Complete Submission: (The Submission Series, Books 1-8) (63 page)

“Fucked.”

I slapped inside her thigh. The sound was hard and final. “Wider.”

She looked at me as she obeyed, spreading her legs as commanded. I didn’t have a game plan. I just wanted to see her. I bent to put my face between her legs and licked her lightly. She tasted of sweat, sex, and a little of my orgasm. She whispered my name, and I picked up my head.

“Take a shower, goddess. Breakfast is here. And no touching.” I gave her clit a cruel flick that made her yelp and made me smile.

She kissed me quickly before trundling off to the shower. I caught her wrist and pulled her to me, kissing her as hard and deep as she deserved.

MONICA

D
arren wasn’t coming back to L.A. with us. His return ticket was good, and he and Adam decided to head back together. I assumed my faux-brother was going home as entangled as I was.

Jonathan and I decided to leave the hotel late. Breakfast had been picked over as if attacked by a murder of crows. We sat together on the couch. Jonathan was under me, bare feet up on the cushions, and my back was to his bare chest. I still wore the robe I’d left the shower in. I had a hotel notepad on my lap, and he stroked my shoulder to the collar while kissing the back of my neck.

“If I gagged you,” Jonathan said, “I’d do it in such a way that you could still say your safeword.”

“Okay, so we’ll put it as a yes?” I wrote down ‘gag.’

“If you want. There are aspects that aren’t interesting to me.”

“Then why’s it on the list?”

“I’ll try anything you want to.”

“I don’t understand. I’m crossing off things left and right.”

“I don’t get to cross off soft limits. Hard limits, like sharing, yes. But anything that’s not disgusting to me, I do it if you want to. That’s my job.”

I tapped the eraser on the pad. “What other aspects of gagging are you talking about? Besides that I can’t talk right.”

“We can do it if you want.”

“No, it was just something that wasn’t horrific.”

He paused to run his fingertip over my shoulder. “There’s an element of humiliation. Not that you can’t talk at all, but you’re reduced to grunts. With a ball gag, it’s more pronounced, and you add drooling. It reduces the sub to her most primal, animalistic self. She relinquishes control over her voice and her spit.”

It was my turn to pause. “Have you used a ball gag on someone?”

“Yes. It’s not my favorite thing. I prefer when your silence and submission are a choice. And the humiliation makes me uncomfortable.”

I bit my lip. “But cloth doesn’t sound too bad.”

“Put it on the maybe list.”

I flipped pages until I found the maybe list and put
gag with cloth
at the bottom of the page. Jonathan looked at his watch. “We’ve been at this two hours.”

I craned my neck to look at the clock. “Wow.”

“You’re very thorough. But we can continue this on the plane.” He said it as if he was ready to go, but his hand slipped under my robe.

“Jonathan, what are you doing?”

“Adding something to the list.” He undid the robe’s belt. “Spread your legs. If I told you this in words, you’d say no. I want to show it to you.”

“What is it?”

“Knees up. Open all the way. You have to trust me.” His fingers reached between my legs, finding my cleft wet from the sex talk and stolen kisses. Gathering moisture from my hole, he ran his fingers to my clit, two fingers circling it.

“This goes on the yes list.” I arched my back.

His hand came off me and back down with a solid
slap
. I cried out at the deep sting of pain, gasping. But like a firework shooting into the sky with a hard streak, the explosion afterward lit up the sky.

“Do it again,” I groaned. He did, and again the pain was followed by its sister, pleasure. I’d slid all the way down and was fully supine, head in his lap.

“So this goes on the yes list?”

“Yes. Again, please.”

“You’re insatiable.” He cupped my chin and kissed me. “Later. We have to go.”

“Jonathan?” I closed my legs and shifted to look him in the eyes.

“Monica.”

“Did you have anything to do with Kevin getting arrested?”

“I’m sorry?”

“He’s traveled before, so it was weird he suddenly got on a watch list. And then for him to get picked up now? Those warrants have been out forever.”

“It had to happen sometime.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But did you have anything to do with it happening
now
?”

He stroked my bottom lip pensively. “No.”

JONATHAN

I
gave Jacques and Petra the cockpit-door-closed order, which they were more than used to, and I had Monica twice on the plane. The first time, I had her in a seat like a normal person. The next time, on the galley counter because I could.

We didn’t get much further on the list, but we’d made such good progress already that I wasn’t concerned about it. Her commitment opened her up to communication about what we were doing in a way that hadn’t existed before. She was thoughtful and full of questions. Part of me wished we’d done it sooner, and another part was glad it had taken time.

I let her have the window as we circled Los Angeles over the miasma of smog. She leaned against me. I had my arm around her and pulled her as close as as the seat belts allowed, putting my nose in her hair.

“Last night,” I said, “I told you I loved your filthy mouth.”

She turned to me. “Yes?”

“I lied.”

“Really? Should I say ‘have intercourse with me’ when I want it?”

“No. God no. What I meant was, I love your filthy mouth. And I love your mouth when it sings and jokes. I love your body, and everything it does to me. I love when you come, when you squirm under me, begging for it. I love your hands, and your eyes. I love your honor and integrity. I love your loyalty, your intelligence. I love your honesty, even when it hurts me. I’ve fallen in love with you, Monica. I didn’t think it would happen to me again, but it did. Thank you.”

She stared at me, big brown eyes wide, mouth parted just a little. I didn’t think I’d scared her but shocked her. If I’d used three words to say the same thing, I might not have faced the same silence, but those three words would have been inadequate.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

I laughed.

The intercom buzzed as Santa Monica Airport came into sight. “Sir?” came Jacques’s voice. “Can you come up front?”

I kissed those parted lips and unbuckled. “Give me a sec.”

“Way to kill a moment, Drazen.”

I kissed her again, half standing. She put her hands on my neck so I couldn’t get away and kept them there until I took her wrists and pulled them down. I walked backward to the cockpit door and opened it.

“Yes, Jacques?”

He pulled off his headphones. “Sir, I just got a call. The LAPD is waiting on the runway.”

MONICA

W
hen he got back, his contented expression had changed to something more pensive and tense. He sat and buckled without looking at me. When I took his hand, he clasped back as if making a perfunctory gesture.

“What?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

“Jonathan. Don’t shut me out.”

He held my hand tight as the plane dropped down to land. “I get sued all the time. It’s not even anything. I have lots of things people want. So they come after me.” He looked at me finally. “I’m used to it, and I’ve learned to manage it. So I’m not worried about anything. But you… I’m worried about what you’ll think.”

“Remember the part of the trip where I committed myself to you?”

He sighed, looking resigned in a way I’d never seen. “I have no idea what this is about. But the LAPD is on the tarmac, waiting for me.”

I didn’t realize my mouth was hanging open until I had to close it to speak. “Why?”

“I don’t know. But I want you to stay on the plane until I’m gone or until I come and get you. I’ll have Lil make sure you get home. Pack. I’ll call you. We may be off to Korea later then planned, but make sure you’re ready.”

“No.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is there a good reason you need to exit the plane immediately?”

“I want to be with you.”

“Sweet, but no.” He must have seen my determined look. He added, “Please.”

I sat back as the wheels touched down. We held hands as the plane taxied to the gate. Two black and whites waited, lights flashing. I didn’t like it. I knew plenty about cops. I knew how they stood and how they walked. Sonny Rodriguez had been shot gangland style on my corner. On the other end of my block was a narrow strip called “Ghost Alley” because of all the murders there. Those days were done in the neighborhood, but the cops, the questions, and the tension lived and breathed in my mind.

The Santa Ana winds whipped around the plane and bent every palm tree in sight. The wind sock on top of the control tower was held still and erect.

Jacques came back, not his usual polite self, and opened the door with the steps behind it. It fell with a scrape to the concrete. Jonathan stood up, and with a look back to me and a raised finger indicating I should stay put, he walked out.

I unbuckled and went to the other side of the plane, pressing my face to the window. There was talk, and four officers surrounded him, which didn’t happen unless some sort of violence was involved. Weird. Unless there was a great donut shop by the airport and two extras needed an excuse to come.

My view was obscured by the wing, but it looked as if they were handcuffing Jonathan.

No.

Sorry, but no.

I don’t know what I expected to do, but I ran out as he was led to the car by the stocky cop on his left. I didn’t call out or demand anything because another cop stepped between us with her hands out.

“Stop. Are you Monica Faulkner?” she asked.

“Yes.”

I held up my hands to show they were empty and craned my neck to see around her. I heard the stocky cop’s voice uttering the words of the Miranda Act. Jonathan asked something, seeming so together and calm, a picture of control. The Santa Ana winds brought two words of the cop’s answer.

Domestic violence
.

Jonathan glanced at me and smiled before the cop helped him into the back seat of the cruiser.

***

Do people like you ever have wishes, Jonathan?

What does that mean? People like me?

People who have everything. Was there ever something you wanted, but could only wish for?

***

I hated the word
festooned
.

Festooned implied some kind of old-world family dancing around with ribbons, draping them over lamps and doorways, catching the flowers as they fell out of their hair. It brought to mind musical theater and swaying skirts. It felt Swiss Family Robinson. Mary Poppins. The Waltons. Good night, Jon-boy.

Despite the sour taste in the front of my tongue and the bitter one in back,
festooned
was the only word that suited the house on this, the day of my engagement party. I wanted to drink far more than I had. I wanted to take that bottle of Jameson’s I knew my mother hid under her bathroom vanity and sit in a corner to finish it. I wanted to suck it dry. But I didn’t do that anymore. When I drank, I held a glass and sipped until the ice melted, never finishing before. Then I waited and eventually got another. I hadn’t been drunk since I was sixteen.

And if I did drink that bottle? Who would care but my fiancé, Jessica? Or more to the point, whose opinion did I value besides hers? Who else did I serve?

She wanted this event, and she got it. I couldn’t deny her anything, and really, it wasn’t such a big deal to throw a party. It was nothing to gather a team of people from Hotel A to
festoon
my parent’s Palisades house, send invitations to the right people, and make sure there was food. My staff were experts at managing women with exquisite taste, such as my bride-to-be. It was no burden to me whatsoever.

The burden was having the engagement at my father’s house. The burden was explaining to him that the wedding would be at the my future in-law’s residence in Venice, and his presence was not requested.

There were reasons for all of it, of course, spite not being the least of them. I understood spite, even enjoyed it on occasion, poured over cold cubes of guilt with a chaser of regret. But this spite was too old and too ugly to enjoy.

“There you are,” my mother’s voice came from behind me. I’d been looking out toward the yard, watching subsets of staff ready it for the flood of people. “Have you seen Jess?”

“She’s out with my sisters getting her feet and fingers done. Something tasteful, I’m sure. No need to worry.”

Mom slipped her hands over my shoulders, her hands brushing the fabric free of some imaginary lint. “Are you happy?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You’ve seemed down. Is it Jessica?”

“No.”

“The thing with your father?” Mom didn’t look concerned as much as benign. She’d perfected that look of harmlessness over forty years, and she wore it well under light makeup and a strawberry blonde chignon.

“Yes.”

“He’s come to terms with it.”

“Is the bar up? I need a drink.”

She looped her arm into mine and we walked outside.

***

My father hadn’t ever actually come to terms with anything in his life, ever. He sat and waited until opportunities presented themselves. He was utterly non-aggressive in the way a cat is utterly still outside a mouse hole, waiting for the rodent to either forget he was trapped or get hungry enough to risk everything and leave.

The party setup was going smoothly, people in tuxedos and black dresses gadding about with purpose. The hedges had been trimmed, the tennis court locked. The pool had been cleaned, repainted and decorated with floating flowers. No one asked me a goddamn thing about anything and I liked it that way. The bartender, an actor from the looks of him, was setting up glasses in neat rows. Behind him, the majesty of the Pacific Ocean stretched into a haze where sea met sky.

“He told me he understood,” Mom said, continuing a conversation she assumed I wanted to have. “Business deals sometimes go bad and someone gets hurt.”