Everything Gained

by Carolyn Faulkner

  He was also a ladies' man, who was a tad shorter than Gain, but with a lot of the same physical bulk. He'd been known to squire the most eligible of ladies about town in limousines, taking them to the best restaurants, and/or flying them down to Boston, or even in once case, to Paris for dinner one night.

  When Gain came home unexpectedly, he found his wife trying to struggle out of Dunn's arms, valiantly leaning as far away from him as she could, saying very loudly and without a trace of hesitation, "No, Dunn, let me go!"

  Gain had never been so happy that he'd been feeling awful in his life, but the churning in his stomach didn't keep him from grabbing Dunn away from Nina, turning him so hard that he still had forward momentum when his jaw connected with Gain's balled up fist.

  Dunn's face snapped back at an awkward, thoroughly satisfying angle, but he didn't go down as Gain had intended. He stepped back, giving Gain a wide berth and rubbing his jaw.

  Gain took a step towards him, a murderous look in his eye, but Nina's sharp cry and her small hand on his shoulder stopped him. "Do you even know what you have in her? You'd better shape up and start taking care of her, or someone less scrupulous than me is going to take her right out from under you."

  Nina could see the muscle twitching in Gain's rock hard jaw, and wrapped both of her arms around his in what she already knew would be a futile attempt to stop him from going after Dunn.

  He shrugged her off, taking two big steps towards the other man, who was already out the door and well on his way to his car. Gain would have gone after him if Nina hadn't reclaimed his arm, begging, "Please, no, Gain, don't. He didn't hurt me. I'm fine."

  Gain watched Plourde as he walked to his car, twitching every once in a while as if he'd ignore his wife's pleading requests and launch himself at the man.

  Then, suddenly, as if he'd snapped out of his rage, he remembered where he was and who he was with, and turned to Nina, who had moved to stand several feet behind him with her back to him. Gain walked over to her slowly; he could see that her shoulders were shaking. He turned her around very gently, but firmly, not letting her get away with resisting him.

  "Are you all right?" he asked in a husky whisper. "Did that bastard hurt you in any way?"

  Nina looked up into her husband's eyes and saw the anguish there. He was still looking as if there was something he needed to punch, although his touch was nothing but tender. She shook her head quickly, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. "No. He just kissed me, and I was trying to put him off without hurting him - "

  That dark brow pulled together like storm clouds over his eyes. "Without hurt - Nina, the man is at least twice your size, and trying to paw you, and you should have fought him with everything you had!"

  Her frown and snort made that look of his even darker. "Dunn wouldn't hurt me. He just got the wrong idea about us, that's all. He was moving back when you came in."

  "Then why are you crying?"

  "Just because it's a stressful situation - I certainly wasn't expecting what he did, and then I wasn't expecting you to come home and witness it and punch him out, either."

  "Has he ever tried anything like that before?" Gain asked, his lips in a thin, angry line, not at all sure that he wasted to hear the answer.

  Nina was suitably indignant, and as determined to squirm away from her husband as she was to get away from Dunn earlier. "No, of course not," she declared, succeeding in freeing herself only to have Gain grab her shoulder and whirl her around to bump up against him.

  He looked deeply into her eyes, his face set angrily. "Are you sure?"

  Finally, her own anger came to the fore. "Of course I'm sure. Do you think that if he'd done something like that before I'd still be working with him?"

  There was a noticeable pause.

  Nina was infuriated by the fact that he didn't agree with her immediately, as if he thought that she might have been running around on him with Dunn. She looked Gain in the eye and let her face go a careful blank, then took two deliberate steps away from him and turned to run up the stairs, throwing herself onto their bed and curling up into a ball.

  She felt as guilty as she did angry, only the anger was harder to sustain. Why hadn't she noticed that Dunn was becoming attracted to her? The answer was all too easy: she was too wrapped up in her husband - even when they weren't necessarily connecting all the time - to even see another man. When Dunn had taken her into his arms she was so surprised that she'd actually wanted to laugh out loud, but she'd been able to stifle the impulse, barely.

  She'd not wanted to insult Dunn's ego, although she was wondering exactly why she was worrying about that. He certainly knew she was a married woman - a happily married woman... although perhaps she'd been complaining about Gain a bit too much to him, about how they weren't able to be together much anymore since both of them were working all the time.

  But she'd never in her life seen any man the way she saw Gain - as a husband, a lover, and a disciplinarian. He was everything to her and for her. He was her rock, her stable base. He'd always been there for her and he always would be. He let her fly free, but also knew exactly when the right moment was to reel her in.

  She trusted him with her life - she did it every time she lay beneath him opened herself up to him, and, even more so, every time she lay over his lap, or bent over whatever piece of furniture was convenient, or even that rock hard thigh of his. He was a big enough man that he could snap her in two without so much as thinking about it, although he always treated her like she was made of spun glass - even when he was waling away on her bottom.

  It was the combination of his size and his protectiveness that had always attracted her - even though he had always had a tendency towards bossiness, especially with her, and he'd laid down the line with her several times while they were dating. He'd threatened to spank her more than once, sometimes casually and sometimes more seriously, and she had been smart enough not to push him to see whether or not he'd actually do it. She had a good idea that he most certainly would.

  And before he'd proposed, before he'd gotten down on one knee at the first restaurant they'd gone to together, he told her flat out that if they got married, he expected her to obey him, and that if she didn't he wouldn't hesitate to tip her over his knee when he felt she needed it.

  She'd laughed nervously, but he'd been deadly serious - and when he'd presented her with a ring not three minutes later, she'd known exactly what she was saying "yes" to.

  She'd never regretted it. Not once. She'd loved him for longer than she could remember - Dunn Plourde notwithstanding. How could he possibly think that she'd put up with Dunn acting inappropriately for one minute? Did he think the job meant that much to her? Did he think she was the type of woman who would lead a man on? Or even worse, actually go through with something like that?

  If someone had asked her before this incident whether Gain knew her well, she would have answered with an emphatic "yes".

  But now she wasn't so sure, and that uncertainty cut deep into her heart.

  She didn't get much time alone to think about the situation, though, because Gain of course followed her up the stairs.

  The first words out of his mouth when he appeared in the doorway were, "Are you sure you're all right."

  "Oh, I'm fine," she answered angrily. "Except for the fact that my husband apparently seriously thinks that I've been whoring around on him."

  Gain looked thunderstruck. He hadn't been thinking of it that way at all. He just knew how much this job meant to her. She loved it, and she'd blossomed in it. Writing had always been a creative outlet for her, and now it seemed she'd found the perfect place to stretch her wings that way.

  He hadn't meant to accuse her of doing anything she shouldn't have, just of putting up with things she probably shouldn't have in order to keep the job, and that's exactly what he'd told her.

  It hadn't helped his cause one bit.

  "So you think that I'd let him take liberties that he oughtn't so that I could keep my j
ob at the paper." Nina had rolled over and was looking him straight in the eye, her heart aching in her chest for him to say an emphatic "no."

  Instead, he proved that he knew her better than she wanted him to. "I don't think you did that at all, but I do think that you probably didn't even see that he was looking at you that way until it was too late."

  Damn. Sometimes she hated him. Just plain out and out hated him. Granted, it was usually when he was applying the paddle or some other heinous implement to her bare butt, but not always. He was just adding to her guilt. She really should have seen Dunn coming, but he was right. She was doubly handicapped - being completely and utterly happy with her husband, with absolutely no interest or reason to be looking around at anyone else, and also by her ego. She liked writing, in general, and, with Dunn's help, she'd come along nicely as a writer. She had begun to have a small following, and even get a trickle of fan mail.

  Now she'd lost that job - there was certainly no way she was ever even going back to the newsroom. She never wanted to see Dunn again, and she knew that one of Gain's newest rules was going to be something along those lines, most definitely. She'd be lucky if he didn't want to follow her around for the next year or so, just to make sure Dunn didn't show up unexpectedly.

  Gain had taken up a position next to her on the bed, stretching out his long length across from her on his side, but not touching her. He seemed to be considering her carefully, as if he expected her to explode on him or burst into tears or something.

  He didn't want to crowd her. Gain knew that she was trying to process what happened, and although every instinct he owned wanted him to grab her and slip himself inside her, just so that she had absolutely no doubt about whose she was, he knew that a move like that at a time like this wouldn't be very welcome, although the Neanderthal in him was whispering into his brain that he didn't really need to worry about that.

  When he was younger, he might have given in to that advice, at least to a certain extent, and tried to coerce her into making love, but right now he was too worried about the look on her face. It was too blank. Too emotionless. Nina was one of the most emotional people he'd ever met, and this stoic face she was wearing put him on high alert. She'd had too bad shocks in the past half hour - a sleazebag coming onto her in her own house, and losing her job, all in one fell swoop.

  He was just about to reach out to her, to pull him against her and rub her back the way he knew she liked, but when he did his hand closed around air.

  She was already up and out the door without so much as a backward glance.

  "Where are you going?" he bellowed, springing off the bed to the balcony where he watched her descend the stairs.

  "I have to go out for a while."

  Gain swallowed hard, ruthlessly squelching the impulse to ask her where exactly it was that she was going. "Drive carefully, and make sure you have your cell on."

  Nina nodded absently as she shouldered her bag, not looking back at him.

  "I want you home no later than ten," he ordered, and she stopped in the act of opening the door, so he knew she'd heard him.

  "I - I'll try."

  Gain desperately wanted to go get her and bring her back to their bedroom, whether she wanted to or not, but he throttled the balcony railing and managed to stay where he was. But he couldn't let it go at that. When he set a rule for her, he expected it to be obeyed. "You'd better do better than just try, Nina Decker. Do you read me?"

  Still not looking at him, she answered in a whiny tone that she knew was pushing it, as if he was annoying the piss out of her, "Yes, I do."

  "And I don't mean ten twenty or ten oh five."

  "Yessss," she let the "s" sound drag out as the door shut automatically behind her.

  Gain sighed heavily, still staring at the door she'd gone out of long after she'd left, wondering if he should follow her or face the interminable wait here, in their lonely bedroom.

  Chapter Four

  He stayed home, waiting anxiously for her return, keeping himself busy with the never ending honey do list that had sprouted years ago when they'd bought their first house, and had only grown since then.

  When he was finally able to stand sweat soaked in the kitchen and scratch off the last chore, in the near darkness, the concern he'd been trying valiantly to push to the back of his head all afternoon came home to roost. It was nearly nine, and he hadn't heard a peep from her. She'd been gone over six hours.

  He knew he was probably overreacting. She wasn't a child - she knew how to take care of herself. He'd seen to that quite literally, giving her basic self defense lessons when they were still dating. At the very least, it had been a great reason to touch her, although he'd never let it descend into a grope fest, despite the temptation. He'd actually given her several very good moves and made sure they were fairly drilled into her head.

  And besides, this was Maine - "the way life ought to be". It wasn't at all likely that she was going to run into any sort of problem - but that didn't mean he didn't worry. The woman who was his life was out there somewhere in the darkness, wandering around after a big emotional shock, alone and lonely and distracted; she wouldn't be paying attention to her surroundings like she should have.

  Gain slammed his hand down onto the grey marble countertop. He should have gone with his instincts and followed her, no matter what. He stared down at his cell phone, her number already up and ready to dial, and then the thought struck him over the head. What the heck was he waiting for? She was his. He was hers. She belonged to him; she was his wife, and in their type of relationship, he shouldn't have had to stand there and worry about him.

  She was a wonderful, strong, independent capable woman. But he had always kept her on somewhat of a short leash.

  And he was about to yank it.

  Damning the torpedoes, he pressed the "call" button on his phone, loaded for bear and ready to order her back home so that they could talk about this.

  It rang five times - five agonizing times - then switched over to her mailbox.

  "I want you to come home as soon as you get this. And you're in trouble already because you're always supposed to keep your cell on, and answer it when it rings." He knew that was an irrational thing to say, because Maine was a veritable minefield of no bars reception. But it had felt damned good, regardless.

  He didn't stop there. He called every friend she had - none of them had seen her that night. Or, he mused, they were lying for her, which was entirely possible. The things he loved about Nina also inspired the wonderful long friendships she'd developed, and he wouldn't put it past her to be sitting comfortably in her best of best friend's place, sipping mud slides and complaining about him.

  In fact, that was what he was praying for, because at least then she was alright, instead of lying in a ditch somewhere, which was, of course, the first thing he pictured.

  Gain knew her well. He had the location wrong, though. At that moment, she was in a chain restaurant that also had a line of ice creams, sitting in front of the largest ice cream sundae ever conceived. It had something like twelve scoops of ice cream, three brownies, four toppings, nuts, a mountain of whipped cream and six cherries.

  Her mouth full of ice creamy goodness, Nina rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time that night, choosing to skip over the fact that he'd explained his hesitation when she'd asked him if he'd thought she'd just glossed over signs that Dunn was interested in her as more than just an employee in favor of keeping a job that she loved. "I can't believe what he said. I can't believe he thought that I was blatantly ignoring a come on from him just so I could stay at the paper."

  Molly, her closest friend in all the world who'd known her almost as long as Gain had, sat across from her, licking ice cream off her spoon as if she was giving it a blow job. She snorted derisively, and Nina frowned. "Puh-leeze. You'd've sold your soul to stay there. You were lapping all that fame and fortune up.

  "I would not!" Nina replied emphatically.

  "Would to." Molly leaned
back in the red plastic booth, crossing her Payless shod feet on the seat next to Nina. "Answer me this: if Gain hadn't have come home and discovered Dunn's little play for you, would you have quit right then and there, or tried to sweep it under the table and stay with the paper?"

  Nina bit her lip. Why did Molly have to be so damned insightful? "I don't know," she answered baldly. "I don't know. I really like this job. I would have seriously considered leaving the bank and doing it full time if he'd offered that, and I think that that was what he was going to suggest yesterday, before he decided to go all Don Juan on me."

  Molly's eyelids drooped to half mast, and her voice was dreamy as she asked, "What was it like to kiss him?"

  Nina frowned, leaning over to carve out a scoop of slightly underdone brownie, whipped cream, and cookie dough ice cream. "I don't have the slightest idea! I was too busy being shocked and outraged and trying to fend him off without losing my job... " She slumped back suddenly, a blinding light going on in her head. "And there lies the heart of it. Instead of using every trick in the book to put him down and get away from him, like a loving, committed involved wife, I was trying to extricate myself delicately and keep the employer employee relationship intact, so that I could still write for the paper." Tears flooded into her eyes. "Gain was right. I hate it when he's right."

  "Stop it. You're human. You've found a niche, and you didn't want to lose it. It wasn't as if you jumped into bed with Dunn to keep your job. Don't blow it out of proportion."

  But Nina knew there was only one way she was going to feel absolved of her behavior - although she was in absolutely no hurry to do what she knew she needed to do. Gain was already going to be hopping mad at her for not answering her cell, or at the very least checking her messages regularly.