The Sunday Arrangement

by Lucy Smith

  It was hours later when I woke up, still in the same position. The lights from the city shone through his window, and I was able to see April. She was glaring at me in the dark. I watched as she got up and gathered her clothes—clearly pissed. She slammed the door of the apartment as she left. I moved to get up and gather my own things, but Pierce’s arm tightened around me. I didn’t realize that he was still holding me. I looked up at his face; he was looking down at me. I could see that he was sober again.

  “I should go, too,” I said.

  “Stay.”

  I frowned. “Are you okay? I think those Bloody Marys made you a little loopy,” I said.

  “Today is the anniversary of my mother’s death. I don’t want to be alone.”

  I sat up a little. “I’m sorry. . . . I didn’t know.”

  “Of course you didn’t. I never told you.”

  “How long?” I asked simply.

  “Twelve years since she overdosed on some pills to put herself out of her misery.”

  “I’m so, so sorry, Pierce.” My words hung lifeless in the air. I was unsure what to do or say. I wanted to comfort him, to be there for him at this time.

  “Funny thing is,” he whispered, “I don’t blame her in the least. Being married to my father was probably hell on earth for her . . .”

  I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.

  “Will you stay tonight?” he asked quietly.

  I laid my head back down on his chest. “Yes, of course. I’ll stay.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  For me, the dynamic of our relationship changed after that night. I felt closer to him and more attached than ever. Though he showed no outward change toward me in public or private, I was hopeful that he was on the cusp of changing his outlook of me from a Sunday fuck to a real possibility. He was still a bit of a conniving asshole to work with, and I still found myself daydreaming of fantasy nights to get me through the rest of the week. Hardly did I think about my father’s problems, the conversation I overheard Toby have with him that night at the club, or my annoyance with April. Pierce consumed me, piercing through my mind and heart and developing an insatiable need within me.

  Kat was right when she told me that it never stays just sex. I knew I would have this problem, but it didn’t make the confusion and heartache I felt any less painful. Trying to remain hopeful about the possibilities I could maybe have with Pierce was difficult. In light of my father’s obvious blackmailing, I found myself going crazy. I didn’t know what to do. Pierce was covering his tracks well, and worse, my desire to spy on him was dwindling with every passing Sunday. There was no way in hell, blackmail or not, that I was ever going to give up an outlet for all the tension I’d built up over the years. There was no one I’d rather screw.

  After our terrible tangle in the sheets, April ignored me completely. Clearly, she hadn’t taken Pierce’s apparent rejection well. Half expecting her to quit, I was surprised to see her show up to work on Tuesday. No one mentioned our Sunday rendezvous, and I hoped there wouldn’t be a repeat soon. I much preferred being the only woman.

  “Knock, knock,” someone said at the door.

  I looked up to see Lucas standing there, plastic cartons in hand. “Who’s hungry?” he asked with a smile.

  “Absolutely famished,” Pierce said. “You can leave the food at the end of the table. We’ll grab it in a few minutes.”

  The smell of curry chicken filled the air of the small conference room, and it made my stomach grumble. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.

  “Thanks so much for bringing food all the way down here, Lucas,” I said. “I know this isn’t a short drive for you.”

  His dazzling blue eyes glimmered in the florescent light. I saw a kindness in them that I admired. “Of course! That’s my job,” he said.

  I nodded to Pierce, who clearly wasn’t used to treating his employees with any kind of decency. “Wasn’t that nice of him?” I prompted.

  For the first time, Pierce looked up from his computer. “Yes, yes. Thanks, Lucas. I’ll be home by five tonight.”

  Lucas set the food on the table and gave me a small grin. He wasn’t nearly as handsome as Pierce, but something about him attracted me. And then I got an idea.

  ~*~*~*~

  The Wednesday after the threesome, my brother called. He said he’d be flying out Thursday morning but that he’d need to be gone by Saturday for another business project he was working on back in New York. I was thrilled—I wouldn’t have to deal with Toby being there on Sunday. Despite all the work we had to do during the week, I still needed to plan for my Sunday. I knew I had to plan lightly because I doubted Pierce had much experience in the area I wanted to dabble in, and I didn’t have a lot to go on either. I figured if we wanted to explore more in the area, we would do it later on. At least, I prayed we’d continue with our Sundays after we left Las Vegas.

  I wanted to play around with some light bondage—scarves, blindfold, light teasing. And I wanted Pierce to be in charge, to dominate me completely. I trusted him on our Sunday nights. He’d already been rough with me on our first encounter, and he didn’t hurt me then. I had several scarves in my possession and a sturdy headboard. And I could even buy another pair of the golden handcuffs that were now hidden away in my drawer back at Hart Corp. Finally, I was going to get to use a pair of them on someone.

  My plan was to send him a note to make sure he wore a tie. After all, we’d need a blindfold for the evening that I had in mind. In order to get the message to him, I sent him a pair of plastic toy handcuffs, a can of whipped cream, and a small box of chocolates. The note said:

  Mr. Maverick,

  Can you guess what I have in mind? Please wear a tie.

  ~*~*~*~

  I picked up my brother from the strip mid-morning on Thursday. He looked completely exhausted. I didn’t envy him. Having a newborn and a demanding job was not easy for anyone, no matter how many times they’d done it.

  “I suggest getting as much sleep as you can while you’re here,” I said. “You look half dead.”

  He nodded and rubbed his tired eyes before looking at me. “I forgot what it was like to have a newborn, and Tommy won’t sleep in his own bed, so I have little feet kicking me in the back during the hours I do get to sleep. Meanwhile, Mar has decided to sleep in the guest room while she’s getting over her cold.”

  “I’m sorry it’s been hard on you,” I said as we got out of the limo. I held the door open for him as he carried the physical model in his hands. It certainly looked better than it had the first time. Apparently, Pierce thought the same thing when he first saw it.

  “I love it!” he said. “That’s exactly what I wanted. You have a gift, Mr. Hart.”

  Toby sighed with relief. “Thank you. I’m happy it’s what you are looking for.”

  “Yes. Now that we have this, we can arrange the meeting with the shareholders and partners. Do you agree, Ms. Hart?”

  I nodded as I looked over the models—both the 3D computer model and the physical one. The proposed building had the sharp edges of modern architecture, and yet, at the same time, it still looked as though it belonged in the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas. “I agree. I’ll send out the e-mail later this afternoon to my assistant so that she can set up the meeting with our company’s partners.”

  “I’ll have April do the same.” He looked at the woman standing in the far corner of the room. She’d stopped standing by his side. April nodded and began working on her tablet.

  ~*~*~*~

  The day passed in a blur. We worked like madmen in preparation for the proposal presentation. I picked Toby up from the hotel, where I’d sent him to get some sleep, and took him to dinner and drinks like we normally did while he was out there with me.

  He started drinking before he’d eaten any food and quickly grew tipsy and a little loose with his mouth. “Do you know what Dad did to Mom when we were teenagers?” he asked.

  I pushed a buttered roll toward him. I
didn’t like where this conversation was headed. “No,” I said. “You should eat something. What did he do?”

  He picked up the roll and tore off a piece before shoving it in his mouth. He was clearly irritated. I hadn’t seen him like that in a long time. It was completely opposite from his normal, happy attitude. “He cheated on Mom with that Pierce guy’s mother. You know the woman who went and killed herself with a bunch of pills?”

  I stared at Toby. My world collapsed in on itself. Dad’s affairs weren’t exactly big news. Apparently the seventeen-year-old blonde that Peter Maverick was blackmailing him with wasn’t his first conquest outside his marriage vows. I didn’t know how to respond to Toby. The desire to spill everything I knew was heavy on my mind. I so wanted to confess all I knew about Dad, and the Mavericks, and this project. All I could do was take a long drink from my beer, but it did little to help me relax. “What makes you say that? How can that be? Mom and Dad are still in love with each other,” I said, playing dumb.

  “You don’t remember how bitter they used to be, do you? He turned to Mom for comfort after Mrs. Maverick committed suicide. They had to rebuild a relationship from it.”

  “How . . . How did you know?” I asked.

  He was quiet for a moment. “I found out when I was a kid, even before the tabloids did. My report card had come. I received all A’s, and I was so proud.” He looked down at the table and frowned. “I wanted Dad to be the first one to see it because I thought he’d be proud of me. I went up to his office─this was before he had the waiting area─and his assistant wasn’t at her desk. I noticed the door was cracked and that he was talking to someone. I decided to wait until he was done before going in. That was before I heard a woman’s voice, and she wasn’t exactly talking business with him. I peeked through the door crack and saw him kissing this strange lady. It wasn’t until after she died and her face was everywhere that I realized she was Julia Maverick.”

  I briefly remembered hearing about her death and feeling sorry for the Maverick family, but it never affected me past that point. I’d never given it much thought. I could understand now why Pierce and Toby would want to hurt our fathers. I knew there must be more to it, but I didn’t want to think about that at this time.

  “Why do you think I never chose to work for the company?” he asked. “Dad’s a scumbag, always has been and he always will be. He cheats even the most innocent of people, like Mom. Like me. Like you.”

  “We all make mistakes. . . . I mean, is Dad supposed to lose everything just because he slipped up a few times?” I asked before I could stop myself. It felt necessary to say the words, but even I wasn’t buying into my pathetic attempts at defending my father. Messing up with a minor was one thing, but causing a woman to kill herself over their sour affair? That was entirely different, completely unforgiveable.

  I felt numb. Little bits and pieces of missing information suddenly rushed forward. So many things that didn’t make sense before now shone with clarity. I hastily stood from the table. “I need to use the restroom. If the food arrives, eat without me.”

  I felt as though I was having an out-of-body experience as I made my way around people to get to the restroom. My brain switched over to autopilot. This was a pattern, a habitual way of life when dealing with the fallout from the man whose blood ran through my veins. I splashed water on my face, trying to rub away the image of my father looking so guilty and sorrowful in my living room not too long ago. I looked into the mirror; mascara dripped down my face like the painted tears of a sad clown. All those vacations we took without my father, every time he missed a dinner or a soccer game . . . was it because he was with another woman every single time? I didn’t know.

  And Pierce’s mother, Mrs. Maverick. Had he actually loved her? Or was she just another exploit like the sexy seventeen-year-old he’d recently picked up at a bar? Now I was sleeping with Mrs. Maverick’s son. It was as if history was repeating itself in some weird way. In that moment, I had the urge to call it all off—the Sundays with Pierce. Was what we were doing as sinful and outrageous as what my father had done? Was I well on my way to becoming just like him—one affair after the next?

  Clumsily, I took my phone out of my black clutch and called Kat. Her phone went straight to voice mail. With a pang, I remembered that I needed to give her more time. Quickly I hung up before her outgoing message finished. I didn’t want to leave a message. I then called Pierce before I could change my mind. The phone rang twice before he picked up.

  “Hello?” he answered.

  I tried to speak, but my voice caught in my throat. I didn’t know what to say, and it suddenly felt very stupid to call him. What could I say? That I knew about what our parents had done and I wanted to call our Sundays off because of it?

  “Are you okay, Lauren?”

  “Sorry. I was just . . . I was just,” I stammered, “I was calling because I wanted to tell you that I’m looking forward to Sunday, and that you should be receiving something in the mail soon.”

  There was a long pause. “Are you sure you’re okay? You sound like you’ve been crying.”

  “I do? Must be allergies. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hung up before he could respond. I cleaned up my running makeup and reapplied mascara and powder. Resolved to no longer be a victim of my father’s wayward life and his outrageous lies, I held my head up as I left the bathroom. I wasn’t going to be that girl. I wasn’t going to stop a good thing I had just because my father had fucked everything up. After all, I wasn’t married. I didn’t have kids. No commitments held me from being with the one man I felt completely understood my sexual desires and my need for release. With a heavy sigh, I returned to my brother who was now cutting into the prime rib he’d ordered.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I sat down and placed my napkin back in my lap. I gave him a polite smile. “I will be eventually.”

  ~*~*~*~

  Pierce never asked me the real reason I called him, much to my relief. My brother went home that Saturday, and plans for the upcoming meeting continued to move forward, though I’d lost a bit of my drive. Although it happened years before, having just found out what my father did, I felt betrayed by him. It was like I was just learning who he really was, just seeing him clearly for the first time. I wanted to go to Pierce and tell him that I wanted in on whatever he was planning with Toby, but I knew that was an impulsive thing to do. I needed to think over my plans before I acted on them suddenly. Just once, I wanted to think about what was best for me—not the damn company, or climbing the corporate ladder.

  ~*~*~*~

  Sunday came before I knew it. I was excited, but not because I was getting to indulge in a fantasy, but because this would allow me to escape the problems I couldn’t stop thinking about. And it would allow me to get out some of my frustrations.

  For the occasion, I decided to wear a black push-up corset. It tied in the front for easy access and gave me a nice wench look, a simple girl ready to be dominated. Thankfully, it fit wonderfully around my womanly shape. I matched it with a pair of black lacy panties and black pumps. I answered the door in this attire. He was surprised, but happy.

  “You should dress like this all the time, Ms. Hart. It’s very becoming on you.”

  I said nothing as I moved aside to let him in. He was holding the can of whipped cream I sent him, and he was also wearing a black tie that he hadn’t worn earlier in the day.

  I led him back to my room and turned to smile playfully at him. Sitting on the bed, I pulled red scarves out from underneath the pillows, holding them out to him. He gave me a look I’d never seen before. It was slightly predatory, but he didn’t have the same air of savage lust that he had on our first night together. He walked over to me slowly and placed the can of whipped cream on the end table, taking the scarves from me. “You know, I had no idea you would like something like this. We could have been having this kind of fun for a while now.”

  I arched my eyebrow and wondered briefly when exactly
he had lost his virginity; he seemed to have quite a bit of experience for someone just out of college.

  He pushed me back into the pillows and kissed me. He then reached up and undid the tie around his neck. He took it and placed it over my eyes. I lifted my head and he tied it at the back. I couldn’t see anything, not even the light coming from the lamp in the corner of the room. “I doubt I will,” he said. “But if I do anything you aren’t comfortable with, say ‘red.’”

  I nodded. His hands moved down my arms, and he grasped one of my wrists in his hand. He tied one of the long scarves around it and tied the ends around the iron ivy at the top of my headboard. He did the same to the other wrist. I moved my arms to see how well he tied them; they didn’t come undone.

  I could hear him moving around away from the bed, but I couldn’t quite tell what he was doing. Then I heard him leave the room, and I worried briefly that he’d left me there with no way to get free. Soon he returned, however, and my fear subsided. He crawled onto the bed and came up toward the headboard. I jumped as he placed something cold on the exposed skin of my chest—it felt like ice. My corset was loosened, and the sides fell open. I felt the ice travel down to the crevice in between my breasts. I shivered, but I liked the tingle it left behind as he continued to move down my stomach. He stopped at my navel to swirl the point around it; the cold water pooled there. He continued to move farther down, and I anticipated where he was heading. I wondered if it would hurt, having him put something that cold near my clit.

  What surprised me was that he still hadn’t taken off my panties. He moved the ice over the material of my panties, and I could feel the excess water spread in the material as it melted. The cool sensation spread over my hot labia lips and excited my clit. It wasn’t the intense cold I was anticipating. With his long fingers he pulled the panties aside. I could hear the sound of ice moving against his teeth. At first, I felt the direct contact of the ice moving along my clit, and it made me jump.