Release Me

Part 18

Long shadows slithered across the living room, a dark veil cast by the approaching evening, as I entered the apartment I shared with Samantha. The usual lively space now gloomy and silent. I sighed, the soft murmur of relief curling in the quiet room, as I peeled off my boots and surrendered my aching feet to the cool embrace of the floor. The moment the second boot thudded against the floor, the lamp flickered to life next to Samantha's usual spot, and I tensed, as I braced for impact.

"We need to talk," she said without looking over at me. "Another package came for you. It's the size of a dress box with a ribbon around it. I put it in your office." A paused lasted for more than four breaths and it took everything in me not to move. "Are you seeing someone?" Her words, sharp and loaded, hung heavy in the air between us, like smoke refusing to disperse.

"And if I were?" I retorted without skipping a beat, picking up the boots from the floor and stretched out my feet without moving from my spot in front of the door.

"Seems like quite the catch," she sneered, her voice scraping down my spine like fingernails against a chalkboard.

My head sagged, shoulders slumping under the weight of her words - words too heavy to bear. It wasn't that I harbored secrets willingly; it was the tangled web of my circumstances, a mess of clauses and complications, that withheld the full truth from her.

"Guess Kade wasn't enough."

"The person is a client of a sort. Besides, this has nothing to do with Kade. One is a business transaction, and the other is personal." I countered, my tone icy, cutting through the tension in the room like a scalpel slicing through flesh.

"Are you sure he knows that?" Samantha retorted, her words tipped with smug satisfaction, like a predator reveling in a trapped prey. The implicit challenge simmered in her eyes, a dare for me to contradict her.

I closed my eyes, stretching out my shoulders before the tense muscles threatened to tighten even more. The frayed threads of my relationship with my submissive were so strained that the words to ask for his comforting touch on my aching muscles lay dead on my tongue. Despite the tension, I craved the comfort of his enveloping arms. I missed the gentle way he cared for me, and yet I couldn't deny how good it was to be pushed to the edge by my anonymous contract owner.

"Why would you ask such a thing?"

Her head swiveled in my direction and the anger in her eyes made my next breath pause.

"Because when he texted that number you gave me, he stormed out right after he got a reply on his phone."

Tension wracked through me and it took everything in the depths of my being to hold my tongue and let the words come out even.

"That number was for emergencies only, and I told you not to wait up for me."

"And then you didn't come home after you were summoned by a strange note that you panicked over." She continued like I'd never spoken. "I tried to call but your phone went to voicemail. Until you walked in the door, there was no way for me to know if you were alive or dead."

Samantha spun back to face the window. The television screen flickered mutely in front of her, casting long shadows with scenes from some gritty criminal drama. Her hand reached for her wine, and she drew a long, pensive sip.

"Don't be dramatic," I snapped, irritation seeping into my tone. "I'm an adult with adult responsibilities, and a mess to clean up. It is my weight, and they are my shoulders."

The wine glass took flight across the room, a swirling crimson storm trailing in its wake, like a comet leaving its fiery imprint across the night sky. It exploded into a thousand shards upon impact with the wall. Samantha bolted from the couch, her anger propelling her towards me like a bullet.