Control (Songs of Submission #4) (16 page)

“My stuff’s in the dressing room.”

“Let’s go, then.” He held out his hand and I took it, sliding from the booth as he helped me up.

I walked to the back without saying good-bye, pulling him along. I didn’t start shaking until we were both behind the dressing room door. Before I could even flick on the light, he pushed me against the wall, his mouth on mine, pressing my head to the plaster.

“Jonathan,” I gasped. Didn’t I want to yell at him? Wasn’t I mad about something? I knew I had things to say.

He kissed my neck and stroked my breast through my dress. “The camera. Not mine. I asked Dave to keep an eye on you is all.” He pressed his club of a cock against me.

Fuck it. Fuck explanations. Fuck boundaries. Whatever he said was good enough for me if it let him take me right then.

With both hands under my skirt, he kneaded my ass as he kissed me. His finger looped in the crotch of my fancy Bordelle panties and yanked them. I pulled one leg out, and he draped it over his hip, opening me to him. He taunted my nipple through my dress, drawing his thumbnail against it before putting his whole hand over my breast.

I undid his pants and released him. He put one hand on my chest, leaning into me, and he used the other to guide himself in me, which he did with a hard, fast thrust.

Eyelids half-mast with pleasure, he thrust again, even harder. I squeaked when his dick hit the end of me. He put my other leg over his hip so I was wrapped around him. He leveraged me against the wall with his body, a fulcrum where we were joined, the base of all that held us together.

I put my hands on his face, and he took them off, holding them down.

“You ready, goddess?”

“Take me.”

He grunted as he pushed hard, getting so deep it hurt. Without a moment’s hesitation, he pounded me again, forcing me against the wall as if he wanted to punch through it. Again and again he took me, hard and fast, pushing into a tingling warmth, forcing pleasure to current through me, the base of his cock slamming my clit over and over.

“Look at me,” he demanded in a husky voice. I did, though my hair was falling into my eyes. My breath was timed to his thrusts. “You talk to me, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” I could barely understand myself.

“Never shut me out.”

“Never. Oh, God. Jonathan. My king.”

“Don’t come, Monica.” He slowed down, angling himself differently so I felt him inside me, deep, hard, deliberate. “Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. Talk. To. Me.” He thrust with every word, sending me into a place where verbalization was nearly impossible.

“Yes.”

“What do you want to say?” he asked.

“Let me come?”

“No. What else?” He slammed into me and ground against me, pushing all the way in, his face by mine, his scent of leather and earth and clean laundry overtaking me. “Why did you shut me out?”

“I’m scared. You scare me.”

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 fuckstick.

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 fuck 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 fuck 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.”

“I’m Will Santon. I’m a licensed private investigator in the state of California.” He showed her an ID card. She looked at it, back at him, and back down to the card. “I’ve been hired by the law firm of Bode, Drazen, and Weinstein to check your house for surveillance devices. Do I have your permission to enter?”

She glanced at me. I nodded.

“Yes.” She flicked her keys and headed in. We followed her, a line of four suits. The other two fanned out, glancing at everything, as Santon gave Monica papers to sign. I stood behind her and prayed that whoever watched her did so only from the outside. If they got inside, I would have the strong urge to burn the place down.

Finished with Santon, Monica turned to me and whispered, “I’m uncomfortable.”

I kissed her forehead. “Go get your toothbrush and whatever, and we’ll get out of here.”

       
CHAPTER 19.
        
 

MONICA

I found a bag in the closet and threw it on the bed. My drawers were a mess. My closet was even worse. I took whatever I touched first and threw it on top of the bag. I needed work clothes and after-work clothes. Shoes. Underwear. Lacy Jonathan shit seemed absurd. Would his rule still stand? Garter belts and stockings felt frivolous and ridiculous with men in my house looking for cameras and microphones.