Chapter Nine

Of course, inevitably, she moved in, as a result of his much less than subtle needling about it, with Honey finally wondering why—like an idiot—she was arguing against moving in to a big, beautiful house with a staff and a pool.

"All right," she said to him one day on a weekend, when she was, of course, staying with him. They were cooking together in his big kitchen, which was something out of Town and Country magazine, full of every cooking gadget she could never afford.

"All right what, hon?" he asked, chopping carrots for their salad.

She sighed, facing him while leaning against the counter. "I'll…move in."

He put the knife down and just stood there for a moment.

Honey began to feel a bit uncomfortable about his lack of reaction. "But I don't have—"

"Yes, you do!" he exclaimed, grabbing her and swinging her around the room. "Yes, you do; yes, you do!" He buried his face in her neck and kissed it enthusiastically then nibbled on it, making her shiver as he'd known she would.

Finally, he put her down, still wearing the goofiest, biggest smile she'd ever seen. "An excellent decision, young lady!"

She blushed at the compliment and the not quite endearment she usually only heard when he was lecturing her before, during, or after he'd disciplined her.

Then, as she was going to drift over and stir the chili, she felt a hefty smack to her bottom.

"'Bout damned time!" he growled.

"So, should I call a moving company, or what?" she asked casually, moving to get some plates and bowls out of the cupboards for them.

But she was again rudely interrupted by his presence behind her—one big hand cupping a breast, the other resting possessively between her legs.

"I don't know, Miss Honey. What do you think I'd say about that, hmmm?" Eager fingers found her always-peaked-around-him nipple, as others aimed unerringly for her clit.

Christ, she couldn't think when he did things like that to her, and he was always doing things like that to her!

Damn, she was always so wet! He expected that, one day, in the future, he was going to put his hands down her pants and not feel wet panties against the back of his hand and not find a veritable fountain when he parted her nether lips, but he fervently hoped it never happened.

"Hmm?" he prompted against her vulnerable throat.

"That you'll do it," she sighed.

"Damn straight, I will, and don't you start thinking like that," he cautioned. "You'll get yourself into trouble that way. I'll handle it completely. All you have to do is tell them where to put things once they get here."

She was already shuddering and shaking in his arms, and he had barely touched her. Perhaps her increased sensitivity had something to do with the fact that he hadn't allowed her to come in a little while, because she was being punished every evening before bed for spending her hard-earned money on groceries a couple days ago when she didn't need to.

"Yes, Sir?" he said pointedly, leaning a little bit away so that he could look down at her.

"Yes, S-Sir," she drawled breathlessly, whining a little when he went back to chopping carrots without satisfying her.

She had another night to go before he would consider easing the aches that he had created in her—and kept well stoked—around the clock.

His phone rang then, and Sabin looked at who was calling and actually answered it, which he didn't usually around her, unless it was very serious problem. She was fine with him doing so. She understood that he was a businessman and was busy running multiple companies at a time. She wasn't jealous of his work. On the contrary, she was proud of his success in weaning himself away from being a crime boss—mostly, anyway.

Sabin put the phone down and sighed, taking her into his arms. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to go, sweetheart. I'm sorry that the real world is interrupting our weekend."

"That's okay. I'll just write while you're gone."

"Good girl." Sabin held her closer and kissed her deeply. "I am so sorry about this," he apologized again.

But she just grinned. "You're beginning to sound like me, apologizing all the time, when you keep telling me I don't need to. Do you need a spanking, Mr. Sabin?" she asked cheekily, echoing the way he often called her "Miss Honey", although she couldn't come anywhere near matching his stern tone.

His hand came down on her behind twice, very sharply, before she realized that she should have made that comment while standing across the room.

"No," he stated flatly. "That would upset the natural order of things in our relationship. But I promise you that I'll be home in time to give you your bedtime spanking," he said, grabbing his wallet, keys, and phone and stealing a kiss again as he headed for the door.

"Don't rush back on that account," she called after him.

He peeked back in. "If I miss it, you'll get it in the morning."

Honey frowned. "Hey, that's not fair!"

Sabin shrugged. "All's fair in love, war, and punishments," was his parting shot.

"That's not how that saying goes!" she yelled after him, hearing him chuckle as he made his way to his car.

Unfortunately for Honey, that phone call set into motion a period of frenzied activity for him that kept him away from her more often than he had been since they'd gotten together.

Still, he did his best to make sure she was well taken care of in his absence and that she knew he hadn't forgotten about her. Flowers arrived some days, candy, on others, balloons once, and one day, even a personal masseuse—who was a woman, of course.

You're going to spoil me! she texted him from the puddle of goo on the floor that the woman had expertly turned her into.

Sometimes he was able to answer her immediately, but lots of times he wasn't.

Good! You deserve to be spoiled! And then, if you become bratty, you'll deserve to be spanked.

She sent him a frowny face emoji.

I miss you something fierce, Honey B.

Honey could hear the exact tone in which he would say that to her if he were here. I miss you, too, even more fiercely.

"See you as soon as I can, sweetheart. But don't wait up."

She sent him an emoji with its tongue out, then texted, I can't wait!

And no touching!

He knew her much too well.

Yes, Sir, she replied obediently.

I mean it! I'll know!

She had no doubt that he would and told him so.

Smart girl.

When he had returned—in the middle of the night as he seemed to be doing during this crisis—slipping into their bed and into her at the same time, he had whispered into her ear as he used her for his own pleasure, "Your punishments are going to have to be suspended for a little while, until this situation is resolved. But I expect you will obey me and keep your hands away from your pussy, Honey. Understand?"

Of course, everything he was doing to her at that exact moment only made her restrictions that much harder to follow, but she had whispered, very reluctantly, "Yes, Sir."

"Good girl."

He took her every time he came home, even when he was going to be leaving again within the hour, and even though he touched and fondled her at will, keeping that raging need at a fever pitch within her, he never once sated it.

And when they'd traded many multicolored hearts and smoochie faces one afternoon, and he was gone for who knew how long again, Honey looked around the big empty place and sighed.

It sure was more fun living there with him than living here alone, despite the amenities—and the perpetually sore backside. It was usually accompanied by multiple climaxes that were literally so hard that she could barely take them—not always immediately, but eventually. She'd never gone so long with him, without being allowed that satisfaction, and she thought it was cruel and unusual of him to make her wait like this.

Not that she was going to disobey him. It certainly wasn't easy not to, but she was determined to do something else to keep her mind occupied and her hands out of trouble.

Instead, she got up and roamed around the house, finally daring to peek into his home office, where she'd never gone before. He hadn't made anywhere off limits to her, but she respected his need to work and never wanted to interrupt him.

It was just as she expected—disgustingly neat. That was what was getting her into trouble the most often, so far—her slobby tendencies. But his office was neat as a pin. There was a big desk and an equally big chair—as he would need—and everything was in very organized piles on top of it.

A piece of paper whose logo she recognized caught her eye. It must've been a pile of bills, because it was the invoice for the cost of him moving her. But it had to be wrong. It showed a quote—an astronomical figure to her, especially considering how little she actually owned—being given to him more than two weeks earlier and then what he had ended up paying, which was pretty much spot on.

But why would he have gotten a quote two weeks before she decided to move in?

The only answer she could come up with made her frown like the emojis she'd sent him occasionally.

He had been just going to up and move her, whether she wanted him to or not—she was quite sure that she was right about that! One day, she'd have wandered over to her apartment for something, and it would have been empty. The next paper down showed that he'd even paid her way out of her lease, too. She had just signed a new one three or four months ago, and the two of those expenses—that were entirely hers—had cost him a pretty penny.

And she'd thought that her obsequious phone call to her landlord, where he had said that it was fine with him if she broke her lease, had proven that he did have a heart, after all.

Honey sank down into his ridiculously big chair, then curled up in it because it smelled like his aftershave, and sighed again, but for a very different reason from boredom this time.

She knew she had hang-ups about money that he'd spent all of their time together reassuring her that she didn't need to have. Those had just been amplified for her, for some reason, when they'd gotten together.

So, she sat there, trying to think it through, trying not to feel ashamed and pathetic that she was coming into this relationship with him with so little, when he had everything—and he was giving her everything.

But it wasn't as if she'd asked him for any of it. She would have moved into a car with him, if he'd asked her, and she hoped he knew that about her after all this time.

And when it came down to it, when she looked past her own insecurities about such things, she thought he probably did. She'd never known him to get involved with a gold digger—not that she considered herself one by any means—but he'd never allowed himself to be used in any way that she knew of, and she certainly wasn't doing so.

So, she put the papers back carefully—in the order in which she'd found them—and backed out of his office, closing the door behind her. She was bedeviled by thoughts about what he'd done for her for a while afterwards but did her best to put those thoughts aside, very much wanting to trust him about what he'd said about his money being theirs.

Later that evening, she got an actual call from him.

"Hi! I'm so glad to hear from you! The texts are nice, but they're not your voice—" she answered excitedly.

But Sabin was brusque and almost businesslike in interrupting her. She supposed that was to be expected, since it seemed that there were a lot of fires for him to put out. "Honey, I'm just calling to let you know that I might not be home tonight, and I don't want you to worry. I'll get home to you as soon as I can."

"Oh. That's fine. Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine. I'll be out—I'll be home sometime tomorrow morning. I want you to stay at home until I get there—no matter what."

Honey was surprised that he'd put it that way, but she thought he meant that she shouldn't go out to breakfast or grocery shopping in the morning. Why would she go out at this time of night?

"All right." She felt a little blindsided and wasn't really sure what to say, but she wanted to be supportive. "I hope everything goes well for you!"

His "So do I" was somewhat curt and she tried not to feel let down by the encounter, but she also felt as if she didn't know the whole story yet, but she was sure he'd tell her in the morning.

"Take care of yourself, okay?"

"Yes, I will." He still sounded distracted, and she could hear other voices around him until he said in a manner that sounded much more like the Sabin she knew, "I love you, Honey." It was something they'd been saying to each other for quite some time.

"I love you, too, Sir." She was sorry that it sounded much more like an automatic response than a heartfelt one, but there wasn't much she could do about it now.

"I hope you do, darlin'. I hope you do."

With that, he disconnected the call.

It was the weirdest conversation she'd ever had with him, and he'd called her from Vegas in the middle of the night once, to drunkenly rhapsodize to her about a woman he'd met just a few hours before that he was seriously contemplating marrying at one of the Elvis chapels.

Luckily for him, he came to his senses. That was a truly surreal conversation to have had with him, but this one was just plain weird.

Honey stayed up for a few more hours, although she got nothing productive done. The story she was working on just wasn't cooperating, and in desperation, she did something she never did. Except for the shows he recommended that she should watch, TV wasn't really her thing. She hadn't grown up with one—preferring books or writing even then.

But she was feeling a little lonely and thought that the sound of voices might help alleviate that a bit. It was just going on eleven o'clock, and she turned on the local news, which was the last thing she would have been interested in watching.

As soon as she did, though, Sabin's face was on the screen next to the newsreader, and she hurriedly turned up the volume.

"Purported former Mafia crime boss, Sabin Northrup, was arrested today on charges stemming from his relationship with Freddie "The Zipper" Bernardo, who is facing federal racketeering charges from last year. The local D.A., Editha Chamberlain, who has amassed quite a record of bringing members of that crime organization to justice, filed the charges herself today."

For a very long time, Honey just stood there, mouth open, staring at the screen. She used the rewind feature to watch it several more times, becoming more and more horrified each time she saw it.

The video accompanying the report showed Sabin being led into the police department with his hands cuffed, but he wasn't hiding behind a coat or an umbrella or anything, as many before him had. Instead, he stood tall and straight, answering "No comment" to the questions the reporters—who were flocking around him—were hurling at him.

Not really knowing what she was doing, Honey made her way to the bedroom and got dressed. Not bothering to call Teddy to bring the car around—because she had a feeling that he was going to try to dissuade her from what she intended to do, in Sabin's place—she got into her own beat up old car and drove herself down to the police station.

It wasn't until she got out and started to run in that she heard her name. "Honey! Honey! Honey!"

She turned and saw that Teddy had followed her—how he'd known where she was going, she had no idea.

He caught up with her and touched her arm gently. "He won't want you to go in there. I know he wouldn't even want you to be here."

The fact that he had told her expressly to stay home flitted through her mind, only to be dismissed just as quickly. There was nothing that was going to keep her from him, not even his rules for her. She would take whatever punishment he meted out, but she wanted—needed—to be there with him.

So, Honey turned away from Teddy, who was looking fairly apoplectic at the idea that she was actually going to go into the police station and began running again.

"Dammit," he mumbled under his breath as he jogged dutifully along behind her.

Once inside, she walked up to the first person she saw, who was sitting behind an enormous desk.

"Could you help me please?" she asked politely, although she wasn't going to be put off by him, either.

"Yes, miss?" The man who answered her looked like the typical cop who had had too many doughnuts.

"I would like to see Mr. Northrup."

"Well, he's being processed at the moment—"

"That's all right. I'll wait."

She found a seat and claimed it, with Teddy sitting next to her, quietly giving off the vibe that he would kill anyone who so much as looked at her wrong.

"It might be quite some time, miss."

"That's fine. I have nowhere to go." Then she turned to the man who looked a lot more dangerous than she remembered, somehow. "You don't have to stay here, Teddy. You can go back home." He lived somewhere on the estate.

He snorted loudly. "Not likely. I'd prefer to remain in Mr. Northrup's employ and not be drawn and quartered." He sighed. "I'm probably going to be drawn and quartered anyway once he sees that you're down here, though."

Honey couldn't be bothered about Teddy's problems. She'd quite suddenly found that she had more than enough of her own to deal with.

And the desk sergeant hadn't been exaggerating in the least about how long it would be. She got there about quarter to midnight, and she wasn't given the opportunity to see him—which she had a feeling was being done grudgingly at best—until nearly three.

That was when the sergeant came to stand in front of her. "Do you still want to see Mr. Northrup, miss?"

Honey stood immediately. "Yes, I do."

"Follow me."

Her shadow followed them. The officer didn't look particularly happy that now there were two of them, but he didn't make a big deal about it, either.

For some reason, Honey began to shake as soon as she began walking behind him, and she thought she was going to be in pieces by the time she actually got to see Sabin.

They were shown to a small room like the ones she'd seen when she'd seen a crime drama, like The Wire or, more accurately, The Sopranos. There were three small cubicles with chairs and phones, where he would be able to pick up the other phone and they could talk.

He looked fine when they brought him in—although he was in an orange jumpsuit and was still handcuffed.

She didn't get to see much of him really at all. As soon as he saw that it was her, he stopped walking, looking right past her to Teddy. "What the hell are you doing, bringing her here?" he practically snarled at the other man.

"I didn't—she drove herself. I followed her here, and I've been with her since she got here. I tried, but I couldn't talk her out of coming in."

Sabin's gaze fell on Honey. "I told you that I would be home tomorrow morning and that you were to stay put until then. Go home and wait for me there, Honey. We'll discuss this then."

That was the extent of her encounter with him.

He turned and was led out of the room without another word or backwards glance.

Honey stood, frozen in place but shaking violently, barely able to believe what she was seeing and hearing, for the second time that night.

***

Teddy came to stand behind her, dwarfing her just like Sabin did.

"Let's go home, Honey," he cajoled.

She acted as if she hadn't heard him, standing there staring at the closed door he'd gone through as if it held all the answers to her inevitable questions.

"Honey." Teddy moved to stand in front of her, blocking her ability to just stare after him. "He's got a great lawyer, and he'll be out by mid-morning, I promise you. And I know he'll come straight home to you. Let's go home now and see if you can get some sleep."

Oh, dear God, she was crying, too—silently. In Teddy's experience with women, crying at all wasn't a good thing, but crying without a sound was that much worse.

Before he attempted to physically corral her—without touching her—back out the door they'd come in, she turned and made her own way there, managing to walk much more steadily than he would have bet she could, then out past the desk and down the stairs towards her car.

But he stopped her from getting to it. "You're very upset, and if anything happens to you, it's my head that'll be on the block. Let me drive you."

"I can drive myself." Honey's usually expressive voice was flat and emotionless.

"Honey, I'm not at all too proud to beg you about this. Let me drive you home. Give me your keys, and I'll have someone come get your car as soon as we get back." She didn't look any more likely to agree with him than she did before. "Please."

This time, he did corral her a bit towards the boss' stretch limo.

"I'm not sitting in the back," she declared.

He opened the passenger door for her then got behind the wheel, telling her, "I'm always happy to have the company up front."

Not that anything was said. She, in particular, was hardly in a chatty mood, but as far as he could tell, she wasn't crying anymore, either, which could have been good or bad. She wasn't the needy type, and the boss had known her for quite some time. He—the whole staff—knew that those two had grown closer than ever, finally.

He sincerely hoped that this wouldn't put the kibosh to their relationship. He knew the boss was over the moon happy that they were finally together. But he thought that she was probably strong enough to deal with it, although it might take some time. Teddy didn't think she'd ever really faced that part of him—he'd kept it as far away from her as he could the entire time he'd known her. And he could imagine that it was quite a slap in the face to deal with. He'd bet she'd never been in a police department before in her life.

When they were back at the house, he followed her in. "Is there anything I can do for you, Honey?"

"No, thank you." She sounded terribly lost.

"If you'll give me your car keys, I'll get it right back to you."

She surrendered them to him without a word.

He caught a look at her face, and he'd been right. She wasn't crying. She just looked…stunned, small, and more delicate than he could ever remember seeing her, and utterly lost.

"I promise you; he'll be fine. Like I said, he's got a fantastic lawyer. That D.A. was just being a bi…pain, catching him when he was going to have to spend the night in jail. He'll be home tomorrow morning, right as rain. Really. It's no big deal."

She didn't look at him, but he could see that she didn't believe him about that last part. It was a very big deal for her.

"Thank you for your help tonight, Teddy."

It was almost worse that she was taking the energy—that he could see she didn't really have—to thank him for doing his job, even when he knew she hadn't really wanted him there.

"That's all right, Honey. You try to get some rest, okay?"

"Yes, I think I'll go lie down."

"If you need anything, I'm a phone call away."

She tried to smile at him but failed miserably. "Thank you."

He turned towards the door then turned back. "You have my cell number, right?"

"I do, yes, thanks."

He really didn't want to leave her like this. "Would you like me to stay here? I could sleep on the couch or something. Just so there's someone here with you and you're not alone?"

"No, I'll be fine, thank you, Teddy. Like you said, you're only a phone call away."

Nothing else came to mind to say to her—he could hardly force her to let him stay. So, he left, closing the door behind himself and sighed heavily. She might not let him in the house, but she couldn't stop him—and likely wouldn't even notice—that he was going to stay in the limo and watch the house, just in case.

It was the least he could do.