Page 5 of Caged in Desire
Her academic record is impeccable. It seems she’s tested at the level required for senior college coursework, which isn’t surprising, considering the list of tutors she’s been working with. Her instructors include some of the most decorated professors in the country.
While her academic capabilities surpass any expectation I might have had, I’m curious about the social skills she’ll have after living locked away on her family’s estate her entire life. If she remained hidden for eighteen years, there’s no way they would let her out much, if at all. I’m first inclined to compare her to eighteen-year-old Margot. My sister was and is a kind-hearted soul, but she’s always been a bit spoiled. As the baby of the family and the only girl, she always got pretty much everything she wanted. But while Margot was brilliant, she wasn’t making valid points and counterarguments against famous philosophers, as my betrothed has been doing for years, based on this record. Perhaps Katarina is shyer than Margot and more of a bookworm.
Sighing, I flip through the remainder of the packet, each page humanizing her more and more. I realize this sordid ordeal must be equally as off-putting for her as it is for me, if not more so.
Although she’s probably known about this arrangement long enough to wrap her mind around it all, I’m sure I’ll intimidateher. At the end of the day, she’s the one leaving everything she knows to move into a strange home with a man she doesn’t know.A man exactly twice her age.
Home. I suppose I’ll need to decide on a home base if I’m going to have a lady of the house. This estate makes the most sense. It’s close to my family, in case she needs anything while I’m away. I pick up her picture, and my heart races as I look down at my beautiful Katarina.
Is this how Ledger felt when he saw Sloane for the first time? If there was a poster boy for anti-monogamy, it was him before he met his wife. I’ve envied him for longer than I care to admit. A part of me has always longed for the love in their eyes when they look at each other, and the way they so effortlessly gravitate to one another, holding and touching without thought. And now he’s going to have a baby.A proper fucking family.
In the back of my mind, whenever I allowed myself to imagine having a family one day, it was always here. Without meaning to, my mind wanders to this house full of the life it once had when my siblings and I were growing up, except these children running the halls have icy-blonde hair.
Walking in from a long day away, my eldest two children run past me, yelling out greetings as they race through the halls, while the youngest leaps into my arms. My stunning wife waddles into the room, well on her way to giving me a fourth child, lighting up the room with her smile. Setting the small child down to chase his siblings, I walk over to Katarina and pull her into a loving embrace, using one hand to pull her face up to mine for a passionate kiss before dropping it to her growing womb. The thought of her carrying my child again makes me ravenous, pulling her with me to the bedroom…
The chime of my phone brings me back to reality. I look at my screen and see the twenty-four-hour notice in my calendar of my scheduled meeting with Lori at Rendezvous tomorrow.
I stare at the appointment reminder for far longer than necessary before remembering that I’m in an active contract with a submissive, and we’ve arranged for her to fly down to meet me at my brother’s sex club tomorrow evening.
I’ve been a member of the BDSM lifestyle for over a decade and have almost perfected my contract relationships over the years. I started with more of a 24/7 lifestyle dynamic, but my aversion to intimacy quickly became an issue for many of my submissives. With each contract, I learned more and more about what did and didn’t work. My already low tolerance for intimacy took a significant hit when Father passed away five years ago, leaving me to run his empire, and it has trickled down to the bare minimum of what a healthy Dom/sub relationship can even be.
As it stands, I meet with my submissive two to three times per week at a designated location, usually a hotel or club. I hardly ever bring anyone to my residence, and I’ve never had someonehere.I’ve been in a contract with Lori for almost a year, but for the life of me, I can’t picture her face. The only face I can see is the one in the picture I’m holding.My wife.
Looking around the study, I think for a second that marriage might not be such a horrible thing after all. I can have the estate prepared for Katarina. My heart races at the idea of sharing a bed with her. She will be my wife, after all. Preferring to stay in my own room, I never officially moved into the owner’s suite, so I can easily have it readied for her.
I suppose as of four thirty this evening, I’m effectively engaged. I need to cancel my appointment with Lori tomorrow and have Linda arrange to terminate the remainder of our contract.
Of course, we'll have our legal team working on this every free moment they have, but for now, it is what it is. If Danny’s initial reaction to the contract is anything to go by, my bachelor days are coming to an end.
Chapter four
1 year later
“Good morning, Mr. Halpern!” I greet my current events tutor as I enter the breakfast room.
He looks up from his paper with a grin on his face. “Good morning to you as well, Kat! You’re in rather good spirits today.”
“I must have woken up at the right time in my sleep cycle,” I say, reaching for my own paper, folded crisply in half and laid out beside my place setting,
The reason for my particularly good spirits today is a salacious dream I had last night about the man I’ll be marrying soon, but Mr. Halpern certainly doesn't need to know that.
“Very well, shall we go over the goings-on in the world as of late so we can both get on with our day?” Halpern asks.
“Of course.”
“If you turn to page five, you’ll see that the Braves lost their lead pitcher.” Halpern frowns before continuing. “I know this doesn’t necessarily pertain to you, but I’m somewhat of a fanof the sport and that’s the team I’ve attached myself to since arriving in America.”
“Would you like to know a fun fact about the Braves?” I ask, waiting for his confirmation before continuing. “They used to be the only baseball team you could watch on national TV because the owner of some major channels owned the Braves as well!”
Halpern fixes me with a quizzical look. “Whyonearthdo you know that, Katarina?”
“I know a lot of things, Mr. Halpern,” I say smugly as I unfold my paper. We discuss international politics, pure drudgery, but I’ll admit, it’s much easier to converse with a wide range of people if you know a little about most of the hot news stories of the day.
“Anything else worth discussing this morning before we start the day?”
“If you turn to page seven, you’ll see the recent deaths. It seems the owner of a property neighboring your future husband's estate passed away in his sleep last night. David Crowley. He was seventy-eight and not in the best of health, but I think it was still somewhat of a shock to his family.”
“How sad. I wonder if his family was close to the Sinclairs?”
