Marriage Games (The Games Duet #1) Read online

  “And you didn’t know, mate? Not an inkling? Come on. Nothing happened to make you think she was fucking another bloke?”

  Charlie had left his sub to nap, and we’d found a small table by the window. His cane leaned against it. A winter rain had started when I opened my story, and the clubbers and night owls below had found shelter, leaving a cold, empty street below.

  “She’s not cheating.”

  “You can’t believe that.”

  “I do.”

  He looked away, his right foot bouncing. “You know what happened when I got shot, right? With my girl? My sub? I collared her a full year before. Fifteen years we were together, and not once did she care if I fucked her or not. But once I couldn’t? Once they shot it off? I couldn’t spank her ass red enough. She asked to be shared. Begged. And even then, she was off with four others. Four. You cannot trust women when they ask for something. It’s never what they want.”

  “You’re dealing with a self-selecting group of women.”

  “Were you fucking her on a regular?”

  “Tuesday. I fucked her Tuesday.”

  “Did she come?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you come?”

  “What?”

  “Not ‘did you ejaculate’? Did you come? Were you enjoying it? Or were you fucking her missionary while thinking about gagging her with your fist?”

  I leaned back in my chair and looked out the window. Manhattan is never truly dark, just shaded differently. What I’d been thinking about on Tuesday night was not what I was doing. Hadn’t been for a long time.

  Charlie leaned forward and lowered his volume. “Do you think, for once in your life, she might be submissive? And you’re not satisfying her? Maybe?”

  No. I love her.

  “You’re living in the world of the Cellar like there’s nothing outside it.”

  “All right, look.” Charlie put his glass down as if he was just getting serious. “You know I thought this was a mistake, but divorce won’t kill you.”

  “She won’t even answer my texts.”

  “We still have the Montauk place,” Charlie continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Take a sub. There are at least a dozen who remember you and a dozen more who heard about you. Take your pick. Do a thirty-day run like you used to.”

  I let out a quiet laugh. “Shit. The thirty-day runs. They were trouble.”

  “Just enough time for them to fall madly in love with you, mate.”

  No. There was no “them.” Only one had fallen in love. The last one. Serena. It had ended right before I met Diana, and it hadn’t ended well. Serena had been too young, a virgin, and she wanted a perma-Dom. I wasn’t interested in loving a sub. The world we inhabited wasn’t designed for people to be in love. It was designed for intensity, pain, pleasure, courtesy, and ritual.

  “That was never the plan. The plan was to have enough time to get to know how to play them, but not enough time for me to get bored. I was transparent about that.”

  He shook his head as if there were no words for how fucking thick I was. “The main house is empty. Just do an auction and go out there. It’ll be therapeutic.”

  My phone buzzed on the table, shifting a few inches.

  I flipped it.

  It was my wife.

  Chapter 14

  PAST PERFECT

  Serena was stunning. A long stem rose with the thorns stripped. Pink petals wound tight around a cunt no man had touched, long brown hair ending at the top of her hard nipples. Her hands hung at her sides, and her eyes, which I knew were brown from the dossier, were demurely glued to my shoes.

  “Charlie told me why you’re here,” I said. “But I need to hear it from you, in your own words. What I can do to you, and for you, needs explicit consent.”

  “I signed the contract, sir. I was pre-law. I understand it.”

  I dropped the folder on the desk. The back doors were open behind me. I could hear the waves beat the fuck out of the shore. I’d left them open on purpose. In October, the Montauk sky was the flat grey of a tin roof and the ocean wind had the first bite of cold. Goose bumps opened up on the tops of her thighs, but she stayed still, not daring to even shiver. Her discomfort, her stillness as the sheer white shift moved over her, made her submission plain.

  “In your own words,” I said, stepping toward her. “You went to Charlie. Why?”

  “I heard he…” She stopped, drifting off in shame. “I signed it. It’s right on the papers.”

  “You have to say it.”

  She swallowed. “He trains submissives. That’s what I heard. So I went to the Cellar on tryout night to see if I could find him.”

  “You skipped a step.”

  I was close enough to smell her shampoo and feel her nerves.

  “I want the whole story.” I put a finger under her chin and made her look at me. She was about five-ten to my six-one, so her head tilted all the way back. Her tongue flicked over her lower lip. “From the beginning. You don’t have to be ashamed here.”

  The pressure of her chin increased on my finger. She’d relaxed. All she needed was permission to explain how she knew what she was. A first-class masochist. A lovely and educated young woman who liked to be broken with pain.

  “I was with my boyfriend, Keith. He went to the boys’ school down the road.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Brooklyn. Bay Ridge.”

  “Go on.”

  “We were kissing one night in his room. It was a couple of years ago. His parents were out, so he thought he was going to get me in bed. I thought so too. But it wasn’t doing it for me. He never did, so I’d never let him touch me. But that time? He put his hands up my skirt, and I figured I’d let him. He put his finger inside me, and I was dry. I was always dry. I thought it was just the way I was. Normal.”

  “You’re safe here,” I said, leaning on the desk. I wanted her to feel safe, but not comfortable. There was a difference.

  “Keith, well, he didn’t think it was normal. He said if I was going to have the sex drive of a child, he’d treat me like a child. He spanked me. Right there in his room while I was looking at his Yankees banners. He called me names. He said I was frigid. He pulled my panties down and kept on spanking me. It was… my pussy…” She tripped on the word but gathered herself quickly. “It felt really good. And I was wet.”

  “What did he do?”

  “I ran out before he could touch me down there again.” Pause. “On my pussy.”

  “Call it a cunt.” She looked scandalized. That got my dick hard. “Pussies are weak. Cunts are powerful. What you have is powerful. Now finish.”

  “I thought I was crazy or sick. So I looked it up on the internet.”

  She ended there. The rest was history. She met people who knew people, and she sought out Charlie, who used the word pussy like an invective. He trained her but couldn’t fuck her. She was still a virgin. It was my job and my pleasure to relieve her of that. I had thirty days to do it, and I thought I might take twenty-nine just because I could.

  “You are crazy and sick, but you don’t have to be miserable.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have a safe word?”

  “Montana.”

  “Any reason?”

  “I hate it there.”

  “I’ve never been.”

  “It’s a shithole.”

  I smiled. I liked a sub with a salty mouth. “When I ask you your age or name, answer honestly if you’re all right, and lie if you need me to slow down.”

  The Dominant asked a simple question when it might be hard for the sub to answer or if it was possible they were too distracted to remember their safe word. It let the sub know the Dom was concerned. It was the equivalent of “hey how are you doing over there?” and the sub had the option of lying or not answering if they weren’t doing well. It wasn’t as hard a break as the safe word.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Nineteen.”

  “
Good. That’s how it will go. I ask. You answer.”

  She nodded.

  “You have three things you can refuse,” I said. “Have you thought about them?”

  “Yes, sir.” Her fingers flicked at her sides. “Choking.”

  “No breath play. One.”

  “I don’t like being called a slut or whore or any of that.”

  Easy. I wasn’t much of a name-caller. She was going to be a cakewalk.

  “That’s two.”

  “I asked for you,” she said. I tilted my head, and she looked up at me before putting her eyes back on the hardwood. “I saw you at Charlie’s Black Sword party and I asked for you to be the one.”

  I remembered her. Sky blue polo. Black pleated miniskirt. Seven-inch heels.

  “Nice of him to comply.”

  “The thirty days…” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Is it a hard boundary?”

  “You want that to be your third limit? A lack of time limits?”

  “I have to go back to school next semester, but…” She swallowed hard. “I don’t know what I’m asking.”

  “The limit protects you, not me.”

  She licked her lip. The ocean breeze stuck three strands of hair to her lower lip once it was wet, and she didn’t move them away. Must have tickled like hell.

  “Forget that one. Do another.” She balled her hands into fists then laid them flat again. All her emotion was in her hands. “Cross off sharing. Don’t share me.”

  “No sharing. Done.” I flipped through the document outlining everyone’s boundaries and limits. She’d initialed everything, but I had to check. “You’re your mother’s primary caretaker?”

  “Yeah. She had a stroke in June.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Thanks. It’s all right. I had to take a semester off until we find a permanent nurse for her. My aunt’s around for the month. My brothers and sister are in school. I told them I had a camping trip.”

  “A month-long camping trip?”

  She shrugged. I didn’t press her. Logistics were her business.

  “You’ve gone over the rest? My working hours? Your free time? Meals? Everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you agree?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you feel?”

  Her right big toe crossed over the next toe, then they all curled. “Really, really excited.”

  “Good.” I tossed the papers on the table behind me. “Me too.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled at the floor. Which was good. She was going to spend a lot of time on it.

  “Get on your hands and knees, sweet girl, and crawl upstairs.”

  Chapter 15

  PRESENT TENSE

  I don’t know how to say this.

  I don’t love you anymore.

  It’s not there anymore. It’s not anything you did or didn’t do. I’ve tried to talk myself out of it. I’ve tried to rekindle it. But it’s not there. I’m dead inside.

  I’m sorry.

  ~Diana

  Seeing her name on my phone screen, I should have been nervous or tense. The anxiety I felt all day should have twisted tighter, faster, more intensely. I was feeling at home in the Cellar. I could breathe among friends. Her name should have amped me back up to where I’d been that morning.

  Instead, I was relieved. Whatever this part of the journey was, it was over. I was going to travel from not knowing into knowing.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Charlie without showing him the screen. He didn’t need to know. “I’m going to check the balcony.”

  He leaned forward, looking out the window at the balcony, which was only big enough for a small table with an ashtray and two folding chairs. “It’s raining.” He crossed his ankle over his knee.

  It wasn’t just raining. It was cold and pouring fat chunks of icy sludge. But I couldn’t talk to Diana in front of anyone. I slid the answer icon over the screen and held my breath as I opened the door to the outside. I was about to hear her voice. It had been years. Hours, even.

  “Diana,” I said, recalling my goddess name for her. The prayer I said in her honor. “Little huntress.”

  “Don’t.”

  The first word she said to me after leaving. Don’t. There wasn’t a submissive on six who would have said that to me.

  I sat on the chair. My wool coat protected me from the wet seat but not the slap of the sleet. I moved my back to the wall, into as much shelter as possible.

  “Did you read the note?” Her voice was husky and cracked.

  “Where are you?”

  Silence.

  “I won’t come. I’ll leave you alone. I need to know you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Where are you?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “I’m not talking about anything until I know you’re safe.”

  “I’m safe.”

  I didn’t answer. I let my silence speak for me. Let the slushy rain splat the balcony rail with tiny wet crowns that rose and disappeared. I tried to listen to her background noise, but it was silent.

  She broke first. “I have somewhere to stay.”

  Loaded. Her statement was loaded.

  It was loaded with things she wouldn’t say and the things she did. Arranging an apartment in New York wasn’t an overnight affair. But she wouldn’t say where, or how, or how long she’d planned to move. I knew the market, and it was longer than three days. Which meant she knew she was going to do this, and she still let me fuck her on Tuesday.

  “Was that a good-bye fuck the other night?” I stuck the word fuck like a landing so she’d hear it through the phone.

  “Don’t make this ugly.”

  “You keep telling me what not to do.”

  “I’m sorry. I…” She gulped air. “This is so hard.”

  “I have to tell you something. Is that allowed?”

  “Yes.”

  I bent at the waist until I was jutting forward toward the black bars of the balcony railing. My head was getting rained on and I didn’t care. I wasn’t relaxed about this. “I don’t know what’s happening with you. I don’t know if this is the baby, or work, or if there’s someone else.”

  “There’s no one else.”

  “But it’s gone too far. You let it get too far without talking to me. That’s on you. I’m sure I did plenty wrong, but what you’ve done? You didn’t give me a chance. You didn’t let me love you the way you wanted to be loved. And make no mistake, Diana, little huntress, I love you. I have loved you from day one. I loved you more each day, and I’m going to keep loving you whether you want me to or not.”

  “I can’t…” She sniffed. “Did you read the note?”

  “I read your fucking note.”

  She was crying. I didn’t know what to make of that. It gave me no pleasure, and coming from a man who used to make subs’ tears his reason for getting out of bed in the morning, that meant a lot. But I wasn’t soothing her. I wasn’t going to tell her it was all right. It wasn’t all right. It sucked. My socks were getting cold and wet and everything sucked.

  A minute ago, I’d been relieved. Before that, I’d been determined, and now everything sucked and I was angry.

  I wanted to be one thing for fifteen minutes.

  I leaned back into the shelter. I had to piss. That was consistency for you.

  “Don’t cry,” I said. “Please.”

  She took a deep breath. “I don’t love you,” she said with determination. “That’s the end of it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Did you tell your father you moved?”

  “No.”

  “There you go. No, I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t want to upset him. He cares about you.”

  She was baffling. She’d moved to another apartment. She’d left me a two-page note. How long did she expect to keep this a secret from her fa
ther? They were close. They talked every day. What was she going to say to him?

  “What’s your plan, Diana? You couldn’t have started this without a plan.”

  She shot out a nervous laugh. “You know me. I only need half a plan before I start.”

  That was true. She was a starter. I was a finisher. That was why it was so perfect.

  “You’ll land on your feet, Adam. You’ll find someone else. You’re a great guy.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Maybe it was being at the Cellar. Maybe it was losing control of my life. I used my Dominant voice, the one that wasn’t angry but broached no arguments. “Don’t talk to me like that. Ever. When you’re ninety and I’m a distant memory, don’t even think of me with that tone.”

  And with that, she snapped to attention as if she were sitting right next to me at the Cellar. I didn’t know if she gulped down the tears or just stopped on a dime, but business Diana showed up, kicking the door open in her New York black stilettos. She slapped her briefcase on the table and laid it down.

  My girl.

  “I need to discuss a buyout of McNeill-Barnes,” she said with a rigidity that gripped my chest. “In the meantime, you need to excuse yourself from operations. I need full autonomy to run the company.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, Adam. This is my family’s company. It’s mine.”

  “Still no.” I didn’t know if I could run the business side by side with her anymore. But I wasn’t going to agree to any changes in the fucking rain.

  “All outstanding debts to R+D are paid,” she said. “We’re in the black. It’s been five years. I’ve earned my seat at the table.”

  “You haven’t earned a seat at the head.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  I imagined her in the McNeill-Barnes conference room in her power suit and fuck-me-if-you-dare pumps. I knew what her face looked like when she was ripping a printer a new asshole. Business Diana was more manageable than Crying Diana. I could talk to Business Diana. I knew the rules. I hated them, but I knew them, and I had a way to get my disorientation under control.

  Bend over the table. Pick up your skirt. You’re getting twenty strokes with my belt. Count them.