by CD Reiss
What did he want me to do?
What did he need me to do?
His room faced the back. I ran upstairs. I could be obedient and satiate my curiosity at the same time. But by the time I got to his room and pressed my nose to the back window, they were gone.
Chapter 82
PRESENT TENSE - DAY FIFTEEN
He came behind me, swooping into the room with the force of the sun’s gravity. He took me by the back of the neck and pushed me down to my knees.
I wouldn’t have tolerated that a month ago.
Not the violence or the attitude.
But this was Montauk.
I stayed on my knees, head down, hands on my thighs. He stood over me, snow crusted on his boots and melting sludge onto the hardwood.
“Don’t talk to him. Not without me in the room.”
Still in my submissive posture, I answered the only way I could. “Are you kidding me?”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Maybe you should try trusting me.”
I kept my eyes on my hands. My position contradicted my words, but I had a deep feeling I knew was correct, that Adam would hear me better if we were still in the game.
“I do,” he said.
“Really?”
He laid his hands on my shoulders and slid them down my back, hooking his fingers under my arms. He picked me up, and we faced each other. Those lips, those eyes, the stubble on a jaw that defied geometry. I couldn’t look at it. I unbuttoned my coat.
“No,” he said. “I guess not.”
“Now you’re talking.” I threw my coat on the bed and sat in the upholstered chair. He was making my knees weak. “Stefan and I were just talking. It wasn’t anything. He wasn’t trying to come between us.”
“What were you talking about?”
“Rocks. And Serena. You’d think, with what he does and how he acts, that he doesn’t love her. But he does.”
Adam sat on the bed. “He does. Of course. What you see is what they need. But that doesn’t mean he’s not a predator.”
“I’ve handled predators.”
“Yeah. Maybe. As the old Diana, you did. But you’re changing. I can see it. It’s like watching a flower bloom. You’re so beautiful when you let go. But you’re leaving and you’re taking the change with you, and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it. All I get is the time here. Two more weeks. Then you’re on your own, and there are going to be dozens of men like that. Trust me. They’re in the fucking woodwork, and when you’re single—”
“Wait—”
“—I have to tolerate it, but I can’t watch it. Not here.”
“—let’s—”
Stay together.
Be married.
Start over.
I couldn’t choose between them, and the words got caught in my throat.
“I need time,” he said, and I cut myself off. “I need to decide if we should finish this.”
“Do I get a say?”
He stood. “Technically, yes. But if we go home now because I stopped it, you get everything. Done.”
“This stopped being about McNeill-Barnes a week ago.”
“It was never about McNeill-Barnes for me.”
Right. I knew that. It was about me. Him. It was about our marriage.
“I want to stay,” I said.
“I know.”
He walked out and closed the door.
Chapter 83
PRESENT TENSE - DAY FIFTEEN
He’d left me with a feeling of unease. He wasn’t telling me everything. I was ready to explode, and he was holding back. When he held back, I held back, and I couldn’t do that anymore. He might turn back into Manhattan Adam and a million crappy things could happen, but the idea of signing divorce papers when we got back was absurd.
What do you want?
I knew what I wanted. I got dressed, showered, and ran downstairs to tell him.
He’d left me a note on the counter.
Went into the city to see Charlie. Back by dinner.
Fine. Actually, this would do nicely. I put bread in the toaster and composed the note in my head.
Stefan came in from the gym. “Hello. How are you?”
“Good. Great, actually.”
He leaned on the counter, arms crossed. “I wanted to ask you something about yesterday.”
“All right.” I hoped he wasn’t going to ask me to talk about Adam. I couldn’t speak for him. I was about to say something polite in that vein when Stefan’s phone rang.
He plucked it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. “My mother. I’ll come back later?”
“Knock first.”
He took the call and rattled off a good-humored conversation in what must have been a Scandinavian language. He waved and went out the back door, crossing over to the studio.
I rummaged through the drawers in the library until I found a notebook and a pencil. I slid the wingback chair to the dresser, and I began the relationship the way I’d ended it.
Dear Adam,
After everything we’ve been through, there’s no easy way to tell you this. So I’m just going to spit it out.
I love you.
Out the window, the morning sky was a clear glass blue and our way together was in front of us. I rewrote the note a hundred times and finished in the late afternoon, over lunch. He’d gone out to decide whether to stay and finish, but I knew what I wanted and I needed to tell him before he opened his mouth. He needed to know I was committed to staying before he told me his decision.
I left my note on the kitchen counter. Seconds after I turned my back on it, the long black car crunched down the drive.
He was back.
Chapter 84
PRESENT TENSE - DAY FIFTEEN
Dear Adam,
After everything we’ve been through, there’s no easy way to tell you this. So I’m just going to spit it out.
I love you.
I ran upstairs when I saw the car. Threw on one of the short nightgowns he liked and went into his room. He’d go to the kitchen to look for me. Get a glass of water. See the note. Come upstairs.
It was going to be great. I didn’t have an ounce of remorse for a damn thing. Yes, I’d left him. Yes, it took a lot of balls. Yes, I was going to reverse it, and yes, I felt very good about that.
Thup. The car door.
Scrape. The bags.
Click. The front door.
Murmur. Adam and Thierry talking.
Click. The front door again.
Squeak-snap. The closet door opening and closing.
Creak. Footsteps on the stairs.
He didn’t go to the kitchen. Wonderful, handsome, caring, dominant man. He came right to me. I got on my knees and elbows, spread my legs, and raised my ass. He was going to have to fuck me without the note. He’d find it after, but I wanted him to find it without warning, the way he’d found the first note. The symmetry made my self-discovery feel complete.
He was in the hall. I could hear him. He opened the door to my room first. Would he come through the hall or the door between our rooms? I adjusted to face the door between the rooms, showing him his options. Serving him.
Those seconds of waiting were the purest satisfaction. Nothing had ever felt so good to me.
He came through the adjoining door. Stopped. I knew from the sound.
My heart was pounding.
I wanted to look at him so I’d know what he thought, how to adjust, how to do everything he needed, the way he needed.
“Perfect,” he said.
Yes!
He threw his coat on the bed and kneeled behind me. When he stroked my bottom, the bruises ached, and when he ran his fingers along my seam, he touched every ache that had been building since he’d left.
“Everything about this is perfect.” He slid his hands up my body and curled his body over mine.
I went flat under the weight of him. “You’re staying?”
“If you want.”
I fell into the happiness. He’d find the note and know I wanted more than a two-week finish. One bite of joy at a time.
“Thank you,” I said. “And thank Charlie.”
He spoke softly into my ear. “We have a lot to talk about, but not tonight. You’re going to break tonight. You’re going to beg me to stop.”
“I won’t.”
He got off me and stood. “Get on the bed. Legs up.”
I crawled up the high bed and got on my back, opening my legs for him. The nude woman in the Manet looked right at the viewer and dared them to have a problem with her. She was going to let those two men do whatever they wanted whether anyone approved or not. I was her.
“What’s your safe word?” he asked.
“Pinochle.”
He took one of my feet and put his lips to the inside of my ankle. Had any kiss ever been so sexy?
“Why?”
“When my mom died, my father and I stayed up late playing pinochle because we couldn’t sleep. I felt safe.”
He dropped my ankle and pulled down the horizontal bar, sliding it along the track. He rested my feet on it. “You’re safe here too.”
Adam opened a wooden box, and I heard the clink of metal. He came into my vision with a silver object. It looked like interconnected and fused rings, shined to a flawless polish.
“Give me your hands.”
I held up my hands. Adam guided them into the rings, where they crossed together, wrist to wrist, and held them over my head.
He stepped out of my view. I heard him get undressed, buttons, belt buckle, pants sliding down. He took his time, until he stood over me in only his unbuttoned shirt.
“You look terrified,” he said. “And aroused.”
“Listen to the arousal.”
He pulled a long silver chain from the wooden box, slowly so that each little ball in the chain flicked the edge and I could get a long look at the rubber-tipped clamps at the end.
“Charlie convinced me all the shit I was worrying about wasn’t worth worrying about.”
“Like what?”
“I’ve never loved a woman I’ve broken. I can’t do it to you. Can’t turn you into something you aren’t. Something I don’t love.”
He extended his finger and, with a swift motion, spun the chain, making it helicopter and wrap around, sheathing his finger in ball chain. With the clamps tucked into his palm, he got his shirt off.
“What I feel for you,” he said, tossing the shirt away. “It’s worth protecting. I hated how I felt when you left, but now I don’t want to lose it.”
“You won’t.”
Kneeling between my open legs, he put his hands on my breasts and slid them down, the texture of the chain making a line of sensation on my skin.
“I’ve never loved a sub. I’ve never wanted to love a woman who’s part of that world. I could never get past the negotiations, the scenes. It felt disposable, and that kept me from loving anyone.” He dragged his hands over my thighs and back again, resting them on my tits. “If I can love you, even if you don’t love me—”
“But I—”
“Hush. Let me finish. I need to see if it’s possible. Only answer yes or no. Will you do this with me?”
“Yes.”
“I’m signing everything over even if you say no. Easiest divorce in the world. Will you still stay here? Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
He pinched my nipples and pulled. His chained finger hurt my left side in a way that went right to my core. Then he brought his hands down again, and the finger with the chain wrapped around it found my clit.
“Yes,” I said as he dragged the tiny silver balls along me, back and forth until he slowly put that finger inside. Every ridge started a new wave of sensation. I pushed against the paired roughness and smoothness, and slowly he pulled out.
“The fantasies I’ve had these past years,” he said, unwrapping the chain. “I couldn’t even let myself put you in them.” He let the wet chain dangle from his fingertips. There were three clamps. “Destroying you is a dream I was afraid to have.”
He took two of the clamps in one hand. Silver. Black rubber tips. About the size of bobby pins. He yanked on my right nipple with the other hand, rough, assured, as if doing a job efficiently.
He clamped it. I must have made a face or something, because when he took the other nipple, holding it out, he said, “It doesn’t hurt now. Just wait,” and clamped it. The chain ran down my belly and ended in another clamp.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh, no.”
“Don’t make me gag you.”
He bent his head between my thighs and kissed my clit, ending with a suck. It was so good. Adam knew how to work a clit with a flick and a suck. Always. I was nearly lost in it when he pinched the nub and clamped it at the base.
I squeaked and closed my legs.
“Spread those legs. Show me.”
I did, and he pressed them back, looking closely at how he’d done. He glanced up at me.
“I’m taking your ass. Not tonight. But before we go back.”
He waited for my answer. Or, more accurately, he waited for me to say no. I was so deep in submission I couldn’t say no, and still so deeply myself I couldn’t say yes either. He smiled as if reading my mind and ran his tongue along the tight skin stretched over my clit. It felt as if he’d licked some deeper pleasure. A pleasure that had always been there, behind layers of skin and membrane.
I groaned deeply.
“You ready, huntress?” He moved the bar back up, letting my feet dangle in midair.
“Yes.”
He positioned his cock at my opening and slammed deep into me. Stopped. His eyes closed and he bent his head.
“I’m sorry. I have to say this.” He clamped his hand over my mouth and spoke into my ear. “I always knew. I didn’t want to admit it, but I always knew this was you. It scared the hell out of me, and I denied it. I needed to love you more than I wanted to dominate you. Don’t doubt for a second that I chose to love you.”
He took his hand away and jerked his hips. With the hood of my clit peeled back by the clamp, every thrust felt like an explosion, like a kid setting off a mat of firecrackers on July 4th. The popping and cracking went on and on, and when he straightened himself and pulled on the chain that held my nipples and clit, an M80 went off. I strained against the wrist restraints.
“Don’t come,” he said, thrusting.
“I want to.”
“Don’t.” He pounded me, fisting the chain, letting go, tugging one way and not the other until I thought I’d lose control.
“I need—” The sentence died. I was going to come whether he liked it or not.
“No, you don’t.”
He pinched one nipple clip then the other, taking them off.
They went on fire in a flush of explosive pain. I thought my breasts were going to burst, but Adam smiled, bit his lower lip, and fucked me harder.
The pain removed the need to come for a minute, but it returned stronger than before, as if the pleasure was too ambitious to let the hurt win. It had to come in a harder, heavier rush.
I barely had a chance to tell him how close I was. He knew. He straightened and pulled my labia open with two fingers.
That pain.
Between my legs.
“No!” I shouted.
“No screaming.”
“Please!”
“Breathe through your nose. Look at me when I come inside you.”
He took off the clamp. I held my mouth shut like a vise and sucked air in and out of my nose. The blood rushed back, expanding me in fire and pain. I was almost blind as my husband buried his cock in me and came in slower thrusts, groaning deep.
The pain flowed out, leaving a bigger space for the pleasure rushing to take its place.
“Come, Diana. Come.”
I stiffened under him, arched, pushing him deeper. I cried and came so hard I didn’t feel the cuffs cut into my skin, and it went on so long
, I thought I was losing my mind.
Hours. He fucked me for hours. He tied me up and took pleasure and pain. He took control. He left me on the edge of orgasm for twenty minutes while he held my head down and put his fingers in my ass. It felt so good I begged him to put his cock in it.
He wouldn’t, and I cried because I had no will or want after that.
He’d broken me, and I was so out of myself I didn’t realize it until he went downstairs to get water.
He’d broken me and I still loved him.
Chapter 85
PRESENT TENSE - DAY FIFTEEN
Dear Adam,
After everything we’ve been through, there’s no easy way to tell you this. So I’m just going to spit it out.
I love you.
I never thought I’d ever say it again. Believe me, if I thought we had a chance, I wouldn’t have written you that other note. But you made the chance. You did it. You showed me the you inside you and the me inside me.
My god. We wasted so much time.
Let’s make it all up. Let’s go back home and do this all over again. I’ll be everything you need and you’ll be everything I didn’t know I needed. We’ll get the company going again. We’ll be partners in the boardroom, and in the bedroom, you’ll bring me to my knees whenever you want. You’ll be my Master.
You win. I lose, but I win. I’m yours again.
I love you more than ever,
Your Little Huntress.
I must have fallen asleep, because it was four in the morning and Adam still wasn’t in bed. I was still floppy-limbed, sore, aching, made of dough that had been kneaded but not baked.
Had he found the note?
I didn’t know how long he’d been downstairs, but if he went to the kitchen for water, he would have seen it.
What did he think?
Was he writing me a note back?
I got into my nightgown and tiptoed downstairs. He wasn’t in the library or the kitchen. I found him in the dark office, framed by a window, facing the darkness between the big house and the studio. He was in pajama pants that hung low on his waist, just below the divots on each side of his lower back. His shoulders were rippled with muscles in tension.
