by Poppy Flynn
"I need to speak with you this evening, Laurel," Connor told her over their meal. He didn't miss the way that Laurel stilled and wondered what was going on inside her mind.
She remained quiet while they cleaned up afterward, and Connor couldn't help but wonder what had caused the sudden awkwardness between them. Had Laurel picked up on his anxiety? He thought he'd been doing a pretty good job of keeping calm, but maybe she was more tuned in to his mood shifts than he realised.
They settled in the living room with hot drinks, and suddenly, Connor felt unusually discomfited as he wondered where to start. The fact that Laurel just sat with her head bowed, as if she were waiting for the hammer to fall, didn't help.
Connor sighed and closed his eyes. Then he took a deep breath and started from the beginning. "When I was three years old, my mother died in a car crash," he began. "She was a homebody and a hands-on, stay at home mum who had always been there for me. My father, on the other hand, was a busy, successful businessman who worked long hours. He didn't know what to do with the toddler he became solely responsible for." Connor was quiet for a moment, contemplating, but he could feel Laurel's eyes on him now.
"He tried his best, but he still had to run the business, and now that I'm older, I can appreciate that he was dealing with his own grief, too."
Connor leaned his elbows on his knees and cupped his chin in both hands as he looked back in his mind. "It was a pretty harsh time. I was too young to really understand what was going on, but for the next few years, I just had the overwhelming feeling that no one really wanted me. My dad wasn't the most affectionate of fathers, even before all of this. It wasn't that he didn't love me, I know that now, he just wasn't the demonstrative type. And I was this little pathetic kid, who was big for his age, so everyone assumed I was a lot older than I was, who was starved of affection."
"Oh, Connor, I'm so sorry!" Connor felt Laurel's comforting hand on his arm, but he remained stoic and carried on instead of moving into her solace like he wanted to.
"Then, three years later, my father remarried, and Rayleen came into our lives." Connor's voice broke as the memories flooded in, and he had to clear his throat.
"She treated me like I was her own, and I soaked up all the love and the hugs and the affection, like a sponge that had been without water for too long. That woman meant everything to me. She became my mother, my friend, my confidante, and I adored her completely."
Connor jumped to his feet, taking Laurel by surprise if the small exclamation that fell from her mouth was any indication. He found he couldn't sit still for this next part of his tale.
"When I got older, I was packed off to boarding school. It was expected, and I didn't have a problem with it; I loved it, in fact. Rayleen and my father didn't have any children of their own, which was a bit of a surprise and a disappointment, too, if I'm honest, so I enjoyed being around kids my own age, and I was at that stage where I wanted to be one of the boys. Being so much taller and bigger built than other kids my age was a ball ache. Everyone always assumed I was very much older than I was and expected me to behave so much more maturely than I actually did. At school, I was just another youngster, in amongst a bunch of other kids of all shapes and sizes. I felt like I could be myself for the first time in forever. It was liberating."
Connor realised he was prevaricating, postponing the inevitable, and he paced across the room. "But I'm getting off track," he finally admitted. "When I was fourteen, things started to change. When I went home for study breaks, Rayleen treated me differently, looked at me differently. I didn't understand it to begin with, and I thought it was just because I was growing up, maturing…" He laughed cynically. "… hell, I guess it was."
Connor went and stood at the window. It was dark outside, but he still stared blindly into the night.
"I was fourteen years old and already six foot tall. I'd started to use the school gym to bulk myself up, to counteract the lanky frame, and most people mistook me for being eighteen or twenty. I had an impressive set of muscles for a kid." Connor jammed his hands into his pockets, fisting them to stop the fine shaking that had started.
"And then things began to get uncomfortable." He took a deep breath. "She would touch me…not quite inappropriately, but…almost. Or she would kiss me on my mouth and…linger."
He deliberately kept his back to Laurel, not wanting to see whatever expression might reflect on her face as he made his revelation, but he was aware of her presence behind him with every fibre of his being.
"Every time I came home, she got bolder and more improper, until I was actively trying to avoid her. But other than that, I didn't know what to do. I was just a kid, and her actions confused me, and sometimes they made me feel things I knew I shouldn't be feeling for a woman who was my mother in every sense of the word except biologically. I was ashamed, and I was scared, but I just didn't know what to do, so keeping out of her way seemed like the best option."
Laurel made some small noises behind him, and Connor ploughed on. He needed to get it out, get it finished before he lost his nerve.
"I'd come home for my fifteenth birthday." Connor's voice had dropped almost to a whisper, but it still seemed loud in the tense silence of the room.
"I went to bed early the night before to keep out of Rayleen's way because the touching and the groping was getting out of control. The next thing I remember, I was having this erotic dream. Hell, I was a teenage boy…" He laughed humourlessly. "…so that wasn't so unusual. But this one seemed so damned real!"
Connor's whole body shuddered visibly at the memory.
"I woke up to find Rayleen in my bedroom." He ignored the shocked response that Laurel couldn't hold back. He supposed she had guessed what was coming, but he forced himself to say the words anyway. He'd bet they were way more shocking than she'd imagined.
"To begin with, I didn't know what was going on. I was sleepy and disoriented. Then I realised I was naked, and she had hold of my cock…" He rushed on, even though he was aware that Laurel had cried out and jumped to her feet. "I struggled to get up and push her away, to cover myself up, and that's when I realised my wrists were bound and tied to the bedpost with rope."
Connor's breaths sawed in and out in audible pants, and a fine sheen of sweat had popped out on his forehead as he forced the words out. "I stared at her in shock and realised that she was also completely nude. I didn't want to look, but I couldn't look away. My heart was hammering, and I couldn't get any words to come out of my mouth."
His voice broke, and his next words were uttered in a strained croak, which highlighted his horror. "She had her mouth around my cock…" A sob.
"And in my head, my dick just wanted to shrivel up, away from her, but she'd put a cock ring on me and that bastard stiffy wasn't going anywhere." Connor breathed harshly and felt the beads of sweat trickle down his spine as the memories came tumbling down around him. The shock, the fear, the shame…but also the hint of teenage lust. That might be what humiliated him the most.
"She realised I was awake and ever so slowly pulled her mouth away from my forced erection. 'I've got a present you'll never forget', she told me." The laugh that bubbled from him bordered on hysteria. "Hell, I guess she was fucking right!"
Laurel was right behind him now. He could feel the warmth of her body on his back and the soft touch of the hand she touched him with, but he couldn't as much as turn; he was rooted to the spot, staring blindly into nothing while his memories painted themselves on the dark windowpane in front of him in all their garish horror.
"She got to her knees and straddled me, stroking my cock up and down while she got into position," Connor croaked. "That's when I finally found my voice and I screamed like a damn baby. I shouted for her to stop and bucked like a mad thing, trying to push her off, begging her, 'No! No, please. Don't!'" It wasn't a shout now, just a bare whisper that trailed off as tears prickled behind his eyes.
"That's when my father burst into the room. I don't know what he was expecting, but
it sure as hell wasn't what he found." Connor's voice broke on a sob, and he felt Laurel's arms go around him as she lay her head against his back. The small gesture was unbelievably comforting, and Connor clutched hold of the arms that wrapped around his chest, holding on like she was a lifeline. He took a couple of calming breaths and willed himself to finish.
"It's all a bit of a blur after that. I don't know where Rayleen disappeared. I don't remember, but I never saw her again. My dad got me untied, and I ran off to the bathroom and took care of the cock ring myself. It was the ultimate humiliation. My father and I never spoke about it again. It was just brushed under the carpet and ignored. He divorced Rayleen, but my own relationship with him was irreparably damaged as well."
Connor sighed heavily. "I don't know if he blamed me, or if he thought I led her on, or even if he thought I was a willing participant, but things have never been the same since that day. Not for either of us."
Laurel squeezed him tight and her body convulsed against his spine. When Connor realised she was sobbing, he was finally galvanised into turning around.
Enfolding her in his arms, he tucked her in close and rested his chin on top of her bowed head. "Hey, what are you crying for?" he asked, blinking the traces of tears from his own eyes.
She didn't reply, just held him tight while she got herself under control again, then she lifted her head and cupped his face and pulled him down for a kiss that was sweet and gentle and heartfelt and where passion was exchanged for a soul deep affirmation of understanding which was somehow also liberating in its acceptance.
She pulled him back to the sofa and he sat with her curled on his knee. They didn't talk for a while, just sat in comfortable, companionable silence, sharing more sweet, almost innocent, kisses and touches and strokes which gentled and soothed while each of them came to terms with what had been shared in the dim half-light of evening, where the only illumination was from a small lamp which offered little radiance in the encroaching darkness that cloaked them in its comforting shadows.
"That morning…" Laurel finally said hesitantly. "When I woke you with a blow job…" she trailed off, not knowing quite what to say.
Connor sighed and leaned his head against the back of the seat. "Yeah…that was a lot of reaction to a lot of bad memories that hadn't reared their ugly heads for a whole lot of years," Connor admitted.
"I'm sorry," Laurel offered, plucking distractedly at the placket of his shirt.
Connor shook his head. "It wasn't your fault, pet. I hid a lot of things from a lot of people. I turned to playing at kink clubs because it gave me the control I needed to prevent those very same feelings of panic in my sexual interactions. What I should have done was seek help a long time ago, so if anyone's to blame, then it's me."
Laurel sprang up then and gripped him by the shoulders, the look on her face fierce and protective. "No!" she exclaimed in no uncertain terms. "She was to blame, Rayleen!" Laurel spat the name in disgust. "Don't ever blame yourself for what she did to you, do you hear me?" she demanded, giving him an adorable little shake, which couldn't help bringing a smile to his face, however inappropriate the timing.
"You were a kid!" she continued with her diatribe undeterred. "And you did seek help as soon as you were old enough. It's not your fault if you thought the effects had been negated already. You said, yourself, that everything had been fine for almost twenty years!"
Laurel subsided and was quiet for a time, but Connor knew something was brewing in her head and troubling her mind.
"It was me, wasn't it?" she finally declared. "I was the one who set things off all over again."
"It wasn't your fault, any more than it was mine," Connor denied.
"But it was our relationship which set things off for you," Laurel stated flatly.
"In the beginning, you reminded me of Rayleen. Your characters are very alike," Connor confided. "It both drew me in and repelled me at the same time." He felt Laurel flinch at his words, but there needed to be only truth between them now, however hard it was to stomach.
"The difference was that I couldn't keep away from you and neither did I have any desire to do so. I wanted you, Laurel. Make no mistake in that. It wasn't you who repulsed me, it was only what you reminded me of."
"And now?" she asked hesitantly, not daring to look at him.
Connor pulled her around so that she straddled his knee. "I'm pretty sure you know that I still want you!" he declared as he ground the hard evidence of his erection into her softness.
"You never act on it," Laurel whispered defensively.
"I'm here to help you heal, Laurel, not to take advantage of you."
"So, that's it?" Laurel choked as her voice broke. "I'm just some little pet project to help you ease your conscience?" she finished on a bitter whisper.
Connor sucked in an audible breath and shook her shoulders firmly. "Don't you ever refer to yourself in those terms again, and do not presume to make assumptions about my motives, either," he growled out, grasping her chin and forcing her to look at him. "I'd put you over my knee, right now, for that comment if I wasn't afraid that it would distract me from what I'm trying to get across to you here!"
Laurel was immediately contrite. She hadn't wanted to anger him or to offend him. It had just been a knee jerk reaction to that sting of perceived rejection.
"Let's get one thing clear, right now," Connor stated decisively. "I'm not proud to admit it, but when I left here, six months ago, my mind was fucked. I was on the edge of having a mental breakdown, and it was only by the sheer force of my dominant will that I talked myself back from the edge instead of toppling over the side. It took a whole heap of help from my therapist and a heck of a lot of support from my friends, and during all of that time, nobody mentioned what you were going through. Not once, not even so much as a hint. I can only guess that they did exactly the same for you."
Laurel looked up at him in shock. "What? I didn't know…" she trailed off, the accuracy of his assumptions sinking in.
"That's why I wasn't here for you, Laurel. That's the only reason. If I had known what you were going through, and the part I had played in it, then I would have tried to get here sooner…and maybe that's why our friends were so closed lipped." Connor sighed. "It wouldn't have done either of us any good if I had come down here, half cocked, on some kind of ill-conceived rescue mission, when I wasn't in any fit state to deal with myself, let alone somebody else who needed a whole lot more than I would have been able to give. It would just have served to fuck us both up all the worse."
He pulled her in and kissed her forehead, his fingers fisted lightly in her hair. "You will never know how sorry I am that things transpired the way they did, that last night, when everything fell apart. But I really hope you understand that I was not rejecting you or trying to humiliate you or wanting to deliberately hurt you in any way, and I'm sorry that you spent any time at all believing that to be the case."
"There was a woman. Another sub," Laurel said brokenly. "I came into the club frustrated and wound up tight after all the edging from our scene the night before, and I had all those possession marks covering me. And you were fucking her…I-I thought you were fucking her," Laurel conceded.
"Trinity was supposed to intercept you before you got that far to tell you that I had stepped in to help out with a club client at the last minute. I never meant for you to see that and jump to the wrong conclusions. If there's one thing in my life I wish I could change, then it would be that."
"The way things had been at the office, in the run up to that night…so up and down and volatile and unpredictable…I thought you had done it on purpose. Wound me up and left me hanging, then rubbed my nose in the fact that you could have anyone you wanted. It broke something inside of me, and suddenly, all common sense flew out of the window and every rational instinct I had was destroyed. I didn't hang around for answers or excuses. If I had, then perhaps I wouldn't have gotten myself into such a sorry state, in the first place."
"Damn it, I looked for you, Laurel. Whatever kind of bastard I can be, and I know there were times when I was just that, I never would have done something like that to you."
"I know that now," Laurel assured him. "It's just that none of it made sense at the time, and I was a bit overwrought, in the first instance, before all the shit hit the fan. I didn't know you were one of the club's owners. Desi told me that when she came to persuade me to go back to work. It made a lot more sense, once I knew that. Why you were getting involved, both with that other sub's appointment, and also when you disappeared, after, to talk to Micah about the reporter. Knowing that helped, once I'd gotten over the anger I felt at finding out just one more thing that you hadn't trusted me enough to tell me." Laurel blew out a breath, her heart squeezing inside her chest. She tipped her head back and looked at the ceiling before deciding to come clean.
"I thought we were building something. I knew you weren't completely on the same page, but the fact that you kept things exclusive when you were here…even if you never said as much. Well…I thought it meant something. I knew that was the direction I wanted to head in with you, so I just kept pushing, even when you made it clear that you wanted me to back off."
Laurel swallowed against the lump in her throat. "I thought if I could just show you how good things could be, prove that I could be the woman you wanted in your life, that you'd eventually come around and see things the way I did."
She choked back the sob that caught in her throat. "I pushed too hard; I know that now. I tried to manipulate things to get what I wanted, even though I knew you weren't fully on board with the idea. I know you tried to tell me, but I didn't want to hear it, so I just pushed harder, instead."
A lone tear that she couldn't hold back trickled down her cheek. "I wish I'd known what I was pushing you toward, Connor. I would rather have given you up than for you to have gone through everything that has occurred since."