Marriage Games (The Games Duet #1) Page 13

  “You want the long version or the short version? Pick the long version.”

  I held her even tighter. “Why go short when long’s available?”

  “You make me happy,” she said. “I can’t believe I ever thought I was going to marry anyone else.”

  “That guy?”

  “That guy. He wasn’t you, and I must have known it. It was you. Always you. You make me feel loved all the way through. Even the dumb stuff I do. Even when I have a really bad idea, you pay it full attention and you sort through it with me. It’s like you know there’s a germ of something good there and you want to find it. And can I tell you something else? Sometimes I look at you and I can’t believe you picked me. You’re so wise. And thoughtful. And handsome. Like, super handsome. I’m sorry but I love you.” She closed her eyes again and shouted to the ceiling, “I love you Adam Steinbeck!”

  I laughed. She delighted me, filled me, lifted me.

  She put her hands on my cheeks and made me look deeply into her eyes. “Promise you’ll never leave me.”

  “I promise. But if you really want me to promise…”

  “What?” she asked suspiciously.

  “We should probably get married.”

  Her mouth and eyes went wide.

  “Let’s!” She said it as if I’d suggested a cruise.

  “I have to get a ring.”

  “Let’s do it now!”

  “Now?”

  “Now! Grab a couple of friends who can witness. Go to city hall. Right now!”

  “Wait, wait. Don’t you want to do all the things?” I circled my hand in the air as if trying to pull “all the things” out of it. “You know. A bouquet? A party? Walk down an aisle in a white dress?”

  “I have my mother’s in the closet. I can run home and get it. We can get flowers on the corner. Oh, Adam, let’s just do it right now, when it feels so right. Let’s not wait for all the stuff. Let’s not get distracted by caterers and photographers. I hate seating arrangements. I get stressed out just thinking about it. Let’s just get in a cab and go get married.”

  Her enthusiasm infected me. She was light, life, energy. Everything.

  What wouldn’t I do for her, when she gave me so much?

  I would have married her in an instant. So I did.

  Chapter 43

  PRESENT TENSE

  The Montauk house had a full-time staff of two that included Thierry, who drove a long black limousine, and his wife, Willa who took care of the cleaning and cooking when someone was in the big house. They lived in a third structure on the east end of the property, took care of repairs, maintenance, and were unfazed by what they saw.

  Thierry pulled the limo up at five o’clock Saturday morning. It was dark, and the air had the thrum of the day’s potential. When he opened the back door for me, we shook hands and he told me how good it was to have me back. That was the extent of it. He drove from Murray Hill to SoHo, to Crosby Street, where Diana and the doorman waited with—I counted—four suitcases, one trunk, and a toiletry case.

  “Take them back up,” I told the doorman. I gave him a ten for the chore.

  “Why?” Diana asked as he went into action. “I need—”

  “Nothing. You need nothing. I provide you with what you need, and what I don’t provide, you don’t need. Think of it as a vacation from adulthood.”

  “That’s the exact opposite of the way I want to think of it.”

  I held out my hand. “Regardless. I’ll need your phone.”

  She didn’t move. I pointed at her right-hand coat pocket then put my palm up for it.

  “What if work calls?” she asked.

  “They’ll call me, and if it’s important, you and I—together—will put the fire out.”

  She still hesitated.

  “Okay, listen,” I said. “When you’re there, you’re mine. Your time, your boredom, your isolation, these are my tools. If you’re texting your friends or reading the news, you’re not with me. I need you with me.”

  “What if there’s work?”

  “I brought your laptop from the office.”

  She took out her phone, weighing its importance in her hand. “This scares me.”

  “I’m not trying to scare you. But you said you trusted me. If you do, there’s no reason to be scared.”

  She stretched her arm just a little, as if she really wanted to pull it back. I took the phone and put it in my pocket.

  “Good.” I almost said good girl but caught myself. We were still in the world, where that was condescending.

  “I want to take my journal.”

  I thought about it for only a moment. I could cut her off from the world, but I couldn’t cut her off from her own thoughts.

  “Yes. All right.”

  “It’s in the top bag.”

  I unzipped it, and the red leather popped through as if it were dying to get out. I handed it to her. She hugged it to her chest.

  I held my hand toward the open back door of the car. “Shall we?”

  Her hair blew back from her face as she watched her bags being taken back up, and onto her reddened cheeks when she looked at the back of the limo.

  “Once I get in there,” she said, “everything changes, doesn’t it?”

  “You wanted change.”

  “I guess I did.”

  I left it there, letting her look at the open mouth of the limo, wondering if she’d let herself get swallowed.

  She did. My Diana bent her knees and took my hand, letting me help her into the car. I got in after her and let Thierry close the door. The outside world was snuffed out.

  The car pushed forward. Diana sat across from me, knees pressed together, hands on them, looking into the space between us. Her wedding ring was where it belonged. I wanted to believe she’d put it on because she kept changing her mind about leaving me, but then I hoped not. If this was over, it was over. I was taking my full thirty days and walking away. I had no intention of looking back.

  But that was tomorrow and this was now.

  “Diana.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Scared.”

  “Thank you for telling me. You should always answer honestly even if you think I won’t like it.”

  Instructing my wife how to speak to me. Was irony or justice being served?

  “Do you have any questions?” I asked. I was falling into the natural use of my Dominant voice. I still had to remind myself first, but it took less time to process.

  “I can’t think right now.”

  “We’ll go very slow.”

  “Yeah,” she croaked.

  “Your safe word is ‘pinochle?’ Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And for the trigger question, I’ll ask you your name. You’ll say ‘Diana.’ Your age, your address. If you take too long to answer or say anything but the truth, I’m going to change whatever I’m doing or slow it down.”

  “I read that in the contract.”

  She was walking on a wire. Tension surrounded her like a suit of armor. I usually enjoyed a sub’s discomfort, but this was something more than that. This was a call for me to help her relax.

  “Take your shoes off,” I said.

  She flashed red for a second, looked away, then slowly shifted her feet until they were out of her pumps. She curled her toes in her black tights as if they embarrassed her. We got on the highway, the seams in the asphalt making a thup thup against the tires. No traffic. We’d be there in a few hours, traffic gods willing.

  I slapped my knee. “Right foot.”

  She lifted her foot and I took it by the Achilles, bringing it up to my knee. The sun was rising, washing the black sky blue.

  I ran my thumb along the bottom of her foot, the matte nylon of the stockings dry on my skin. Pulling at the toe, I pushed my fingers against the fabric, stretching it into a cone, then I used my left han
d to spread the knit apart until it ripped.

  She gasped as I shredded her tights up to the knee. She was going to cry. She thought I was going to get very rough before we even got into Long Island.

  “Hush,” I said, running both thumbs along the bottom of her foot. “This is a foot rub. You have nothing to be concerned about.”

  She snorted a little laugh that would have gotten another sub welted. But she did it while leaning back and relaxing her shoulders.

  “What are you worried most about?” I worked from the tender part of the arch outward with increasing pressure.

  She cringed a little when I pressed hard, but she didn’t pull away. My wife loved a deep-tissue massage. She went to an old Korean guy with hands the size of dinner plates and forearms as wide as Portuguese loaves.

  “Everything,” she said.

  “Pain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Discomfort.”

  “Yes.”

  “Having sex with me again? Which—” I was about to remind her there might not be any sex, but she cut in before I could.

  “Not really that. More…” She grimaced then relaxed when I went deep into the ball of her foot. “Ickiness.”

  “Ickiness?”

  “Seeing things I don’t want to see. Being something that doesn’t feel right.” Her face changed as she watched my hand on her foot. “I’m afraid I’ll be afraid of you.”

  I squeezed and pulled each of her toes. This little piggy was mine. This little piggy was also mine. This little piggy got a spanking. This little piggy got the paddle. This little piggy went yes yes yes all the way home.

  She wasn’t afraid of me. Not yet. She might be. If everything worked out, I wouldn’t care if she was.

  But in the limo to Montauk, I didn’t want her to be afraid. I had a box of things in the trunk that had been chosen for their innocuous looks.

  I put her foot on the floor and gently lifted the other, putting it on the same knee. I tore open the stockings, and because she wasn’t shocked the second time, she wrested her foot through the hole. The foot part came off, and I tossed it aside.

  I rubbed that foot the same way, maybe harder. She relaxed.

  “The last time I rubbed your feet was in the hospital.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice was no louder than a breath, and her eyes stayed on the hands folded in her lap as if she instinctively knew what to do and just needed to give herself permission to do it.

  “Before we lost Olive.” I pressed her foot between my palms, curved then squeezed.

  “Lenore. And we didn’t lose her,” Diana continued. “We got rid of her.”

  “She wasn’t going to make it. She was going to live a week in extreme pain.”

  My wife knew this. We’d discussed it. She’d cried for a week then stopped abruptly, as if she’d run out of tears. She focused on getting better as if it was a project she had to complete.

  She was terrible at finishing things.

  “Taking care of you during that time was one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done,” I said. “You let me bathe you, advocate for you, tend you. I wasn’t happy about losing the baby. But being there for you made me very, very happy.”

  “I never—” she blurted, then stopped herself, softening her tone. “All that time… I never felt so lonely.”

  And there, New York City… there you have it.

  The time I felt closest to her was the time she felt most alone.

  I took her foot off my lap. “Did you read the contract carefully? Anything besides the list? I want to make sure you know what’s expected of you.”

  “I did.”

  “When I walk into a room? What do you do?”

  She stuttered. Swallowed. Seemed to shrink inside herself. “Present myself to you?”

  “It’s not a question.”

  She nodded slightly. Her hands were folded so tightly the knuckles were white.

  “You present me with something to fuck.”

  “Adam…”

  “You don’t have to call me sir because you redlined it. But you no longer address me by my name. That’s a privilege that’s earned. You start from zero. I got into this car after you and you presented me with nothing. You should have been on your knees with your mouth open, at the very least.”

  Her face was beet red with contained rage. I was going for purple.

  “I said I might not fuck you, but that doesn’t mean no contact and it doesn’t mean you make yourself unavailable. It’s not up to you. It’s completely up to me.” I leaned forward. She looked as if she wanted to become part of the leather seat. “And let me assure you, if I remain unsatisfied in any way, there are going to be years and years of filings before you hold my shares.”

  “What happened to you?” she whispered.

  “Get on your knees.”

  She didn’t move.

  I pointed at the floor. “What did you think this was, Diana? Did you think I’d fuck you sweetly once and let it go? Even seeing that contract?”

  Her mouth opened but nothing came out.

  I reached forward.

  Cupped her jaw.

  Drew my hand behind her neck.

  Up the back of her head.

  Made a fistful of hair.

  She squeaked.

  Her hands gripped my forearms as I pulled her forward.

  And down.

  Until she was on the floor. She got her knees under her, but I didn’t let go, bending her head back so I could see the pores of her cringing face.

  “This is what you signed up for. Feel free to change your mind any time.”

  Her eyes closed. She swallowed so hard I heard it.

  “You are my submissive. You will kneel at my feet.”

  I let her go and sat back.

  I thought I was going to have to turn the car around. When she kneeled upright in her ripped stockings, looking at the blurred motion of the trees, I thought she was going to pinochle out. I almost wanted her to.

  But she fell forward, put her hands in front of her and her forehead on the carpet. Her ass wasn’t up, but she was kneeling, naked toes pointed against the floor mat.

  I wasn’t going to last the whole month. Submission made her honest, and obviously I wasn’t ready for her honesty. Maybe after thirty days I’d be able to hear about how lonely she’d been with me. Maybe I’d grow a thick skin when it came to her, or we’d form an emotional bond I respected and she didn’t.

  She’d sue me. I’d lose because I’d taken her to a remote house in Montauk to dominate her. The contract and her consent would be inadmissible in court. Everything would go south. My life would be a disaster.

  But I’d be over her. I couldn’t imagine the day I wouldn’t love her, especially not with her submission at my feet. The bare satisfaction of it, the peace, the rightness of my sexual dominance over this woman in a controlled setting was better than any drug.

  Worth it. All worth it.

  Chapter 44

  PRESENT TENSE – DAY ONE

  After fifteen minutes at my feet, she laid her cheek on my shoe. I leaned down and stroked her hair. We were in that position when the car turned onto the private road at the other end of Long Island and stopped at the gate to the house.

  Diana looked up.

  “You can sit,” I said before she could decide to do it herself.

  Thierry pressed the number sequence on the keypad while Diana stared at me from the opposite seat. I couldn’t tell if she was mad or curious.

  “How was that?” I asked.

  “I slept a little.”

  The gates opened and the car pulled forward.

  “Were you scared?”

  A slight knot at the brow. A tightening of the lips. She didn’t know what to make of the change, and I wasn’t going to explain it.

  “When I looked all this up, I didn’t believe you could be that way. When I went to the Cellar, I didn’t believe it. Not you. Not my husband.”

  The car pulled aro
und the circular drive and stopped at the front steps. The two-story house had been built in the late nineteenth century. It had thick wood beams, leaded glass, and porches everywhere.

  “And now?”

  “I believe it.” She put her shoes on her bare feet.

  As she spoke, I could see out the window behind her. Two people came from the side of the drive from the studio. I knew who they were.

  “You don’t have to get out of the car.”

  Stefan and Serena stopped at the bottom of the front steps. They were both fully dressed in coats and boots. Serena wore a collar attached to a leash.

  Stefan yanked the leash, and Serena fell to her knees. Diana turned when the links clicked on the pavement, shock registering on her face when she saw them.

  Thierry opened the door. We were blasted with cold. Serena’s prone figure on the cold ground. Face hidden. Hair splayed out.

  “Thierry can drive you home right now,” I said, putting my foot out the door. I thought she was going to stay in the backseat and go back to the city. I could hear the ocean crashing behind the house.

  “Adam,” Stefan said, holding out his hand.

  I got out of the car and shook it. He yanked the chain, and Serena looked up.

  I didn’t know if seeing Serena’s face would inspire Diana to get out of the car, or if seeing that there would be other people around gave her comfort. But slowly, with eyes going from Serena to Stefan to me, she stepped through the car door.

  “What do we have here?” Stefan asked.

  “This is my wife,” I said.

  Her stockings were torn and her coat was open.

  “Well, well, I assume we redlined sharing?” He said it to her. I didn’t want him speaking to her. At all. But his eyes were all over what was mine.

  I could hear Thierry behind me, unloading my box of equipment. I wished he’d hurry.

  “Mind your own redlines,” I said.

  “That’s a no.” One side of his mouth went up at an evil angle. “Us either.”

  “You’re in the studio?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Stay there.”

  He jerked Serena’s leash and made eye contact with my beautiful wife. “Come visit any time.”

  “Good-bye, Stefan,” I said. “And Serena.”