by S Doyle
The attendant continued to move down the aisle and Marc snapped his jaw shut.
“You should have told me,” he grumbled.
“I honestly didn’t know what you would do,” I told him. “What we had wasn’t strong enough to keep us together. Why would I think you might believe what we had was enough to overcome Arthur and Evan’s plan?”
He smirked then, and grabbed my hand again. “Isn’t it? Isn’t that what we’re doing right now? I’m going to marry you to stop them. If that’s not enough of a commitment for you, let me know now.”
I bit my bottom lip. “Evan is a bad man. Now that I know some of his plans, it’s like I can see the filth writhing under his skin. Barely covered by his slick hair, handsome face and expensive clothes. However, I think he’s also practical. If he knows I’m no longer an option for him legally, he’ll move on. He might punish Arthur.”
“How?”
“I think there’s something wrong with the business. He keeps talking about this debt Arthur owes him. Have you seen anything while you’ve been there?”
Marc shook his head. “No, but I’m allowed very limited access. I support Trevor with a few accounts, and I mess around with the account your father gave me.” He laughed. “It’s how I got the money for these tickets. How’s that for irony?”
“Somehow my father is indebted to Evan, and everything suggests it’s a criminal debt.”
“I tried to access his client list a few times. You said it was your mother’s birthday, so I tried a bunch of different variations. I never got in.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “If Evan exposes Arthur, then he gets what he deserves. As a father, he’s dead to me. Like I said, Evan is nothing if not practical. He won’t want a scene. He thought I was docile, compliant. He understands now, I’m not.”
“He’s the one who hit you,” Marc said softly. Not a question. A statement.
The memory from a few nights ago washed over me. I had to shake it loose before it brought me too low.
“I hadn’t been feeling well. We were to attend the opening of an opera. I said I wouldn’t go. He wasn’t expecting me to ever say no to anything. He backhanded me. Not with any anger or emotion. More like a cruel owner conditioning his dog to heel. With my fair skin, the bruise was immediately visible. He saw it and knew I couldn’t be seen. So he left without me. Like I said, very practical.”
“Fucking bastard.”
I squeezed Marc’s hand. “We’ll lay low, let whatever is going to happen, happen. Then after a time, when it’s safe, we can get divorced.”
“Divorced?”
I looked at him and thought I couldn’t read the expression on his face. It upset me because I had always been able to read him. But months apart had maybe changed him. Changed us.
“Yes. I wasn’t expecting this to last. It’s only to stop me from having to marry Evan. It’s not real. I know that.”
“What’s not real about us, Ash?” he asked angrily. “That you managed to save a spiraling twelve-year-old-boy from losing his shit? That I nearly killed you with a few mean words at dance? That you sacrificed college for me? That I took your virginity and then I took everything else? What about any of that wasn’t real to you?”
“But we broke up,” I reminded him. “We weren’t strong enough to stay together.”
He glared at me then. “How have you felt these pasts months without me?”
I shrugged. That was easy. “Like part of my soul was missing.”
This time he was squeezing my hand. He bent toward me and whispered in my ear.
“Just remember, I’m never going to admit anything like that. I’m not going to tell you I missed you, or that I was hurt or lonely or soul crushed. I’m not going to say I didn’t, or couldn’t, smile. That I didn’t fuck a single woman in all that time, because I was afraid you were right. That nothing was ever going to be as good as we had it. I’m never going to tell you that. Ever.”
I turned to him and kissed him. Nothing provocative, just a simple reconnection of our lips. It felt like coming home.
“It’s okay, Marc. You don’t have to say any of that.”
Then I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. Maybe this was going to work. Maybe we were going to be free from everything.
Maybe this time we were strong enough.
Las Vegas
Marc
It was done. In the eyes of the law, by the power of the state of Nevada, Ashleigh Landen was now my wife.
They’d offered us the chance to buy pictures and rings. We hadn’t bothered with any of that. We only had a single certificate that proved any ceremony had occurred.
Ash thought this marriage was temporary. It didn’t feel that way to me. It felt like we’d taken this next step that would irrevocably tie us together.
Till death do us part.
I heard the shower go on in the bathroom. We’d rented a hotel room and would stay the night, then fly back tomorrow to face whatever consequences were waiting for us.
I assumed Landen would fire me. That was fine. I already had interviews lined up next week at other investment firms. Ash would stay with me at the apartment in Brooklyn until we found something better.
Given that Sanderson had hit her over something as inconsequential as not attending the opera with him, I wasn’t going to risk what he’d do to her for this rebellion. Which meant she was leaving everything she had behind.
She was fine with that.
I folded the certificate in half and tucked it in a pocket inside my suitcase. Then I stood and started taking off my clothes.
My wife was naked in the shower and it had been months since I’d had her. This was going to feel so damn good. I considered the condom I had in my wallet. I didn’t want to wear it. Because I knew what Ash felt like without it. Because the thought of knocking her up, tying her to me permanently, sounded like an amazing idea.
Then I shook my head and extracted it from my wallet anyway. Because this wasn’t my decision alone. It was hers, too. I walked to the bathroom door and opened it without knocking. I pushed back the shower curtain and Ash didn’t startle at all.
“I was waiting for you,” she said.
“I came.” I held up the condom. “Do we need it?”
She shook her head. “I recently went on birth control. I didn’t know if he would try something. I wanted to be prepared.”
She didn’t know if Sanderson might try to rape her. I closed my eyes against the surge of rage I felt, then clamped down on it. Ash hadn’t told me she was being forced into her situation. She hadn’t told me she feared getting raped by that asshole.
I looked at her, furious with her, even though I knew she was the victim.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I should have.” She nodded. “I should have told you. I didn’t know if you were ready yet. But that was wrong. I knew you would have stepped in, if you knew how bad it was. But truly, I didn’t know how bad it was until the other night.”
I tossed the condom into the trash.
“Move over,” I said, pushing her in the shower. “I want to anger fuck my wife.”
She pressed herself against the back of the shower. “I actually read about that, and anger fucking is a real thing. It’s supposed to be super intense. Except every time we’re together, it’s like that. Intense, I mean. Not always angry.
I braced my arms on either side of her head, pinning her against the wall and letting the water spray against my back. I let it drench me while I protected her. She glanced down and must have seen how hard I was. I simply thought of her and it happened. I remembered a sigh, a touch, a smell from our time together, and it happened. I’d gone months without sex, but the worst part of that was I hadn’t even wanted it. Hadn’t craved it or felt frustrated in denying myself.
More like I felt castrated. Like she was the link to my sexual self.
I turned her around and bent her until she was almost in half. Using her hand
s to brace herself against the wall. I ran my hands down her back and reveled in the shape of her. Her narrow shoulders that seemed to hold so much. Her delicate ribs that contained the lungs that sometimes failed her. Her tiny waist I could almost span with my hands.
“You’ve lost so much weight,” I muttered, not liking the idea of her becoming any more frail. She needed to be strong if she was going to face whatever was our future. Her father’s wrath. Whatever punishment Evan might dole out. Both she and George made it sound like the wealthy had powers mere mortals couldn’t imagine, but I’d spent enough time around them to know they were also people. Human people with weaknesses like anybody else.
And a weakness could always be exploited.
She didn’t answer me. She just wiggled her bottom in my direction and arched her back. I cupped her ass cheeks in my hands, then dropped one hand lower to explore her pussy. So I could feel how slick she was inside.
Hot, wet and waiting for me. I remembered the feeling of being bare inside her like I remembered my last breath. Only this time, I was going to come inside her. This time I was going to know what it truly meant to complete the act.
Without another word I angled my dick until it was pressed up against her, then, with a heavy lunge, I was balls-deep inside her.
She croaked out a moan and I paused. “Too much?”
She shook her head and pushed back against me as if to take me deeper. I liked that idea. I liked the idea of just standing here buried inside her and making her do all the work. Working herself against me, fucking me. But I knew that would only end in frustration for her. I cupped my hands underneath her chest and tugged on her nipples. Again, her back arched and the angle made my next thrust so smooth, so deep, she gasped.
“You feel so good,” she cried.
“Good?” I muttered, twisting the hard points in my fingers a little harder than I should have. “Not angry? Because I am. So. Fucking. Angry. With. You.”
Each word said with a snap of my hips. Hard. Short. Powerful. I felt her body shake underneath me, lifting herself on the balls of her feet to absorb each thrust.
I released her breasts to find her clit. It was swollen and angry, and when I circled it with my thumb, even as I continued to pound her from behind, she cried out. I could feel her body squeezing around me. I could feel her coming apart and still I fucked her without holding anything back, without worrying about her frailty. I was practically double her weight, her size, but I held nothing back.
“Marc!”
Yeah, I knew what that meant. I could feel her inner walls pulling the orgasm from me. Sucking me inside so deep, that, when I came, it felt like I was flooding her pussy with jet after jet of my cum. Months and months of it filling her up.
When it was over, I could feel the water still pounding against my back. Could hear her gentle pants, her head hanging low between her shoulders. Carefully, I pulled away from her, then I could see it.
The trickle of semen sliding down the inside of her thigh. I don’t know why, but the thought of it escaping bothered me. It was supposed to be inside her. With a finger, I scooped it up and slid that finger inside her pussy.
Then I wrapped my arms around her body to lift her so that her back was pressed against my chest. Her head resting on my shoulder. I nipped at the underside of her jaw.
“Let’s run away now,” she whispered, her eyes closed. “Let’s go where they can never find us. Never touch us. We could have this always.”
Gently, I moved her into the shower spray, letting the warm water wash over the body I’d so ruthlessly taken.
“They don’t scare me, Ash,” I told her. “We’re going to go back, tell them we’re married, and deal with the consequences. Then you and I are going to have to figure shit out.”
“Shit?”
I sighed. “Life. Work. A place to live. Shit.”
Her head nodded against me. We finished the shower, and, together, fell into bed exhausted. From the stress of the day, the sex, the hot water. It didn’t matter the reason. I fell asleep with Ash draped all over me, and, for the first time in months, I quickly and easily fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
13
Newark Airport
Ashleigh
I’d known it was too simple. The plan to run away, to get married. To stop Arthur and Evan from whatever their greater evil was.
I wasn’t part of those plans. I knew that much. I was simply a prop, an accessory. A beard. Something intended to cover up the stink of the two of them together, and make them look acceptable amongst polite society. That was my role.
I was their pawn. Nothing more. Which gave me hope I could be easily replaced. That if I showed myself to be a nuisance, they would swat me away and find someone else who would quietly obey, in exchange for the comfortable life Evan had promised.
Unlimited cars, jewels, clothes. Anything and everything a person could pay for.
And nothing that really mattered.
I’d let Marc into my room a few nights ago. Let him agree to such a foolish plan. Marry me. That’s what I’d asked him to do, and, by doing it, I’d condemned him to my own fate.
I knew better. I knew it was too good to be true. I’d thought maybe…
I’d thought wrong.
“Are you ready?” he asked, as he bent down to whisper into my ear. We were leaving the plane. Slowly, single file. I was in front of him.
We’d decided to extend our stay, and spent the weekend in Vegas. Never once leaving our room. Just ordering room service, making love and talking. About the past, about the future. Being with Marc had felt like breathing life back into my soul.
I had an appetite for everything suddenly. Food, drink, sex. All of it.
I didn’t know if Arthur or Evan had tried to track me down. I hadn’t brought my phone with me. Only my burner phone. I thought it didn’t matter. The deed was done. There was nothing they could do to undo what Marc and I had done.
We were married. And only a judge could make us unmarried.
Still, I could feel the pit of dread in my stomach as we got off the plane in New Jersey. The plan was simple. We were going to the estate to explain to Arthur what we’d done.
Arthur was either going to accept it or not. Marc thought he might not be as opposed to marriage as I imagined. Given his success over the past several months at the firm.
Marc thought it might be enough, but I knew he didn’t fully understand. Still, if Arthur didn’t accept what we’d done, Marc would resign his position, then we would go to his apartment in Brooklyn.
He’d already explained it was completely crowded and we would basically be sharing a couch until he could find work at another firm. But that was fine. We would be together, and free, and married.
It wouldn’t be out of character for Arthur to be petty and try to blackball Marc from several prestigious firms, but he wouldn’t be able to stop him from getting a job somewhere. Not with Marc’s résumé.
We made our way down the tunnel which led to the gate. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Marc had a smile playing around his mouth. Not a full-out smile, but a small, satisfied one that reminded me what I did for him. I brought him pleasure and smiles and easy times. With me, and only with me, he could escape from the loss and anger that sometimes threatened to overwhelm him.
He was happy with me. No matter the trouble I brought on him, I also brought him a sense of peace. He had to see that. He had to be able to compare the difference of his feelings when he was with me, and when he was without me. At least I hoped he did.
Maybe it was because I was looking at him, at his expression, I didn’t notice the two men in suits who stood at the end of the gate as if they were waiting for someone.
“Marc Campbell?” the one suit said, stepping forward.
They both wore navy blue suits, white shirts with red ties. They had short hair, military-style haircuts, and both had the same serious expression.
“Yes, I’m Marc Campbell.”
“This is Agent Bellevue. I’m Agent Warren.”
The agent named Warren handed Marc a document.
“That’s a warrant for your arrest.”
“No,” I gasped. This wasn’t happening.
“Charges of fraud and embezzlement. We’ll need you to come with us for processing.”
“What the fuck?” Marc raged. “Is this a joke?”
“No joke, sir. A complaint was filed by your employer three days ago. Our investigation shows a direct transfer of money from your work account, to a personal account, in the amount of two thousand dollars.”
I looked over at Marc and he closed his eyes. “That wasn’t…I didn’t embezzle that money. That money was mine. It was what I earned.”
“Sir, that money was not yours,” the agent named Bellevue said. “But that’s not what we’re interested in. What we would really like to know is what you did with the twenty million dollars you stole?”
I closed my eyes and felt the world turn black. The insidious cold of my father’s plot chilled the air around us, making it so hard to breathe.
But I had to breathe. I couldn’t let myself collapse on the spot. Not when I knew Marc needed me.
“This is a mistake. My father is doing this,” I tried to tell the agents, but they were impervious to my pleas.
“You have a previous charge for resisting arrest, so we’re going to need to handcuff you,” Warren said, extracting a pair of cuffs from what appeared to be some type of utility belt. When he shifted his jacket, I saw the gun on his hip.
“No!” I screamed.
“Ash,” Marc barked at me, even as he was turning his back on the agent so they could lock his hands together. Around us, people were starting to stare. “I need you to calm down. We’ll get this sorted out.”
“How? How are we going to beat this? You know he set you up. You know it! This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have let you get involved. I didn’t know he would be this ruthless. I thought he would let me go. I did this to you. This is my fault.”
