Chapter Thirteen.

Talk *

The flight to Turkey was shorter, and arriving in Istanbul was much less insane, the crowds smaller and more manageable. The hotel room was less high up, the food much less tasty. We would be here barely two weeks before making the short journey to Bulgaria, so I wasn't even inclined to unpack. I did, though, in my stilettos and ass plug, while Jeremy looked on.

You're staying right here. Put it all away.

A couple days after we arrived, Martin paid Jeremy a visit. I assumed immediately it had something to do with me and with sex, and wondered if Martin knew how to double penetrate women like Kyle did. But instead I was ordered to my room to "bury my nose in a book" while they talked, and they talked late into the night.

I didn't pay attention to what Jeremy and Martin talked about until they started to argue in loud, sharp voices, which were quickly muffled by another voice, which sounded like Kyle's. So Kyle was there too, and I was banished to my room. They were having some kind of powwow, and I was completely certain it was about me. I crept over and put my ear to the door, but I couldn't make anything out, just legal mumbo-jumbo terms and Jeremy hissing that he wanted it to stop.

My body froze. He was getting rid of me. My blood buzzed in my ears.

It seemed impossible, but what else could it be? If Martin was here, it had to be about my contract, how to get out of it. I thought of what I might have done to upset him. We didn't always get along perfectly. I wasn't always a perfect sub, but still, he'd given me no indication that he was totally unhappy with me either. Not until now. I want it to stop.

I finally couldn't stand the anxiety. I had to know. I opened the door to go to the kitchenette under the guise of getting a drink. I glanced over at them as casually as I could.

They fell silent as the grave, staring at me balefully, all three hunched over Martin's laptop.

"I told you to stay in your room," Jeremy said.

"I was just going to get some water."

"Well, get it," he snapped.

I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and opened it, standing right where I was.

"Is everything okay?" I asked. I meant to sound offhand, but my voice sounded small and scared.

"Everything's fine," Jeremy said, although his face looked just the opposite.

Martin pasted on a fake smile. "How have you been, Nell?" he asked. "You look great. The job suits you well."

"Yes, it does." I looked at Jeremy again, searched for clues to what they were talking about. As usual, he was impossible to read. All I could really divine was his frown.

"Go, go on. I'll come in later," he said, nodding toward my room.

I went inside and shut the door, my heart hammering. What had I done? Kyle wouldn't even look at me, and Martin's smile had been totally forced. He was looking for a new girl. That had to be it. Going over contracts, figuring out how to trap her as he'd trapped me. I climbed into bed, fighting the urge to start bawling. I wasn't going to cry over him. I had given him everything I could. If I wasn't enough for him, there was nothing more I could do.

But sleep didn't come. My mind turned over and over, analyzing my many shortcomings. I wasn't very good at taking pain, for starters. Wasn't that something doms always wanted in their subs? The ability to take pain without sobbing like an infant? I also had a way of getting carried away when he was fucking me, doing stuff that a good sub probably shouldn't do, like scratching and biting. And I was always begging in a totally undisciplined way to be allowed to come.

Maybe I read too much. Maybe I was too brainy. Maybe I was too shy. Too reticent in front of the cameras. Maybe he sensed that I was falling in love with him despite my best efforts to the contrary. Maybe he was just tired of me fighting with Kyle.

I waited, curled up under the covers, until the voices quieted and I heard Martin and Kyle go away. Still, he didn't come. I got out of bed and opened the door.

Jeremy was sitting on the couch, silent, staring into space.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "If I did something-"

"You didn't do anything." He sighed. "It's just... Listen, it's none of your business. None of your concern."

"Are you finding someone else?" I had to ask it, although I didn't want to know the answer. I had to know. "Another girl?"

He snorted. "Another girl? Why would you think that? Because Martin was here? He's my lawyer. We talk about a lot of things besides you."

I hugged myself, embarrassed at letting my insecurity show. I expected more teasing from the bemused look on his face, but instead he held out his hand. "Come here."

I crossed the room. He pulled me into his lap, and I melted against his solid warmth. I burrowed my head into his neck and breathed in the soothing, familiar scent of his aftershave.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Sometimes I just can't get used to all this. And I'm afraid you're not happy with me."

"Why would you think that?"

His fingers stroked up my back to rub my nape. I felt all the feelings I'd kept hidden inside struggle to the surface. "I don't know. I guess, just, sometimes...the stuff you do to me-"

"What stuff?"

"Like sending me off to my room. Not talking to me. Sharing me with Kyle-"

"Listen, the sharing stuff, you know, don't read too much into it. I share you because I like to. Because it gets me off. That's it."

"I know."

"And you know as well as I do that kinks are kinks. You can't help what gets you going."

"I guess."

The fingers continued kneading, calming me. I felt his chest lift and drop in a sigh. "I hope you remember that you're not to get overemotional about this job. The whole reason I pay you is so I don't have to put up with this kind of shit."

"Thank you for calling my feelings 'shit,'" I said, pulling away.

"You know what I mean. Babysitting your feelings isn't what I pay you for."

I made an indignant sound that was silenced when he pulled me back against him. The magic fingers began again on my nape. I shivered and cuddled closer. I could feel my body unwind. A moment later his fingers left my neck and his arms wrapped around me tight.

"Listen," he said against my ear. "Let's just keep things simple. Let's just remember I pay you to do as I ask. You obey. If you have a need, a pressing, human need, you let me know. But if you start to obsess over stupid shit and get emotional like you're my girlfriend, then I'm going to let you go. I can't deal with it. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I said, and truly, I understood every word he spoke. What I didn't understand was the why behind it.

"I mean, I thought things were going pretty well," he said. "I thought you were happy."

"You pay me to be happy, don't you? So I am." I felt him go tense under me. I wished I could have taken the words back. I sat up and looked in his eyes.

"Are you happy, Jeremy?"

He glanced away, then back at me. "Tonight? I'm a little stressed."

"Why are you stressed?" I took his hand in mine, stroking the soft tufts of hair on the back of it with my fingertips.

He shook his head. "I told you. It's not your concern." He took a deep breath and held my hand tighter. "Relax me. Tell me a story. Not a story from Eden. One of the stories from those books you always have your nose buried in."

I laughed. "You must really want me to stop whining, to subject yourself to that."

"There must be something to them, if you like them so much. Tell me a story. Explain humanity to me."

I thought for a moment, mentally sorting through the hundreds of tales I loved and remembered.

"Do you know the story of Rhiannon?"

He rolled his eyes. "What do you think?"

I smiled and lay back on his shoulder. "Rhiannon was a Celtic goddess. She didn't want to wed the god her parents picked out for her, so instead she married a mortal. A king."

Jeremy snorted. "She still made out pretty good, then, I guess, for marrying a mortal."

"Yeah. She had a happy marriage. She and the king had a son and lived for a year in harmony and love. But then the son went missing. The nurses who'd been charged with caring for the son laid the blame for his disappearance on Rhiannon. To back up their claim, the nurses slaughtered a young animal and spread its carcass and bones around and made it look as if Rhiannon murdered and ate her own son."

"That's disgusting."

"What's disgusting is that everyone believed it. Because Rhiannon was different, a goddess and not a mortal. They all turned on her and believed the nurses. The king turned his back on his wife and left her trial and punishment to the people. They decreed that she must wear a horse collar and live outside the grounds as a slave, carrying guests back and forth from the gates to the castle."

"Kinky," said Jeremy.

"You're a perv. Anyway, Rhiannon didn't fight back or mourn the unfairness of her punishment. She accepted it with the grace of a true queen."

"Or submissive."

"Listen, this isn't about BDSM, if you can pull your mind out of the gutter for just a few more minutes."

Jeremy smiled. "Okay, I'll try, but it won't be easy with you in my lap."

I sighed as he pulled me closer. I could feel his hard-on rising against my hip. "Through scorching summers and bitterly cold winters, she wore the collar, swearing to anyone who would listen that one day her love and dedication would bring her son home. The same people who condemned her eventually were moved by Rhiannon's courage and dignity, and word of her plight began to spread beyond the castle grounds to the outlying lands.

"One day a nobleman came to the gate holding the hand of a small boy. Rhiannon graciously offered to carry them to the keep. Instead the nobleman placed the boy's hand in hers and said, 'Brave Queen, your son is home.' It turned out the careless nurses had left the son in a field, and the nobleman found him, considered him abandoned, and raised him as his own. The tales of Rhiannon's predicament made him realize whom the boy belonged to. Everyone rejoiced, and Rhiannon was freed from her slavery at last."

"Are you jealous?" Jeremy asked as I paused. "You'd like to be freed too, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, Jeremy. This story's not about me. The point of Rhiannon's myth is that when she returned to the castle, to her husband and everyone who'd wrongly condemned her, she forgave them all. Forgave every one of them and told her husband she still loved him. She endured the terrible hardships of life with courage and dignity. She's the goddess of being strong."

"Is she? Is that why you like her so much?"

"I don't like her," I said. "I actually never would have put up with the crap she did."

"I could get you a collar, if you like."

"That was your favorite part of the story, wasn't it?" I sighed. "The only part you actually heard."

"Yes. Rhiannon, goddess of pony play and enslavement. What other BDSM myths do you know?"

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help laughing. He grinned back, then stood and threw me over his shoulder. I shrieked and clung to him as he carried me into his room and tossed me on the bed. His libido, his perversity, God, it was ridiculous, but at least I knew I wasn't going anywhere.

Our time in Turkey flew by. I would have liked to stay longer. Turkey was a land steeped in cultural history and mythology. I told Jeremy stories from Turkish and Ottoman mythology every night, Anatolian myths, Nart sagas, all the local mythology I studied and loved.

In return he threw me a huge surprise toga party for my birthday. While he may have missed the bull's-eye, he hit the target just fine. The endearingly fake Greek decor, the "David" waiters, the entire cast and crew of his movie getting wasted in bedsheets. I took it for what it was: a magnanimous gesture of affection and fun. He beamed at me from across the room, looking like a true Greek god in his toga, and more David-like than any of the half-dressed waiters roaming around.

"Having fun?" Jessamine Jackson's deep, sultry voice sounded right beside my ear.

I turned to her with a smile. I'd talked to her on several occasions by now, running into her on the set and so forth, but she was still larger-than-life to me, even in a toga and nothing else. Especially in a toga and nothing else.

"Look at Jeremy." She snorted, waving at him across the restaurant. "He's so proud of himself."

Jeremy leaned on a balustrade, watching both of us with a meditative smile.

"He just wanted to find a party theme where everyone could wear the least amount of clothing possible," I laughed.

"That's our Jeremy."

Our Jeremy? It didn't surprise me to hear her say that, but it made me jealous. Maybe she only meant it in a friendly sense, but knowing Jeremy as I did...

I looked over at Jessamine again, this time as a rival.

It was hopeless. She was so much more beautiful than me, elegant, confident, strong, graceful. If Jeremy looked at us side by side, it didn't take much intelligence to figure out where I would end up in that comparison. But Jessamine was married. Her husband, Mason Cooke, was a bigger star than Jeremy, and every bit as sexy and hot. She wasn't competition, but I suddenly disliked her all the same.

"I hope you're having a happy birthday," she said, leaning closer with a smile.

"Yes, I am."

"And how are you enjoying the movie-star life?"

"It's...interesting."

Jessamine laughed, a beautiful, feminine sound. "You can tell me the truth, Nell. I'm in on the game."

The game? What game was she talking about? I slid a look at Jeremy.

"Honey, it's okay. I know," she said. "But I'll never tell. Jeremy and I go way back."

"Do you?"

"Yes, we do. I can tell you whatever you want to know about him too."

"Really?" My eyes opened wide, considering the possibilities. Jess laughed.