A Slave to Duty and Desire (The Third Installment in the A Slave to Love Series)

Chapter 4: World's Best Boss

Kiana

Nothing worse than spending your day off helping some freeloader improve his grade, but here I was doing just that, against my will, and I had to do it with a smile on my face. Or at the very least, not a full out grimace.

I was walking up the street to Lana's apartment under the cloudy skies when an all too familiar blue car slowed to follow me, window rolling down.

"Did you walk all the way here?" Cam asked, pulling over to the sidewalk. I wasn't even in Lana's apartment yet and he was already annoying me.

"Took the bus." To avoid his face, I glanced down at his car, only for a snort to escape me in the most ungraceful way possible.

Someone had scratched a dick into his passenger door. It wasn't even one of the lame simplistic drawings high school boys liked to doodle on their desks when teachers weren't looking. This one was anatomically accurate and detailed, enough that it should probably feature in an anatomy textbook or a very raunchy magazine.

"I know," he said with long suffering irritation as he pieced together my amusement. "I don't know who I pissed off, but had I known they were such a successful artist I would never have crossed them."

Cam had no doubt collected enemies like people collected stamps, so I doubted this was the first time he'd been on the receiving end of some kind of attack. I just wish I'd been creative enough to think of this kind of revenge. Whoever did it was my new hero.

"It's very...beautifully rendered, at least."

"Yes, except I keep getting stopped by people who think it's foul and some people who think I'm advertising special services."

"Oh no." My inability to stop smiling rendered my half-assed attempt at sympathy completely useless.

"I'm gonna go park, I'll see you up there," he said, pulling away from the curb and my complete disregard for his car, leaving me free to laugh my ass off the rest of the sidewalk up to her building. Maybe today wouldn't be as bad as I thought.

********

It was a miserable and unproductive day. For me, anyway. Lana and Cam had hit it off, flirting nonstop while I did my best not to throw myself into the oven as an act of self preservation. Lana's apartment was technically bigger than mine in that it had more rooms for the four of them, but the communal space we were in was so narrow there was nowhere to hide from Cam and Lana's antics.

Grudgingly, I had to give Cam credit. With Lana as our audience, he followed the recipe and my tips, and actually made his own damn soufflé along with Lana making hers. I kept my eye on them, but there was no cheating or unfair helping going on. Who knew impressing a girl would make Cam a somewhat useful person?

Unfortunately, with the soufflés in the oven, it left nothing to do but clean up and listen to them be nauseating. A text from Blade saved me from watching them flirt, so I stepped to the side while they joked and teased each other, hitting each other with dish towels instead of drying the many dishes from the mess we'd made.

Blade: have you made that asshole into a pie yet?

Kiana: this isn't sweeney todd, I wouldn't ruin a pie with his gross body parts anyway

Blade: if you need saving, tell me

Kiana: don't tempt me. I was ready to leave before I even got here

Blade: stick it out to the end and ill pick you up with a surprise treat

Kiana: tell me what it is