Control (Songs of Submission #4)(29)

He cupped my cheek. “Why?”

The room wasn’t well lit, but I saw the green in his eyes where the lights from the parking lot cut through the window blinds. “You can hurt me, Jonathan. You can do damage.”

He stroked my bottom lip with his thumb. “Your honesty is beautiful.” He pulled out and pushed into me again, jamming himself against my wide-open sex.

“Again, please,” I begged.

He thrust into me again. And again, until I thought I’d explode from the crotch out in a spray of screams. My breath got raspy and hard, my chest hurt with the effort to move air through my body when I wanted to stop breathing completely. He put his hand over my mouth and took me fast and hard. I came, crying out into his palm. He put his chest to mine, his cheek against my face, and with a long groan, he filled me, jerking and rocking. I felt his warm breath on my neck, his hand sliding down my sweat-coated face, whispering my name. We leaned against each other for a minute, breathing together, until he kissed my cheek.

“You’re staying with me tonight, at least,” he said softly.

“Why?”

He kissed my mouth again and said, “Your house and your car need to be swept for cameras. I can’t let you go back there until it’s clean.”

“What if whoever put that there was really after you? How do you know your house isn’t full of cameras?”

“It’s getting checked right now.”

We kissed as he pulled out of me. He let my legs down. I was still short of breath, still sensitive between my thighs. My lips hurt where his late-day scruff had rubbed me, and my spine ached from being pushed into a brick wall. As usual, I felt as if I’d been beaten near death with a f**kstick.

Jonathan kneeled before me and helped me get my lacy underpants back on, kissing a trail up my leg. When he’d straightened my dress, he kissed me.

“We have to talk,” I said.

“About Jessica. What did she say?”

“About that, and—”

There was a loud knock on the door. The handle jiggled. “Monica,” Rhee called, “you in there?”

“Yes.”

“Bernie’s here.” Bernie was the guy who played after me.

“Out in a second.”

I hoisted my bag. Jonathan ran his fingers through his hair and took it from me. We got outside into the crisp, autumn night. The valet went for Jonathan’s car. Mine was parked on the street. He walked me to it, our fingers linked. “People are waiting at your house to sweep it for cameras and mikes.”

“This is so weird.”

He held my chin when we stopped by my car. “It’s probably nothing. We need to go there so you can let them in.” He put his arms around my waist. “You, darling, will gather clothes and things. Then I shall bring you back to my bed, and I will have you again. And maybe again.”

“We have to have an unpleasant conversation.”

“Do you believe I’m not spying on you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you f**k someone else?”

“God, no!”

“Are you leaving me because I interrupted your work?”

“No.”

“Are you leaving me at all?”

“No, Jonathan, really—”

“Then I fail to see the urgency. Let’s take care of business and let unpleasantness take care of itself.”

CHAPTER 18.

JONATHAN

I didn’t want to hear a word about what my ex-wife said. I didn’t want to navigate her labyrinth of lies and half-truths, and I didn’t want to explain anything to Monica while my mind was on Kevin and the cameras. We needed to hand off keys, pack her for the night, and get her into my bed. Then I would explain or f**k away whatever Jessica told her. Jessica was going to the mat. I couldn’t deal with her shit for another minute. Her worst nightmare was seeing me happy, apparently, because I hadn’t seen her as much in the past half year as I’d seen her in the past month.

I got to Echo Park first and parked across the street from Monica’s house. The green minivan was gone, replaced by a black van. Margie’s guys. I walked up to her chain-link gate. A man greeted me. Late twenties. Suit and tie. Pinkie ring. My eyes adjusted and I saw two others shaking the bushes.

“Jonathan Drazen?” he said, holding out his hand.

“The same.” I shook it.

“Name’s Will Santon. You look exactly like Margie.”

“Tell her she looks younger.”

He smiled at me. “This place yours?”

“Girlfriend.”

“We found a wireless minicam on the porch. Not the best, but good enough. Middle-class work.”

The porch. What had we done on the porch? Anything? My mind was a blank. I was blinded by the lights of a little black Honda tearing up the hill and into the driveway.

“Don’t tell her,” I said. “Let me take care of it.”

Monica got out, all legs and hair, looking like a force of nature, a wild animal entitled to her own sovereignty. Her sexuality wasn’t coy or cute. She wasn’t saucy; she was feral. Her very presence on the earth stirred me.

“Hi,” she said, smiling.

Santon smiled back at her. “Miss, is this your house?”

“I live here.”