Complete Submission: (The Submission Series, Books 1-8) (44 page)

“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.’”

“No need.” I cleared my throat, tilted my head, and pinched the corners of my eyes. Then I smiled a customer service smile. “See? All done.”

He took my wrists and pulled me to him, gathered me up in his lap, and put my arms around his neck. “You think I’d forget you so easily?” he said, his face so close I could see the flecks of blue in his green eyes.

“L.A. is full of pretty girls. You’d find another one.” He started to say something, some petty, pithy reassurance that would make me feel even more insignificant. I put my fingers on his lips before he could get a word out and whispered, “Shh. Behave.”

He smiled under my hand, then kissed it. “We’re all forgotten. Every one of us. Even artists and rich men. Eventually.”

“My voice could survive.”

“But with what meaning? This moment, here? On this little patio? This makes us who we are, and in a week, it’s going to be a few pieces of memory. In a year… it’s gone, and everything’s changed.”

“Are you a nihilist, Jonathan?” I stroked the hair on his cheeks as I teased him with my tone.

“I believe in plenty. You, for one. Your loyalty to your friend. The way you took care of her and still take care of her.” He kissed my lips and kept his face so close to mine I felt his breath. “Will you let me take care of you?”

“To an extent.”

“I want to get someone in to put food in your fridge.”

“No.”

“Your deadbolt is broken. That day when I said the door was unlocked, it wasn’t. I opened the doorknob lock with a credit card. The deadbolt wasn’t even set right.”

“I’ll fix it.”

“I’ll get someone in.” His fingers found their way between my legs again, stroking inside my thighs.

“Jonathan, I put the first one in. I can do it again.”

“Oh, is that why it works so well?” I pursed my lips. He pulled my hand off his cheek and held it. “I’m not questioning your competence, but I don’t think you’re defining yourself by your ability to set in a deadbolt. Or are you going to become L.A.’s first singing locksmith?”

I rested my head on his shoulder. “Fine. You have someone lock me up tight.”

“On all the doors.” His fingertips found a place between my legs where moisture gathered in response to his touch and his breath.

I sighed. “If it’ll make you happy.”

“It would keep unhappiness at bay.” He dragged his finger up my pussy and across my clit. My breath hitched from the soreness and pleasure. “Open your legs for me.”

“Another go?” I murmured.

“Yes.”

We shifted so my back was to him. He released himself with the clink of a belt buckle and the purr of a zipper. I put my hands on the table as he reached around and pulled my legs farther apart.

“All the way,” he said. “I want you to feel me.” He stretched me apart to the point of pain, then pulled off my robe. Again, I found myself nude against his clothed body, exposed, vulnerable to him. His dick rolled past my ass and found the source of my wetness. I put my weight on it and groaned with how deep he went, how the soreness stung, and how the skin of my sex felt abused and loved.

Our hands met between our legs, feeling where we were coupled, taking turns touching my clit, stroking his shaft when it was exposed and feeling it enter me. I rubbed his balls under his clothes. Our hands went wild, fingers kneading, palms rubbing. He ran his damp hand up my belly and held my breast, twisting the nipple between two fingers. I was crazy with him, a circle of hunger and desire. He pulled me toward him until the back of my head was on his shoulder, and he whispered in my ear, “You are mine, goddess.”

I groaned. Close, wrapped in a web of hands and wetness and throbbing shaft moving inside me.

“Mine,” he said, pressing my hand to where were coupled, his sliding dick against my wet flesh. “This is us together. I own it. This body is my plaything. Your ache is mine. Your orgasm is mine. Your hunger is mine. Your dirty thoughts are mine.”

“I’m going to come.”

“Say it.”

I was so close, but I wanted to say it before I exploded. I turned so my lips were close to his ear. “I’m yours. My pleasure is yours. My wet pussy is yours. You own me, Jonathan. You are the master of my fuck.”

“Jesus, you are something else.”

He thrust his hips forward. I sat up and matched him thrust for thrust. He moved my hand between my legs, my palm rubbing his dick and my clit at the same time. It was beautiful, soaking, earthy, celestial, electric. I slammed myself on him, driving him deep as I groaned, grinding my orgasm against the base of his cock, bending my body forward, winding like a spring, and unwinding with a shout.

A few gentle rocks, and I felt his hands tighten on my hips, grabbing flesh and digging in. He’d done it. He’d found the place I wasn’t sore and bruised it, moving me up and down against him with decreasing gentleness.

He groaned, and with a final thrust forward, he yanked my hips down, coming inside me while whispering, “Monica, Monica, Monica.”

JONATHAN

I
had a sinking uneasiness. It wasn’t necessarily about leaving her for D.C. It was about how often I left and stayed gone. I trusted her intentions, but I didn’t trust her ability to make wise decisions. She’d basically admitted Kevin had vengeful thoughts about her, and dismissed them as part of his artistic process.

I wondered if she’d been bitten by a shithouse rat. If she expected Darren to protect her, she was sorely out of her league. He was a mother hen. He’d tuck her into bed and feed her soup if she got sick, but if that guy started doing the revolting shit I saw in those drawings, Darren was as good as useless.

I didn’t feel much more useful.

Mostly because as soon as I hit the 101 and got too far away from her to turn back, I started planning the next time I’d see her. Nothing between visits occupied my mind. I already wanted to taste her again, feel her legs wrapped around my waist, and hear her sighs. I wanted to take action. Do something. Make some gesture that would bring her closer. Some sort of act that would bind her to me, even when I was away.

I felt greedy thinking about how much I missed her. I wanted more. More time. More sex. More laughing. I wondered if each of my sisters would like her. How each would react. Five out of seven would love her, and that thought warmed me. The warmth, instead of providing comfort, grew to a painful burn. I’d let my mind wander. I’d let something happen since last night when I kissed her eyelids. She was mine to protect and care for, a responsibility I relished.

MONICA

J
onathan had left only hours ago, and I’d gone right back to bed. A rumble in the driveway woke me at eight a.m. It sounded like a farting tuba being played in a closet. I peeked out the window. A Ford pickup as long as a bus pulled into my driveway, blocking my car.

I threw on last night’s clothes and ran out to the porch. He was obviously in the wrong driveway. He was right at my door when I opened it. Six four. A solid wall of muscle with a face to match and blonde hair that looked as if it had already done a full day’s work.

“Dr. Thorensen is next door,” I said.

“I’m here for the Faulkner residence?”

I looked at his polo. The logo on the breast said The Foundation Guys, and the name DAVE was embroidered above it. Jonathan said he had guys.

“I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” I said.

“Yeah, well, it’s been slow lately. Anyway, coming to check it out. Get kinda like a bead on the situation?”

“Yeah, well, I gotta get to work. Do you need me?”

“Nope, just your crawlspace. You got a dog or something? Gonna bite me?”

“No, but I’ll bite you if I’m late to work. I have to get the Honda out.”

He laughed and ran to the truck, and I shut myself behind closed doors to get ready. When I got out of the shower, I heard scuffling from Gabby’s room. Tiptoeing to the doorway, I found Darren stacking and restacking piles of
Hollywood Reporters
.

“Mon,” he said, indicating the towel wrapped around me, “I’m still a man, okay?”

“You could knock.”

“I could if I wanted to sit on your porch for half an hour.”

“Seriously. I have a boyfriend, and you could walk in on God-knows-what.”

“Ah, right. Stay kinky, Monica. Stay kinky,” he said, smiling. I whipped off the towel wrapped around my head and snapped it at him. “New trick?”

I whipped it again, and he grabbed it. I couldn’t get it back because I needed to keep the other towel on myself with my free hand.

“Can you get dressed, please?” Darren threw the towel back.

I ran into my room and heard him through the wall as I wiggled into jeans and a shirt. When I got back to Gabby’s room, he was sorting through manila envelopes absently, as if deciding what to do with the whole stack rather than whether or not to keep any individual file.

“What’s happening with the work crews?” he asked.

“My foundation’s slipping, or actually,
has slipped.
”

“No shit. How you paying to fix that?”

When I didn’t answer, he waved his hand, looking as if he was holding back a torrent of recriminations.

“Can we be done fighting?” I said.

“What fighting? Who’s fighting? The thing in the parking lot?”

“Yes.”

“I thought that was foreplay.” Though his words were a joke, his voice took a serious timbre.

I felt a shudder that turned to heat on my cheeks. I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want anyone to know. He must have imagined me tied up and gagged, like the girl suspended over the bar with wet underpants and come dripping out of her mouth. Would he avoid making eye contact with me? Would I always think he thought less of me?

I changed the subject, indicating the piles of papers and envelopes. “We should just throw it all out or keep it all. Going through it is just going to make you sad.”

“She spent so much time on this stuff. It feels wrong to just trash it.”

“It doesn’t feel wrong,” I said. “It feels too easy. And like a fast train to regret.”

“Cheap. Like everything would feel cheap.”

“It’s not the same as throwing
her
away.” I sorted through stacks, not really thinking. Some envelopes were thicker than others. Some had trees and webs of relationships penciled on them. Some were so thin they couldn’t have been more than an idea. “I miss her. I think about her all the time. I should have called her when the location changed. I shouldn’t have made that scratch cut without her. I’m sorry, Darren. I’m so sorry. I feel like I took your sister from you.” I couldn’t look at him, just the never-ending pile of envelopes left behind as her legacy.

“It wasn’t your fault, Monica. It was a stupid accident.”

“No, it wasn’t. Stop defending me. She committed suicide because she was getting cut out. You know it, and I know it.”

“No, you
don’t
,” he said with a pointed finger and raised voice. “You have two possible scenarios, and you believe the one that makes you responsible? Sorry, no. You want to get beat up during sex, that’s fine, but this emotional masochism is bullshit.”

“She committed suicide whether I take responsibility or not,” I yelled back.

“No. She. Didn’t.” Darren ground his teeth. If I took responsibility, he’d have to as well. For not babysitting, for not watching more closely, for not counting her meds. It could go on and on in ever-expanding circles of self-blame.