Page 26 of Security and Submission
Which was nice.
Yasmine
As he should.
Zeus
Do you and Hope have any fun plans for the evening?
Was he asking because he wanted more information about Hope, or was he asking because he wanted to know what Yasmine was up to? It would be nice if it was the latter… except that she was off men. No more dating. No more thinking about romance or any of the other things that she couldn’t have because she was freaking cursed.
Yasmine
I’m going to take her to hang out with some of my friends.
Zeus
Sounds like fun.
Yasmine
Are you and Tiger getting wild tonight?
Zeus
Absolutely. The dog park where I can run him to semi-exhaustion, so he’ll settle down and watch something with me.
Yasmine giggled. Hope whined from the back seat, and she realized she was standing in the parking lot, next to her open car door, rather than getting into it. Oops. She was definitely acting as if she was interested in Zeus.
She needed to cut it out. There was no real indication he was even interested in her that way.
Yasmine
Have fun!
Zeus
You, too.
There. That was a good end to the conversation. Yasmine gave herself a little shake and got in her car. Boundaries. She needed to put up boundaries before her head got out of whack with fantasies about what could be. That’s what always happened, then the guy always ended up with someone else. With Mason, she’d let those fantasies get even farther than usual because they’d been officially engaged, even if it had been arranged.
While they’d been engaged, she’d fantasized about what the wedding would look like. The dress she’d wear. How she’d do her hair. The expression on his face as she walked toward him down the aisle, and he was hit by a thunderbolt of realization that she was the perfect woman for him. He’d fall in love with her then and there, ending the ‘arranged’ part of their relationship.
That’s what she’d dreamed of.
Having someone there in the evening when she got home. Someone to snuggle up with and watch television or a movie with. Someone to talk to over dinner. Someone to be with.
Instead, he was going to have all that with Audrey.
Yasmine wasn’t bitter. Not really. Mostly, she was just mad at herself for thinking it might go any differently. For hoping it would when she should have known better.
Which was why she was not going to be fantasizing about Zeus in that way. No what-ifs. No maybes. No hoping.
Thankfully, game night with her friends should be good and distracting. Yasmine pulled up in front of Claudia’s house and parked the car while Hope looked out the window curiously.
Although Claudia was a total badass, a Domme, and a real-life sniper, her house looked like a fairy-tale cottage. Like something out of a painting with its stone exterior, gabled windows, and the flowering plants all around it. All it was missing was a little stream with a tiny footbridge over it. Though Claudia would be the last person to call herself girly, that’s exactly what her home was.
Going around to the back door, Yasmine grabbed Hope’s leash as the dog hopped out, curiously sniffing the air.
