Chapter 2
Chapter Two
It had been a long day for Carter too. Beginning when his hand slid across the bed, searching for her in his sleep, but finding only cold sheets. It woke him, as it always did. He frowned as he squinted at the bedroom clock. It was nearly two in the morning.
There’d been a lot of late nights recently, but not that late. He wasn’t worried, not yet. He was pretty sure where he’d find her, and sure enough, there she was fast asleep on the couch. It wasn’t the first time she hadn’t made it to the bedroom after a long day.
There was still that sense of relief at seeing her home safe with his own eyes. For a moment he just watched her, noting the phone still in her hand and the way she was half slumped over. She’d be sore in the morning if he left her like that.
With a sigh he went to make her a little more comfortable. Trying not to wake her, he put her legs up and tucked a pillow under her head. He gently pried the phone out of her hand, saw the low battery light blinking, and went to plug it in so she’d have it for work in the morning.
As soon as it had power, the screen brightened and texts began to appear. He saw the first one and that left him curious enough to keep reading. A cold hard lump of anger began to form in his middle as the messages flew by. He continued to stare at the screen long after it went dark.
They were a few hours old, probably stuck in the queue when her phone went into low battery mode.
They’d most likely come in after she’d fallen asleep, and he almost, almost wished he hadn’t seen them at all, because now he was going to have to confront her.
That meant facing a problem that had been looming over their marriage for a while.
He never made it back to sleep. There was too much to think about. Too many plans to make.
It was long past time to deal with the issues, but it wasn’t going to be easy and part of him was afraid of how she was going to react. Allegra was his world. She was his sub, his wife, his everything that mattered, and she had been hiding things from him.
By the time she was up and out the door in the morning, he knew exactly what he was going to do.
It started with him stepping up to make the difficult choices he’d put off for far too long.
If she still wanted him to be her Dom, and he hoped that was the case, then it was time to get back to the basics.
Carter had known for a while there were issues to work out. He’d tried to bring it up with Allegra on multiple occasions, but she was always too tired, or had to get work done, or was rushing out the door. He should have pushed. He hadn’t, and that was his fault.
To be fair, he hadn’t known how bad things had gotten; she’d kept it secret. But he’d known there were problems, and that meant he wasn’t entirely unprepared for this situation. For a while now, he’d been considering a special vacation to help get them back on track.
He knew the website address almost by heart, he’d been there so often.
This time, instead of just flipping through the pictures, the descriptions, the happy couples who had been through a life-changing experience, he actually went through the process to book the trip.
There was only one future event listed, and it started the following week.
He grabbed it without hesitation, despite the fact that it would be a scramble to get them there with only five days warning.
Allegra would have a million reasons why she couldn’t take the time off right now, and he was going to shut them all down. Their marriage was in trouble and so was she. Nothing was more important than fixing this.
His day was busy enough that he didn’t have time to worry about the showdown they were going to have.
He needed to get some work done, and part of that was delegating a few of his projects, so that he could free up his schedule.
He was going to need the next three weeks off.
Luckily, as the boss of his own company, he could make that happen.
That and making flight plans took most of his morning, which left the afternoon for running errands. He would make her a nice dinner. Put some flowers and wine on the table, and then after they’d eaten, he’d bring up the texts.
That was the plan anyway.
He’d jumped the gun on the last part. Sitting there and saying nothing was just …
too much. How could he make small talk with such a big issue looming?
Once he brought up the texts, the meal had gotten tense.
Holding back the conversation until she’d finished eating took real effort and killed his own appetite.
He didn’t bother to bring out the cheesecake he’d picked up from her favorite bakery.
And once they’d gotten into the conversation things had quickly escalated until she was in the corner and he, for the first time in a long while, was in full Dom mode.
None of that was planned, of course. He was going to ease them both back in, but instincts had taken over—and it felt ... good? Right? Necessary?
Something like that anyway.
For a long time now—had it really been almost a year?—he’d been plagued by self-doubt. Doubting whether she really needed or wanted a Dom. Doubting whether he’d lose her if he pushed too hard. Doubting … everything. It was good to step past that and slip into that comfortable role.
“So, this is what we’re going to do…” He watched her as the pause lengthened and the reality set in.
If she was going to protest, it would be now, but she didn’t.
“We’re going to clear the slate with the hard punishment you’ve earned.
Then we’re going to discuss some serious life changes, because this isn’t working for either of us. ”
She’d always had a pretty good poker face when she wanted to.
She watched him, eyes a little wider than usual, but otherwise her expression was smooth.
The nervousness was in the hands though.
Allegra had always been very expressive with her hands, and he could see them writhing in her lap like they were looking for an escape.
But she didn’t say no. She didn’t try to argue with him. She remained silent.
He waited a few more seconds and then said, in a gentle voice, “You know how this works, Allegra. You can safeword. If this isn’t what you want, I’m not going to force it on you.”
Her lips parted then sealed again without a sound.
She shook her head, drew in a deep breath and then let it out as a long sigh before she finally spoke.
“I’m tired. It’s been a long day, and honestly, I just want to go to bed, but I also want—I want what we used to have. I—” Her voice trembled as she paused.
She took another deep breath, reaching up to brush dark hair off her face. “Can we fix this? Can we go back to how things were?” There was a wistful note in her voice.
He leaned forward, reaching across the low table to touch her leg. “Of course we can, sweetheart. Listen, this is just a hiccup. We’ve gone through a lot of changes in the past year, and yeah, things fell by the wayside, but if we both want it, we can pick them back up now. Is that what you want?”
“Yes, please,” she said, half-sighing the words.
“I need that structure. It always felt so right when you were running things.” Her hand moved to cover his.
“No matter how stressed I was, I always knew you would help. I miss that, but I thought you didn’t want it anymore.
Honestly, I couldn’t blame you. Being a Dom is a lot of mental labor and—”
“I miss it too, Allegra. I’ve been missing it for a long time.
” He straightened and cleared his throat.
“It seems like we had some serious miscommunication. You thought I didn’t want to be a Dom.
I thought you didn’t want to be my submissive anymore.
I wish we’d talked about it instead of making assumptions, but we’re on the same page now. Right?”
“I think so.”
“So, just to be clear… you want our dynamic back. That means rules and structure and punishment.”
Allegra nodded. “Yes.”
“And you know I’m going to lay down some punishment now for the major rules you already broke when you hid things from me?
” This time her yes sounded more like a sigh, but he accepted it.
“Good, last question: do you want to put it off until tomorrow? If you’re too tired, or you need some more time to think, we can wait. ”
“No.” A much more decisive tone. “I don’t want to put it off. Well, I mean, I do, but I feel like we’ve put it off long enough. I’m scared if we don’t jump back in with both feet right now… something will happen and it won’t happen.” Her eyes fixed on him, pleading. “Let’s just do it. Please?”
That’s what he wanted to hear. He released the breath he’d been holding. “Good girl. I said things were going to change, and they are. We have a lot to talk about because this, this running yourself into the dirt to please that—” He cut himself off with a growl.
When he thought about the way her supervisor had spoken to her in those texts his fists clenched, but that was something to deal with later. He shook his head sharply. “That’s done with.”
“But—”
“Nope. We’re not going to argue about it right now. That man has been abusing you and I doubt he would have kept his word anyway. Why would he, when he’s getting so much work from you at no extra cost?”
Clearly she’d thought about that too, because she just frowned and looked away.
“We’ll talk about how that’s going to go later. For now, I want you in the bedroom. Naked. On your hands and knees. On the bed.” Each order a complete statement. Every word backed by iron, leaving no room for arguments.
For a moment he thought she might change her mind about putting the punishment off, but then she swallowed hard and got to her feet. She took three steps, paused for a moment, and then said, “Yes Sir,” in a soft voice. Without another word she left the room.