The Institute, Daddy Issues(59)

I ex­pec­ted him to drop the act once we got into our suite and he slammed the door shut be­hind us. But though he fi­nally let go of my arm, when he turned to look at me, his face was furi­ous.

“What in the hell was that?” he de­man­ded, but he was so up­set his ac­cent was in over­drive. It came out more as “Vhat in ze hale vus zat?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” I shot back at him.

“What?” He ran both hands through his hair. “What are you talk­ing about?”

“I’m talk­ing about that spank­ing!” I ex­claimed. “You ac­ted like you didn’t want to hit me at all and then you beat me like a red­headed step child!”

“I had to make look real!” he pro­tested.

“It was real all right,” I shot back. And now my ass is really sore!”

“And so to get back at me, you de­cided to em­bar­rass me at table? To do things…you know you should not be do­ing?” he de­man­ded.

“Mandy dared me to,” I said. “I had to…to uh, do what I did, in or­der to get her trust.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “And she might have told me everything if you hadn’t dragged me up here in­stead of let­ting me fin­ish.”

“Let­ting you fin­ish?” Salt star­ted pa­cing. “I was the one who was about to fin­ish—don’t you un­der­stand that, Andi? I was about to come in your sweet mouth. Is that what you wanted?” He roun­ded on me. “Was it?”

I lif­ted my chin. “If that was what it took to earn Mandy’s trust and break this case then, well…yes.”

“You…I can­not be­lieve you.” He sat ab­ruptly on the sofa and scrubbed one hand over his face. “What about after case is through? What about—” He broke off ab­ruptly, shak­ing his head.

Sud­denly I felt ashamed. Not of my ac­tions—I had been do­ing what I thought was ne­ces­sary. But of how I had up­set my part­ner—the most im­port­ant per­son in my life. And I had to ad­mit, if our po­s­i­tions had been re­versed and he had gone down on me in pub­lic with no warn­ing, I would prob­ably feel in­cred­ibly pissed off and be­trayed too.

“Look, Salt…I’m sorry,” I said awk­wardly, sit­ting down be­side him. “She was dar­ing me to do it and say­ing she would tell me about the ‘spe­cial secret medi­cine’ if I did. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to ex­plain what was go­ing on. I guess…” I looked down at my hands. “I guess you prob­ably feel really taken ad­vant­age of right now.”

“No…not that ex­actly,” he said heav­ily.

“Yes, of course you do,” I pro­tested. “I know if our po­s­i­tions were re­versed and you had done, uh, that to me, I would feel really up­set and con­fused. You prob­ably feel like I mo­les­ted you or some­thing.” I bit my lip.

“Mo­les­ted?” He barked a short, un­happy laugh. “Is that how you think I am feel­ing right now?”

“I don’t know…” I shook my head. “Look, I have to be hon­est…” I sighed. “Mandy was dar­ing me but I was also really mad about the spank­ing. I guess…I was try­ing to get some re­venge, mak­ing you be the power­less one for once.”

Salt swore softly and reached for my hand. To my sur­prise, he in­ter­twined our fin­gers and squeezed gently. “Andi,” he said softly. “Look at me.”

Re­luct­antly, I raised my head to look at his face. His eyes were troubled.

“Is not that I feel you took ad­vant­age of me. The feel of your soft hands and sweet mouth on me was a great pleas­ure,” he rumbled softly.

“It was?” I could feel my cheeks get­ting hot.

“Of course.” He brushed his knuckles gently over my heated cheek. “And one I never ex­pec­ted to feel. So that is not what both­ers me.”

“What then?” I whispered.

Salt looked troubled. “I just…do not wish to do any­thing while we are here that will jeop­ard­ize re­la­tion­ship we have back home,” he said. “You are im­port­ant to me, Andi. More im­port­ant than any case we are as­signed. You un­der­stand?”

I nod­ded. “I feel the same way about you,” I ad­mit­ted. “I’ve been wor­ried too…wor­ried that we might hurt our part­ner­ship with everything we have to…have to do here.”