Control (Songs of Submission #4)(19)

“Will you keep yourself busy without me?” he asked.

“In all the most boring ways.”

He slipped his hand between my legs and stroked inside my thigh. “What will you do?”

“I’ll call you at night,” I whispered.

“What else?” His fingertips touched my snatch just a little, like a threat of more.

“I’ll text you every time I think of you. So, all the time.” I opened my legs for him.

“Uh huh.”

“I’ll go to work.”

“Yes.” He breathed on my neck, his finger so close to finding me sore, wet, and ready.

“I have to work on the B.C. Mod piece. We’re really behind.”

His hand stopped dead. “When I’m away?”

I cringed a little inside. Shit. “You’re away a lot. Should I stop working?”

“Maybe I should take you with me everywhere.”

I stood and threw myself into the other chair. “You think I’m going to run off and f**k someone else as soon as your back is turned? What kind of person do you think I am?”

He put his elbow on the arm of his chair and rubbed his eyes. I had an inner, boiling-hot rage cooled only by remembering what his wife did. He needed reassurance, not defensiveness. Even if he didn’t and couldn’t love me, thinking he didn’t have feelings or carry baggage was immature.

He said, “I trust you. I don’t trust him.”

I leaned forward and softened my voice. “It could be huge for me. Kevin is very important—”

“I don’t want to hear that name.”

“How are we supposed to talk about it? I mean, you trust me, but you don’t trust him. Do you think he’ll rape me?” I crossed my legs.

He took a long pause, looking at me. I would have bet two weeks’ tips he was deciding whether or not to say something, or reveal a piece of information, but he looked away and tapped his notebook. “Do you think his Eclipse piece said anything about how he’ll treat you?”

“He’s Kevin Wainwright. He starts with the obvious emotions, then gets cold, then flushes what he can’t use down the toilet. So that piece? I never saw the documentation, but my guess is someone just bought a pile of drawings of a dark-haired woman getting the shit beat out of her.”

“How is he starting this piece with you? What’s the early documentation look like?”

His eyes didn’t waver from mine, so he must have seen my reaction. My ears got hot and my arms tensed, because Kevin’s studio had been filled with raunchy sex drawings. Was that what he intended to work on with me? Were we talking about love or sex or the intersection of both? Had I been naïve and foolish?

“You can’t get in the way of my work, Jonathan.”

“He wants to hurt you, Monica.”

“He doesn’t know how.”

“You’re wrong. Very, very wrong.”

I crossed my arms to match my legs. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

He swallowed, watching me. I watched him back. The tension made my heart pound, my palms sweat. My neck broke out in goose bumps, but I would not waver.

“I do have something to tell you,” he said.

“Okay.”

“When I say I own you, it’s just a manner of speaking. It doesn’t mean you don’t have your own life, or you’re a possession I can throw away when I’m bored. It means I am directly responsible for your well-being. If I sense a threat to your health or happiness, I will step in to protect you, even if you don’t want me to.”

Those words, so cold and practical, without a flowery phrase or hyperbole, made my lower lip quiver and a swelling, wet pressure collect in my eyes. Fuck.

“You can’t keep me from working,” I said, breathing hard, trying to forget the tears threatening to drop. “You have my word. I’m yours. You are the only man I want. I know what happened to you before—”

“Monica, you’re not hearing me—”

“I am hearing you. You think Kevin wants to hurt me, and I’m telling you he can only hurt me if I give him my body, which I won’t do.”

He leaned forward as though he wanted to touch me, but wouldn’t. “You said yourself he gets raw, then he gets cold, and then he does the piece. Maybe you’re the piece.”

I watched my hands fidget. “I can’t stop my career for maybes.” My eyes went back to him. “When I say you’re a king, you are. You rule the world. You have everything. You can do whatever you want. I’m nobody. I have nothing to call my own. I could die tomorrow, and I’d be forgotten in a year. Like Gabby. If I don’t record her music, it’ll disappear, and if I let you stop me from doing whatever I have to do to make work, I’ll disappear too.”

I was crying full bore, with little sniffles and big, wet tears. He reached for his pocket, and I knew he would get out one of his expensive hankies. I hated that it was the second time I’d cried in front of him. I didn’t make crying a habit. I hated it. I found no release in it, just sore eyes and shame. I grabbed his hand before it could leave his pocket. “Don’t let my stupid crying get in the way of what you want to say.”

“I wanted to say ‘blow.’”