by Gemma James
The mattress depressed on either side of my head, and when I opened my eyes, I found his face inches away. Tempting me. Drawing my head up until our lips met.
He moaned into my mouth, and strength seemed to drain from his bones. He blanketed my body, his weight growing heavier by the second. “But I’m your devil. Always, Kayla. I love you so fucking much.” Inching back, he gave me a severe look that stole my breath. “You know that, don’t you, baby?”
I nodded, barely able to breathe, and somehow managed to tell him that I loved him too. And right then I knew I wouldn’t see Ian again. I couldn’t do that to Gage, no matter how much his behavior infuriated me.
“Good,” he said. “Because I do. There is no one more important to me on this planet than you and Eve.”
My body felt like a limp noodle. I remained speechless as he finished dressing. He kissed me one last time before heading toward the bedroom door, adjusting his cufflinks as he strode with purpose.
“I want you to come to the office today. I’ll text you.” The door shut quietly upon his exit, and I hated myself because I knew what I’d be doing all morning.
Anxiously waiting for the devil to summon me.
6. Lunchtime Scandal
“Go into the women’s restroom on the second floor and touch yourself.”
I stopped dead in my tracks in the lobby of Channing Enterprises, and a man in a charcoal power suit almost ran into me from behind. As my cheeks flushed, he strode by me, casting a glare my way. Since standing in the middle of the lobby, unmoving with the phone pressed to my ear, was probably more attention-grabbing than Gage’s words, I wandered to the edge and stood in the middle of two towering tree-like plants. Rubbing a leaf between two fingers confirmed they were real.
“Why the second floor?” What a crazy question. My first question should have been why at all.
“The PR department takes their lunch about now. I imagine the ladies room will have plenty of activity in it.”
“I can’t do that in there!” I said in a fierce whisper.
“You can and you will. Tell me when you’re in the stall.”
Panic ate at my composure. I remained motionless, eyes unseeing as people bustled around me, their bodies little more than moving blurs.
“Are you moving, Kayla?”
“Yeah.” Instead of taking the elevator, I used the stairs, figuring I could at least delay this uncomfortable task for a minute or two longer.
“Taking the stairs won’t save you from this.” The bastard said it with barely contained amusement.
“I’m in the elevator.”
“Do you remember what the punishment is for lying?”
Dread snaked down my spine. “Yes, Master. I’m sorry.” I was grateful to be in the stairwell then, where no one else was around to hear me. And I was even more grateful that Gage didn’t know the real lie. The one I’d perpetrated every day for the past few weeks.
I hefted the door to the second floor open and stepped into the hall. The women’s restroom was up ahead to my left, and Gage was right about the busy time of day. Three women entered as I approached. I shouldn’t have been surprised though. He knew what went on in this building at all times.
One of the women held the door for me, and as I stepped inside, snippets of conversations filled the space. A toilet flushed and water ran. The hand dryer blew. Maybe I could do what he demanded without being detected since the noise level in here was close to ear-splitting. I entered the last stall and firmly shut the door, double checking the latch.
“I’m here,” I whispered.
“Good. Hold the phone with your left hand.”
“What if I already am?”
“You aren’t.”
I swear the man had eyes in the walls of every room. I switched the phone to my left ear. “What now?” I asked in a hushed voice.
“Tease your clit with one finger.”
This was beyond humiliating. I shifted inside the stall, standing in the center of the door with my back to it, thankful the stalls were made with privacy in mind; they didn’t have gaps between the door and the frame.
My reluctant hand dragged my skirt up my thigh, and I slipped a finger between the lips of my pussy. Heat instantly flared. My head fell back against the door, and I let out a breath.
Two days of being teased and denied. God, this was torture.
“Are you touching yourself?”
“Mmm-hmmm…” Chatter continued on the other side of the door. Gossip about coworkers, stories about the men they were dating, the assholes they’d dumped and the assholes who’d dumped them. I closed my eyes and blocked it all out. Everything but my finger caressing, slipping through the moisture growing between my legs.
“Cup yourself, Kayla.” Blocked out everything but Gage’s seductive voice in my ear. “Fingers in your cunt, thumb on your clit.”
Swallowing a moan, I widened my stance and forced my fingers inside. “Gage…” His name was a breath on my lips. An oath. Bringing my thumb to my clit almost destroyed me, but I did it.
The hand dryer blared on again, and I used it as a cover. “I’m so close.”
“I know, baby. That’s where I want you. On the edge…” He groaned, and I knew then that he had his cock in his devious hand. His breathing escalated. “Rub yourself and mean it. I want to hear you moan.”
I didn’t want to make a sound. Not with a bunch of gossip mongers who wouldn’t hesitate to spread this humiliating task around the office. The flesh under my circling thumb throbbed, skyrocketing my pulse. Biting back a moan, I willed my hips to stay still.
“You’re holding back. If you don’t moan for me right now, I’ll gag you when I get my hands on you.”
He knew me too well. The strangled sound escaped my throat just as someone entered the next stall.
“You’re very naughty, Kayla.” He tsk-tasked. “Touching yourself in the middle of the day and turning me on. Do you know how hard my cock is right now?”
I grunted, unable to do more beyond my constricted throat.
“Do I need to call you into my office for a spanking?”
“Please, Master.” The words tore from my tightened lips, breathless enough to count as a whisper. I’d rather he bend me over his desk and whale on me than lose control in this bathroom.
“Fuck, you’re sexy. Come to me. Don’t wash your hands. I want the smell of your beautiful cunt on your fingers. I want you wet. Do you understand me?”
Several women had exited the bathroom, and the sudden quiet seemed to echo. I mumbled a yes and ended the call before he could issue another command. Thirty long seconds ticked by as my heartbeat slowed. I straightened my skirt and was about to slide open the lock and push the door open when a single name froze the blood pumping through my veins.
“Did you hear about Katherine Mitchell?”
“Crazy, right?” a woman with a pitchy voice said. “I heard she’s coming back.”
The sound of rushing water interrupted for a moment. “I’d bet a month’s pay the boss is fucking her again.”
“Well that’s obvious. You don’t spend over an hour in his office without him taking out his dick.” Laughter echoed. “Rachel told me Mr. Channing’s wife disappears in there for hours sometimes.”
Fire erupted in my stomach, and something dangerous and venomous collided inside me. Possessive jealousy. If I was his and only his, then he was fucking mine and only mine.
“What a pig,” one of the women said.
“A hot, rich pig.” More giggles. “Think he’ll give Katherine the PA position?”
“Ugh. No doubt. That bitch has always had a hold on him.”
“It’s bullshit. At least four girls have been waiting for a shot at that job.”
A door squeaked open then banged shut, muffling the words coming from their running mouths. My cheeks flushing with rage, I tiptoed from the stall I’d been hiding in and faced an empty bathroom.
Listened to the pulse throbbing in my ears.
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He was waiting for me, but I didn’t want to move. I didn’t feel capable of doing anything besides gripping the counter until my knuckles turned white. Their words raped my mind, making me want to claw and scratch and scream. They believed he was screwing Katherine. The whole damn building probably thought my husband was fucking another woman.
At some point, I left the bathroom and moved down the hall at a pace that defied the stilettos on my feet. As I waited for the elevator, I practically ripped the shoes off and held them in my shaking fist. No one paid me any attention. I was invisible—just another employee among many. After all, why would the wife of the CEO be on the second floor using the ladies room?
As I rode the elevator to the fourth floor, I couldn’t stop the speculation, the mistrust and hurt and jealousy from taking hold of me. After our wedding, I’d insisted he transfer Katherine to another office. He’d owed me that much, considering all he’d put me through. Considering all he expected of me. If he wanted control of every aspect of my life, then he could at least give me this.
He’d shocked me by agreeing, by putting me first. But he’d brought her back. Why?
Was I not good enough?
The elevator dinged. I despised how my eyes burned with unshed turmoil as I stepped onto the floor where I used to work. The place transported me to the past—to a time I’d been but couldn’t quite remember. As if someone else had worked here. Someone who’d been strong and independent.
“Hello, Mrs. Channing. He’s waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled to his secretary—a woman who was thankfully married and much older than Gage. I thought I trusted him…I wanted to trust him, but my reaction to overhearing the gossip of those women told me otherwise. We were both jealous people. Possessive. Obsessed. Maybe that’s why he’d ultimately won my heart, because it recognized its own kind.
Clutching my shoes in one hand, I turned the handle with the other, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
He sat at his desk—the same one he’d bent me over countless times to ravish or punish. He glanced up as the door clicked shut behind me.
“Took you long enough. Come to me on your hands and knees.”
Instead of dropping to the floor, I stood motionless.
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Kayla, don’t make me tell you again.”
“Why is Katherine back?”
The question seemed to startle him. “Who told you?”
“It doesn’t matter who told me!” My knuckles whitened around the straps of my stilettos. “You promised me she was gone.”
He sighed, and the way he did it—as if he were dealing with a recalcitrant child—enraged me. I dropped my shoes so I wouldn’t throw them at his smug, I’m-in-charge face.
Bastard.
My vision blurred, narrowed to where he sat as if the walls were closing in on me. Or maybe the memories were coming to claim me. This office held too many of them, most of which were still raw and bleeding. They flooded my mind, flaying me with their brutality. With their sensuality. Me, bent over the desk as his belt punished my ass. On the floor between his knees, eating cock while he ate his turkey on rye.
And the walls…we’d broken in each one. He’d taken me many times in this space, in many ways, from slow and loving to fast and harsh. Time hadn’t wiped the slate clean, despite marriage. Despite the fact that I loved this insane man more than he deserved.
Because in that moment, I wanted to kill him.
He studied me for a few seconds—seconds that felt like minutes. Finally, he stood, and rather than beam me with anger and the promise of degradation, his eyes widened in a way that was foreign to me. As if he’d been caught red-handed.
My stomach lurched. Vomit rose. When it came to him, my instincts were usually on the money, and they were screaming bloody murder. I failed to breathe as I brought my hand to my throat, brushing trembling fingers over the collar he’d locked around my neck before we’d married. I had no key to it. He kept it on him at all times.
Because he owned me. Because I was his plaything he kept locked away, ready and available to use and fuck when it suited him. I didn’t want to ask, let alone hear the answer, but I had to know.
“Did you sleep with her?”
“God, no, Kayla.” He rounded the desk, creeping toward me like one would sneak upon a skittish animal.
I held a hand up. “Don’t you dare come near me.”
He halted at my venomous tone. “Don’t do this, baby. You’re overreacting.”
His cautious demeanor, and the fact that he didn’t have me over his desk, ass reddened from his belt, spoke louder than the thunder in my ears. A tear finally slipped free. Glaring at him, I swiped it away. Pretended it wasn’t there.
I wasn’t crying. Crying meant he was hurting me, and I’d let him hurt me enough. Day after day, I let him wreck me. Crying meant those women were speaking the truth.
“Why aren’t you punishing me, Gage?”
“Seriously? You’re picking a fight with me because you want to be punished?” Ignoring my protesting hand, he took a step toward me. Helplessly, I watched him take another, and another until my back hit the door.
Trapped. Nowhere to go. Right back at square one…where I always ended up with him.
He wrenched my arms above my head and shackled my wrists in his strong fist. “Is there a reason you need to be punished?”
“N-no.” I hated how shaky my voice was, how the lie seemed to dance off my lips too easily. My face heated, flushing my cheeks with deception.
“You’re looking guilty as fuck, Kayla. Are you sure you don’t need to be punished?” The uncertainty in his eyes had disappeared. Now that he had me subdued and back under his control, those few moments of unsteady ground he’d stood on were no more. His world was solid again.
Mine was crumbling beneath my feet.
“The thought of you with her kills me.” Another tear dripped down my cheek. “Why is she back?”
He brushed the sorrow from my face, and the gesture was so gentle and caring, I wanted to sob. His mouth settled on mine, coaxed my lips apart, plundered away my insecurities. Tightening his hold on my wrists, he shoved his free hand under my shirt and cupped me, thumb whisking the hardened nipple poking through thin silk.
“Gage…” I sighed against his lips, disarmed by his touch. Pliable submissive waiting to bend upon his command. That was me.
“There is no one but you. No one.” His gaze sparked with meaning. “Can you say the same?”
“Yes.” Though not in the way he meant. Not in the way he was hoping for. No matter how much I loved him, needed him, was bound to him…Ian would always have a tiny piece of my heart. Deep down, he knew that, or he wouldn’t have asked.
“You’re it for me, baby.” His gorgeous blue eyes, fringed by thick lashes that normally shadowed his secrets, held steady. He didn’t avoid my gaze, didn’t look away in shame or regret. They bespoke truth.
I’d misunderstood. He would build me a new foundation, assure me that I had nothing to fear. Those women were wrong. Katherine wasn’t—
“But there is something I need to tell you.” He swallowed hard, and my legs almost gave out. If he hadn’t pinned me to the door, I would have leaned against it to prop me up.
“Tell me what?” I wanted to take the question back. Wanted to cover my ears and sink through the door to the other side, where I wouldn’t hear the words he so clearly didn’t want to say. Gage didn’t do nervous.
“Katherine’s son is mine. That’s why she was here the other day. We were arguing over visitation.”
A blade sliced through my heart, freshly sharpened. She’d given him the one thing I hadn’t been able to. We’d tried. Jesus, we’d tried. Day after day, week after week. We’d fucked more times than most people fucked in a lifetime, yet my curse still showed up like clockwork every month.
“How long have you known?”
“A couple of months.” He paus
ed, hesitating. “But I suspected last year after…”
After we lost the baby.
The truth crashed over me. He hadn’t believed he could have kids, so finding out the doctors had been wrong—that he was capable of knocking up a woman—had changed everything. Why hadn’t I given thought to Katherine’s son? I remembered seeing him once, long before Gage had blackmailed me into sexual slavery. Now that I considered it, there had definitely been a resemblance.
How could he have kept something this huge from me? We’d turned a new page the day we married, left the lies and blackmail in the past.
Except you’ve been lying for weeks.
That annoying voice in my head was right. How hypocritical to feel betrayed when I’d kept something from him as well. Only my lie was small in comparison. I’d only wanted a little freedom. A few stolen hours each week to give something back for the gift I’d been given.
The gift of Eve.
I yanked my hands free and pushed against his chest. “Let me go.”
“We need to talk about this.”
“No, we don’t.” Putting all my strength into freeing myself, I shoved him back, inch by hard-won inch, and managed to jerk the door open before he could grab me again. He glanced at the busy room full of his employees, and the boss mask fell into place.
“Don’t you dare walk out that door.” Though he wore a neutral expression for show, his tone dropped to a range that never failed to ring my warning bells. “We aren’t done here, Kayla.”
How could he wipe all signs of feeling from his face? Was part of him always pretending? Always keeping an iron grip on control?
“I can’t even look at you,” I said, not giving a shit if the entire floor heard me.
All sign of pretenses vanished. He tugged me into his office and slammed the door. “How do you address me?”
“You don’t get to be my Master today. Today you’re just my husband who had a kid with another woman and failed to mention it.”
He hauled me to the desk, his fingers grasping my bicep with enough strength to bruise. “You will call me Master, even if I have to beat it out of you.” He reached for his belt. “Bend the fuck over and lift your skirt.”