“Owen?”
“Sylvie, darling,” a voice she hadn't heard in three years said in French. “It’s me. Your Jacques.”
Chapter 11
Sylvie stood frozen by shock. The sound of Jacques’ voice gripped painfully at her heart, as if he’d put his hand inside and squeezed. How she had longed to hear that voice all these years, imagining endless scenarios, each of which involved him returning to her in tears, admitting the terrible mistake he’d made, and begging her to take him back.
She’d had a recording on her home answering machine of a message he’d left just a few days before he’d disappeared. I’m stopping by the liquor store to pick up some wine. Is there anything you need? Call me. Love you, bye.
Such a mundane message, nothing that might have predicted that in a matter of days he would simply vanish, leaving only a short, heartless note and some blood money that was supposed to compensate for ripping her heart in two.
Yet in the days and weeks after he left she’d listened to the voice message over and over, tears running down her cheeks. She would stare at the photo they’d kept beside the bed from a trip to the Bahamas, Jacques smiling wide for the camera, Sylvie looking at him. Sipping wine and feeling sorry for herself, she would stare into those blue eyes and stroke the picture, almost feeling his scruffy, three-day beard that had lent him a sexy air.
She’d been furious with herself when she’d accidentally erased the message, even though she knew she was being obsessive and ridiculous. Chloé had been the one, as usual, to knock some sense into her, reminding her of what she knew in her heart—she was lucky to be free of a man who could so easily walk away. He wasn’t worth her time; he didn’t deserve her. “You are young, Sylvie. Don’t let the ghost of a man not worthy of you haunt you for another second,” Chloé had advised.
Finally, about six months after he’d gone, when Sylvie was forced to admit he was really never coming back, she had torn all of the photos she had of him into tiny pieces and tossed them down the garbage chute. That was the moment she truly began to move on with her life.
But now, hearing his voice, her heart kicked into high gear, and she found she could hardly catch her breath. Closing her eyes, she took in a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. She could handle this. He was nothing to her now. Less than nothing.
“What a surprise,” she said coolly. “I didn’t know you were in New York.”
“I only just arrived late last night. I couldn’t wait to see you! My queen, how I have longed for you. I have thought of you a thousand times over these years we’ve been apart. I was such a fool. I will make it right again, I promise.”
My queen. Once upon a time she had loved that appellation, though now it sounded faintly ridiculous. He had never called her Mistress, but rather his queen, to whom he had promised eternal fealty, devotion and undying love.
That is, until something better had come along.
She considered telling him to go to hell, but realized, though she no longer wanted this man in her life, she was curious to see what he looked like, if nothing else. Still keeping her voice deliberately cool, she said, “I’ll be down in a moment.”
She made herself go slowly down the two sets of stairs to the front door. She’d waited three years to see him—he could wait on her stoop a few minutes. Yet as she made her way down, she couldn’t stop the wild feelings whirling through her. What would it be like to feel his lips on hers again? To have him kneel naked at her feet, ready to serve her as he had once done?
She pulled open the door, her heart beating high in her throat, despite her best efforts to be calm. There stood the man she had thought she would spend her life with. The beard was shaved smooth and his hair was cut shorter than when she’d last seen him, but otherwise he looked the same, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners as he grinned at her. He was holding a huge bouquet of spring flowers and an oblong robin’s- egg-blue box wrapped in a white ribbon, which she recognized as coming from Tiffany’s.
Seeing that cocksure grin snapped Sylvie back to reality. The last vestiges of the old longing drained from her, like water swirling down a drain. As she stared at Jacques she felt none of the joy, or even any anger. Instead she felt…nothing.
“Ooo, la, la,” Jacques breathed as he swept her with his eyes. “You are even lovelier than I remembered, my queen. It’s been so long, darling. Too long. I made a terrible mistake.” He dropped theatrically to one knee. “Can you ever forgive me for being so stupid?” He thrust the flowers and jewelry box toward her.
“No.” Sylvie shut the door.
~*~
“Owen McCarthy.” Owen tucked the phone under his chin so he could finish the last bit of work on the blueprints he’d just spent the morning reviewing with the contractors.
“Owen, hey, man, it’s me.”
“Jerry?”
“Yeah. It’s Saturday afternoon but you have on your work voice. Don’t tell me you’re at the office. Not after last night!”
“What?” How the hell did Jerry know about last night?
“I heard all about it, man. Or rather, Mistress Alana did. A friend of hers was at Chains. The buzz is out that the reclusive Mistress Sylvie has reemerged on the scene, and she’s got a hot new boy toy in tow. Word has it they did a public scene at the club, a flogging that got quite a few engines revving. How the fuck did you manage that?”
Owen chuckled. “Guilty as charged. Though I’m not sure about being called a boy toy, hot or not.”
“Oh, come on, admit it. You love it.”
Owen grinned, shaking his head. “It was a pretty intense scene and Sylvie—“ He caught himself, for some reason not quite ready to tell Jerry more. “Mistress Sylvie,” he amended, “was absolutely incredible. If you’d asked me a few months ago if I would agree to being publically flogged at a BDSM club, I’d have said you were out of your mind. But yeah, it really did happen.”
Jerry chuckled. “Why am I not surprised? You never did do anything half-way, did you?”
Owen shrugged, though Jerry couldn’t see him. He swiveled in his office chair to face the view of the Manhattan skyline from his window. “I was nervous as hell, being up on that stage with everyone watching, but she was really great. She just guided me through it and made me feel safe. And the flogging itself was just incredible. I don’t know how to describe it—the way the stinging pain of the leather hitting your skin kind of segues into this sort of cloak of heat and just pure, utter peace—it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”
Jerry laughed. “I think you described it pretty damn well. I know what you’re talking about, but I didn’t know it was possible without love being part of the equation. The kind of love that comes from complete trust in another person.” He paused and Owen made no attempt to fill the gap.
Then Jerry said, his voice filled with disbelief, “What a second. Just wait a fucking second here! You aren’t telling me--you and she aren’t—I mean there’s no way that—”
Owen laughed, a rush of joy flooding his senses. What the hell—he would tell Jerry. Shit, he would tell the world! “You know me too well, old buddy.” Owen laughed, feeling like a kid, giddy with a strange, new happiness. “After the club, we went back to her place.”
“To the dungeon, you mean.”
“No, to her place, where she lives, on the third floor of the townhouse. I stayed. I only left this morning because we both had prior obligations.”
“You’re lying!” Jerry shouted, laughing. “This is fantasy stuff, dude. No way the aloof and unapproachable Mistress Sylvie took you into her bed.”
Owen laughed. “And her shower too.” He bit his lip, not wanting to be the kind of man who kisses and tells, wanting to respect Sylvie’s privacy. So he added, “Listen, Jerry, this is all really new. I don’t exactly know where I stand with her yet, so please keep this to yourselves—you and Alana. This means a whole lot to me. I don’t want to fuck it up. And obviously, the rumor mill in this little BDSM community of yours is
alive and kicking. So, promise me, okay?”
“My lips are sealed and Mistress Alana is the very soul of discretion,” Jerry promised. “Oh, and Owen?”
“Yeah.”
“You totally rock, dude!”
Laughing, Owen said goodbye.
Giving up even the pretense of doing any more work, he locked up the office and made his weekly trek to the supermarket near his apartment. While he grabbed items to fill his cart, he kept drifting into a dreamy daze as he reviewed each incredible detail of his time with Sylvie.
Though he knew he should take it slow and not appear like the overeager, love-struck puppy he in fact was, it had been hard to resist his impulse to call her a hundred times, or have a dozen long-stemmed red roses delivered to her door, or better yet, appear himself with a diamond ring in his pocket and a proposal on his lips. At twenty he might have done something that stupid, but at thirty-nine he liked to think he could exercise some self control.
Finally it was five o’clock, and he couldn’t wait another minute to reconnect with Sylvie. He realized he didn’t have her phone number, other than her business line, but he took a chance and called it, praying Isabel didn’t answer.
“Owen!” Sylvie’s voice was happy, and Owen smiled as he held the phone to his ear.
“Sylvie, hi. I was wondering if I could take you to dinner this evening? There’s a great little Indian place just a few blocks from you. It’s kind of a dive but the food is great. Do you like Indian?” He knew he was talking too fast. Slow down, he admonished himself, aware he was grinning like a fool.
“I do. I’d love to have dinner with you, Owen. Shall we say seven?”
When Owen arrived at Sylvie’s townhouse, she was sitting on the stoop, gazing pensively into the distance. As he approached she looked up with a smile and a small wave. She was wearing a silky sleeveless dress the exact sea-green color of her eyes, white sandals on her pretty feet.
He climbed the stairs and Sylvie rose, lifting on her toes to kiss both Owen’s cheeks. Impulsively he caught her face in his hands and kissed her lips. She kissed him back, but Owen felt a hesitation and he let her go.
Was this the pull-back after the first night? Was Sylvie reconsidering now that some time had passed and they’d had a few hours apart? But she’d sounded so happy on the phone when he’d invited her to dinner. Owen searched Sylvie’s face for some clue, and while she was smiling, her eyes seemed troubled.
“Sit beside me a moment, Owen.” Sylvie sank down, patting the stone step. “I need to tell you something.”
Shit, here it comes. Keeping his face neutral and trying very hard not to assume the worst, Owen allowed Sylvie to pull him down beside her. His anxiety eased a little as she reached for his hand, clasping it between both of hers.
“Something happened this morning, Owen, after you left.”
“Is everything okay? Are we okay?” Owen found himself blurting.
Smiling, Sylvie nodded, squeezing his hand. “Yes, yes, we are okay. I’m sorry if these dramatics made you think otherwise.” She took a breath and Owen realized whatever she had to say wasn’t easy for her. He stopped focusing on his own anxiety.
“What is it, Sylvie? You can tell me anything.”
She nodded, the smile sliding away. Letting his hand go, she turned to face him. “Last night you told me about your failed marriage—a marriage, you said, to the wrong woman.”
Owen nodded, wondering where this was leading. Sylvie continued, “I too have a failed relationship. Seven years ago I came to this country with my lover, Jacques Gaston. He had business in New York and I followed him here. We sometimes talked of marrying, but neither of us felt the need of a piece of paper. Our love, as Jacques used to say, was enough.
“Except that, apparently, that wasn’t true, at least not for him. One day about three years ago he just—disappeared. He left a note, said he’d found someone new, and that was that. I never heard from him again.”
“Holy shit. That’s really low,” Owen said. This was the guy she used to take to the clubs, he realized, recalling Master H.’s remark: People still talk about your last scene with that gorgeous French boy you used to have in tow.
Sylvie was staring down at ground. Owen put a finger beneath her chin, gently lifting her face. She had tears in her eyes and something caught in his heart. “What a bastard,” he said fervently, imagining what it must have felt like to come home to such a note. “More to the point, what a fool.” He reached out, stroking Sylvie’s cheek, hating that man who had caused her such pain.
She smiled, shaking her head. “It took me a long time to get over him,” she admitted. “I kept myself aloof, I realize now, shutting myself off to any potential for something new. I guess deep in my heart I was always thinking he would come back one day, and maybe we could start over.”
She reached again for Owen’s hand. “Until I met you.”
Owen felt the tension ease away until he looked into her eyes, which still seemed troubled. Then he remembered how she’d started the conversation. Something happened this morning, after you left, and all at once he knew.
“He’s back, isn’t he.” It wasn’t a question.
Sylvie nodded. “He showed up this morning out of the blue, with flowers and jewelry, full of apologies, ready to step back into my life.”
“And…?” Owen felt the world shifting beneath him as the first real joy he’d had in his life was threatening to slip away. It took all his self-control not to scream.
“I sent him away, of course. He asked if I could ever forgive him, and I said no.”
“Wait…what?” The shifting terrain had righted itself somewhat, but Owen remained shaken. “You sent him away?” he repeated stupidly.
Sylvie nodded emphatically. “I did.”
Owen laughed with relief. “So…that’s a good thing, right?”
Sylvie grinned, and he felt her relief as well. “A very good thing. I wanted to tell you, because I want no secrets between us, Owen. Jacques was clearly keeping quite a few during our relationship, and, as much as it would be easy to blame it all on him, these things never happen in a vacuum. Somewhere along the way, Jacques and I stopped communicating. He wasn’t getting what he needed from me, from the relationship, that much is clear. I let him slip away. I don’t want that to happen to us, Owen. Whatever happens between us, I want us to be open every step of the way. It’s only on that foundation of trust and honesty that we have a chance.”
Now it was she who took Owen’s face in her hands, as she stared into his eyes. “And I want that chance, Owen. I want it with you.”
~*~
As the weeks went by, Sylvie and Owen’s D/s relationship deepened and evolved along with their love. When Owen arrived at her place at the end of the day, he would buzz the intercom to let her know he was there, and then let himself in. Because of their busy schedules, it had been a few days since they’d been together, and Sylvie was eager to see him again.
She put aside the book she’d been reading when the intercom buzzed and hurried to the living room to await his arrival. A few moments later came the knock on her third floor door. Sylvie opened it and stepped back, watching with silent satisfaction as Owen stripped and draped himself, naked, over the low satin-covered stool, as he did now each time he came to her.
Sylvie chose a short-handled single tail from the sideboard and approached him. She knelt beside him, leaning over to kiss his neck, loving his scent, like fresh cedar and soap with hint of masculine sweat.
She stroked his back with one hand, her cunt moistening and nipples hardening as she gripped the whip in the other. “Are you ready for your mark?” she asked, in what had become a ritual for them.
“Yes, Mistress.”
With a flick of her wrist, Sylvie brought the lash down hard across both cheeks, the whistle of leather quickly followed by Owen’s sharp intake of breath as the pain moved through his body. A single lovely red line formed against his skin.
When he pull
ed himself upright, Owen’s cock was hard as steel and pointing directly at her. “Thank you, Mistress,” he said softly, his eyes bright.
“You are most welcome, my slave.” With a laugh, Sylvie curled her fingers around his hot, throbbing shaft and led Owen into the bedroom. Pushing him down onto the mattress, she straddled him, sinking herself onto his hard cock with a moan of pleasure. Owen reached for her breasts, his fingers rolling her erect nipples as she undulated on him.
“You will not come,” she informed him. “Not until I tell you.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Owen breathed, biting his lower lip in that sweet way he had when he was trying to control himself. Reaching back, Sylvie gripped his balls in her hand and gently squeezed as she rode him. She rubbed her clit against his pubic bone, watching with sadistic satisfaction as he began to tremble in his effort to control his orgasm.
Reaching out, she slapped his cheek, drawing a deep, guttural groan of passion and pain from his lips. She slapped the other cheek, her eyes on his, which glittered fever-bright. Sylvie felt the rolling rise of a climax moving through her. She slapped him again as her body began to shudder. Gripping his throat, she forced his head up and back. With a cry, she jerked hard, riding his cock to an intense release.
When she came to herself, she looked down at Owen, who was regarding her with blazing eyes. Both cheeks were red from where she’d struck him, and she could feel his cock, still pulsing and hard inside her. Slowly she lifted herself from him and knelt beside him on the bed.
“Grip the bars,” she ordered. “Don’t let go.”
Owen reached back and gripped the iron bars of the headboard. Sylvie stroked his underarms, drawing her fingers down his sides. Owen was ticklish and it was difficult for him to maintain this position when she teased him like this. She glanced at his face. His eyes were closed, his lips pressed in a thin line.
Sylvie ran her fingertips lightly over his skin, watching as Owen’s knuckles tightened their grip. She reached for his shaft, which was slick with her juices. Lowering her mouth over the head, she circled it teasingly with her tongue.
The Story of Owen: One Man's Submissive Journey Page 12