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by J. A. Huss

  Goddammit.

  I tuck my phone away, stand up, throw a fifty down on the table, and walk out of the cafe lowering my sunglasses. There’s no paparazzi out here right now. And maybe that’s normal. I mean, if I think about it, nine weeks after the release of a movie, they taper off. They find someone else. They move along. Right?

  But no. It’s not right. They usually chase me three or four days of the week. And now, nothing?

  Something is not right.

  But I don’t have time for it because I have a scene with Valencia this afternoon and I’m needed back on set in twenty minutes. I jump in my 911 and pull out onto Ventura so I can make it back in time.

  My mind is racing all the way there. Grace. Marjorie. A party no movie star in Hollywood wants to be invited to. The absence of paparazzi. The past.

  That’s what this is adding up to. The past. My past this time. Not Grace’s.

  God, just thinking about Grace makes me agitated. I check my messages as I pull into the studio and navigate my way through the lot. Maybe she called to let me know where she was going while I was driving through the hills? Like a dead zone. We have a few of those on the way to and from the studio.

  But no. There’s a few missed calls on there, but I purposefully ignored those.

  Grace never called. She took off to Colorado and never called.

  What the hell?

  I pull into my parking spot and shut the car off so I can sit in silence for a few moments. A knock on the window startles me out of my funk and Valencia laughs at me from the other side of the window.

  “What are you doing?” she yells through the glass. “Let’s go, hot stuff. We’ve got a love scene to practice for.”

  I open the door and get out. “Are you excited about that?”

  “Hell, yes. Do you know,” she says, looping her arm in mine as we walk to the studio doors, “it’s been fifteen years since I really kissed you?”

  “I kiss you all the time, V.” Suddenly calling her V surprises me. Her too, from the look on her face. But then that shock is gone and happiness replaces it. That’s who we were back in our teens. She was my first girlfriend. They called us V Squared.

  “Air kisses. Cheek kisses. Those are not kisses, V. And those kisses back when holding hands was considered a love scene… well, that’s not what this is and you know it.”

  I hold the door open for her and wave her forward. “It’s acting, Valencia. I’ve kissed dozens of actresses for movies. Don’t get too excited.”

  She stops and turns her head a little, just enough to give me a wink and a smirk. “I won’t be acting.”

  And then she walks off towards her people who receive her and hustle her deeper into the darkness of the studio set.

  Chapter Eight

  #ThisIsNotTheSpankingYoureLookingFor

  IT was hard to say goodbye to Bebe after our day trip into the past. Bebe knew coming out here to see my ex-family would be a mistake, but she came with me anyway. She took off work, showed up at the airport, and drove hundreds of miles with me just so I could see it for myself.

  And maybe not all my family out in eastern Colorado hates me. I mean, I have cousins and shit. But whatever. They’re done with me and I’m done with them. You can’t choose your family.

  Well, some of us can.

  I smile big at that. I chose Bebe’s family. And I got to choose my name and remake myself at the age of fifteen. If I look at it that way, maybe I was lucky.

  I mean, obviously, having your family murdered is not lucky. But everything that came after… that was good luck.

  I should feel grateful. And I am grateful. There’s just a lot of unanswered questions rolling around in my head.

  “We’re about to land, Mrs. Asher. Please put your seat belt on.”

  I nod at the flight attendant. She looks as exhausted as I feel. It’s almost nine o’clock California time. And the drive home will probably take me an hour. Going anywhere in LA seems to take an hour. So I definitely missed dinner with Vaughn.

  But he never called. He has to know where I am. Otherwise he’d be crazy with worry. Maybe he just wanted to give me space to do this on my own?

  I watch the lights out my window as we land, taxi, and then finally come to a stop.

  “I hope you enjoyed your flight, Mrs. Asher,” the attendant says as I exit the plane.

  I give her a small thank you back. She looks pissed off, actually. I kept them waiting all day. I’m not sure what the protocol is for that kind of thing. Maybe I was supposed to call?

  I walk quickly to my car, buckle myself in, start it up, and press home on my GPS so it can guide me.

  Home.

  Sorta.

  I mean, Denver feels like home. When I’m in Colorado, I know where I am. I don’t need the GPS system to get me from place to place. But here, I dunno. LA is so big. So many freeways. So many neighborhoods. It just seems to go on forever.

  I head out and weave my way through traffic. Even at ten at night, there’s congestion. An accident clogging up the flow of traffic. When I finally make it back up into the hills, it’s nearly ten thirty.

  The house is dark. Not a light on in the place. Not even the porch light.

  I press the button for the garage and pull in alongside Vaughn’s 911. He’s here. But why is it so dark?

  I get out of the car and look around the garage, my heart beating like crazy. “Vaughn?” Nothing. Do I really expect him to be hanging out in the garage?

  “Vaughn?” I call again, because it’s freaking me out. What if someone broke in? What if he’s hurt inside?

  I walk quickly towards the door that leads inside and turn the handle. It opens without sound. “Vaughn,” I say again. But this time I whisper. I step inside and close the door behind me, and then tiptoe as quietly as I can towards the living room.

  The moon is shining through the back window, illuminating the fact that the place is a complete mess. We don’t have a maid and I’ve been sorta useless as a wife since I moved in. And it shows. Even in the dark I can make out shadows of dirty dishes and papers.

  “Vaughn,” I whisper again.

  He must be asleep.

  I walk to the kitchen so I can turn some lights on and that’s when I see him. A dark figure sitting in a chair, backlit by the moonlight. “Vaughn?” I ask. “What are you doing?”

  He leans forward and the shadow that was covering his face disappears. He’s still wearing his suit, but the top buttons of his white shirt are undone, leaving his chest exposed. A dark tie is draped around his neck like he was thinking of taking it off and then changed his mind.

  “Did you have a nice day?” he asks in a low voice.

  I just stare at him. His blue eyes are piercing me, even through the shadows of night. “No, not exactly. I mean, parts of it were.”

  “Which parts? The part where you took off in the plane? The part where you ditched the car that was set up for you? The part where you didn’t think to call me?”

  I swallow hard. Because he’s pissed off.

  “Come here,” he commands in a low, do-not-fuck-with-me voice.

  I swallow again and my heart is beating so fast it might explode.

  “I said, come the fuck over here.” He stands up and I step back.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Are you mad?”

  “Am I mad?” he asks me back, taking a few steps closer to me. “Am I mad?” He continues walking until he’s one step away and I have to tip my head up to look him in the face.

  I never realized how big he actually is. He towers over me.

  “Do I have a reason to be mad, Grace?”

  “I should’ve called,” I say meekly.

  “Called? You think I’m angry because you didn’t call?”

  “So you are angry?”

  He smiles at me, but it’s not a happy smile. It’s an I-can’t-fucking-believe-you’re-so-clueless smile. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Grace?”

  “What?”

 
; “Wrong with you,” he repeats.

  “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

  HIs smile is tight as he stares at me. Not really a smile, but a grimace. “Do you love me?”

  “Of course I love you.”

  “Good. You keep that in mind.” And then, before I can even understand what’s happening, he whips his tie off and grabs my wrist. I start to pull away, but he yanks me back. “Hold still.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “You owe me.”

  “I owe you what?” I snap at him. But he doesn’t answer. He just ties the length of silk around my wrist and reaches for the other one. “What are you doing?”

  He glares down at me as he pulls the knot tight. Tight enough to make me wince. “I’m tying you up.”

  “You want to get off on your sexual fantasies? Now?”

  “Turn around.” He doesn’t wait for me to even do that. He just twirls me until I’m no longer facing him. “Walk over to the couch.”

  He gives my back a push to get me started and I do as I’m told. I start to sit down, but Vaughn grabs my hair and pulls me hard enough to stop that from happening.

  “Ow. Goddammit! What are you doing?”

  He yanks my hair harder and leads me around to the back of the couch. “Bend over.” He pushes me again and I fall forward. My hands try to brace myself, but he swipes them forward so they drape over the cushion and then bumps his cock against my ass. My face rests on something very plush and soft and I realize it’s a sheepskin rug.

  “What are—”

  “Shut up.”

  What? “Who the fuck—” A hard smack lands on my ass and I jump. It stings all the way through my jeans. “Vaughn!” Another, this one even harder. I yelp and try to wiggle away from his grip. “Stop!”

  “Stop? You want me to stop, Grace? We don’t have a safe word, so if you tell me to stop, I’m fucking stopping. But let me tell you this, sweets. You fucking owe me.”

  “What is wrong with you?” I whimper.

  “Wrong with me? Am I the one sleeping all damn day? Am I the one walking around here feeling sorry for myself? Am I the one flying a thousand miles away without telling you where I’m fucking at?”

  “I’m sorry for not calling.”

  “This isn’t about calling me. I’m not your babysitter. I’m your goddamned husband. I’m not interested in tracking your every move, Grace. I have security for that. And you know I have security for that. This is about your lack of commitment. Your lack of enthusiasm. Your lack of respect. And most of all, your lack of… being Grace.”

  I huff out a breath. “I’m sorry, OK? And that last part doesn’t even make sense.”

  “No?” He huffs out his own breath. “Well, let me make it clear.” Something rattles behind me and then he lets go of my hair. I turn my head a little to try to get a better look at what he’s doing when he kneels down. But it’s no use. “This,” he says as he clamps something around my ankle, “is a spreader bar. To hold your legs”—he slaps the inside of my thigh to make me open wider—“open.”

  “So we’re back to your sexual domination?”

  He hesitates, like he’s thinking hard about that. A few seconds go by in silence as he attaches the other cuff to my ankle. “The girl I met in the bar a few months ago. You’re not her.”

  My heart, which was actually calming down, starts to pick up the pace again. Because I think Vaughn Asher might be done with me. I think Vaughn Asher might want one last kink before he throws me aside.

  “That Grace out on the beach was wild and confident. She talked back and had opinions. My Grace was funny and dirty.” He finishes up with the spreader bar and then stands, leaning over the couch alongside of me, and whispers in my ear. “You are not my Grace.”

  What’s that even mean? But I don’t want to ask. Because I’m afraid to hear the answer.

  “I owe you punishments, sweets. And I’m here to collect. So if you want me to stop—if you want this relationship… this marriage… this everything… to stop—just say the word, babe. And we’ll call it good and move on.”

  He’s breaking up with me. I close my eyes to stop the tears.

  “Stop? Or go?” he asks. “You choose, Grace. But I’m warning you. If you say go, you’ll get what you deserve.”

  Do I want to say stop?

  He walks off, not waiting for my answer, and for a few seconds I’m petrified that he took my silence as a no. But then I hear him in the kitchen pulling open a drawer. When he comes back I’m so relieved to have his hands on me again a tear slips out and rolls down my cheek.

  He lifts up my shirt, pulls it taut, and begins cutting it in half. I wiggle away out of fear before I can stop myself, but he shoves me back into position and continues until the two sides fall apart. He cuts my bra too. And then he cuts the fabric away from my body completely and tosses it aside.

  He moves on to my jeans, slipping the cold scissors inside my waistband and slitting it right down my ass until the denim opens up and exposes my skin, still stinging from the smacks, to the cool night air. The next snip destroys my panties.

  He rubs a hand down one cheek and then his palm comes down so hard, the smack echoes off the high ceilings in the living room.

  I don’t move this time.

  “That’s it, sweets, that’s what I want,” he whispers. His hand rubs the spot he smacked, soothing it. The cutting continues. The scissors slip between my legs and the cold metal shocks me for a moment, making me draw in a gasping breath of air.

  “Shhh,” he chastises me as he slits my pant legs open from thigh to ankle on each side. He tosses the ruined fabric aside once again and then takes a few steps back. “I’m gonna make your ass so red you won’t be able to sit tomorrow.”

  I start breathing faster. My chest does not have a lot of room since I’m still bent over the couch back, and it takes a lot of effort to draw in air.

  Vaughn grabs my hair and pulls me up. “Breathe, Grace. No hyperventilating on my time.”

  Asshole. I fight him a little to let him know I’m annoyed but he just laughs.

  He presses his mouth up to my ear and whispers, “I’m waiting.”

  “For what?” I growl back at him.

  “Go. Or stop.”

  His hand dips between my legs and strokes the slit of my pussy. I moan, I can’t help it. We’ve had plenty of sex lately. More and more as the weeks go by. But there’s not been any rough play since… well, the night I signed the NDA.

  “You like to submit, Grace. You know you do.”

  I take a deep breath and try to turn my head, but he yanks on my hair again.

  “You like this. And it has nothing to do with the past. You like this because I’m your fucking prince, remember? You like this because I’ll make you scream with pleasure.”

  He leans down in my ear. His breath comes slowly. Totally in control. “Grace,” he says softly. “You like this because you want to be controlled and fucked hard, but you know you’re safe with me. So…” He pulls my hair so hard this time, I squeeze my eyes closed and have to arch my back to try to relieve the tension. When I open my eyes, I’m looking straight up at his face.

  “I want what you owe me, sweets. I told you back on the beach I was adding them up. Your list is long. Your penance will be difficult. But…” He sweeps his fingers along my slit again and this time even I feel the wetness because it drips down my leg. One finger dips inside me and he chuckles. Because he knows I want this as much as he does. “But if you’re very good,” he continues, “you won’t care.” He whispers the last part, alternating between the cold, dominating man I want and the soft, tender man I need. “You won’t care because your screams will not be from the pain. They’ll be from the pleasure. So which is it, Mrs. Asher? Stop? Or go?”

  Chapter Nine

  #MomentsOfTruth

  SHE needs to trust me. Fuck, she trusted me more out on that beach than she does now. And I’m sick of it. I’ve done nothing but support her. I’
ve been there for everything. I held her hand and made her feel loved and welcome.

  And maybe that was the wrong way to go. Because that’s what everyone else did the first time she came home. Maybe what my Grace needs is unwavering dominance.

  So that’s what I’m giving her tonight.

  She wants to waste her life away in bed feeling sad? Or mope around this house oblivious to the decay? I mean, holy fuck. Felicity was a pig. She made a mess just walking through a room. But eventually she picked up after herself.

  Grace has disappeared. I’m not sure if it was the injury, the kidnapping, or the baby that pushed her over, but that hardly matters now. She’s there. She’s crossed the line of sad and moved right into depressed.

  And I’m not gonna let this happen to us. I might not be able to make her get better, but I can make her choose. Either she wants us or she doesn’t.

  “I’m gonna ask you one more time, Grace. Say stop and we stop. You can go back to Denver and do whatever it is that will make you happy. Because clearly, I do not make you happy.

  “Or say go, and I take over from here on out. You submit to me and do as you’re told until I say otherwise. Because you have no idea what’s good for you right now, Grace. You’re in give-up mode. And for the record, I didn’t put myself through twenty-seven years of Hollywood bullshit to give up. I’m not a goddamned quitter.”

  She struggles hard against my hold, but I keep her pressed into the couch cushion. “I’m not a quitter, either. Your life is stupid.”

  I laugh. “So what? I’m the first to admit my life is stupid. I didn’t choose to be born to this family. It was my birthright.”

  “Your birthright is stupid too. You think you’ve had it hard, Vaughn? You have no idea what hard is.”

  “Boo-fucking-hoo. I do realize your tragedy trumps anything I can come up with. No, my life is not one long string of fear like yours, but it’s had its challenges.”

  “You don’t even know the meaning of the word survive.”

  “Apparently, neither do you.”

  “Fuck you. I’m here because I survived.”