by Alexis Hall
No regrets. No grief. No Caspian.
A pause.
“N-no. Please.” I had no idea what I was even begging for. Only that I couldn’t stop myself.
George gave a soft chuckle. And then came something new: the cool slap of leather tails against my sweaty, quivering arse. It wasn’t a hard blow, but the contrast was instantly the most amazing thing I’d ever felt. I melted against the table, moaning and bouncing my hips in a shameless entreaty for more.
And I got it. A rain of strikes that fell, at first, fast and light. Followed by slower, stronger ones that thudded into me, leaving rich, warm aches behind them. It hurt. But it was the good kind of hurt. The best kind of hurt. The flying kind. And sometimes, one of the tips would flick against my kiss-swollen hole with a sizzle like water hitting hot oil. Making me wail with the pure fucking joy of it.
Time became the gaps between blows. My heart beat for the moment of their landing. Until everything stopped. Well, everything except the pain, which was layered into me so deep and thick it kept right on burning. I was dimly aware someone was crying.
Oh. It was me.
“You’re so very pretty, poppet,” whispered George, “when you’re breaking.”
One of her hands closed around my cock. And two strokes later I was coming everywhere. I hadn’t even realised I was close until it was happening. As if even my orgasm didn’t quite belong to me. My suffering transmuted into ecstasy and released, bright-feathered, like a bird from a cage.
A few clinks and tugs and there was enough slack in the chains for me to sink gently onto my face, basically a puddle. A minute or so later, George pulled herself onto the table beside me, peeled me up, and helped me to lie with my head in her lap.
“What about you?” I asked, or rather slurred, groping for her erection with all the poise of a kitten chasing a piece of string.
She caught my wrist and pushed it back down against the leather. “Sex is more than ejaculation.”
I shivered happily at that. Honestly, I still thought I’d got the better bargain, but I wasn’t in any state to debate the point. The room was warm. And so was George. Her leg under my cheek and the hand she was resting on my shoulder. Everything was wonderfully quiet. It settled over me. Pressed into me. My mouth tasted of tears. My eyes were heavy and sticky under the blindfold. But I was okay, drifting through a soft, grey haze, hurting, exhausted, and satisfied.
Chapter 6
When next I stirred, I was unchained, and the blindfold was gone, and the studio was silver washed with starlight. I jumped off George’s lap with a yelp.
“Oh God. Sorry.”
“For what?”
I clutched at the blanket that had been draped over my shoulders. “For totally passing out on you.”
“I take it as a compliment, poppet.”
“I, uh, I feel like an idiot.”
“Well, you shouldn’t.” She drew me in and kissed the corner of my mouth. “You’re terribly sweet and terribly sexy. And I’ve barely scraped the surface of what I want to do to you.”
My cock liked the sound of that and made its opinion known without consulting the rest of me. “W-what do you have in mind?”
I caught the gleam of her smile through the shadows. “A lady must have her secrets.”
“You’re such a tease.”
“And you’re only just beginning to figure that out?”
I gave her a pert look. “You know, there’s plenty I’d like to do to you as well.”
“So you’ve said. Perhaps we should continue this conversation in the bedroom?”
“I’m game.” I jumped down from the table and winced as my arse remembered what it had gone through. And then winced again as I got a sudden whiff of myself. “Although I’m also kind of gross.”
“I don’t mind. Truthfully, I rather enjoy that”—George gave me a smirk that made me blush—“ridden hard, put up wet smell. But you’re more than welcome to use the bathroom, if you’d rather?”
“I’d rather.”
George’s bathroom was charmingly normal—neither a marble palace better suited to a Roman emperor nor the concrete corridor I shared with Ellery. Wow, my sense of perspective was all over the place. I wasn’t sure if we were in a washing-sexily-together type space, but she just handed me a clean towel, told me to take my time, and left. Which I was actually sort of glad about. I mean, I wouldn’t have objected if she’d wanted to get soapy with me, but as the door clicked closed behind her, I realised the solitude was welcome. I had a lot to process.
Since we didn’t have one at the warehouse, I treated myself to a bath, although I had to lie in it really carefully because my bum wasn’t a huge fan of hot water right then. As I rested on my elbows amongst the bubbles, I found I was still a little floaty. Not in a bad way, exactly. But there was a lightness inside me that sometimes seemed perilously close to emptiness.
So. Caspian and Nathaniel. Should I have seen that coming? I really didn’t think I’d been expecting anything from him. Okay, maybe a little bit, at first. He’d come to get me back before, after all. But as the months had trudged past, I’d come to terms with the fact there weren’t going to be any car chases to the airport. No kissing in the rain. No boy dancing down the bleachers singing “Can’t Take My Eyes off You.” Except maybe some hidden part of me had still been clinging on.
It kind of got me thinking about Pandora’s box. Like, the version I vaguely remembered from when we did Greek myths in primary school is that Hope was the thing the gods put in there to protect us from all the other shit. But I was seriously starting to wonder if it hadn’t just been their final fuck-you to humanity. I mean, look at me, kidding myself I was being totally mature and moving on. While just a tiny sliver of that sly bastard hope had been dicking with my head this whole time. Which, I guess, meant I was free now? At least I assumed that was the faintly untethered feeling as I sploshed about. Or maybe it was just having come my brains out.
God, I owed George some serious orgasms for this afternoon. Probably jumping into bed—well, onto a table—with the nearest interested person two seconds after learning about Caspian’s engagement wasn’t the healthiest reaction. But fuck healthy. I was allowed to have nice things. Or fun not-nice things if I wanted them. I’d been braced for guilt, once the happy sex glow dissipated, but…well…maybe it had missed its bus or something. Because it was way late. And part of me, of course, felt guilty for not feeling guilty. But most of me was dead set against it.
We were over. I didn’t owe Caspian anything. And I liked George and she was into me, and Caspian was probably doing plenty of boring vanilla bonking with Nathan—
I was so not ready for that thought. It was horrible, like my brain was throwing up.
No no no no no no.
I stuck my head under the water, giving myself two options: Stop thinking about it or drown. It worked, because the images finally went away and I sat up, gasping, with a bitter taste somehow in my whole body.
This bath was rapidly losing its charm.
Scrambling out, I began drying off and then remembered I’d left all my clothes in the studio. Sigh. I wasn’t exactly opposed to scampering about in the buff or with a towel slung across my hips like Poldark in And Then There Were None—except without all the abs and a V-cut you could use to irrigate the Nile Valley. But I’d just been very, very naked and so I wasn’t in the hugest rush for more exposure. At least, not straightaway.
Then I spotted the dressing gown hanging from a hook on the back of the door. It was big and fluffy, and I sure as hell deserved some big and fluffy. Also it had a hood, which, as far as I was concerned, was just the right amount of extra when it came to sleepwear. I pulled it on and, doing my best impression of a Jawa, went to find George.
She was in the kitchen, faffing with the kettle, and sporting a dressing gown of her own. Nobody should have been able to look hot in paisley, but she was pulling it off. I think it helped she was wearing it over black silk pyjama bottoms—the
sexiest kind of pyjama bottoms—and a dark green bra edged in black lace.
“Well,” she said as I sidled in, “don’t you look adorable?”
I gave her a defiant look from beneath the shadow of my hood. “Yes. Yes I do.”
“Tea? Some other hospitality? Aloe vera?”
I’d been on the edge of self-conscious, but this made me laugh. “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure? I could rub it lasciviously into you if you wanted.” She drifted over and gave my arse a yelp-inducing squeeze.
“I can’t tell if you’re trying to hurt me or comfort me.”
“Oh, poppet. Both.”
I went up on tiptoes and, proud of my own bravado, kissed her smirking mouth. “Thank you. Tea for now?”
“Of course.”
I sat down (carefully) at the kitchen table and George pulled open a cupboard to reveal not the dizzying array of artisanal loose-leaf blends I’d been expecting but a battered box of Yorkshire teabags and a jumble of mismatched mugs that made me abruptly homesick.
And then my stomach rumbled.
“Sorry.” I huddled further into the warmth of my dressing gown. “I forgot lunch, what with the emotional trauma and everything.”
“No apologies. I should have fed you. I don’t usually have overnight guests, so I’m out of practice.”
“You don’t?”
She cast me a look of mingled exasperation and fondness. “Yes, yes, you’re a very special mushroom. Now, I’m sure I must have something around here somewhere.”
“Um, what do you normally eat?” I asked.
“Lemon juice and broken hearts.” There followed a series of clashes and clatters as she began opening doors seemingly at random and peering at whatever lay within. “Actually, I usually stay in London, where I eat out or order in. I’ve never quite got the hang of domesticity.”
That figured. I couldn’t have imagined George cooking. But then, I’m not sure it would have occurred to me to imagine us in our jammies in her kitchen either. Though more fool me for that, because it was actually really nice. And George was still very George—sardonic and sexy and far kinder than she’d want anyone to know—it was just the new setting shaping my perceptions. Like when you hold a prism to the light and let it turn through all its colours.
“You should see the places I’ve been living,” I said. “They’re where domesticity goes to die. Trust me, you have nothing to worry about.”
That earned me one of her low chuckles. “I like certain aspects, but not others. If you need a bookshelf building or some cushions buying or a lawn mowing, I’m one hundred percent your huckleberry. If you want fresh milk in the fridge, not a chance. Probably this is God’s way of telling me to get married.” She paused, putting a thoughtful finger to her lips. “Or a housekeeper.”
“Well…you could get married?”
“In order to have my kitchen cared for? Arden, I’m not Don Draper.”
“No, I mean. If you there was someone you liked.”
“Dear me.” She turned, with a merciless grin. “A little rimming and you’re anybody’s.”
I went red. All the red. Forever. “Ohmigod, not me. But theoretically.”
“Theoretically I could play Maria in the next revival of The Sound of Music. It doesn’t follow I’d be any good at it.”
“Why don’t you think you’d be good at being married?”
“My preferences revolve around encouraging others, not forsaking them.”
“But with the right person, you could not forsake others together?”
“Why the sudden interest in my marital status?” She paused, leaning her hips against one of the counters. “Do you have five unwed daughters you haven’t told me about?”
I heaved a sigh. “And the family estate is entailed as well.”
“Seriously, though, where’s this coming from?”
“I don’t know.” I suddenly found I couldn’t quite look at her and became very interested in the cuff of my dressing gown. “I was just remembering what you said in Starbucks.”
“I said a lot of things in Starbucks.” Her voice had gone a little cool.
“You told me you…you were in love with someone. But that doesn’t mean you have to be alone.”
“At the risk of sounding unnecessarily Garbo about it, I want to be alone.” She made a derisive sound at the back of her throat. “Do you really think I’ve spent the last twenty-something years eating my heart out for Mara Fairfax?”
I choked on air. “Mara?”
“Well, obviously.”
Announcing Arden St. Ives: winner of the prestigious, much-coveted Most Oblivious Doink Award. Now I gave the matter half a second’s thought, it all made perfect sense. The way they talked and looked at each other. The trust between them that seemed like second nature. To say nothing of the fact that Mara was six different kinds of scary to pretty much everyone who wasn’t George. I opened my mouth, realised I had no idea what I was going to say, and panic blurted out an “I’m sorry.”
George’s too-mocking brows dipped into the slightest suggestion of a frown. “What for? Even if Mara wasn’t straight and I wasn’t a woman, I wouldn’t be with her. She wants the house in the country, the two-point-four children, the stable full of horses. And she has it. I could never give those to her and I would never take them away.”
A weird noise was coming out of my face. I briefly thought I had the hiccoughs. And then discovered I was crying. Again.
Boo.
“Ah.” A whisper of silk and George was at my side, her fingers moving gently through my hair. “This wasn’t about me at all, was it? Love isn’t a bus during the rush hour. You don’t have to let people off in order to fit more on. Probably you’ll always love Caspian a little bit. But that doesn’t mean you won’t love someone else.”
I blinked up at her through soggy lashes. “But what if I don’t?”
“Poppet”—her tone sharpened—“you’re in your early twenties, having emerged from your first significant relationship. It’s a little early to conclude you’re going to die alone.”
“Half-eaten by Alsatians.” From her quizzical expression, apparently the reference hadn’t landed. I sniffed and wiped my eyes. “This is rubbish. I can’t seem to stop being pathetic.”
“Yes,” she drawled. “I’m quite disappointed. I’d been operating under the assumption that fucking me would immediately cure you of all negative emotions.”
God. I had to pull myself together, at least a little bit. George had been nothing but patient with me and I was probably about as fun as a wet sock in a duvet. I mustered what I hoped was a flirty smile. “Maybe it’s something that requires an extended course of treatment?”
“I’m game. But first”—she pressed a kiss to the top of my head and swooshed back over to the kettle—“you’ll be delighted to hear that I found some food. There’s caviar and a Pot Noodle.”
Various questions ebbed and flowed in my head. “What flavour Pot Noodle?”
“Chinese chow mein. And the caviar is Royal Oscietra, purchased from W.G. White.”
“I’ll take the Pot Noodle. I only eat caviar if it’s beluga.”
Laughing, she retrieved a familiar blue-labelled plastic pot from the back of a cupboard, tore off the top, and poured hot water inside. Then set it on the table, along with a small tin of caviar, and two cups of tea.
“There’s no milk,” she said. “Well, there’s something in the milk carton. But I wouldn’t recommend allowing it inside your body.”
“And no cutlery?” I pointed at the plastic spoon she was wielding.
She arched a brow at me. “Haven’t you read your Debrett’s yet? Metal is supposed to oxidise the caviar and damage the flavour. Nonsense if you ask me, because the stuff comes in metal tins. But mythologies are far more interesting than truths, don’t you think?”
“That’s not a question. It’s a poorly disguised epigram.”
“This is, though: You’ve never had caviar be
fore, have you?”
“No, for two reasons. Firstly, because I’m a normal person. And secondly”—I eyed the glistening bobbles dubiously—“because it squicks me out.”
“Want some?”
“Are you trying to muscle in on my Pot Noodle?”
“I’m trying to do you a favour. You know Mara will fire you if she discovers you haven’t had caviar.” My eyes went wide and George burst out laughing. “God, you’re easy. I’m kidding.”
I put a hand to my racing heart. “Don’t do that to me. I spend all my time convinced I’m about to be dumped as it is.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Actually, why did I feel like that? When I’d first got the job at Milieu, I’d been convinced I was perfect for it. And it wasn’t that I’d changed my mind, exactly, but something wasn’t the same. I guess it had just been so much easier to believe in myself and all that malarkey when Caspian had thought I was the bee’s knees. Not that I should have been hanging my self-esteem off him in the first place. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure what I’m bringing anymore.”
“Buck up, poppet. Imposter syndrome isn’t cute.”
“Y’know”—I poked at the Pot Noodle to see if the peas were still rock solid—“it’s funny you mention that. I used to think I had imposter syndrome but then I realised I was only pretending.”
George made a sound, halfway between a laugh and a groan, and rapped me lightly on the knuckles. “Mara wouldn’t have hired you if she didn’t think she could use you. I love her to hell and back, but she’s too ambitious to be kind.”
“Well, maybe she made a mistake. My last piece was a list of the ten poshest sex toys for the website, which frankly, a teenager with access to Google could have written.”
“What,” asked George, tilting her head, “are the ten poshest sex toys?”