The Ex (35 page)

The camera quietly snapped again. “Open your legs. Wide enough for me to see every grasp, every quiver of that beautiful cunt.”

“Oh god,” I whimpered. I pinched my nipple between my thumb and forefinger and molded my palm to the curve of my breast.

The bed shifted. Through heavy-lidded eyes, I watched him settle between my legs, the lens intimately close to my vulva. The camera whirred.

I was almost there, pleasure building and spreading, coiling tight in my groin. Neil tossed the camera aside and hooked his arms beneath my knees, jerking me down the bed. He knocked my hand aside and buried his mouth between my labia, lapping my clit with speed that had me convinced that Neil’s tongue was the strongest muscle in his body. I shouted, “I’m coming!” and my thighs squeezed his head. My climax left me jerking and shivering. He sat up and wiped his hand down his shining chin.

He reached down to unzip his pants and kick free of them. I was still floating back down when he covered my body and the wide tip of his cock parted me. He took the camera from beside me on the bed and pointed the lens at my face. “One more. So, I can remember what it was like the first time I fucked my wife.”

The light on the camera flickered, and he threw it aside, moving to guide himself farther inside me. My vagina was snug and pillowy, and though I was dripping wet, it caused him a moment’s trouble to penetrate me. He slipped in an inch then withdrew to slick my fluids over my vulva, painting a wide stripe over my clit and down again. He filled me with every thick, rigid inch while I bucked and babbled. His hand sank into my hair as his cock sank into my body, and he tilted my head back to look me in the eyes.

“Your wife,” I repeated, reveling in the words. “I am yours, Sir. All yours.”

He kissed me then released his hold and rested his forehead against mine, whispering, “No, Sophie. I’m yours.”

Mine
. God, no wonder he loved hearing me say that to him. It was intimate, and powerful. In saying it, Neil made himself vulnerable to me in a way that he’d never done as my Sir. Granted, we weren’t playing hard, but I was still lying there, under a man to whom I willingly surrendered my body and mind, a man whose name was inscribed inside the collar I wore to mark me as his, and he was giving himself to
me
.

Tears sprang to my eyes. “It’s happy crying,” I blurted, before he could worry that we needed to stop. He sat up, pulling me with him, our bodies still joined as he sat back on his heels. He adjusted me in his lap, guiding my legs to wrap around his back as we rocked together. I pressed my face into his neck, weeping with the pleasure and joy I felt.

He caught my wrists and held them behind my back, and with a few more gentle strokes, he stilled inside me, hot and throbbing as he groaned beside my ear. He released me, and we clung to each other, sweaty and out of breath, our mouths meshed hungrily together, our hands in each other’s hair.

Sure, ours wasn’t a traditional love story. My handsome prince occasionally turned into the big, bad wolf, but I jumped whole-heartedly into the jaws of his Dominance. Neil had awakened my senses in a way no one else had, rousing me from my slumber with a kiss of pain and a gentle hand.

This was our fairy tale, at the beginning of our happily ever after.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

After
two weeks of sun, sand, and way too much sex, going home was a vacation unto itself. I jumped back into work and enjoyed the bliss of returning relaxed and refreshed, for three whole hours. Granted, at least one of those hours was dedicated to showing Deja and Penny the safe-for-work honeymoon photos I had. With the wedding out of the way and a conflict-free schedule stretching out before me like a limitless horizon—that was probably just a hyper-realistic mural on the brick wall of reality that I would inevitably run into—I got to stress over life at work, instead of stressing over how to make work fit into my life.

Home life was so much better than expected. Neil and I had known that we would come back to the problems we’d left behind, but things just seemed different. Maybe the “boring” part of boring married life was why people found the union so appealing. There didn’t have to be any doubt, you were just kind of in…and that was it. No drama.

Until Saturday afternoon.

Splitting time between Manhattan and Sagaponack had turned the house into a kind of retreat, and we found ourselves becoming lazier every day we spent there. Neil and I were in comfy workout clothes we’d put on, but hadn’t any intention of exercising in, lounging in bed. Neil lay back on the pillows, one arm behind his head. I was crouched over, painting my toenails, when his phone chirped.

Of course, right when I was trying to catch up on season three of
Hannibal.

“Oh, come on. Leave it,” I groaned, tearing my eyes from the screen. Damn. I’d way overshot my pinkie toe during the gory part.

He frowned at the screen and moved his thumb to pick up the call.

I exaggerated my sigh, hit pause, and grabbed a cotton swab to clean up my mistake.

“Neil Elwood,” he answered, still frowning. He listened for a moment. His body tensed, and he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “How did you get this number?”

My ears perked up.

“Baby? Who is it?” I asked, carefully screwing the lid back on the nail polish remover. I’d already ruined one duvet, and for that reason, Neil hated me doing my nails in bed. This time, I’d promised not to spill a drop of anything smelly.

“No,” he said firmly. Then, more forcefully, “I have no comment at this time.”

What the hell was going on?

“May I have your name again?” Neil strode from the room, his repeated, “How did you get this number?” fading down the hall.

I jumped up to follow. Hobbled by my wet toes, I had to clomp along on my heels. By the time I caught up with him in his study, he was practically shouting into the phone, “If you or anyone from your publication phones me again, you’ll hear from my attorneys.” He ended the call and tossed his cell onto the blotter on his desk. It immediately rang again, and he snatched it up, threatening no one in particular, “If it’s that same bloody—”

His expression turned to stone, like Medusa had snuck into the iOS operating system.

“Different…bloody…?” I tried to guess at the extremely English word he would have spat next. “Tosser?”

Nah, not extreme enough, for the way he looked at the moment.

He actually answered, “I have no comment at this time,” and hung up without a further word. Before he could turn off the ringer, email alerts began exploding like microwave popcorn.

“What’s going on?” My arms crept around my stomach, as though I could hug myself safe from whatever was happening.

Weary, defeated, he said, “It appears Stephen has said some rather shocking things in an interview. There are members of the press looking for my comment on our ‘love affair’.”

“’Love affair?’” I choked back my revulsion.

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to change this number.” He regarded the phone on the desk with his hand wrapped around his chin.

How could he just sweep those horrible words under the rug? How could he ignore this? Stephen was outing Neil and framing what had happened between them as though it had been romantic. “I think you need to do more than just change your number.”

“I’ll contact Joe Davis at Elwood and Stern. They’ve helped me with damage control before.” He almost picked up his phone, then turned to me and asked, “May I use your phone? If no one has ferreted out the number yet?”

“Why would they—” Because I was his wife. I was public knowledge now; our wedding had been in the papers, and we’d even profiled it in the August issue of
Mode
. Oh god, with this out, people would definitely have questions for me. “We have to do more than just change our numbers and get some PR guys.”

“Like what?” he demanded. “What would you have me do?”

His mood had understandably changed, but his anger now focused on me, so ferocious that it shocked me. Worse, I didn’t have an answer for him; I didn’t know what I wanted him to do. I wanted him to fix this, somehow, so it would all go away. And I felt selfish for wanting that, because I couldn’t decide if I wanted it to go away for his sake, or for mine. What I’d experienced during his chemotherapy and transplant had been so similar. I’d had moments of private crisis during which I couldn’t tell if I wanted him to get better because he was in pain, or if I wanted him to get better because I was tired of seeing him in pain. That kind of confusion is hard to deal with, and I was out of practice. I’d put myself on the spot, now, and I didn’t know how to back out.

“I want to know, Sophie, what you would have me do to handle this situation, over which I have no control, and which does not affect you!” he shouted, raking a hand through his hair.

“I’m not affected?” My breath exploded from my gaping mouth in a hoarse puff of disbelief. “First of all, I’m going to be affected when people start trying to trick me into saying stuff about you. Second, do you think it doesn’t affect me when you’re hurting?”

“I’m not hurting! I’m annoyed to have my private number given out to a pack of vultures who want to, to…revel in my public humiliation.” His voice cracked, and he turned away from me, a hand over his eyes.

I wanted to go to him, but he was so angry, it wouldn’t have done anything but piss him off more. He hated feeling helpless. But I couldn’t just leave him like this.

“Neil…this wasn’t your fault.” My heart ached for him. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Stephen raped you. He’s the one who should be embarrassed by all this.”

Neil squinted and rubbed his forehead. “Will you please stop calling it that?” he scolded, trying to sound reasonable above the weariness in his voice.

“Why not?” How could he not see that this was an injustice being done to him? How could he not understand that any freak out he might have over this would be totally understandable? “Why are you sitting here, diminishing what he did? Protecting him? Why can’t you just call it what it was?”

“Because that’s not who I want to be!” he shouted. “I don’t want to be a victim or a survivor or whatever the hell you expect me to call myself. I don’t want it to have happened to me. I don’t want to know exactly what it was. I’m not stupid, Sophie, I know what happened that night! The man I trusted, the man I believed I was falling in love with, had no regard for my safety, my feelings, my body… It was emotionally damaging, and yes, it has made me wildly suspicious of my romantic partners for years after, but it’s what happened to
me.
You don’t have a say in what I call it!”

Shame shocked through me like electricity. My fingertips tingled, and my heartbeat sped up. I would never be able to grasp the enormity of the violation he’d experienced; Neil would never rip apart my trust and abuse my body. I would never have to go through the fear and betrayal that he’d experienced, and I’d lectured him on how to feel?

Now, I couldn’t even think of how to apologize without it sounding like I was making it all about me.

Struggling with a way to phrase it, speak it without sounding like I was asking to be excused, I said cautiously, “You’re right. It’s not up to me to tell you how to react to this. I haven’t been respectful to you.”

“No, you haven’t.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. He looked upward and blew out a breath. “At this point, Sophie, all I want is for this to be gone. I don’t want this hanging over me anymore. I don’t want to be afraid, when I’m with Emir, for example. I don’t want to worry that every new partner we’re with could do that to me again. Or do that to you.

“This thing… It’s ruined a part of me. I’ve been talking to Doctor Harris about how to confront that. But I can’t. I can’t acknowledge what Stephen did. It feels like he’s winning. It feels like he’s doing that to me all over again.” His shoulders sagged, and he dropped his arm, all the defensiveness bleeding from his posture. “At the same time, I want him to acknowledge what he’s done. I want… This sounds so contradictory.”

“No, come on. You can tell me anything,” I promised, when it seemed as though he wouldn’t continue.

Neil took a breath. “I want to confront him.”

That
did
sound contradictory, but I understood. On that score, it was kind of how I felt about my dad. I didn’t want to see him, but I wanted to, at the same time. One part of me wanted to scream and shout and tell him how much he’d hurt me, while another part wanted to go on with my life, pretending he didn’t exist. Yet another part wanted to pretend he didn’t exist, but wanted him to yearn for a relationship with me, so I could reject him. Though our circumstances weren’t the same, I could definitely sympathize with Neil wanting to hide from someone and still wanting to call them out.

I assumed he’d spoken about this to Dr. Harris, so I asked, “What does the doctor have to say about that?”

“That in my present state, I may not be healthy enough for a confrontation to be helpful.” He crossed his arms then dropped them, as though he were unsure of where to place his hands. “I want to see him. I think it’s best for me.”

The thought of Stephen being anywhere near Neil physically sickened me. “You wouldn’t meet him somewhere private, right? You wouldn’t be alone with him?”

“Never,” he said quickly, his eyes widening in terrified disbelief. “Sophie, that would be like you being alone with a spider.”

“I do hate spiders,” I said with a hesitant smile. I didn’t want him to think I was making a joke out of this. “But a spider isn’t going to attack me.”

“You certainly behave as though they will.” His mild good humor faded. “I would be far too frightened to be alone with him. Doctor Harris said that should I insist on going through with the meeting, he would supervise. And I’d like for you to be there.”

Torn between wondering why he would want me there, after the shitty interfering I had done, and wanting to leap for joy that he’d asked for my help, I agreed. “Of course I’ll be there. And, if the time comes, and you change your mind about me going, I’ll understand that, too.”

“I know you will.” He half smiled, the tired expression of a man who’d won the battle, but taken heavy damage. He put his arms out, and I went to him, my chest hurting with the relief I felt at the opportunity to comfort him physically. Hugs wouldn’t solve everything, but I was pretty sure they could make things a little better, at least.

* * * *

Neil
contacted Stephen through Dr. Harris. It took some convincing; at one point, Neil considered asking Valerie to intervene. Ultimately, Stephen agreed, and the meeting was set for the first week of August, when he would be in the city for more publicity appearances.

At Dr. Harris’s suggestion, Neil would confront Stephen at the therapist’s office. It would be safer than a restaurant, where alcohol would be far too accessible.

Plus, the doctor could throw Stephen out if things got ugly.

Though Dr. Harris made very expensive house calls, his Manhattan office occupied the first floor of a converted brownstone on the upper west side. We arrived early, and the doctor met us in the waiting room. The walls were a lovely slate gray, with a white ceiling, trim, and crown molding. An elaborate Persian rug in shades of navy, silver, black and muted gold protected the gleaming wood floor.

Dr. Harris was handsome in a Mitt Romney kind of way, with a square jaw, furrowed brow, and skin the color of a boiled chicken breast. It was easy to imagine him as a pastor with six kids who all wore matching sweaters in the family Christmas card photo. But, as uncharitable and snarky as I could be in my personal assessment of him, he’d helped Neil, and would continue to help him. So, Dr. Harris was one of my favorite people on the planet, at the moment.

“Neil, good to see you.” Harris put out his hand, and as Neil shook it, the therapist turned to me. “And this must be your wife.”

“Yes, this is Sophie,” Neil introduced us. “Sophie, this is Dr. Harris.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” I told him then frowned at my own words. “That was probably your line.”

“No, doctor-patient confidentiality prohibits that kind of remark,” he said with such seriousness that I almost apologized for offending him. Then, he smiled. “I’m joking. Trying to lighten the mood.”

Neil’s gaze darted nervously toward the door across the waiting room. “Is he…”

“Yes. Mr. Stern has arrived. Take all the time you need. If you decide you don’t want to do this, you know I support that decision.” The way he said it seemed to imply that he would rather Neil change his mind; I had a feeling he wasn’t as convinced of the efficacy of this meeting as Neil was.