Getting Even

by Avril Tremayne

  “So you didn’t marry them? Those fancy New York weddings were parties and nothing more?”

  “I did marry them but—”

  “Then I’m not sure what the problem is with defining them as ‘real.’ Unless you’re saying they were marriages of convenience.”

  “No. Well, yes, in a way, but—”

  “So they needed green cards?”

  “No, it’s just that—”

  “Are you saying you slept in separate beds? Lived separate lives? They were like your brothers? That they never kissed you? Never fucked you? Never introduced you as their wife! As their fucking wife?” He grabbed the dish of zabaglione off the stove and threw it into the sink, so violently the mixture spattered halfway up the wall. His hands went digging into his hair. “You burned my letter! I begged you in that letter. I laid myself out for you in every way I could think of. I wrote you a fucking poem. And instead of reading it, you married. Someone. Else.”

  “Because of you! You’re the reason I got married!”

  He felt a roaring in his ears. A flash flood of fury. “If you had any idea what those marriages of yours did to me, you wouldn’t dare to say that to me! Bad enough that I have to see that goddamn ring on your finger that I didn’t put there.”

  She ripped the diamond ring she was wearing off her finger and threw it over her shoulder. “There! Is that better?”

  “No!”

  She picked up the ring from the island, shoved it on her finger. “Does this make it better?”

  “No!” he said, even though his chest was tight with yearning. “No, no. God!”

  “Do you know why it’s not better? Because it’s a thing! Nothing but a thing. You left me because of two things! A bike and a fucking ring. And you talk about blaming me for two marriages?”

  “Veronica—”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do! I’ll give you one more thing! Who knows, it might even make an extra-special scene for your next damn book.” Up went her eyebrows, on went her finishing school smile. “When you’re ready to collect it, I’ll see you in the bedroom.”

  * * *

  Rafael cleaned up the mess he’d made because he needed to do something mundane, something to let him think. But in the end he couldn’t think past one question. What the fuck had he done?

  He went to sit at the table, buried his face in his hands, trying to piece together how things had spiraled of out of control.

  The letter she hadn’t read, the husbands she hadn’t even wanted—so what, when these two weeks with her had been the happiest he’d ever been.

  Holy shit!

  Ho-ly shit. They really were the happiest he’d ever been. Happier even than the three and a half years he’d had with her.

  Because that was then...and this was now.

  And he was a fucking idiot.

  He raced from the kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time, pausing for a heavy bounce on the fourth step, just to make sure she knew he was coming.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  VERONICA WAS TWITCHING with fury as she prepared the room for Rafael’s arrival. Covers off the bed. Those scissors she’d never returned to the kitchen on the vanity, two pairs of her stockings on the spindly chair before it, her jar of vanilla oil on the nightstand. Her clothes off, Piers’s old blue T-shirt on.

  When she heard that fourth stair squeak, she took up her position on the bed—on her back with her legs open wide and her arms stretched up and out. Starfish style—what an innocent word for what she was going to do—each limb pointing to a bedpost.

  He came into the room. Stopped.

  “Lo siento, Verónica,” he said. “I’m sorry. Please, get off the bed—all I want to do tonight is kiss you.”

  She felt a quiver in her heart at his words, his voice, but she wouldn’t back down. “Don’t worry, I’m not staying like this,” she said. “This is just a demonstration of the way I want you.”

  “The way you—?”

  “So look closely, carefully. I want you laid out exactly like this.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m helping you get my husbands out of your head by giving you the chance to one-up them. You sold this deal to me as a chance to take revenge on you—but it was really about taking your revenge on me, wasn’t it? Me, and Piers, and Simeon.”

  “No. The deal was to get you back.”

  “That’s what I said. Get me back. Revenge.”

  “Get you back as in win you back. Because I love you.”

  She jerked once, suddenly, and scrambled off the bed. “You’ll love me forever, I suppose,” she sneered.

  “I will.”

  “Then prove it. Get naked on your back on the bed.”

  “Veronica, let me expl—”

  “Words of one syllable. Shut up, get on your back on that bed or get out. The choice is yours.”

  He held his hands up—surrender—and did what she said, stripping, laying himself out on the bed.

  She examined him, made a slight adjustment to one of his legs, then collected the stockings from the bed end.

  “See these stockings?” she asked, using one to tie one of his wrists to a bedpost. “Red ones. Black ones. Piers always went for these colors when he bought me things, even though he knew my favorite color was pink, because the woman he loved—who was not me—used to wear them almost exclusively.” She came around to the other side of the bed and tied his other wrist.

  “Piers is a doctor,” she went on. “Not an investment banker. A very good doctor. He’s passionate about baseball, and horses, and that woman he loves—whose name is Mirabelle.” Tying one leg now. “Unfortunately his parents didn’t approve of Mirabelle, and he made a mistake putting their wishes before his own.” Moving on to his last leg. “So there we were, Piers and I, in love with people we couldn’t have, thinking we might as well give it a shot. That’s essentially it—oh, except that I knew you’d hate it, so it was a way to punish you.”

  “I accept my punishment, mi querida.”

  She blinked at the endearment as much as at his placid acceptance of what she’d said, then covered it up by nodding at her handiwork. “Comfortable?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “If I untie you, that’s it—no more. It’ll be over.”

  “Then don’t untie me.”

  “But I’d better give you a safe word in case you change your mind?”

  “I won’t change my mind.”

  “How about we make it...voodoo. As in my doll.”

  “That seems appropriate.”

  “Repeat it so I know you know.”

  “Voodoo.”

  “Good,” she said as she picked up her vanilla oil from the nightstand.

  “Veronica, I love you.”

  She closed her eyes to stop him from seeing the way that hurt.

  “Veronica...”

  She opened her eyes. “¡Váyase a la mierda!,” she said, and tipped some of the oil low on his belly as though she hadn’t heard him. “There. Some Spanish for you. Go fuck yourself!”

  She put the bottle back on the nightstand and started to massage the oil into his skin, into his pubic hair, into his cock.

  “¡Ah, Dios mío!” he groaned.

  “You don’t like it?” she asked, all innocent.

  “You can see I do.”

  “I can see your body does, but don’t strain too hard against those stockings or you’ll hurt yourself.”

  “I want to touch you,” he said.

  “Touch? But that’s nothing. Piers and Simeon both touched me.”

  “Then let me touch you, too.”

  “No. Now where was I?” she said as she kept massaging. “Ah, yes, Piers. Piers and I tried, but in the end, he couldn’t live without Mirabelle. So, of course, I set him free and
they lived happily ever after. At least I assume they will. But as for me—” tipping more oil “—alas, no. I was still in love with you, you see.”

  “Veronica,” he pleaded, “I’m going to come if you keep rubbing my cock like that.”

  She stopped. “Sorry.”

  “Not sorry. Just a public service announcement.”

  “Thank you. We don’t want it over before I really begin. I just like the way your cock feels in my hands, Rafael.” She leaned over him and licked the pre-cum from the tip, and both his arms and both legs jerked against their restraints as he gave an agonized groan. “I like the way you taste, too.”

  “Then lick me again,” he suggested.

  She laughed and stepped back. “So, Piers and Mirabelle—happy, happy, happy. Me? Not happy. Want to know why?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I thought you’d come for me. But you didn’t. You didn’t, you bastard!”

  “Ah, Veronica. How could I after writing that book? All I could do was hope you’d be so angry with me you’d come and find me. Do you have any idea how much I wanted you to come to me, for any reason at all?”

  “I almost did. I almost did come to you! Instead, I waited, and waited, and learned Spanish for you! And now I’ve read Catch, Tag, Release I see what you would have done to me if I’d come groveling to you and babbling my Spanish love words.”

  “That book is fiction, Veronica.”

  “It’s you! And me! And Piers. And Liar, Liar is me, my life, miserable with Simeon, because you didn’t come back for me.”

  “Untie me, Veronica, and I’ll grovel for you in any language you want.”

  “I’m not untying you until I’ve finished my story,” she said. “So, Simeon. He owns a gallery. His mother’s a famous sculptor and his wife—Jeanette Wilkes, you may have heard of her—was a talented painter with a brilliant future ahead of her. When she died in a car accident ten years ago, he didn’t really recover. He said he could never fall in love again—and that was perfect for me. Here’s a newsflash for you, though—if my parents didn’t want me to marry Piers (and I assure you they didn’t) they were absolutely aghast at the idea of my marrying Simeon. All that money, all those connections, and he is nice, decent, kind—but my parents were only concerned with my happiness. What a shock, huh? Rich people caring about their kids! My mother went so far as to urge me to find you if I wanted to get married!”

  “Smart woman, your mother.”

  “But I figured I was lonely, and he was lonely, and I...I didn’t deserve to be happy after what I’d done to you. I deserved to be punished for my mistake. What I didn’t expect was that Simeon would fall in love—not with me. Another artist, a sculptor.”

  She picked up the vanilla oil again, got onto the bed, eased one leg over him to straddle him, her knees on the bed holding her above his body. She poured more vanilla oil into her palm and this time used it on herself, bypassing her clit and heading for her asshole.

  She saw he knew what she was about because his eyes went wide. He was struggling in earnest now, arms yanking at the stockings, emitting little grunts and groans as she massaged herself.

  “Are you okay, Rafael?” she asked.

  “No,” he ground out.

  “Safe word?”

  “Fuck!” he said.

  “That’s not the safe word. Do you want me to remind you what it is?”

  “All...all I want is...is you,” he said, and he was actually panting as his hips started thrusting off the bed.

  * * *

  As she kept massaging herself, fingers moving in and out of her body, Rafael thought he was going to die of a stroke. But he couldn’t die happy until she let herself hear that he loved her.

  His arms strained at the ties even though he knew he wasn’t going to be able to break them. It was instinct to try to touch her. It had always been instinctual with her. Like breathing. But if he couldn’t touch her, he’d have to find another way to reach her—not easy when you were spread-eagled, tied to a bed and about to expire from an excess of lust.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “You have to say it out loud.”

  “Ready,” he said—well, he croaked it.

  “Okay,” she said, “but I want you to stay very still and let me take my time and set the pace. I’ve never done this before—see, I’m a virgin all over again for you, aren’t you lucky?—and I need to control it, take it slowly.”

  “Yes, control it, control me. For you I will be as immovable as the Sphinx. For you I’ll do anything,” he said, and was fiercely glad that in this small way he could show her what she wouldn’t hear. She could trust him to cede control to her; and because he loved her he would control himself.

  She shook her head as though those words were buzzing unwanted in her ears, and focused on getting more oil on him, in her... And then she put the cap on the oil and tossed it aside. Repositioning herself, she used one of her hands to hold him and the other as a brace on the bed beside his hip, then she lowered herself carefully onto his cock. He saw that she was breathing super slowly, trying to relax. He stayed deathly still and knew he would stay so even if it killed him.

  Quarter inch by quarter inch, she took him in, keeping her eyes on his, her lids fluttering closed then open as she absorbed the feeling of him. She was biting down on her lower lip, he could feel her body shaking, and he thought he might burst with the emotions rampaging through him. Love, desire, need. Despair that she was giving this to him in a moment of defiance, not love—and self-disgust that he didn’t have the strength to say no, even so.

  He wasn’t going to last. He knew it. The sight of her, the feel of her, the knowledge of what she was giving to him. The fact that he was tied added to the rush of it. It thrilled him that she’d bonded him, that she was taking him, that she was controlling him, that she trusted him to do what she asked and let her set the pace.

  “Mi amor, it’s coming,” he warned. “Stop if you want.”

  She shook her head, violent, and sank a little lower onto him, taking him further than he would have expected, surely as far as she could, and he spilled himself inside her with a hoarse cry. And he hated himself, because he knew it wasn’t her intention to take an orgasm for herself or she would have left his hands free.

  She stayed still, took it all, limbs trembling either side of his hips, and then, when he thought she’d drained him of every ounce inside him, she laid herself flat out on top of him.

  He said nothing, staying still for her for as long as he could bear it, because she needed to claim this victory. And then, “Untie me, mi amor,” he said. “I want to touch you.”

  She sighed, got off the bed, went to the vanity and returned with a pair of scissors.

  He laughed feebly as she looked at his dick. “I hope you’re not thinking of using those scissors on anything but the stockings.”

  She smiled but it was perfunctory. “We still have two days of our agreement, so no.”

  “It’s not an agreement anymore—it’s just you and me,” he said.

  Her response was to proceed to cut each stocking in turn until he was free. “There,” she said. “Now you have a part of me nobody else has had. Revenge, huh? Served hot.” She held the scissors out to him. “So finish it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She gestured to the T-shirt she was wearing.

  “What?” he asked, confused.

  “Use the scissors. Get symbolic. Cut this T-shirt off me. It’s Piers’s, you know.”

  “I don’t need to cut it off you, Veronica. Wear anything of theirs you like, you’ll still be mine.”

  He went to take her in his arms but she stepped back.

  “Then I’ll do it,” she said. Throwing the scissors on the bed, she reached for the neckline of the T-shirt and ripped it down the front, t
hen tore it off her body.

  Standing there naked except for his ring on her finger, the tatters of her ex-husband’s T-shirt on the floor beside her, his heart burst with love and pride. If she could accept that pissant ring without losing one iota of what made her who she was—and wear it like a fucking queen what’s more—why couldn’t he accept a 1952 Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle and stay exactly who he was?

  Talk about epic moments in life.

  And then she seemed to collapse a little before his eyes without actually moving. “I feel dirty,” she said into the silence.

  And without looking at him again, she went into the bathroom.

  * * *

  Veronica flattened herself against the wall of the shower, wishing she could disappear into it before Rafael came in—as she knew he’d do.

  If only she could go back, handle that talk in the kitchen differently. Without the anger, the accusations, the recriminations. Except that then, of course, she might as well have been with some other man. Rafa was the only one she could let go with and fly all the way into the harsh sun knowing he’d still love her. And she knew he loved her. But love had never been the problem, and sex had never been the problem. It was the other stuff that had gotten in the way—and that boiled down to their need to find their place in the world.

  She’d been looking for freedom and had tried to buy it with a motorcycle; he’d been looking for security and had left her so he could find it. Of course he was going to come back for her. So why hadn’t she let him? That was the burning question.

  She heard the bathroom door open, and then felt Rafael get into the shower behind her, but she was so sad, so drained, she couldn’t make herself face him.

  He brushed a hand down her hair. “I don’t want you to feel dirty.”

  “It’s not because of what I did, but how I did it. To punish you again. Or maybe to punish myself.”

  “How can I make you feel clean again?” he asked.

  “Unless you can time-travel with me back to graduation day so I can fix everything I did wrong...nothing.”