by Julia Derek
I’m livid as the jealousy streams through my veins, a powerful emotion that has me feeling like I’m about to explode any second. Both of them turn around to face me as I get to the table.
Jason is smiling wide as he notices me. “There you are, babe. Claire here says the New York strip steak is the best thing on the menu, so how about you have that instead of the skirt steak?”
“Sure,” I say coolly and walk to my seat.
“Did you find the bathroom okay?” Claire, the blonde, says in a smoky voice that is much too seductive for my current mood. It takes all the restraint I have not to slap her pretty face hard. My hand is really itching to do so, but fortunately I don’t and instead I just sit down on my chair. Then I make myself smile at her and reply, “Yes, thank you.”
She turns back to my husband. “Well, let me go get your waitress so you can place your order.”
I glare at her, then at Jason, whose attention is back on Claire again. So this is not even our waitress? What the hell is she doing here then and why is Jason even talking to her?
I’m so furious I’m trembling now. He can’t possibly think it’s okay to be openly flirting with other women after how he has treated me. You’d think this would be the last thing he would do. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let my cheating, murderous husband know how much this has upset me. Desperately I begin to breathe the way I did in the bathroom to calm down. Claire leaves us and heads back to the bar. Unfortunately, it’s too late to do anything about the jealousy that must be painted all over my face because now that we’re alone again Jason’s eyes are on me, and I can tell he suspects what I’m thinking.
He reaches across the table to take my hand, but I snap it away before he can touch it. The creep looks almost as upset as I am.
“What’s wrong?” he asks me. I can’t believe he is doing that when it’s so obvious.
I huff loudly. “What’s wrong? Is that supposed to be some kind of a joke?” I lean toward him, having decided that I might as well let it all hang out since I didn’t manage to cloak my jealousy anyway. “What do you think you’re doing flirting so shamelessly with that girl? Haven’t you done enough?”
He looks at me for a long moment, appearing like he is in as much pain as I am strangely enough. Then he says, “I’m sorry. You’re right. That was uncalled for.”
Before he can say anything else, another waitress comes to our table. An overweight, plain-looking girl in her mid-twenties with glasses and no makeup. Unlike the other girl, she’s wearing black slacks and a boxy, white dress shirt with a black tie. I throw a quick glance into the dining room and note that the other waiters and waitresses here are dressed the same way. That other girl must have been a cocktail waitress.
Even more reason to wonder what the hell she was doing all the way down here at our table… The jealousy returns with a vengeance and I’m practically fuming.
“Good evening, my name is Marsha and I’m going to be your waitress this evening,” the frumpy girl says in a perky voice. “I see that you have drinks already. Are you ready to order your dinner? Would you like to hear the specials?”
“Sure,” Jason says and the two of us listen politely to her as she rattles off the special appetizer and entrée of the evening.
“Thank you,” Jason says. “I think we know what we want already.” Clearing his throat, his baby blues find me and he asks, “Do you still want a mixed green to start and… what steak do you want?”
Ignoring him, I turn to Marsha. “I would like the mixed greens and the skirt steak with the chimichurri sauce. Does that come with fries?”
“Yes, it does,” she replies, jotting on her notepad. “How would you like the steak cooked?”
“However the chef recommends it.”
“Great.” Marsha turns to Jason next and takes his order—mushroom soup to start and salmon with spinach and butternut squash as his entrée.
Before Marsha can leave, I ask her to bring me a dirty martini, light on the olive juice.
“Coming right up,” she says and smiles, then turns to leave.
I stare at Jason, daring him to say something about the fact that I’m about to have alcohol when I’m not supposed to drink. He does look like he wants to object, but is smart enough not to do so. The tension in the air is palpable. I have some water and Jason adjusts his tie. The dark red tie that I bought him and that does make him look even more handsome than usual. No wonder the blonde was all over him.
“I hope you’re not suddenly deciding to drink tonight because of my conversation with that girl,” Jason says finally, his voice and face tight. “It really meant nothing.”
“Why did you talk with her at all?” I blurt out. “What was she doing all the way down here? She’s a cocktail waitress, right?”
He shrugs. “I honestly don’t know. I think she was bringing someone a drink over there”—he jabs his thumb at a table near us—“and then she dropped her pen on her way back. Right by our table. I picked it up since it rolled all the way to my feet and gave it back to her. I’m not sure how it happened, but we somehow got into a conversation. And then, as we were discussing the food at the restaurant, you came back. It really meant nothing. I swear.”
Jason is looking at me with such innocence and sincerity right then that I have no choice but to believe him and, instead, I’m feeling bad for having lashed out at him the way I did. Maybe their conversation seemed more intimate to me than it actually was. I’m still a little drunk after all. Perhaps I overreacted.
Which, I suppose, given the circumstances that we’re in, is completely understandable, I remind myself of then and I’m no longer feeling bad about it. I have all the reason in the world to be jealous and furious about Jason chatting up a gorgeous blonde. I’m sure he also understands this.
I gaze out over the buzzing dining area and sigh. Even if I have a reason, I don’t want to be furious with Jason, don’t have time to be furious. I need to be focused at the task at hand. Find out why he killed Celeste.
I bite the inside of my cheek as I ponder the best way to broach the subject. Now is as good a time as any. Might as well get it over with.
“You look like you’re thinking about something very important,” Jason says in a light tone. Before I can reply, Marsha returns with my dirty martini. Giving her a grateful smile, I have a big sip of the spicy vodka drink. It burns my throat and I love it. It makes me even more alert, which I need to be. I turn to face my husband, who looks like he is in pain.
“Is it ever okay to kill someone?” I ask him, making sure I’m not talking too loudly.
Drawing in a sharp breath, he stares at me with an unreadable expression on his face. “That is a very complicated question,” he finally responds, averting his eyes from me.
“So you can’t say yes or no?” I press on. He keeps looking away from me.
“Look at me, Jason,” I say quietly.
Slowly, he turns his face in my direction, his features twisted with pain again, and his blue gaze is suddenly red and glossy. It looks very much like he is about to start to cry. I’m staring at him, in shock. My husband is not the kind of man who would ever get emotional in public, not to mention cry. Cry at all, really. The fact that he looks like he is about to do so any moment tells me that something very powerful must be going on inside him.
He must be feeling something very, very strongly. And I’m sure that at least part of that must be guilt.
Chapter 12
I didn’t want to embarrass my husband at the restaurant, so I immediately changed the subject, praying that doing so would stop him from falling apart. He seemed dangerously close to a breakdown. It did make him pull himself together and that tragic expression on his face quickly disappeared. Seeing him like that completely freaked me out I have to admit—but I was also relieved.
If he is capable of that much emotion, he just can’t be a sociopath.
As the dinner wore on, we spoke mostly about his book. I pointed out some passages
that had stuck with me and I gave him some ideas for what I thought could happen next in the story. He seemed to like my suggestions, told me he’d try them out tomorrow. I kept drinking more dirty martinis while Jason had wine as we went through the motions of what it’s supposed to be like when you’re out having dinner with your spouse. He seemed as determined as I was to keep up the act, pretend like there was no huge elephant in the room.
Now that we’re in a cab driving back to our apartment, I remain convinced that his sudden emotional reaction was a display of tremendous guilt, at least partly, and that is good. When the car stops outside our apartment building next to Central Park, I realize that I’m drunk, very drunk, which is also good. I need to be plastered to be with Jason right now, my senses dulled. Jason pays and we get out. He takes my hand as we walk into the lobby and our doorman greets us. I’m surprised that I’m able to walk as steadily as I am wearing five-inch stiletto heels. We wait for the elevator in silence and then ride up to our floor in silence. How long will we be able to keep pretending like everything is all right? When we finally get inside our apartment, Jason suddenly grabs me and kisses me with such passion it takes my breath away.
I know I shouldn’t do it, that I should push him away, but I can’t. Instead, my arms go up around his neck and I kiss him back, hold on to him tightly, tug his head down to my face as forcefully as I can. I crave his lips on mine, his tongue around mine. I need to taste him. I’m drunk and horny, and I’m as in love with this man as I have always been despite what he has done. And this is despite that I’m now sure that what he did was intentional, not an accident. But I can’t stop loving him just like that. That is not the way it works, not for me at least. I realize that I would still do anything for him. The thought of seeing him hurt in any way is more than I can bear.
Maybe tomorrow, when I’m sober again, I will feel differently. One can only hope or I’m as lost as he is.
He pulls away from me suddenly, gazes down at me with eyes that have turned black—and glossy with tears. Seeing him like that breaks my heart. His arms loosen around me and his hands go up to cup my face, tilting my head backward. And then a tear trickles down his cheek as he keeps looking into my eyes. Ah, those rare tears of his!
“You know I love you, don’t you, Lexi?” he mumbles. “You’re the only one for me. I could never love anyone else the way I love you.”
Every word he says is like a shot through my heart. How can I turn this man in to the police? The way I feel right now, I can’t see how I will ever be able to go through with it. I do believe what he is telling me; I am the only one for him. Even though he strayed from me, I believe he loved me as much as ever even then. Some other dark need within him drove him to betray me. He didn’t really love Celeste and it seems he is understanding that himself at last. It was all a matter of lust. This is why he is crying. He is ashamed over what he has done, but I forgive him. He was just addicted to her the way a heroin addict is addicted to shooting up his drug. That’s not love, so how can I not forgive him?
“I love you too, Jason,” I say and, smiling at him, I wipe his tears with the pads of my thumbs. “I still love you as much as ever. No matter what you did.”
“I think about that every day, you know,” he mutters, gently stroking my hair away from my face. “And it’s killing me. How could I have been so careless? Risk losing you like that?”
“It’s no point in mulling over it any more, Jason. What’s done is done. I’m sure it felt right the moment you did it.”
He sighs heavily, looking even sadder as he gazes over my shoulder into our apartment. “Yes, it felt completely right. I really had no other choice but to do what I did. Not right then.”
“I know. You did what you thought was right for both of us. It must have been so hard for you.”
He closes his eyes and rests his head on top of my shoulder. “Yes, it was very hard.” Then he hugs me so tightly I struggle to breathe for a moment. Letting go of me, he stands back up and looks at me again. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“Of course I forgive you, Jason. You weren’t yourself. You didn’t see clearly.”
He frowns a little, but then his entire body relaxes and he smiles finally. “Thank you, Lexi. Thank you for being so understanding.”
“I’m your wife, Jason. How can I not forgive you when you fight so hard for us to stay together? When you’re willing to do anything for us to stay together?”
I’m glad I said those words. It’s clear that Jason is going crazy with guilt over what he has done, so there is no need for me to pile it on. Me forgiving him doesn’t mean I condone his actions. It still doesn’t make it right, even if he did it for me, for us, to save our marriage. Tomorrow I will somehow find the strength to turn him in, so he can pay for taking someone else’s life. If I dig deep enough within myself, I will find what I need in order to go through with it.
It feels good to have come to this realization; no matter how difficult it will be, I will do the right thing. But tomorrow is far away and in the meantime, I might as well enjoy my time with Jason. The last hours we have together. I don’t doubt for one second that he will be taken into custody immediately after his confession to the cops, which means this is all the time we have left together.
I better use it wisely.
If there is anything good that came out of me having found and read Jason’s diary, it is that I now know that he is not fully sexually satisfied with me. Before we part, I want him to have something to remember me by, something that will make him never want to stray from me again if he got the chance. Not that I think he will; still, I want him to always think of me when he is horny, no one else. So that is what I can do for him—give him what he truly wants in bed. Be more adventurous than simply putting on some sexy lingerie for him.
He obviously enjoys getting hurt, so I will have to hurt him. Punish him for having been such a bad boy, the way Celeste punished him. I don’t enjoy inflicting pain on others, but in this case it might not be so hard—Jason has after all been a truly bad boy. He deserves to be punished.
So I straighten, lift my chin and gaze at him through half closed eyes. Then I open my mouth to speak, making sure I’m using my most sultry voice: “Well. But just because I forgive you doesn’t mean you won’t get punished. I need to make you hurt for what you did. Really hurt…”
He stares at me, uncomprehending. “What do you mean you need to make me hurt?” He laughs without humor. “Trust me, I’m already hurting plenty, Lexi.”
“Yes, but not in the way that I will make you enjoy it…” I gaze at him head-on now, while giving him a meaningful little smile. Then I slowly run my tongue along my upper lip the way I know he finds sexy.
He doesn’t answer, just keeps looking at me with confusion. Finally, he asks, “How will I enjoy you hurting me?”
I frown at him. How can he not get what I’m trying to tell him? Isn’t it obvious? Then it hits me that maybe he only likes to be hurt by Celeste, not by me. Or maybe most of the time he was the one administering pain and suffering, not the one receiving it, even with her. After all, I only read one long scene in which he was the one getting whipped and tied up, nipple-clamped and dropped hot wax on. But it had been so graphic and so detailed, so unlike what I knew of Jason, that it had felt like it had been most of the time. Now that I think of it, there were more pages of him inflicting pain on and dominating Celeste. Not as graphic and not with as many details, but more nonetheless.
Maybe that means he is more of a dominant in bed than a submissive.
“Would you rather hurt me…?” I ask him slowly.
He keeps staring at me, but something in his eyes has lit up. It’s only a vague, vague flicker of something, but it’s definitely there, and I know I’m right. Yes, he’d much rather make me hurt. I have already seen signs of it before lately, so I shouldn’t be very surprised, really. And so I whisper, “I want you to hurt me, Jason. Hurt me a lot. You know I deserve to be hurt. I have been a bad gir
l too. I want you to show me who’s the man in the house. The one who’s in control and who makes sure the ones who disobey get punished.”
His pupils dilate, causing his now fully dry, clear blue eyes to go black again, and that flicker of something turns into a flame. I can tell that his breathing is picking up speed. He definitely likes what he is hearing. I bite my lip, lower my head and gaze up at him from between my eyelashes like a little girl.
He swallows hard, then his tongue darts out and he licks his mouth, leaving it slightly open afterward. Yes, this is what he likes, what really turns him on. To dominate me, be in full control of me. Make me hurt.
I give him the faintest of smiles, urging him on. “Please make me hurt…”
“Well, then,” he murmurs in a voice I barely recognize it has become so hoarse. “Go down on your knees and suck my cock. And I want you to suck it well. I know you’re good at sucking cock.”
To my surprise, a shot of heat hits me between my legs and I feel suddenly incredibly hot. My breathing has picked up speed.
“What are you waiting for?” he asks in that same commanding voice, staring at me with a dark face. Hot waves rush up the insides of my thighs now, colliding there, and my pulse is suddenly racing. I’m enjoying this as much as he is. Still looking up at him through my lashes, I sink to my knees and open his dress pants. He is wearing snug, low-rise boxer briefs and I can see through them how hard and big he is already. I can’t remember the last time I saw his cock that big and hard. Licking my lips, I use my hands to set him free. He grabs my hair and pushes me toward his erection.
“Take it in your mouth, you whore. All of it.”
I put my hands around his cock and take him in my mouth, opening my lips wide to get him as deep down my throat as I can. Hearing him call me whore should make me mad and turn me off, but it doesn’t. Instead, I feel myself getting disturbingly wet and I want to hear him say it again. Treat me like a whore.
I must be really drunk, but I don’t care. I’m truly liking where this is going.
