She had been right about getting away from Hunter for a while, to let her mind clear. The more she found out about the things he had done behind her back, including lying by omission about his X-rated sculpture business, the more it looked like Hunter was not the right man for her.
Chapter 18
Hunter ordered another big bouquet of flowers to arrive for Kali at SunTech on Monday morning. Not roses, because then she would have to explain too much. A mixed bunch of tropical flowers with a sealed card that said, I love you.
He followed it up the next day with a basket of brownies. She had said at that memorable meal in the Afghanistan restaurant that she liked brownies, but he had never gotten them for her. He put a sealed card with the basket that said, I love you.
That afternoon, a text came from Kali: Stop.
Hunter ground his teeth together, but he knew he couldn’t try to persuade her when she had used her safeword on him. When a woman said stop, you had to stop or you were a monster.
She kept using her safeword with him. It made him feel like an idiot. He was supposed to be able to read a woman so well that he could bring her right to the edge without going over.
But with Kali, he kept stomping all over her limits like an ignorant clod. No wonder she was pushing him away.
He paced among the ball-shaped benches, absently looking at his sundial from all angles. It was installed and ready to go, except for two missing medallions that were being recast and sent from the foundry. When they had tried to install them, the bolt holes had cracked.
Except for the IV, it was complete. But it was hard to see how it would look with the plywood fence still crowding around it.
Hunter wasn’t satisfied. At first he thought it was because of Kali, but then he gradually realized he wasn’t happy with the sundial. From every angle, his eye kept going to the missing medallion. It created a dark patch that was larger than the medallions positioned in front of each bench. He kept trying to blank that out in his minds’ eye, to see what the problem was.
Finally he got as far back as he could behind the sundial, looking towards the building, almost on the sidewalk. It was the perspective most people would see the sundial from.
Something was off…
He didn’t know how long he stared at it, but he jumped when a voice asked from the nearby gate, “Something wrong?”
It was Kali. Looking at him curiously.
“Yeah. Something’s wrong. But for the life of me…” He stared back at the sundial.
“I think it looks amazing,” Kali said honestly, looking around, too. “I can’t wait to see it with the fence gone.”
“Me, too.” He was surprised they were suddenly standing there talking so friendly-like. Then again, she always surprised him.
Kali checked her watch, looking at where the shadow lay. “Is it right? It’s three o’clock.” She walked over to look down at the medallion where the shadow crossed its edge. “Yes, this one is III.”
Hunter slowly followed her, realizing she had found the problem. “You can’t see the numerals from a distance. That’s it!”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“It’s a clock. That’s the purpose of a sundial. But when I left the patina on the bronze, it darkened the medallions so much that the numbers blend into the background from a distance. They need to pop.” He considered them. “I’ll have to polish the numerals on the medallions.”
She cocked her head. “I think you’re right. It would look nicer with the numbers shiny.”
“Kali, you’re an inspiration.” His voice fell. “What would I do without you?”
But instead of responding, she shifted away from him. “Hunter, I came out because I needed to talk to you about something sensitive. I don’t want to do it in the office because someone might overhear. Out here, with the sounds,” she waved at the noise of the traffic on the street, “I thought this would be okay.”
“Sure.” He was glad he hadn’t pushed it. He knew she would come talk to him, in her own good time.
“It’s about your website, Hunting Art.”
Uh-oh… “You’ve seen it?”
“Yes. I found it this weekend. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“You know why, Kali. SunTech would have canceled the project if they found out. And you would have felt obligated to tell Selina.”
“I should tell Mr. Ryan.”
“What’s he going to do now—rip out the sundial because I’m kinky? I’ve kept my erotic line separate from my big public works. I know that no corporation is going to want to be associated with artists who make erotic art. But my sculptures are what pay my bills.”
“So you do know what this means if it gets out to the media? Didn’t you think I should be warned? Or were you just hoping that phone call from the NY Post never came in—‘Hello, does SunTech know your plaza designer is a prominent S&M sculptor?’”
“This launch is one-off publicity. Once it’s over, it’s over,” Hunter insisted. “Nobody will care after the fact that I’m kinky.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” she agreed. “But the launch is this week. I want you to deactivate your website. And your FetLife page. Just as a precaution.”
He looked at her sideways. “You know about FetLife?”
“Yes.”
“That means you have a profile. What’s your name?”
She ignored that. “I want everything taken down that associates you with BDSM for at least the next couple of weeks. We don’t need another burst of bad publicity for SunTech.”
He considered it. “All right, I’ll do it. When I get home I’ll shut both down. But there is Google cache. I can try to get them to delete it, but it may take a few days. And frankly, if someone makes the effort to find Hunting Art, they will find it. I’ve done a lot of shows.”
“Selina didn’t find anything connected to your real name during our background checks before we put your design into the competition, so I’m hoping we’ll be safe if your main portals are closed down.”
Hunter nodded. “My friends will wonder what happened, but I can stall them for a couple of weeks without raising suspicions.” He would use his relationship with Kali as an excuse, if he had to.
“Good.” She turned away as if she was done with the conversation.
“Wait, Kali. We need to talk about this. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
“You should have. Once we were really together, you should have told me.”
“I was protecting you. If I was outed early in the project, I wanted you to be able to say honestly that you knew nothing about Hunting Art.”
She frowned. “I don’t need you to protect me, Hunter. Especially when it comes to my job. I have to make my own decisions.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do.” She was serious.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You manipulate me constantly to make me to do what you want. You say it’s because you’re protecting me, or you’re helping me, or because you want me so much. But it really comes down to—you always have to be in control.”
“That’s not true. I’ve stopped when you told me to. Every time. I also stopped seeing Minx, in spite of what you think.”
“I know what you want, Hunter. And you keep trying to push me further and further into it. I don’t want to be submissive in my real life. I may like it during sex, but that’s it for me, Hunter. And you’ve never understood that about me.”
“You’ve loved everything we’ve done together. Admit it! I think it’s fear that’s stopping you now. You’re afraid that if you submit to me, you’ll let me override your own good judgment. That you’ll lose yourself. But that’s not true.”
He reached out for her in spite of himself. He had to touch her. Had to be with her.
But she pushed him away. “No, Hunter! You keep running all over me, trying to force me to be with you. To be what you want. I’m not going to do it.”
Kali s
craped his hands off her and hurried away. He took one step after her, then stopped himself.
She disappeared through the gate in the fence. And he was alone again without her.
He wasn’t trying to force her into anything!
He wasn’t.
Hunter went through a black cloud of fury, pacing among the benches of his sundial. Denying over and over to himself that he was trying to mold her into something she wasn’t. Kali took to submission like she was born to it. Trained into it by her mother, actually. Following the example of her father, who had to get away in order to be free…
Like Kali had run away from her mother to the big city.
She was trying to get away from that kind of control. That’s why she refused to give it to him.
Just because she was suited to her toes to be a slave, that didn’t mean she wanted to be a slave.
He had never considered that.
Kali was right—he hadn’t understood her until now. He wanted to run after her, to tell her that.
But it was only one half of the equation. She said that he wanted a slave. That he expected her to be a slave because that’s the kind of relationship he wanted.
He stared at the medallions, lost in thought. Thinking of past girlfriends and submissives and yes, slaves. Even the ones who didn’t call themselves “slave” fulfilled a lot of the same things for him—their main desire was serving him, letting him choose when and how and where he saw them.
He hadn’t had a relationship for many years like he had with Kali, hanging out and dating, watching a movie on TV, and cooking breakfast together in the morning. Maybe that’s why it was so hard sometimes. Maybe that’s why he felt more comfortable in the dominant role, why most of their time was spent having sex or with him drawing her.
Because those times when they were casually entwined on the couch were the ones that scared him the most. Because he wasn’t driving the bus.
Just like he wasn’t driving the bus with Kali now.
That’s why he was flipping out, pacing around in front of the security cameras, probably entertaining the security staff to holy hell. He was out of control.
He loved her. Why didn’t he tell her that? He had the chance while she was standing there. He should have said it first thing. And then kept saying it.
But he was scared. She didn’t love him.
He forced himself to turn around and walk through the gate. He made sure the chain was locked. Then he walked away, every step a nightmare.
He had made such a mess of things. Finally a girl who fit him like a glove, and because he fell head over heels in love with her and felt unsure of himself, he did nothing but try to control of her.
Hunter wandered around downtown Manhattan, too distraught to return to work and too worked up to stay put anywhere. Until he came to the Hudson River. The roiling water was dark even in the afternoon sunshine, stretching a mile away to the other side, and extending as far as he could see on either side. It was massive, unstoppable. It made him feel very small.
If Kali had gone through her own problems growing up, and that pressure had turned her into a diamond, so had he. He knew his fears came from his past, growing up and needing to be in charge, so everything would be okay for his brothers and his mom.
He realized he hadn’t even called them since he had seen his brother weeks ago. He hadn’t talked to his father since he found out he got fired. Or his mother to find out how she was doing. His brother had left several messages, giving him bulletins, and he had transferred the money every week. But that was it.
Gazing out at the black water rushing by, Hunter felt like a coward. A villain. He had been distracting himself with Kali, ignoring the latest tragedy in his family’s life. She had asked him about it a couple of times, now that he thought about it. But he had brushed off her questions every time.
He realized he was doing exactly what she accused him of—setting up their relationship with strict boundaries, keeping the intimacy away, keeping the sex in the center ring. Isolating them in a bubble that wasn’t real. How could it be real when she didn’t even know that he earned his living selling kinky art?
Kali was right. He had tried to manipulate her, and kept things from her. Why hadn’t he taken the collar away from Minx? Because he had expected life to continue on as it always had, that he could spank any girl he wanted to because it was her birthday. That he would be able to play with other people, maybe with certain restrictions like no intercourse or no kissing. Whatever Kali wanted…
But Kali wanted monogamy. She didn’t want to be pressured into being sexually open in order to please him. She refused to play that game, and he had to admire her for it. He was used to women offering to do anything to win his love. It got old after a while.
This was the first time he would do anything to win a woman’s love. He had danced around her questions every time, but now there was nowhere else to go.
Can I be monogamous?
With her, yes.
So why did the thought scare him so much? It was the idea of putting everything he had into one person. To build a life together, and trust that he wouldn’t screw up like his dad did, or even worse that she would have to work as hard as his mom did just to survive. He didn’t want to have kids if they were going to have to struggle as much as he did when he was a kid.
What Kali wanted went smack in the face of all his fears. How could she be so hopeful to think two people could make it together for the long haul? Granted, both their parents were together, but the sacrifices they each made to make it work weren’t worth it. Were they?
It was after dark when Hunter finally caught the subway home, still deep in his thoughts. He felt opened up, vulnerable. Like a kid again.
Kali had that affect on him, peeling him open like an onion, leaving only the tender heart exposed. He had to love her. It was like a force of nature.
Suddenly he couldn’t wait to get home to look at his drawings of her. Her face. Her eyes. Her hands. The curve of her neck. He had drawn her from every angle, in every light.
When he got home, he pulled out his books and ripped out the pages, surrounding himself with her image. Her smile.
Her smile.
That was Kali. Good hearted, loving, giving, smart, funny, ready to do whatever it took to get the job done.
He held the portrait up to his face, breathing deeply as if he could smell her on the pages.
“Kali…” he murmured.
There was a knock on the door. His head went up like a shot.
Wild with hope, thinking only of Kali, he ran to the door.
It was Minx.
Her hair was purple today and done up in a red bandana. She didn’t have much makeup on, which was unusual for her. But her combat boots and Hello Kitty t-shirt were typical of her style.
Hunter couldn’t pull himself together quickly enough. He was exposed, his hope deflating. And Minx saw it all.
He backed away, but he shouldn’t have because Minx followed him inside, shutting the door behind her. He could only stare at her, lost in confusion that she wasn’t Kali. He’d known Minx for years, but right now she felt like a stranger.
“May I speak, Sir?” she asked.
“You don’t have to ask,” he managed to say. He couldn’t be the master with Minx. He promised Kali he wouldn’t. But that’s what he had done when Minx came over last time. He had not stopped her when she sat on the floor, for one thing. And he let her ask permission to speak. And the other things that kept their relationship so formal.
She followed him into the main area of his studio. The floor was covered by images of Kali. Kali, over and over again
Minx bent down and picked up a few, looking at them closely. “She is beautiful. There’s something transcendent about her.”
“She’s true to herself.” He began to gather up the drawings. It was almost a sacrilege for Minx to touch them. She started to help him, but he said, “No, let me do it.”
She stood there wa
tching him on his hands and knees gathering up the pictures and placing them carefully in a black portfolio. He laid it on the table, his hand resting on it like he didn’t want to let it go.
“I’ve never seen you like this before,” Minx finally said.
He looked down at the portfolio. “I love her.”
There were a few moments of silence. When he looked up, Minx’s eyes were filled with tears. “Do you, really?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t think you could.”
His throat closed. “Neither did I.”
Minx tried to smile. “But she knows what kind of man you are. She can’t expect you to change for her.”
“Minx, I need to get my collar back from you.”
Her mouth opened. “Seriously?”
He was a little surprised that he didn’t feel the least bit of regret. He used to be so hot for Minx. He used to fuck her like mad. She was the perfect sub, he always thought. He knew her body so well, every nook and cranny, and could push her as hard as he dared in lots of different ways.
As if remembering the same thing, she slowly sank to her knees in front of him. Giving herself to him with her eyes. Both her hands went to the collar of her shirt and she ripped it with a convulsive move. There were tears on her cheeks. “Let me please you, master. You know I can give you what you want.”
It left him cold. All he could think about was Kali, and how betrayed she would feel to find Minx here like this.
“Minx, you have to leave now.” He kept himself from barking out the order, like a master would. He refused to take that role with her. “It’s wrong for you to act this way, now that I’ve released you.”
Shaking her head, she seemed confused. But when he didn’t say anything else, she finally struggled to her feet. “But I thought you wanted it.”
“Please drop off your collar later through the slot.” He went to open the door, and waited until she gathered her torn t-shirt in front of her. She left with a hurt, angry look at him.
He didn’t care if she was still staying at Jeremy’s or not. He didn’t care that she was walking around in basically her bra. He hadn’t asked her to throw herself at him after he requested her collar back.
Good Girl Page 25