Chapter 51

“Marc, what the fuck was he doing here?” Sinead hissed as she entered his office and shut the door behind her.

Marc sighed. He was fairly certain that he’d told Sinead that they would connect after work on Monday, but their brief conversation had been right before things kicked off with Felicity and Astrid and it had been a busy weekend afterwards. Then, Barisha showed up that morning with hard copies of documents he didn’t want getting emailed around - which very obviously meant they contained things he didn’t want a digital paper trail on. But dealing with Barisha in person was as frustrating as usual. The man was obtuse even in his rough charms.

And now Sinead came in hot-headed.

“Bonjour, Detective,” Marc said evenly. “Please, come in. It’s so nice of you to drop by my office once more, making demands and accusations. It truly is becoming a highlight of the gossip around the water cooler.”

“Cut the smarmy attitude,” Sinead said, her face grim and she stood in front of Marc’s desk and placed her hands on it. “What the fuck?”

Marc took a beat, re-evaluating. Sinead was more aggressive than usual. Either something had happened with Barisha, though Jillian had assured him via text that it hadn’t, or something had happened over the weekend or that morning. Something had changed since she’d made overtures on Saturday to- Ah. She was feeling spurned.

“Are you appropriately dressed for this conversation, Sinead?” Marc asked quietly.

“What?” Sinead practically spat.

“Je n’aime pas me répéter. Are you appropriately accessorised today, Detective?” Marc asked.

Sinead’s jaw clenched and she reached into her inner suit jacket pocket, pulling out the silver buttplug he’d given her. She practically slammed it on the desk. “You mean this accessory, Marc?”

Again, Marc had to take another beat to re-evaluate. The fact that she’d brought it meant that she was thinking about it, but she wasn’t embarrassed by presenting it. She was still just angry.

He’d been walking a knife’s edge with her, he’d known that from the beginning. Push her too hard, and she’d refuse to play. Don’t push her hard enough, and she would think she could walk all over him. Her reaching out had changed the dynamic, but with his focus on Felicity, he hadn’t appropriately shifted his own stance. The game they were playing wasn’t unlike sparring in any martial art - control, leverage, experience and muscle memory were all just as important to being a Dom as they were in a fight. He had gotten distracted, hadn’t adjusted to the new tempo, and now the duel was turning into a brawl.

He needed to regain control but however well it had gone last time, putting Sinead in her place through playful punishment ... that wasn’t a lever he could pull this time. Not here in the office, and likely not with the emotional state she was in.

“Sit, Sinead,” Marc said, gesturing to the chair that Victor hadn’t been using prior. She sat, crossing her arms over her chest and crossing one knee over the other as she leaned back and narrowed her eyes. She was taking the aggressive power position in the conversation, trying to force him to account for himself, but she was also revealing that she was feeling vulnerable through her body language. Crossing her arms and legs to protect vital points. Leaning back to create space.