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  No Safeword: Matte – Happily Ever After © October 2014 by Candace Blevins

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.

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  First Edition October 2014

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  No Safeword: Matte

  Happily Ever After

  by Candace Blevins

  Sam visits someone in the hospital who was raped, and I want to let my readers with rape triggers know ahead of time. We get a run-down of what transpired as she tells the police, but there are no as-it-happened details.

  However, to be on the safe side, if you’d like to avoid all details of the incident, you’ll have an opportunity to download an alternate Chapter 39 when you reach it.

  Chapter One

  Sam knew the movers would bring Ethan’s things from storage in Atlanta while they honeymooned in Hawaii, but she hadn’t realized how much stuff there’d be.

  The couple worked around the house for two days, only breaking for sex three or four times a day as they arranged Ethan’s things amongst Sam’s to make the house reflect both personalities.

  He didn’t give her any official scenes, but he made it clear he could order her over the back of the sofa at any time, or just bend her over the counter without warning. She loved being manhandled by him, and seemed to be as horny as him, even after all the sex they’d had on their honeymoon.

  By the morning of the third day they’d mixed Ethan’s furniture and knick-knacks in with Sam’s, stored his adventure gear in the garage, made room for his exercise equipment in the workout room, and incorporated his cooking tools amongst hers in the kitchen.

  Ethan decided his television should go in the den because it was bigger than hers, but she’d recently bought it and hated to see it uprooted.

  “No problem,” said Ethan, “we’ll move it to the bedroom.”

  “There’s already a perfectly good television in the bedroom!” Sam exclaimed.

  “Yes, but it’s smaller than your den television, and we can move the one in the bedroom to the workout room.”

  Sam glared at him. “I don’t watch TV when I work out. I like to get into it without distraction.”

  Ethan kissed her forehead, but she didn’t tone down her glare. “I have this wonderful footage filmed by a biker in Ireland,” he said, “and when I’m stuck in the house in bad weather I love to watch it as I ride the stationary bike.”

  Sam blew out a breath. “Fine, we play musical chairs with the televisions, but I don’t want to watch the news while I work out!”

  “No arguments from me there. Now, let’s talk about what to do with my outdoor furniture.”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Sam said. “I bought one of those huge triangle cloths meant to create an outdoor room area, and there are already attachments for it above the patio area at the other end of the pool. Your stuff will look great there, and it gives us another outdoor living space.” She smiled conspiratorially. “We’ll have to check to be sure, but I think we’ll be at the right angle when under it, so the neighbors can’t see us from their upper floors.”

  When they’d finally distributed everything, the house was theirs, not hers, and seeing Ethan’s belongings mixed in with hers made it seem more real, like he really belonged, and Sam hoped he felt the same.

  Returning to the dojo was a lot like coming home, and class energized her instead of making her tired. Their friends grilled them about honeymoon details at the restaurant later, and Sam and Ethan both tried to stick to their biking, kayaking, hiking, and dolphin adventures, but the group kept teasing and wanting more. Sam was about to tell them Ethan had fucked her brains out on a daily basis, but Ethan beat her to the punch by saying, “Sam’s as adventurous in bed as she is everywhere else, and I’m truly a lucky man.”

  Sam’s first few days back to work were hard but it didn’t take her long to get into the swing of things. Masterson’s attorney had tried to push through some things while she was on her honeymoon, only to discover she’d left one of the senior partners in charge of the case — an elderly gentleman with no sympathy for anyone who’d hit a woman.

  When she was sure she’d be able to get away, Sam called Tara and arranged to meet for lunch on Friday, and the two had a great time. Tara was dressed in casual slacks and a feminine shirt, and Sam didn’t think anyone had an inkling her dining companion had started life as a boy.

  Sam learned Tara was a Nurse Practitioner, which she thought impressive. Tara wasn’t quite as impressed with Sam’s career as a divorce attorney, but once they talked Tara seemed satisfied her new friend wasn’t a ruthless shark.

  They ate lunch as friends, with no sexual overtones, and it was time for Sam to return to work before either was ready to say goodbye. They hugged platonically as they left the restaurant, and made plans for Tara to come to the house in two weekends for self-defense pointers from Sam and Ethan.

  Ethan wasn’t home when Sam arrived after work, so she had time to change clothes and look through the house. The cleaning crew had come, and Sam loved the way everything sparkled. She was working on dinner when Ethan arrived, and she kissed him and sent him upstairs to shower when he walked in the door a sweaty mess. He was always happier on the evenings he moved furniture than the days he worked in the office, and she once again admired him for finding a profession that worked so well for his personality.

  Sam was taking dishes to the outside dining area when Ethan came through the living room looking downright peeved.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Someone’s been here. Stuff is moved.” He looked around and focused on his model cars. “Look, they even moved my cars around!”

  Sam looked from Ethan to the cars, puzzled. “The cleaning people came today, and I’m sure they moved the cars to dust, but it looks like they put them back.”

  “No, they were lined up by year and then alphabetically, and now they’re up there in just any order.”

  Sam stopped to gather her thoughts. This could be his OCD thing, but she had a feeling it was something else. “The cleaning people come once a week to dust, vacuum, clean the bathrooms, change the sheets on the bed, unload the dishwasher, and wash the sheets and towels and put them away. If you want them to leave some things alone we can make a list, but it’ll mean one of us has to clean those areas.”

  “I don’t want
someone I don’t know touching my things,” he said, his voice icily calm.

  Her husband was fuming, but this had to be about more than his collectibles. “It’s not like you to be this upset over model cars, there’s more to this that’s bugging you, isn’t there? Do you not like having someone in the house when you aren’t here? Maybe it’s not so much about your cars as it’s about, well, everything?”

  He didn’t respond, just gave her the same stony glare, and she asked, “They’ve been coming to clean since I met you and it never bothered you. What’s changed?”

  “It was your house, before. Now it’s ours, and my things are here, too.” He crossed his arms. Not quite his Greek God pose, but not far from it. “It feels like something I should have a say in.”

  Sam walked to a loveseat without turning her back to him, as that tended to tick him off when they were arguing. She sat and motioned beside her. “Can you come sit down? I want to touch you while we figure this out. Okay?”

  He smiled, dropped his arms, and his body relaxed. “How are we supposed to have a knock-down drag-out fight if we’re sitting and holding hands?”

  “You figured out my evil plan.” She smiled as he walked to her and sat.

  Turning sideways towards him, she put one leg over his lap and leaned into his side. “What do you propose as a solution?”

  “Just have her stop coming.”

  “Do you have someone else you want to hire?”

  “No. I don’t want anyone here when we aren’t.”

  “But, how will everything get done?” she asked, careful to keep her voice friendly and non-confrontational. It wasn’t like him to get upset over the small things, so either this seemed big to him, or there was another problem this was aggravating. “We lead busy lives, do we really want to have to spend four or five hours every week dusting, vacuuming, changing the sheets, folding towels, and cleaning all these bathrooms?”

  “It’s never taken me more than an hour to clean.”

  “I imagine it wouldn’t in your cabin, with one bathroom and maybe twelve hundred square feet of floor space.” Sam took a breath and tried another approach. “She brings someone to help, and the two of them are here three or four hours. They have a system, and they’re fast — much faster than I’ve ever been able to do it.”

  He didn’t say anything and Sam added, “I know you said you wanted to pay our household expenses from the joint account, but I’m willing to pay this one out of my personal account, if it’s the expense you have an issue with.”

  “No, it’s not the expense, though I thought it was outrageous until I heard how long they’re here.”

  Sam remained silent, hoping he’d tell her why this was bothering him. He finally said, “I’m not exactly sure why it hit me wrong; I just know I wanted to lash out when I saw my things moved.”

  After another long silence Sam leaned back enough to look up and get eye contact. “I’ll ask again. What do you propose we do to resolve this?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Let’s not do anything yet and I’ll see how I feel about it next week. It might just be something I need to get used to.”

  The timer in the kitchen dinged and Sam kissed his cheek as she stood and asked, “Do you want me to talk to them and have them leave your cars alone?”

  “No,” he said as he followed her into the kitchen. “Maybe I over-reacted.”

  Goodness, she loved this man. Was there anything sexier than a huge, muscled he-man who could admit when he was wrong?

  While he was being agreeable she decided it was a good time to alert him of others who might be in the house. “I suppose I should warn you the dry cleaner sends someone to pick up my laundry on Friday when the cleaning people are here.”

  He shook his head. “I know they deliver it Monday morning before you leave for work, I assumed you dropped it off the week before.”

  “I hate doing laundry, and I realize I pay an arm and a leg for them to pick it up and then deliver to my closet, but it’s worth it. The question is, do you want them to do your laundry, too?”

  He shook his head and motioned towards the laundry room behind the kitchen. “I assume the washer and dryer work. I’ll put my dry cleaning in the bag they pick up, but I’ll take care of the rest myself.”

  “Okay, the white bag is plain laundry, the blue one’s the dry cleaning. Add anything you want.”

  Sam figured it was time to let him know she’d had some issues during their first weeks, too, so he didn’t think he was the only one having to make adjustments.

  “I have a bit of a confession to make. I’m only telling you this so we can commiserate, not because I want you to change anything. Okay?”

  He looked at her cautiously. “Okay.”

  “You were here a lot before we married, so I didn’t think it’d be too big of an adjustment, having you here all the time. For the most part it’s been great, but the first time I checked the mail and it was empty, and then came inside to see that you’d brought it in already, I had to go upstairs and change clothes so you wouldn’t see how much it upset me.”

  His brow furrowed and he opened his mouth to say something, but Sam rushed to talk before he could speak. “There’s no reason you can’t get the mail. Yours is delivered here now, too. It’s our mailbox, not mine…it’s just that I’ve lived alone for so long, sometimes the nitpicky small stuff catches me off guard.”

  She turned and pulled the eggplant lasagna from the oven, set it on the stove, and was putting the oven gloves away when Ethan turned her towards him.

  “Thanks for telling me.” He caressed her cheek. “It’s an adjustment for both of us, not just me, and I needed to hear it.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said as she snuggled into him. “Now, let’s get all this outside so we can take advantage of the beautiful day.”

  Chapter Two

  Mr. Masterson’s attorney did everything possible to postpone and delay the inevitable, but Sam was beyond ready to finish the case. Never mind the longer it stretched the more she could bill — this mother and her kids needed closure.

  Sam gave Jenna Masterson a quick primer on self-defense, and suggested she enroll her kids in martial arts classes, explaining, “Not because they’re going to fight their dad, but because of the self-confidence it will give them.”

  A week later she arrived at the studio to coach Tom through a workout session, and was thrilled to see Jenna’s son and daughter in the class Tom was bringing to a close.

  Jenna and Sam exchanged pleasantries, and when the children came running to their mother Sam took her leave and joined Tom on the mats.

  “We have around twenty minutes before Ethan arrives. Do you remember my least favorite drill when you were prepping me for the national title?” she asked.

  He nodded and started the drills. No one liked doing the monotonous, exhausting muscle memory exercises, no matter how necessary they may be.

  When Ethan arrived, Sam and Tom were deep into speed and reflex work, and Ethan watched a few minutes before transitioning in without interrupting. Sam loved that he didn’t come in and try to take control, but stepped in to help and let her continue to run the exercise. She planned to let him take over after the drill, but it was nice he didn’t always have to be in control.

  Sam pushed Tom hard, and when she finally let him back off and rest he fell on the floor and exclaimed, “No offense, Ethan, but I’m glad she isn’t my wife. Is she this damned bossy at home?”

  “Nope, but I’m not the wimp lying on the floor, either. Get up, we have work to do.”

  The three wrapped the training session up at eight, in time to shower and walk down the street to meet the rest of the group at eight thirty for a late dinner.

  Sam had convinced Cassie to back off with Francisco, but the two barely spoke to each other during dinner and Sam realized things weren’t as settled as she’d thought. As the group broke up, she pulled Cassie and Frisco to the side and said, “Do ya’ll want to follow me
back to my house to talk, or should we take a walk down to the park?”

  Frisco said, “Your house,” as Cassie said, “The park.” Ethan laughed and said, “I’ll be the tie-breaker, we’re going back to our place.”

  When he said our place, he gave her a look, and Sam realized she’d called it her house. She looked at him sheepishly and said, “Sorry, old habit. I’ll try to do better.”

  He kissed her forehead. “No, it’s okay. It’s your house, and my house, and our house. I get it.”

  It was a comfortable night, and Sam led them to the backyard as Ethan poured drinks for everyone.

  “I’m going to break confidences all around tonight, so both of you just grin and bear it.” Sam looked to Frisco. “When Cassie was twelve, her parents were still married to each other and she thought she lived in the perfect family. When she was thirteen, her father called the family together to tell them he was gay, he’d fallen in love, and he was divorcing their mom.”

  Cassie’s indrawn breath made Sam hesitate, but she didn’t take her eyes off Frisco as she continued. “She didn’t talk to her father for six years, until she went into therapy for some other problems and ended up being told she’d never resolve anything until she worked through the issues with her father.”

  Cassie interrupted. “I’m happy for my dad, now. He’s in a wonderful relationship, and he’s happier than he ever was with my mom. He tried to live a lie and it almost destroyed him.” She looked down. “I’d be a different person if he hadn’t tried to live a straight life. My mom would’ve married someone else, so I’d have had a different dad. Maybe one who wouldn’t have walked out of my life when I was thirteen.”

  Sam turned towards Cassie. “Frisco isn’t your father. Your father is gay; Frisco is bisexual. Do you understand the difference?”

  “Sure, it means he likes girls and boys. But, bad things happen when you keep something like that secret.”