"You will answer me. That's an order."
He curled his lip at me. "Not always, but often. And yes, I watched the entire lesson, and I did enjoy the show."
My nostrils flared as I sensed my victory. I was nearly as elated as I was furious.
He looked as close to losing his temper as I felt.
"Well, soak it up," I told him, voice low and mean, "because it is the last fucking time. You are never to watch her ride! If I hear you've even come within a hundred feet of the stables while she's training, I'll have you thrown off the property. Understood?"
I thought for one happy minute he was going to snap, to say something I could use in my case against him, but unfortunately he did not.
Instead, he opened his mouth once, snapped it shut, nodded curtly, and strode away.
I joined her in the tack room, still slapping the crop restlessly against my palm.
My voice was thick with lust. "Pull down your pants and lean over, palms on the wall."
My suit was ruined by the time we were done. Custom-made suits were not designed with stable fucking in mind. They certainly weren't made for rolling around in the straw, wrestling, getting down on all fours in the dirt, fucking like animals, the list went on and on.
The ruination of this suit had been absolute and absolutely worth it.
She could barely walk from the stable to the house. She had to lean on me heavily the entire time.
She'd be sore tomorrow, as much from the rough, excessive fucking as the spanking.
We had dinner plans with Stephan and Javier. I'd almost forgotten, until I saw them waiting for us on the back porch.
Clark was with them, chatting and laughing. Blake was there too, I saw.
And Joseph.
Stephan started shaking his head as we got closer. "I won't ask," he called out, a laugh in his voice.
"That's for the best," I told him. "We'll be down for dinner in thirty. We need a shower. We're both filthy." My eyes went to Joseph for that last bit, and I smiled coldly when I saw him visibly flinch.
That jab must have really gotten to him because the next day he made a point of seeking me out, his intention clearly to give me a piece of his mind.
He found me in my study at the house. He knocked, and I called him in.
"Do you have any idea how selfish you are, to keep her with you?" he asked emotionally.
This had been eating at him, clearly. Thoughts of my wife consumed this man.
Hatred, raw and fresh, rushed through me.
"She could do better, and you know it," he continued. "She could find a nice man, a normal guy that loved her and treated her with respect, someone that didn't subject her to that vile stuff you do to her for your own entertainment. She could find someone to help her heal, instead of exploiting her issues."
"And I suppose you think you're that guy?" I bit out.
He didn't answer, but he didn't need to.
"You don't get it," I said scathingly. "You don't understand her at all. You are just the sort of man that would make her miserable. You'd expect her to hide who she is, make her hate it. You would make her feel bad about herself, when there is no fucking thing about her that she should feel bad about."
"You should feel bad about it. I saw her wrists yesterday. Saw the marks, yet again. Shame on you."
I stood, smiling nastily. The joke was on him. I was shameless, always had been.
I held out an arm, indicating the door. "If you can't reconcile yourself to working for a man of my particular proclivities, by all means, resign. No one is stopping you."
He shook his head, over and over, glaring at me. "No, no I will not quit. You want me gone, you'll have to fire me, and we both know your wife won't like that."
The way he said your wife, that sneer in his voice, it was too much.
Some tight thread inside of me snapped, and I had his shirt in my hands between one breath and the next. I shoved him against the wall, getting in his face.
"That's right," I growled at him. "My wife. Mine. Mine in ways you'll never know. You think you've seen the marks? You haven't seen the half of it. I've marred every inch of her, staking my claim."
He took a swing at me. I was pretty happy about it, even while he clipped me in the chin.
Happy because, well, game on.
I slugged him back, with relish, catching his jaw. I'd wanted to do that for years, and so I did it again.
I had him on the floor, and we were both a few hits in, panting, when he spoke.
"She's not an object to be owned," he gritted, hands on my hands on his shirt. I'd started slamming his back, is head, into the floor.
"Not an object, no, but mine nonetheless. And that will never change." My voice was quiet. The words were each pushed out of me on jagged breaths, but they were full of conviction all the same.
I cocked my fist back to punch him in the face when her voice stopped me.
"James," Bianca gasped, sounding shocked, distraught.
With a curse, I straightened, getting to my feet.
She stood in the doorway, Clark just behind her.
I raised a brow at him. "I'm surprised you didn't interfere." As I spoke, I moved to her, pulling her into my chest.
"It looked like you had it under control," Clark shot back. He sounded smug about it, too.
He had been the one to teach me to fight.
Protectively, possessively, I took Bianca from the room.
Her reaction was not what I expected. She could still manage to surprise me.
She wasn't mad at me, not at all. Instead she fretted over my bruises, kissed each one, and demanded gently that I tell her everything.
I was helpless against her tender onslaught. I told it all.
In the end, it was Bianca that fixed things. Quietly and resolutely, she fired him herself.
"I'm so sorry," she said simply, right after she'd done it.
My gut clenched. "Why are you sorry? Did you have feelings for him?'
She sent me a baffled look that mollified me. "Of course not. Not like you're suggesting. He was a friend. That was all. I honestly think I just got along so well, so comfortably with him because he's a lot like Stephan, personality wise. To be honest, for the longest time, I thought he was gay. Makes this whole thing extra shocking to me."
That startled a laugh out of me. And the first real smile in days.
All was right again in my world.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
MY FAITHFUL HEART
It wasn't long after the Joseph incident that another outside force attempted to assail our marriage.
I wasn't the only one that struggled with jealousy in our marriage, though she managed hers much differently than I did mine.
We were staying in New York for a spell. Luckily Bianca didn't mind traveling, since it was something we did often. She said the changes of scene were nice, and that she liked to paint in different places.
I was working more hours than usual at the Cavendish Manhattan property. I'd been gone from the city a long time, and had to play catch up on a few crucial business ventures.
Clark had stayed back in Vegas, unfortunately, to represent me at some meetings for the casino. He was more than my bodyguard. He assisted me in all things, was a partner in several ventures, but still worked as a personal assistant/jack of all trades. I paid him dual salaries for it, because the more he could do for me the better, as I trusted him implicitly. He'd been with me since I was very young, and I knew he was loyal to a fault.
His absence was particularly unfortunate, as I needed extra assistance in the New York hotel, and since I didn't want to shake up the normal of order of things there for a temporary stay, I had to hire a new assistant.
I had the hiring handled for me, my only requirement that the assistant be competent and able to work long hours for the next two weeks.
I'd weaned myself off micromanaging a while back, and I wasn't going to start again now.
The assistant's name was Winona, and her main
purpose was paperwork and coffee. Important stuff.
She was eye catching. I wasn't blind, and I noticed right away that she had the kind of looks that could stop a man in his tracks.
Hourglass curves, deep red hair that was tousled like she'd just come out of a man's bed, with a face that was simply stunning to look at, green eyes that were a startling emerald that I personally thought must have been contacts.
If that wasn't enough, she dressed provocatively and carried herself with the kind of sensuality that a man like me could recognize for what it was. She oozed sex. Everything she did spoke of her fixation on it. She was the kind of woman a man saw in the office and figured she'd just finished fucking someone in the elevator on the way up, because she just needed it that bad, that constantly.
She was the kind of woman I'd have taken the bait from a few years ago.
And bait was just what she was throwing out. She wasn't subtle. I caught her vibe right away. I'd been single not so very long ago. I knew the signs, hadn't forgotten a single trick, from her sidelong stares to her flashes of cleavage, I recognized them all.
I wasn't flirtatious with her. I didn't think I'd ever been particularly flirtatious, even before. I'd been polite but to the point. Now there was no point. Any woman expressing interest in me who was not my wife was nothing but a nuisance.
She was so obvious, in fact, that I found myself addressing it on the first day.
"You're here to do a job," I told her, voice bland. She was bent over my table, pretending to work on something, her cleavage just about falling out of her top. She'd been posing that way for a good five minutes.
"A simple job, no more, no less," I continued. "If you had some other expectations coming into this, I'm going to disabuse you of the notion right now. Do your work, act and dress appropriately, or leave.
She looked up at me, straightened, smoothing her dress, hands running over her voluptuous body to do so. She blinked her eyes slowly, several times, just staring at me.
I thought she might be going for a seductive stare.
Pointedly, I yawned.
Her mouth tightened, and she nodded, then went back to what she was doing.
I sighed. "You have your own desk, out in reception. I'm not particularly keen on sharing mine."
That at least got her out of my hair for a bit.
On her third day, I went into my office's adjacent bedroom, locking the door behind me, and made a phone call to Bianca that was meant to be a simple checking in to say hi call.
Instead, I ended up with my dick out, jacking off into a napkin as she told me what she was doing to herself on the other end.
It was ridiculous. Just out of hand. I'd made love to her that morning, just before work, and still I couldn't help myself. I only let her hang up after she'd promised to come visit me for lunch.
I'd been in the bedroom about forty-five minutes, and I came back out to find Winona was in my office.
She looked startled. She was by my desk but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what she'd been doing.
"What are you doing?" I asked her.
She licked her lips, smoothing her tight dress over her hips. "I—um came to ask you if you needed anything."
I didn't believe her. My eyes narrowed, I looked around my desk, but could see nothing out of place.
"No," I said curtly. "Go work on the tasks I set you to this morning."
"Who's the new girl?" Bianca asked when she came to visit me a few hours later.
I was behind my desk, signing yet another round of tedious paperwork.
"New assistant. Winona. I don't think she's going to last long."
She was studying my face, her expression very blank.
"What?" I finally asked her.
"Have you slept with her?" she asked quietly.
I was horrified. "Of course not! What kind of a question is that?"
"Not recently. I don't mean, have you slept with her just now, I mean, in the past, sometime before me?"
"No. I wasn't even the one to hire her, but frankly, I'm questioning the competency of whoever did. I'm about one more annoyance away from firing her."
"She's been hitting on you," she guessed.
I grimaced. "She's definitely letting me know she's interested."
She didn't say anything more about it, just walking from the office to the bedroom. I'd already unlocked it for her.
I was too distracted to work with her in there. I didn't last five minutes before I followed her.
I had only planned to take an hour lunch out of the busy day, but we wound up in there for three.
And we didn't eat, well, not lunch anyway.
I straddled her thigh, her other leg hugged to my chest. I leaned forward, stretching her deliciously wide while I moved in great heavy thrusts inside of her.
I'd been going for a very long time, taking her almost lazily after so many rounds. When I finally felt my balls drawing up, my seed pumping to my tip, then shooting into her, it caught me by surprise. I hadn't even been trying to come. At this point I'd been just enjoying the feel of her, my cock putting in time memorizing her cunt, savoring the fuck.
I let her leg down, moving to lie directly on top of her, putting enough weight on her to make her breathing more labored.
Her eyes were closed, and I thought she might have already drifted off.
"I don't like Winona," she said quietly. "She's trouble, I think."
I processed that, moving both our bodies around until I was spooning her from behind. "Should I just fire her, then?"
She looked tempted by the notion but shook her head. "Just be careful of her. Be cautious, and don't trust her. The way she looked at me . . . I didn't like it."
Winona made me paranoid, especially after Bianca's warning. I always locked everything up, but I took to double checking things like that a lot. The last thing I needed was to have her crawl into my office bed and make a scene.
It was the next day that I just decided to fire her. She wasn't worth the thought it took to wonder if she was going to be a problem.
She was leaning over my desk again, doing the same damn thing she kept doing, working on my desk when I'd expressly told her not to, her breasts spilling out of her shirt.
"Don't use my desk. Use your desk. How many times do I need to tell you that?"
As I spoke, I'd already made up my mind, but I wasn't planning to deal with her myself. I didn't have the time to spare on trivialities like that. Besides, the idiot office manager who'd hired her should have the honor. I'd wait until she left my office to make the call.
Only, she didn't move away, but moved farther forward, her hands going to the buttons at her neckline, and then beginning to unbutton. Her breasts spilled right out. She wasn't wearing a bra.
What did she think, that I'd be overcome at the sight of some big fake tits?
Needless to say, I was not.
"Okay, that is it. You're done. Collect your things. You are out of here. I'd prefer not to have security escort you, but I won't hesitate."
She did the strangest thing then. One of the most baffling things I'd ever witnessed in my life. So crazy it left me speechless. And slow to react.
First, she took off running. Just sprinted from my office to reception then back again, coming back with a phone in her hand.
Looking deranged, her tits still hanging out of her clothes, she moved to my bookshelf, propping the phone there, camera lens facing the room
She was recording us with her phone.
I got up and moved to the door. I knew it was a fucking setup. I would remove myself and have security take her out.
Her face strangely blank, she shrugged out of her dress. She was naked under, not even wearing panties.
I made it halfway across the room when her rushing naked form made full contact with my retreating clothed one.
She was determined, throwing her arms around me, jumping up to try to straddle me as I attempted to move from the room.
 
; I shouted, loudly, for security. Trying to get away from her, not wanting to put my hands on her, but also wanting her to stop.
Luckily, they responded quickly, pulling her off me, taking her out of there.
"Be sure she is banned from the premises. Revoke any access."
My office manager, Lenny, a man in his forties who had been given the position just over a year prior, went straight for the phone I mentioned to him that she'd left on the bookshelf.
"Erase that video," I told him. "I've no idea what she wanted with it, but I want it gone. Wipe the entire phone, actually. Who knows what else she was up to.
He nodded and agreed, and left with the phone.
I was frazzled. I wanted, first and foremost, to change out of my clothes, that that strange naked woman had been all over. I went to my attached suite, quickly showering and changing into another suit.
I wanted to forget that the entire incident had ever happened.
By the time I got home to Bianca, I just didn't want to talk about it. The whole thing had been odd and pointless, left a bad taste in my mouth, and I just wanted to put it behind me.
We were back in Vegas when the news hit.
A video had been leaked, a drastically doctored video that made it look very bad, made it look like I'd been embracing a naked woman in my office, instead of warding her off.
My first and biggest question: Who had leaked it?
My office manager had a whole hell of a lot to answer for.
My first and biggest concern: Bianca.
Of course. What else?
I was at the casino when it hit. I left right away, as soon as I saw and heard what had been leaked, in fact.
Bianca was not at home and had not answered her phone. It nearly sent me into a panic.
Stephan had not answered his either. A sick feeling was crawling persistently through my belly, snaking its way up to my chest.
Javier picked up on the first ring. "She's with him," he told me.
"Is she all right? Is she upset?"
"Yes. She's upset. Someone emailed her something, a message about, I don't know, whatever is happening with that video."