Separation Games (The Games Duet Book 2)

by CD Reiss

  I could feel her heaving for breath under me.

  “Get off me,” she gasped. “Fuck.”

  I’d stopped to think too long. She was getting restless. I needed more control, and I wasn’t continuing without it. I snapped off my belt and buckled it around her neck as she cursed at me.

  Grabbing her ankle, I stood and dragged her across the dining room floor. Her free foot kicked.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-eight. Let me go.”

  She grappled with the belt, but the buckle was in the back and she didn’t have enough time to undo it before I got her into her childhood room. It had been stripped of posters and photos. The full-size bed with the white wood head and footboard was dressed in a white, pink, and blue duvet I hoped she wasn’t too attached to.

  Closing the door behind us, I got my hand around the front of the circle of the belt and put our faces close together. “Be good.”

  “No.”

  I let her go and pulled an extension cord out of the wall. The next five minutes were spent tying her hands together. She was slippery and strong, but I was stronger. I got her on the bed and bound her hands to the headboard, above her head. I could turn her front or back while keeping her more or less still.

  I got off the bed and undressed while she watched, lying on her back.

  “You’ve got to calm down,” I said, pulling her ankles apart. “You might even like it.”

  “I won’t relax. I won’t let you.”

  The fire in her eyes said otherwise, and I had to trust that. I put my knees on her thighs, keeping her motionless with my weight.

  This wasn’t about getting my dick in her ass. It never had been. This was about taking her so low she could let go of her pain, and it would take more than a fight against penetration. When I leaned over her, she turned her head. With one hand, I took her by the cheeks and made her face me.

  She wasn’t close enough. She was physically drained, but her guard was still up emotionally. I had to break her. We had no map for this. No list to check off.

  I had to trust myself to know what she needed.

  I had to trust she’d tell me if it was going wrong.

  “So we’re clear,” I said. “I want this to hurt. Every time you cry, my dick gets hard.”

  I put my fingers in her mouth, down deep with my clean hand until she made gurgling sounds. I removed them, and I slapped her cheek. Not hard. Just enough to hurt her feelings.

  Her eyes got wide with shock.

  “You like that? It’s what you wanted.”

  Before she could answer, I slapped the other cheek a little harder.

  Her eyes welled up with tears. Her chin shuddered. I did it again, and tears flowed.

  That was it. The train pulled out of the station and we were on it, speeding toward her breaking point. I got off her thighs and turned her onto her stomach. She didn’t have a hell of a lot of fight in her. I slapped her bottom so hard my hand hurt.

  I didn’t need to torment her with cruel words. I didn’t need to make her tell me to go fuck myself again, but I needed to finish this with her.

  I put my fingers in her ass and stretched it. She was still lubricated enough. It would hurt for a minute, but if I took it slow, she’d be fine.

  The head of my dick stretched her. She screamed into the pillow and resisted. I held her still and slowly, inch by inch, took her ass.

  The extension cord slid down the vertical bed railing. I pulled her hair back but fucked her gently.

  “Up on your knees,” I said, slapping her ass.

  She did as she was told because she was breaking and she knew it. I could feel her falling apart. Falling into me. Opening like a flower. After the second stroke, she was released from pain and she pushed her hips back into me.

  Turning her on her side, I bent her leg on my shoulder. Her face was so puffy and tear-streaked, I didn’t recognize it. I reached between her legs and rubbed her clit. She made a vowel sound that was half surrender and half battle-cry.

  “I can’t! I can’t come like this.”

  “You can.” I leaned into her face. “You can, and you will.”

  It wasn’t long before she bucked and stiffened under me. When she came, her ass clenched around my cock over and over until I exploded inside her.

  When I pulled out, she cried harder than I thought possible.

  I needed to get us into a bath. I needed to clean up. I needed to feed her. I needed to check every inch of her body to make sure she was unharmed. But once I untied her and she put her arms and legs around me, she wouldn’t let go. She wept long and loud from the floor of her heart to the ceiling of her soul. Not one ounce of sadness was left unpacked.

  When I tried to let go of her, she clung harder.

  I gave up and held her as tightly as I could, rocking back and forth. The scene finished and I had nothing to add to what I’d done. I was all right. I’d kept it under control and given her what she needed. I knew her. I loved her. Through the entire thing, I’d loved her, and it was the love that kept me from breaking along with her.

  I was safe and sane, giving her a gentle, guided ride back to the reality of her power.

  Chapter 46

  When she was too tired to cry another tear, I took her to her little bathroom and managed to hold her off the floor while I drew her a bath. It was a hilarious comedy of errors she only had the energy to smile about.

  “I just want to go to sleep,” she said as I put her in the hot water.

  “I know.”

  “This feels really nice.”

  I washed her legs from toe to thigh, then I got in the tub, sitting behind her so her shoulder blades were to my chest. I had more cleaning to do, but it could wait a minute while I wrapped my arms around her.

  “I’m going to miss my father.” Her voice was husky. “Knowing he doesn’t exist anymore. Not even anywhere. Gone. I can’t visit. Can’t say hello. Can’t play cards anymore. I don’t know what to do with all the things we did together.” She leaned her head on the bend in my arm. “I’m not his daughter anymore. I’m… I don’t know who I am.”

  I kissed her behind her ear. “You’re mine.”

  “I’m still sad.”

  “I’ll break you again when you can’t stand it.”

  “Before,” she said sleepily. “Did you mean what you said before?”

  “That I was going to rip you apart?”

  “No. I know you meant that. The other thing. In the kitchen.”

  “What thing?”

  She didn’t answer. The sound of dripping water echoed off the tiles, and I felt her breaths on my arm.

  “That I love you?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I meant it.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s probably the only thing I’ve said all day that I really meant. It might be the truest thing I’ve ever said. Even more true now today than all the other times I’ve said it.”

  She turned as much as she could to face me. She was cried out, empty of her grief for now, but somehow fresh and new. “I love you too.”

  “Good.”

  “All of you. And you don’t have to love the submissive me.”

  “Diana—”

  “It’s okay.” She turned, getting on her knees to face me, clouds of suds dripping off her breasts. “But if you just love the regular me—”

  “I love the regular Diana, and I love the submissive Diana. I love all the Dianas yet to be discovered. If you just stay with me long enough to show me all the parts of you I don’t know yet, I’ll prove it to you. I can love you more than you even thought possible. I’ll love you until it annoys the hell out of you.”

  “I dare you to try.”

  “Challenge accepted.”

  We kissed. She tasted like rosewater. She tasted like freedom and captivity. She tasted like the rest of my life.

  Chapter 47

  Thirty-five days.

  They’d sped by so slowly, I bare
ly had time to digest them, and yet, they’d filled me completely. I didn’t know so much change could be packed into such a short time, yet when I held her the morning after I took her body completely, I was a different man than I’d been on day one. Every fiber of my being had been torn down and rebuilt. I’d gone bankrupt because of her, and I’d reorganized into a functioning human for her.

  A bird chirped outside the window as the sun came up. The window of her childhood room looked across a narrow alley, into the building next door. We’d crawled into her old bed the night before, leaning into each other to keep from falling off the smaller space. Her neck was bruised from my belt, and her eyes were puffy with tears. I still had to check her anus for damage. I had to care for it if I was going to use it again.

  Her lashes fluttered on my arm, letting me know she was awake. Even after that, she didn’t move and I didn’t rouse her. The world could wait.

  A phone rang from the other room.

  “That’s you,” I said.

  “Let it go to voice.” She took a deep breath, her body expanding and contracting against mine. “The freeze is over and we have to get the business going again. Fill the slate. Find new writers. There’s so much. So much.”

  Her face took on a distant look, as if she was reading the to-do list inside her head.

  “We should go so you can get started.”

  “One more hour.”

  So we stayed there. I stroked her hair. She stroked my arm. I touched where she was sore, and she groaned. She touched where I was hard, and I pinned her wrists together behind her back.

  “Straddle me,” I said. “Face the other way.”

  She rode me. Her ass was sore, but it clenched when she was close. I pulled her hair and made her wait to come. I made her beg. I made it impossible for her to wait, then I let her release, touching her so gently her orgasm went on and on in waves.

  “You’re so good,” I said when she was back in my arms. “So perfect.”

  “I wish I could unsay all the things I said about not loving you.”

  “No. I don’t. I’m glad you did it.”

  “I was a bitch.”

  “I was an asshole.”

  “You still are.”

  I rolled on top of her. “Really?”

  “Master Asshole, sir.”

  I laughed, but the words, even in jest, made me hard. So I fucked her again, good and slow. Plain old missionary vanilla style. Because I could.

  Her phone rang again.

  She groaned. “Can you get it and tell them I’m indisposed?”

  “You have to get up to go to the bathroom anyway.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You’re human. Come on, I have to look you over. This is dereliction of duty.”

  I slapped her ass. The sound of it made me want to fuck her again, but we’d never leave the apartment if I started fucking her as much as I wanted to.

  The ringing stopped and started as we got into the bathroom. I heard it while I checked her throat, the bruising on her arm, and her anus, which didn’t look half bad. I’d been more gentle than I thought.

  By the time we were dressed in the previous day’s clothes, my phone joined the chorus.

  “I’m afraid to answer this now,” Diana said, holding up her ringing phone. The name Kayti was on the screen.

  “How bad could it be?” I said.

  “Don’t tempt fate.” She slid her finger across the glass. “Hello,” she said into the phone.

  I pretended to read my email while I watched her reaction. A sigh. Resigned. She rubbed her temples. Sat down. Got her little pad out of her bag and scribbled, mostly saying, yes, all right, and I don’t know.

  “Is the building burning down?” I asked when she hung up.

  “Not quite. What are you doing today?”

  “Besides saving the world?”

  “I can’t… I can’t deal with this myself. Can you come to SoHo with me?”

  I took her by the shoulders and made eye contact. She looked lost, panicked, and determined at the same time.

  “I’d fall off the edge of Manhattan with you.”

  We got in the Jag and headed downtown.

  Chapter 48

  The entire staff of McNeill-Barnes had gathered on the sidewalk, clutching coffee cups in the fresh spring air. The entrance to the building itself was behind police tape, and traffic was diverted to the other side of the street.

  The sidewalk was littered with broken glass from the front window, opening Ticky-Taqui—the high-end shoe store on the first floor—to thieves, who had taken their pick. Kayti ran up to us, folder tucked under her arm.

  “Hey,” she said with laser focus on Diana, ignoring me and rattling a string of words without punctuation. “Okay, so they confiscated the security video and I’m sorry if you didn’t want us to but the lawyers said—”

  “It’s fine,” she said.

  “—we should and Ticky’s saying they’re going to sue us those shoes are—”

  “Have you spoken to the police?”

  “—two grand a pair yeah I talked to Officer Gareth right over there he’s super hot so I have no idea what I said.” She let out a little giggle and turned fire-engine red when Officer Super Hot approached.

  “Hi,” Diana said. “I’m Diana McNeill-Barnes. This is my building.”

  He shook her hand. I kept mine in my pockets.

  “Let’s go inside,” he said. “I have something to show you.”

  She followed him under the tape, but turned as she got to the entrance. “Adam? Are you coming?”

  “You have this.”

  She swallowed then stomped toward me, heels crunching broken glass, knuckles a tight white on her shoulder bag. “Okay, look,” she said when she was close enough to speak softly, “I know you’re not part of the company anymore. I get it. But I need you, okay?”

  How could I deny her? I’d tried and failed so many times.

  I got under the police tape and went with Diana to meet Officer Gareth by the front door.

  “Are you an owner, sir?” he asked.

  Diana and I exchanged glances. The deed was in the company name, and the company was in the process of moving back to her family trust. So technically, yes. But actually, no. Lying or fudging with law enforcement was probably the stupidest thing a person could do, even if they hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “No.”

  “Yes,” Diana interjected. “He is.”

  “Can I wait for her in the office? I have the key.”

  “Go ahead.” Officer Gareth held his arm out so I could get in.

  “It’s fine,” I whispered to her as I passed.

  She nodded. I kissed my ex-wife on the cheek and went upstairs.

  Chapter 49

  Her desk was too clean. That was the first indication that something was wrong. My Lego tower was exactly where I’d left it. I pushed an errant brick onto the blanket.

  Lloyd’s desk was organized but busy with piles of paper, as befitted a man whose career had started before fax machines. It would have to be sorted and cleaned out and it would hurt Diana to do it. I didn’t want her to hurt. I texted Kayti.

  —Who’s cleaning out Lloyd’s desk?—

  —The office has been closed

  since he got sick. So. No one?—

  —See if they’ll let you up here—

  —They won’t—

  How did Diana deal with this level of daily obstruction? I thought Kayti resented me because she didn’t report to me and I still asked her to do things when “things” equaled her fucking job. She’d move mountains for Diana, but everyone else? They could fuck a duck.

  —Ask again—

  I went to the freight elevator and grabbed some discarded boxes, stopped at the supply closet for packing tape, reset the thermostat, and went back to Diana’s office.

  Diana was already there, leaning against the back of the couch with her arms crossed.

  “Where were you?” she a
sked, spinning like a lawyer intimidating a hostile witness.

  I dropped the boxes by Lloyd’s desk and put the tape on the chair. “Back hall. How did it go?”

  “They asked me if Dad owed anyone money. If he had gambling debts. If he had a girlfriend. I mean, really? As if they shouldn’t be interrogating Jason Taqui.”

  “I’m sure they are.”

  “My father was a fucking pillar of the community.”

  “Yes. He was.”

  “He didn’t have any enemies. Not one. No one would come here and break a window because they were pissed he what? Died without paying a debt? What. The. Fuck?” She was pinched and raw, buzzing with emotions she couldn’t hold in check.

  I closed the office door. “Huntress.”

  “How dare they. How dare they try to soil his reputation over a stupid broken window.”

  I held her face. When she tried to jerk away, I held her tighter.

  “You’re all right,” I said in my dominant voice. Then more softly but with just as much conviction, “You’re all right.”

  “How? You don’t see it. I haven’t told you. This whole thing is falling apart. I can’t think of new projects. There are bills on top of ledgers and I don’t know what to pay unless accounting points at a dotted line. I can’t handle it. I can’t. And now? I was keeping it together for him. Why am I here now?”

  “You’ve been training to run this company since you were sixteen. You’ve run it the past five years. You have this.”

  “With you,” she said, then her face lit up. “Are you coming back? Will you? Please.”

  I didn’t know how to answer her. I hadn’t even considered it. The publishing business wasn’t interesting to me. I’d saved the company for her and only her. Without her in the picture, the entire building would have been turned into third-party-managed condos and the backlist would have been sold in bulk to an aggregator who couldn’t give a shit. I’d walked away from what was profitable and walked into what was satisfying. I’d done everything I could to rebuild a failing publishing house; and I never failed in business. Never. Not for myself and especially not for her.