DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

I got to work at ten.

The night before, Adam had helped me pack things, take perishable food out of the fridge, and lock up. We took a cab to Murray Hill, where I reacquainted myself with the apartment he’d had when we met.

Three bedrooms with casement windows and a four-foot-wide wraparound veranda that wasn’t good for much more than standing. He’d done it to flip then kept it, so the fixtures and finishes were flashier than what we’d chosen for the loft.

After he fucked me on the rug, leaving me more sore than I’d ever been, I went to the room closest to his, just like in Montauk. Alone. I tried to cry. I tried to feel the pit of my grieving and sadness, down where it was the thickest black. I’d tried to dig it out, but I couldn’t find where it ended, and I’d fallen asleep before touching bottom.

“Dad,” I said when I walked into my office. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” he wheezed, hunting and pecking at his email.

“I moved temporarily, just so you know. It’s temporary, so—”

“Where?” He barely looked away from his screen.

“Murray Hill.”

He peered at me over his glasses. If I’d hoped he had forgotten where Adam lived when I was single, it was dashed with that look.

“Temporary,” I restated.

“Why?”

Because a Dominant I contacted to train me as a submissive makes my Dominant husband nervous for my safety.

“There have been security problems at the loft.” I put my bag on my desk and unraveled my scarf. “We’re just being safe.”

He turned back to the screen. Hunted. Pecked. Two pointer fingers tapped keys like a sparrow seeking seed in the grass. “That’s pretty far east. You going to make it on time for the thing at the Intercontinental?”

The thing the thing the thing… ooh. The thing. The Literacy Project event. McNeill-Barnes donated big. Mom used to be the development chair. Mom and Dad had gone to the black tie gala at the end of the campaign for years, then Dad took me until Adam came along. Then he and I went. It was a family tradition.

“Can you come with me?” I asked.

“Yeah. Sure. Am I doing this right? What do we do on invoices from states with no sales tax?”

He tapped the screen, and I went to help him. I’d never teach him as much as he’d taught me, but I spent the rest of the morning trying.

* * *

Adam texted the question at four in the afternoon. Dad was gone. Since McNeill-Barnes had been legally mandated to do nothing but tread water for thirty days, my to-do list was short and boring. All task, no work.

The phone rang. It was him.

“Is the office door closed?” he asked without greeting.

“Yes.”

“Blinds to the hall? Shut them.”

I got up and twisted the rod that closed the blinds.

“Are you done closing the blinds?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Put the phone on the coffee table and put me on speaker.”

“Done.” I hoped he heard the anticipation in my voice.

“Pull up your skirt.”

“I’m wearing pants.” I unbuttoned them.

“Down all the way then. Bend at the waist and put your hands flat on the table. Do all the things we talked about. Put your ass up and your knees apart.”

“Yes, sir,” I whispered, letting my jeans fall around my ankles. I bent over the table and spread my feet apart. The exposure was enough to arouse me, and when he spoke, I rubbed myself against the sound of his voice.

“How does that feel?”

“I wish you were here.”

“I have to go to Philadelphia tonight.”

No. I didn’t give voice to the cry of my heart. We didn’t have time for a night apart. I didn’t have time. Not a minute to spare.

“I know we only have a few nights,” he said, reading my mind again, “but I have to go.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“You better.”

“You’re getting five strokes for that.”

I wished he could have seen my face, because it reacted to a strong flow of tingling pleasure that ran from my waist to my knees.

“And you left the package home,” he said. “You’re supposed to carry it with you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I want you to open it, but you have to earn it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” I bent my waist more and leaned close to the phone, whispering, “Packing tape is sexy.”

“Not as sexy as your ass. So listen to me carefully. Tonight, don’t take a shower. Take a bath. A hot bath. Use your fingers between your legs until you’re wet and you want it.”

“I’ll be wet already if I’m in the bath.”

Did he chuckle? I heard nothing more than a pause, but he might have.

“I’ll clarify, but you’re still getting punished for the wise mouth. When you’re wet with your own juice, make your fingers wet, and I want you to put one in your ass.”

I stopped breathing. “I—”

“Yes, you can. When you’re loose, put in a second finger. When it’s all the way in, you can come.”

Suddenly aware of my exposure and position, I curdled. I wanted to pull my pants up and stand. I must have waited too long. He knew I was balking.

“Huntress?”

“Will it hurt?”

“The first time? Yes. But it’s nothing you can’t take.”

I rested my cheek on the table. “You like it when I hurt. Why?”

“Because you do it for me. You hurt for me. Because I say so. It means you trust me, and there’s nothing like that. It makes me want to push your pain harder and keep you safe at the same time.”

“I don’t want to hurt there.”

“That’s why I’ll make it as pleasurable as possible.” He cleared his throat. “This is training, Diana. And you’re doing great, but you need to get more comfortable with that part of your body. Get dressed. Dominic will be outside to take you home.”

“Adam,” I said, sitting halfway straight. “I think it’s fine. With Insolent. I really think he got the message.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

The screen went black.

As I pulled up my pants, I wondered if I could get away with skipping the bathtub exercise.