Chapter 6 Nate
NATE
My baby sister.
My baby sister.
The words repeat through my mind like a stuttering record. Harper is Mason Cain’s sister. Harper, the woman who I haven’t been able to stop thinking about for the past twelve hours, is not only here in front of me, but she’s also my old friend’s little sister.
And, if that isn’t bad enough, she’s a student at the university.
Something about the panic on Harper’s face calms me.
She looks about ready to lose it, like she might actually hyperventilate.
If I don’t want Mason to know exactly what I exposed his little sister to last night—or of the unspeakably filthy things I’ve been imagining doing to her ever since—I need to get her calmed down.
It’s more than that, though. More than a desire to keep from getting caught. I don’t like the way she looks, don’t like the fear and shame I see in her eyes. I certainly don’t want to be the cause of those emotions in her.
Right now, Harper needs me to get control of the situation.
My opportunity comes when Mason’s phone rings within a moment of him gesturing to my seat. “Hell,” he mutters, glancing at the screen. “I need to get this.” He shoots Harper an apologetic look. “I’ll be right back, Harpy.”
He turns away from the table and I look at her. “Harpy?”
Her face somehow manages to darken another shade. I feel like an ass for giving her a hard time when she’s clearly already struggling, yet at the same time I enjoy the fact that I can affect her so easily.
“Sorry,” I say, holding up my hands. “I have older brothers as well. I completely understand about annoying nicknames.” I lean in towards her, lowering my voice. “And I can assure you that harpy in no way describes the woman I met last night.”
She covers her red cheeks with her hands, breathing heavily. “Can you please not mention last night?” she whisper-yells. “My brother is ten feet away.”
“He’s on his phone,” I assure her. “You know how absorbed he is when he’s talking to work. I wouldn’t be surprised if he forgets we’re even here for a good half hour.”
I don’t miss the flash of hurt that crosses her eyes and I wonder how many times she’s been the subject of that same distracted behavior from her brother.
“Harper, calm down. Everything is going to be fine.”
Her eyes go wide. “Fine? Are you kidding me right now? How, exactly, is it going to be fine? I met you at a sex club last night and now I’m having brunch with you and my brother.
Who is insanely protective, by the way.” She throws up her hands.
“And if that isn’t enough, you’re a professor at my university. ”
Okay, when she puts it that way, it is pretty bad. But she’s already attracting attention from the other diners nearby. I have to get her calmed down before Mason comes back, or we really are going to be screwed.
“Harper.” She stills under the deep timbre of my voice as I attempt to infuse it with every bit of authority I can muster. “Take a deep breath.” She does what I requested without another comment, her shoulders rising and falling with the shaky inhalation. “Better,” I sooth. “Now another.”
As she breathes in and out, some of the tension in her body seems to dissipate, the tightness on her face visibly relaxing.
Fuck, I think to myself. She’s such a natural submissive. I’ve seen reactions like this before, almost always in the playroom—a woman’s body responding to my dominance without her conscious thought or intention, as if the submission was the most automatic thing in the world.
When outsiders think about our lifestyle, it’s the trappings they associate with us.
The toys, the restraints, the costumes. The punishments, the rewards.
And of course, all of that is part of it, but it isn’t the heart of it.
No, the heart of what we do, what I crave as a dominant, is this.
This connection, a simple moment when my sub responds to me in this way.
When she trusts herself to me, allows me to control even something so basic as her own fear.
And fuck if Harper reacting this way, without any training, doesn’t make me as hard as steel.
She’s still taking those deep calming breaths, the shakiness nearly gone now.
“Good girl,” I murmur, and I can feel the pleasure of my praise radiating off of her.
Damn, I want her. Have wanted her ever since I bumped into her outside of Club Wyld.
But never so much as now, in this moment, as I realize that I will never be able to have her.
I glance over to Mason, his hands waving as he barks instructions into the phone. We probably only have a few minutes more.
“Listen to me, Harper.” I lean towards her, waiting until she makes eye contact. She’s much calmer now, the panic I saw in her eyes earlier muted. “Last night I tried to introduce you to a different kind of life, but I didn’t explain something very important. Do you know what it is?”
She shakes her head, biting her lip, and I so badly want to tug that soft pink flesh away from her teeth, to sink my own teeth into it, rubbing my tongue along her sweetness and—
Stop it, Nate. Control.
“The most important thing about this life is boundaries. None of us could enjoy what we do if we didn’t know how to compartmentalize our lives. We need to be able to exist in the world, to have relationships and careers, without allowing our kink to control us. Do you understand?”
She nods, even though I can see the uncertainty in her eyes. My instinct is to chastise her for lying to me, even about something so minor, and I have to remind myself that I’m not training her. That she isn’t mine to train. And now she never will be.
The disappointment I feel at that thought is so strong that I need to take a breath to steady myself.
“What I’m saying, Harper, is that this won’t be the first time different areas of your life intersect unexpectedly. If you choose to explore this lifestyle, it’s bound to happen. You must learn to control your response. You must learn to compartmentalize. It’s like I said—boundaries.”
This time when she nods I can see the understanding in her face. “So what happens now?”
“We enjoy a nice breakfast with your brother.”
“And pretend we don’t know each other?”
The thought makes me feel uncomfortable, but I know it’s necessary. “Yes.”
“And when we see each other on campus?”
“Your brother told me your concentration is in sociology?” She nods. “Then it’s unlikely we’ll see each other often.”
She raises an eyebrow, the challenge in her eyes enough to make me hard all over again. What I wouldn’t do to wipe that expression off her face.
I struggle to focus on her words as my thoughts desperately try to drift to the many ways I could have fun trying to tame that challenging spirit of hers.
“Sociology and Psychology are part of the same college at Denby.”
“True,” I agreed. “But you’ll probably be working under Travers?” She nods in agreement. “He’s old school, insists on keeping his office in the humanities building. Most of his lectures take place there as well, so that’s where your TA sections will be.”
“While you’ll be over in Grovers,” she says, correctly guessing the building where both my office and lectures are housed. I expect her to look relieved but instead I hear unmistakable disappointment in her voice. This isn’t a good sign.
“My career is incredibly important to me,” I tell her. “And from what your brother tells me, you’re very focused on your studies. Therefore, it’s important that we both remain detached and professional when we’re at the university.”
Her eyes light up. “And when we’re at the club?”
I look at her with horror. She can’t possibly be considering going back to the club. Not now. “We will not be seeing each other at Wyld,” I say, my voice harsh. “Because you will not be there.”
Her face falls. “Why not? I thought you said—”
“Harper. Surely you don’t expect me to continue to interact with you in that lifestyle now.”
That challenge is back in her eyes. “And what, exactly, does our interaction—or lack of it—have to do with my going to the club?”
“Harper—”
“Surely there are other men there that can—”
Fuck that. “Forget it, Harper.”
She looks pissed now. “Nate—which apparently isn’t even your name—”
“It is my name,” I tell her. “My full name is Jonathan Chase the Third. My father goes by John so the family has called me Nathan since I was born. I prefer Nate.”
“But my brother calls you Chase.”
I shrugged. “And I often call him Cain. I call most of my college buddies by their last names. I guess it’s a guy thing.”
She holds up a hand, her face suddenly a shade paler, as if something has just occurred to her. “Hang on. You’re Jonathan Chase? Dr. Jonathan Chase? As in the best-selling author Dr. Jonathan Chase?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
She just gapes at me. “You’re an expert in the field of pop relationship psychology! How did my brother never tell me that he’s friends with the Jonathan Chase?”
“Is this really the most important issue we have to deal with now?” I ask sharply.
Her cheeks darken. “No, you’re right. We were talking about my next visit to the club and who I might find to teach me, if you’re so unwilling.”
It takes every ounce of my control not to grab her and pull her right over my knee for that. Luckily Mason chooses that moment to reappear at our table.
“Sorry about that,” he says, squeezing his sister’s shoulder in apology as he takes his seat. She ducks her head, hiding her red cheeks. He doesn’t seem to notice, grinning at me across the table. “I trust you filled her in on all the important campus gossip?”
I manage to arrange my features in a neutral enough expression in spite of the raging in my chest at the very thought of Harper interacting with another dom.
I have no idea why my reaction is so strong—just about every sub I’ve ever been with has moved on to a different dom after our time is over, most of them men that I know well.
It’s to be expected. The community here in Charlotte isn’t very large.
Besides, I rarely spend more than a few weeks at a time with any sub.
Of course, they’re going to move on after me, just as I do after them.
So why does the thought of Harper doing the same fill me with such a hot stab of rage? I barely know this woman. Maybe that’s it, I tell myself. You’re just worked up because you haven’t actually had her yet. The situation feels unfinished.
The explanation is comforting enough to make the meal bearable.
A waiter arrives to take my order and our food is brought out shortly later.
Mason steers most of the conversation, asking me questions about the department and the campus that he thinks will be of interest to Harper.
She doesn’t have to participate beyond an occasional agreement or question—which is a good thing.
Despite my lecture on compartmentalizing, she’s still clearly tense.
I wonder how Mason doesn’t seem to see it.
Her discomfort is obvious to me, in the set of her shoulders and the tension of her face.
These thoughts are interrupted when her brother brings up my research—and Harper lets out a little gasp. “That’s you?” she asks, her eyes wide as she stares at me.
“What’s me?”
She shakes her head a little, looking almost awed. “You’re running the Gender Roles in Twentieth Century Interpersonal Relationship study? Everyone in my orientation group is dying to get onto that research team.”
I do my best to look modest, not at all liking the surge of pride I feel at her obviously impressed expression. “It should be an exciting opportunity.”
“How many grad students are you taking on?” she asks, leaning across the table now.
It’s the most animated I’ve seen her since I arrived.
It’s also the most confident—her expression is shrewd, eager.
Gone is the submissive, shy girl who I found so appealing.
In her place is an ambitious, self-assured creature I barely recognize.
But fuck me if she isn’t equally as appealing.
“We’re hoping to bring in four grad students,” I tell her. “The competition will be stiff, of course, since the study overlaps with several departments. It’s likely most of the interns will be second-years.”
She gives me a cheeky little grin. “You haven’t read my application yet.”
Mason and I both laugh and I don’t miss the look of pride on his face. “Unfortunately, I won’t be the one choosing the applicants. That decision will be up to the advisors.”
She nods, thoughtful, and I imagine she’s scheming the best way to get her graduate advisor to consider her for one of the spots. And there’s little doubt in my mind that she’ll be successful—this version of Harper seems incredibly likely to get whatever she wants.
And that would be a disaster, I remind myself, because my traitor imagination seems to be taking my body’s side on this one, already concocting fantasies of Harper in my office, late nights poring over research, her eager eyes on mine, expression letting me know she’s in need of something to break the tension, to help her relax.
God, there are so many ways I could help her, so many ways to make her feel good. And to make her feel very, very bad.
Yeah. It would be a freaking disaster if Harper gets one of the spots.