Trust Me

by Annabel Joseph

  * * * * *

  I awakened before dawn in a pleasurable haze, with Price’s fingers roving over my body. “I want you,” he whispered.

  It was still dark out. He was a shadow looming over me, stroking me, bringing my body to languorous life. His touch was bizarrely gentle, at least at first. He kissed me endlessly, pinching my nipples and tracing over my hips. It felt weird not to fight him, but there was no violence in his touch, just a possessive warmth.

  He made me stretch my arms over my head, and then he kissed me everywhere. He went down on me, making me twist and jerk and whimper through two orgasms as dawn started to brighten the room. I peered down at him, drifting in pleasure. Was I dreaming? Had I died and gone to heaven? God, he was so good with his mouth. “Wow,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

  “Shh.”

  He started kissing me again, running his fingers up and down my arm. His body felt hot against mine in the winter chill and I snuggled closer. His expression was strangely intense as he tipped my face up for another kiss.

  Come inside me, please.

  I wasn’t allowed to issue demands, but I arched my hips against his thick, hard erection. His intent expression relaxed for a moment into a smile.

  “I know you want it,” he said in the half light. “You’re always wet for me, beautiful girl.”

  I gazed into his blue eyes and spread my legs as he eased forward. He maintained the control, the careful facade for one or two strokes before he surged deep inside me. There was the violence I craved. He expelled a harsh breath and caught my lips in a smothering kiss. I spread my legs wider, letting him have me.

  He squeezed my breasts and then his fingers crept up to my neck. He put his thumb and forefinger on either side of my windpipe, staring down at me. I waited for the inevitable loss of consciousness as I held his gaze. I knew I’d come back, and that he’d still be inside me and around me, and that this was just another form of control.

  I reached to hold him as the edges of my vision turned black. I dreamed of wonderful things during the time I was out. Warmth and comfort, a fire, a blanket holding me safe and secure. I woke to the heady force of his possession. He kissed me and held my neck as I squeezed on his thick length. I wish I could describe how it felt to have him driving inside me. He was power and strength, and barely restrained force, and sometimes unexpected tenderness. He gripped my neck until we came together, gasping and arching toward each other, and he still held it afterward as he gazed down at me.

  “Are you mine?” he asked.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Are you happy being my slave?”

  “Oh, yes, Sir.”

  He still looked unsettled. I traced his high Nordic cheekbones with my fingertips, trying to soothe him. He captured my fingers and brought them to his lips.

  “We’re lucky we found each other,” he said after a moment, then drew out of me. We went into the bathroom, into his gargantuan shower, where we could continue to flirt and embrace. Sometimes Monday mornings could be wonderful.

  “Chere,” he said, while I was rinsing out my hair. “I have to tell you something. I don’t want you to overreact. I don’t want it to affect any of the things we just talked about, you know, that you’re mine. That you belong to me. We’re happy together, aren’t we?”

  I turned to him, watching the water sluice off his golden skin. Price, I love you. I won’t overreact. I’d been waiting for us to have some kind of breakthrough, where he could admit that he saw a future between us. A marriage, a family. Maybe this was it. I prayed this was it...

  “You can tell me anything,” I said. “I’ll always belong to you, no matter what.”

  I studied his expression. He didn’t look like a man on the verge of professing eternal, undying love. I twisted the garnet ring around my finger and waited.

  “Simon died last night,” he said, holding my gaze. “According to the articles, he relapsed and suffered an overdose.”

  I stared at his face, at the hard, unforgiving planes of his nose and jaw. “What?”

  He shut off the water in an abrupt movement and took me in his arms. “Don’t overreact. Remember what we talked about. He’s your past. You’re not responsible for him.”

  “But...” My mind swam backward in horror to our meeting at my studio, and the texts Price hadn’t allowed me to return. “He asked me for help. He said he was struggling.”

  “It’s not your fault he lost that struggle.”

  But it felt like my fault. It felt like Price’s fault. All the sex magic, all the marriage fantasies bled away in the face of this horrible news. I thought I should shove Price away from me, but before I could, he held me tighter.

  “Don’t,” he said, staring down at me. “We’re not going to lose our shit over this. You know the rule about Simon. It still stands. We’re going to go to work, and concentrate on our lives, and move forward. Do you understand?”

  I was having a little trouble catching my breath. He’d known this all morning. He’d known when he woke me up and had tender, hour-long sex with me. He’d known when he choked me out and brought me back with a kiss.

  “When did this happen?” I asked, but what I really meant was, How long have you known, and why are you only telling me now?

  “I found out last night. Andrew texted last night.”

  “I want my phone back.” I needed some control back, because this was fucked up. Our rule about Simon? Really? Simon was dead, possibly because I’d turned my back on him, and Price was stuck on our goddamn rule. Tears rose in my eyes. Simon was dead. Overdosed.

  “Don’t flip out about this,” he said, handing me a towel. “You know what will happen if you flip out on me. Let’s give it some time to process. We’ll talk about it tonight, okay?”

  “Can I have my phone back?”

  “Tonight. After we talk.”

  How could he be so calm? Didn’t he understand he was implicated in Simon’s tragic death? Tonight seemed a thousand years away, and yet I never wanted tonight to come. I dreaded it. I dreaded the furious, unguarded things I’d say to Price about this, and the things he’d do to me in return. I dreaded everything, and Simon...

  It was too late for Simon. I should have helped him, and now it was too fucking late.

  * * * * *

  I entered my studio feeling numb. Maybe I was in shock. Simon was an ex, yes. He’d done awful things to me, yes, but we’d spent ten years together and maybe I’d owed him something, some basic human decency and caring. Maybe I could have prevented his death.

  I hunched over my computer, wondering if Price was watching me. He’d refused to show me where the camera was, or how many there were, and I accepted that because I was his slave and I pretty much allowed him to do whatever the fuck he wanted for some reason that made no sense to me now. We had a rule, and that rule was that I could have nothing to do with Simon.

  I broke that rule and put Simon’s name into a search engine. I clicked the News tab and was confronted by an endless barrage of morbid headlines about his overdose. His dark eyes stared out at me from beneath black shaggy hair in the photos. Why didn’t you help?

  I read the first few articles, mostly accounts of his life, his talent, the loss to the art world. I learned the heartbreaking details of how he’d died in a nightclub bathroom, seizing on the cold, hard tile. Once he stopped, he lay there for over an hour because the other clubgoers thought he was only passed out. He’d stuck a needle in his arm, unable to maintain another moment of sobriety.

  I wondered what he’d thought of at that moment. I wondered if he’d felt guilt or regret, or just relief to be getting high again. Maybe he wanted to die. With the stuff he used, it was only a matter of time. Bad high, an anonymous witness had offered in an interview. Strong shit has been going around the city, and Simon Baldwin never knew when to stop.

  I closed out the articles and tried to work, but the metal swam before my vision as I wiped away tears. I tried to pull it together for my two PM meeting with
Vinod, but he noticed my red eyes.

  “What has happened, my dear?” he asked.

  “A death. A tragic one. I lost an old friend.”

  I left it at that, because if I said any more, all the grief and guilt and furious angst would vomit out of me like lava onto the sample display between us. At least Vinod seemed pleased with the jewelry I’d designed, and after a few kind words of condolence, he left me alone with my thoughts.

  The problem was, I didn’t know what to do with my thoughts. I stewed and read more articles, and cried again, and hoped Price wouldn’t visit me. He didn’t. At least he allowed me some sexual space on this day. If he’d come to me and demanded a blowjob in the back room, what would I have done? Could I have said no? I started to question why I let Price control me the way he did. He said it was for my own good, for my protection, and most of the time I liked it, but someone had died, and now, suddenly, the control felt out of control.

  Finally, I put my work away and took the elevator up to the offices of Eriksen Architectural Design. I wasn’t sure of my mission, only that I had to see Price and talk to him about what had happened. I needed him to admit that he’d fucked up, that he’d steered me wrong and was at fault in this. Esther greeted me at the reception desk.

  “Chere! How are things? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Things are great.” I managed a smile only because I needed it to get what I wanted. “Is Mr. Eriksen here?”

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  “I need to talk to him.”

  Her smile faded. She stood as if to stop me, but I was already heading down the hall to the back.

  “What— What do you need to talk to him about?” she asked, scurrying after me. “He just sat down with some new clients.”

  “In the conference room?”

  “Chere, wait.”

  I wasn’t waiting. I didn’t want to get Esther in trouble, but I couldn’t fucking wait any more. I reached the conference room door and swung it open. Familiar faces looked up at me. Jennifer was there, and Praneesh, and some faces I didn’t know, presumably the clients. Praneesh and Jennifer smiled, surprised. The clients watched me in expectation, as if I was simply a late associate. But Price’s face...

  He looked right at me, his chin propped on steepled fingers. His expression said Don’t do it. Don’t dare.

  “We’re in a meeting,” he said. “I’ll see you later this evening.”

  I glared at him. “I need to see you now.”

  The smiles at the table faded, replaced by uneasy glances between the big boss man in his power suit, and me, the interloper flushed with emotional anger. Price pushed back in his chair and nodded to the clients.

  “Please, continue. I’ll return in a moment.”

  He left it to Jennifer and Praneesh to explain who I was to the other suits in the room. He took my elbow and led me down the hall to his office.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” he asked. His voice was as tight as his grip on my elbow.

  “Yes, I think I am,” I began, ready to pitch into a diatribe.

  “Wait. Not in the hall.”

  He steered me into his office and shut the door behind us. I turned to him, seething with all the hot, awful conflict that had propelled me over here in the middle of the day, in the middle of his meeting. He yanked me to him and kissed me. One of his knuckles stroked my cheek.

  “No,” I said.

  “Why not?” His arm slid around me, hard and muscled through his civilized suit. “You said you needed me, that you couldn’t wait.” He groped my ass and started yanking up my skirt. “Sometimes I don’t want to wait either.”

  “No, I don’t want this. I need to talk to you.”

  I pushed at him but he only held me harder. The caressing knuckle turned to long fingers gripping my cheek. He kissed me again, not soft now, but commanding and angry. I felt trapped within his power, within his enveloping scent and large body. I’d be lost in a moment. We’d be fucking on his desk, and nothing else would matter. I lifted my hands between us and shoved for everything I was worth.

  “I said no,” I yelled. I backed away, holding out my arms to ward him off. “Don’t touch me.”

  I expected hotter anger in reply, but he seemed to have discharged it with the kiss. He looked bored now, haughty, maybe a little bemused that I’d pushed him away from me. He pursed his lips and adjusted one of his cuff links. They weren’t my design.

  “What do you want?” he asked. “Why are you here? I’m busy.”

  “You know why I’m here. We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About Simon,” I said, my voice rising again. “About what happened to Simon, and your part in it. My part in it.”

  “There are no parts to anything. Your ex was a fucking drug addict. He died.”

  His cool, uncaring tone made me grit my teeth. “That’s it? That’s your final word on the matter?”

  “Yes, that’s my final word, which you very well fucking know.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “What happened to him has nothing to do with either one of us. He’s not in either one of our lives. He’s not going to be.”

  “But he is. Just because you insist he’s not, doesn’t make it true.”

  “If he’s in our lives, it’s because you’re fucking up.” He stared down into my face, then turned and walked across his office, over by the window. “Jesus, Chere. Do you still love him?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then why the fuck do you care? Why do you care so much?”

  “Why don’t you care? He died, Price.”

  He threw up his arms. “What did you think was going to happen? He used heroin and crystal meth, and crack, and God knows what else. He was an addict, full stop. He was a fuck up.”

  “I fucking know that.”

  “Then what do you want from me? Do you want me to cry for your fucked up, abusive ex-boyfriend? Do you want me to throw myself on the ground and tear at my hair and say it was all my fault because I wouldn’t let you go to him? What do you think you could have done for him?”

  “I don’t know! Something!”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing you could have done.”

  “You didn’t even let me try.”

  “Because I knew it would end this way. And you would have been involved with him again, and you would have been hurt again, and blaming yourself now instead of me. Or did you think you might have been able change him?” His smile was a mocking grimace. “Do you think he would have fallen in love with you again, you and your golden fucking pussy? You probably wanted that.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “Oh, you could have made him straighten the fuck up, right? Because you’re magical.”

  “We loved each other once,” I shouted. I felt hurt and humiliated, all my feelings belittled. “Simon hit me, yes, he used me, but at least he let me live my life and be myself. He allowed me to have normal human emotions like concern and anger and grief.”

  “Because he made you have those emotions every single fucking day, and he would have done it again if you got involved with him. He did do it again! This is all happening because you let him in the door of your fucking studio.” His expression was awful. His gaze burned me. “Are you seriously grieving over his death? What the fuck for? He never loved you. He used you and hurt you. God, Chere, what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you fucking remember?” The tortured words echoed off the glass walls of his office, resonating between us. There was a faint knock at the door.

  “Not now,” he said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  His voice was strident enough to send the timid knocker away. He turned back to me, the bright glare from the window outlining his powerful frame, and glinting in his blond hair.

  “I don’t give a flying fuck about Simon Baldwin’s death. I don’t care,” he said. “What I care about is you being safe and protected—”

  “Protected? You keep saying you’re protecting me, but you d
on’t care about anything but your own interests!” He stalked toward me, but I kept talking, spitting out words. “You’re jealous of Simon, jealous of anyone who has a part of me. You want everything. You want me all to yourself.”

  “We both know that! We both agreed to that. I earned you, you little bitch. You’re mine.” He grabbed my hand and showed me the ring on my finger. “You wear my collar, you live in my house, you belong to me.” He snaked an arm around my waist and pulled me roughly against him. “And you know how that goes, starshine. I decide who you have in your life. I decide who you help, and who helps you.”

  “Let go of me.” I struggled in his grasp, but he only held me tighter.

  “I’m never letting you go. I told you that at the beginning.”

  “But someone died,” I shrieked. “Someone died, and it makes me crazy that you don’t even care.”

  “I don’t care because he was an asshole who hurt you.” He shook me until my eyes met his. “I don’t care because you were always meant to belong to me, and Simon was always meant to flatline in a fucking nightclub bathroom, and you need to fucking get over your emotional victim bullshit.”

  I slapped him. Hard. When he didn’t react, I launched myself at him, scratching and flailing. We struggled until he caught my hands in his. The arrogant nonchalance had left his face.

  “Are you finished?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m finished with you.”

  His whole body tensed. He looked really big when he was angry. “You’re wrong about that,” he said, his blue eyes pale and cold as ice. “When this fucking tantrum is over, you’ll still be mine. Remember that.”

  I shivered at his tone, and subsided in his grasp. I couldn’t bear to think about a future between us, much less the repercussions of this confrontation.

  “This conversation is over,” he said. “I have to go back to my meeting. I have work to do.”

  I stared at him in befuddled silence. He had to go back to his meeting. Nothing I had said to him mattered, nothing about my feelings or my emotional pain managed to permeate his armor of control. You need to fucking get over your emotional victim bullshit.