Tagged Heart

by Tasha Fawkes

  I eye Crystal’s pretty, splayed form beneath me and grin. She wiggles in alarm at that grin. “Oh, you know. Same as always. Chained to my desk today.”

  Or at least someone is.

  “I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t forgotten our dinner plans tonight.”

  Her voice is disapproving, as usual, like she’s already made up her mind that I have. Which, balls-deep in Crystal, I definitely have.

  “Dinner.” I don’t give her the satisfaction of hearing the question in my voice as I glance over to scan for my day planner. One of Crystal’s earlier thrashes must have sent it toppling to the floor. “Of course, I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Good,” she says. “Because I don’t intend to be left alone with your mother yet again. With all the wedding planning your absences are forcing us to get done, I might as well be marrying her.”

  Beneath me, Crystal makes a muffled noise—apparently, she can hear every word that Karen says on the other end. I give her restraints a warning tug, and she arches her back in cat-like pleasure as my cock brushes up against her secret inner spot.

  “I haven’t forgotten, and I don’t intend to,” I tell Karen. “I’ll be there.”

  God knows I don’t want to be. Maybe fucking Crystal is what’s gotten me into a domineering mood at present, but I want to tell Karen—and my mother—that I’ll be available to plan a wedding precisely when I have the time and desire to do so. Which may be never.

  Instead, I find myself agreeing to meet them wherever it is we planned to meet. I mentally detach from the bland conversation with Karen and my thoughts drift, going beyond even the four walls of my office and the reality of the naked woman beneath me. Listening to myself talk to Karen is like listening to a man going through the motions of a life that he knows isn’t worth living. It’s a depressing thought, but one I’ve resigned myself to.

  I don’t love Karen. Karen doesn’t love me. I don’t love Crystal. Crystal doesn’t love me. We all have requirements that need to be satisfied. Karen knows I see other women, and it doesn’t bother her so long as I keep things purely physical. Crystal knows I’m not interested in anything other than sex. It’s a perfect system. It should satisfy my need for control. Then why does it all feel so pointless?

  “All right. We’ll be expecting you at seven.”

  Karen signs off without a real parting word, but it doesn’t matter. I’m sure that later, we’ll pick up wherever we left off. I toss my phone down onto my desk and rein Crystal in. I remove the panties from between her teeth, and she sucks in a lungful of air.

  “Everything all right?”

  I glance down into those big brown eyes and debate whether or not to answer her. Then again, there’s nothing substantive I can tell her when I don’t know the answer myself.

  I stick to our script. I release my grip on the belt and let her fight the restraints as much as she wants as I pound her into the desk. Soon she’s crying out once more, senseless with need, a slave to the whims of her body and a tool for my sexual release.

  And for a fleeting moment, it almost does feel right.

  “… well, I’m glad that you’re at least picking up Karen’s calls now while you’re at work,” my mother comments while she swirls cabernet in her wine glass.

  I watch the ruby-red whirlpool that forms, trapped within the bowl. I wait for even a single drop to escape; to slosh out over the edge and form a hundred-dollar stain on the restaurant’s impeccable white tablecloth. It never does.

  Shannon Stone is good at avoiding potentially messy situations.

  My mother is young at sixty-eight, made younger by countless plastic surgeries and rejuvenating treatments that she diverts all my father’s leftover fortune toward. I don’t see the point of the practice, personally. No one is immune to the ravages of time, and my mother’s poised, petrified face is no exception.

  Karen can talk with my mother for hours long stretches about the latest beauty breakthroughs and cleansing tricks. I almost wish they would find the time to talk about it now. Instead, my mother appears insistent on bringing up Pen and Quill. She never approved of my embarking on my publishing venture, and she still doesn’t approve, even after I agreed to remain CEO of Stone Exports. The look of measured disdain around the edges of her mouth isn’t something even her most highly-paid plastic surgeons can get rid of.

  “I’m in and out of a lot of meetings, Mother,” I reply. It isn’t a lie. Crystal’s sweating, sublime body comes to mind as I recall our latest meeting.

  “He’s delegating more,” Karen offers.

  She leans over in her chair to wrap a hand around my forearm. I tolerate it, but just barely. She knows what she’s going to marry: a classically handsome, physically fit, statuesque poster boy who can’t seem to shake the stuffy smell of old New York money or the bloodhounds that pursue it. She’s going to marry into a multi-million-dollar fortune generations in the making, just the way her daddy always wanted.

  And what do I get out of our arrangement of convenience? Political connections. Like I give a damn. Mother couldn’t be happier, of course. She may rail against my involvement with Pen and Quill, but what she really wants is for me to run for office. Even Stone Exports comes secondary to her true ambitions.

  But what do I get out of it? I’m Daniel Stone the Third, the third in my family to own the name and the shrewd business savvy that comes with it. It doesn’t even take a Stone to see that I’m getting the short end of the stick. I don't want to go into politics. I can barely manage to work up the interest to deal with Stone Exports. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll finally get some peace and quiet—and some much-needed privacy to pursue the off-hours recreation that actually satisfies me.

  I watch Karen charm my mother. She regales her with an amusing anecdote about how she was forced to fire the latest wedding planner last weekend when she noticed the other woman looking at me in a way she didn’t like. My mother laughs and comes back with a similar story of her own. Karen leans harder into me, and I’m certain we must appear exactly as she hopes: close, cohesive, and head-over-heels in love.

  I could muster a smile, but I don’t bother. The two women won’t expect it—they won’t even look for it. I’m a man in control of everything and nothing.

  Concessions. Compromise. That’s all life is for me now; the pursuit of meaningless victories and the manufactured enjoyment of their empty rewards. I’ve been splitting my attention and bending over backward to accommodate everyone for so long that I’m not certain that isn’t how things are supposed to shake out in the end.

  That doesn’t keep me from wishing I could get out of this goddamn marriage.

  Three

  Ashley

  “No, I… yes, that will be fine.”

  I pinch my nose, needing a light reminder that this is the incompetent reality I inhabit. The woman on the other line—who purports to be Maurelli’s manager—tells me that she'll make up for the missing vegetarian lasagna with a full refund on half the order, and have an additional dessert sent over from the restaurant.

  The mishap doesn’t matter too much in the long run. All around me, the Pen and Quill Christmas party is in full swing: authors, agents, and editors mill about the lavish center table, too busy throwing back wine and talking animatedly with one another to fill their mouths with much else. There’s less than two hundred bodies in attendance, and I haven’t heard anything from a single disgruntled vegetarian yet, so I’m almost ready to call the evening a success.

  Then Stewart arrives.

  “Babe! Babe!”

  Stewart waves at me from the doorway and manages to slosh the champagne he’s ferrying over onto the floor. He smiles sheepishly at me when he arrives and tries to pass the empty flute to me anyway.

  “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” I hiss, looking around to see if anyone is watching. I'm so embarrassed. I snatch the other full flute from him and chug it down before Elektra looks my way. Thankfully, she appears preoccupied with a client and h
as completely missed my humiliation. Stewart offers a grin, oblivious to my mortification.

  “Nope. I still feel out of place amid all your fancy publishing friends.”

  That’s because you are out of place! I want to scream. I didn’t invite you! I didn’t want a plus one!

  What I wanted was a moment alone with Daniel Stone, who still hasn’t shown his dead-sexy self as far as I know. What I wanted was to not be called babe in front of all my fancy publishing friends. Stewart’s smile straightens itself out a little when he finally notes what I hope is a dour look of disapproval, but there’s no coming back from how much he’s managed to put down in the first half hour of the party, and from what I suspect he imbibed the hour before.

  Stewart Beecham is not my boyfriend. He is not my babe. He’s not even this annoying normally—at least, not in this overbearing, socially awkward way that I’m now forced to deal with. Stewart is a pathologist. He’s normally so clinical, so boring and specific… about everything. It’s structure without control; it’s lists upon lists of itemized ways to be intimate with one another, yet at the end of the day they’re all as bland as soft serve vanilla ice cream. No sprinkles, no Gummies, no chocolate or strawberry syrup. Just… boring.

  “Well, why don’t you go try to talk to someone who isn’t me?” I grab Stewart by the shoulders and steer him toward the nearest conversation, broadcasting a psychic apology to the two women as I do so. “I need a break. I need… I need to find the bathroom.”

  He nods as I thread my way through the revelers, sighing with relief. I need some fresh air. I need—

  “I love you!” Stewart hollers.

  Oh God. I stiffen with another bout of mortification as I dart from the room. Just outside the doorway in the hall, I realize that the heels I wore aren’t made for darting, and my left ankle buckles. I barely manage to catch my balance as I keep moving. I manage to make it out of the hallway and into my small office. I slam the door closed and lean against it, eyes closed, shaking my head.

  I breathe a heavy sigh of relief into the cool, familiar darkness of my safe harbor. I took on way too much tonight, and what for? So I could try to impress a man who couldn’t even be bothered to show to his own company party? I try to muster some anger at Daniel Stone as I move to my desk and collapse down into the chair, but all I really feel is aching disappointment.

  I let my mind drift to him now. I imagine him finding me here, alone in my office, sheathed in the bright red dress I had rented out for the evening—the one that sober Stewart had called outlandish. But I knew what I wanted. Red is the color that signals passion louder than all the rest. Daniel would know this. He wouldn’t be able to tear his eyes from me—or keep them from falling, lower, lower, even as he asked me what was wrong…

  I open my laptop and have the Word document pulled up before I realize what I’m doing. The glow from the screen is comforting, my characters familiar, keeping me company. The hero would never skip a party when he knew the heroine would be in attendance. He would never be able to overlook her to begin with.

  I’m halfway through a revision of an earlier scene—really an expansion into a passionate sex scene, the hero and heroine seizing a much-needed break in the plot’s drama to relieve the tension that’s built between them—when the door to my office eases open.

  I know better than to freak out now like I did the last time. My fingers pause above the keyboard, and I raise my eyes to the intruder. Stewart enters and grabs the chair from Tory's desk and pulls it closer to mine. He smells sweetly-sour, like the champagne he’s been drinking all evening. His eyes shimmer, but his expression is sober.

  Uh-oh.

  “What’s up, Stewart?” I push my laptop to the side, but leave it open to let him know he’s interrupting something I intend to finish. He gazes at me from beneath his shaggy brown hair, and I’m not sure he’s noticed my signal. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  “I want to talk about us,” he says, point blank. “I think it’s time to put a name to what we are. I love you, Ash.”

  “I… know that you’ve said that before.” I wince at my own indelicate response. “But I’m happy with what we are. I don’t see why we have to give it a name.”

  “You’re avoiding having this conversation.” Stewart frowns.

  My eyes narrow.

  “Maybe because the depth of your feelings for me makes you uncomfortable? I know you’ve had relationships in the past, Ash, but how meaningful were they, really?”

  I gaze at him in disbelief. “Yes. I’ve had relationships.” And maybe I thought they meant something at the time, but now I can see how hopelessly lacking they all were. That’s the whole reason I resisted becoming anything more with Stewart from the beginning. I thought I was finally waking up to what I wanted, but now I feel that Stewart is trying to lull me back to sleep. Complacency. I shake my head.

  “I just want you to know it’s okay to feel like you want to settle down with me, Ash,” Stewart continues.

  He leans across the desk and takes my hand in his. I let him. Usually I’m encouraged by any lead he decides to take, no matter how small. But not this time. I wait.

  “So, let’s settle down together. I’m drunk, but you know what I mean. Let’s settle. Be boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  Settle. Settle. Settle. The lone word echoes in my head, knocking against empty passages that should hold all the worthwhile memories I have of my time with Stewart. Why can’t I recall a single instance of feeling satisfied?

  “You mean you want to make it official?” I finally ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

  Stewart grins. He’s handsome when he does that. Hell, he’s handsome most of the time.

  “Yeah. Settled,” he agrees, or at least thinks he’s agreeing.

  I yank my hand from his. “Stewart, how much more ‘settled’ can we get?” I ask, my voice ringing with frustration. I rise from my chair, and a belated moment later, he mirrors me. I square off with him from across my desk, bracing myself for the outpouring of words I’ve been meaning to say for so long. I gush it all out. “You make lists that have to do with foreplay! Don’t think I haven’t seen them. Spend no more than five minutes performing oral sex before confirming readiness for penetration. Really?”

  “I read that in a journal!” he quickly defends. “Published in a prestigious paper! I thought it was sound advice. You seemed to like it at the time.”

  How can I tell him I'd faked it? I resist the urge to tug my hair out in annoyance. I settle for grinding my teeth and pinching my nose for the umpteenth time this evening. “It’s the same thing over and over with you,” I continue, not unkindly. “I don’t want lists, Stewart, even of the things I like—and, by the way, that is way too brief a session of oral for any sexually mature individual to get anything worthwhile out of it. I want more than just clinical biology. I don’t want to be examined, or tested, or… or…” I wave a hand, mentally erasing what I just said. It doesn’t matter. He won't get it. Trying to get him to see what I’m saying is a fruitless endeavor. A waste of breath. Stewart’s eyes narrow, but in anger. Like he’s considering something.

  “You want more spontaneity?” he asks.

  “Yes!”

  “I can be spontaneous.”

  Before I know it, Stewart rounds my desk and wraps me in his arms. I consider backing away, but the defiant part of me wants to see just how far he’ll go. It isn’t Daniel Stone bending me over my desk, but maybe, just maybe…

  I gasp in alarm as his arms hug me a moment, and then he bends slightly, his arms now reaching around my waist. Stewart might be a pathologist who sits in a lab most of the day, but I know better than most that he’s actually pretty athletic. He puts his muscled arms to good use as he lifts me off the ground and slings me over his shoulder.

  “Stewart!” I admonish, a little louder than I intended. "Put me down!" I try to grab onto the corner of my desk for balance. I miss and grab his ass instead.

  He chortles. “This i
s what you wanted, Ash!”

  Too late. I realize that I made a huge miscalculation by being upfront with him. Sober expression or not, Stewart is still drunk—and now he’s quite literally taken my life into his hands.

  “Stewart! Put me down!” I command, pounding now on his ass as he carries me out into the hallway. No, no, no… this can't be happening! I try to lift myself enough to shoot a glance over my shoulder to see where he’s heading, but it’s difficult to get my bearings bouncing on his shoulder. I think he’s taking me toward the elevator. His grip tightens over the swell of my ass in response to my insistence that he put me down. At that moment, I know it’s hopeless trying to negotiate with him when in such a vulnerable position. As soon as he puts me down, though, I’ll make him wish he'd never…

  I gulp and scramble for purchase, trying to lift myself so I can balance my hands on his hips, but I start to slip. "Stewart! I'm slipping!" The reality of being dropped prompts me to freeze. “Stewart!” My voice rising in panic now. “I’m going to fall!”

  “Relax babe, I would never—”

  The bastard trips. He actually trips, stumbling over nothing but his own impaired reflexes, and my slinky dress might as well be butter in his hands. He scrambles to catch his balance and with his body off-kilter, I slide forward. Our legs tangle. I see myself falling ass over teakettle, but I manage to instinctively twist and barely manage to break my fall with my hands, lucky I didn't break one of them in the process. I topple to the ground onto my right hip, my hands sliding forward so that I actually manage to land on my forearms. Unfortunately, Stewart slides to the side. In Stewart’s defense, he twists at the last second to avoid all of his weight from crashing down on me. In my defense, he decides to use the front of my dress as a handhold.

  A horrendous tear of fabric accompanies the sound of the elevator door ding and the next moment, those doors slide open. I shake Stewart’s hands off me and manage to thrust myself upward onto my ass, arms braced behind me, my knees spread. I see movement and glance up.