Page 104 of To Catch a Sub

Colette’s throat went tight with emotion. She cleared it, several times, then took a deep breath.

“Tell me.” Andrei’s words puffed against her hair.

“He questioned me.”

“Questioned?”

“He wasn’t my…” She’d almost said “master.” Merde. “Wasn’t my Dom. He switched to being Agent Malik. In the middle of our scene.”

Andrei’s hand moved from the base of her spine to her shoulders and back down.

“He waited until I was very submissive, then he asked me where I got the diamond.”

Andrei laughed softly.

Colette narrowed her eyes. “I’m glad you find this amusing.”

“It’s funny,” he protested. “How stupid it was.”

Oddly, that made her feel better.

“To use a scene to try and question an uncooperative informant…” Andrei shook his head. “I thought he was smarter than that.”

Not better, not more principled. Smarter.

“So did I.” More than that, she thought he respected her enough not to use her submission against her.

“Like I said, you rattle him.” Andrei gripped her arms and gently helped her sit up so they faced one another. “It’s because he’s halfway in love with you.”

Colette stared at Andrei, shocked.

He raised a brow. “You’re not surprised. You’re smarter than that.”

Colette pushed off his lap and returned to her chair, the ice pack once more a sweet relief. She looked down at her tea. The comforting touch, brief as it was, had done its job. She felt centered and clear-headed.

Andrei was right. Her shock wasn’t so much at his words, but the fact that he’d said them.

There was no denying that she and Landon had an emotional connection. A messy, complicated connection, and she hadn’t allowed herself to define it.

“I could fall in love with him,” she said softly, needing to confess. “I might already be in love with him.”

“Even after he was a fool and fucked up?”

“Yes, because part of me thinks he only did it because he’s worried about me. Because he wants to protect me.” She grimaced. “And I’m the fool, because protecting me is his job, nothing more.”

“Protecting you just means keeping you in the club where no one can get to you. Collaring you, sceneing with you, fighting with you…those aren’t necessary to protect you. That’s because he wants you, because he needs to touch you, and most of all because he knows you needed to submit.”

“If he cares for me, even a little, then it’s worse that he betrayed my trust.”

“But you said yourself, you think he did it out of fear for you. And maybe frustration.” Andrei rubbed his lips with two fingers. “You frustrate him.”

Colette took a sip of her tea, trying to sort through her feelings. The anger and hurt from earlier had faded. While lying in bed, what she focused on from their scene wasn’t the moment when he asked about the diamond, but the feel of his hand on her back and neck, holding her in place as he spanked her.

It was that connection that fed her soul, while the kink quieted her mind and satisfied her physical cravings.

“I could fall in love with him,” she said again. “A man who will probably try and arrest me at the end of this.”

“Only try?”