Chapter 2
Ioften asked myself why I’d married Gage. He wasn’t the easiest to love, and he wasn’t the easiest man to live with. But on those dark days when his intensity became too much to bear, all I had to do was watch him with my daughter.
The following morning, I stood to the side of the dining room entrance and did just that. Pushing my bangs from my eyes, I saw him turn her pancake into a smiley face. He loved her, but more importantly, she loved him.
He’d not only kept my baby girl alive by bringing her back from the brink of death, but he’d given her something I feared she’d never have.
He’d given her a father. So during those times when I hung from the ceiling, my toes barely touching the ground, and endured the bite of his belt, I remembered.
I remembered on days when the belt wasn’t enough, and he moved on to harsher toys.
The paddle riddled with holes. The riding crop that induced a mystical sensation between my thighs—a feeling I couldn’t discern from sexual hunger.
And the deceptive flogger with its soft strips of leather.
That thing inflicted more pain than his belt if he put enough strength behind the lashes.
But paddles and floggers were child’s play to Gage.
He reserved the truly horrific implements for severe infractions despite them being hard limits.
Every time my gaze crossed paths with the bullwhip in the basement, a knife ripped through my chest. That symbol of agony bled memories from its coiled place on the wall.
I couldn’t help but cower at the sight because I knew I wouldn’t escape it forever.
He’d promised a caning if I left the house without permission.
He’d promised to gag me if I lied to him.
He’d promised a date with the bullwhip if I spoke to his brother again.
I was three for three.
“Mommy!” Eve’s smile, along with the sweet scent of pancakes, pulled me into the dining room. As I greeted her, I spied the upward curve of Gage’s lips. He loved making her happy. I was certain the few times he’d scolded her for stepping out of line had upset him more than it had her.
I would have never guessed a man as complex, sadistic, and controlling as Gage could harbor such a soft spot for a child.
Perhaps that hint of vulnerability in him, that glimpse of kindness he rarely displayed, was the reason he’d captured my heart a year ago when I agreed to marry him.
If I were truthful though, I’d hurtled headfirst into loving him before then, and it hadn’t mattered if my sanity shattered upon the fall.
“Gage made me the smiley face again. Do you want one too?”
“I’d love one,” I said with a shaky smile as I slid into a seat. I wanted to share her enthusiasm, her perspective on life, seen through the veil of innocence. But for me, enthusiasm was only found in the bedroom, and I’d lost my innocence long before Gage had gotten his hands on me.
Somehow, that quiet acknowledgment made what I planned to do today a little easier, made the guilt a little more bearable.
I liked to think I was an honest person, someone with a healthy moral compass, but I was far from a saint.
I’d crossed that line the day I’d stolen ten grand from Gage to save Eve.
And I’d do it again without hesitation or remorse.
Eve shoved a huge bite of pancake into her mouth and dripped syrup onto her nightgown.
She didn’t seem to care, and neither did Gage, even though some of the sticky goo dropped onto the dining table, which would surprise most people if they didn’t look beyond the carefully groomed man in the expensive suits.
Something could be said about a man who didn’t mind the sticky fingers of a six-year-old.
Gage set a plate in front of me, squirted a smiley face made of whipped cream onto the perfectly golden pancake, and then he bent and pressed his mouth to mine.
It wasn’t a passionate kiss. We didn’t even part our lips.
But the way he brought his hand to my cheek and feathered his fingers over my suddenly flushed skin melted my heart.
Eve giggled and said something about kissing and a tree, but I was too breathless and flustered to hear if she’d recited the ageless rhyme correctly.
He drifted to my ear and imparted a whispered, “Good morning, beautiful.”
He made me feel beautiful, and that only added to my treachery because I’d dressed with someone else in mind.
“Morning,” I said, sidestepping my guilt as I cut my pancake into neat little sections.
“I forgot to pick up the dry cleaning yesterday. They close early today, so I thought I’d take care of that after breakfast.” Willing my face to give nothing away, I met his eyes and silently asked for his permission.
We had a system in place to protect Eve from our alternative lifestyle, an unspoken code of rules and protocols. If the answer was yes, he’d give the go-ahead, but if I wasn’t allowed to leave the house, he’d tell me not to worry about it today.
I held my breath and waited. Not only would I get a spanking for my failure to do the chore, but I’d “forgotten” on purpose so I’d have an excuse to leave the house.
Deep down, I’d known I’d go, regardless of what I said in my texts yesterday.
Even so, I’d deliberated too long over stopping by the cleaners, and the consequence had been coming home late.
A close call, and all because I couldn’t help but flirt with disaster. Flirt with the forbidden.
I continued to hold his gaze, praying he wouldn’t read the subterfuge in my expression, the stress threatening to pull at the corners of my mouth.
Finally, he gave a slight nod. “I need to speak to you before you go.”
“Okay,” I said, hoping my relief wasn’t too apparent. Showing signs of relief upon confirmation of an impending punishment wasn’t a typical reaction. He made it hurt when he spanked me for an infraction, and if I got wet, he used the nipple clamps and started over.
After breakfast, Gage loaded the dishwasher while I settled Eve in her bedroom with her collection of Barbies. While she quietly played, lost in her own realm of pretend, I waited with my stomach in knots.
Gage stepped into view, and one glance at his firm mouth commanded me to my feet. I bent and placed a kiss on the crown of Eve’s head. “Be good, baby. I need to run an errand. I won’t be long, okay?”
“‘Kay.” She was too wrapped up in her dolls to notice me leaving. I quietly shut the door before following Gage down the hall to our bedroom. He’d had the room soundproofed after we’d married. Neither of us wanted Eve to hear our loud cries of ecstasy. Or my howls of pain.
He didn’t punish me often in this room—usually only when Eve was home, and we needed an accessible space where we could still be close in case she needed us.
Gage turned down the child monitor, and Eve’s soft voice faded to a static whisper. He sank into the designated spanking chair, but I stalled in the middle of the room.
I fucking hated this.
I loved the kinky play between the sheets, even the more brutal sessions with his various toys in the basement because he usually mixed pain with pleasure.
But the punishments…they were bullshit. I thought I could tolerate his never-ending need to control me, but I had to admit, if only to myself, that these past few weeks of stolen freedom had opened my eyes to how he’d isolated me inside his vortex of sex, dominance, and sadism.
Why couldn’t I have the good without the bad?
Did I not deserve that? More importantly, why did he need to hurt me?
To punish me. I’d turned this puzzle over in my head too many times to count.
I figured it stemmed from losing Liz. His world had cracked and fissured under him, and that single, irrevocable moment had forever changed him.
Part of me wondered if this was his way of punishing her for her affair with Ian. Was he unconsciously using me as a proxy?
“Look at me.”
My gaze snapped to his, and only then did I realize I’d been staring at his feet. I loved him in pajama pants, his feet bare, hair mussed. God, he was sexy as hell, more sinful than the devil himself because he appeared more human that way. Less intimidating.
“You know the rules, so quit stalling.”
I wanted to argue with him, but that never ended well. In fact, it ended with an extended date with his firm hand, and I didn’t have time for that today. The sooner I gave him what he wanted, the sooner he’d give me what I wanted.
The freedom to walk out the front door.
I trudged across the room and let him pull me over his knee. He lifted my skirt, using his usual method of slow torture. It shouldn’t take thirty seconds to bare my ass, but he managed to draw it out that long.
“Do you have anything you’d like to tell me, Kayla?”
“I forgot to pick up the dry cleaning yesterday. I need to be punished.”
He gripped my hair and tugged. “Who am I?”
“My Master.”
“I will always be your Master, but apparently you’ve forgotten lately.”
The title had never settled on my tongue with ease, but in certain situations, he wouldn’t let me get away with calling him anything else. I’d learned when to choose my battles, and calling him Master wasn’t one I intended to fight.
He settled me against his abs, tucking me in with a strong arm and leaving his right hand free to deliver the punishing strikes. “Your disobedience needs to stop.”
“I’m sorry, Master.”
“Apology isn’t enough. You’re going to beg me for each swat.”
I gritted my teeth. He was infuriating! His rituals and rules and consequences for the slightest offenses…
they were too much. They were downright absurd.
But I had no one to blame but myself. He’d shown his true colors from day one—that day in his office when he’d used Eve’s cancer to blackmail me into sexual submission.