by CD Reiss
I didn’t get myself. I didn’t get why I’d let Adam use my mouth for a sperm receptacle, and I didn’t understand why I liked it. “Pain. Punishment. Degradation.”
She cocked her head to one side, puckered her bee-stung lips a little, paused as if deep in thought. “My mother wanted me to be a lawyer. She worked so hard. She had three kids and I was the ‘smart one.’ So I got to go to private school, and she had enough money to send one of us to college. That was me. I got to go. I got my own room so I could study. When I fucked up, she didn’t yell at me or punish me. No. She’d say it was all right and she trusted me to fix that B-plus next semester or it wasn’t a big deal about that dent in the car. But she’d get all pent up and on edge and she’d yell at one of my brothers for something stupid. I think she was scared of me.”
She ran her finger along the edge of the counter, seeming pensive. “And when Mom got sick, it was all on me. I thought I’d break until I found Charlie. Have you met him? He has this old cane he uses?”
“Australian?”
She nodded.
“He came to our wedding.”
“He was my first Dom. The first time he told me to bend over his desk and pull my pants down, I was so relieved. I knew I was going to do what he told me, no matter what. No matter how much it hurt. It was like I’d been chained up my whole life and I was free.” She looked at me, letting her hand fall from the counter. “Do you get it now?”
She was so vulnerable, I didn’t want to cut her down. I wanted to pull her up, but it was hard to pull up someone when you were being dragged down yourself.
“I don’t know your parents. I don’t even know you. But it sounds like a story you’re telling yourself so you have a reason to let men hurt you.”
A little smile curled her mouth, and she tried to hide it. “They say masochists and submissives have different brains. Our violence centers are entangled with our pleasure centers. If that’s the case, then why deny it? I could be telling myself a story, sure. But if I was wired that way from the beginning, then the story is still true.”
Did getting turned on when he spanked me or came on me mean I had a different brain?
“I’ve been with a few Dominants,” Serena said. “Women and men. Your husband can deliver pain better than any of them.”
He hadn’t delivered pain. A few spankings and a little bondage. But it had been all about me doing what I was told. He’d been all about control the first week, and somehow, I thought that was going to be the last of it. I’d let myself forget the pain part.
“And Stefan?” I asked.
She dropped her voice to a breath. “We’ve been together a long time.”
“Serena.” Stefan’s voice was taut and deep, making a paragraph-long statement in one word.
She fell to her knees, then her hands, putting her forehead to the tile and her ass up. I backed away.
“It was my fault,” I said. “I was keeping her.”
“Really,” Stefan said with a grin, coming into the room. “I thought she was looking for an excuse to get punished.” He put his foot on Serena’s upturned ass and gave it a little push. “Is that true, pet?”
“It was my fault,” she said to the floor as he rocked her back and forth with his foot.
“Was she entertaining you?” he asked me.
“We were talking. That’s all.”
“About what?”
His manner was subtly threatening. I didn’t like it. The warning was deeply sexual, a promise of something he dared me to enjoy. His ego put me off more than the menace of his manner. It insulted Adam, and I couldn’t call him on it because he didn’t actually say anything I could pin down.
“She can tell you if she wants,” I said with my head held high. “She’s a big girl.”
“She is. I was about to take her into the gym to reward her, but now I have to punish her.”
Did the mention of punishment make Serena feel free from the kitchen floor? Were her chains unbound? The stress released? Had she really wanted to be punished?
“What are you going to do?”
He regarded his sub. “What do you think, pet? What should I do?”
“Whatever pleases you,” she said.
“Why does it please you?” I interjected. I wished I hadn’t asked, but my curiosity got the best of me.
“The world’s a crazy place, Mrs. Steinbeck. Except when she’s under me. She makes it sane. Right, pet?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Come, then.” He stepped back, giving Serena room to turn and crawl toward the door. Stefan bowed to me. “It’s been a pleasure. Regards to your husband.”
I was left alone in the kitchen, shaking.
That’s what you do when you come face-to-face with your fears, and the fears draw you in like a warm cocoon lined with thorns.
Chapter 60
PRESENT TENSE - DAY TEN
Where is Adam? What will he do today? How much do I love that mouth of his?
I froze writing the word love.
I never scratched out anything in my journals, but I scored a big, dark i over the o.
The days and nights had passed pleasantly enough. I let him order me around in bed and it was nice. We worked some days the way we always did when we were away. There was very little work to do actually, since we’d put a stay on all new business for thirty days.
D—
The sales staff wants to know why they can’t chase new accounts? Lloyd keeps talking about status quo? They’re all saying you’re getting a divorce and I’m like… no way. Right? That’s crazy! Can I have the official word from you guys? They’re making me nuts!!!
Kayti’s email had been sent at two in the morning. She’d be at her desk in an hour, and I needed to answer it. We’d expected this to happen and had prepared a statement. It was a noncommittal stall, but it said enough to hush everyone for a couple of weeks.
Adam was outside, wearing a sweater against the cold, talking to Stefan.
I didn’t want to bother him. That was what I told myself. I couldn’t bother him with the fact that the prepared statement was two tons of horseshit. No matter how much I was enjoying this month, I couldn’t go back to him. Not with the way he was. I couldn’t love Manhattan Adam again, and Montauk Adam would be dead in two and a half weeks.
And fuck him for that.
K—
We are getting divorced. It’s amicable, but we need to work some things out. Don’t panic. Don’t tell anyone. Let the rumors be rumors for now. I’ll be back in a few weeks.
Adam and Stefan shook hands and parted.
I hit Send and shut the laptop.
Why are you hiding it?
Because telling Kayti we were splitting up wasn’t up to me. It was up to us and I’d done it anyway.
The front door opened. Boots off.
He appeared in the office doorway with cold-bitten cheeks and ears. “Stefan’s going to the city for a week. I’m going to help them load up.”
I tried to help load the crates, but the men shooed me away, so Serena and I stood by the barn doors. Hot tea boiled on the stove. Adam had his sweater sleeves pushed up to the elbows so when he lifted his side of the crate, I saw his forearms tense and bulge.
“It’s going to get cold in there with these doors open,” I said.
Serena stomped snow off the fur of her high-heeled boots. “And the furnace has been acting weird. It’s going to take forever to get warm tonight.”
“You’ll be in the city anyway.”
“I’m staying here.”
I didn’t know what my expression said. Maybe it asked why, or showed a little shock I didn’t feel. Maybe no matter what my expression said, her answer would be the same.
“For a whole week?”
“I had a very busy fall. I need the rest. The ocean. Manhattan stresses me. Besides, my Master said Adam would take care of me while he was gone.”
Stefan slapped the back of the truck closed.
Maybe m
y eyes went wider because of gunshot sound and not because my spine turned to ice. Because when she said “take care,” she said it with the lush depth of pictures and smells, and her expression—all fluttering eyes and bitten lip—implied more than a pat on the head. His hands on her. His lips. Her eyes looking up at him and his body pressed against hers, naked, loving, rough, and passionate.
Can’t he do what he wants? Didn’t you leave him?
I felt Adam near me more than saw him, because all I could see were Serena’s eyes, the sex in them, the anticipated satisfaction. When his earthy scent mixed with her pleasured smile, I panicked.
I met up with Adam as he approached. “Kayti asked if we were getting divorced.”
He cocked his head at my timing then nodded. “Did you give her the statement?”
“I told her.”
“You told her what?” He raised an eyebrow.
“It’s amicable. I told her it was amicable.”
His face gave away nothing. Only the length of time it was frozen told me he was hiding his thoughts from me. I decided it wasn’t a big deal. It was my news as much as his and if I wanted to tell my assistant, I could tell her.
That didn’t wash, even in my own head.
Adam pulled his glove off one finger at a time. I couldn’t tell how much of his expression was hurt and how much was anger. “That wasn’t what we agreed.”
“I know but—”
“Go to the truck. Put your hands on it.”
Serena waved Stefan over. Said something in his ear.
“I told her not to tell anyone,” I said defensively as the couple stood at the barn doors, watching.
Adam’s voice didn’t change. “Bend at the waist. Feet apart.”
He slipped the glove off and started on the other. I didn’t move. When the glove was off, he regarded me fully. Hours and days passed. I made no move to the truck.
“I wonder how many more times you’ll betray our agreements.” He put the gloves in his pocket. “One, we don’t talk about the split until we know who the company is going to. It affects our relationships with vendors and buyers. Two, you do exactly what I tell you for thirty days or I treat you like an adversary.”
A lump of culpability grew in my throat. If he wanted to make the divorce ten times more difficult, my impulsivity with Kayti had just made it ten times more possible. I looked like a liar unworthy of trust. I wouldn’t be expected to fulfill the terms of any deal.
I glanced at Serena and Stefan, who were still watching.
“Put your hands on the truck. Bend at the waist. Feet apart.”
I walked to the truck, heart pounding. Palms sweating even in the cold.
From behind me, he said, “Undo your fly. And don’t spread your feet so far I can’t pull your jeans down.”
He was going to punish me.
He was going to punish me in front of people.
I was turned on and sickened at the same time.
Facing the truck, I wrestled my clothes for my fly. I felt them watching. Heard them step closer. My nipples got hard. My heart felt small and tight, constricting into itself. My breath came in sharp white clouds.
Adam came astride me. I couldn’t look at him. My body had gone rigid with fear.
He let out a long breath.
“Go upstairs. Now.”
I ran.
Chapter 61
PRESENT TENSE - DAY TEN
I made it upstairs, buttoning my fly on the way, and couldn’t go into my room. I stood in the doorway and couldn’t. Just couldn’t.
Its plainness offended me. It’s not-mineness. Nothing about it reflected me or my personality. It could be anyone’s room.
The same could be said of the house. Not mine.
The same of my husband, whoever he was. Not mine. He wasn’t even the man I’d married anymore. That guy had slowly faded into memory. I missed him and never wanted to see him again at the same time.
I sat in the hallway with my back against the wall between our two rooms. Adam came up the stairs a few minutes later with two mugs in one hand and a bowl in the other.
He put one of the cups by me and sat across the hall.
“You’re an asshole,” I said before he’d even settled in.
“Not going to argue.”
“Am I in ‘trouble’ for not going in the room?” I didn’t sound as sarcastic as I thought I would. The tea was warm and a deep amber. I sipped it. It was scalding hot and he’d sweetened it the way I liked. Maybe he wasn’t one hundred percent stranger. At least where tea was concerned.
“I said upstairs.” He rooted around the bowl and came out with a walnut.
“Nuts? You brought a bowl of nuts?”
“We didn’t have lunch, and they were all I could grab. Want one?”
“Sure.”
He cracked the walnut between his palms, crushing it just enough to keep its shape while making the nut accessible. The sound reminded me of a time long ago when I was pregnant and he fed me walnut meat out of the shell.
“What happened out there?” I asked.
“I lost my shit.”
He tossed me the cracked nut. I picked through it for the meat, leaving the shell pieces in a little pile beside me.
“Why did you stop?”
“Your face. You weren’t ready. When I saw that, I knew I’d gone too far. Then I realized the thing I really owe you an apology for.” He used a small hand cracker for a hazelnut. “Business is business. I think telling Kayti was incredibly stupid, but it’s business. Tanning your ass for it would have been a mixed message.”
The last compartment of the nut was trapped behind a sheet of shell. I broke it and picked out the last of the meat. I really was hungry. “Can you break me another?”
He sifted through the bowl and came up with a walnut.
“You think it was stupid?” I asked. “Why?”
“Because first”—he crushed the shell in the heel of his hand, smashing it to dust and shrapnel—“before the divorce is public knowledge, you and Lloyd need to instill confidence that you’re not going to go into bankruptcy without me.”
The nut couldn’t be tossed across the hall. With his palm up so he wouldn’t drop it, he shifted to sit next to me. I put my hand out, and he dumped it in.
“It’s funny,” I said, picking out the good stuff. None of it was caught in the little compartments, so I made quick work of it. He cracked me another, crushing the compartments again. “I thought you were going to say something else.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“I thought you were going to say you wanted to see how this month panned out.”
“It’s going to pan out.” He held out his palm. I picked the nut from it. “You need to get ready to own that company completely again.”
The nut stopped in the middle of my throat, and I had to make an extra effort to swallow. I was still confused and a little angry, but when he said he expected to give McNeill-Barnes back, he was saying he expected us to make it thirty days and part cleanly. Exactly what I wanted. Right?
Your head’s all fucked up. You should want to leave him now more than ever.
When I got that thought out of the way, I was left with satisfaction. Not over getting what I wanted, but that he had faith that I could make it. I craved his approval like never before. So like a child, I asked for it.
“I feel like a failure at this,” I said.
“You’re not.”
I faced him, seeing his profile against the hall window. His jaw moved as he chewed, and the line of his neck rolled when he swallowed.
“I bet Serena would have taken her punishment even if it was business.” I hoped the statement would seem like a random musing, but I sounded petty in my own head.
“She would have screwed up the business to get the punishment. What I saw there, outside, was that you were willing to do what I told you no matter what.”
“If you hadn’t stopped, what would you have done?”
; He faced me and took my hand. “You want to know?”
“Yes.” The word caught in my throat.
“I would have pulled your pants down, right outside with them watching. I would have made you choose between my hand for twenty, or the belt for ten.”
His voice came in three dimensions, putting me back in the scene. The cold. The watching eyes. The tingle of pushing against my own will to do his bidding.
“Your hand. I redlined anything but your hand.”
“Twenty takes longer. They’d be watching you longer. Watching me punish you like a child. Seeing your pain and seeing how much you liked it.” He brushed his lips on my cheek. “For the length of twenty strokes, they’d see you’d do anything for me. Ten on your ass and ten on the backs of your thighs. Then I’d make you come.”
I found myself shifting my hips so my clit rubbed on the inside of my jeans. My fingers pressed against the floor as if I could leverage myself against it.
And still, he kept on. “Hands still on the truck. Ass up in the cold. I’d finger you when I was done. You’d come for me and they’d see who owned you. So. Hands for twenty or belt for ten?”
“Hands. Still hands.”
I wanted it, and didn’t. The witnesses had turned me on and frightened me at the same time, because I wasn’t sure what they’d do. But I could trust Adam. By sending me upstairs, he’d earned more trust than I knew I was capable of.
“Open your fly,” he said in that voice. The voice that didn’t have room for “maybe she won’t.”
“What’s happening to me?” I asked myself more than him. Neither of us had an answer.
“Pull your pants down to your thighs and get on your hands and knees. I’m going to punish you just because I feel like it.”
I unfastened my pants and arched my back to pull them down. Then I rolled to one side to get on my hands and knees on the hallway floor.
He was going to punish me. My whole body begged for his hardest touch.
Behind me, he slid his fingers in my crack, between my folds, putting two fingers inside me. It didn’t feel like punishment.
