Marriage Games (The Games Duet #1)

by CD Reiss

  I went in. The floor creaked. He looked around. When I put my hands on his back, he moved away, turning to face me.

  “Hey, I was wondering what happened to you,” I said. “I left you a note.”

  He held up his hand. The note was in it, folded into three parts, past over future.

  If he’d read it, he didn’t look incredibly pleased by what it said. Maybe he didn’t believe it, or maybe he’d misunderstood it. Maybe I’d misunderstood. But suddenly I was off balance. I needed him. I was flailing and I didn’t even know why. Quicksand or water. Falling fast or drifting slow. Everything in the world had turned upside-down, and I needed him to show me which way our shared gravity pulled.

  “Talk to me,” I said.

  “I know you thought I brought you here to make you love me again.”

  “I do love you.”

  He took a breath so deep, his shoulders rose and his chest expanded. “I did something truly evil. I came here with you to break you so I could stop loving you. Then I could cut you loose easily. That’s why I waited. I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t loving you. I had to let that idea go. Took two weeks.”

  I didn’t get this. He loved me but didn’t want to? Was that it? I was confused.

  “Did you read the note?”

  “Yeah.” He tossed it on the desk as if it was a contract with missing redlines. “I did. And it didn’t surprise me. I knew it. You loved me, and I loved you.”

  “Why do you keep using the past tense?”

  He flicked my note aside and picked up a piece of paper under it. He wedged it between his index and middle finger and handed it to me. “This was on the counter.”

  It was a card. I opened it.

  D—

  We need to talk.

  —S

  “Okay? So?”

  “I decided today that I could do this. You are submissive. You proved that yesterday and I still loved you. I failed to stop loving you, and I hate failing. But I could get something better. You. I could live without lies, and you could be mine. You could make the impossible possible.”

  “You’re freaking me out. What does that have to do with the note?”

  “If you’d stop interrupting, you’d know.”

  I went cold. His tone wasn’t dominant with expectation of obedience, but commanding in its disappointment. I’d been on my knees. I’d crawled. I’d offered my body to him as an object to use, but he’d never made me feel worthless.

  At home, he couldn’t have gotten to me. But in that office in the early morning dark, I was cut open, broken, vulnerable. He’d taken my armor, carefully unlocked it, slipped it off, and hidden it. When he spoke that pointless phrase in that tone of voice, I was in no position to hear it without hurt.

  “Go on,” I said with no tools to stop the tears from coming.

  “This note. I know you’re not fucking Stefan. But it presupposes that you’re accessible for a chat. That’s on him. You didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing about it is a big deal, except it told me you’ve crossed over into the world I left, and then, I just changed.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.” He tapped the note on the heel of his hand, pausing to think. “If I wanted you in this world, I would have brought you along. I would have started a little kinky and broken you by our first anniversary. But it’s not what I want. Not then, not now.”

  “You stopped loving me? Over a note?”

  “It’s not the note. I have love for you, it’s not what it was and it never will be again, but what little there is? It’s mine, and I’m not giving it up. I’m not going to destroy the only woman I’ve ever loved. That’s why I’m letting you go.”

  What was my expression? Open-mouthed, head shaking, eyes squinting, brows knotted, I must have been a sight.

  “You can’t do this,” I said.

  “I have to.”

  “You made me love you and now—”

  “You never told me you didn’t want to split up. I didn’t know until it was too late.”

  “You just… hours… we were doing it for hours. Did you not love me that whole time?”

  A tiny crack played across his hard expression. “You were perfect.”

  “Stop it!” I shouted. “Stop it now. Tell me I’m yours!” I pushed him as hard as I could, but he didn’t fall. “You love me! You’re mine. Do you understand? You fucking bossy asshole. You prick. You motherfucker, you’re mine and you love me!”

  He took my face in his hands and leaned down so I could see him clearly. I looked away, but he shifted so the only thing in my vision was him, slowly shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry,” was all he said.

  “Fuck you,” I sputtered.

  No. We’d entered this room as husband and wife. Dom and sub. Business partners and friends. If we left this room as something else, we’d always be that something else. We’d be ex-things. Ex-partners. Ex-husband and wife. Ex ex ex.

  Once we were out of the room, there was no going back.

  I took one step closer to him and lowered myself to my knees. I was at war. He hadn’t told me to drop, and I did.

  “Diana. Don’t.”

  I bent at the waist and pressed my palms and nose to the floor.

  “This is what you wanted.” I spoke into the floor. “Take me this way.”

  “Do you think I went to all this trouble to make you kneel? If I needed to get a sub for a month, I would have just gotten one and given you your divorce.”

  He stepped over me, and I scrambled to get in front of him. I dropped to my knees and put my face and hands to the floor again.

  “Last night,” I said into the fringed edge of the rug, “what was last night?”

  “Get up.”

  I didn’t move.

  “It felt like love,” I said.

  “Diana, you don’t have to submit.”

  “I trusted you. I trusted it was real.”

  “Get up!”

  “Fuck you! Tell me! Was it real?”

  He took me by the arms and pulled me up. I was jelly in his arms, but he fought gravity and good sense.

  “It was very real, but I realized how toxic it was. To have someone I love in that world. Don’t you get it? I’d stop loving you completely.”

  “You won’t,” I said. “You love me. I don’t know why you’re doing this. I don’t know what the game is… but you love me.”

  He let me go, and I stood on wobbly knees.

  “Thierry will drive you home tomorrow. I’ll fill out the papers. We’re done. It’s for the best.”

  “Fuck you,” I said. “You love me.”

  I dropped to my knees again. I was out of breath, heart pounding, tense, and shitty-feeling, inside and out.

  He patted my head, leaving me on the floor as he went upstairs.

  Chapter 86

  PRESENT TENSE

  He’d disappeared behind a door. Willa had packed for me. Outside my window, Stefan and Serena loaded up his shitty pickup and left.

  I got in the back of the limo alone. Thierry didn’t ask where we were going.

  I was going home.

  Chapter 87

  PRESENT TENSE

  The day my life changed was different than any other. I kneeled and was stepped over. I begged and was refused. I submitted, but no one claimed dominion over me.

  The limo was quiet. The tires made no sound over the Southern State. The windows were closed against the wind. My sobs were silent, the way they were before he taught me how to cry.

  The day everything changed, I felt different. I had work to do. A life. Bills. A mortgage. But all my routines seemed foreign and futile. Did I ever perform them? Did they ever matter?

  The morning my life changed, I sat in the back of a limousine, staring at a small swatch of fabric that lay in the corner like a wound. It took me fifteen minutes to decide to pick it up.

  It was a piece of the stocking he’d ripped off me to rub my feet, a million years ago, when he loved me.

  I had a sen
se of impending doom. A gut feeling that I was ruined. I couldn’t believe in healing. Not for me. Because I wasn’t a victim here. This was my fault.

  All of it. I’d been lazy and fearful. I’d left him and told myself I’d been courageous, but I’d been a coward.

  And if my pain was my fault, I had to take responsibility for it. I had to fix it. I had to fix myself, of course, but this man I loved needed help too. I scrunched the stocking up in my fist.

  He didn’t have a choice.

  Why?

  He said to trust him.

  Why?

  He told me he’s preserving his love.

  Why why why?

  Something wasn’t adding up.

  He can love a submissive. He can and he does.

  I was right with myself for the first time, even in pain, because to submit is to understand your sun and your shadow. To submit is to know your place is not always a where but sometimes a when. To submit is to accept your power and to embrace that your place is both now and forever.

  To submit is to choose. To hunt. To chase. To decide.

  To submit is to dominate.

  Adam was mine.

  I chose him.

  I’d thrown him away, and I could choose him again. I could finish this. I could stand by what I wanted, who I was.

  There were two weeks left in our arrangement.

  They were mine, and so was he.

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  There are two books in the series.

  Separation Games will be released on January 3rd, 2017.

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  Acknowledgments

  I’ve been thinking about this book for a long time. Over a year ago I sat in the front seat of my car in a Starbucks parking lot, breaking the story with Lauren Blakely. Many moons later, it’s completely different, but without that first breakout with her I never would have been able to start it.

  So first, thank you Lauren for taking that time with me.

  I pitched the story and release concept for Marriage Games to Mary Cummings at a poolside bar in Hawai’i (it wasn’t that glamorous, truth. My feet hurt and I was unprepared for a presentation the next day….but doesn’t it sound so delicious? pitched at a poolside bar in Hawai’i—Glitter just pours off that sentence).

  Turns out, she was about to pitch me a release concept, and it was the exact same one. It was like we were puzzle pieces. Mary and Ever After have been what a publisher should be. Supportive, unintrusive, constructive and collaborative. Kudos to her, Taylor, Sarah, Fiona, and the entire Diversion team.

  My husband has done me the service of just being himself, and supporting me in his quiet way while I work. My kids think all I do is work. In fact, they get hours of my time a day. They’re greedy, and I love them for it.

  My early betas, Joanne and Diana helped me mold the first half because I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. Because of the care they took with me and my work I figured it out. There’s never any “good enough” way to thank betas, especially the early ones because they’re like Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption, trudging through miles of shit.

  Laurelin Paige stayed up until 4am reading the first draft. She had a million other things going on, but she beta’d it and then, unbelievably, she did it again after I chopped off the ending and replaced it with the one that wound up here. If you want to know what the original ending was, you’ll have to wait until I’m dead. Laurelin’s not telling.

  Cassie Cox, my tireless editor, rushed the hell out of this so I could get it to print. I bow low, because she caught more than a few clunkers. As always, I sound like me, but with better grammar.

  My Camorra, ladies and one gentleman, thank you for your support. You guys went into the breach when I had to check out of social media for awhile. Thank you.

  Late betas Jenn McCoy and Amy Vox - thank you. You read a late draft and gave me the confidence to release this nerve-wracking book.

  Jean Siska checks this and all my books to make sure I at least sound as if I know the law.

  Janice, Erik, and Candace – (blows kiss) thank you for the fast turnaround on the proofs.

  Jenn. Speechless. Wind beneath my wings and all that corny shit that makes me gag. I’m sure by the time this is released I’ll want to kill you because of all the parties, but you’ll be feeding me coffee so I’ll forgive you.

  And you.

  Yes, you.

  Blogger. Fan. Supporter. Service provider. Advice-giver.

  I’m forgetting you.

  I’m sorry.

  Also by CD Reiss

  The Submission Series

  Bundle One - Beg Tease Submit

  Bundle Two - Control Burn Resist

  Bundle Three - Sing Coda Dominance

  The Corruption Series

  Spin

  Ruin

  Rule

  Standalones

  Forbidden

  Hardball

  Shuttergirl

  Secret Sins