Read Online Command Performance by Annabel Joseph - Free Book Online Page A

sorry if I seem preoccupied. There’s a lot going on with me right now.”
    “I understand. And I know you’re super busy. Really, I understand.” God, this was awkward. Please, please, don’t let him tell me to my face that we’re done. She’d rather get out of the car with her dignity intact and have him never call again. She’d always have the photos, the memories. She couldn’t really blame him for cutting her loose.
    “Well, anyway.” She reached out to touch his hand with the last of her bravery. “Things will get better. Whatever things you’re preoccupied with.”
    He squeezed her hand and got out to walk her to the door. No matter how things ended, he’d always treated her like a perfect gentleman. More importantly, he’d finally, finally shown her the magic of losing herself in a passionate kiss.
    *** *** ***
     
    The skies let loose with buckets of rain and rolling thunder before he got to the hills of Malibu. He didn’t go to his house. He went to Kai’s.
    “Mason?” Kai looked at his watch and back at the wet, bedraggled man on his doorstep.
    “If it’s too late, I’ll go.”
    “No, come in. You look like hell.”
    Mason took off his sodden shoes at the door and went into the living room to throw himself on Kai’s pristine white couch. Kai took a long look at his friend, settling into the chair across from him.
    “So, what’s brought on this existential crisis?”
    “Take a wild guess.”
    Kai smiled. “Hmm. Nice shots of you two at the Golden Globes, by the way.”
    Mason grabbed his hair and hunched up to a sitting position. “I’m so shitty. I’m such a piece of shit.”
    Kai stood with a sigh and went to the kitchen, coming back with two drinks.
    “What is this?” Mason asked.
    “Does it matter? Seltzer and a little vodka. Take the edge off.”
    “Where’s Constance?”
    “Sleeping, I think. Where’s Miri?”
    Mason took a gulp of his cocktail. “Just took her home. God, she’s killing me. The guilt is killing me.”
    “What guilt?”
    “She really likes me, I can tell. I feel horrible doing this, leading her on like this. You should see the adoration in her face when she looks at me. It’s so sweet...and so awful .”
    Kai blinked, thinking a moment. “There’s nothing real to build on?”
    “Real?” Mason threw his head back with a groan. “How can there possibly be anything real? She’s nothing like me. She’s so ridiculously innocent. Really innocent.”
    “Well, yeah. That’s why you started dating her.”
    Mason put down his drink and formed a sphere with his hands. “She’s like this crystal clear ball. Everything she thinks and feels is right there on the surface for anyone to see. She’s so authentic and good. I admire her, seriously, but how can we be together? She’s nothing like Jessamine, nothing like my first wife either.”
    “Well, you divorced both of them, so isn’t it good that Miri’s different?”
    Mason took a long drink and blew out his breath. “Maybe. But...and this is going to sound shitty...I need someone less sweet and starry-eyed. I need someone I can do kink with, someone I can torment and do lurid sexual acts to. I need that right now .” Mason thought of the kiss with Miri in the car, when she’d started to respond to him with her innocent fervor. He’d barely managed to subdue the impulses that had pounded in his brain, to hold her down, to ravage her. But he couldn’t . “Jesus, Kai. I’m dying. For real.”
    Kai ran a hand through his dark hair. “If it’s the sex you need, the kink, Constance would be happy to oblige you anytime. Jeremy would share Nell if you asked.”
    “I don’t want Constance or Nell. They don’t belong to me. And besides, I can’t return the favor.”
    “It doesn’t work like that. Constance adores you and she wouldn’t mind. I wouldn’t mind.”
    “I mind.” Mason sighed in frustration. “Look, Constance is crazy sexy. It’s not that I don’t want to play with her. God,