by Nikki Sloane
He made his move. “No, she’s not.”
I picked up my knight and set it down in its required L-shaped move. “Why?”
He slid his bishop diagonally a few spaces. “Because when I found you on the stairs, she made everything stop for me. I think she should experience what that’s like.”
I couldn’t rein in the gasp. His words punched it clean from my lungs.
He lifted his piercing gaze from the board to meet mine, his words heavy with subtext. “It’s your move.”
I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone completely dry. I sat up straighter in my chair and peered down at the board, but it was hard to concentrate. His words continued to ring in my ears. I’d wanted to distract him, but he’d just given me a master class.
My voice was meeker than I wanted it to be. “How long does she have to stay like that?”
He tilted his head to the side, considering, and once the decision was made, he directed the statement at his wife. “You may move any time Marist is touching a chess piece.”
Alice’s hopeful gaze turned to the board, and when I set my fingertips on my queen, she came to life. Her shoulders relaxed and a hand flew up to rub the tip of her nose, satisfying an itch she hadn’t been allowed to scratch.
I moved my queen into play, and the second my fingers came off her, Alice solidified, returning to her statue state. Darkness inside me wanted to grin at what Macalister had done, how he’d given me control over her. I liked the taste of power.
We continued to play, and I enjoyed deciding how long I would let her have freedom. It made her so dependent on me, and it was a sweet role reversal.
“I’ve missed this,” he said as he captured my bishop. It wasn’t clear if he meant playing against me, or defeating me, because he was currently doing both.
“I haven’t.”
His lips twitched like they wanted to smile, but he wouldn’t allow it. “You’re right, you’re not a very good liar.”
My eyes burned at him, and I clenched my jaw. Did I miss the strategy of the game? Maybe a little. But not him as a partner. The only reason I didn’t play it on my phone anymore was because I didn’t like how fast the program made its move. There wasn’t any body language to learn or read.
It was only a few more moves before we entered the endgame.
“Check,” he said. “I appreciate what you were trying to do over here,” he motioned toward the trap I’d laid in an attempt to capture his queen, “but I saw right through it.”
The game was already lost, but the cruel thing about chess was you had to keep playing until the end.
“Checkmate.” Macalister leaned back in his chair and put his arms on the armrests, satisfaction streaking through his expression. “Thank you for the game.”
I stared glumly at the board, waiting for him to either begin or give Alice his approval to start, and although I wasn’t looking at him, I sensed his irritation when I didn’t respond the way he would have liked me to.
The leather of his chair creaked as he stood. “To reiterate the terms, if you leave before we’re through, the deal’s off.”
I glared up at him. “I understand.”
“Good.”
He extended a hand toward his wife, which she took, and he pulled her to her feet. She stood beside him, waiting for his direction like she was a lowly soldier under his command. And he looked back at her as a general who found her lacking.
“What you did,” he said to her, “nearly cost me everything. My disappointment in you is . . . immeasurable.”
Alice blinked, and her chest moved faster as her breathing quickened. Her throat bobbed in a nervous swallow. “I’m sorry.”
As she grew more human, it was the opposite for him. He was cold and indifferent. “I don’t believe you are.”
“No, but I am.” She glanced at me with watery eyes. “I’m sorry, Marist. I wasn’t trying to kill you, I—”
He angrily snapped his fingers in front of her, drawing her attention back to him. “No, we haven’t gotten to that part yet. Your first apology will be to me.”
Her shoulders pulled back, and confusion splashed on her face. The thoughts running through her head were loud and clear. She thought she’d already apologized to him and she wasn’t sure why she had to do it again.
I understood.
It was a power trip. Macalister wanted me to see her remorse.
Alice scratched a spot behind her neck as she thought about what to say, unsure of what exactly he was looking for. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I was careless and selfish and”—emotion gathered in her like a storm—“all I could see was her lipstick smeared all over your face and I wish it had been mine. I love you, Macalister. I’ve given you everything you ever asked for. Why isn’t that enough?”
Tears slipped down her face, but she didn’t move to wipe them away. I doubted she even knew she was crying.
“I gave you everything,” she whispered, “while you give nothing.”
He was immovable stone. “Not everything.”
Was he talking about her submission? She’d told me she’d never surrendered full control to him.
She stiffened. “Well, now you have that too.” She swiped at her face, quickly shooing the tears away like they’d never existed. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
He considered her declaration critically. “All right,” he said finally. “In exchange for her silence, I promised Marist I would handle you appropriately.”
The temperature in the room dropped a million degrees, and my body froze to the chair when he reached for his belt and made quick work unsnapping his buckle. My eyes had to mirror Alice’s enormously wide ones as he grabbed one end of the black leather and pulled it free from his belt loops with a quiet vrrrip.
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t think.
Nothing inside me—including my heart—worked right now, but Alice faired marginally better. She took an uneven step back. We watched in stunned silence as the belt was folded once to make a loop before he clenched it in his fist.
“Turn around and undo your pants,” he ordered.
And then Macalister stared down at me, his voice as cold as a graveyard in the dead of winter.
“Tell me what number you think an appropriate response would be.”
NINE
THERE WAS A SMALL ANTIQUE CLOCK ON THE MANTEL in the lounge, and its swinging pendulum had been quiet up until this moment. Now, every tick was a gunshot as I stared at the belt Macalister clutched. His makeshift whip he planned to use to flog his wife.
Alice had gone absolutely white and backed away from her husband but had not yet fled the room, although she looked like she was considering it. She’d given him her submission and told him she’d do whatever he wanted, but now she was much less sure.
My stomach filled with acid, and the sour taste quickly made its way into my mouth. He wanted to know what number an appropriate response was.
“Zero,” I spat. “Zero is the appropriate amount.” He had the audacity to look at me like I was the crazy one, and I couldn’t believe I had to say it out loud. “I’m not going to watch you beat your wife.”
A jolt shot down Macalister’s back. “Jesus, I’ll do no such thing.” He looked offended at the accusation. “I’ll deal with her the same way I handle any bad behavior that needed to be stopped—with punishment.”
I pressed my hand to my chest to try to stop my heart from cracking. Had Macalister done this to his sons while growing up when they’d needed to be punished?
Oh, God.
Had he done this to Royce when he’d refused to get out of the limo at his mother’s funeral?
“No,” I snarled. I balled my hands into fists so tightly, my fingernails were sure to leave crescent mark indentations on my palms.
His expression hung. “You don’t think she deserves to be punished?”
“Not like this.”
The clock continued its loud, persistent click. His eyes na
rrowed a degree, and his voice was incredulous. “After what she did, you find it acceptable she walks away free and clear?”
I was petty, and excellent at holding a grudge. “Well, no. But . . .” The belt remained in his hand, taunting me, right along with Alice’s panic-stricken face. I could barely look at her because it made me feel the same fear she was experiencing. “Macalister, please.” It bordered on begging from me. “Don’t.”
“You prefer I use a different method.”
Visible relief flooded her face, and I nodded. “Yes,” I said quickly. “Anything else.”
He cast the belt aside, dropping it so easily onto the floor with a loud thunk, it sparked suspicion in me. Had he really intended to use it, or had this been a test for her? Or a bluff for me? His half-smile all but confirmed it.
“I find it fascinating that, after everything, you have compassion for her,” he said.
I was still struggling to catch my breath and get my heartrate back down to a normal level. I wrinkled my forehead. “I don’t, I just—”
His eyes were all-knowing, all-seeing. “Then why are you holding that rook?”
What was he talking about?
I looked down to discover the white castle piece clasped in one of my hands. I didn’t respond, but we all knew why. He’d told her she couldn’t move unless I was touching a piece, and subconsciously, when the belt had come out, I’d wanted her to run.
I hesitantly put the chess piece back on the board. All Macalister had to do was get me to see genuine fear in Alice’s eyes and she was essentially forgiven. Maybe there was hope for me after all and I wasn’t turning into a Hale. I still cared about people other than myself.
“Alice, come,” he said in a harsh voice, like a master calling a disobedient dog.
When his belt had thudded to the hardwood, it had dispelled a significant amount of the tension in the room, but the undercurrent remained, and as she carefully approached him, it ramped back up. Whatever alternative form of punishment he’d crafted, he seemed ready to dish it out.
The last thing I’d expected him to do was kiss her.
Judging by her reaction, it was the same for her. When his large hands seized her face and tilted it upward so he could lean down and capture her mouth, she let out a sound of surprise. It was followed instantly by an excited whimper that was quieted under his kiss.
Her perfect posture evaporated beneath his lips, and she arched up onto her toes. She kissed him with a desperation I knew all too well. It was the same way I’d kissed Royce in the hedge maze the night he’d sold me to his father. Alice kissed her husband like she hated his guts, but she’d also walk to the ends of the earth for him.
Her hands slid up his neck and cupped his jaw, and the kiss deepened. The way she responded to it and how she touched him . . . was this the first time in months they’d done it? They’d never been affectionate in front of me, but I had assumed behind closed doors they were, at least occasionally.
But maybe she’d only had Vance, playing the role of stand-in for her husband’s duties.
The longer Macalister passionately kissed her, the more I began to wonder who, exactly, he was punishing. Her sigh of contentment announced he was giving her all the attention she’d craved, basically rewarding her. And I was the one who had to sit there and endure my future in-laws making out with each other.
Macalister awkwardly broke off the kiss, dragging his lips across her cheek. She swayed, looking adrift for a moment, his mouth temporarily drugging her, and she blinked her cloudy eyes at him.
“There. I gave you what you wanted.” His tone was unexpectedly flat. “Your lipstick smeared on my face. Does it make you happy?” His upper lip curled into a cruel smile. “Because I was imagining you were Marist the whole time.”
Oh, my God.
The blissful expression on her face froze, and I shirked back in my seat. This was just the beginning of it, I knew. It’d get much worse before he was done. The alternative method of punishment he’d selected was psychological warfare and—oh, shit—maybe I should have let him use the belt. It likely would have been less painful for both of us than what he had in store.
He grabbed her around the throat and pushed her roughly down to her knees. She nearly fell, putting a hand down to stop herself, and turned her surprised expression up at him, wordlessly asking what he was doing. The only answer he gave her was to step forward, putting the fly of his slacks right at her eye-level.
“Let’s see if you can even get me hard, or if I’ll have to imagine she’s you.”
Oh, my God!
There were a million tightly wound springs beneath my chest that all broke at the same time, leaving me a jangling, chaotic mess on the inside. They screamed at me to run, to fucking do something. But there was a reason I shouldn’t, some part of me remembered on a basic level. I couldn’t remember it specifically because my brain was barely processing, but the warning was enough to make me hesitate.
Alice’s gaze darted to me, but he was prepared for that. “Would you like her to complete your task?”
Her focus snapped back to him like his words had magnetized her. “No.”
Determination overcame her as she accepted his challenge, and then her hands were crawling up over his legs. He stood still, his head tipped down to watch and his hands hanging relaxed at his sides as her palms worked their way toward the center of his pants.
My mouth was dry and full of dust, making it impossible to swallow. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Sit here and watch as she gave him a hand job? My body was a cage, locked tight with horror when her fingers focused in on what she’d been searching for and began to massage him through his slacks.
They were positioned sideways to me, so I could see one half of each of their faces, and behind them the view of the mountains surrounding us. We were on Mount Olympus now, the mortals below in Aspen. Zeus stood motionless as his jealous wife knelt on his expensive inlaid hardwood floor and tried to service him.
Her glossy pink fingernails scratched over his fly, and she cupped him, twisting her grip along his length, but there was no reaction from him. He stared at her with impatience etched across his face, and the atmosphere in the room began to shift as Alice fully committed to what he’d asked her to do. I was forgotten, all that mattered now was pleasing him.
But he wouldn’t let her forget. While he had her full attention, she had none of his.
He turned his head and stared at me with a look that was scary as hell. It threatened dominance and control and promised wicked pleasure if I’d allow it. When our gazes connected, he inhaled a deep breath, and his wide shoulders rose. I was cornered, trapped by his intense stare, but I let loose a silent scream inside my head.
He didn’t tell us what he was thinking about, or what awful fantasy with me he was conjuring up. But whatever it was, it was working. The crotch of his pants grew tight and it began to tent.
Alice’s excited fingers curled on the top of his slacks and the button holding them closed, but his focus flew back to her. He seized her hand and twisted it away, his thumb pressing deep into her wrist to stop her. “Did you want something?”
The word was barely a breath from her. “Please?”
He considered it for a long moment, and time suspended. Then it launched forward when he released her, flinging her hand away. “Go on, then. Take it.”
She attacked his zipper with renewed energy, eager to have him unrestricted in her hands. He crossed his arms, grabbed the sides of his sweater, and tore it up over his head in one swift move. It was balled up in his hands and thrown away with force before his glittering gaze swung back to me.
“I’m going to imagine this is your mouth, Marist.”
He wasn’t smiling, and he hadn’t said it just to provoke a response from me or her—he was deadly serious. A ruthless, cutthroat businessman during a hostile takeover, and I was the target he was determined to acquire.
Move, Marist! Fucking move!
Sudde
nly free, I leapt to my feet so quickly I nearly toppled over. My gaze reeled around blindly, searching for the exit, and although I avoided the worst of it, out of the corner of my eye I saw her latch onto the sides of his pants and jerk them down.
I made it two steps toward the door before his dark taunt rang out. “Leaving so soon?”
My shoulders tightened to my ears, and I closed my eyes. Blocking the scene out gave me just enough of a reprieve for my brain to start working. If I left, things would go back to how they used to be, and I’d lose everything. Giving over control to Macalister would be handing him the passcode to the security system I’d built around Royce and myself. He’d get inside and break us down, and I couldn’t let that happen.
“Stay,” he commanded. “I want you to watch, like how you wanted me to.”
The shudder started with my shoulders but graduated to my full body as the image of him looming in the shadows, watching as Royce went down on me, sliced through my memory.
Was I really considering this? Staying in this room and witnessing this deeply intimate act I had no business or desire to see?
His voice was loaded with the sinful challenge. “Unless the sight of me with someone else is too difficult to bear.”
Holy fuck. I whirled around to face them, refusing to let even a molecule of the shock I felt show on my face. It wasn’t too difficult to bear. I couldn’t care less, and I’d fucking show him that.
And I reminded myself I’d partially seen this before. It had been dark in the woods, and Alice had been with Vance when I’d spied them together the night of the initiation, but a blowjob was a blowjob. It couldn’t be all that different with another partner.
I kept my voice firm and my head up as I marched back to my chair. “I don’t give a fuck who you’re with, so long as that person isn’t me.”
Macalister’s eyes shrank to slits. But the sides of his mouth lifted in a joyless smile, telling me he didn’t believe me. Worse, he wanted to test the theory. His fingers worked to undo the buttons on his shirt, releasing them one by one.