Mastering Lexie (Stronghold Book 4) (8 page)

"Where
is
 your furniture?  You can't tell me
you parents didn't let you take any."

Lexie rolled her eyes, leaning her hip against the kitchen counter
since it was obvious Patrick wasn't going to move aside and let her out of the
narrow space.  Her kitchen was just a narrow galley with counters and
cabinets on either side, with a stove and a fridge.  There wasn't even a
dishwasher.

"Yeah, but I wanted to pick out my own.  And I knew that
if I brought any to use, I would never get around to actually getting my
own.  This way I'm motivated to save up my money for the stuff that I
need," she said, with a grin.  It was a good way of getting around
her tendency to spend money on things like going out with friends and actually
focus on getting the stuff that she wanted.  Having furniture to
"make-do," for her, would mean that she would end up making do with
the same stuff for years.  Living like this gave her a lot more motivation
to save her money for the big pieces.  She almost had enough for the
gorgeous queen-sized storage bed that she'd fallen in love with at a discount
furniture store.  Yeah it was discount, but it was still pretty. 
Plus the extra storage underneath the actual bed would come in handy, and the
salesman had said that it only needed a mattress, not a box spring.  Since
she already had two queen-sized mattresses, that wasn't a problem.

Patrick sighed, uncrossing his arms, and he took a gulp of his
wine.  After another moment, he took another gulp.  Normally he didn’t drink
wine so quickly, she must really be getting to him.  Hiding her smile
behind her own glass, Lexie took another sip of hers.  She'd thrown enough
of her "weird logic" his way over the years that he never bothered to
argue with her about it anymore.  "What are you doing tomorrow?"

The segue was so unexpected that Lexie was caught completely off
guard.  She blinked, feeling like she'd just spun around really quickly.
 "Um... nothing until the evening, and then I'm going over to Angel's
for some girl time.  Well," she amended, grimacing a bit, "if she
still wants me to."

"She'll be fine," Patrick said, with the unconcerned air
of a Dom who didn't think anything of turning a naughty subbie’s ass bright
red.  "Tomorrow I want you to clean up this place, and unpack
everything that's clothing or shoes.  What time are you going to be at
Angel's?"  He placed the half-full wineglass down on the counter as
Lexie frowned at him, her ire picking up.

"Six o'clock, but-"

"Good, I'll be by around five thirty then."

"Excuse me," Lexie said, heatedly, as she put down her
own wineglass a little harder than usual.  The liquid sloshed over the
side, but she didn't care.  She was too busy walking after Patrick who had
turned his back and started to leave as soon as he'd made his infuriating
announcement.  "Exactly what makes you think you have the right to
tell me what to do in my own apartment?"

Patrick stopped and turned, his eyes suddenly so hot and hard and
intense that it literally knocked the breath from her body as she skidded to a
halt, staring up at him.  That was not how she expected him to be looking
at her right now.  The air around them seemed to tighten, as if his
authority was a visceral thing hovering like an aura over his body.  

"If you want to return to Stronghold and be trained by me as
a submissive, then when I come here at five thirty tomorrow, this apartment
will be clean and most of those boxes will be unpacked."

The air in her lungs was gone.  Sucked away by a strange mix
of excitement and trepidation and joy and fear.  

"Do you understand me, Pixie?"

She nodded, and Patrick frowned at her.  Fuck.  Her
pussy clenched even as her gut swirled with anxiety at the expression on his
face.

"First lesson, Pixie.  When I ask you a question, you
will respond verbally, and you will call me Sir."

"Yes, Sir."  Air that she didn't know she had
trapped in her lungs came out in a sudden rush, as her body finally released
enough tension for her to talk.  As if it had been waiting for his
permission.  

"Good girl."  Those hard eyes warmed, and he gently
touched her cheek before suddenly turning and striding out the door.  His
voice drifted behind him even as the door closed.  "I'll see you
tomorrow."

Holy...

Suddenly shaky, Lexie sat down hard in the middle of the floor,
feeling stunned.  Feeling... god, she couldn't even describe how she was
feeling, there were too many emotions rioting through her all at once. 
Joy, because he was finally going to let her into the club, because he was
going to train her.  Slight frustration... what did he mean by
train?  Were they dating now?  Training her to be
his
 submissive
or to be
a
 submissive?  There was a pretty big
difference.  Anticipation - who cared what he was going to train her as,
as long as he was doing it!  It was a huge step, and she'd be able to show
him that she could take whatever he could dish out.  Fear that she would
disappoint him... that she'd fuck this up. 

Arousal. 
Really hot, anxious, body-tightening arousal.  Who knew being told to
clean up could be sexy?

A spurt of excitement flowed through her as she realized that,
even if he meant to train her as
a
 submissive, he was treating
her like
his
.  This was a test.  She knew damned well that
Patrick liked to give his girlfriends lists of chores and errands that needed
to be done during the day.  Most of them hadn't lasted long.  Lexie,
on the other hand, had found herself floundering a bit without the structure of
school. 

Yeah, she had a job.  Yeah, she managed to get her bills
paid.  But the state of her apartment was a pretty good indication of how
she managed things that didn't need to be done right away.  It was just
too easy to be distracted by other things that seemed more pressing than
unpacking the rest of her clothes.  Heck, even tomorrow, she hadn't planned
to do anything about her apartment.  Maybe clean up the mess she'd made,
but after that she probably would have gone over to her parents, or maybe go to
Angel's early, or gone shopping or something rather than unpack the boxes that
really did need to be unpacked.  Because it wasn't like they had to be
done right now.

Except, now they did.  Because Patrick had told her to. 
Some of the ladies in her Women's Studies classes a couple years ago would kick
her butt to hear her say it, but it felt really right.  What did they know
anyway?  Women's rights were about women making the choices that felt good
to them, and for Lexie, it felt good to do what Patrick had told her to.

Picking herself up off the floor, she started picking up some of
the clothes around her.  Humming softly to herself, she smiled; the wine
glasses in the kitchen were completely forgotten.

******

Returning to Lexie's apartment the next day, Patrick beat down the
feeling of anticipation that had haunted him ever since he'd left the night before. 
It had felt incredibly good to give her directions, knowing that he would check
up on her, knowing that there would be consequences.  He was a bit torn
about whether he'd deny her Stronghold or if he'd spank her, but either way, it
was the first time in far too long that he'd exerted his dominance over a woman
in any kind of real way.

Once Lexie had started working at the club, he'd stopped playing
there... and since he didn't really enjoy casual scenes, he didn't play at home
either.  Hell, he hadn't dated since Lexie started working at Stronghold,
even when she was going out with that little jerk Trevor.  That had driven
him nuts.  The little bastard hadn't deserved Lexie at all, although at
least she'd figured that out.  Patrick had gotten a couple good swings in
before his friends had pulled him off the dickwad.  She'd brought Trevor
to Stronghold for the very first theme night that Patrick had allowed her to
hold.

The little idiot had tried to convince Lexie to sneak off the main
floor and to one of the private rooms - something Patrick had expressly
forbidden her to do.  She'd refused to leave the main floor, like she'd
been told to, and the dumbass had decided to push things on the dance
floor.  There were plenty of other couples around them doing similar
things.  Patrick had thought he was just going to have to sit back and
watch it, but at the first frantic glance Lexie had sent him as she tried to
push Trevor away, Patrick had been beside her in an instant.  

It was one of the first times that he'd lost control over himself
in years.  He'd just meant to separate them and give her boyfriend a firm
lecture about safe, sane and consensual, but then the kid had told Patrick to
leave them the fuck alone and grabbed Lexie's breast.  Hard enough to make
her cry out, and she'd pulled back, tripping over her feet and falling to the
ground.  So Trevor had ended up with a black eye, a sore jaw, and some
bruised ribs by the time Justin had pulled Patrick off of him.  

He'd sent Patrick to his office to cool off, which he was only
willing to do because Hilary had already been holding and comforting
Lexie.  Adam and Liam had helped Justin restore order while Jessica kept
everyone away from Lexie, and Chris guarded Patrick's office door.  It was
not Patrick's best night, despite the fact that everyone had really enjoyed the
theme night and attendance had been at an all-time high.  He was kind of
sad that he'd missed Olivia scaring the shit out of Trevor though.  As far
as he knew, he was the only one that knew exactly what had gone down; the
others thought Trevor had accidentally pushed her.  Otherwise, he might not
have gotten out of the club alive.

The only good thing to come out of that night was that Lexie had
broken up with Trevor immediately, and Patrick hadn't had to go through the
torture of watching her date anyone else since then.  Just the torture of
knowing that he couldn't claim her for his own, which was bad enough.

Today was a bit of a test.  He wanted to see if Lexie would
follow a non-sexual order that wasn't part of a scene.  This wasn't just a
series of scenes to Patrick, it was the way he wanted to live his life, and he
wanted to see if Lexie would follow through or not.  Although he liked a
sassy sub, he didn't want every minute of his life to be a battle, which meant
that his submissive needed to follow orders some of the time.  Especially when
it came to how she kept her home, because he sure as hell wouldn’t put up with
his own home ever looking the way Lexie’s apartment had last night.

He didn't even get a chance to knock on the door before it
opened.  A cheerful Lexie was practically bouncing on her feet as she
grinned up at him.

"Five thirty, right on the dot," she said.
 "As expected."

"Hey Pixie."  Damn she was cute when she was like this. 
Wearing a grey t-shirt advertising some restaurant and blue jean shorts, she
was completely casual and completely beautiful.  Her short hair was tucked
behind her ears, and she wasn't wearing any make-up at all, and Patrick had the
strongest urge to wrap her up in his arms and never let her go.

"Come on in," she said, bouncing back from the door,
pride practically emanating from her body.  Patrick already knew that she
had done everything he'd told her to.  Everything about her demeanor
screamed proud submissive, and part of a Dom/sub relationship was acknowledging
and rewarding good behavior.  

Warmth flooded his chest, seeing her like this.  Knowing that
she'd done everything he'd told her to, and that she'd found satisfaction in it
rather than resentment or boredom.

The apartment was spotless, and the number of boxes stacked
against her wall had been halved.  Granted, other than the clothes, her
place hadn't really been all that messy.  Still, Patrick liked things neat,
and it had made a good test for her.  Especially since she'd never been
messy before, but, as she'd pointed out, she'd always had her mom on hand to
make sure her room was clean.

"Good girl," he said, enjoying the way her bright blue
eyes lit up from within at his words.  He'd told her that before,
countless times, but this time it had more weight.  Because this time,
they both knew she'd crossed some invisible line, that it meant something just
a little bit different.  

"So now what?" she asked, practically bouncing on her
toes as she tilted her head back to look at him, stepping a little bit closer
and getting into his personal space.

Patrick raised his eyebrow.  "What do you mean?"

"I did what you said, right?  And I proved I can handle
Stronghold.  So now what?"  She wasn't just eager, her voice was
a little bit challenging.  Even if he tried to let the situation slide
back to the status quo, she wasn't going to accept that. 

He knew it, but he still felt a bit of exasperated resignation at
hearing the confirmation of that in her voice.  For the past year she'd
been working towards this, and they both knew it.  There wasn't anything
he could do to stop her, really, but he could at least make sure she took
things slowly.  

"Go have fun at your girls’ night.  Come back to work at
Stronghold on Tuesday, and I'll start training you on Thursday."

******

Even though she felt anxious showing up at Angel's, considering
she wasn't sure how Adam or Angel felt about her right now, Lexie still felt
like she was walking on sunshine.  Literally.  Like the entire world
was glowing and she was so light on her feet that she was practically floating.