“No,” I snapped. “Do you still have the same number? Don’t call me. I’ll call you, okay?”
“When?”
I sighed. “When I can. Do you want to be friends or not? Friends are patient with each other.”
But Simon Baldwin had never been patient, or a very good friend, even before drugs took over his life. I finally got him out of my studio by telling him I had a deadline to meet. I breathed a sigh of relief that Price hadn’t come by for a morning blowjob. Most days, he waited until the afternoon.
God, I had to calm down. I needed to figure out how to help Simon attain mental peace without wrecking my own hard-fought sanity. I wasn’t sure there was a way to do it, which really sucked. Maybe I could just tell Price that I needed to help Simon find closure. Maybe he would understand if I explained it deftly enough.
No. Fuck. He’d never understand, and he’d never allow me to see Simon again. I was supposed to have zero contact with my ex. Zero. Never. Nothing.
I was definitely fucked.
Chapter Nine: So Fucking Sorry
I watched the whole thing happen in real time, watched it on a window on my laptop as a meeting continued around me. There was no audio on the surveillance feed, but I saw the intensity and duration of their conversation in high-definition detail. It seemed like they spoke forever, and there was real emotion, real connection in the way they conversed. She hadn’t seen Simon in months, not to my knowledge.
Not to my knowledge.
But had she? He was sober now, and rich as ever. He was good-looking, if you liked hipster vampire types. Hell, she’d gone to see his fucking painting in Paris, fucking cried over that shit. It seemed as though the question wasn’t “Does she still have feelings for him?” but rather “How intense are the feelings she still has?”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
No Simon, nothing to do with him, ever. That was our agreement. Hell, that was one of the first rules I’d established with her, and she had no “out” clauses to fall back on, no reasons why it might sometimes be okay to see him or speak with him. It was never okay.
I didn’t leave the meeting to go down and interrupt them. I was tempted to barge in there and throw him through the frosted glass door, but no. I didn’t do it, partly because I wanted to catch them in the act if she was fucking around on me, and partly because I was paralyzed by fear.
Instead, I watched until he left, clinging to every shake of her head, every expression of distress. Was it distress, or longing? Why the hell would he come here and have an emotional conversation with her after all these months?
I had to know. I waited to be paged by the receptionist. I waited for Chere to come to me and admit she’d met with Simon, and confess everything they’d talked about, but she didn’t, and it slowly became clear to me that she wasn’t going to. She bent back over her work, with no signs of guilt about the crime she’d just perpetrated before my eyes.
Of course, she didn’t know she was on camera, any more than she’d known when I spied on her with my hunting binoculars from across the street. I’d never admitted that I’d had cameras installed before she occupied her office, so I could watch her intermittently throughout the day, like during tedious planning meetings. I had every right to do it if I owned her. The cameras were one more layer of protection, one more layer of control.
Whether she knew about the cameras or not, she had a responsibility to come tell me what had transpired. Our rules regarding her and other men were very involved and very specific, and she’d broken about five of them between nine-thirty and ten o’clock.
I thought, okay, maybe she’s afraid to admit what happened. Maybe she’s trying to think of the right words to say. Maybe she’s working on a deadline. Maybe...
Maybe what?
I took her out to lunch. Nothing. Nothing but distant thoughts and nervousness, disguised in overly cheerful conversation that made me want to slap her. Admit it. Admit what you did, you faithless bitch. After lunch, I took her back to her studio and sat in the chair he’d sat in, and ordered her to blow me. Still nothing. No confession. No mention that he’d been there, sitting exactly where I was sitting.
Now I stared at her across the dinner table, giving her the benefit of the doubt. Meeting with Simon was a huge fuck up. Maybe she was still gathering the courage to come clean. But maybe...
Love lies.
Maybe she had no intention of telling me. If that was true, it was the beginning of our end. If she was choosing Simon—Simon—over what we had together, then I was done. I was done trying to save her, I was done trying to make her life better and more fulfilling. I was done twisting myself in knots trying to make us work. I was done risking my heart, bleeding poetry onto paper. If she wanted Simon...
But I’d let her speak first. I’d make her speak, if she didn’t elect to confess on her own. We went into the kitchen to clean up after dinner. I offered her ice cream. She asked for wine instead, and I thought, now. Now the confession will come. She just needed a little alcoholic fortitude to admit what she’d done. We took the wine into the living room and sat on the couch together. I waited.
Nothing, damn it. She was wondering when I’d take her to the dungeon. I kept her naked at home, always ready. She wanted to play.
I was tired of fucking waiting. I put my glass down on the side table and asked, in as casual a voice as I could muster, “Did anyone visit your studio today?”
There was an awful, soul-destroying moment when she thought about lying to me. I could see it in her features, in her expression. Oh shit, he knows. I better lie. Could I get away with a lie? No, I couldn’t.
At least she realized that. Her expression turned from panicked to wary to grim.
“Yes,” she said. She put her glass down and crossed her arms over her breasts. “Simon came to see me. I didn’t invite him. He just showed up.”
“And you told him to leave?” I asked, making her uncross her arms. No hiding. I wanted her naked as shit right now.
She watched me a moment before she answered. “Yes, of course I did. That was the first thing I said to him, that he had to go.”
“And did he go?”
“Yes.”
I stared at her. She glanced away, and then back.
“He did go, eventually,” she said in a tight voice.
“What did you talk about?” I was very proud of how level and calm I sounded. I didn’t feel that way inside.
“We didn’t talk about anything.”
“He was there a long time to be talking about nothing.”
“How do you know that?” She went from defensive to belligerent. Typical old-school Chere tactic. It wasn’t going to save her now.
“Tell me what you talked about,” I prompted, tugging her collar’s ring to focus her. “I’m angry enough that you met with him. Tell me what I want to know.”
She slid back on the couch, away from me. “No, you tell me how you know all this. Were you spying on me? Jesus fuck, do you watch me? Is there a camera in my studio?”
“Of course there is. You think I don’t like to look at you throughout the day?”
She was heading full speed into outrage. “You seriously installed a secret camera in my studio? You didn’t think that was something I might want to know?”
“It’s something you should have assumed, considering our past together. The cameras aren’t the issue here.”
“The cameras?” she said, getting to her feet. “Plural? How many cameras are there?”
“Sit down. Sit the fuck down or the ass beating will commence immediately. We need to talk.”
“Yes, we need to talk.” She sounded snarky, but she obeyed me and sat her ass back on the couch. “I can’t believe you’ve been spying on me all this time. What am I, your personal zoo animal? A fish in your fishtank?”
“Yes, you’re a very beautiful fish I can watch whenever I like.”
“Where are they? Where are the cameras?” She sat up straighter and looked around the liv
ing room. “Do you have them here in the house? In the guest room?” She paled. “In the dungeon? Have you been taping all the shit you do to me?”
“The shit I do to you?” I repeated with a warning note in my voice. “Is that what it is? Shit? You agreed to be mine, Chere. We have a relationship, a dynamic that is all encompassing, to include”—I marked off each word on my fingers—“surveillance, obedience, control, exposure, and whatever the fuck else I want. You live here in my house, by my rules. What’s the rule about Simon?”
“That I can’t see him,” she said. “But I had no control over what happened. He came to see me!”
“You didn’t work that hard to throw him out.”
“Because he was upset. He was stressed out.”
“About what?”
She rubbed her forehead. “About his sobriety. About these steps he’s working through, and our past, and trying to find some kind of peace between us.”
I let out a breath. The emotion, then, made sense.
“I mean, I couldn’t just throw him out,” she said. “He was begging for my help. I kept telling him I couldn’t help him, but he seemed so desperate.”
I frowned at her. “That’s exactly the shit he pulled on you before, acting pathetic and desperate so you would ‘help’ him. I forbade you to see him for a reason. He’s a user, Chere.”
“He’s sober now.”
“That’s not the kind of user I meant. He’s a user,” I said, with frustrated emphasis. “He’ll use you for the rest of your life if you let him. Did he ask about you at all? How you’re doing? How your work is going?”
“Yes! He said he was proud of me. And he asked if I needed help when I told him about this, about you. About how you wouldn’t let me interact with him, even as friends.”
“As friends. Perfect.” I gave a nasty laugh. “Because he has so many qualities you want in a friend.”
“I almost let him die once!”
Jesus Christ. Tears. She was crying over him again. I couldn’t take it.
“I almost let him die last time because I didn’t engage with him,” she said. “Am I supposed to do that again?”
“Yes.” My voice sounded too loud, too harsh. “Yes, you’re supposed to have nothing to do with him. Why is that so hard to understand? We’ve been over this, Chere. We’ve fucking been over it.”
I thought of Paris, of the brutal punishment I’d given her for merely going to look at one of his paintings. This was so much worse. She wanted to help him. She still cared about him. She was crying for him...again.
“If you don’t stop crying, I swear to God I’ll fuck you up. I’m not even kidding.”
She swiped tears off her cheeks, but she only cried harder and made more. So many tears. Some of them were probably for me, for fear of me, and worry about what I was going to do to her. She’d been a very bad girl, not just to see him, but to hide it from me. To feel so much for him, to allow him this pity and concern...
“Maybe instead of punishing you, I should just punch you in the face so you can remember what it felt like. Then you can decide how much you want to help him.”
She buried her head in her hands and bawled. Jesus, the fucking drama. It was so hard for her to admit when she’d been bad, when she’d done something wrong.
“I’m not going to punch you.” I touched her leg, trying to calm her. “I’m going to make this easy for you, okay? Listen to me. You’re not helping him. It’s not your job to save him from his past mistakes. You’re not seeing him again.”
“But he needs help. He seemed really upset, really conflicted.”
“He deserves to be conflicted for the things he did to you.” I narrowed my eyes. “It’s like you want to see him again. Like you want to become involved with him again. I don’t fucking understand.”
“I’m trying to exorcise my demons too,” she said. “I had a life before you, a very complicated one. I have feelings that don’t involve you. I know that’s hard for you to accept. Since I moved in here, my entire life, my emotions, my feelings, my friends, all of it has become this tiny little box that only has room for you.”
“You chose that. I warned you. You said you wanted that!”
“Simon is still sick, Price. He’s still struggling to stay sober. He needs me.”
“I need you,” I said, stubbornly clinging to my own guilt, my own past mistakes. “I need to protect you from being hurt by him again. I watched it happen once, and it sucked like hell. I’m not going through that again. No. You belong to me now. I get to decide. I get to protect you.”
The more I argued, the more she fought back. I liked her fighting spirit sometimes, but when she was fighting for her abusive ex-boyfriend, it fucking pissed me off.
“You’re smothering me,” she yelled. “You don’t want to protect me. You’re jealous of Simon just like you’re jealous of every other fucking man in the world because you’re such a fucking insecure wreck. You don’t trust me to be around any other human with a penis. Why? Jesus. It makes me hate you sometimes.”
I flicked a glance over her naked body. We hadn’t played hard in a while. There were no marks on her. Maybe I needed to leave a few marks to get her straightened out. “I think you better watch the way you talk to me,” I said. “You’re going to be punished for hiding your meeting with Simon. Don’t make me punish you for your manners too.”
“Fuck my manners. Fuck your rules and protocols and protective bullshit. You don’t love me, you don’t care about me. You haven’t changed at all. You still have no fucking heart underneath all your grasping, possessive, posturing bullsh—”
I stood before she could finish her sentence, and yanked her off the couch.
“Walk,” I said, turning her toward my bedroom. Toward the dungeon.
She started to resist, then thought better of it. Surely she understood she’d earned a punishment. If she’d decided to make it worse with more screeching and disrespect, that was her choice. Her misstep. Her own fucking mistake she’d have to live with.
“Please, don’t,” she said, trying to pull away from me. “Let me calm down first. I can’t. Please... Please, I’m so sorry.”
Nothing she said loosened my grip or slowed our inexorable progress toward the dungeon. I loved Chere. I loved her too much to let her lose her shit like this. I loved her too much to let her go backward, even if forward motion was about to cause her a whole lot of pain.
Chapter Ten: Surrender
Oh, shit, I’d fucked up. The look in his eyes...
Shit, I was so scared. I resisted even though I knew I’d earned this. We had a dynamic to follow, a system of rules and expectations, and I’d broken every one of them. I felt awful and out of control, but still, I didn’t want this.
“Stop,” he said, halfway toward the bondage rack. “Stop fighting me. You’re going to get what you deserve. No more, no less.”
That’s what I was afraid of. Most of the time I loved coming to the dungeon with him. I loved the way he treated me like a sexual science experiment, a bundle of female nerves on which to practice pleasure and pain.
But I knew there wasn’t going to be any pleasure this evening. He got out the manacles, the ones I’d fashioned to his specifications, back when I had no clients and no prospects. He put them on my wrists in a quick, businesslike way, and hooked them to the chain and pulley system in the ceiling. At the push of a button, the chain moved upwards, and soon I was straining with my arms to the sky, barely able to dance around on my toes.
I felt horribly vulnerable in this position. It was hard to balance on the balls of my feet, and with my arms up out of the way, my entire body was exposed. At least you’re not straddling the “bad girl” horse, I thought. But I still felt pitiful and scared.
A set of nipple clamps came next, and shit, a clamp on my clitoris that bit hard into my sensitive flesh. The clamps were the heavy, painful kind that tightened when you moved, and I made whining sounds just to process the pain.
�
�Hush,” he said, slapping my ass. It wasn’t a playful slap. It was a hard, stinging slap that made me jump, which made the clamps tug, which made me cry out again. He shook his head and went for the gag I hated most in the world.
No, I almost said. No, no, no. But I wasn’t allowed to talk in here, and he was angry enough. He forced my mouth open with his fingers when I started to sob, and shoved the hard rubber cock gag into my mouth. Fuck. I fucking hated being gagged and bound like this, and the punishment hadn’t even started. He buckled the gag behind my head as my clit and nipples throbbed. Sometimes wearing clamps made me feel like a sexual, erotic creature, but sometimes it just felt shitty and painful, and owww, I never wanted anything to touch my clit again.
He stood back and looked at me, and I made the saddest eyes I could. I felt sad. I felt fucking awful. I felt naked and endangered, while he was stern and perfect, still dressed in his designer sweater and pants. He took off his belt and doubled it over, and I braced for the first blow.
When I felt the stinging impact, I screamed behind the gag. This was punishment. It wasn’t supposed to feel good and it wasn’t supposed to be easy to take, so there was no warm up, just a hard, wicked strike across the ass. I pulled on the chain and bounced on my toes, and waited in dread for another blow. Ow, ow, ow. Ah, God. By the fifth blow, I was in tears. On the sixth, I tried to twist away, even though it was against the rules. He righted me and turned my face back to the wall.
“Don’t you fucking try to escape,” he said. “We’re just getting started.”
By the time he put aside the belt, I was a trembling, drooling, snotting mess of apology, but the paddle came next, an oval shaped instrument of torture that burned like a brand. Every time he smacked my ass, an almost unbearable sting would be followed by a deep ache. My nipples hurt, and each jump and jerk reminded me of the clamp on my clit. It was impossible not to squirm away when the pain was so hard and so sustained, but he only braced a hand at my waist and forced me to stand still while he paddled my ass with the other hand.
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