Yes, Sirs (Book 1 of Desire's Den)

Chapter 143 - Mateo

The kettle on the stove whistled, bringing me out of my thoughts, but only momentarily while I got my tea ready. My eyes felt itchy and dry from the lack of sleep. Luckily, I didn't have any classes to teach today because I looked and felt like pure shit.

I was tired, and I was hurt, and I was fucking pissed.

Looking at my watch, I sighed, like I'd done every five minutes, wondering how much time was enough time to give Emma. I'd told her I would be waiting for her call, but the call still hadn't come, and I was afraid she would use that overactive brain of hers to talk herself into leaving us. Again, I couldn't let that happen.

How much was enough time? I was getting sick with worry, just sitting around waiting for her. Part of being a dominant was knowing what your submissive needed, and sometimes we knew even better what they needed than they did themselves. I'd learned how Emma's brain worked, and we needed to talk things out before too much damage was done. So, why the hell was I simply just sitting here? Decision made, I grabbed my phone and the car keys and went straight for the car.

My phone rang just as I backed out of the driveway. One look at the car stereo, I saw that it was Callan calling. I hit decline.

Fucking idiots. The both of them.

I'd known the guys since college, and never once had they lied to me. Edna Buchanan said it best: Friends are the family we choose for ourselves. That was precisely what we had done; we'd chosen each other. They were the ones I trusted the most, and they ended up letting me the fuck down.

If they'd told this to me before Emma had become my student, we could've been more prepared for this. Instead, it blindsided us.

After I'd called Emma yesterday, I went straight to Callan. He was our go-to guy if we needed to talk shit out. I figured I'd just vent about the messy situation Emma and I had found us in. What I hadn't expected to happen was him and Gideon already knowing she was a student at my school. He tried to explain, but fuck, I was so pissed his words didn't even register, and yeah, I might've called him a bastard, and yes, I might've regretted it the second it was out, but fucking hell. These were the guys who'd had my back for years, and I'd had theirs, so to say I was hurt was an understatement. Gideon hadn't tried to find excuses when I'd called on him next to tear him a new asshole. Instead, he'd let me yell, not even trying to defend his actions—that just made me angrier.

The thing was, I wasn't just pissed at them for keeping it from me, but also Emma. If we'd known what we were walking into on the first day of class, it would've ended differently. She wouldn't have been heartbroken because by then, I would've already eased her worries. She would've known she mattered more to me than that job—no matter how much I loved it, I cared about her even more.

We would've ended yesterday differently because we would have known that we would still be okay.

I drove to Emma's place in record time. Now that I'd decided to see her, it couldn't happen soon enough.

Standing outside her building door, I pushed the button to her intercom and hoped she wouldn't turn me away.

"Who's this?" a man asked, making me tense.

"Mateo, who are you?" Why was there another man in her apartment?

The intercom went silent for so long, I was about ready to call the asswipe who owned the building to come and lock me in. Turned out I didn't need to because the door to the building opened up, revealing Emma's friend, Kevin, and he looked seriously annoyed. I wondered what his deal was.

"Should I expect Gideon to come running down Emma's door, too?" he muttered with a heavy dose of annoyance.

"What does that mean?" I asked but then shook my head. "You know what, it doesn't matter." What mattered was seeing Emma.

I pushed my way past him and ran up the steps until I got to her floor, pausing only when I saw blood on the floor right by her door. "What the hell happened here? Is she okay?" I questioned Kevin that followed along behind me.

"That's not her blood," he simply said.

"That wasn't what I asked. Is she okay?" I demanded to know, which surprisingly made him look even angrier.

"Is she okay?" he echoed. "What do you think?"

I didn't actually think she was okay, but that was why I was here in the first place. "Look, I know she got hurt when she found out I was her professor, but—"

"Of course, she's hurt by that, but she's even more hurt by you guys lying to her since you fucking met her. That is why she cried herself to sleep last night, not because she found out she was your student."

Wait... what? I must've looked confused because he continued talking.

"The Private investigator. Does that ring a bell?"

Oh. Fuck.

"I know how much she cares about you guys, so I'll say to you what I said to Callan—" Huh, Callan? "—You better fucking fight for her because if you don't, you damn well don't deserve her."

Kevin didn't wait for a reply as he went into her apartment and slung a bag over his shoulder before coming back out. "Oh, and one more thing," he said, stopping in front of me. I didn't even have time to react before his fist connected with my nose. I cursed at the sharp pain of his punch.

"That was for Emma."