Taking a deep breath, he came to stand in front of her, saying what he knew needed to be said, "You're right. I was very wrong to do what I did, and I deeply apologize and humbly ask for your forgiveness. It will never happen again; I can assure you."
She continued to dress, not addressing him until she was fully clothed. When she stood before him, he held his breath, recalling the rider that he had insisted on himself in their agreement that stated that either of them could terminate it at will.
That wasn't what she said, but he wasn't much happier about what she did say. "I was supposed to be here for the weekend. Please adjust my salary to indicate the difference before it's deposited on Monday."
With that, Arden left, surprised as hell that he was letting her go, expecting him to try to stop her with every step she took away from him.
But he didn't, and when she got home, to her lonely house, she realized she wasn't at all sure how she felt about that or about being there, the place that had long since become her sanctuary.
Loch was not an easy man—at least, he was far from easy for her, anyway. She knew that he thoroughly enjoyed making his point to her—every, single time, even though he never really said it anymore—that love didn't matter one iota to her body. That he could bring her to the exact same towering heights that her husband had or reduce her to a blubbering, whimpering mass—and do it without the slightest emotional bond existing between them.
At least, not on his side, anyway.
When she walked down the hallway towards her room—towards their room—she passed by the rogue's gallery she'd created and expanded during the years they lived there together—pictures of them and their friends and family, marriages and births and birthdays and Christmases, all happy, all overflowing with love. Her heart squeezed painfully at the sight of them, even more now than it ever had. Because the impossible had come true. What she had sworn up and down would never, ever happen to her again in her lifetime had happened.
The attraction to Loch Frazier that Sylvia had accused her of having—the one that made her exit a room every time he entered one—had morphed into something much, much deeper.
She had been concerned about sleeping with a man who didn't care about her, one who disavowed the entire existence of that most tender of feelings, although, conversely, he'd never once made her feel as if he didn't give a damn about her. In fact, just the opposite. He was always exquisitely careful of her and made certain that she was okay—especially after a particularly severe punishment, always offering to hold her and doing his best to provide aftercare, although she usually didn't take him up on it. Nor did she allow him to hold her for very long after they'd fucked, no matter how drained and worn out she was. It didn't seem right to do so, somehow, as if it would have been too false to bear. To her, that was a time when she and the man she adored touched and caressed each other, talked about their day and their plans and professed their love within the safety and security of each other's arms.
She'd never expected that she'd end up loving him, which only compounded the huge error he'd made today in his handling of her, to her mind.
And across town, the man she was agonizing over was doing his own agonizing, sitting on his patio, accompanied only by a bottle of the cheapest Scotch he owned and brooding over a woman for the first time that he could ever remember.
That was until his best friend showed up.
Loch never reached out to him for help, so when he'd called this evening and specifically asked him to come give him his opinion on the situation, Thomas had dropped everything—which his lovely wife was more than understanding about.
"'Bout time," he razzed.
"Fuck off," Thomas returned, sinking into a chair across from him and taking a hit of his own direct from the bottle. "So, if you're calling me, something must've gone seriously wrong. Care to tell me who fucked you over? Or who you fucked over?"
"It's not business."
Thomas was agog. "It's not? What is it, then?"
"Woman trouble."
His friend couldn't have been more surprised if he'd confessed to being a eunuch. "Who's giving you trouble?"
That got him a surprisingly chilling glare. "Who do you think, moron?"
It took him a minute, but he got it, eventually. "Arden? Really?" He shook his head sadly. "And here I thought she was a smart woman. What the hell is that classy lady still doing slumming with the likes of you? How come she hasn't long since kicked your sorry ass to the curb?"
"I can make her come six ways from Sunday," Loch drawled.
He nearly choked on his next swallow of what passed for rotgut in Loch's eyes now. "Okay, well, thanks for that mental image. I think I'll go pour bleach in my ear now and hope it scrubs my brain clean."
Loch stared out at his perfectly manicured back yard. "But that's just it. I'm not sure that she is still with me."
"What happened?"
His friend spelled it out for him, in terms that made Tom turn all sorts of pink. Thomas was a simple man with simple tastes, and he really didn't understand the dom/sub thing at all, although he'd been friends with Loch long enough that he had more than a passing acquaintance with the dynamic, which had been one of the reasons why he'd been recommended to Arden in the first place.
"Well, you did a good job stepping on your famously over-sized schwantz this time, didn't you?" he commended, downing the last of the bottle. "Dead soldier," he announced.
"Throw it on the lawn. Give the gardener something to mow around."
No sooner said than done, and when he looked back, there was another bottle on the table.
"So?"
"So what?"
"What should I do? I asked you to come over so that you could dispense your sage, obnoxiously in love and still disgustingly happily married advice, counselor."
"Yeah, Maria loves you, too, you sick, twisted bastard."
"What do I do?"
It was as close to a plaintive plea as Loch had ever gotten—in his presence, anyway, and that was probably, then, ever.
"Grovel. Go to her place, prostrate yourself before her and beg her for her forgiveness."
Loch gave him a doubtful look. "Do I need to explain to you yet again how relationships like ours work? I'm the dom. I do not prostrate myself in front of her—"
Tom waved his hand around. "Stop, stop! Thanks to you, I know entirely too much about a deviant lifestyle to which I do not even subscribe. Jesus Christ!"
That just got Loch giggling. "Sorry. Have I not given you equal time in our close, personal relationship to rhapsodize about your own boring assed, man-on-top-get-it-over-with-quick, 'birthdays, anniversaries and every third Thursday of the month only' sex life?"
"Fuck you!"
"Thanks, but no. I'm getting quite a bit of that already."
"You were, anyway," Thomas pointed out.
"And we're back to the fact that you're a giant load of absolutely no help."
"And, again, I say, fuck you."
Loch passed the bottle back to his friend after taking a couple of hefty gulps, and the two were silent for a long moment.
"Honestly, I don't know what to tell you."
Loch cleared his throat. "I can't buy her forgiveness."
"Nope."
"Especially now—all her bills are paid and she's just socking it away. She doesn't need or want anything from me. She's just as happy without me in her life, but I miss her already. She was supposed to be here all weekend."
He was drunk, talking much more than he would sober, and sounding for all he was worth like a lost, forlorn boy.
"I miss her when she's not here. I'm much happier when she's around."
"Any thoughts on why that might be?" Tom asked, hoping to prod his friend towards the emotional epiphany he'd been hoping he'd come to on his own at some point before they were both too drunk to grapple with advanced psychological concepts.
But Loch just shrugged, and Thomas realized—wisely—that he was already too far gone to ha
ve this conversation, really.
So was he, if it came down to it, so he settled for patting his friend's shoulder and, eventually, sleeping in his guest room.
May I come see you?
The text from him arrived less than a day later, and she stared at it for a while before deciding whether or not she was going to respond. She did like that he had phrased it as a very polite request—she sensed absolutely no demand there.
But, at her behest, they didn't spend much time at her place—aside from that one time after their first night together and when he picked her up here, she had deliberately kept them pretty separate. This was the house she shared with the love of her life. It was not a place for the allergic-to-love man she was currently playing the whore to in order to keep said house.
She let him know in her reply: I'd rather meet you somewhere else.
Loch frowned. Neutral, she meant. He knew she didn't like him being in her house.
I don't want to inconvenience you, and I won't be long, I promise.
He waited on pins and needles for her response, which was a good long while coming.
All right. When?
He arrived exactly on time, of course, that evening at seven after he'd left work. She was on his way home, anyway. He had sometimes driven past—on days when she wasn't with him—just in case he might see her.
Oh, how the mighty, etc., etc., etc., he thought, dragging his hand over his face as he sat in her driveway for a second, his heart pounding so powerfully in his chest that he could barely breathe.
As drunk as they both were, what Tom had said to him last night had soaked through all that alcohol and into his brain, and he had spent the morning trying to come to grips with the reality of his situation.
He loved her.
His entire world had been torn apart by the realization, but he couldn't deny the truth of it. He knew it, as surely as he'd known it didn't exist before, he knew it did now, and it fucking bit the big one, because he also knew that what he should have been there to do was to tear up their agreement, the one that was even now neatly folded and sitting in his inside suit pocket, right in front of her, and set her free. That was really the only thing that he had to give her that would mean anything to her, and he desperately wanted to give her something that meant something to her.
But, now that he'd come to the realization of what she meant to him, he wasn't at all sure he was going to be able to do it. In fact, he was pretty sure he couldn't.
He was going to have a hard enough time giving her up at the end. He didn't want to think about how he'd feel if it all just ended, abruptly, tonight.
Before she came out to see why the hell he was sitting in her driveway like a schlub, Loch forced himself to knock on her door.
Damn, she looked good, even in cutoff overalls that were more paint than denim, an oversized white shirt that might well have been a man's, at one time—her husband's, no doubt—her hair up in a messy bun, and bare, paint splattered feet.
Arden held the door open for him. "Come in. Can I get you anything?"
"No, thanks. Like I said, I won't take up too much of your time."
He didn't really even leave the foyer, shoving his hands into his pockets in a way that Arden interpreted as nerves, and there certainly were those, but really it was because he wanted to stop himself from reaching out and grabbing her to him.
"Okay."
She smiled softly up at him, and his brain stopped working completely for a long second. "Sorry. Uh, I, um." He forced himself to stop going down that tentative path and straightened his shoulders, looking her square in the eye. "I really just came over here to say, again, how truly sorry I am about what happened. I absolutely realize that I acted inappropriately, and I am incredibly sorry for having done so. It was a thoughtless, selfish, rookie mistake."
He was so unusually eager, so endearingly earnest and sincere, that all she could do was smile up at him like a mindless dolt. "Thank you. I appreciate that you took the time out of your busy day to come here and say that to me, and I'm glad you realize the seriousness of your transgression."
"I most certainly do." Everything in him wanted to ask for her forgiveness, but he didn't want to push her, either.
After an awkward moment, he smiled and said, "Well, I'm on my way home." And I'd dearly love to bring you with me, he said to himself, but not aloud.
Arden nodded. "I'm in the middle of a painting, myself."
"Oh, you're painting! That's good—I'm glad to hear it."
"Thank you."
"I'll be going now." He turned to the door, hoping against hope that she'd stop him from going out it, but she didn't.
She did stand at the door, though, as he walked away. "Drive carefully, Loch."
He turned back towards her. "I will, Arden."
"Have a good night."
"You, too," he replied, with a smile he wasn't feeling.
He held it together getting out of her driveway, and even away from her neighborhood, then he pulled his car over and viciously attacked the steering wheel with his fists and palms and even his forehead—although only once—turning the air inside his car blue with rage at himself for being such a stupid, brainless idiot in the first place as to jeopardize her trust in him like that.
Meanwhile, when she'd closed the door behind her, Arden had simply slithered down onto the floor, her legs like jelly at the mere sight of him, her heart near to having given out at his heartfelt apology.
It wasn't until two days later that she texted him, and he was able to breathe again.
You are forgiven.
Then:
Do you want me this Friday night, as usual?
His reply, which he thought was quite restrained considering the fact that he was literally whooping out loud in his office, to the amusement and amazement of his staff:
Fuck, yes!
Chapter 9
Now, though, their time together was—technically—over. She had spent twenty-five nights with him—and a lot of days, for which she wasn't compensated, and he groused at her about that, but he knew better than to insist.
The closer they'd gotten to the end, the more demanding he had become of her, punishing her harder and more frequently and fucking her until she literally had a hard time walking when she left him the next morning. But he wasn't used to feeling this way—feeling so damned vulnerable about her, and he didn't want to lose her.
For her part, Arden was having a hard time with the realization that this was it, too. There was no way she could think of to extend it. He had been so generous that her debts were paid and she even had a nice nest egg started that was growing nicely thanks to his suggestions of a good money manager he had pointed her towards.
She was in a much better place overall than she had been when she'd come to him. She was much happier, feeling more emotionally stable, and almost overly sexually satisfied.
But that was all going to come to a crashing end this evening, and the two of them were each hyper aware of that fact.
He had told her that he wanted to do something special that last night, although he wouldn't tell her what it was. The only thing that he'd said was that he wanted her to wear something nice. He'd offered to buy her something, but she, of course, had declined.
As it was, though, she had arrived on his doorstep—where he met her in a beautiful, well-tailored tux—in a knockout dress with a halter top and a full, swinging skirt of burnout velvet that made him want to chuck his plans and have her right there on his doorstep in front of God and everyone. But he managed to control himself.
Instead of inviting her in, though, he shut the door behind him and offered her his arm, saying, "My lady."
Although she loved the sound of him calling her that, she tried not to read anything into it, although it was hard when he was playing the gentleman like this, so perfectly. He tucked her into the car, then drove them an hour or so away, to what looked like a very expensive hotel that she'd—of course—never been to before
. They were shown to their penthouse suite where a staff was present to attend to their every need. Drinks were ordered and brought by a starched looking butler, and eventually, when they were hungry, he escorted her to a cozy little table by the window, overlooking the ocean from about fifty floors up.
The food was amazing, and he peppered her with questions throughout their meal, talking more to her and being more forthcoming about himself, too, than he had been in all of the previous twenty-four days they'd spent together. He seemed more relaxed than she'd ever known him to be, and she liked it. She loved the sound of his laugh—when it wasn't an evil chuckle because he had nefarious intentions towards her—especially since it leaned towards a giggle, and she found that endearingly absurd coming from a man of his size.
They shared a dessert—the one he knew she liked the best—a big slab of cheesecake with a thick graham cracker crust, with really good hot fudge poured over and pooled beneath it, with several stacks of real whipped cream nearby, to cut the richness of it all.
"Oh, my God, this is sinful!" she exclaimed when he fed her the inaugural bite of it.
In fact, as she thought about what they had eaten, she realized that it was all of her favorites—steak, green beans, baked potato with butter and sour cream.
"Did you do all this for me?" she asked, through another mouthful of dessert.
He smiled. "If not for you, then whom? Did I get it right? Is there anything I missed?"
"Good God, no! It was scrumptious!"
Loch beamed at her. "Wonderful!"
They lingered over coffee as the other evidence of their meal was unobtrusively removed.
"Tell me, Arden, do you dance?" he asked, sipping from a snifter of after dinner brandy that he then passed to her so she could try it.
It was too strong for her, although she did like how it lingered on her palate, so she handed it back. "Not in a very long time."
"First dance with your husband at your wedding?" he asked.
Loch rarely mentioned him, but she didn't mind when he did. "No, actually, we eloped and didn't have that kind of a wedding. Even when we got back, we just had a small party with friends and family. I would have to say…" she had to think hard "…high school."
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