Chapter Forty-Nine
Whatever Fits the Crime
Siena, May 24, 2012, Dallas, TX
I stumbled into mycar, dizzy and trembling. What I proposed wasn’t redemptory. It was a thrilling game we’d played lots of times, followed by out-of-this-world makeup sex. Crazy-hot sex, which I’d just begged for. I buried my crumbling face in my hands. Desperate, broken. My God, if only I could wake up from this nightmare.
The car flooded with tomblike stillness. A sepulcher where life ceased to exist, and along with it, loss and suffering and all that ever was. If I sat like this, without movement, maybe I, too, would fade into its clammy embrace.
I shuddered and lifted my throbbing head, brushed the useless wetness from my cheeks. All the windows had fogged up, hiding my disgrace from the world. With my fingertip, I traced a jagged Irish triquetra on the glass. Past, present, future. What future? I rubbed it away with the side of my hand.
My awful entreaty aside, Ryan must have still cared for me on some level—the way he wiped my tears, took away that terrible pasta, asked about the key. But his caring was out of habit. He didn’t love me anymore and didn’t want to be with me. He wasn’t touched by my tears, wouldn’t give me another chance. He didn’t want a wife who doubted him when he’d done nothing wrong. Who went behind his back to commit the very crime she’d accused him of with wanton disregard for the consequences.
I straightened. Austin. It was high time to get it together, go home, and discharge the babysitter. I patted my eyes with a tissue, blew my nose, and started the ignition. I’d find a way. I’d survive somehow. Or die trying.
I drove in a sickening daze. Ryan would meet someone. Another woman who would value him and not act on her insane, bizarre suspicions. I’d ruined it—all of it—the beautiful thing that made life shine and sparkle. I’d stomped it into the ground, despite being given a new chance. Squandered it. Threw it away. He didn’t forgive me because my actions were unforgivable. My side of the story that I’d counted on so much had turned into a step-by-step account of my betrayal. I gave a bitter scoff. Clichés are always only that. Perhaps I should have lied, for the truth did not set me free. Instead, it condemned me to the most unbearable of sentences.
Somehow, I drove into my cul-de-sac before I knew how I got there. Our house rose in front of me, and I slammed on the brakes, making the tires screech. Ryan’s SUV was parked in the driveway. I stared at it, wobbly and light-headed. How many times I imagined it here, willed it here. And now it was here. He was here—after dismissing me.
I clutched at my chest, thoughts racing one hundred miles per hour. You know I’m not unfit. No, I most definitely don’t know that.
I blocked his car with mine, rushed into the garage, tossed my key into the recycling bin. Bolted into the nursery.
Ryan stood by the crib, watching our little son sleep. I took a deep breath, then another. He would have already taken Austin if that had been his intent—unless he was waiting for me, so I wouldn’t come home to an empty crib.
A chill crawled down my spine, but I went to my sleeping baby and tucked in his soft blue blanket. It struck me then how natural it seemed—the two of us in our son’s room. But nothing was natural in Ryan’s rigid back and hard jaw. And in his cold muteness.
Minutes ticked by, hard and indifferent. The silence between us rang in my ears like a death knell.
Ryan kept his eyes on Austin. “He’s gotten bigger.”
“He’s walking now,” I squeezed out.
He stiffened, then turned, his expression unreadable. “It’s getting late. Go to bed.”
I dug my fingers into the crib’s guard rail, cold all over. “Ryan, have you—” My voice cracked. “Have you come to take him?”
He jerked as if slapped. “No! Christ—”
We stared at each other in the dim.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Go to bed, Sie.”
I walked away, chest heaving. How low we both have stooped. How little we now thought of each other. Ryan only came to see Austin. Maybe he hated me, but he loved his son. I touched my wedding ring. But he was right here. I could go back and—what? I’d already pleaded my case. I wiped at my stupid leaking eyes. Nothing had changed because he was here.
I went to my closet, shut the door, and took off my dress, scoffing at my pink lingerie. I’d have blushed if I had any shame left. Did I think he’d rush home at the sight of me in the jersey dress, then rip it off me, and be mine again? I kicked at the limp, wine-stained pile. Hope is truly the last to die.
The sound of his approaching footsteps made me go still. He walked into his closet: the rustle of his clothes, the cling of his belt buckle on the floor, his footsteps, heading to the bathroom.
Silent as a ghost, I slipped out of my closet and climbed into bed, my mind drawing one long, careful blank. He was here. In our bedroom. Washing up.
He turned off the faucet and walked out. I lifted my head at his diminishing footfall. Was he getting water? The squeaking of the garage door made me bolt upright. Would he leave undressed? I lay down when his footsteps grew closer again. Then, he was back in the bedroom, approaching the bed. He had something in his hands.
Tense as a bowstring, he lay down beside me. Inches away.
Would he say anything? Touch me?
Heart thudding, I stared at him. “Do you forgive me?” The words emerged in a faint whisper.
“No.” The answer came so quick, I flinched.
“But—”
He interrupted by unclasping my bra. The lacy cups fell apart, leaving me goose-fleshed and unaccountably vulnerable. Then, my wrists were in his grip, and he was binding them with white utility rope in a complicated knot.
So, he’d taken me at my word—I blinked—but why the rope? We had plenty of toys in his nightstand. Anything from his steel handcuffs to my silky black sash.
My heart pounded a furious drumbeat. “What are you going to do?”
He tied the ends of the rope to the spindle headboard.
Holy crap.I pulled at the knot, but it appeared to be the real deal, not his usual playful bow.
He shook his head. “You can’t untie this without me.”
Capture, bondage... My throat went dry as a crazy thought raced through my mind. Ryan was angry with me. Very angry. What if he did something truly horrible? The last six months had satisfied my need for pain and degradation. I wanted none of it now.
“Can you just...” My chest rose and fell like a mad tide. “...tell me what it’ll be?”
He ripped off my panties. Not with passion or eagerness, but with cool, impersonal intent—a task to be done. He didn’t look at me as he pressed my thighs into the bed and bent his head.
Caught off guard by the brutal clash of his tongue against my shocked skin, I struggled to break free. But he held me in place, ignoring my gasps of protest as he kept at his task. Rough, almost rote, he took in this epitome of giving. Harsh and crass. Unfeeling. Relentless. Skillful. He could take all he wanted. I arched my back, catching his rhythm at last, rocking to it, every stroke driving me closer to the edge.
My God, he forgave me.“Ryan...” All my prayers answered at once. “Ryan...” After I thought him lost forever. “Ryan...” Seconds from the brink.
I trembled in pace to his maddening clip, hovering at the point of no return. “Ohmigod, Ryan, ohmigod...”
Very abruptly, he lifted his head and drove both my thighs hard into the mattress.
My body vaulted toward him, mad with need. “Ryan...ohmigod...”
He didn’t stir.
My every cell pulsed and ached. “Baby, come on...”
He shook his head.
I gaped, fighting for breath, feverish with the anticlimax. With starvation and something like pain rolled into frenzy and multiplied by one hundred. “It’s too much...”
He nodded, stone-faced. “I know.”
I swallowed, muttered something unintelligible. I’d never felt so exposed. An idiot, panting and wriggling against his coarse restraints. The tears came unbidden, profuse and lukewarm, rolling down my cheeks and into my ears. How could he watch me squirm with such dispassion? How could he perpetrate this on me?
I jerked away to no effect. “Let me go!”
“In time.”
He held me down, cool and impassive, as I writhed and bucked, gasped and cursed. A gratifying display. He released me when I stopped an eternity later, then lay down beside me and closed his eyes.
“Now you know how I felt listening to that recording—” He turned to me, jaw clenched, “and for all the time after.”
Betrayed. Humiliated. Unloved. He didn’t need to say it.
I took a labored breath. Right, I was the one who suggested the punishment, but I didn’t mean this! I meant spanking, hard or otherwise, followed by whatever method of reclaiming he saw fit. Like a long time ago. Because I could handle that. I would handle that, gladly.
“This isn’t fair, Ryan!”
“I disagree. It’s more than fair,” he returned, sure and unflinching. “And fits the crime.”
I pulled hard at the rope—it tightened. “I’m not asking you to pleasure me!” My words came out shrill and desperate. “Untie me right now, Ryan!”
He shrugged. “If I give you use of your hands, then what would be the point of this exercise? That’s another open-ended question for you.”
“Exercise! You...you’re...” I choked on my outrage.
“Or your bearta smachtaithe —whichever you prefer. It’s all the same to me.”
Chastisement.
I kicked at the comforter, but it didn’t yield. “I told you everything honestly. I didn’t have to! I made a mistake! And this is what you...this is how you...” I couldn’t talk. I’d suffocate if I continued.
He propped himself up on one elbow. “You didn’t have to? Who are you kidding? You’ve been itching to tell me since the moment you left his house.”
I stared, unblinking, lost for words. How the hell was he always right?
“When I said...when I suggested this...” I closed my eyes, drew a long, shuddering breath. “I meant the other thing! The thing that—”
“Spanking?” he offered.
“You know who you are? You’re a...a...who the hell do you think you are!”
“Your husband.” He pulled at the knot, and the rope slid down my arms. He unraveled it and tossed it on the floor. “Iad siúd a cheangail Dia, ná scaoileadh duine iad, Only doing my best to keep us inseparable.”