“I’m so sorry, Brian. I really am. I’m so, so sorry.”
I loose a hand and stroke her hair. “I’m sorry too, angel. I was afraid, so I tried to ignore every sign.”
“I was afraid too. I’m not afraid anymore.”
“Don’t be. Come on. Stand up.” When she’s upright again, I stand and take her hand. “Let’s go get some sleep, okay?”
“But, sir, I … Tonight at the club, I―”
“No. Not that. Just sleep. I want to hold you while you sleep. Is that okay?” She drops her head, nods, and starts to sob again, so I just lean down, press an arm behind her knees, and pick her up in my arms. It’s not far to my bed and when I place her gently on its cushy surface, she curls up in my direction. In seconds, I’m down to my boxer briefs and sliding under the covers, and I pull her in with me, my arms tight around her, clutching her to me as we both lie there in the dark and cry against each other. “I love you, Cirilla. I have for a while now,” I whisper to her.
“I love you too, Brian. And I’m going to hell for it,” she whispers back. I have no idea what that means and right that second, I don’t care.
But I have this feeling I probably should.
* * *
When I wake, she’s still right there in my arms, her breath soft against my skin, her lips slightly parted. She’s beautiful, so soft and warm and sweet. I watch her for a couple of minutes and then do the thing I’ve been waiting to do. I kiss her.
And she kisses me back. Good morning to me, I tell myself. When I pull back to smile at her, she looks up into my eyes, her own sad and tear-filled. “Brian, I’m sorry about last night. About, you know, the two Dominants at the club and―”
“I saw what was going on. I could’ve stopped you at any time, and I didn’t. I have nobody to blame but myself, so I can’t hold it against you. You were trying to get what you needed in order to get by. You were hurting. I can’t fault you for that.”
“Actually, I was trying to get your attention. I kept hoping you’d stop me, but you didn’t, and you can’t know how much that hurt. I knew somewhere deep down you had to have wanted to, but you didn’t.”
“Deep down? Yeah, deep down, on the surface, out in the parking lot … I wanted to grab your arm, shake you hard, and ask you what the hell you were thinking. But I didn’t. I didn’t feel like I could. It was like I was watching someone I didn’t know do something that would hurt me, and it was kinda confusing, to tell the truth.”
She nods. “I can see that. You’d never seen me dressed like that. I tried to show you a little glimpse yesterday morning, me without the put-up hair and glasses and makeup and stuff, but I don’t think you got it,” she says.
“No. I didn’t. We were dancing around each other when we should’ve been dancing together. Lesson learned. Let’s move on. And we’ll have to talk about where our limits are, especially where other play partners are concerned, and how we’re going to handle the lifestyle, but I know we can work it out.”
“We can, I’m sure.” I feel her relax back into my arms and I kiss the top of her head, thankful that she’s there with me and that we’ve gotten everything out into the open.
“So did you have a dedicated Dominant before?”
“A couple of times. Then there were other times when I just had a partner who played with me. Our relationship was outside the lifestyle, but there were elements of it. I don’t ever want to be in a relationship that doesn’t have some of those elements, even if it’s not formally a D/s relationship.”
“Gotcha. Any and all of the above are doable. But right now, it’s Saturday, and we need to decide how we’re going to spend the day.”
“Okay. Will I be going to the club tonight?”
“I don’t know. Do you want to go?”
She shrugs. “I can if you want. Do you want to scene with me?” I shake my head and a look of horror spreads across her face. “You don’t?”
“Oh, I mean, yeah, I do, but not tonight. Babe, the first time we play like that, and the first time we’re together that way, I don’t want it to be at the club. I want it to be here, and I want it to be planned and deliberate, not some happy accident where we fumble around. I want us both to be ready, and I want it to be sweet and sexy and loving and hot and all those important things.”
“And a bit painful,” she says with a giggle.
“I can arrange that,” I answer with what I hope is the appropriate amount of smugness.
“Good.”
“Right now we have some business to take care of, but first, we’ve got to find something to eat,” I tell her with a kiss to the end of her nose. She’s got the cutest nose. Did I mention that before? I should’ve.
She breaks away from me, reaches to the nightstand, and comes back with her phone. I watch her face in the light from the screen, and she’s not smiling, but she’s not frowning either. With a couple of touches to the screen, she puts the phone to her ear. “Yes! Hi. Um, I’d like to place an order for delivery? Yes. The Pembroke on Dorchester Avenue. The big building with the green awnings? Yeah, that’s it. Okay, large with everything. Um-hmm. Yes. Yes, and those too. How long? Okay, thank you very much. You have a nice day too.”
“What was that?”
“You’ll see. Now what’s this business we need to take care of?” she says as I struggle to sit up in the bed.
When I turn to look at her face, she’s staring at me. “What?”
“You’ve always worn a shirt at the club,” she says, and then trails a finger down the center of my chest.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Jesus, Brian, you’re gorgeous,” she whispers and leans down to kiss the apex of my sternum. And I know what she’s doing.
“Thank you. But that’s not going to get you out of this conversation.” That gets an eye roll and I have to fight to keep from laughing. Little brat. Beautiful little brat. “And by the way, your tits are amazing, but that’s beside the point.”
“Ha!” she says and starts to chuckle.
“Stop distracting me. So we were talking last night and you said you had to stay out of―”
“Do we have to talk about this?” she almost whines.
“Yes. We do. Right now. Before whatever this masterpiece is that you ordered shows up. So are you in WitSec?”
“No.”
“Something like it?”
“No.”
“Running from the cops?” I’m waiting for her standard answer, but this time, it doesn’t come. “Cirilla, are you running from the cops?”
“It’s best if you don’t know anything.”
“Am I harboring a fugitive?”
She gets this defiant gleam in her eye. “Would that make a difference?”
“It would. I’d like to know what kind of fugitive I’m harboring, why, and how much trouble I’m going to be in. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
“Okay, the kind that didn’t do what she’s been accused of, because they want me dead, and a lot of trouble. Like felony going-to-the-slammer trouble. So let me get up and pack my bags and I’ll be out of your hair,” she says and turns loose of the hand she’s been holding.
“No!” I shout, grab her hand, and yank her back toward me. “That’s not an answer. I need to know what’s going on, who wants you dead.”
“If I tell you all that, they’ll want you dead too. Just know that I have to dress the way I do, and I can’t have my picture anywhere that they could see it,” she explains.
“And where are ‘they’?” I ask.
“D.C.”
Oh, shit. What the hell is this about? I have a feeling that one day I’m going to find out, and I’m not going to like it. “Is this some kind of thing you did with the federal government? Like spy material? Or shred documents needed in an investigation? Or shit like that?”
She shakes her head. “No, no. It was a far more … personal level.”
Oh, no. Please, god, tell me she wasn’t a call girl. “Were you … like a
… um …”
Her eyes go wide. “Brian Zimmer! You think I was a prostitute? You should know better than to think every woman in the lifestyle is a whore!”
“No, no! That’s not what I was saying!” I bark out. “No! I mean, it’s just that you’re talking all cagey and dark and I automatically thought that, you know, with all the politicians and, well …”
“Stop it. I’m not telling you and you’d never guess it anyway. But here’s what I need.” She maneuvers until she’s sitting cross-legged in front of me on the bed, and she takes both my hands in hers. “If anybody comes around asking about someone whose initials are S.P., I need to know. It’s important, Brian, and you need to take mental note of what they look like, who they say they are, where they say they’re from, and any detail about them that you can remember. Height, weight, eye color, hair color, any scars, tattoos, birth marks, moles, anything like that. It’s important. Very, very important.”
“Won’t they have badges?”
She snorts. “If they do, they’ll be fake.”
“God, Cirilla, what did you get yourself into?”
With a roll of her eyes, she blows two puffed cheekfuls of air out and says, “A bed I shouldn’t have.”
Now I’m piecing it together. Somebody wants to shut her up. And it’s personal. That’s the worst kind. “Okay. Got it. I’ll be watching.”
“Thank you.” The doorbell sounds from down in the lobby. “I’ll get it!” she sings out and scampers away.
In three minutes there’s this pizza on the table, and it looks amazing. It’s got eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, mushrooms, a ton of cheese, and anchovies. That’s kinda weird. “What’s this sauce?”
“Sawmill gravy.” When my eyebrows shoot up, she says, “Yeah. I know, right? I saw this place the other day and it had a sign in the window. Southern Pizza. Just the way you like it. I guess this is one of their versions of southern pizza.”
“What the hell is southern pizza?” I ask as I pull a piece out of the box and flick an anchovy off.
“I guess it’s pizza the way southern people would like it. Hell if I know. But I drove by there at lunchtime and they were hellabusy,” she says, holding up a piece and taking a bite off the point.
I can’t believe this. Yesterday morning, I was trying to get a complete sentence out of her. This morning we’re having a regular, normal conversation. Oh, yeah, including telling me somebody’s trying to kill her. But I’m going to let that go and still count it as a regular conversation. Just a particularly interesting one.
“So this thing, whatever it is―is that the reason you didn’t blink when I asked you if you could move out here?”
Nodding, she takes another bite and talks around it. “Yep. I decided it couldn’t hurt to be all the way across the country―literally. More distance equals more security.”
“And it had nothing to do with me personally,” I ask, waiting to see what she’ll say.
“Welllll … maybe.” Then she lets loose a little laugh.
That leaves me with a grin. “How soon after we met did you know?”
“Oh, the first time I met you, I left telling myself, ‘I want that man. I don’t know how much of him I want, but I want him.’ I couldn’t tell what you thought about me, but you struck me as a guy who wouldn’t get involved with his employee, so I knew I had my work cut out for me.”
“That’s pretty much true,” I respond with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah. Tough egg to crack. But I found the secret. I mean, I knew it already, but when I put it to work, well, here we are,” she says with a grin all over her face.
“The secret?”
“Yeah. The secret to a long-lasting relationship.” Then she says nothing else.
Well, that’s fucking annoying. “What’s the secret?”
“If I tell you, you have to promise not to get all pissy.”
That makes me laugh. “Okay! I promise! Now, what’s the secret?”
She leans in conspiratorially. “It’s really simple. If you tell a man you love him and you moon all over him, and fulfill his every need and desire without being asked, and cling to him, and act like you’ll die if he’s not around, he’ll cheat on you and treat you like shit. The secret is simple. Let a man know you can live without him, but you don’t want to. Let him know that you’re not with him because you need a place to live, or clothes to wear, or food. You can take care of yourself. You’re with him not because you have to be, but because you want to be. Let him know that you could walk at any time, but you don’t want to because you love him.”
“And it works in the reverse, right?”
“No. Not at all.”
That surprises me. “And why not?”
“Because women are different. They need to be needed. They need to feel cherished and that they’re irreplaceable. If a woman feels like she’s replaceable, she won’t feel secure.”
“And a man?”
“If he feels irreplaceable, it gives him license for all kinds of fucking around. Plus that being needed and cherished business makes a man feel stifled. He needs to feel freedom. And if he knows he can be replaced, he’s free to make a choice. And he chooses to stay.”
“That sounds like a bunch of psychological bullshit,” I say, then swallow hard. “And it also sounds true.”
“It is. Trust me. No matter how much a woman wants to cling to a man, hang on his every word, stick to him like glue, it’s a sure-fire way to guarantee the relationship will fail.”
“Is that what happened in your relationship?” I ask, and I immediately realize I’ve said the wrong thing when I watch her wilt right in front of me. “Cirilla, I’m sorry. That wasn’t―”
“No, it’s okay. It’s normal for you to be curious, and I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. If it comes down to that, I want you to be able to say you knew nothing and pass a polygraph when you’re asked that question. Get it?”
“Yep. Got it. I won’t ask again,” I say, but there’s a sadness in my chest. She’s in something bad and she’s in it alone. There’s no one who can help her, not even me, and that hurts. “Look, for what it’s worth, if there’s ever anything I can do …”
“There is. Keep your eyes and ears open. Make sure nobody takes a picture of me that’ll show up anywhere. And if anybody you don’t know asks about me, be sure to tell me immediately. Please. It’s important.”
“Got it. Eat your pizza and I’ll eat mine and I’ll forget about this conversation.” When she looks up and starts to say something, I add, “Except for that very last part.”
“Good.”
We finish the meal in silence, but this time it’s different. It’s not that usual silence, the one that frustrated me so much as I tried to get her to talk and she just wouldn’t. It’s more like a friendly kind of silence, the one where we both know we don’t have to fill in gaps to keep things from being awkward. And I like it.
When the pizza is gone, we start picking up and throwing away. “So is there anything you need to do today?” I ask her.
“Yeah. I need to go to the library and get a library card so I can borrow ebooks.” A reader. That’s good. “I want to find a car place, you know, one of those stores that sells car stuff? I want an air freshener for my car. It smells like plastic, and it makes me sick.” She’s wiping down the table and asks, “So what about you? Got something you need to do?”
“Yeah. Spring’s almost here. I need to go have the grips on my golf clubs redone, and it’s probably going to take them weeks to get to them, so I need to do that right away. Dave’s going to be asking about playing pretty soon, and if Clint and Steffen are available, I’m guessing we’ll have a foursome and that’ll be great.”
“Oh! The dad and son against the two other guys?” she asks, and that makes me laugh.
“No, I’m guessing it’ll be the young guys against the old guys!”
“How old is Clint?”
I have to speak a little lo
uder over the sound of me crunching the pizza box in half. “Oh, he’s not that old. Mid to late thirties.”
Her eyes pop open wide. “How old is Trish?”
“Much, much older. A little older than me.”
“Wuh, uh, I’m not saying he looks old, but he has this, I dunno, wizened look about him,” she says.
“Tragedy. Ex-wife messed around on him with a friend and when she and the guy broke up and Clint wouldn’t let her come back home, she killed herself.”
Cirilla’s eyes widen even more. “No! How horrible!”
“Yeah, and with two little girls. It was rough for him. And he almost ruined his relationship with Trish because he had trouble trusting her.”
“I can kinda understand that. And Steffen is a cousin?”
“No. They’re not related at all. But his dad died years ago, and Dave is sort of a father figure for him. And Dave’s not really Clint’s dad. He’s Clint’s stepdad, was married to Clint’s mother, Marta. Who left Dave for her girlfriend, Angela.”
She’s got saucer eyes now. “Wow. Holy shit. Where does Sheila fit in?”
“She’s Trish’s best friend. Has been since before the girls met the guys. You should ask them to tell you sometime. And that reminds me,” I say, bending to place my palms flat on the table’s surface. “You should at least tell all of them what you told me. If someone sees you with any of them, they might be questioned about how they know you or where to find you. And that’s something you don’t want them giving out, right?”
Everything about her, her features, her body, her resolve, her mood, it all seems to sag in that moment as she drops her head and closes her eyes. “And that’s the reason I try so hard not to get close to anybody.” Then her head snaps up and she looks straight at me. “Is Bliss the only BDSM club in the area?”
“No. There’s another one, if I remember correctly. Can’t remember the name, but it has a horrible reputation. I guess it’s still open. I have no idea.”
“They’ll come looking for me there too. Oh, shit,” she says and starts to pace.
“Hey, remember, in order to admit to someone that you’ve seen a person at a club, you’ve got to admit you were there. So it’s kind of self-policing,” I point out.
Completely Mine: Bliss Series, Book Four Page 10