Complete Submission: (The Submission Series, Books 1-8) (49 page)

Fuck the rest.

MONICA

T
he blanket I’d wrapped around myself smelled of the old Jonathan. Sage. Fog. Jessica had chosen it for him, but I buried my face in it anyway. I stared at the open gate. A cab was on its way. If he didn’t show up before the cab, I would just fold myself back into the world and never see him again. It couldn’t be any harder than what I’d done before.

I smelled him before I heard him. The leather-and-sawdust Jonathan. I looked back inside and saw him standing behind the chair closest to the door. His hair was wet, but his clothes were dry. He wore his trademarked mask of implacable amusement.

“You waited.”

“Cab’s coming.”

He sat in the chair. “I’m sorry I went off on you.”

“It’s fine.”

“I feel like I should explain.”

“Look, you got mad. I know why,” I said.

“No, you don’t.” He leaned back in the chair and crossed an ankle over his knee. “When I married Jessica, I was a nice vanilla guy. We had plenty of sex, and we thought we were just fine. We were. Except I always had this dark place because of what happened with Rachel. I was so young, and not ready. And my father… well, I couldn’t look at him. I still can’t. I never told anyone. No one knew about it, except Jessica. Her knowing made me happy, and being happy, well, I started getting ideas about how good it would feel to fuck her just a little harder. Hold her hands down. Tell her when to come. Slap her ass.” He paused, as if remembering some specific incident. “It didn’t go over well. I didn’t know how to stop, and she didn’t know how to shut up. All her friends were convinced I got off on beating her up. They told their husbands, and before you know it—”

“No one’s talking to you at the Eclipse show.”

“Right. And I lost her. When you get divorced, you don’t just give up the person, you give up all the dreams you had with that person. Those are harder to let go of.” He uncrossed his ankle and put his elbows on his knees. “Now I’m with someone else, and she’s beautiful with me. But she sings this song, and everyone will hear it and think I’m trying to rape and abuse her. It all came back.”

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“You should cancel that cab.”

“I really want to go home.”

“You’re not going home tonight. They found cameras.”

“Oh, God.” My chest felt as if a spike went through it. That was my house. It had always been my house. I felt myself breaking down and I had to grind my teeth to keep together.

“It’s clean now. And there were none in the kitchen.”

I laughed with relief. The episode on the kitchen floor was the first thing I’d worried about and the one thing I tried not to consider as a possibility.

“We need to find out who did it. And now I really want to have you watched.”

I shook my head. “I’ll stay with Darren.”

“That’s not a long-term solution.”

I got annoyed. He’d taken the conversation and made it his own. “Jonathan, stop it. Long-term solutions are my problem.”

“How’s that?”

I took a deep breath. I knew what I wanted to say, but after finding out about my house, and his story, I didn’t know if I had the strength. I curled deeper in the blanket. “I’m sorry, Jonathan. What I did with the song was wrong. I’ll do what damage control I can. I’ll record something else and get it to Jerry. I can’t make Jessica unhear it, but it’s not like she didn’t know about your preferences.”

“I know Eddie from Carnival Records, by the way. You met him at the Loft Club. Buddy from—”

“Penn. Right. I’m sorry. I can’t make him unhear it either. Maybe he’ll think you’re hot shit now?”

He shrugged and swung his legs over the chair’s arm. He seemed really relaxed for a guy who looked about to belt me twenty minutes ago.

“I was careless with your feelings,” I continued. “I should have run it by you first. Because it’s your life, and you may not want your kinky shit all over. I mean, it
is
all over, but you don’t need your lover confirming it. I thought about it, and I don’t want that shit all over either. I could play it off as metaphor, but your rep means I can’t. Then we become the couple no one can talk to because we make them giggle.”

He laughed a bitter little laugh, as if he knew exactly what I was talking about. He did. I was just repeating history for him. I’d be the second woman to leave him because he was dominant. Before he came outside, I’d consoled myself with the fact that he didn’t love me and we hadn’t known each other that long. That seemed untrue, though. I was going to hurt him, and I was powerless to stop it.

“So,” I continued, “that’s when I realized if I’m going to be with you, I can’t talk to anyone. I have to keep a whole part of my life locked up tight or people will look at me. I’m the submissive here. I’m the sucker getting her ass spanked. I’m the one walking around with bruises on her wrists. You’re the master, and I’m under you. I mean, what the fuck am I doing? Do I not care about my life and my career? How am I supposed to get a leg up in a meeting when the guy on the other side of the desk is imagining me with a ball gag? How can I be seen as a musician who can deliver in front of a crowd if they think I’m a man’s slave?”

The cab pulled into the driveway in a flash of headlights.

“I’ll send him back.” Jonathan swung his legs straight.

I unwrapped myself from the blanket and stood. “No, I’m going. What we have is not what I want. It’s too much. I’ve never met a man like you, and god willing, I never will again because I don’t think I could take it. I already can’t imagine myself with anyone else.”

He looked at me. “You’re not leaving, Monica.” He took my hands. His were cold, and the temptation to warm them between mine was unbearable.

I said, “I wanted you to know, before I go, that I love you. I thought I didn’t want to love anyone again, and maybe I didn’t. I mean, look what it comes with, right? The more I fell in love with you, the harder it got to leave you. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

When he stood, he seemed taller, closer, more solid. “You’re not going.”

“I am.”

“No. Don’t you see how perfect we are? What you’re breaking isn’t some little, meaningless coupling. We aren’t some casual fuck, and we never were. Not from the first night. Not from the first time I laid eyes on you. You were built for me. I denied it as long as I could, but we were meant to be together. You are the sea under my sky. We’re bound at the horizon.”

“Please don’t make this worse.” My voice cracked. I sniffled. God. Damn. Those fucking tears.

He stood and put his arms around me, engulfing me. How he fit. How his touch felt perfect on me. How I wanted him as he kissed my cheek and neck and breathed my name. “Don’t go,” he said softly. “I want you, little goddess. Always. Please. Tell me what you want. Tell me what I have to do.”

The cab driver honked.

“Let me go, Jonathan.”

“No.”

I pushed him away with all the force I had, and still he held me. “Let me
go
.”

He squeezed me harder. “We’re not finished.”

I wanted to fall into him, to acquiesce completely. Giving in to his embrace and his touch, letting him take me upstairs would have been so easy. That night would have been beautiful and tender, but what about the next day, and the next week, and the next month?

When I pushed him away again, he released me. I stepped back, almost falling. He held his hand out to help me, but I avoided him.

“Good-bye. I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry.” He stood straight, his chin proud and his shoulders relaxed. “This isn’t over.”

I wanted to tell him I loved him again, but it would have done more harm than good. I ran down the steps. The cab was about to leave without me, but I grabbed the door handle and opened it. The driver stopped, and I got in.

With one last glance back, I saw Jonathan backlit on that magnificent porch, standing as if he had complete control of the situation, every inch a king.

burn.

MONICA

T
he newspaper was open to a seemingly random page toward the back, but when it caught my eye, I had to examine it further. Discreetly. Because studying such a thing would draw attention from the man I sat across from. The girl in the paper was naked, on her back, with her legs thrown over her head. The light cast the seam between her legs in shadow. Her hands were tucked behind her back, and she was gagged with black cloth. She looked uncomfortable. She looked unhappy. Worse, the picture’s appeal was in her miserable expression and the pleased yet benign expressions of the men watching her.

Only when I heard metal tapping against porcelain did I return my attention to the man across the table or, at the very least, to the ring clicking against his coffee cup. He picked up a business card he’d let drop next to the creamer.

I was ambivalent about the pinkie ring.

On the one hand, it ate at my trust. Who could have confidence in a man who wore one? On the other hand, its oddness was intriguing. Will Santon’s fingers slipped down his business card, pivoted it, rested it on the coffee shop table, and slid down its long side again. The fingers were thick and well-formed I imagined them sliding inside me two at a time, the ring resting against my asshole as the thumb teased my clit. I found the thought as unarousing as the woman in the paper. What normally would have sparked my desire, sparked exactly nothing. My mind was on sex all the time, but my body had taken a powder. I couldn’t feel a damn thing between my legs no matter how hard I thought about fucking.

“I promise you,” he said. “Your place is clean.”

“I believe that you believe that.” I twisted my teacup in its saucer. The pink roses were worn, and the saucer didn’t match. All the décor in the café was found, thrift-shopped, or rescued.

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” he said.

How long could he have been doing it though? He was thirty-five, tops, without a grey speck in his dark hair or his two-day-old black scruff. His eyes, grey as a rainy day, looked as though they’d seen their share of nastiness. His gaze did not waver, but I knew his peripheral vision was as clear as my narrow field. His jacket fit perfectly, but it was the open shirt collar, the haircut around the ears, and the comfortable shoes that told me who he was.

“You’re military,” I said.

“Marines.”

“Something ending in ‘ops,’ I bet.” He didn’t answer. “My dad was killed in Saudi escorting a second-rate prince to some mosque.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“You have kids, Mr. Santon?”

“Daughter. She’s four.”

And no wedding ring, I noticed. “Would you let your daughter go into that house?”

His gaze slipped to his empty cup. Black coffee. He’d finished his black coffee in a single swig when it was burning hot. “I got a call from your boyfriend—”

“Ex.”

“Ex-boyfriend.”

“Ex-lover.”

“He asked me to reassure you. I’m reassuring you.”

“You know what would reassure me?”

“For us to sweep it again?” His head was cocked as if he thought that would be an acceptable answer.

“Find out who it was.”

“We’re working on it.”

“I believe you are. And I’m sure he paid you a lot of money to come here and tell me my house was clean and you were working on it. But I’ll be reassured when I know who did it, not when Jonathan Drazen says it’s time to be reassured. Thanks for trying.”

“He also asked me to see if you looked okay, how you sounded. He said when you’re upset, it’s in your voice.”

I swallowed, feeling scrutinized in a way I hadn’t a second earlier. My chin went up a notch, and my shoulders straightened. I couldn’t help it. “I’m sure you’re not supposed to tell me that.”

“Do you know what I’m going to say to him?”

“No, and I don’t care,” I said, caring a great deal.

“You’re terrified.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ve heard terrified women. Some were scared for a moment when bad shit was happening, and others got beaten down by a daily, low-grade fear.” He arched an eyebrow, as if asking me which one I thought I was.

I stood. “You can tell him whatever you like, but if you tell him I’m anything but perfectly all right, he’s going to worry, and that’s going to make more work for you.”

“I don’t need the extra work.”

“Then you know what to say.”

Will stood and handed me the card he’d been fingering. “If you want the place swept again, call me, and I’ll have it done.” When I took the card, his pinky overshot its destination and brushed mine. Though the touch surprised me, it did not rouse any feelings between my legs.

MONICA

T
he desire to be touched, to connect, to find commonality between myself and someone else overwhelmed my common sense. It wasn’t just anyone I wanted to touch. It was him.

Though I was alone by choice, I was desperately hurt. I carried around an ache in my chest and a cloying desire on my skin. I missed Jonathan. I missed his sharp tongue and his strong arms. Yes, I missed his dick and all our play, but it was the loss of his stare, the warmth of his attention, and the emotional safety of his sphere of influence made me feel unmoored.

Did I look scared? I leaned into Darren’s bathroom mirror. I looked the same to me. I could call him. I could see him just one time. Maybe I would. I put my mascara down and looked at my phone.

It was 8:59 in the morning. In one minute, my phone would bloop with some short, pithy message from Jonathan. He sent me a text at nine every morning on the dot. I never texted him back, and I never told him to stop. I had two weeks’ worth of pings from him, making sure that at least once a day, I thought of him. It was controlling in such a precise and unemotional way that on day four, when I realized what he was doing, I tapped him a livid response. But I never sent it. I thought of him so much more often than once a day anyway.

—Bring an umbrella. It’s going to rain—

I scrolled back. He had reports from DC:

—It is truly awful here—

—Another lunch meeting. Bullshit on the menu—

—You belong with me—