The Sassy Submissive

Ch. 9 - Angel Returns to the BDSM Club Stronghold

"Knock, knock." Justin matched the deed to the words, standing halfway in the doorway of Adam's office. Adam scowled. He'd purposefully avoided lunch with the other man today. "Can I come in?"

"Depends on what you want to talk about."

After being lectured by Patrick last night and receiving a blistering e-mail from Olivia after he ignored her call, he wasn't really in the mood to be lectured by anyone else. Not that he was sure Justin knew, but the way gossip went around their group of friends they seriously resembled a bunch of giggling high school girls sometimes. When Justin shut the door behind him, Adam scowled even more, knowing Justin would only do it if he wanted to talk to him about something serious.

Since he knew there wasn't anything going on with the company, that meant it had to be personal.

"So." Justin sat down in one of the chairs, stretching his long legs out in front of him to lounge comfortably. "Thank God it's Friday, huh?"

Tapping the base of one of his pens, Adam just stared across the desk at him. The smile on Justin's face widened to a grin which made him look even more like Chris than he usually did. Silence stretched between them, but it was obvious Adam's reluctance to speak was amusing Justin more than anything else.

"What do you want?" he asked, a little sourly. He was not in the mood for chit chat. Even after he'd gone home last night he hadn't been able to sort out his conflicting emotions.

Discovering Angel's deception, followed almost immediately by one of the most intense scenes of his life, and then a lecture about his own failings from Patrick had not left him in the best state of mind. A good night's sleep would have been helpful, if only he'd been able to fall asleep. Instead he found himself picking apart the scene over and over again, trying to remember every movement, every word, and every facial expression.

Trying to figure out if all of it had been real. Wondering what the hell he was going to do if the answer was 'yes.'

"I heard you had an interesting scene at the club last night."

Adam stopped tapping the pen and just gripped it tightly in his fist. "I really hate our group of friends sometimes."

"They wouldn't have known anything was up if you hadn't blown it at the end," Justin pointed out. "Jared texted me last night, he wanted me to check in on you this morning. Make sure you were okay. Any reason he should have been worried about that?"

Well at least it wasn't Olivia. She knew far more about what had happened than Jared did, and if Justin was in here questioning him then it meant she probably hadn't shared any of it. Thank God. Adam hadn't exactly explained himself to Patrick last night either.

"I'm fine."

"Yeah, and you look it too."

Adam opened his mouth and then closed it again, frowning. He was about to ask Justin what he would do if he found out Jessica had lied to him or misled him about something important, when he remembered both Justin and Chris had actually done that to Jessica. They'd not only known who she was when she went to the Venus School, they'd used their connections to ensure they'd be there at the same time as her. And they'd known the entire time she was there that they'd be seeing her when they went home, since they all worked at the same company.

At the time, he'd thought their tactics amusing. But he'd known them for a long time, he knew Justin and Chris were trustworthy and they weren't habitual liars.

Theater girls... well he'd done enough shows in high school to know theater girls could be kind of crazy.

So which was Angel? A liar who was possibly crazy, or just a woman who had lied because she felt she had a good reason to but was usually honest?