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Her husband has been consumed in conversation with his associate for the better part of three hours and Rey has had to sit here all day , watching the sun glide its way closer and closer to the other end of the skyline.
It’s been like this as long as they’ve been in Italy. He might not invite her until after lunch, but he always retrieves her to come sit with him in the office. Usually to do nothing. They may chat, but mostly he works and she reads or naps. Watches TV if she’s quiet.
Even when he has guests, like he does today. Sometimes the men glance at her. Mostly, surprise she thinks, but sometimes their eyes linger. Ben never puts up with that.
But today, he and the guy, the redhead, have been chatting for a very long time, quite seriously. Ben and his seriousness. It’s been like that since they married. He’s very nearly always serious about the things he says. About his plans, his schedule. About her.
____
Ben had been clear about his rules and expectations.
Like their wedding night. He stood in their hotel room in nothing but a towel and she knew that she was probably supposed to pretend that she didn’t want to look at him. But Ben was big and broad and more in shape than she had assumed he would be.
“After this, we won’t really have time to have a honeymoon.” He said honeymoon like it was an asinine thing to say. “I’ll need to go, well, back to Washington for a bit. You can have your own room if you like.” He was rubbing on hand lotion. “Somewhere to...write in your journal. Stow your teddy bears.”
“I don’t have teddy bears!”
(That was a lie, she did have them, carefully packed up somewhere at Grandfather’s.) He smiled, not quite like she’d said something funny, but more like she’d cracked a flat, earnest joke.
“Okay,” he’d said easily. “It’s all to say that it doesn’t matter to me, but you’ll be in my bed with me each night. I’m going to enjoy the marital privileges, so to speak.”
She frowned and crossed her arms, holding her elbows. "Is it the fucking 1800s?"
“Language,” he replied. “And no, but I want to be clear with you.” He gave her an open look, starting at her head, down the knee-length silk chemise, and all the way down to her toes. He cocked his head. “Get on the bed.”
Rey sighed and did as he asked. Apparently, Ben had zero issues with his body. He lost the towel, draping it over a nearby chair. His cock was getting harder as she watched him approach the bed. It bobbed there for a second, fully erect as he watched her, head still tilted to one side.
“Fuck right off,” she said and gestured at his dick. At its size . “Absolutely not.”
He laughed. “I’m not going to hurt you. I am going to fuck you. But I won’t hurt you and I'll make you come.”
Rey made a noise. Unlikely. That made him chuckle again. He climbed onto the bed. Over her. She was probably supposed to be scared. But the pounding in her heart was mirrored by a throbbing in her pussy and she knew that wasn’t fear.
Ben was handsome, and his body felt good under her palms as she stroked over his arms and down the plane of his chest.
He wet a finger in his mouth and was straight forward, putting it to her pussy. He watched her face as he slid along her opening and up to her clit. They both made a noise as he wedged the finger inside her. Just his finger was big. Certainly bigger than her own. It only emphasized how tight she was.
Ben grunted and slid down the bed. He pushed her nightgown up to her waist, grabbed one of her thighs in each hand, and started licking at her with no preamble, but way more finesse than she’d predicted. She rushed toward an orgasm, annoyingly. He lifted his head and spat on her cunt before diving back in, licking it up.
“Don’t spit on me.”
Dark eyes found hers as he looked up. His nose was wet. She watched as he did it again. “I can do whatever I like with you.” He bent back to her pussy and though she could have come just from his tongue, when he worked one, and then two fingers inside her, she fucking exploded, whiny and loud.
“Yeah, you’re ready to be fucked now.”
It was still slow work, getting inside her, and by the time he was in all the way, Rey was shaking, like she might come again. It was the fullness .
“Goddamn. You. Are fucking. Tight .” He gazed down at their joined bodies. Moved just a bit. A test. “I’ve never fucked a virgin before.”
“You still haven’t.”
Ben paused. Dragged his gaze away from where he fucked her and up to her face. A silent question. Was she fucking with him? Rey shrugged. No. She hadn’t had a lot of sex, but Ben wasn’t her first.
He broke out in a loud, hard, bed-shaking laugh. It made him rock inside her, and she met each shift with a little oh.
“Ah, shit,” he said, dragging a hand over his face. His hand came back wet with tears.
“I’m glad you think that’s funny?”
“Yeah, you should be,” Ben agreed. He started to move a little more. It was—it was starting to feel good . “Do you like sex?” he asked seriously. “Do you like to get fucked?”
Rey nodded. It was getting easier to take him too. It hadn’t ever really hurt, but she was certain she was going to come again. Ben was going to come too, she could tell, from the way he groaned into the skin of her neck.
“Are you going to come for me, little Rey?” She gave him another nod. His teeth at the shell of her ear: “I should kill your grandfather.”
It was poor timing that made her come all over him, hips bucking, mouth gasping, nails dug into his skin.
Within another day, they’d arrived in Washington, DC. She thought he did too much business in New York, to spend significant time in DC, but it was the only one of his homes that she’d seen that felt remotely lived in. Like he’d done more than lay his head there.
He gave her a brief, lifeless tour that started in the kitchen (with wine, a good wine, white and crisp) and ended in the kitchen, if only to refill their glasses. Grandfather had been letting her drink wine since she was twelve. But only with dinner, and only with Ben has she ever had two glasses in one night. She’d looked at him, quietly shocked, when he’d refilled her glass without asking at the engagement dinner. He hadn’t even spared her a glance. Like it was a given.
Ben used his glass to gesture at the vast, sleek space around them. “I don’t cook. You can cook if you want.” A pause. “As long as it’s not shit.”
She wrinkled her nose. She’d only ever cooked one thing. Back when Grandfather cared a lot less about how she spent her time, and who with, she’d baked the worst brownies anyone ever ate, with Kay.
“Then let’s leave it to the professionals.” He had another sip. “I have a chef here. He can cook most anything, but you have to give him a chance to get the ingredients. He has a lot on hand, but don’t ask for anything fancy without some warning.”
“Okay,” Rey agreed with a big swallow. She needed it for what she wanted to ask next. “So, I’ll be here most of the time?”
“In the house?”
“In the city.”
He looked at her curiously. “You’ll go where I go. Generally speaking.”
“None of the other wives I know go where their husbands go.” (Not that she knows so many.)
Ben tapped his thick fingertips against the kitchen island. “Are they my wife?” She shook her head. “Well then. You worry about what it is I want from you, yeah?”
They stayed in Washington for most of the autumn. She only spoke with Grandfather a couple of times. She wanted to be angry with him. She’d only known Ben in passing. Met once or twice at a party. And then Grandfather had called her into his study where he and Ben had been sitting together and he’d said, “It would please me greatly, to have you marry my granddaughter, Benjamin.”
Ben had been open in his appraisal of her even then. A cigarette in one hand, and an expression nearing a scowl. He’d stared so long, she wanted to ask him if she should twirl, but then she realized he might say yes.
Certainly, no one had asked her if she wanted to marry anyone, let alone Ben. She was barely done with school. Maybe she had plans. However, she'd learned as a girl, she’d rather not be on the other side of Grandfather’s anger. He was patient and creative and she’d seen grown men leave his study sobbing. He never told her why. But he remained powerful and wealthy and seemed only to grow more so.
So, there was that. But more importantly: Ben. She had no idea if he was as wealthy as Grandfather or not. Still, within two days of being in DC, she had a handful of shiny new credit cards, with her new last name and new numbers to call for her various needs. The first time he’d caught her, ordering dinner out, she’d said, “Please put that on the Solo account,” he’d fallen on her. Seemed like he was inside her before she’d ended the call.
That was also reason enough. Ben was sort of...strange. He had a certain way he liked to do things. But the sex. The sex was good. So good. Even when it was almost too much for her. Ben was a rough fuck, sometimes, but she always came. A lot. Hard.
One thing she didn’t like was the way he would ignore her. Like, she might ask him a question and he would just act like she hadn’t. Or he would pat her head and smile. Like she was a pet or something.
Once, she’d said, “Ben, let’s go to the Natural History Museum.” She was supposed to go with a group of women. Her...peers. She’d never really had any before, but it was easy to fall into philanthropy, as a young wealthy woman in DC, and the group was one that was ostensibly built to do just that. Be philanthropic. But they ran out of time, lingering over a lunch Rey would have been happy to leave.
Ben had sighed and said “Go play, Rey. Find something to do.”
It was mean.
The next time the group met, they went to botanical gardens. Then, another long, witless lunch over a spinach cobb salad. Ben had surprised her, by showing up as it was time to settle the check. He’d swept up to their table in a suit so perfectly tailored, it stole even her breath, and she saw him get dressed every day.
“Ladies,” he’d said in a long, charming drawl. “You’re all taken care of.” He’d bent down and kissed her cheek before saying: “That is, as long as you let me steal my wife away.”
So much tittering and burning jealousy.
That was another reason she didn’t mind being married to Ben. It was so hot, she’d climbed on top of him in their town car, sopping wet as she slid down on top of him.
“Silly girl,” he’d said, watching her ride him. She didn’t know what that meant. But he held her tight when he came.
It was early December when they left for Chicago. The townhouse there was the smallest of all the places she’d been with him. It wasn't that small but she might have been mad if they were staying there longer than the three or four days he’d promised.
Ben had held her jaw in his hand on their flight, to make sure she was paying attention. “You don’t leave the townhouse. You do not answer the door of the townhouse. If the goddamn phone rings, you ignore it. You don’t exist.”
She nodded. He’d never asked that of her before.
Of course, she ignored it, shrugging into her coat a few minutes after he left on the second day. She needed to get a few last-minute Christmas presents.
She was throwing her purse over her shoulder, when the door creaked open and he came back in, muttering, patting his pocket. The look on his face as they stared at each other in the foyer, was entirely indecipherable.
Wordlessly, he pointed to the sitting room, and she turned to go.
“Be quiet,” he says after a long moment. “Either find some way to amuse yourself, in this house, or go to bed. I’ve already said what I meant to say.”
She sat on the nearest chair with a huff. Ben nodded and made to leave the room again.
“You should be nicer to me,” she says. “I’m a nice woman, I’m a nice wife.”
(Frankly, she didn't know, really, or care, if she was a nice wife or not. She’d been given some advice which amounted to fuck him when he wants and stay out of his way. And she thought she’d probably stuck to that well enough.)
Ben turned, eyebrows lifted again, assessingly, and then came back down in that nothing expression. He was slow, crossing the room to her. It gave her a long time to watch him. The set of his shoulders. The line of his legs in his bespoke suit. The fine leather of his dress shoes as they drew to a stop in front of her. With just as much speed, he leaned toward her, big hands braced on his knees. He leaned down (and down and down) until they were very nearly eye to eye.
“My Rey. You’re not a wife. You’re not even a woman.” The worst part was, he didn’t even sound mean. His tone was almost sweet, and he smelled so good. “You, little girl,” he continued, “are currency.”
With much gentleness, he put his hand to the sensitive, rarely touched skin at the nape of her neck. He held her in place and gave her a brief, but hard kiss on the forehead. He stood, fast, and was back across the room before she had time to say anything at all.
“Be good. Stay warm. Maybe I’ll bring you something nice tonight if you behave.”
“Yes sir,” she said with sticky sarcasm.
“That sounds good coming out of your mouth,” he called.
Her cheeks colored.
She had the distinct impression that she’d come close, but had not experienced Ben’s anger. Not in any real way. She didn’t know if he was as unkind and creative as Grandfather. She never saw him do any business, even towing her around as much as he did.
It wasn’t that they didn’t talk. Rey was smart and well-educated, maybe even more so than Ben, and they had things in common, in terms of movies, books, and music they enjoyed. Sometimes he made her laugh. But they did not talk about his work.
He came home earlier than she expected, with a pretty bracelet, and surprised her with dinner and a show. She actually wasn’t that into the opera, and when she told him as much, he’d just patted her knee.
That night, they didn’t make it all the way to the bed. He was on her when they were barely into the living room, yanking her dress up.
“Do you want to come?” he asked her when she was just on the verge and she said uhh, yes, yes. “Ask me, ask me nice.” Please, I want to come. Can I come? “Nicer than that, show me some respect.”
It hit her, suddenly.
Can I come, Sir?
The orgasm hit her almost as quickly.
Rey didn’t really want to talk about it, but she watched a lot of weird porn after that.
A lot of weird porn.
They did end up staying in Chicago two extra days. She really wasn’t allowed to leave. But the phone never rang, and no one came to the door. But on the last night (she was certain it was the last night for real because she’d heard him talking about leaving) she crept into his office without asking.
He was on the phone and she watched him mute himself with a dark look her way. Someone on the other end of the line droned on and on and on.
“I thought you were in bed.”
Rey didn’t say anything, just crossed the room to him and sank to her knees. By the time she’d run her hands up the length of his thighs, he was hard and straining against his pants. His cock was out when he held a finger to his lips. Unmuted, he said, “Of course I’m still here.” He muted himself again right after anyway.
“Are you that desperate for it?” He asked, smoothing a lock of hair behind her ear.
Rey swallowed down his dick. She was well-trained and even got him to make a little noise as she took him into her throat. He wasn’t fucking her mouth. She was choking on him and he murmured ah shit as he stroked her hair.
“I’m going to come down your slut throat, is that what you want?”
She pulled off of him with disgusting strings of saliva connecting her mouth to his cock. “I love swallowing your cum, Daddy.”
He hissed, an angry animal sound, and started coming the second she had him back in her mouth. He did hold her head in place then. His chest was heaving when it was over and he looked at her like she might be something alien to him. She cleaned the corners of her mouth with two fingers, stood up, and left the room.
Ben was in their bedroom ten minutes later, under her nightgown, mouth at her cunt. “Say it again,” he said. “Say it again and I’ll make you come.”
“Please,” she whined. “Daddy, please make me come.”
He moaned inside her and it took her a second to realize he was stroking his own cock as he ate her. For some reason, it lit something deep inside her and there was no manipulation when she said, “Daddy, fuck, Ben, please, right there, right there, right there.”
He held her in his lap on most of their drive to the airport the next day.
“The first place we’re going is Rooster and Owl,” Rey announced sleepily.
“We’re not going back to Washington.”
“Where then?”
“It’s the holidays. We’re going to see your grandfather. It’s the respectful thing to do.”
But he sounded deeply unhappy.
Ben decided not to stay at Grandfather’s, however. Another city, another luxury penthouse. It amazed her that she’d never been to Ben’s New York home.
“I’ve got errands to run," he said. “But we’ll go out to dinner tonight and visit with your grandfather tomorrow.”
Rey reclined on the couch, snapping open the button on her jeans. “Wouldn’t you rather stay home and fuck me”—a meaningful, dramatic pause—“Daddy?”
While he fucked her hard enough that the couch started moving, she wanted to laugh. How lucky that something that made her drip like a faucet was a freaking Ben remote. Push the Daddy button, receive whatever the hell she liked.
The next night, Ben chose her clothing (swishing, gorgeous, knee-length emerald green dress) and her jewelry (unsubtle diamonds in her ears to match the whopper on her hand) and even how she wore her hair. All fancy, so fancy. Made her feel strange at dinner with Grandfather. She realized she had completely forgotten what it was like to be in his home. It wasn’t so much that she felt like a child. But she hadn’t realized how well she’d taken to being Ben’s woman of the house. Getting to make at least some of the decisions.
There wasn’t any point in trying to keep up with the conversation. They were talking business, as always and Grandfather kept cutting her off every time she spoke anyway.
“Baby?” Ben asked. “Did you hear your grandfather’s question?”
She had not. “Sorry, Grandfather. What was that?” He repeated himself. Grad school. Was she thinking about grad school? “Oh,” she said. “I haven’t thought about it so much. I want to do a bit more traveling first.”
“Where do you want to go?” Grandfather asked.
Rey shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t ever been to Prague.” Suddenly, she was very into that idea. “Ben, can we?”
Ben took an egregiously slow sip of his wine. “Maybe. Ask me nice.”
She looked at him, confusion making her pout. “Please.”
He ignored her so pointedly that even Grandfather looked curious. Rey started sweating, for reasons she couldn’t explain. “Please, Ben. I think it could be fun. We might have a really good time.”
Still so silent. Grandfather looked back and forth between them. “Aren’t you going to answer her?”
Ben grunted. “She knows how she needs to ask.”
Nice . Sweat slid down her spine. He was making a point, even if she couldn’t see the entirety of it. “Can we please go to Prague, Daddy?”
“Jesus Christ,” Grandfather said, sounding like he might spit.
Her cheeks burned. And Ben said, “Maybe, Rey. I’ll think about it.” In the next moment, he announced that he thought it was best for them to go. He didn’t speak a word to her the entire way home. Not a peep. Once they hit the door he told her to bend over the couch.
It was hell, standing there while she listened to him move around elsewhere.
When he joined her, he sighed and said, “Go ahead, I can hear you thinking from here.”
“You embarrassed me,” she said.
“Good.”
That made her fall quiet. His hands flipped up the skirt of her dress, and pulled down her underwear. As he did it, he kicked her legs apart so they got stuck around her knees. His fingers found her sopping wet as he fucked her with two of them.
“ You ,” he said, sounding not at all like he was two knuckles deep in her, “seem to think you can lead me around by the dick. And your grandfather has it in his mind that I should come when called. He seems to have forgotten how we got here.”
Ben slid inside her. Her pussy made it easy. He started talking, pumping slowly.
“You both seem to have forgotten who is in charge here. Let me remind you, little girl.” Rey was trembling in her heels. It was so good from this angle. She was going to come harder than she ever had. It was awful how he could bring her so close so fast.
“You don’t make any decisions here. You’re mine. To have and to fuck and to hold and to keep in my lap like a goddamn cat if I like.” He was fucking her harder. Punctuating his words with his thrusts. “Everything you have, you have at my generosity.”
He was doing something else, moving something around on the couch. She realized what it was when she smelled cigarette smoke.
“I suppose the old man thinks I’ve been...neutralized because I have something warm to fuck. But he doesn’t have any control here, does he?” A brutal thrust. “I feed you. I clothe you, I make sure you have a roof over your head. He is irrelevant. He spoiled you. You do need someone to keep you in line. That’s me, that’s me now.”
“Ben…” She should have been ashamed at the way her voice wavered, but she was so close.
“Shut the fuck up.” That only pushed her closer, and just as she was finally going to come, Ben pulled out. “Get on your knees.”
It was harder than it should have been. Her legs shook as she eased her way down. Reflex had her opening her mouth but Ben just stared at her while he smoked and jacked his cock. Then he was coming, white and streaking across her lips and her neck and down the front of her pretty dress. He kept staring down at her as he inhaled. And as he exhaled a billowing stream of cigarette smoke, both sweet and acrid, directly in her face. She was too shocked to even cough, as he tucked his cock away and put out the cigarette.
“Ben,” she said, after a long moment of silence. “Are you going to kill my grandfather?”
He glowered and pointed to her dress. “I’ll get you a new one.”
“How long will we stay?” she asked. He watched from the doorway, hands in his pockets as she made a slow circuit of the room. He was always doing that. Just watching her. Made her feel like an animal, sometimes. Her fingers lingered on the edges of the room’s fixtures and its knick-knacks. The end table, a standing lamp, and back to his desk. She ran a finger down one shining silver pen, heavy enough that it only shifted a little (and only for a second) under the weight of her touch.
He lifted a shoulder in one elegant shrug, despite its size. “Maybe half the year.” She made a little noise and he said, “What, sweetheart? I was under the impression that you wanted to travel. That you liked Italy.”
She did, but in shorter bursts than that. Even three months would have been fine. And anyway, he was being sarcastic with her. It clearly did not matter what she thought.
It was just after the new year and though she and Ben sometimes had sex multiple times a day, she hadn’t come since that fateful pre-Christmas orgasm. She had not been permitted to come since that night with her grandfather.
“Settle,” Ben said shortly. “We’ll be here a while.”
____
“You’ve got quite the girl here.”
It’s not the first time either of them has talked about her like she’s not even in the room. Her only response is to turn the page in her magazine.
Ben hums. “She’s a handful,” he says, flicking his cigarette over the ashtray. “You ought to see my credit card statements.”
The two men really laugh like Ben has actually said anything really funny. She figures it's her right. It’s been made clear that Ben likes to look at her, and that he likes her to be something pretty to look at. She may as well have the wardrobe and whatever else she wants in order to rise to the occasion.
The redhead—Hux, she’s pretty sure that’s what she caught—says, “Ahhh, but she makes it worth it, huh?”
Once again, Ben hums, lips just barely parted around his cigarette, and both men chuckle again, lower, darker.
Rey can’t help her indignant noise, the accompanying flick of her magazine. Ben tsks. “Hush, Rey, we’ll finish up here shortly.”
Her voice is saccharine. “Yes, Daddy. Oh, oops . Yes, Ben.”
She catches his eye. He looks both so angry and so delighted, she has no idea what to make of it. Hux (yeah, she’s pretty sure that’s it) gives a deep chuckle.
“Daddy, huh? You going soft on us?”
Rey goes back to trying to ignore them.
She comes awake to Ben shaking her by the shoulder. “Wake up, little Rey.”
He hauls her up to her feet, once she’s woken up enough to see that the sun is completely gone. A glance at the clock on their way out of the office shows her that it’s just after nine at night. She was asleep for a while.
She expects to go to the bedroom, for sex (even though it’s nearly February, and she still hasn’t come) or sleep or both, eventually, but instead, they go into the kitchen. He lifts her onto the counter near the stove.
Her husband doesn’t cook, but she watches him root around in the refrigerator and the cabinets. He returns with a truly massive steak. Butter, garlic, oil, thyme. It takes him another moment to find a cast-iron skillet. He cranks the heat underneath it.
She doesn’t say anything, but the question must be written all over her face.
“We missed dinner.”
It’s an answer to the wrong question. He looks so comfortable as he works. Like he knows his way around food, around a kitchen. He’s confident with the knife. Looks clearly self-satisfied as the steak hits the pan with a TV-ready sizzle. He even uses the butter and thyme and garlic to baste the steak as it finishes. They don’t speak the whole time, even while he leaves the steak to rest. He goes to the pantry and comes back with a loaf of crusty bread that he warms and slices.
He slides the steak onto the plate (with a steak knife and a fork) and the bread and now softened butter on another. He puts her on her feet and sends her to the dining room.
She lays the food at the head of the table and he comes in with a Cabernet and a glass. He sits in front of the food and beckons her to come closer. He reaches under her skirt without preamble.
“Wet,” he says quietly.
Yes, she has been since he lifted her onto the counter. She can’t help it. He’s strong, and it’s a turn-on. That’s biology. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he wants once he does his belt and his pants and his hard, annoying good cock in the air. She eases her way into his lap, facing him.
“You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long,” she says as she starts to move.
He claps a hand down on the side of her thigh. Not hard enough to hurt, but it is hard enough to sting.
“Be still.”
Oh. It’s awkward because he has to reach around her to cut the steak and pour the wine and spread a thick layer of butter on the bread. But he’s diligent at his task, even as she clenches around him. She doesn’t even want to think about how wet she is, how she’s probably soaking his pants. She’s been so close to coming so many times over the last month or so, that she mostly just tries not to think about it at all.
“I didn’t mind that you slept,” Ben says after a while, holding the fork up to her mouth. She opens and lets him feed her an amazing bite of steak. “We had some very serious things to discuss. Not for your ears.”
“You could have let me go do something else,” she says, taking the wineglass he offers her.
Ben gives her a closed-mouth smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “But then how would I know you’re behaving yourself?”
He offers her more steak, and eventually bread. More wine. Tries to be still when he tells her so. Even so, it’s a strain, and it’s not long before she’s trembling. Not just her legs, but all the way down to her hands.
“I thought you didn’t cook,” Rey says, as a last-ditch effort at distraction.
Ben is watching her so closely. “I didn’t say I didn’t know how.” Another, very long pause. “I only do it when I care about someone very much.” Rey grabs hold of his biceps because she almost wished he hadn’t said that.
“You’re about to come, aren’t you?” Ben asks and Rey nods. “You can. I think you know who you belong to. I think you know your place now.”
Yes, she certainly does.
She goes where he goes.