Complete Submission: (The Submission Series, Books 1-8) (87 page)

When I woke up, I had the feeling something had gone terribly wrong. I swam to consciousness feeling as if I was being choked. I panicked the same panic I had felt in that doorway. I couldn’t control my sensations, my body, my thoughts. I couldn’t see clearly. I couldn’t move my arms. I was bound like a prisoner. My voice was dead. My face itched. Was I warned it would feel like that?

Or was I dead and in the hell of everything I’d ever done to every woman I’d tied down and fucked? I thought of Dante. His hells were the excess of our desires and, in the deepest circles, the pain of our victims. There I was. Fuck. I was terrified. I didn’t think I could stand it for eternity. The blackness, the crippling paralysis. No control. Utter submission to emptiness. I was breathing, but the pressure on my throat was enormous. I’d never choked a sex partner because I never believed I could control the results. How could my hell include that? I never believed life was fair, but was God so unjust?

“Jonathan.”

A voice. Female. I recognized it as Sheila’s. She always had a way about her that seemed as though she’d given birth to the world and loved it to maturity, even when her words cut deep and rage twisted her mouth.

I realized I could open my eyes if I chose to. The whisper and beep of machines broke the silence of my anxiety. Okay. Not hell. Not dead. But the choking feeling was real, and I panicked again.

Sheila’s face blocked out the light. “You’re intubated. The machine is breathing for you. Keep still. It’s okay.”

I chose to believe her. I waited. It was five minutes to three. I couldn’t speak to ask her to unbind my wrists, so I stared at the clock. At three o’clock, I closed my eyes and imagined I could touch my lips.

MONICA

T
hree p.m. came unexpectedly. I figured it would, since I was supposed to be in the studio, so I’d set my phone alarm to remind me. It dinged as I listened to Eddie launch into a diatribe. I closed my eyes, shut out Eddie’s aggravation, and touched my lips, thinking of nothing but Jonathan. The warmth in my chest and the smile on my face didn’t last.

His voice was tight enough to shatter my reverie. “Are you fucking with me?”

“He’s your friend too. It’s not like you can pretend to think I’m lying.” I was in the third floor stairwell, avoiding the mob in the waiting room. It was nice that Jonathan had so many family members who cared about him, it was also overwhelming.

“We got the contract signed in a week,” he said.

“I know.”

The fourth floor door smacked open, and Leanne Drazen tore down the stairs. Theresa’s Irish twin, she was two years and ten months older than Jonathan, but she looked and acted as if she was in her mid-twenties. A tote bag flew behind her, and her red cowboy boots clopped down the steps. She looked tattered and slovenly, strawberry-blond hair falling out of a ponytail and her bag open.

“That’s fucking unheard of,” Eddie said. “We had to send twenty-two people home. Do you know what we paid to get them in there on two day’s notice?”

“No.”

Leanne grabbed the bannister and swung around, inertia and centripetal force taking her to the top of the next set of stairs. She grabbed my shoulders. “He’s out!”

“A fucking
lot,
” Eddie said into my ear.

I put my hand over the receiver. “How does he look?” She put her thumb up and smiled then took off down the stairs with a wave. Sweet girl. Too bad she was never around. “I have to be here, Ed.” I bounded up to the fourth floor.

“I’m not saying I don’t understand. I was at the show. I saw it. What I’m saying is, I don’t know if I can herd these cats again.”

“Tell me what hoop I have to jump through to get a reschedule, and I’ll jump it.” I strode through the waiting room, past two sisters and a mother. Margie indicated a room, and I went in. Sheila, the most vulnerable-seeming of the bunch, was with him. With wild, wheaten hair and four children born close together, she was the one most visibly upset about her brother. Jonathan was there, lying on his back arms on top of the blankets and tubes everywhere.

“When can you do it?” Eddie asked.

“Next week. I think he’ll be better then.”

“I need a guarantee.”

I touched his arm, and Jonathan opened his eyes. When he saw me, he winked. “Guaranteed.” I hung up the phone. To Sheila, I said, “Well? It went okay?”

“Yeah. They just pulled a tube out of his throat and unstrapped him.”

Jonathan picked up his hand and flicked his fingers to Sheila. The international sign for
shoo
. She started to object, but Margie grabbed her arm.

“Come on. The kids need you,” Margie said.

“Onna has them.”

Margie pulled her out, but Eileen, Jonathan’s mother, strode in. “Ma,” Margie said, “you were just here.”

But Eileen ignored her. “Jon, how are you feeling?”

“Tired.”

“Should we go?” She put her hand on my arm as if I was going out with her.

“Yes. I mean, let me talk to Monica for a minute.”

She smiled the biggest, fakest thing I’d ever seen in my life. “Of course.”

“Oh, ma?”

“Yes?”

He pointed at me. “Spot for Christmas Eve. Okay? Don’t forget.”

“Of course.” Eileen looked at me. “You’re free?”

“You bet.” I put on my customer service smile. Once she was out, I sat next to him. I didn’t say anything, but somehow he intuited what I was thinking.

“That’s just how she is.”

He looked as pale as death, and his body was flat under the sheets as if he could have just sunk into them. His face looked slack, inactive. His eyes were unfocused, and the lids didn’t want to stay open. That wasn’t Jonathan. He was some other, powerless man who didn’t yank my head back by my hair as he pounded me from behind. Someone who didn’t fuck me in such a slow, controlled way I felt every inch of my orgasm. He wasn’t the man whose name I’d cried into the night; the man to whom I entrusted control, to whose dominance I submitted. He was another man entirely, and I loved him.

I took his hand. “You look like shit.”

“You look like an angel.” His voice crunched like gravel under a tire.

“I should tie your elbows behind your back with a belt and spank you until you scream. To get your voice back. Works every time.”

A smile curled the side of his mouth. He croaked so low I had to put my ear to his mouth to hear him. “A week. I’m going to do unspeakable things to your body.”

“Really?” I kept my face to his and my voice low. “Like what?”

I realized I’d asked too much of him when he licked his lips, paused, and said, “Secret.” He’d love to tell me, I knew that, but between having his chest cracked open and the tube down his throat, it probably hurt to speak.

“I know already,” I said. He raised an eyebrow. “I can read your mind.”

“Not this. It’s filthy.”

I reached over until my body bridged his and touched his ear with my lips. “The great and powerful Madame Monica will predict the future with utmost certainty. Are you ready to hear your destiny, young man?” I was so close to him that when I looked into his eyes, I could see the blue flecks.

“What’s this gonna cost me?”

“Everything.”

“Worth it.”

*

We’re in your house. The living room. I’m naked from the waist up, and you’re in jeans and a polo shirt. You’re looking at me like you want to eat me alive, but you don’t. Yet. You’re waiting. You’re thinking. You’re constructing the next minutes of my life like a movie director blocks a scene.

You tell me to take off my pants, and I do. You watch. You like my body. The way my breasts hang when I bend over to release my feet. My ass when I bend at the waist.

When I step out of my jeans, you step toward me in your bare feet. I look nervous. You tell me to stop my hands from twitching, and when I cast my eyes down and say ‘yes, sir,’ you feel power surge in you. Everything’s under control. Everything’s going to be all right, unless it’s not. What you have planned can go terribly wrong. The worry bothers you.

You ask me my safe word, and I tell you to shut up and fuck me.

‘Oh, goddess,’ you say. Then you take the hair at the back of my neck and pull until I’m looking at the ceiling. My lips part, and I sigh.

‘Say it. Or you can put those jeans back on and go home.’

I mouth ‘tangerine’ but don’t use my voice.

You look down at me and you say, ‘Say it.’

I whisper it so softly you can barely hear it. You spin me around and shove me into the kitchen. I start to turn back, but you bend me over the butcher block. You’re sharp and violent, and when you see me cringe, your dick gets hard. You want to see me scream. You need it.

You.

Need.

It.

Your dick is out, a throbbing piece of meat aimed between my legs. There’s wetness emanating from me. It would slide in so easily. You’d be sucked into my cunt so fast, and you’d forget everything.

‘Say it, or you go home.’ You feel me quiver under you. You think you might just have me put my jeans on and leave. That would be the right punishment for making you uneasy. You slap my ass, and I yelp as if I didn’t expect it. Your hand stings, and you’re poised to do it again when I speak up.

‘Tangerine.’

The word is barely out of my mouth, and you’re fucking me, pressing my cheek to the butcher block. Thrust after thrust...you know you’re pushing the countertop against the sensitive part of my hip. I’m yours to hurt, and you know it. The things on the counter rattle as you fuck me. Salt and pepper grinders. A canister of utensils. Fancy bottles of condiments. You pull my ass cheeks apart with your free hand so you can go deeper, gripping hard enough to bruise, watching how your fingers indent my skin. My feet come off the floor, you’re pounding me so hard. I gasp and grunt.

You take a bottle of olive oil and smack it against the edge of the counter, breaking the neck. I’m startled, but you push my head down hard. The glass is everywhere. Oil splashes on the floor. You run your hand down my back as you fuck me. Slowly, you pour oil on my back. You rub it all over me then pour more until a river of oil falls into the crack of my ass. You feel it on your cock. You pull out then slide in again. Hard. Once. Twice. Olive oil coats us. You slap my butt again and again. I cry out in pleasure, your name on my lips.

Then without breaking your rhythm, you jam your cock in my ass.

I scream.

You’re halfway in, and you feel two things at once. You’re incredibly aroused…aroused enough to lose control. But there’s also the worry that in losing control, you’ll hurt me. You ask me how I am.

I say through my teeth, ‘Is that all you got, Drazen?’ My face is red. My fingers are clutching the edge of the butcher block.

You put down the bottle and take my jaw, turning it until I’m facing you. You bend until you’re so close you can smell green tea on my breath. Then you push the rest of the way into me, the skin of your dick sliding against the olive oil, stretching me without friction as a barrier.

I grunt. You know it hurts, you see it in my eyes. But you don’t stop. You whisper words of encouragement, pulling out, then slamming into me. We’re mouth to mouth as I whimper and you fuck my ass. Sliding in and out with the olive oil. Balls deep. I’m tight. You’re getting squeezed. I’m getting ripped apart.

But my whimpering is turning into gasps and moans. I’m looking at you now with something besides agony. You go faster, pounding. Pushing deeper with every stroke. You pull me up until we’re both standing. You slide your hand across my breasts and down my stomach. There’s oil everywhere. Your fingers go between my legs and find my clit right away. It’s hard to the touch. When you circle it, you slow your thrusts. You slip over it, reaching for my hole. Then you drag four fingers over my clit. You do this over and over, until I beg.

‘Let me come. Please.’

You want me to come while you’re in my ass. You want me to want it after it hurts me. That’s the victory, to have us both love my pain.

I’m whispering ‘please’ like a chant. Your fingers move in the same circles. You have me at the edge. You own me. ‘Please, please, please, please.’

You say, ‘Come.”

I thrust my hips into you, burying you in me. There’s a moment of nothing, then you feel my orgasm on your dick, pulsing around you. Gripping you. Milking your cock until the fullness in you is too much to bear, and you have to let it go. You slam into me and come. You lose control, forgetting your hand is gripping my cunt. You bite my shoulder, and I scream for the second time. You lose yourself. You forget everything.

*

JONATHAN

I
 felt her.

We spoke. I wanted to possess her, but I couldn’t find the strength to move my arms. I smelled her canned peaches scent and heard the warm caramel of her voice. I answered her in short sentences, because I felt as if I’d gulped a handful of driveway and forgot how to swallow.

She tapped my arm as she described what I would do to her. Even in my state, I got hard because it was an epic fuck coming from her sweet mouth. I didn’t even know if she noticed, but with that tapping finger, she was keeping a rhythm as she told the story. I strained to listen as unconsciousness tried to invade again. I heard her words, but what I felt when she talked about me hurting her was the connection created when her pain turns to pleasure, and she is under me, a piece of the world I control completely.

“You’re good at this,” I said. “I’m taking mental notes.”

“When did the doctor say you could enslave me again?”

“As soon as I was up to it.”

“I predict day after tomorrow.”

“You’re selling me short.”

“I’ll be at your service tomorrow if you want. But you’re in here for five days, and you need to be alone tonight.”

I grumbled deep in my throat. She was right, of course. The drugs hadn’t even worn off. I had no idea how I would feel about sex once the pain kicked in. All I knew was I wanted to be inside her. “Go sleep in your bed tonight, then.”

“If I’m up at three a.m., I’ll think of you.” She stood straight and got her bag. “Actually, if I’m awake any time, I’ll think of you.” She leaned down to kiss me, and I touched her lips.