Marriage Games (The Games Duet #1) Read online

  “I’m not questioning your Dominant. I’m asking you.” I looked away from the glass to her big brown doe eyes. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course. Why?”

  “Unless I’m mistaken, which I’m not, he cut your intake. You have bruises on your neck. Breath play scared you. That was your first redline.”

  “That was five years ago.”

  “Our basic fears don’t change.”

  She set her jaw. “My basic fear has always been that no man would ever love me the way I am. We’ve been together for years, you know. He loves me.”

  She looked defiant and hard, as if she was challenging me to make the connection between our past and her fears. I wouldn’t do it. If I didn’t love her, it was because I wasn’t meant to. There were no parallel realities. No imaginings created infinite worlds for every possible decision.

  She broke our gaze and looked at her knees. I went for my glass. The drop I’d tracked fell another half inch, joined another droplet, and rushed to the bottom of the glass in a line, as it was meant to.

  “I’m going to assume it isn’t redlined now.” I drank, put the glass back on the coaster. “Or I’m going to assume Stefan knows what he’s doing.”

  “I’m glad you approve.”

  This was code for I don’t care if you approve. She wasn’t much more subtle than that.

  “Don’t be angry. Or be angry. It’s up to you how to feel. Just know, if you ever get in over your head, which you won’t, but if you do, you can come to me.”

  “What about when you get in over your head?”

  She wasn’t sniping. She wasn’t throwing my words back in my face. Her voice was so tinged with regret, it cut right through me.

  What I thought I’d hidden had always been exposed.

  What I thought I owned had never been mine.

  She’d been more perceptive and more in control than I ever gave her credit for.

  I swallowed a hundred answers because they all came up my throat in a knot of competing desires. The desire to pretend I didn’t know what she was talking about. The desire to confirm what she meant. The desire to tell her I was in as over my head now as I’d been then.

  I’d come to the studio to protect Serena, and she’d turned it all around with a few words. The heat had its own weight, and it pressed on me, squeezing my lungs until they couldn’t expand. The condensation on my glass was running in vertical lines that looked like a jail cell until two/three/ten drops met and—

  A knock at the barn door.

  The pressure released as if a valve had opened.

  Serena started to get up, but I put my hand on her shoulder and walked across the studio to the big door. The island was dead in the off season, Stefan wouldn’t knock, and Diana shouldn’t trek across the yard to see Serena. It could have been Willa or Thierry. Or it could have been someone from the other side of the overpass who had noticed Stefan had left his beautiful girlfriend behind.

  It had gotten dark in the few minutes I’d been in the studio, so when I opened the door into the bright white room, Diana squinted. She looked genuinely surprised to see me.

  So much for her not trekking across the yard.

  “Oh. Adam. Hi. I—”

  “This building is off-limits.”

  She blinked in the light. Cold air swept into the studio.

  Serena opened the door all the way so she stood in the frame with me. “Come in! It’s freezing!”

  Serena and Diana in the same room. Not just any room, but the back house of the Montauk property. On any other day, I may have been able to manage the collision of my worlds, but not that day. My sense of control was already chipped away in a situation where I was supposed to have the most control.

  “No,” I said to Serena, then I brought my attention to Diana, who was shivering. “We’re going back.”

  My wife shot daggers out of her eyes. Who was I to tell her she had to go back?

  “Thank you for the water,” I said. “Give my best to Stefan.”

  “Sure.” Serena stepped aside as I walked out, stepping into a crevice of ice-cold slush.

  My shoes were soaked. I took Diana by the arm, gave Serena a last wave, and led my wife back to the house, along the widening path of yellow light from the open door. When it narrowed and closed with the click of the closed door, Diana pulled away and faced me.

  “What was that all—”

  “You don’t belong over there,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Can I ask why you were going there in the first place?”

  She crossed her arms. Her breath caught the air in white frost and scattered in the ocean wind.

  “Well. You saw.” She gestured to the back house, where Stefan had fucked Serena for show. So Diana knew I’d been on the porch below.

  “I did.”

  “I wanted to see if she was all right.”

  I tried not to smile. She and I had had the same impulse. But hers was born out of ignorance.

  “So you know, it’s not your place to question what her Dominant does to her.”

  “Whose place is it?”

  It was no one’s, really.

  “Mine. That’s why I was there.”

  She smiled and looked away, arms still crossed, nearly laughing. Her hair blew back from her face, exposing her high forehead. I didn’t think I’d noticed for a long time how high it was, or what a beautiful arch her hairline made.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I don’t understand this world you’re in.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I didn’t know you were there, but when I saw you, I thought you’d gone over there to have sex with her.”

  “I’m still married to you.”

  She shrugged. Was she jealous? There was no way of telling. She used to trust that I was faithful, and I’d never betrayed her. With the rules changing, was I about to see a different side of her?

  “I figured she’d do things I don’t.” She let the wind take her hair to the side. “Things you need.”

  “Come inside,” I said. “Willa put dinner out for us, and I’m sure it’s getting cold.”

  I led her back to the house, up the back steps to the dining room. Willa had indeed left dinner out. Two silver circular warming plates crackled, surrounded by a full table setting for two. I took her coat, removed mine, ignored my cold, wet feet. I held her seat out for her. She sat, rubbing her cold hands against her thighs.

  Lifting the cover of the first dish, I found tomato soup.

  I ladled some into her bowl and stood directly behind her silently for more time than was normal or comfortable.

  “Tonight,” I said, “we start.”

  “All right.” I heard the tension in her voice crack like an egg.

  “Eat your soup.”

  “Aren’t you having any?”

  “No. Uncross your legs and spread them when you sit.”

  Slowly, her body shifted as she uncrossed her legs.

  “Your ankles should be outside the width of the chair legs, and your knees should rest on the corners of the seat. The instructions are precise so I know you’re listening. Now. Eat.”

  After a pause, she put her napkin in her lap. She picked up her spoon and ate. I split her hair in the back so I could see her neck, and I ran my finger over the length of it.

  “I know what’s in your mind,” I said. “You want to ask if there’s a way you should hold the spoon. Not because you care or want to please me, but because you want to assert my foolishness. My answer to that is, by the end of our time here, you may not submit in your heart, but you’ll understand what it means. And you’ll understand me.”

  I let her eat for a second before continuing.

  “I know you think it doesn’t matter. Maybe it doesn’t to you. But it does to me. Maybe you’ll understand why you stopped loving me, and maybe I’ll accept it.”

  Her soup was almost finished. Diana ate quickly and efficiently. Always the first one done
. It wasn’t a competition. She didn’t race. She had to begin and finish at the same time. It was how she attacked everything. If she didn’t finish before she got bored, she didn’t finish.

  “What if you don’t?” she asked.

  “Accept it? I don’t see that I have much choice.”

  She put her spoon down and wiped her mouth. “You might if you slept with that girl.”

  I yanked her chair out with a loud scrape. “She’s not a prostitute.” Diana started to look around to me, but I held her face fast in my palms. “I’m not defending her honor. I’m explaining how it works. Stefan owns her. I can’t fuck her without his permission, and I won’t anyway. I said before and I’ll say it until you understand it. I’m married. I love my wife, even if she doesn’t love me.” I slid my hand down her throat, making her look forward. “Unbutton your shirt.”

  I felt her swallow hard against my palm before her hand went to her shirt buttons and she worked them open.

  “You are not to go over there without me,” I said. “Stefan wants to fuck you. One, you’re beautiful. Two, you’re mine. Three, you’re not in our world. He likes innocence. He likes resistance. He likes when people watch him defile something.”

  I pulled her bra up over her breasts, letting them escape. She gasped.

  I let her go and stepped away, still behind her. “You’re doing great.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “You want to ask me ‘now what.’”

  “Kind of.”

  “I’ll let you know.” I waited, letting her feel her nudity and my presence behind her. I let her imagine what I was going to do. “Look straight ahead.”

  She stopped watching me to look ahead of her. I knew she could see me from the corner of her eye, but she didn’t check me. She wanted to do it right. Maybe this was her way of getting it over with or maybe it turned her on. No way to know just yet.

  “Stand up.”

  She stood, and I stayed behind her. Her hands trembled at her sides.

  No way to know if this turned her on, except her posture, her scent, the red flush on the part of her lower back that led to her bottom. She might not understand why she enjoyed this any more than I did, but she did.

  “Pull your pants down.”

  “Adam…?”

  “You’re using my name.”

  Long pause. She had no idea of the depths of my patience.

  Instead of answering, she unbuttoned. Unzipped. Hooked her thumbs in her waistband and lowered it to her mid-thigh.

  “Bend at the waist. Put your elbows on the table.”

  Her shoulders rose as she took a deep breath, and she bent.

  “In my world,” I said, “going across the yard to another Dominant’s space without permission would get you my belt. It would hurt you, but it would satisfy you. You’d feel right knowing I was in charge. You’d be satisfied knowing I was here to relieve you of responsibility.”

  I placed my hand on her ass and slowly moved my hand down to her thigh. “Male or female, the more sophisticated and intelligent the submissive is, the more they need to get back to their primal urge to be dominated, and the harder it is to break them.”

  I moved to her other thigh and up the other side of her ass. “I’m going to spank you six times. Do you understand?”

  “Adam…” She caught herself using my name, so I decided not to give her a hard time about it. “Last time. When you spanked me last time?”

  “Yes?”

  “The second one? I…” Deep breath. “I came.”

  Of course. The rigidity inside her. The stiffening of her spine. Remembering that night, I should have known she’d had a spontaneous orgasm.

  I was glad she couldn’t see me, or my face would have given away my elation. I could make her enjoy the month. It wasn’t torture for her. More than simply being aroused, she was actually, really, unequivocally submissive.

  It was better than I hoped for.

  “Surprise will do that,” I said, containing the emotion in my voice. “It’s unlikely it’ll happen again. But thank you for the warning. Because you’re not coming tonight.”

  I pressed her lower back down so her ass went up. Her hands folded together, still shaking.

  “Palms on the table,” I said. She laid them flat. “And when you saw me, you didn’t present yourself. Two more for that.”

  I could have invented a hundred more infractions if I thought she could take a raw bottom. I stroked it, running my fingers inside her crack and her folds.

  “When did you get wet?” I asked. “When you pulled your shirt up or when I told you to bend over?”

  She turned her face down to the table. “When you touched my neck.”

  I took a handful of her hair and yanked it until she faced forward. She yelped.

  I smacked her ass hard, twice, and she yelped again.

  “Hush,” I said. “Not a sound out of you.”

  I slid two fingers into her. Soaked. Yanked her hair back again and hit her ass quickly four more times. The skin turned warm.

  “How many is that?” I asked.

  “Six.”

  Two more hard swipes on one side. The color. The perfect pink. My cock ached.

  Three fingers in her, gathering juice, sliding up to her asshole.

  Her cheeks tightened and her anus turned into pure hard muscle.

  “No,” she said.

  “You don’t get to say no. You get to safe out.”

  “Please.”

  Her voice came from deep in her gut, passing her lips as the size of a wisp and the weight of the world. I stopped moving. I was so still I thought my blood stopped flowing.

  What about when you get in over your head?

  I was running to my limits. I’d forgotten I had them. Again.

  I blinked, I exhaled, blood flowed. I put my hands on her hips and kissed her lower back.

  I still fucking love you.

  “Go upstairs,” I said. “I’ll give you aftercare and tuck you in.”

  She stood up, looking baffled, hair screwed up, a red mark on her forehead where it had pressed against the table.

  Still. I still love you.

  God help me.

  “That’s it?” she asked.

  “No ball gags and latex body suits tonight, darling.”

  She pulled up her pants and straightened her clothes with the efficiency of antagonism. She wanted to come, and badly. She opened her mouth as if to speak, shut it, and faced me.

  “Go on,” I said before she could say whatever it was.

  She spun on her heel and paced out of the kitchen. Stopped. “Adam.”

  “Just go up.”

  “Are you all right?”

  She wasn’t supposed to ask me that. I needed to maintain the old rules. I needed those like I needed money in the bank and a house to go home to.

  “Why are you asking?”

  “You seem different.”

  “So do you.”

  She pressed her lips between her teeth and breathed deeply.

  I didn’t know what I hoped she’d say. But she didn’t say anything. Not with words. Slowly, she turned and went upstairs.

  I’d hoped she’d say something to release me from the purgatory I’d created for myself. Pinochle. I’ll leave. I’ll cooperate. I love you.

  Standing in the space between the kitchen and the sitting room, watching her legs disappear up the stairs, I knew that of all possible answers, “I love you” was the most desired and the most unlikely.

  Chapter 48

  PRESENT TENSE – DAY ONE

  I owed her aftercare. She didn’t really need it. Eight slaps, even if I’d put my back into it, wouldn’t require serious coddling. But I had to show her the routine so that when I accelerated the pain, she’d know what was coming.

  I stood at the far end of my office, looking out onto the west house. I didn’t turn the lights on. The only light in the room came from the moon and the headlights on Stefan’s truck as he pulled up
the drive.

  I was technically giving Diana enough time to get undressed, then I doubled it. I didn’t want to go up there and face her. I wanted to watch the empty space between the studio and me.

  Stefan got out carrying a package, his slamming door muffled by the wet air. He went inside, hurrying in the cold. The lights in the studio flicked from moody yellow to starkly bright. The windows were set high in the barn doors, so I was spared the visuals.

  If I went over there right now, Stefan would ask me to fuck Serena. He’d probably demand it, challenging me to refuse. She’d be a perfect sub for me, quietly taking whatever I dealt. Diana wouldn’t care. I’d be one step further away from her, and she’d be a step closer to freedom.

  I was a starving man offered a buffet, yet all I wanted were the crumbs my wife offered.

  Sensing movement more than hearing it, I turned around. Diana was standing in the doorway. Cast in shadow, I could see the form of her body, with its familiar curves, through the gauzy white fabric of the nightgown I’d left for her.

  She was supposed to be upstairs to get aftercare. She was supposed to do one thing I asked without argument. One fucking thing. She owed me nothing and that was what she was giving me.

  “What are you doing?” I snapped.

  “I was going to tell you I’m fine. Aftercare is optional.”

  I shook my head and turned back to the window. Worst sub ever.

  “Did you love her?” Diana asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Turning away from the window, I tried to read her, but it was dark and I didn’t know what I felt besides completely alone. “Why are you asking?”

  Arms crossed over her breasts, bare toes pointed, she took two steps into the room. “I think you don’t always know what you feel. I think feelings make you uncomfortable.”

  “I don’t need to be analyzed, thank you.”

  “Why are you looking at her window?”

  “Because Stefan just got back.”

  In the dark, with her body no more than a silhouette shaded in moonlight blue, she shifted her posture, dropping her arms, relaxing her hips. “So?”

  “Serena’s very clear about what she needs and she knows he pushes limits. No one gets involved with him without knowing that. But she knew I didn’t, and five years ago, she asked for me. So this?” I indicated the window and the building beyond. “I just want to watch.”