Control (Songs of Submission #4)(18)

“How you doing, sir?” I was smirking. He’d tied my hands and forced the rhythm, but his orgasm was mine. He reached for the steak knife again, and I held my hands up. Slashing my binding, he bent down to take me in his arms. He lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around him, resting my head on his shoulder. He carried me out of the kitchen as if I was a child.

CHAPTER 9.

JONATHAN

I don’t know how a man can feel ripped apart and whole at the same time.

Under her covers, on my side, and facing her wasn’t close enough. I twisted my legs in hers, touched her face while she talked, and held her hand on the mattress.

When I’d carried her out of the kitchen, she’d been sticky all down her front. Her braid was a big knot. Her ass cheeks were pink and sore. Her throat was coated in my orgasm.

I took her straight to the bathroom so we could shower. We soaped, and kissed, and laughed, but she was wiped out. Her eyes drooped, and her hands worked over her body lazily. When we’d finished, I put a towel around her and brushed her hair. She insisted on a braid, so I put a loose one down her back, just to get it over with, and carried her to bed.

“I’m sorry about breaking the mood with the plastic bags,” she whispered.

I stroked her cheek. “It’s fine. I don’t want to asphyxiate you, Monica. That’s way past my threshold.”

“I was scared.”

“I know. And I don’t want you to be scared, either.”

“I should have put that on the list.”

“We’ll make a new list.” I touched her forehead and drew my fingers down, forcing her eyes closed.

“You’re my king, Jonathan.” She’d opened her eyes, but they looked heavy. I kissed them over and over, eyelids, cheek, nose, lips, eyelids again, forcing them closed over and over. When her eyes stayed closed, I knew she was asleep, and I could rest.

But I didn’t. I replayed the night in my head while looking out her window. Dogs barked. A police siren faded into range, then out. She hummed a little in her sleep, then stopped. She’d thought I was going to choke her. She’d thought I was going to put a plastic bag over her head until her body seized up. For thrills.

Obviously, she didn’t trust me yet. It would take time and patience. I hadn’t given either to a woman since Jessica because I gave her too much. My relationship with Monica could only go one place. Me, exposed to her, raw at the edges, breaking down at a shareholder meeting. Crying like—

I couldn’t let myself finish that thought.

In the dead of night, when everyone else slept, was when it happened. I’d never been much of a sleeper, maxing out at four hours a night by the time I’d finished adolescence. Having business in Asia helped. I could make calls and send emails. Taking a lot of women to bed helped with the voices a little, but the dead-of-night hours were still spent alone. Then it took over.

It was my father’s voice. The voice told me that the things I had done wrong were irreversible. My mistakes were yokes I could either break under or become strong enough to pull, but they could not be shaken. Marrying Jessica, which I had convinced myself was the only right thing I’d done, sat front and center. I’d screwed it up by trying to get her to fit into my sexual fantasies. If I’d stayed silent, just done things her way, I could have been happy. In the dead of night, the regret of putting my desires above love split me, gutted me, dragged me into despair. Come morning, the voice slumbered. The torment played on an infinite loop until I dreaded the sun’s dip below the skyline.

The voice was quiet that night, just a hum of warning. I could be that man again very easily. It was no harder than tripping on a bump in the sidewalk or cutting myself shaving, a slip in concentration long enough to lose control. I could fall off the tightrope to either side if I blinked at the wrong time.

I forced my eyes closed and listened to Monica’s breaths. Eventually, I fell asleep.

CHAPTER 10.

MONICA

I woke up at 5:16 a.m., sore everywhere. My feet hurt from the stilettos. My knees from kneeling on the kitchen floor. My pu**y from getting f**ked hard, twice. My ass from the spanking. My tits from the biting and pulling. I wanted Jonathan again. I had about an inch of my body, somewhere, that wasn’t throbbing and sore. He needed to find it and f**k it.

I heard his voice from far away, and I realized he wasn’t next to me. He was on the side patio, facing the driveway and talking on the phone. After using the bathroom and getting into a robe and slippers, I joined him outside.

He sat at the little table I’d found on the corner of Echo Park Ave and Montana. His elbow was on the glass as he wrote something in a notebook and tapped something else into his phone.

“Good morning,” I said.

He reached for me, pulling me into his lap. “Good morning.” I flinched when my butt touched the hard surface of his knee. “Sorry,” he said when he saw me lower myself slowly. “I mean, I’m not.”

“Me neither.” I leaned into the pain and sat on his leg.

“I have to go to Washington in a few days. I could be gone a week. A congressman from Arkansas doesn’t want me building hotels overseas. I have an appointment to kiss his ass.”

He wasn’t just telling me he had to split. He was apologizing. I kissed him long and hard, running my fingers through his hair. “I knew you traveled a lot even before I met you.”