Fool's Desire

by Poppy Flynn

  Then he let go himself and slowed his thrusts while her entire body shuddered and she milked his cock with the strength of her contractions and sucked his scrotum dry.

  Chapter 8

  Joel studied Desi's open plan apartment as he sat at the breakfast bar which separated the kitchen area from the lounge, buttering bread while she grilled bacon.

  He hadn't taken much notice of his surroundings last night, but now he couldn't help scrutinising her living space, and he found it surprising and rather disquieting.

  He had accepted her professional persona, as different as it was from the Daisy he remembered. He understood that the image and maybe even the aloofness she exuded was a necessity for the affluent business woman she'd become, but he hadn't really expected it to bleed over into her personal life.

  The place was upmarket and the furniture was excellent quality, but everything around him lacked personality. He might as well be inside some soulless, generic hotel suite.

  The walls were all a standard magnolia, and there were no photographs or paintings to break up the bare expanses of wall. Solid wood flooring ran throughout the building. In the lounge, it was softened only marginally by a plain, cream rug which was positioned in front of the cream leather sofa, and light wood lounge furniture sat with their surfaces unadorned. There were no clutter or knickknacks, not even the occasional ornament or vase. It was cold and sterile with not a single clue as to the occupant. The whole place looked like a blank canvas that was waiting for someone to fill it. Maybe she'd only just moved in?

  "How long have you lived here?" He decided to find out.

  "Six years," Desi replied, removing the bacon from the grill pan with a pair of tongs and placing it on some kitchen paper to drain.

  Joel cast his mind back to the bedroom. Same wood floors, a similar cream rug on the side he assumed Desi got out of bed in the mornings. A functional double divan with storage underneath and plain cream covers. Bedroom furniture in the same light wood as the lounge. An ottoman at the end of the bed, a bedside cabinet that held only an alarm clock and a vanity unit with a mirror and stool which was unusually devoid of any possessions, not a single thing cluttering its surface, not a perfume bottle or a hairbrush; everything was obviously tucked away within its drawers. The bathroom told the same story but in bright white. No shampoo or bubble bath bottles dotted the sides, not even a candle adorned the barren area. It was like no one actually lived here at all.

  "I expected to see some of your pottery and sculpture," Joel hedged.

  Desi paused what she was doing. "I don't do any of that anymore," she finally answered, setting a couple of sauce bottles on the worktop where she was assembling their bacon rolls.

  "Really?" he pressed. "But you loved that stuff!"

  Desi pursed her lips as she set his plate in front of him, as if she was deciding what to tell him.

  "After I changed universities and swapped majors, I didn't have time. I did an abbreviated course, which squeezed my first two years into one, so I spent every single minute of the day studying," She set Joel's food in front of him and settled down to eat her own. She didn't tell him that had been the only way she could function, by filling her brain with so much information that she never had time to dwell on what had occurred. In truth, she had found the time for her sculpting in the beginning, but it had given her too much time to think, and every piece she worked on turned into a mess and that had made her mad. Mad with herself and mad at Joel, she'd end up smashing them to bits. The clay hadn't turned out to be the soothing distraction that she'd hoped for, so instead she had thrown all her energy into her studies and become an automaton. In retrospect, it might have been more cathartic if she had persevered with the clay, at least then, she might have purged all the angst out of her system, instead of just bottling it up.

  "When I graduated, it was pretty much the same story. I had to work hard to prove myself in a male dominated workplace and harder still to convince the directors that I wasn't going to run off having babies every couple of years." She took a bite of her own roll and chewed for a moment. "After I'd secured the CFO position at United, the passion had pretty much shrivelled up and died."

  And not just her passion for pottery and sculpture, Joel pondered. It appeared that her passion for everything had been remorselessly stripped away.

  She sat in front of him now in sharply pressed black slacks, a grey silk blouse and high heels, her face perfectly made up and her hair ruthlessly tamed back into its tight twist. There was no hint of colour in her wardrobe, either, and he found himself foolishly missing the colourful ribbons that she used to wear in her riot of curls.

  The weight of the past pressed heavily on his shoulders again, and Joel knew he needed to tell her what had transpired. The reasons why he hadn't come after her, hadn't checked on her. It might be too late to mend the damage that was already done, but maybe knowing the truth would go some way towards recapturing her enthusiasm for life and salvaging her future.

  When they'd finished their food, he stood and dusted a stray crumb off of his shirt, then he took Desi's hand, led her over to the leather couch and deliberately settled her on his knee.

  Desi perched rigidly with her spine as straight as a board, but Joel slipped the shoes off her feet and pulled her head to his shoulder, rubbing her back until she relaxed a smidgen. It wasn't much, but it was a start, he supposed. Enough for him to begin, at least.

  "That last evening you came by my place," he began and felt Desi stiffen all over again, a negative resonance humming in her throat, but he tightened his arms around her to prevent her from jumping up and persevered. "We need to have this out, Desi." He sighed, resting his head against the back of the sofa. He felt her slump against him and continued.

  "First of all, I'm sorry—sorry for the way things appeared that night. But truthfully, not everything played out the way you think it did."

  Joel paused, but Desi remained silent. At least she wasn't trying to refute his statement.

  "Did Eric ever come on to you or get a bit fresh?"

  Desi reared her head back sharply to look at him.

  "I never encouraged him, not once, not even slightly!" she exclaimed defensively. "Nothing ever happened; I tried hard to make sure of that!"

  "Hey, I wasn't suggesting that it had." Joel cupped her cheek to calm her and drew this thumb along her cheek bone.

  "What did he do?" Joel was careful to use words that placed the blame firmly on Eric's shoulders.

  "It started out harmlessly enough, just the odd leer and suggestive comment after he'd seen us at the club." Desi picked at her nails, her head bowed and her gaze unfocused. "Then he started badgering me about subbing for him, especially after Jake joined us in a couple of scenes."

  Joel made a low grumble of annoyance in his throat, and Desi hurriedly continued. "I fobbed him off, told him you were my Master and it wasn't for me to decide."

  Joel nodded, outwardly calm, but inside, he was seething that a man he had considered his friend—at the time, at least—had disrespected him in such a way, had dared to make a move on his woman.

  "But I had no intention of ever scening with Eric, whatever you might have said!" Desi stated decisively, and Joel couldn't help smiling. He took her hand in his to stop her from wrecking her cuticles and waited for her to continue.

  Desi took a deep breath. "Then, one evening, he got a bit out of hand. He cornered me in your living room and tried to kiss me, then he put his hands inside my top and started groping. He went on about how you didn't mind sharing and that he wanted to get in on the action…" Her voice trailed off, and Joel squeezed her hands gently in silent support, even as he struggled to contain his fury.

  "I pushed him away and slapped his face and told him I was going to tell you what he'd done, but Eric got mad, he said he'd deny it was his fault. Said he'd tell everybody that I came on to him and that you'd never believe me over him because I was just a common slut who whored for you, whereas he'd been your frien
d since you were kids and your families were tight." Desi's voice had risen higher and higher as her speech became faster and uncharacteristically panicked. She finally raised her eyes to his face. "Did he tell you that? Is that why you didn't defend me, didn't come after me? Is that why you were mad?"

  Joel cupped Desi's face in both of his hands and the breath whooshed from his lungs, but he deliberately kept his voice calm and even, determined that she wouldn't mistake his anger as being directed at her, ever again. "No!" he told her firmly, looking her right in the eye. "And I would have believed you. I knew you better than that."

  A shudder of regret rippled through Desi at his words. How many times had she thought about telling him, convinced their relationship was stronger than his friendship with Eric? In fact, she had made the choice to do just that, but then Eric had backed off and it didn't seem worth dredging up a bucket load of trouble over something she considered resolved.

  Joel sighed audibly. "I also knew that something had happened with Eric." He pressed his thumb to her mouth when she tried to interrupt to defend herself again.

  "He hassled me all the time about allowing you to scene with him, and I made excuses because I didn't want him near you. The way he was fixated about it, about you…it just didn't sit well with me." Joel sat back again and settled her against him once more.

  "Then, suddenly, he did a complete about face, started bitching about you and slagging you off." Joel cursed and knocked his head against the seat back.

  "To be honest, I was so relieved that he'd stopped obsessing about having sex with you that I let it go…I shouldn't have. But I did, and it got to be such a regular thing that we just started to ignore him. When you came down to the basement that night and he was running off his mouth, Jake and Logan and I were all simply ignoring him, but of course, not all of the lads there knew the story." Joel corroborated what Jake had told her.

  He started to rub her back again. "When I saw you in the doorway, I was mad that you'd had to witness his obnoxiousness. I was mad that he belittled you. I was mad that I didn't defend you, and I was ashamed that you'd seen that. I was never, ever mad with you," he reiterated, catching her gaze, and she could see the sincerity in his eyes.

  "Jake went after you and I thought he'd bring you back, meanwhile, I completely lost my head with Eric."

  Joel scrunched his eyes up and pressed his lips together. "I punched him."

  Desi gasped and sat up, her hand flying to cover her mouth.

  "A lot—in fact, I pretty much beat him to a pulp," he finally admitted. "I didn't come after you because I spent the night in a police cell after putting Eric in the hospital, and Jake and Logan spent the night trying to straighten things out for me—getting my dad on my side to smooth things over with the dean so I didn't get kicked out of school, doing damage limitation so that it wasn't splashed all over the papers or affecting the companies share prices."

  Desi let out a strangled sob and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tight. Joel dropped his forehead onto her shoulder in shame, his breath heavy against her neck.

  "I looked for you," Joel revealed when he'd steadied himself somewhat.

  "I searched the art courses in every other university; I searched tax information to see if you'd started a job; I tried to track down your family. I pestered your roommate, Charlotte, so much that she threatened to press charges for harassment."

  Desi shook her head and bit her lip. "She never mentioned any of that, not to this day!"

  "You're still in touch with her?" Joel raised his head in surprise.

  "Charlotte helped me. I couldn't go crying to my parents. I was too humiliated. There was no way I could try and explain my relationship with you and why what happened had affected me so badly. They were always one hundred percent supportive of everything I did, but my mother always chided me on how impulsive I was, how only fools rush in where angels fear to tread, how I needed to think before I jumped." She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, chewing off all her carefully applied lipstick.

  "But I never did. I jumped from virgin to submissive sex toy in one blind leap." Desi laughed humourlessly. "I jumped straight into a BDSM relationship with you when I didn't have the first idea about having a regular relationship, and I wasn't equipped to deal with the fall out. I was still a teenager, for Christ's sake, I had no business getting in as deep as I did with you and Club Risqué. I simply wasn't mature enough!" She rubbed her hands across her face.

  "I was just some foolish, flighty kid, rushing head first into life without a single thought for the consequences, and when life turned around and slapped me in the face, I didn't have enough experience to deal with it, and I simply fell apart. I didn't want my parents to know how stupid I'd been, how badly I'd let them down."

  Joel hugged her close, offering what little comfort he could. He didn't know what to say. He had never considered her weak or foolish, but he wasn't in a position to refute her own feelings.

  She'd always seemed perfectly comfortable with their D/s relationship, although in hindsight, he realised that she had viewed it rather differently than he had. She had simply seen them as a regular couple who indulged in a bit of kink, whereas he had viewed her as his regular submissive. Sure, he had felt more for her than just that; he wasn't sure what exactly. That was another one of those things that he refused to examine too closely. She had made him happy, he liked spending time with her socially, and their sexual compatibility had been off the scales. He had been content to just let it run its course.

  He'd never been tempted by other women in all the time they'd been together and he'd been…upset, when she'd disappeared. Angry with her for running from him. Desperate to find her and…what? Bring her back, tell her the truth, he didn't know. Bind her to him so he would never lose her again? Joel gave himself a mental shake. Where the hell had that notion sprung from?

  If he'd been a little closed off before he met her, then he'd been far worse afterwards; he could admit that much. He would never let anyone that close again. And he had never again taken on another submissive for an extended length of time, although he told himself that was because he had never found one who fulfilled his requirements. No one but Desi.

  "So, Charlotte helped me hide when I couldn't face the world, helped me survive when all I wanted to do was curl up and die, helped me find a new direction when I thought the whole world had crumbled under my feet." She cuddled back into Joel's arms and laid her head upon his chest.

  "Without Charlotte…well, who knows!"

  Joel shook his head in disbelief, "She managed to convince me that she was as much in the dark as I was." He sounded a bit indignant.

  "If she'd just told me the truth—"

  Joel interrupted. "She didn't know the truth; no one did. Everything was covered up. One of the perks of money and power. None of it ever came out. Jake's bitch of a girlfriend was off the scene by then, thank God."

  Desi pursed her lips. Jake had been conned by a pretty face posing as a student, when, in fact, she had been a reporter, out to get whatever dirt she could find on the Blackwood boys in order to further her career. Jake hadn't been as lucky as Joel had obviously been at the hands of the press, although she knew that his family connections had lessened the impact a little.

  "Eric's father persuaded him to drop the charges and Eric was whisked away to finish out his degree elsewhere." Joel gave a cynical laugh. "Of course, he called that favour back in, when he asked Blackwood to buy out his business after Eric managed to wreck that, too."

  So, that explained why the Blackwood Corporation had paid good money for a virtually bankrupt company.

  Regardless of the provocation, a criminal conviction would have destroyed Joel's future and done untold damage to the company, its reputation and its share prices. Undoubtedly, that 'old boys' network' that she'd had so much disdain for had protected Joel, but there was no doubt, in this case, the protection had been justified.

  Desi was glad that nothing adverse had
come of Joel because he had chosen to avenge her honour. She'd never condoned violence, but she would have recoiled at those kinds of consequences for a young man who was merely championing her integrity and a tiny part of her—well, quite a big part, actually—couldn't help but be secretly pleased that he had lost his infamous control over her.

  That alone probably said more than all the words he might never say, but it looked like her foolish impulse to run away had led to years of torment that she'd never needed to endure.

  They still hadn't discussed Anita Howard, and Desi found herself strangely reluctant to do so. As things stood right now, she felt like a huge burden of pent up sorrow had been lifted from her shoulders, making her entire outlook lighter, as if a shroud had been lifted from around her eyes and she was seeing life in pure, unadulterated colour for the first time in a decade.

  She kind of liked the feeling and didn't want to spoil it by talking about the infamous 'other woman'.

  Although it hadn't proven to be the case so far, sometimes ignorance was bliss, and Desi could quite happily move forward with her life with just the knowledge she had at this precise moment.

  That could be enough, couldn't it? Did she really need to know the rest? Or was the suspicion of Joel's infidelity just another tumour that was eating away at her soul? Something else that might be eradicated if it was just brought into the open.

  Joel sat forward and lifted Desi off of his knee. He felt emotionally drained, but he knew they weren't done yet.

  Standing, he took her hand and led her back towards the bedroom. Desi went willingly but was surprised when he didn't stop there, pulling her into the en suite bathroom, instead.

  The strip lights were bright in the stark white space, but Joel stood her in front of the mirrored wall and went to work searching through the drawers and cupboards. He momentarily disappeared back into the bedroom and returned with an armful of stuff that he dumped on top of the bathroom hamper.

  When he came back to her, he was shaking a bottle and clutching a large cotton wool ball. Before she could guess his intentions, Joel swiped lotion across her face and started to remove her makeup, consciously taking off that mask she hid behind.