and he genuinely liked her. But she made him nervous because of how fucking innocent she was.

  Oh, and the woman had caught Shane’s attention and Xander knew his best friend stayed as far away from Xander’s offices as he possibly could. If Xander thought he was scared to talk to her because he didn’t want to risk slinging a curse word and causing her to crumble, then Shane was downright terrified.

  “I’m good. What time’s my next meeting?”

  “Eleven-thirty,” she answered instantly. “You’re scheduled to call Malcolm Hirsh.” Even her sweet lilting drawl was cute.

  Fan-fucking-tastic. Just what he wanted to do today.

  Hirsh was a persistent bastard who’d been driving him batshit crazy for the last three months. Xander owned a piece of property that he’d been sitting on for the last five years or so. He had no intention of doing anything with it just yet, but Hirsh, the owner of the adjacent property was looking to expand his operations. He wanted Xander’s land. But he didn’t want to pay anywhere close to what Xander wanted for it.

  “Thanks.” Glancing over at the clock on the wall, Xander noticed it was only ten. He looked back at Leah, who was still standing in his doorway. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

  Her eyebrows darted up into her hairline before she was able to mask her expression. “Are you sure?”

  “Very.” At the moment, he had other ideas of how to pass the time, and he didn’t need an audience.

  “Ok, then. I’ll… Let me just finish what I was doing and then I’ll go. But I’ll see you tomorrow morning, right?”

  “Of course,” he answered, trying to soften his expression. He was thinking too much, and he knew that Leah was sensitive whenever he got into one of his moods. He wasn’t sure why that was, but she shied away from him most of the time.

  “Thank you.”

  He had no idea what she was thanking him for, but he watched as she disappeared around the corner. He wiggled his mouse to get his screen saver to disappear, and he pulled up his calendar.

  “Hey, Leah,” he called out.

  “Yes, sir?” she asked, rushing back to his door.

  “Clear my calendar for the rest of the day bef
ore you go. I’ll take Hirsh’s call, but that’s it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Xander tried to work for the next few minutes, waiting for Leah to leave, but he had a difficult time focusing. Thankfully, his assistant didn’t take long before she was saying good-bye and heading to the door.

  Before the front door probably even shut behind her, Xander had picked up his phone and dialed.

  “Yes?” Mercedes asked, making the word into two syllables when she answered.

  “Meet me in my conference room in ten minutes. Bring the comps with you.” Xander didn’t wait for a response; he hung up the phone and then took a deep breath.

  It was now or never.

  Chapter Six

  Mercedes knew she shouldn’t have been all that surprised by Xander’s abrupt phone call but she was. It wasn’t his fault either. She felt as though she was walking around in some sort of alternate universe, confused about where she was and where she was going. Imagine walking around on the ceiling and trying to figure out if you were the one upside down or the furniture was.

  That’s how she felt.

  Printing out the comps she had pulled up as soon as Xander left, she grabbed a pencil, her cell phone, and the paper now sticking out of the printer. She didn’t know if it had been ten minutes or not, but she was ready to get this over with.

  It was a regular occurrence for Xander to summon her to his office to discuss business, and usually she’d be prepared for anything he could throw at her. But this time she felt strange as she rode the elevator to his floor.

  When she stepped up to his front door, she was tempted to knock, but she knew that would’ve also been weird, so she turned the knob and walked in. Closing the door quietly behind her, she took stock of the living area. Empty, just as she expected.

  A few seconds later, she was walking into the conference room – which, by the way, Xander had never requested that they meet in.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked as she moved closer, watching him stare out of the floor to ceiling windows, his hands thrust in his pockets in a typical Xander fashion.

  “Just admiring the view.” He turned slowly to face her, and a smile crept across his lips. “However, this view is considerably better.”

  Mercedes rolled her eyes. Now this was getting ridiculous. She had thought for sure he’d be over this by now.

  Maybe the guy just needed to get laid, she didn’t know.

  Watch her, pet. Watch while she lowers herself onto his cock. Just like I want to see you doing to me.

  Shit. A chill raced down her spine at the memory of his words from the night before. She could still hear the rough gravel of his voice, evidence that he’d been just as affected by what happened as she had.

  But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t help him.

  Maybe it would do him some good to go to the club tonight instead of her. She’d be more than happy to back off if he needed to head out and release some of the tension that was clearly building up.

  She wanted to tell him as much, except the idea of Xander with another sub, or any woman for that matter, made her stomach churn.

  A sudden snap had her glancing down to her hands. She’d broken her pencil right in half.

  Fucking great.

  At least it hadn’t been her cell phone she had snapped right in two.

  Looking back at Xander, she noticed he was on the move, and she went the opposite direction, keeping the small conference table between them at all times. She didn’t wait for him to ask her to sit, she just dropped right into the chair closest to the windows. Expecting him to take a seat on the opposite side, she immediately regretted having sat down when he remained standing.

  Crap.

  “Nervous?” he asked, his eyes darting down to the broken pencil in her hand, his hands still casually inserted into his pockets.

  “Not hardly,” she lied.

  “You don’t like that I’ll admit to admiring you, do you?”

  Frustrated that he wouldn’t let it go, Mercedes met Xander’s gaze head on and said harshly, “Whatever, Boone. There’s no one to impress anymore; you don’t need to try and flatter me.”

  Xander was beside her in a flash. His abrupt movement startled her, causing her to drop both halves of her pencil, the papers and her cell phone onto the table. As he loomed over her, she looked up at him, her body stone still, her eyes wide, and her mouth slightly open as she tried to figure out what the hell he was going to do.

  Before she could come to a conclusion, he was taking her hand, pulling her to her feet and then backing her up a few inches until she was flush against the window he’d been gazing out of just a few minutes before.

  How the hell had that just happened?

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice low, her anger apparent. “Let me go.”

  “No. Not until we hash this out.”

  “Hash what out?” she asked as she tried to push him away unsuccessfully. Albeit, she hadn’t been using as much force as she should have, not to mention Xander Boone wasn’t going to budge unless he absolutely wanted to.

  Xander gripped her hips gently, holding her in place with relative ease. He wasn’t going to hurt her; she knew that. And she wasn’t at all scared of him. She just wasn’t sure she could hold out being this close to him. Not after everything she’d been feeling since last night.

  The man, despite all of the warnings that she’d always given herself where he was concerned, drew her in, made her want things she shouldn’t want, and he’d proven that effortlessly at Devotion. But she still had time to turn things around, to ignore everything that had happened between them and move on with life as normal.

  When she stopped pushing against him, he loosened his grip, and she surprised herself when she stopped putting up a fight.

  “So talk,” she said after a long, deafening silence.

  Xander moved, and Mercedes glanced down as he reached for her hands, linking his fingers with hers before lifting her arms up over her head and pinning them against the glass.

  Ok, this was not good.

  When she looked back up into his eyes, Mercedes knew he would see more than she wanted him to. She couldn’t deny the fact that her body was humming. Being this close to him, his hands holding her so easily in place, was doing funny things to her insides. Sort of the way things went last night.

  Again, there was the problem. She had to remind herself of the most important thing.

  She. Was. Not. A. Submissive.

  Not at all.

  And that’s what Xander wanted.

  Her entire life revolved around her hard earned control – in and out of the bedroom. There was no room in her life for a man who wanted to order her around, to insist that she do what would please him. As the pathetic tale goes: been there, done that.

  “Young lady, you will not be leaving this house.” “I don’t recall approving you to wear that.” “Get off the goddamn phone.” “You won’t get a penny from me. If you want it, work for it.” “Dammit, Priscilla, I didn’t give you permission to buy her that.”

  Her father’s words rang inside of her head, the constant orders and restrictions, his infallible ability to ensure she never got what she requested. He’d rode her hard from the time she was little, never giving her an ounce of freedom because he had preferred to keep her and her mother under his thumb.

  She damn sure wouldn’t let any man control her like that again. It was the very reason she left home as soon as she graduated from high school even though her father had moved out the day she turned eighteen.

  “Please don’t,” she whispered to Xander now, the words more a plea than a command. She did not want to fight with him, and she found that her resistance to him wasn’t nearly as fortified as she’d once believed.

  “Don’t what?” he asked, sounding way too curious.

  “I don’t want to do this,” she told him.

  She didn’t want to do this, no matter what her traitorous body was project
ing.

  Shit, who was she kidding? She did want this. She wanted him up against her, wanted to feel the warmth of his body the way she had last night. Even while she had slept alone in her bed, she’d ached for this man although she knew there was no chance in hell that she would ever cross over to the dark side.

  “I’m not asking you to do anything.”

  “No?” Mercedes glared at him.

  Infuriating Dom.

  He was asking for everything, and he very well knew it. They’d been friends for too long. She knew how he operated. And what that said about her, because she’d allowed him to manipulate her to this point, she didn’t want to think about.

  “Fine. Then how about this? I can’t do this,” she told him. “You know I can’t, X. It’s not who I am.”

  Xander unlinked their fingers, but he kept her pinned with her arms still above her head, one giant hand circling around her wrists while the other moved down to cup her cheek. To her horror, she leaned into his touch.

  “But you want to, don’t you?” he asked, his tone gentle.

  “No! I don’t. I already told you that!” she yelled.

  When Xander merely stared back at her, Mercedes fought the urge to scream at the top of her lungs. It was either that, or to break down in tears because this man – this Dom – was wearing down her resistance. Clearly she wasn’t as convincing as she was trying to be.

  He didn’t say anything for a long time, and Mercedes realized what he was doing. Damn it. He was pulling that psychological, manipulative bullshit on her. Xander was letting her think it through, giving her time to come to a decision on her own. It’s the way he operated, how he handled all of his subs. He would never force anything on anyone which meant if a woman wanted something from him, she’d have to agree up front.

  Damn it.

  “Let me go,” she ground out through gritted teeth. She was not going to give in to him. No way in hell.

  Xander didn’t budge. He just continued to pin her with his hand on her wrists and his beautiful eyes peering down at her, probably reading her mind if she had to guess.

  That wasn’t good either. Especially considering the questions running loose through her brain.