ReclaimedSurrender

by Riley Murphy

  “In the guest room.”

  Her expression said it all as she stormed over to her side of the dresser and pulled out each of the five drawers, finding them empty. “This isn’t funny, Rene.”

  “No it’s not.”

  She glared at him and without looking back, she kicked the bottom drawer shut. “Why do this now? Because I stood you up? Look…” She hesitated and he gathered it had something to do with his glacier stare because she wisely changed her approach and adopted a much softer tone prior to continuing. “I’m sorry it was our anniversary dinner that I missed, but it was important business. A deal—”

  “A deal that’s more important than your marriage?”

  “Oh, that’s rich. Now that it’s my deal. My meetings. My work schedule interfering it’s not okay?”

  “When are you going to stop punishing me, Alex? When does it end?”

  She didn’t answer him and quite frankly, he didn’t care. A year ago this might have bothered him, but after the last six months, not anymore. He was immune to her silence. In fact he’d use it to his advantage now. “I have gone against my natural instincts. I’ve done everything you have asked me to do. Including going to counseling. And finally, just when I think we’ve been given an exercise that makes all kinds of sense and may, may even move us forward with figuring out some kind of balance with all this shit, you leave?”

  She squared her shoulders and looked as if she were prepared to dig her heels in. She couldn’t be that foolish.

  “I had to go. Michael couldn’t do it on his own.”

  Foolish didn’t even scratch the surface. “Michael can’t do it on his own? It? You mean that important deal?” His voice was cracking he was so furious. She was smart to step back as he approached. Her bottom hit the dresser when he came to a stop, towering over her. “What about me? What about what you left me to do here on my own? The week, remember? Seven days of rediscovery. How was this supposed to happen when you ignore me for the first half and leave for the second? How?”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have made the effort. We’ll start the week over tomorrow. On Monday. Then you can have your turn.”

  Just like that. Problem solved. Not a fucking chance. “No.” He moved to give her some space but not much. “You had your week and now it’s my turn.”

  “I see.” Yet he feared she didn’t because there was a smarmy edge to her voice that didn’t bode well for either of them. Thank Christ he loved the hell out of her because right now that was all that was standing between him and the desire he had to wring her gorgeous neck or heat her beautiful ass. “You want to start your turn with us rediscovering ourselves by moving me into the guest room?”

  “Absolutely. At least I’m being honest about how I feel. I’m not going to hide behind a busy work schedule or rudely ditch you at dinner because I don’t want to be around you. The truth is you don’t deserve to be in my bed and if you ever want to get back into it you’re going to have to earn the privilege.”

  She raised her brows at him, which really ticked him off. “It is a privilege, Alexis, and one that you’ve somehow misconstrued into being a God-given right. I may have said vows, but so did you. This is our marriage. Ours being the operative word.”

  She pushed away from the dresser and went to duck around him, belligerently brushing him off like she’d been doing for the past six months. It was too much. He grabbed her arm. “I’m not finished.”

  She didn’t look at him. “I think I’ve heard enough.”

  He pulled her toward him with a jerk. “And I say you haven’t. Look at me.”

  When she did he let go of her. “For the past year I’ve listened to you whine and complain about how unhappy you are. I have put up with your tantrums and dramatics. I’ve had accusations lumped upon me. I sold two of my companies to free up my time for you. Hell, I’ve basically emasculated myself going to couple’s counseling with a therapist who doesn’t know who we really are. Parroting the same advice every time, that I should be more sensitive to your needs. Your needs? What about my needs? What about my happiness? Don’t these things matter to you anymore? Me?” He ended softly.

  Finally she looked at him. Really looked at him as if maybe his words had gotten through to her. “Of course they do. You do.”

  “I’m not happy, Alex. I haven’t been for quite a while. A good, long while and I know why. I think it’s about time we get back to worrying about my needs so we can both be happy.”

  Her look was dubious just before she turned away. “Really?”

  He could practically smell the wood burning. She’d automatically equated the word needs with sex. How utterly predictable. Since that had been her best weapon in this battle they waged against one another. “This isn’t about sex.”

  “No?” She seemed surprised. Maybe she should be…or would be.

  “It’s about kindness and decency and mutual respect.”

  “Respect? What about privacy? Is that on your list of needs? How dare you read all my journals? I only gave you permission to read a select few. Some of those are filled with my most private thoughts.”

  “You used to read all your private thoughts to me.”

  “I used to do a lot of things, but then I grew up. Did you find anything interesting in my notes?”

  “Yes.”

  Her look was smug. “Really? And what pray tell was that?”

  “You’re a spoiled, self-indulgent brat who’s gotten too big for her britches.”

  “How dare you!”

  “I haven’t finished. Those britches I mentioned? They need to be stripped from you so I can spank your ass until you can’t sit down. How dare I? How dare you?”

  When Rene got mad, really mad like he was now, his eye color went from sherry-brown to dark chocolate and gleamed like high-polished glass. His glare shimmered in the lamp light, but she ignored it. “I’ll do whatever the hell I want to do. Maybe I should rummage through your things and invade your privacy.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Those words took her breath away and the domineering tone that accompanied them got her heart racing. For a moment she’d almost dropped to her knees and asked for forgiveness. Here again she found herself fighting those inner demons. She wanted so much to have things the way they were before, when he called all the shots. Where he made all the demands and ruled her with an ease that was humbling, but there was no going back and it was entirely his fault. She needed to concentrate on that. To gain strength from that anger and use it now to hold her own against him. After all, there was a time when she wasn’t always eager to surrender herself. She needed to remember that.

  “My week with you starts tomorrow.”

  “And exactly what do you have planned for our week together? I’d like to know because you’ve started things off swimmingly.” She stormed over to the window seat and scooped up her purse. “Kicking me out of our bedroom is sure to win you points with me.”

  She was halfway to the door when he stepped in front of her, effectively blocking her from making what was to be her melodramatic exit. She would have complained or at least pushed at his chest because he was crowding her, but decided against it. He was huge. Dark. And the look on his face chilled her to the bone. But his words? His words iced her to the marrow.

  “I plan to make you beg, Alex.”

  Was he trying to intimidate her? Screw that, there was no trying about it. She was nervous as hell, but she didn’t want to show any weakness and she knew if she looked away he’d take that as a win. “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not what Dr. Anderson had in mind when she gave us the exercise.”

  “Yeah, well, interpretation’s a bitch.”

  He was serious. He— If he thought she was going to— “I’m not going to beg you.”

  “You will, but first let’s start with an apology, shall we?” He crossed his arms over his chest and patiently waited.

  Given the situation and how she was losing her edge in it, she coul
d have done or said any number of things, but his barely restrained fury convinced her she should meet him halfway on this. After all, he did deserve an apology for at least the one thing. “I-I apologize. Truly, I’m sorry that I missed our anniversary dinner. I never would have gone if…” She caught herself because there was no good end to that sentence.

  “If you remembered?” he finished for her. Those eyes of his were glistening to a sharp and hellish sparkle now. “Yeah, you said the words, but did you mean them?”

  “Mean them?” Of course she meant them. Even as mad as she was she still felt awful about that part of it.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, your I’m sorry carries about as much weight as a lame packhorse in the Rockies.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s overused to the point of being useless.”

  Her face flushed. She hated his brutal honesty. The kind of honesty that usually cut deep and this was no exception. “That’s not true. I do feel bad that I missed Thursday’s dinner. I swear.”

  “Good.” He undid three buttons of his shirt, pausing in the action of releasing the last one, and drawled, “Then I guess you won’t have any problem proving it.”

  Momentarily confused by his slow and easy tone, it wasn’t until she spied the blazing fire lighting up his eyes that it occurred to her. “I knew it. You want me to apologize by having sex with you.”

  Damn, if she’d thought his tone was slow and easy, his movements were more so. She held her breath as he popped the last button out of its hole and grimly smiled. “You think I want you to apologize just for standing me up Thursday night?”

  “Of course, what else are we talking about? I left you a note a-and I texted you twice.”

  “Twice? Wow, how very considerate of you.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Don’t.” With his shirt untucked and hanging open, he reached for her, hauling her up so her breasts crushed against his chest. He curled over her, bending her back until they were nearly nose to nose. His breath blew hot against her skin. “Don’t hide behind that damn sarcasm with me, baby. Save it for your unruly clients or Michael.”

  She shivered. There was something in his voice. In the way he held her. A level of distant contempt, despite their close proximity, that touched her deep and forced her to ask what she’d been too afraid to ask before. “You want to separate, don’t you?”

  He didn’t speak. He just searched her face. His jaw clenched and unclenched as if he were chewing back the answer he wasn’t prepared to give her. Until finally, when his eyes met hers, she saw the disappointment and the pure, unadulterated sadness etching furrowed lines across his forehead. When she spied them, a shiver of fear clawed upward, climbing from her belly to her throat and threatening to choke the life out of her. Thank the good Lord he still held her. If not, she knew she would have crumbled.

  “No, Alex, that’s not what I want.”

  Now she worried she’d wilt with relief. “What do you want? More apologies?” That was greeted by silence so she added, “You said yourself they’re useless.”

  “Apologies? No. It’s too late for them. For one week you’re mine, got it?” He gave her a little shake. “There are no excuses. No denials. No breaking plans. No late nights working. You’re going to give me your total submission in all things. All, Alex, with no exception. I want you to be honest with your emotions without your intellect getting in the way. I expect this from you until I have your trust. You owe me that much.”

  He abruptly let her go and she stumbled back. Suddenly it was clear to her. She’d punished him and now he wanted to punish her. Worse, she’d even given him the means to do it to her.

  “This isn’t fair. When I signed that relationship contract I had no idea you wanted to take it to this kind of an extreme. I thought we agreed. Never again.”

  “That was your idea, not mine.”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “Maybe you should have. Maybe you should have asked. Maybe you should have considered what you wanted from your week, the way I have been imagining and planning what I want from you during mine.”

  Someone needed to be the voice of reason here. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  He shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it on the bed. “I don’t recall asking you for your opinion on the subject.”

  She wanted to believe it was his tone that took her breath away. But it could have been the sight of his torso. All hard and cut with superbly defined muscles. Damn, one glance and she was lightheaded. “If-if I say no?”

  His look flayed her. “Then we may as well kiss our marriage goodbye.”

  That horrible sentence landed like a lightning bolt between them. This was the first time Rene had ever brought up the possibility of the two of them calling it quits. That made those words powerful. Lethal. Her pulse sped and a familiar buzzing sounded in her ears. She recognized it for what it was. Panic. This was it. Do or die. In or out. There was no question he meant what he was saying, she knew him well enough to know that and knowing him as well as she did, the only question that remained was, did she dare give him that kind of control over her again? Don’t be foolish. Don’t make the same mistake. Don’t…

  “Well?” He stood there. An immovable force waiting for her to seal her fate. In or out. Marriage or no marriage. Say something. Do something. Nod! She did.

  Apparently he wasn’t convinced. He wanted clarification. “For the week you’ll do all that I tell you to do. Say it.”

  “Yes.” Even though it killed her to give in to him when she’d been so strong over the last few months and to fold and accept this ultimatum, she did. When he gave her that look. The one she’d secretly missed for so long, her gaze lowered to the floor and she bowed her head. “Yes, I will do all that you tell me to do.”

  Chapter Two

  The alarm went off but Alexis didn’t need it. She’d been awake for hours trying to imagine what the next week was going to bring. Rene was a force to be reckoned with when he was on a mission and right now his mission was her. He’d been on the warpath with her ever since her career had begun to skyrocket. Her success hadn’t been part of the future he’d planned for them. Hadn’t he figured that out quick enough when he announced a year ago that it was time they tried for a family? After all, the culmination of his three-year plan was fast approaching and he’d fully expected her to be ready, but she wasn’t and that’s when things started falling apart.

  She had her own opinion as to why things between them had gone bad. In her mind he’d created the workaholic she was now. He was the one, with his extended business trips, eighteen-hour work days and seven-day work weeks, which had inspired her to become just like him. She learned well how to fill up her life with an all-consuming career to feed the loneliness he’d left her to in the beginning of their marriage and now that she had, he expected her to drop it all. Put it aside and make him happy by falling in with his three-year plan?

  She sighed, rolled over and scrunched the pillow against her cheek. It wasn’t as soft as hers, the downy one in their bed that he’d commandeered, but she was prepared to accept it. Just as she’d accept everything else he was going to throw at her for the next seven days. She’d do it because she agreed to do it. Plain and simple.

  Liar. The thought that the current situation would break the sexual standoff between them wasn’t far from her every thought. She’d been dying for him to make the first move and end all this for months and he hadn’t.

  She buried her face in the pillow and groaned.

  How could she want this when said standoff had started with her terrible accusation? They were her words carelessly flung that shattered a good many things in an instant, but the most important was an intimate trust their relationship needed to survive. The worst part? Once it was out there, there was no taking it back. And she was still so conflicted, she didn’t know if she would, even if she could.

  The irony of that wasn’t lost on
her because the only time she forgot the whole world was when Rene took complete control over her sexually. Not that they hadn’t had their share of straight vanilla sex. They had. In fact they’d had plenty of conventional sex since they’d been together and it was all good, but it was all those other times. The raw, rock-you-to-the-core encounters that made her mindless and careless. That was the problem. He had complete control over her during those sessions and they both liked the Dom-sub dynamic. But now it was dangerous. He’d proven that six months ago. The last time they were intimate.

  Her business partner, Michael Kavanagh, had warned her about guys furthering their agendas, but Alexis hadn’t wanted to believe that Rene would do something so underhanded. Yet? Had he really forgotten the condom that night? Sure, it had been a frantic scene. It usually was when he controlled her all evening. That night hadn’t been any different. A dinner out, where he’d heated her with endless strokes of his hand. Bringing her to the edge only to deny her and cool her with his look. That sexy, smoldering look that had the power to melt her insides like ice in a hot oven and had the strength to make her just as wet without a touch.

  She barely remembered getting through the front door that evening before he’d slammed her against the wall. He’d had her skirt up and her panties off so fast it had all been a blur. A wonderful, heart-pounding, blood-soaring, nail-raking blur, until it was over. Then reality sank in and she realized that her business partner was right about men and their motives. Rene hadn’t bothered to use protection because Rene wanted a baby. With Michael’s warning echoing in her mind she’d spoken the words aloud. Going one step further by suggesting that he’d used the power he had over her sexually to take advantage of the situation. Worse, she mentioned Michael and his prophetic prediction and theory of ulterior motives.

  Rene didn’t deny it. All he had done was tell her that an answer was beneath him. He’d gotten halfway up the stairs, she recalled, before he’d stopped and said, “Go to the pharmacy tomorrow. They do make pills for this kind of mistake. Oh, and you’re right to be suspicious of motives, you’re just dead wrong about whose are suspect.”