by Alta Hensley
I wondered if he knew how much I liked it. I did. His dominance. His power. The bite of the leather against my flesh. The act of being punished nude before him. I loved it all. Craved it even. Maybe it was my soul craving the punishment for never being happier when I should be miserable. Or maybe it was simply the fuel I required to light the fire within. Regardless of why, I waited in anticipation for the next strike of his hand.
And then there were times he softened. He never punished without soothing afterwards. He took his duty of aftercare seriously. He kissed, he held me close and cuddled me into his muscled chest while stroking my hair repeatedly. He bathed me and cared for me in ways I didn’t know possible. The more Stefano punished, the more he loved. The yin and yang of his sadist self was more than I could ask for. These months at the manor were the most fulfilling relationships that I had ever experienced. The two of them joined together as one into my soul.
I tried my best not to think about the day I would have to leave them both when I was with Stefano. If I brought it up in conversation with him, he would bend me over and sear my behind. It was not to be spoken of in his presence. And even Thomas didn’t like to talk about it. They had a mission. A plan.
Fighting back tears, I decided that I needed to speak with Stefano, even though I knew it would result in comeuppance. “Stefano,” I said tentatively. “I was hoping I could discuss something with you.” I had to act now. I needed to bring it up in my own way before Thomas spoke to him and the two of them shut it down completely without any input from me.
He looked up from his meal with annoyance in his eyes. “No.”
His sharp answer took me by surprise, but I swallowed back the lump in my throat and carried on. “Once I’m pregnant—”
He looked up at me with wide eyes. “Are you?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But once I am—”
“My brother and I have it all planned out,” he interrupted. “You have nothing to worry about. But your time paying for your actions will be over. So, you should be happy about that.”
“So, when I leave the manor—”
Stefano swallowed the last bite of his meal before speaking in a deep and menacing voice. “We will discuss this once we know you are definitely pregnant. No reason to discuss this now.”
“I was speaking to Thomas before he left about... about staying with the two of you. Not being shipped off to some hidden location.”
“No.”
“I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to leave your brother.”
“I don’t care.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said without pause. “I think you do care. And no matter what you and your brother say, I think you feel the same way about me that I feel about you.”
“This conversation is over.”
“Stefano...”
“I said no,” he snapped.
“How can you stare at me like that and feel nothing?” I asked as my voice cracked and wavered. “Am I truly nothing more than a body? Just a surrogate for your baby?”
“That’s what you are.”
His words shattered my heart. Why did he have the power over me to do so? Why did I feel this pull toward a man who had never led me to believe there was anything more? He had only caused me pain—both physically and mentally. So why? Why did his words stab at me? He hadn’t made any promises. He had never whispered sweet nothings. I should know how he would act. I should know how he would feel. But my heart took over.
“I have sat across from you at this table for months. We have had sex. You have demanded my submission in the most intimate of ways, and I have given it to you. Please. I know you have to feel something more. I can feel it in your touch.”
“I touch you in order to keep you in line. To make you pay for your betrayal and to guarantee it will never happen again. Nothing more.”
“Not true.”
He looked at me with the most severe warning look I had yet seen.
I cleared my throat and tried to keep my voice calm and steady. “I can see. I notice what you do. When you spank me, you also dip your finger between my folds to see that I am wet. My arousal is important to you. When a punishment is over and I’m crying, you wait with me until my tears cease. You want to care for me. You want to give me comfort because you feel more even though you aren’t capable of admitting that to yourself. You want this because you do feel something for me. So does your brother. I know this. I feel this. You both are lying if you say otherwise.”
“Hailey...” His warning sent a shiver up my spine, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I knew I wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t be. These two men were just too stubborn to see.
“I’m not asking for love right away. I’m not asking for you to be someone you aren’t or can’t be. I’m just asking for you and your brother to be honest. This hasn’t been easy for me. I’m not usually this open and free with my feelings, but you and Thomas made me this way. It’s because of you two that I can say how I feel. I hunger for you. You wake up a passion inside of me that salivates to be quenched. You spark a flame inside. When we made love—”
“We fucked,” he interrupted, his voice vibrating off the bare walls.
“Maybe,” I said calmly. “But more than just a body part entered me. I felt it just as I know you did. I had your brother’s seed as you like to call it, and yours blending within me. Something happened at that moment. A bond. I can’t imagine losing it forever while I bounce around like an expensive piece of artwork never to be appreciated or touched. I want more out of life.” I paused for a moment, preparing for the rejection that I was sure would follow my next question. “Was I the only one who felt it? Did you not feel the connection with me? When the three of us were together?”
“I felt it,” he admitted. “Which is why I haven’t fucked you with my brother since. My brother and I have never shared a woman before. I didn’t know that something like that—that type of connection—could happen by doing so.” He stood up and slammed his hands down on the table. His eyes grew black and he snarled, “I’m not interested in forming that bond, so I stopped it that day.”
I sat dumbfounded. So that was why? I wondered why he and Thomas never tried to take me again together. Even when I could see his cock straining against his pants during a discipline session with Thomas, he never acted on it with his brother in the room. Never. Now I knew why. He was protecting himself. He felt the bond and didn’t want it. He was scared.
Stefano began pacing back and forth, the aggravation he felt visible in his posture. I sat and waited for the storm to erupt. I was asking for a severe beating by continuing on, but I had to. If there was even the slightest hope. He turned to me ready to speak when Thomas walked into the room, carrying a pile of manila envelopes and files. He looked at Stefano, then at me, and back at Stefano.
“What happened?”
Stefano pointed to the stairs. “Hailey. Leave. Now. My brother and I have nothing to offer you. That’s final. Go back to your room.”
I stood up quickly and ran to my room. Not out of fear, although I was scared of Stefano’s wrath, but because I didn’t want them to see how truly devastated I was.
Had I gotten this all wrong?
How?
How could I be so off?
How could this be so one-sided?
I was in my room crying when I heard a knock at the door rather than it just being opened like every other time. I knew it was Thomas before the first knock had even finished echoing through my room. In the mood that Stefano was in, he would never knock. Never.
I quickly dried up my tears. “Come in.”
Thomas opened the door and gracefully entered the room. “Hailey, I can see... no, I can feel that we have upset you.”
I looked into his deep eyes and said nothing. I met his gaze and allowed him to truly see my pain. I wanted him to see how the thought of not being with them once we confirmed I was pregnant caused anguish like no other. I understood I was simply
a surrogate, but that didn’t mean I liked it.
Thomas pulled me into his arms harshly. He pressed my head to his chest with more force than I was prepared for. “It kills me to see you hurt. I want to never be the cause of your heartache.” Without releasing his grip, he continued, “But what you want is not possible. It’s not the way your life should be. Even if we could safely keep you with us at all times, a life of crime with Stefano and me is no way to live. It’s just a matter of time until one of us is either in jail or dead. We need someone who can stay clean and removed so that our child will always have a parent.”
I pulled from his strong embrace. “I don’t care what we do as long as I’m with the two of you. And our child deserves to have all his or her parents. Not just me.” I sniffed and wiped away the tears, trying to regain my composure. “Anything is better than me being cast off alone.”
“You won’t be alone. You will have around the clock security watching over you. We will give you staff as well to help with cooking and cleaning. You won’t be alone.”
“But that is alone! It might as well be. What kind of life will I have with no real connections?”
“A better one than you would have with Stefano and me. Look at us. Neither one of us is the man you are picturing. We aren’t that white picket fence dream.” He paused as if he may change his mind but then quickly snapped out of it. “And you won’t be alone. You will have the baby. And who knows, we may want a second child down the line.”
I shook my head. “You are both cowards. You both are too scared to let me in. To let any form of love in.” I paused to drum up the strength to tell Thomas my true feelings. “I love you. I love you so much.”
He looked at me surprised. “And my brother? Do you love him as well?”
I nodded and looked down at the floor. “I do. Even though you both may never return the words, I’m at least not a coward and can tell you how I truly feel.” I looked back up into Thomas’s deep onyx eyes and added, “But I know my baby and I deserve more. So, if you can’t say the words—”
“I love you too,” he cut in. Sighing, Thomas shook his head. “We can’t give you what you need.”
“Then take me someplace else. Find a place besides the manor, besides the properties everyone is aware of, and build something fresh. Anywhere else.”
“We can’t do that, and you know it. We have responsibilities that keep us in the major cities. We can’t just run off and play house. The slightest show of weakness, and others will move in.”
I reached out for Thomas’s hands and pulled him close to me in desperation. “Figure it out. Fix this problem as you fix everything else with your business,” I suggested, feeling hopelessness take over all sense. “You are a man who doesn’t take no for an answer.”
Thomas wrapped me in his arms and kissed me on top of my head. “Hailey, this is final,” he dictated. “You heard Stefano. And I agree with him. We have nothing to offer you. This is not the way to live. We can keep you safe and that’s the plan.”
My bedroom door opened again. Stefano entered, saying, “Regardless of what you may think of me, I don’t wish you unhappiness. I know what we have planned for you isn’t the perfect life, but if you have our baby inside of you, there’s no other choice. We have to keep you both safe.” Stefano’s voice snapped my head to look in the direction of the doorway that he stood in. He walked toward me and pulled me from Thomas’s embrace and placed his palms on both sides of my arms. “You need to trust that Thomas and I can’t provide the type of love or give you what you need. You are far better off anywhere else than with us. You have to see us as two men you betrayed, who kidnapped you, who used and abused you. Nothing else.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, searching my entire being for the power to not burst in tears and beg to be loved. I had to maintain some pride. I had to do something. Anything but feel this pain and rejection.
Cold.
Survival.
Put that wall back up.
Just be a pain slut and nothing more.
Try, Hailey. Try.
“Fine. Forget I even tried. Let’s just go back to the way it was. Fucking.” I tentatively pressed my palm to Stefano’s chest. “Let me taste you. One at a time while the other watches.” I lowered my hand to the bulge in Stefano’s pants. “I want to feel your cock between my lips.” I quickly undid his pants, releasing him from his confines. “I want you both again.”
Stefano stood still, never making a move to stop me in my mission. I took this as a sign to continue on. I knelt down, softly placed his hardened cock on the base of my tongue and closed my lips tightly around him. Looking up into his eyes, I began to move my mouth up and down along his shaft. Stefano never looked away. I could feel Thomas’s eyes, and didn’t need to see him to know he was watching.
Waiting.
Stefano never closed his eyes for a moment. He watched as I began my enticement. I tightened my lips and worked my tongue in small circles along the entire length. His taste, his smell, and his entire aura was so different than his brother’s but at the same time, so much the same.
Stefano reached for my hair to stop me. “Hailey,” he moaned. He was losing control. Good. Let the man lose some fucking control.
I looked up into his eyes with his cock still in my mouth. I pulled it out enough to whisper, “It’s your turn. Enjoy.” I lowered my mouth down to the base of his cock and slowly back to the tip. Removing his penis just enough to speak again, I rasped, “Watch me, Thomas. Watch me suck off your brother.”
I knew they liked the dirty talk.
I knew exactly what they liked.
I had been trained.
Trained. Just not loved.
Stefano closed his eyes and threw his head back in euphoric surrender. I knew I had won this battle. I smiled wickedly at my success and continued my quest to please Stefano like he had never been. All while his brother watched on—cock hard—while he waited his turn.
“No. Stop,” Thomas ordered. “This isn’t right.” He looked at Stefano who now pushed me back and put his cock back in his pants. “We talked about this, Stefano. Crossing the line we can’t come back from.”
Clearly Thomas and Stefano had felt the connection before and discussed it. It scared them. I could see it. It was all starting to make sense. They had made some kind of pact.
“Well, I’m glad I was included in this little agreement of yours,” I snapped as I fell to the floor, not caring to stand. “So, because there was something special that happened between the three of us, you decided between the two of you that it’s wrong. Without letting me in on that discussion?” I shrugged and closed my eyes in defeat. “I guess I am nothing but a fucking breeder.”
“I’m sorry, Hailey,” Thomas said as he lifted me up and placed me on the edge of the bed. “We weren’t sure if you felt what we did. And yes, it scared us. We both had never experienced anything like that before, and we had a feeling it would only get stronger if we continued on. Because of the circumstances, we had to put a stop to it. We know what’s best.”
I laid down on my bed and turned my back to the brothers. “Fine. I understand. It’s just a matter of time until I’m fat with swollen ankles anyway.” I took a deep breath so my voice wouldn’t crack and reveal my pain. “I’m tired. Can you both leave so I can get some rest? I’ve been tired lately...”
At least the baby would love me.
Chapter Fifteen
Hailey
Gio walked into the bathroom as I finished washing out my mouth from my new morning ritual of throwing up my breakfast. His presence didn’t surprise me when it should have. I had only seen him a few times, and it was always while he held a video camera.
And I had always been naked.
Not this time, however. When I woke up this morning, I found a light and summery floral dress with pink high heels resting on top of the dresser. There was also a lacy bra with matching panties.
And a note.
The words written on
the note were like a punch to the gut, when in fact they should have made me happy:
Your last comfort item has been earned.
Congratulations. Your time at the manor has ended, and penance has been paid.
~B. Brothers
I also hadn’t seen Stefano or Thomas for a full day, which only meant one thing.
“Have they left already?” I asked as I stared at my reflection—still not used to seeing myself with clothes on—in the mirror and leaned against the sink for support.
“They had to both go to Miami for a few days for some business.”
“They aren’t coming back to the manor.” I wasn’t asking a question. I already knew the answer. I knew it the minute they had left my room that what we had—what I thought we had—was over.
“No. But all the arrangements have been made for you to leave as well. Is there anything you want to pack or bring with you?”
I turned and looked at Gio with a smile. “Well, that all depends. Do I have to earn my comfort items in this new place you are taking me to, or will I have access to a bed at least?”
Fuck them. Fuck them all.
I refused to cry. Absolutely refused.
Damn those tears that burned my eyes. Damn them to hell.
“Everything will be provided for you there. The brothers wanted me to tell you that you’d have a generous allowance as well, so I’m sure you can purchase anything that wasn’t thought of. Also, there will be a full staff waiting for you there to assist with you and...” I saw him look at my stomach. “There will be people there to help with you and the baby.”
Fury built inside of me, but it was no match to the overwhelming despair and sadness that overpowered all other emotions. “I’m fine. I can go anytime you’re ready.”
I wasn’t going to ask where we were going. I didn’t care.