Controlling Krysta (2 page)

At the sound of his name, Dixon looked up from whatever had been absorbing him on his iPhone.

He chuckled and pointed his finger at me. “You’re hired,” he said. “Be here Monday at eight-thirty.”

A few minutes later, I was sitting in my car in the parking garage, considering the situation. I’d never gotten aroused in an office, or in all the time I’d spent in classrooms, for that matter. My libido had acted very inappropriately in Mason Maddox’s presence.

So, what had just happened?

Why did I find it thrilling when he spoke to me in that commanding tone of voice? And why was I desperate for him to grab me and “force” me to…

What, exactly?

Somewhere inside me, I knew. A memory flashed into my brain. My mother was driving me home from church, lecturing me about whores, and the evils of fornication.

Sex was dirty. Sex was bad. Good girls didn’t want to do it. That’s what I’d grown up with.

I’d suspected for a while that I would find being punished for sexual thoughts arousing, but I tried to avoid exploring that idea in depth.

Besides, I’d left that craziness behind and wasn’t about to dwell on it now.

It was best for me to do my job and avoid any unnecessary contact with Mason Maddox.

Dix paced back and forth in his office, getting more anxious by the moment.

In a few days, he was supposed to call Tessa. He wanted her every bit as much now as he had six months ago, and he hoped she still felt the same way.

He stared out the window at the skyline, framed in a background of blue. It wasn’t an unusual December day, for Houston, sunny with an expected high of seventy degrees.

He thought of Tessa alone in icy Michigan. He’d like to be there to warm her up. He considered the presents he’d already bought her for Christmas, but he didn’t know if he should mail them.

If she decided she wasn’t that into him, she might feel she had to go to the trouble of mailing them all back. Besides, he wanted to see her face when she opened them.

He couldn’t believe how nervous he was. When had he ever stressed over a woman? If he wanted one, she’d always wanted him back.

Sometimes it was because of the way he looked or his sense of humor. Other times it was his family name and the money.

The reasons didn’t matter so much when he was eighteen. But at thirty-two, he wanted a woman who loved him for him.

Oddly enough, Tessa seemed to want him that way, but she was uncomfortable with the trappings of money.

Maybe if he was on her turf, she could forget what he was and focus on who they were together.

He hoped he hadn’t overdone the presents. He’d grown up with money, so he wasn’t sure what she would consider too much.

Regardless, if all went as planned, he’d be spending a lot more time up north with her.

And because she needed to stay near her mom and her job at Greenwood Manor, he might even move up to Michigan to be near her, since he could work from anywhere and travel to meetings.

But there was Mason to consider. At first, Dix had thought Mason would be better off without him here, so his brother would be forced to venture out and meet new people.

But, as the time neared, Dix felt guiltier about the idea of leaving.

As obnoxious and competitive as they could be with each other, he loved Mason and worried about him being alone.

And as stern as Mason appeared on the outside, Dix knew his big brother was actually the more sensitive of the two of them.

When their mother got sick, it was Mason and his wife Jennifer who moved in with her so she wouldn’t have to leave her home.

Mason nearly ran himself ragged going back and forth from the office to his ranch to their parents’ house.

Until the day Mason and Jenn were gone and the new nurse lost track of Mama for a few minutes. She’d hidden in a closet and tried to light a cigarette.

The family home had burned to the ground with their mother inside. The nurse barely made it out, since she’d spent precious time searching for her patient.

Dix never held his brother responsible, but Mason was devastated, guilty he hadn’t put Mama in a proper facility as Dix had suggested. Guilty he and Jenn had taken a day off from the stress at home for lunch and a movie in Houston.

That was when his mild germaphobia and penchant for neatness began to run amuck.

And when Jenn died in a car accident six months later, he retreated from old friends.

From germs to furniture placement, he focused on controlling everything in his environment.

As far as Dix could tell, his brother’s only contact with women in the past couple of years had been with surgical gloves, condoms, and possibly even plastic wrap between them.

But when Dix saw how Mason gawked at the new receptionist, he thought she might be the one who could tempt his brother back into some kind of normal life.

Unfortunately, it had been a week and a half, and Mason seemed to be avoiding her instead of trying to spend time with her.

Dix couldn’t leave him like this.

He picked up the contract that lay on his desk, wondering if this was really the right thing to do. But it was the only way he knew to get his brother to interact with the one woman he’d shown interest in since Jenn died.

He grabbed his desk phone. “Krysta could you come into my office, please?”

She came in wearing a slim skirt in a light tweed fabric and matching blazer. With her glasses on, she looked like a sexy college professor.

She was perfect for his brother.

“What can I do for you?” she asked. She always spoke in that tone that combined professionalism with the slightest hint of sarcasm. Dix really liked her.

What if she found this offer so appalling he lost her as his receptionist and Mason’s lifesaver all at once?

He took a deep breath. “I accidentally eavesdropped on your personal call the other day.”

“Accidentally?” She folded her arms and raised her eyebrows.

“I was walking by the copy room.”

“It takes about a second to walk by. What could you have possibly heard?”

Damn, she was too smart to pull anything over on. He was going to have to be blunt about the situation.

“You’re hard up for money to finish school.”

Her arms dropped to her sides. “Yeah. I lost some funding unexpectedly.”

“Maybe there’s a way we can help each other.”

“Really?” she asked suspiciously. “And how would we do that?”

Dix thought that, first, he’d better be sure this wasn’t going to backfire on him. “Are you attracted to me?”

She took in a surprised breath. Probably didn’t expect that from her boss.

“Define attracted,” she replied. She was likely trying to buy time to figure out how to answer without pissing him off.

“I mean, do you fantasize about sex with me or having my babies or anything?”

She burst out laughing. “No, I can see that you’re attractive, but you’re not really my type.”

“Good,” Dix said. “And what about Mason?”

The humor drained from her face. She opened her mouth and closed it a couple of times. It was fun to see her speechless, for once.

So, she was actually attracted to his weird brother, but she didn’t want to admit she was hot for a guy who’d be better patient material than perspective boyfriend.

Dix didn’t wait for an answer. “Krysta, my brother’s kinda checked out of life for a while now. He had several bad years when our mom’s Alzheimer’s got worse.”

She grasped the back of one of the guest chairs. The concern on her face reassured Dix that telling her the truth was the right thing to do.

“Then, she died and he felt responsible. Six months later, his wife was killed in a car accident.”

Krysta gasped.

Dix knew Mason would hate that he was telling her this. He never spoke about any of this stuff.

“God, I’m really sorry,” Krysta said. “I didn’t know…”

Dix realized that instead of giving her two reasons to do this, he could use a three-pronged approach with her—sympathy, practicality, and professional curiosity.

“Before that, he was just hyper-organized and particular about things. Afterward, he took on a lot of OCD symptoms and germaphobia and replaced friends with dead animals.”

Slowly, Krysta paced around the chair and sat down. She put her elbows on her thighs and rested her cheeks in her hands.

After staring at the floor for several moments, she looked up at Dix and said, “Well…it all makes a lot more sense now.”

Dix picked up the contract, walked around his desk and perched on the edge.

“Here.” He handed her the papers. “I’m afraid if Mason goes on this way any longer, he’ll be permanently fucked up.”

She seemed surprised at the choice of words, but took the contract.

“This is the one way I know that might snap him out of it. If you cooperate, there’s ten thousand dollars in it for you, besides your salary.”

She glanced down at the contract then up at Dix again. “Ten thousand dollars? What the hell do you want me to do? You know I’m not a qualified psychologist yet.”

Shit. Here we go.

“I want you to agree to be disciplined. Punished. Completely dominated by Mason.”

“A sex slave?”

Dix saw the shock on her face and was afraid he’d made a terrible mistake.

*****

I squeezed my thighs together in answer to my clit’s cry for attention.

Although I’d been terribly tempted in the past, I’d avoided websites discussing BDSM

or novels portraying it.

As a future psychologist, I knew I would tell my patients that these kinds of fantasies and sexual role-playing were completely normal.

But since I was afraid my interest in bondage and discipline in the bedroom came from my sexually repressed religious upbringing, I didn’t want to go there. I wanted to believe I had completely escaped that lunacy.

What would happen to me if I let go and lived the fantasy?

Would I become completely dependent on a man to make decisions for me?

Eventually become someone’s good submissive wife like I’d been brought up to be?

Or would I become addicted to the lifestyle and start frequenting weird sex clubs?

It wasn’t only the thought of being a sex slave that was tempting to me. It was the thought of being Mason’s sex slave.

What was it about him that made me find excuses to knock on his office door so I could ask him unnecessary questions?

“It’s a lot of money,” Dix was saying. “You get it even if he doesn’t take the bait. But if there’s physical contact without gloves or condoms, there’s a five thousand dollar bonus.”

That jarred me out of my thoughts. “Without condoms?” I repeated. “Who has sex without condoms nowadays?”

“You had a physical for health insurance when you came to work for us. Mason won’t do anything with a woman without being shrink-wrapped. And, since our mom died, he gets a physical every quarter, so he’s as safe as it gets. Are you on birth control?”

“Yes,” I answered. This was all too bizarre, and way too personal to discuss with a man I wasn’t even planning to have sex with. I stood suddenly. “I can’t believe what you’re asking me.”

“It’s a win-win. You get the money you need regardless. My brother has a chance to move on with his life. And there’s all kinds of psychology for you to study.”

The money was tempting. The psychology was tempting. But Mason was by far the most enticing part of the scheme. I remembered the fantasy where he grabbed me and…

No! There was no way I could even consider being a sex slave.

My curiosity still got the better of me. “Why’s the glove-condom thing so important?”

“Because the last woman my brother had any skin contact with was his wife. He claims it’s a germ thing, but I’ve seen him shake hands with male business associates without even flinching.” Dix threw his hands out and shook his head.

I didn’t like seeing Dix helpless like this. It was all wrong. He was born to be cocky. It worked for him.

A sense of sadness came over me as I replayed what he’d said about Mason.

“Fear of intimacy,” I said, more to myself than to him. “The two women he loved most died a few months apart. He’s trying to protect himself from intimacy because it’s brought him emotional pain in the past. The gloves are a physical manifestation of his need to shield himself emotionally.”

“Wow. I just thought of it as post-traumatic stress disorder or something.” Dix raked his hand through his hair. “But it sounds like you hit the nail on the head. He needs you, Krysta.”

My heart flipped over. At that moment, I sort of loved Dix.

Not in a romantic way, but I loved him for caring so much about his brother. And for being so much more than I gave him credit for when I met him. But I couldn’t possibly do what he was asking.

“I’m sorry…” I took a step toward the door.

“Hold up.”

I stopped. Dix stared at me thoughtfully for a moment. His gaze dropped to his desk.

He pulled a pen up from the leather pencil holder, then dropped it in again.

He took a deep breath. “Let me ask you something.”

“Okay.”

“Are you turning me down because it makes you sick to imagine getting that close to my brother?”

“No!” I replied way too adamantly. “Mason’s handsome and smart and—”

Dix looked up at me and I was stopped short by the naughty grin spreading across his face.

I’d walked into his trap. I was way too passionate in defending his brother, confirming Dix’s suspicions, no doubt.

“None of this is relevant, anyway. I hold a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree and you want me to prostitu—”