Michele turned and looked Patrick straight in the eye. “I guess that depends, you know? If you want to raise this child together, then I have an idea about how to make it work out for the both of us. But if not, then I guess you’re on your own.”
Addie thought about how William’s arms had felt around her. She remembered how he’d felt inside her. God, she shouldn’t have let him go. She could still feel his kiss on her skin, the way it felt when he touched her. She could still taste him. There was nothing else like it. Being with him was like a drug, a high that she’d never achieve any other way. He was her dealer, and she was his addict. She should have said something, anything, to make him see things her way, to make him stay.
But Addie had known better. The thing about men as powerful as William is that you had to set boundaries with them. Without boundaries and discipline, they were nothing. They’d walk all over you; this much she’d learned from her time as a Domme. You had to know when to take it and when to draw the line. As a Domme, you had to gauge what it was they needed: how much was too much, how little was too little. With Patrick, she’d lost herself. Patrick wanted to believe that he was the dominant type, but in reality, he wasn’t. Addie’s biggest mistake was going along with it for so long. She should have put her foot down sooner, disagreed, and made him fight. But she didn’t. Instead, Addison hated who she’d become in their marriage. She became desperate for her husband to see her, to love her, to really know who she was. She tried ten thousand ways to the sun and back to get him to see her, to get what it was she needed. The more she tried, the less important it seemed she became to him. After a while, she’d become nothing more than an annoying fly buzzing in his ear. She was the thing in the room he knew was there but passed without a second glance. The more she tried to become the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the more invisible she became. And the more she tried to get him to see her, the less he saw. In many ways, her marriage reminded her of her childhood, and perhaps there was some comfort in the familiarity.
Part of it was the stress of caring for infants and young children; it became easier not to press, not to push him. There was less energy to go around, and she’d lost the drive to commandeer their relationship in the way she might’ve once. So she allowed Patrick to make all of the decisions about his life, doing as he pleased, which in many ways was very separate from their lives at home. While she focused on their home and raising their children and grew more unsatisfied and resentful day-by-day, things for him hadn’t really changed all that much. If anything, he’d grown happier in life while Addie grew more and more discontent. The problem was she wanted to be happy and felt incredibly guilty for not enjoying the life that she herself had chosen. After all, all she’d wanted growing up was a normal, loving family, so why, now that she had it, couldn’t she be happy?
It took her a long time for her to find the answers she was so desperately seeking, that simply being together didn’t necessarily equal happiness. It wasn’t until shortly after William Hartman came into her life that it all started making sense. Maybe a part of it had to do with going back to work and hitting her stride again. Maybe a part of it was becoming the confident, assertive Domme that she needed to be to make the changes she knew deep down needed to be made. But even still, Addison knew that most of it was because of how William had fallen for her. It was in the way he looked at her. It was in his touch. It was the way he made her feel when they were together. It was how he drove her crazy. But mostly, it was how he saw in her everything that she should have seen in herself. He called her out on her bullshit. He fought with her and for her. He made her want to be better.
Addie watched the boys running around their mostly empty new home, laughing and content, and she realized in that moment that even though life was far from perfect—it was in fact a complete and utter mess—she knew, despite it all, this was exactly where she needed to be.
William sat as his mahogany desk, the same desk he’d once taken Addison on. God, she had looked so good there. He could still smell her on him, could still taste her on his lips. And damn him if he didn’t wish she were here now so that he could bend her over the edge of that desk, pin her down, spread her legs while showing her just how much she frustrated him and yet how much she needed him all at the same time. He despised himself for feeling this way. William had had it with her trying to call the shots. Topping from the bottom, they called it. Part of the problem was that he and Addie were so much alike: stubborn and irreverent.
The situation with Addison was exactly the reason he never got involved with women past a few times in the sack. He hated wanting, or more accurately needing, something so much. He hated how vulnerable she made him feel. Men like him couldn’t afford to be vulnerable. It was certain death to their persona, which was exactly why he had started seeing Sondra in the first place. He needed a strong presence in his life where he could let down his guard and just take it but still always come out on top. He could take the pain and still come out alive. The risk was measurable. He could survive it. What he couldn’t survive was losing Addison. But one thing he knew for sure was that he wasn’t about to let her mind fuck him into using intimacy as a way to get him to comply with her every whim. It was time to give her a taste of her own medicine. William was about to teach her a lesson in her own game.
For as long as house arrest has been around, people have been circumventing the system. Scott Hammons wasn’t exactly on house arrest per se; although, sometimes it certainly felt that way. He was being tracked via his ankle monitor to ensure he didn’t disobey the restraining order that little bitch had put in place.
It had been easy for someone as brilliant as he was to get around under the radar. Even if he weren’t as smart as he was, there were fucking devices you could find to intercept the GPS tracking device tethered to his ankle simply by typing it into Google for goodness’ sake. People were s
o stupid! His excellent tracking skills—he had been a boy scout after all—had gotten him closer and closer to the little whore. He was smart about it too. He was an outlier. He switched out vehicles and he wore disguises. Mostly, he made sure to blend in. That was the real trick. The joke of a security team Hartman had surrounding her hadn’t seen him, but that goddamned kid of hers had somehow managed to foil it all. Now, thanks to the little bastard, his attorneys were breathing down his neck, and the police had questioned him on his whereabouts. But he was no dummy. He knew they couldn’t put anything on him. Scott Hammons was a master at all things. He would show them soon enough.
For starters, he’d understood the art of deflection. He had left the house that day to see his psychotherapist. The damned attorneys insisted on him seeing this idiot, said they’d needed his testimony in court that Scott was of sound mind and body. Bloody fucking attorneys! Of course he was in his right mind. He was a goddamned Rhodes Scholar, and no one, especially not bloodsuckers like William Hartman or trashy whores like Addison Greyer, could take that away from him.
William Hartman had humiliated him in front of everyone: the public and even his own family. He’d befriended Scott under the guise of helping him, only to steal his business out from under him. He’d made a fool out of him. So, yeah, maybe this idiot therapist couldn’t understand why he was so angry. Scott knew he had every right. It was his duty to get revenge. Of course, he wouldn’t be telling the dummy therapist or idiot attorneys or even that dingbat Penny Greyer any of this; it was his little secret.
Oh, and one other thing he wouldn’t be sharing . . . The voices were back. Well, his wife used to call them the voices, but Scott Hammons had the kind of brilliance to know that it was really God and his angels instructing him to do their will.
Furthermore, he hoped all of this was making sense in the mind of the readers, those who would be lucky enough to read his journals. Admittedly, his thoughts had been a bit jumbled recently. He was so busy plotting and planning that there was little time for anything else, even sleep. Also, he couldn’t take the meds the doc had prescribed anymore because, with all of this electronic medical record bullshit, it was too easy for them to see that he was on them again. And he really didn’t need the meds anyways. He just took them to appease the doctors and to win his family back. His angels always informed him in all the right ways, and those meds were poison. Plus, he wasn’t crazy anyhow.
If he were crazy, he wouldn’t have the sense to see the visions. Only the chosen ones had those powers. His latest vision had thrown him off a bit though because he had been plotting and planning how to get back at all of the wrongdoers, starting with Hartman and his whore. Scott stepped back, admiring his handiwork, which was beautifully displayed before him. He had collected dozens upon dozens of photographs of his intended targets, and each day, he paid careful attention to how they were all arranged on the wall. He liked to arrange and rearrange them because God had informed him that this was his riddle to solve.
Of course, he’d taken all of the pictures while he was waiting and watching, save for a few newspaper clippings about the “incident” and the upcoming trial. He also had everything meticulously written down in his journal. His grand plan had been to poison that bastard and his filthy whore, using those same meds the docs tried to get him to take. He had enough stocked up, enough to certainly do the trick, but then God and his angels played a trick on him and sent him a new vision. They always did like to keep him on his toes. It helped his genius. Anyway, this latest vision was crystal clear. He had to find red flannel blanket. He didn’t have one of those, but according to the vision, it had to be that way. Then he had to find a hill in the woods. At the bottom of the hill in the woods, that’s where he would look down and see Addison’s body lumped up in the blanket with only her perfect bloody face showing. She’d have a slight smile on her face, which you could still see despite the mess that was now her face, because even in death she would understand that Scott was one of the chosen ones, an angel like the others, and that he was only carrying out God’s will.
Nine
Dear William,
Have you ever met someone out of the blue one day and suddenly your whole body, every vibrating cell of your being knows that you’re supposed to fall in love with the person standing before you?
Your brain tells you differently, so instead of falling into it, you try and ignore your heart’s longing, that quiet nagging, the urging that’s telling you to go for it. Instead, you listen to the loud wise voice you know to be right in your head. At first, it whispers subtly, “Don’t fall in love with this person. He can’t love you the way you need to be loved. Neither of you are in a place where any of this makes sense.” Then it becomes louder and louder, and all at once—as if trying to drown out the beat of your ever-racing heart as you stare into the eyes of your lover— it screams at you, “Do not fall in love with this person; it will ruin you.” But the trouble is the screams can’t or won’t or simply don’t drown out what the heart knows to be true. You’ve already fallen, and there’s just no turning back.
Looking back, you realize it happened the second your eyes met his. The truth of the matter is what’s done is done. Now, all there is left to do is to hang on and enjoy the ride, even if you know it’ll lead to your inevitable ruin. “Hang on,” your heart says. And so you will. Because deep down, you know there’s simply no other choice to be made.
I love you, William. This is me telling you that, in my own way, in the only way I really know how.
I’m sorry about yesterday. But there are boundaries we each have set in place for various reasons, and we both need to learn what those boundaries are. Here’s hoping there’s a better and, more importantly, more fun way to work out the kinks. ;)
Love,
Addison
Addie settled back into her chair and read what she’d written and then reread it over again. There was so much she wanted to say; she just hoped the letter would convey all of it. She sealed the envelope, dialed the courier with instructions for pickup and delivery, and rushed out to her Monday morning meeting with Jess, who she hoped would make it all better.
Jessica was nervous, not knowing what to expect. She’d only received a few hurried texts from Addison over the weekend, and quite frankly, she was worried about her friend. Sipping her coffee, she took in the hustle and bustle of the coffee shop. There were so many people, so many stories. She took out her pen and notepad and jotted a few things down just as Addie plopped herself in her chair. Jess looked up, confused. “No coffee today?”
Addie looked tired. “I already had some. If I have any more, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to fly my ass out of here.”
Jessica smiled and stuffed her pen and notepad back in her bag. “So how’d everything go with the move?”