She knew how pitiful she sounded. She knew that Henry was one of the only people on Earth could hear her like this.
The only person I can be so vulnerable before.Other men had almost ruined her vulnerability. Like Jackson, who had demanded more of it from her that night.
Eventually, she would tell Henry…
“I think she’s having the time of her life.” Henry was almost convincing when he said that. “Having an adventure that we’ll soon join as soon as we find her. She’s going to be so excited to tell us all about it. We won’t be able to shut her up for weeks.”
He said it with such loving conviction that even Monica believed him. For the first time in forty-eight hours, she relaxed, imagining that this was “just” another adventure to get through before they resumed their lives as a happy family.
“I also need to know…” She choked on her words as she pushed her bangs out of her eyes, staring into the vibrating darkness of the airplane’s small bedroom. “That no matter what happens, we’re still together, Henry. If the unthinkable happens to our Abby… if we somehow can’t get her and this is dragged through international courts for years…”
“That won’t happen, Monica. We’ll bring her home, safe and sound.”
“I just need to know that it won’t drive us apart. I love her with more of my heart than I knew I had.” Monica felt it blossom in her chest the day her daughter was born. As if Abigail ripping herself free from her mother’s womb had left behind that blessed space for a mother’s heart to grow. “But I won’t make it if I lose you both. I could barely survive the loss of one of you. Losing you would turn me into the biggest helicopter parent Abby ever dreamed up in her sleep. Losing Abby…” Monica could barely bring herself to admit it. “I’d be a shell of my former self. Absolutely incorrigible for you as a husband. Even if we had another child, it would never… they would never…”
“Monica.” His terse but commanding tone brought her back down to her body, where Monica wiped her forehead and refocused her breaths on function, not anxious form. She needed to hear him sound more domineering, more in control of a situation he could not be physically present for.I need you, Henry. More than ever.Both Monica the mother and Monica the wife needed the man who made both possible.My daughter is my heart, but my husband is my soul.Their family unit had already defied the dirty looks and derisive words that haunted their social sphere. Monica now looked at potentially giving up her business, the thing that defined hermind,so she could protect her family, especially her daughter.Abigail is reaching that age where I have to divorce her from my business. Entirely.Until Abigail was old enough to understand.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Henry interjected. “No matter what happens to our daughter, it’s you and me, Princess. We will do everything in our power to bring her home. And, may I remind you, we have alotof power. I am not above going straight to the government and greasing whatever fucking palms I need to bring her home. I’ll burn every business connection I have in this world if it means Abigail is safe. I’ll give up our home, my parents if it means the three of us survive. Don’t mistake me,Monica. Iammy mother’s son – and when she goes scorched earth on us, it means I can go scorched earth onher.”
Monica held her breath. There was no way Henry was finished.
“I will sacrifice everything if it means saving my daughter. Don’t underestimate me. This time next week, we’ll all be home, and she won’t know a thing happened.”
He made claims that couldn’t be sure.Yet I needed to hear it…Monica released that breath right into her phone, on the verge of tears. “Are you alone?” Her body ached for him. Her half of their shared soul missed him in ways no other man could complement. Monica felt no shame about it, either. There was a reason this man was also her Dom.
Until death do us part…They had taken two sets of vows. Their wedding vows, the ones they made public to the government and the world, were taken over a year before their vows as Dom and sub. In Monica’s heart, one superseded the other.
“I’m alone,” he said. “In my hotel. I’ll be leaving in a few hours to join you in Thailand.”
He should get some sleep, just like her. Yet Monica thought nothing of that as she said, “I need you. I wish you were on this plane with me. I want…” Her body shivered in terrifying revelations. “I want to get lost in you, Henry.”
He wasn’t the type to question her, be it her meaning or her conviction.He knows what I mean.And he knew what she got out of it – how much it would mean to belostfor a while.
She wanted him to swallow her whole, to use her for his ends, to make her into that fragile yet resistant woman who relied on her husband to get through these trying times.I can’t do it alone.And she couldn’t do it as long as she shook in worry from head to toe.
When she landed, everything began again. While she was on this plane, however, she could be lost in her Dom for a whilelonger. She would never forgetwhyshe was in the air, but she could forget her fears, anxieties, and despair.
“Do you love me?” he asked, voice husky and strong.Like his favorite drink I make for him when he comes home.Monica slightly smiled to think of those simple times.
“I do. You’re the last man I’ll ever love.”
“I love you, too. I feel the same way about you, Princess.”
“So, you understand. What I’m asking of you.”
There was that minuscule part of her that felt guilty. Ashamed. Here she was, en route to rescue her daughter from the clutches of a madwoman, but all she could think about while trapped in a metal tube thousands of feet in the air was her husband’s touch. But there was the experienced part of her that knew this about herself. When stress was high and she couldn’t immediately take action about it, she turned to sex. For most of her adult life, there was someone there to set her at ease.
Even now, with only a phone to connect them. The power of modern science.
“Don’t you know I’m there with you right now, Princess?” If Monica pressed her phone harder against her ear, she swore she only heard him, not the low roar of the plane engine. “I’m in bed with you, holding you in my arms, thinking about how easy it would be to start making love to you. I know you’d let me. I don’t have to even ask when it’s you. It’s like you’re waiting for me to touch you, kiss you, do whatever I want to you while you open your legs and urge me to claim you for another night.”
The tingles in her body almost let Monica completely forget why she was on a plane. Then she thought of how her daughter had been made, mere weeks before even getting married, and her heart sank once more. “Of course I want it,” she urgently said back, hoping to reclaim the mood she had nearly lost. “I always want you, Henry.”
Were there nights when she truly wasn’t in the mood and had to tell him no? Yes, but they were so few and far between, partly because Henry was so finely in tune with her soul that he knew when it wasn’t happening without asking. Monica would always giveanythingto be with her husband. He knew exactly what she wanted, like now, when they pretended to embrace from thousands of miles away.
Monica had never been shy about her sexuality, even before she met Henry. But their marriage had taken things to another level. With him, she was as free to be as needy and desperate in the bedroom as she wanted to be. Men like Jackson had held it over her head if she ever asked for something intimate on her terms. But Henry was the kind of Dom who took all of her requests into account and worked them into their scenes without fail. Sometimes, he set aside his own fantasies to ensure his "Princess" was satisfied as his submissive partner in all areas of life. At least, the areas that mattered least. When it came to parenting and making important financial decisions, Monica was anything but submissive. And she refused to model anything but strength and intelligence to her daughter.One day, Abby will know the truth about her parents.She would probably intuit it on her own as she came of age, but Monica knew there would come a time when she and Abigail sat down to discuss everything on her daughter's mind.
Until then, all Monica could do was indulge.
