She was most definitely worth it.
No one he’d played with in the past several years made him feel like this regardless of the level of play. The pure wonder on her face as she discovered new things, and he got to experience them along with her, reminded him of all the good there was in this lifestyle he’d chosen.
And for the first time in a long time, he realized he didn’t feel the aching loneliness that had plagued him for so long.
Chapter Fifteen
Seth slung the rope bag over his shoulder and headed out to their car. “Are you guys coming to dinner with us?” Leah asked.
“Yes,” Tony said before Shayla could answer. “We’re taking my car. We’ll be along shortly.”
“Okay. See you there.” Leah left the play space.
Tony looked at her. “How are you feeling, pet?”
She nodded. “Good, Sir.”
“You don’t mind we’re driving over alone, do you?”
Shayla suspected he wanted to talk in private. “No, Sir. I don’t mind.”
“Good girl. Go get cleaned up. I’ll get my bags loaded.”
She headed to the bathroom, marveling at the already fading ligature marks left on her flesh from the pink rope. It hadn’t been frightening at all. Not with Tony’s skilled hands winding the rope around her…and teasing her into a sexual frenzy.
She looked herself in the eye in the mirror.
I’m going to take this all the way. No matter what else he wanted to do to her that night, she’d do her best to go along with it. His enthusiasm had proven infectious, and she didn’t want it to end.
She gathered her things, including her glasses, which she’d almost forgotten, and met him out at his car, where she found her hunch had proven correct.
“Why did you move to Florida so suddenly?” he asked once they were underway.
She took a deep breath. “I needed a fresh start.”
“A breakup?”
“Yeah. Yes, Sir, I mean.”
He didn’t take his eyes off the traffic. “I need you to be able to talk to me. To confide in me,” he said. “No matter how uncomfortable it feels. I need to know these things so I don’t accidentally do something douchey along the way and trigger you.”
She was letting him have unfettered access to her lady parts. If she couldn’t talk to him, she was seriously fucked in the head. “I caught my ex downloading porn. Most of it extreme BDSM porn. He downloaded it to my computer at home. He used his laptop for work and apparently didn’t want to risk it. He thought since he’d set up a different user account on my computer that it wouldn’t show up. I found out he’d spent about a thousand dollars on it.
“He swore he’d stop, that he’d never do it again.” She picked at her cuticles. “He even proposed to me after being together nearly eight years at that point. I was stupid enough to believe him and we planned our wedding. The whole nine yards.”
“But he did it again?”
“Yep. Yes, Sir.”
“Tell me what happened.” They pulled up to a red light and he looked at her.
“I caught him, only this time it was over fifteen grand, and on credit cards he secretly took out in my name. I called the wedding off, told everyone what he did, and left his ass. Moved to Florida after a friend of mine put me in touch with Bill Melling and he offered me a job.”
“I’m surprised you’re doing this story.”
“Believe me, so am I. I thought maybe it would give me some answers.”
“What did you feel?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
He arched an eyebrow at her.
Inwardly, she sighed. This discussion had yanked her out of the emotional happy place she’d blissfully existed in since turning herself over to Tony hours earlier. “What do you mean, Sir?”
“When you found out what James did the second time?”
The muscles in her abdomen tightened dangerously as she fought back a rising rush of anger, turmoil, and bile in her gut. She remembered every second of that afternoon. Finding the mail on the back floorboard of her car, where he’d forgotten it behind the driver’s seat after borrowing it. The PO Box address she didn’t know about, but her name was on several of the bills. The way she got a paper cut sliding her finger under the first envelope’s flap to open it. How her hands trembled when she pulled the credit card bill, several pages long, out of the envelope and tried to make sense of the charges.
Tried to make sense of line after line of charges to the same few websites.
How her body felt like it simultaneously burst into flames of rage and grew deadly cool at the same time as her brain struggled to process what it was she read.
The list, the all-too-familiar list of charges.
The credit card she damn well knew she’d never applied for, even though the bill was in her name. Repeating with the other envelopes, other credit card bills.
The way she collapsed, crying, at the latest check she received from James just days earlier.
Fuck.
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” she quietly replied. “Sir,” she added. “Not right now. I want to enjoy tonight. I’ve had too good an afternoon with you to let that talk spoil my mood.”
“Fair enough, pet. I do, however, want to talk about it at some point. Soon.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I need to ask you this. If he was to show up on your doorstep tomorrow with the money to pay you off and asked you to take him back, would you?”
She shook her head. “Not a snowball’s chance in hell. Fool me once and all that crap.”
“You don’t think he’ll ever come down here and get violent with you, do you?”
“No. Part of me wishes he had hit me, as sick as that sounds. I’d like to think I would have left him sooner if he had.”
“Don’t blame yourself, pet. We all do silly things in the name of love, sometimes.”
She let out a little snort.
“What?” he asked.
“I told the others. Leah and Tilly and Loren and Clarisse the other day when we were together. They pretty much said the same thing.”
“Well, then. That should tell you something, right?”
“Yeah, but every time I look at how much I now owe because of him it makes me sick to my stomach.”
“Yeah, I guess that is rough. He’s paying you off though?”
“A little at a time. I don’t know how long it’ll last. I won’t count on him following through.”
“Can I ask one more thing and then I’ll let it drop for tonight?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Why didn’t you press charges? That’s not meant to sound judgmental. I’m just curious.”
“I keep asking myself that same question. I only wanted gone. Out of there. Either he was going to pay me back or he wasn’t. He damn sure couldn’t if he lost his job and was in jail.”
“What does he do?” He glanced at her. “Sorry, I did say one more thing. You don’t have to answer that.”
“No, it’s okay, Sir. He’s a CPA, if you can believe that. Works for a pretty large firm in Cleveland.”
“Wow. Okay, again, sorry, but have you checked your taxes to make sure they’re okay?”
She smiled. “I always filed separately from him and I did my own. He always offered to do them, but mine were so simple I used the software. I’m actually looking forward to not having state income taxes to file now.”
“Smart pet.”
“I didn’t know how smart at the time, but yeah, I’m glad I stuck to my guns on that one.”
He reached across the seat and laced his fingers through hers. “No more questions about that. I’m sorry. Anything you want to ask me? Fair’s fair.”