She frowns and takes a deep breath, giving herself a minute to compose herself.
“On the one hand, it was awful. You didn’t sound like the man I’d married at all. Never had you talked to me like that. You’d always treated me with kid gloves, which I loved. I knew you could be uncomfortable and belligerent with other people, and it made me feel special that you were never like that with me.”
No, I never was. Not that she never irritated me, not that we never argued. But never, ever did I raise my voice to her. Had to lock myself in the bathroom to let my super-heated temper boil over so it wouldn’t burn her sometimes, sure, but I always kept a lid on it. Because what kind of monster yells at their sweet, doe-eyed wife? Not this kind.
“But when I heard you that day, it… This is so confusing. And messed up.”
She looks at me, and in her eyes, I can see the hope, the seeking of permission. Tell me this is okay.
“Tell me, Press. There’s no way I’m going to think less of you.”
“When I heard you, it turned me on. I wanted you to talk to me like that. Yell and embarrass me. But I was also mad at you because you can’t talk to people like that.”
“I know.” I try not to make a face, because god, do I know. Rey’s hammered that through my thick skull at least. “And I’ve been much better at controlling my temper in the office. I promise. Rey said he’d salt and roast my nuts if I didn’t.”
That breaks the tension some and she smiles. But soon enough, her expression fades back into that uncomfortable uncertainty. “I went down on you in your office that day. Do you remember that?”
Do I? I couldn’t look at my desk she’d crouched under while she was sucking me off for months without getting horny, and it’s been the source material for innumerable wank sessions, so yes, I remember. “Yeah, I do. Fondly.”
“While I was doing that, I was picturing you yelling at me. Telling me I was dirty and disgusting and a disappointment. And I had a tone to paste the words to. I left feeling so sexy and buzzing with this new discovery. I thought when you got home, maybe I’d talk to you. Hint at some scenario that would make it less weird somehow. You know, student who’s failing her hot professor’s class? Maybe a secretary who made a hash of her boss’s calendar? Or a chambermaid who stole some silver?”
Her eyes are glowing. She’s getting distracted by those setups and so am I. Holy fuck. I interrupt, because if we want to get through this conversation without me throwing her to the stone tiles and shagging her raw right in front of all the tourists and the disapproving glares of former first ladies’ ghosts, we’d better get on with it.
“What happened that you didn’t?”
“You came home and you looked exhausted. Disillusioned even. At first I thought you’d been fired or dropped from a big case, but then you told me. You were angry with yourself because you’d lost your temper with one of your associates and you were embarrassed by it. Maybe even ashamed.”
She swallows and shakes her head, her blonde hair swishing around her shoulders with the movement.
“You clearly didn’t like that person you were when you’d lost your cool. And I felt guilty for wanting you to be that way. It felt so wrong that I got turned on by something you despised. And I never wanted you to be anyone you didn’t want to be. Heck, if you hadn’t been so ambitious, that would’ve been fine. I would’ve loved you no matter what. But I helped you learn things, how to talk to the right people and know the right things, because you desperately wanted to be that and I was supposed to be your helpmeet. What kind of loving spouse asks their partner to make themselves feel ill at ease for their own sick sexual gratification?”
My chest crumples like a beer can smashed against a frat boy’s forehead. Yeah, I know what that’s like. I hadn’t wanted to ask her either because her opinion of me mattered so much and I didn’t want to make her unhappy.
“So I couldn’t ask you for that. To say those things to me. To humiliate me. But when I got a second chance to make that fantasy come true, I took it. It scared me, but it was worth the risk. I wanted you to have that experience, and even though our marriage went up in smoke, I knew you wouldn’t hurt me. I trusted you not to.”
I want to confess it all—that the reason I drove her away was because I couldn’t share that part of myself with her. And despite Rey’s encouragement, and hers too, and everyone at the Black House for that matter, it still doesn’t sit easily with me. Not to mention that I’m so chickenshit I couldn’t even bare this part of myself to my wife who loved me and who, it turns out, would’ve been amenable. Something else I’m ashamed of.
So I keep that particular revelation to myself and swallow it down. Maybe someday I’ll find it in me to tell her that I’ve always loved her, that I want her back. But maybe it’s better to prove it. I’ll show her and hope to hell she comes to the same conclusion I have: we could have each other back and better than ever.
The sound of her voice shakes me out of my scheming. “I’d do it again, you know.”
“You would?”
She nods, her mouth pursing in a funny little smile. “Oh, yeah.”
I sit up a little straighter, and I can’t help the puff of my chest. I did a good job. She’d do it again. And doesn’t that make me feel good? Hell yeah, it does. I’m still basking in the warmth of her praise when her voice sounds again.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything you want to know.”
“Would you ever…”
I raise my brows expectantly and zero in on her. I can almost guarantee the answer will be yes.
“Would you ever want to involve other people?” She blanches at my blank expression and starts to backpedal. “We don’t have to. Or if we did, they could watch. Sometimes an audience, it—”
Her blush darkens, and yeah, I can see what even the mention of an audience does to her. And I fucking love it. “I would not be averse to that.” Naturally, by not averse, I mean that my dick is starting to swell against my zipper in a pretty uncomfortable way.
“Oh. Okay.”
But the more I turn it over in my head, the more I think I couldn’t handle that right now. The idea turns me on like nobody’s business, but the thought of having an audience when I’m so new and prone to fuck-ups makes me queasy with the potential for embarrassment.
“I don’t think I’d be ready for it the next time we play or any time soon, but it’s not because I don’t want to. I’d just be nervous. And self-conscious. It’s one thing to have Rey there, but other people? I wouldn’t want to be more focused on my own insecurities than I was on keeping you safe.”
I hate admitting that I’m lacking in some way and I brace myself for a look of disappointment to come over her face, but it doesn’t. Instead, she smiles and gets this hopeful, dreamy look in her eyes.
“That’s really mature of you, Slade. It makes me feel like you care. Like you get this and it’s important to you to get it right. I know that wasn’t easy for you to say, and I appreciate it.”
She leans over to kiss my cheek, and I almost pass out with happiness and pride. There’s some motherfucking growth right there, and I can practically see Rey Walter across the garden giving me an embarrassingly enthusiastic double thumbs-up.
*
I am so totally fucked.
Brashear and Collins are hard nos. That not only sucks for the obvious reasons—and I fucking hate being told no—but it also endangers Sue Ellen McClane’s vote. Johnson’s become even more important than he was before, and that was pretty freaking important. And the jackass still isn’t giving me any clue what my odds are. I might find Pressly’s flirty indecision sexy and take it as a fun-to-conquer challenge, but this is not fun. I want it over and secured and now it’s essential. Fucking Johnson.
The only thing that might be good about this is maybe spending some more time in his office and getting to see Pressly at work. I do love that part. Getting to see her in real life. Outside the fantasy of the Black House
. And maybe if I see her outside of the club enough, she’ll start to see the possibility that I have. That maybe the club isn’t all we could have.
We’ve scened a few times since the night of my initiation, and though it’s been wonderful, it still feels casual. An incredibly intense level of physical intimacy that seems to slip into the emotional, but when it’s over, it melts away. Like the whole thing is a mirage. And like a parched man in the desert, I keep chasing it. Because I want it back and, in the meantime, I’ll take whatever she’s willing to give me.
It’s been sneaking into my consciousness before I go to bed at night—the idea of having Press not just in the small, secret hours we have at the Black House, but out here too. Like we used to. What would it be like, to share our public and private lives? To be in on a kinky secret even as we parade around town like a power couple? Her as a senior staffer in Johnson’s office and me as…well, that’s something else I’d like to have her by my side for. Figuring out what exactly my life is going to look like in the next year after the election.
I’m shaken out of my reveries of squiring Press around town by the plaintive tone of my intercom.
“Yeah?”
“Um, Secretary Lewis?”
I have to swallow a yell. As it is, my tone is bitten back and testy. “What is it, Jenny?”
“You should probably turn on your TV. And check Twitter. There’s been a bombing in Cleveland.”
Maybe my brain’s not working quite right because I’m failing to see why Jenny would interrupt me for this when I asked her to hold all my calls so I could actually get some work done. “That’s obviously terrible, but what does that have directly to do with me?”
“It was at one of CHA’s properties. They’re saying six of our tenants are dead.”
Jesus Christ. “Do they know who’s responsible yet?”
“No, sir.”
“Is Secretary Vazquez going?”
“I’m—”
“Find out. She should. And get me on a plane too. I need to be out there no matter what happened.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
“Don’t talk to me again until it’s done or if you hear from Secretary Vazquez or the president.”
I click her off before she can reply and flick on my TV and bring up the social media sites. Please, please don’t let our tenants be the perpetrators. Please. It’ll be a shitstorm no matter what and the press will be all over this, but please don’t let it be our tenants. Let it be some domestic terrorist, some nutjob, but for the love of all that’s holy, not one of ours. This day just got a hundred times worse.
*
It’s been a long week, and I haven’t been to the club at all, which makes it feel even longer.
All I want in my whole life is to unwind, and I’m finding that lately I prefer to do that with a crop in my hand and an edge to my voice rather than a screaming tirade and a bottle of baby oil at the end of the day. Or a bottle of vodka for that matter. I’m going to call that progress. Unfortunately, if I do it properly—as I’ve promised I would—I can’t get my hands on dominance at this very second, whereas my other preferred forms of blowing off steam are readily available. There’s a reason I’ve been kind of an asshole my whole life, and it’s because it’s way easier than being a good person. Goddamn Rey Walter for making the price of entry to his sick, secret world so frigging high.
The good news is that, after a week in Cleveland, I’m home and my worst fears didn’t come to fruition. The people responsible for the explosives at the development weren’t our tenants, but instead a group of people I’d readily classify as domestic terrorists.
For the most part, I have no problems with libertarians. I agree government isn’t always efficient and we could use less of it, even though I’d likely be out of a job if that were true. But when they use explosives instead of a ballot to get their way, that’s when my sympathy evaporates. The group claiming responsibility did it to protest government waste and the “billions of dollars being squandered on the dregs of humanity.”
Ridiculous, ignorant bullshit like that makes me see red. I want to make them personally apologize and rebuild the housing they ruined, not to mention give them full bios on the people they killed. Like the single mother raising four kids while working two minimum-wage jobs and going back to school to better her opportunities.
After the news came down, I had a little destructive episode in my office. Cleared the shelf that holds the current volumes of the Code of Federal Regulations relevant to my job. The thick volumes of the CFR made satisfying thumps as they landed on the carpeted floor, but it still wasn’t enough. So I…I flipped a table. Which I’m not proud of, but damn did it feel good and Rey never said anything about not doing damage to government property.
But I’m back. From the funerals; from the pressers; from the community vigils; and from heaps of meetings with the director of the housing authority, the local police force, Secretary Vazquez, and yes, even the president, who had flown in for half a day. There’ll be many more meetings and initiatives, but for the moment, we’ve got the situation under control. And while I’ve got a pile of shit to deal with on my desk, my mind keeps wandering to one thing, and I can’t help thinking I might focus better if I took care of that first. Worth a shot.
So I dial from my personal cell, because fuck if I’m going to get caught with this man’s number in government records. When he answers as usual—“Slade. What can I do for you?”—my blood pressure goes down and the vise that’s been squeezing my chest for the past seven days loosens a little.
“I was wondering if you might be willing to make some arrangements for me.”
“These arrangements wouldn’t happen to involve a certain blonde pixie, would they?”
His teasing irritates me a little, but if I want this done right, I’ve got to go through him. And because I’ve started to hope for more than the odd meet-up with her at the Black House, I am going to do this right. Lay my groundwork and woo her as surely as I did when we first met. Make her trust me again.
“Yes. They would. Just me and her.”
There’s a pause and I wince because his unspoken calculation on whether or not I deserve this is downright painful. But when his voice finally sounds on the other end of the line, it’s with the most welcome words in the world.
“And what precisely did you have in mind?”
Chapter Fifteen
‡
Don’t wear anything you would mind being destroyed.
That’s the text I’d sent to Pressly this afternoon since I’ve been given permission from Rey to communicate with her directly. I’d hoped to hit her right before she left work. I don’t want to distract her, but I do want to build anticipation. Have her checking her perfect nails while she fidgets on the Metro. Maybe make her click her phone on and off, checking for messages that won’t come because we’ve made our arrangements already. Make her imagine a hundred scenarios in which I might destroy her clothes. With my hands? My teeth? Scissors or a knife? I want her thinking about it. I want her thinking about me.
Because I’m sure as hell thinking about her. Have been for days. Plotting, planning, imagining what exactly I’m going to do with her. Wanting to make her happy.
I swing down the stairs of the Capitol Hill townhouse that used to be our townhouse. I understand why she didn’t want to come here—it’s probably best to keep things on neutral ground given our history—but I can’t help wishing otherwise. Can’t stop images of her in this house, our house, from flooding my head. It’s seemed empty since she left, and I’d given in to the idea that it’d always be haunted by her ghost. But being so close to having a flesh-and-blood Pressly here again, her ebullient laugh filling the halls, even her long blonde hair clogging the sink… I’d give just about anything to have that back.
I want my wife back.
The bag slung over my shoulder isn’t heavy—I haven’t stuffed it full—but it should be everything I need for what I have plann
ed. Don’t be overambitious, Lewis. Take it slow. Coax her, excite her, convince her you’re worthy of her.
I practically skip down the steps while I’m humming to myself and have to purposefully replace the giddiness playing over my face with a scowl. The Metro is enough to dull some of the delight coursing through me, but not the anticipation. My heel bounces against the sticky floor of the train, my bag a suspicious package between my feet. It looks like an ordinary gym bag, but it’s not. It’s so not.
When the doors open, I practically vault out of my seat and into the station, scaling the stairs two at a time because, even though I’ve got plenty of time, the thumping of my heart spurs me on.
It’s beating so hard I think the hotel employee behind the check-in desk must be able to see it all the way through layers of button-down, suit coat, and trench, but she just smiles pleasantly as I hand her my credit card and ID.
“Welcome back, Mr. Lewis. Please let me know if there’s anything we can do for you.”
I’d desperately like to order a bottle of wine—or maybe champagne because Pressly loves bubbles—but I’m going to do this properly. And properly means not being impaired in any way. Well, except for the adrenaline pulsing through my system. Surely Rey would forgive me that? Even if my hands shake holding the keycard and I have to try it three times before I can get the damn door open.
Inside is a room with unfamiliar décor. I’d stayed here for a few months after the divorce. Pressly hadn’t asked for the townhouse in the divorce—in fact had been quite adamant she didn’t want it, despite all the time and energy she’d poured into the place when we first moved in. I’d thought about selling it, but I’m the practical sort and there wasn’t a good reason to. But after a while, I’d understood why she hadn’t wanted to stay. I couldn’t stand being in the house without Pressly there. It was too quiet, too empty. I’d wander around like a lost soul, mostly with a bottle in my hand. I’d even stopped drinking the good stuff at some point, and that was when I knew I had to get out.
True North (Compass series Book 4) Page 14