by JA Huss
“Were you in a dependent relationship in the past?”
“No.” I scoff. “I’m the top, Bric. I know you don’t believe that, but I am. I’m the one who controls the men in my life.”
“Until Jordan came along and took all that control away. And you let him.” Bric has one eyebrow cocked. Like this explains everything. “And then he gave you to me.”
“Is that what he did?” I ask, genuinely interested in this new direction. “Because I might not be OK with that.”
“Which part?” he asks. “The part where he owns you and can therefore give you away? Or the part about you belonging to me now?”
“Both of those and,” I say, stressing the word, “the fact that I cannot be owned. Thus, none of what’s happening is real. It’s just a game.”
He shrugs. “Are you enjoying the game?”
“Sure,” I say. “It’s fun enough so far. But I’m not looking for a master, Bric. So if you push me too hard I might call it quits.”
Another cocked eyebrow from Bric. “Is that a warning? Or a challenge?”
I sigh as I roll my eyes. “Take it any way you want.”
He opens his mouth to respond, but there’s a knock on my door that breaks the moment. He gets up, pays the delivery guy, takes the bags of food over to the table, and then says, “For you, giving in is like being ambidextrous, Nadia.”
“Is it?” I say with mock fascination as I join him at the table.
He pulls out the food—tacos, but the gourmet kind that come wrapped up in fancy foil—and unwraps them. “Sit,” he commands.
I do, even though I’m tired of his commands tonight. I’m also hungry and my legs are still trembling.
When we’re settled and have each taken a bite of the sea bass tacos—fucking amazing sea bass tacos—he continues.
“You’re a well-honed muscle. You’ve exercised your mind regularly. You believe yourself to be dominant and I can see you’ve done pretty well in that regard.”
“Praise from the master,” I say, then take another bite of food.
“But everyone has another side to them, Nadia. Most people don’t like to admit it, but they do. No one is one hundred percent dominant.”
“Not even you?” I ask. It’s my turn to cock an eyebrow.
“Do I look dominant when I’m taking care of you after playing hard? No. I’m giving in to you, Nadia. I’m putting my wants and needs aside for yours.”
“OK.” I laugh. It’s bullshit. He takes care of me afterward because it makes him more dominant, not less.
“If I had only been thinking of myself I’d have fucked you hard after you sucked my cock. I’d have continued to use you up and then I’d walk out and throw you away.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“Why wouldn’t I be serious?”
“Is that your usual response to players? Use them up and throw them out?”
“No,” he says. “I’m typically in a regular game. I’m just having… an off season.”
I laugh so hard, I almost spit out my taco. “An off season? Do tell.”
“Never mind that,” he says, changing the subject with a wave of his hand. “My point is, yes, I’m playing a game. But I take the game very seriously. I like to make the game last and the only way to do that is to submit to the needs of the other players. I’ve always been like this. Smith and Quin and I—”
“Those other players you had? The ones who came before Jordan?”
“Yes,” he says. “We always thought of each other. We submitted to each other in certain respects. We were equals and we didn’t take more than our share. And we did this with one end in mind.”
“What end?” I ask. Not to be snotty, but because I’m really interested in knowing how he perceives winning.
“To keep the game going for as long as possible.”
“But you’re not in that game, Bric.”
“Elias,” he says, an edge to his voice. “Stop thinking of me as Bric and start thinking of me as Elias.”
“Elias,” I say, conceding. Because I do, in fact, call him Bric in my head. “That game ended. You lost all your players.”
“Yes,” he says. “And now I have two new players. You and Jordan. So I’m invested, Nadia. That’s my point. I will consider your needs ahead of mine. Submit to you when it’s in your best interest.”
“How big of you,” I say, finishing my taco and wiping my mouth.
“And if you’d just submit to me instead of making snide comments at every revelation I hand out, then you’d learn the lesson I’m trying to teach.”
Learn the lesson. I just smile. Because this oaf really thinks he needs to teach me a lesson. “You’re fucking my mind, Bric.” I use that name for him on purpose. “Not my body. And we both know this.”
“And you like it, Nadia. Or you wouldn’t be here.” He stands up, grabs his coat off the dining room chair, shrugs it on, and then leans in to kiss me on the cheek. “I’ll pick you up from work at two tomorrow,” he says, backing away, reaching into his pocket to jingle his car keys. “We’re going shopping for furniture.”
I watch him walk away. He pulls open the front door, then hesitates and gives me a sidelong glance over his shoulder. “I’ll make sure Jordan comes tomorrow. So you can give me a complete answer to my earlier question.”
Even though I don’t want to… I think about him. For a long time after he leaves. While I brush my teeth and climb in bed. When I’m masturbating to give myself the last orgasm he denied me. Denied me, I remind myself. Under the pretense of taking care of me. Not using me up and throwing me away. And even as I drift off, spent from an exhausting day of rehearsal and mind-fucking, I’m still thinking about how he’s playing his game.
Do I want to live with them?
Yes, Elias, I decide. I want to live with you. You’re already bending your rules for me and we’ve barely just begun to play.
Imagine how much further I can push him if I have twenty-four-hour access.
My world goes fuzzy and I enter dream space picturing all the many, many ways I will get to know them…
Chapter Twenty-Three - Bric
“Your brother has called six times, Bric. I’m running out of excuses.”
I glance up at Margaret in between signing the stack of documents she needs. She’s got a disapproving look on her face. “Just stop answering,” I say. “I left home twenty years ago for this very fucking reason. I’m not going to deal with all that drama.”
“It sounds important. Something about Luc.”
I continue signing papers and sliding them across the desk for Margaret to collect. But it pisses me off that my family is interfering in my life. I leave them alone, why can’t they do me the same courtesy? “Luc is a grown-ass man, Margaret. He’s like…” Fuck. How old is he now?
“He’s twenty-one,” Margaret says, annoyed that I don’t know how old my youngest brother is. “Still a child in my mind. And Abrem sounded desperate to talk to you.”
“Well, next time tell Abrem, ‘Galatians 6:7.’ He’ll know what that means.” A man reaps what he sows. Abrem was always the one in control back home. Hated when I had an opinion on anything. And now he’s just pissed off that he and Benjamin have let things get so bad. I sign the last piece of paper and slide it across my desk with one push of my finger. “I have nothing to do with Luc’s problems and, therefore, I have nothing to do with Luc’s solution. I barely know him.”
Margaret sighs at my last remark. But it’s true. I left home when Luc was just a baby. And yeah, I see him once a year—when he actually shows up for the Labor Day family reunion party. He’s missed all but one since all this drug bullshit started back when he was seventeen.
“Or better yet,” I say, glancing at my watch and feeling the need to get out of here and stop this conversation, “tell Abrem to call Jason or Keren, not me. They know him best.” I get up to escape Margaret, but she puts a hand on my arm. I stop and look down at her. “What?”
“You know they’ve already tried that, Elias. Jason and Keren live at home. Do you really think Abrem hasn’t talked to them already?”
“I can’t help Luc, Margaret. No one can. He doesn’t want help. He likes his life, OK? Just like I like mine.”
“Your lifestyle, you mean?” she says, cutting through my words with a knife. “But your lifestyle isn’t going to get anyone killed, is it?”
I shrug off her hand and grab my coat off the chair. “I’m done with this conversation. I have things to do today. I’m moving in to a new place this weekend and—”
“You can’t run from everything, you know.”
“Margaret,” I say, all patience gone. “Stop trying—”
“You can’t,” she continues, ignoring my brush-off, “pretend everything is perfect and not expect it to catch up with you eventually, Elias.”
“I don’t need another mother.” And then I laugh. “OK? You’re important to me and I love having you at the Club. I wouldn’t know what to do without you. But Margaret, back the fuck off right the fuck now.”
“Fine,” she says as I shrug on my coat and adjust my collar. “I’ll just pretend it’s not happening. I’ll just—”
I know she’s going to get mean. I can feel her stinging words on the tip of her tongue. And when Margaret gets mean, she holds nothing back.
But she stops herself at the last second.
“I’ll just take care of these contracts,” she says in her normal Margaret-is-all-business voice. “Have a nice afternoon, Bric.”
“Bric,” I mumble as she leaves me standing in my office. But it’s satisfying to hear the change in her tone. All business again. Just the way I like her.
By the time I get over to the ballet company, I’m twenty minutes late. Nadia comes rushing out of the door into the cold, wrapping her coat tightly around her body. She pulls the car door open before I can even get out to open it for her, and slides into the passenger seat, slamming it shut.
“You’re late,” she says, annoyed.
Well, I’m annoyed too, so I don’t give a shit. “I run a business, Nadia. I will occasionally be a few minutes late for things.”
“More than twenty minutes, Bric. I could’ve gone home,” she says. “All you had to do was call.”
“I got caught up in business,” I snap.
Nadia recoils at my anger, turns her head and looks out the window.
“Sorry,” I say, pulling back onto the street. “I was thoughtless. I’ll call you next time and let you know.”
She huffs out some air, but doesn’t respond.
“My fucking brother called and—” And I stop. Fuck that conversation. And fuck this one too.
“And what?” Nadia asks, turning her body towards me.
“Forget it. Not important.”
We drive the rest of the way over to the furniture store in silence and by the time we get there, we’re almost thirty minutes late for our appointment with my interior designer, Anna, and I’m not even remotely interested in shopping for furniture.
I pull the car up to the front door, see Anna waiting behind the glass, and look at Nadia.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“I’m gonna drop you off with Anna, the designer. Just tell what you like and she’ll—”
“Fuck you!” Nadia says. “Just fuck you. I’m not the one who needs a new house. I’m not the one who made this appointment. I’m not the one,” she stresses, “who even wants to be here right now. I’d rather be home, sleeping, or watching movies, or what the fuck ever.”
My head snaps back in surprise at her outrage.
“You’re going inside, Elias Bricman. Or you’re taking me home right now. And where the fuck is Jordan?”
“He’ll be here,” I say, regaining my voice. “I talked to him earlier and he said he’ll be here.”
Nadia glares at me and I just don’t know why this day went from ordinary to shit so suddenly. “Park. The fucking. Car,” she says, clipping her words.
I pull away from the curb and ease the car into a parking space near the front of the lot.
Nadia opens her door, letting in a rush of frigid air, then slams it closed.
I sit there for a second, but she knocks on the window and points to me, practically ordering me to get the fuck out.
I turn off the engine and get out. Goddamn, it’s fucking cold.
When I walk around the car and join her, she slips her hand in my arm like nothing happened. Ready to go furniture-shopping.
“Don’t,” I say in a low voice as we head towards the glass doors of the furniture store, “ever fucking talk to me like that again.”
“Then don’t keep me waiting,” she says sweetly. “And don’t act like I’m your personal piece of property you can order around. Because I’m not.”
I open the door for her and she walks in. Anna is there to greet us and Nadia smiles and talks politely to her as she introduces herself. Pretending that conversation never happened.
What a fucking day.
We spend the next hour looking at furniture and telling Anna what kind of style we want for the house. It’s a classic Tudor mansion, so we stick to classic traditional furniture. Not my style at all, and from what I can tell, not Nadia’s style either.
This is not going well. And just as I’m cursing Jordan for leaving me to deal with all this Nadia shit alone, he walks up to us in the bedroom section.
“Hey,” he says, walking over to Nadia and me. He leans in and kisses her, pulling her close as he holds her face in both hands. They linger for a second. Which allows me an opportunity to glance at Anna.
She’s smiling and passive. I’ve never shopped with my players before, but her husband is a Club member, so she knows what’s going on here.
“About fucking time,” I say, thoroughly irritated again as I glance down at my watch. “You’re only two hours late.” And Nadia doesn’t berate him for his tardiness, I note. She just wraps her arm around his and smiles.
“We’ve picked everything out,” Nadia says. “Except the bedroom furniture.”
“I guess I got here for the only room that counts,” Jordan jokes. And then he sits down on the bed we’re looking at—a dark gray low-profile platform with chesterfield tufting on the headboard. It’s not very traditional and it’s expensive as hell. But Jordan missed all that earlier talk about design and so he lies back and says, “Come here, Nadia. Try it out with me.”
She obliges without comment. She even smiles and tucks her body up next to his.
“What do you think, Bric?” Jordan says. “This good enough for you? Hell, let’s get the whole fucking bedroom set. Why not?” He laughs. “Bric’s buying. Say yes and we can get the hell out of here.”
“Sure,” I say, liking the whole getting the hell out of here part. “You got everything you need, Anna?”
Anna looks down at her clipboard and smiles. “I got it, Bric. Do you want it delivered tomorrow? We have everything in stock.”
“How about Friday?” I say. “We close Friday morning at nine. So, noonish?”
“Yes,” Jordan says, feeling Nadia up. Nadia is giggling and her hands are wandering just like his. “Friday night we’ll break this baby in.” And then he sits up, helps Nadia sit up too, and stands, holding her hand as she climbs out of the bed. “I gotta go,” he says, leaning in to kiss her again before she can protest. It’s passionate and long. Long enough for Anna and I to look at each other. I’m annoyed, but she’s blushing.
I have to control my eye-roll.
“But you just got here,” Nadia says, more than a hint of disappointment in her voice when she pulls out of the kiss.
“I know,” Jordan says, looking intently into her eyes. “But this case, Nadia. I have to be in court early tomorrow for jury selection. And this guy, man. He’s a big problem. Got arrested while he was out on bail just before trial. It’s a fucking mess. But it’ll be over soon. Two weeks, tops. Then I’m all yours.” He glances at m
e when he says that. “I’ll make it up to you guys when it’s over. OK?”
I shrug. I’m ready to go, so what the fuck do I care?
There’s another kiss and then Jordan disappears throughout the rows of furniture.
We finish up the details with Anna and then Nadia and I walk out of the store together.
“Well,” she says, once we’re back in the freezing cold car. I can see her breath as she sighs that word out. “Furniture-shopping went better than I expected.”
“Did it?” I ask, blaring the heater as I back out of the parking spot. “You looked like you’d rather be getting a root canal than shopping for furniture with me.”
“That’s because you’re a dick, Elias. You made me mad. And this was all your idea and you ruined it. It should’ve been fun and you’re the reason it wasn’t.”
“Oh.” I laugh. A nice, loud incredulous laugh. “But it’s OK for Jordan to be two hours late?”
Nadia looks out the window. “At least he was happy to see me.”
I drop her off at her building. I don’t even pretend like I’m going to walk her in and have my way with her upstairs. I’m not in the mood. “I’m busy tomorrow,” I say, just as she opens her door.
“Me too,” she replies. “So I guess I’ll see you whenever.”
“No,” I say, grabbing hold of her arm before she can escape. She looks at me. Pins her eyes right to mine. Challenging me over whatever the fuck we’re doing right now. “I’ll pick you up after work on Friday. Have your things packed. You’re moving into the house.”
She smiles. It’s fake, but it’s big. And says nothing. Just removes my hand from her arm and gets out of my car.
I pull away without another look.
Nadia has twelve boxes and seven of those are cardboard wardrobes that mostly contain all the clothes Jordan has bought her since they’ve been together. I know this because she made a point of telling me that. Stressed his name, in fact.
Jordan is not here. Asshole. Even though I had his keys delivered to him after I signed the papers today.
We’re in the house. The last of the furniture is being delivered. Anna was here all day hanging pictures and messing with window coverings. She’s got bedding for the bed and towels in the bathrooms. The kitchen is stocked with dishes and glassware. The dining table seats fourteen, for fuck’s sake. And It occurs to me that I have no idea what I was getting into when I bought this house just to make Nadia mad about not participating. Five million dollars cash. What the fuck was I thinking?