My chest is rising and falling as I watch him. He moves gracefully, like a big cat. A panther who’s eyeing his prey, deciding how he’ll take it out. “You want my cock?”
“I want you, Grant.”
His hand smacks the side of my ass. “Master!”
“I want you, Master.”
“You want my cock. You can have my cock. You cannot have me.” He levels those eyes on me, making sure I know where I stand with him.
I hold my ground. I may be bound to his bed, but my head is still my own. “I want you, Master. I want all of you. I want your body and your heart.”
He pounces on me like an animal, his face so close to mine that his hot breath blows into my face, his teeth bared. “You can have my cock, and that is all you can have, you little slut. How dare you ask for more.”
I look right back into his eyes and give him a determined smile. “How dare you deny me.”
Reaching over to the nightstand, he comes back with the house key in his hand. “If you want my cock inside of you, you have to accept this key. You have to accept the fact that you are going to stay with me for at least a week, maybe more.”
My legs are moving, testing the leather straps, my arms pull to make sure the cuffs are really holding me down. My cunt is aching to feel his long, thick cock, and my mouth betrays me. “I will accept it all, Master.”
“Good girl.” His lips brush mine as he puts the key back down.
With one hard thrust, he’s inside of me. He moves vigorously, His hands pinning my shoulders to the mattress as he holds his upper body off me. I marvel at how his muscles move with each hard thrust.
The veins in his neck bulge as he uses so much force to pound his cock into me. Over and over, he uses my body to stroke his dick until it’s spurting out hot cum inside of me.
My body is shaking as it follows his, sending an orgasm ripping through me that has me matching him groan for groan.
Laying on me, but keeping the majority of his weight off me, he tries to catch his breath. When our breathing is under control, he looks at me with damp strands of hair sticking to his face. “You do understand we can’t be public with this, right?”
For the longest time, I just stare at him, unsure of how I feel or what to say. Then my heart thumps once very hard in my chest, and my brain takes over. “No, I don’t understand.”
He rolls off me and starts the process of setting me free. He leaves my right hand cuffed, though, as he looks at me with a determined expression. “You are mine, Bell. You and I both know that. But I have this reputation to uphold…”
“Fuck you, Grant.” I yank at the cuff, and I would’ve just slapped the shit out of him if I'd had access to my hand. A thing he cleverly made sure I didn’t have.
“Stop speaking to me like that,” he says sternly. “You know what that will get you. Or is that what you want? Another spanking, or something even worse?” He moves away from me. “I’m not toying with you. I know you think I am, but that’s not what I’m doing. I end every night in your office. You practically consume my every thought.” He spins around to look at me, his face a mixture of pain and anguish that usually rips at my heart. Not this time though. “It’s for your own good that it has to be this way. You have no idea what people will think if they know you’re with me.
“You can’t really think that, Grant.” My head is spinning. Of all the reasons he’s given me for why we can’t be together, this has never come up.
Is he telling me the truth?
“I do think it.” He comes to sit on the edge of the bed, spreading his palm out on my stomach. “I’ve been taking subs into private rooms and doing things they want done to them, but never making any kind of penetration with my dick or even kissing them at all. Just fucking them with dildos and making them experience whatever kinds of pain they’re looking for. I’ve only had sex with you since you and I started having sex.”
My stomach begins to ache as he talks about what he’s done with other women. “You want to know what I’ve done while you’re in private rooms with other women, Grant? I’ve sat behind my desk, locked away in the four walls of my office, and I’ve cried, prayed, and drank myself into submission. All over you. I’ve learned to place my mind in bubble wrap to take what you’ve dished out to me. And now, when I think you finally mean to show the world that I am yours, I’m wrong yet again.”
“They all know me as a harsh master and a man who goes from woman to woman. What will they all think of you if I put a collar around your neck?” His fingers move along my neck as if they were the collar. “Or lead you around on a leash. I can’t do that to you. I won’t. Don’t ask me to.”
He has me so confused. I was ready to fight against his normal excuses—that he doesn’t deserve my love—but I have no idea how to deal with this. My headache is back, and my arm is aching. “Let me out of this cuff. I need to pee and get an aspirin.”
He uncuffs me and I get up and walk away from him, completely unsure of what I’m going to do.
I know one thing for sure. I have got to start being true to myself, instead of to this man.
Chapter 19
Grant
Three days later
For three nights Isabel has slept in another bedroom. She walked out on me after I told her we had to keep what we have a secret. Since then she’s only spoken to me when she’s had to, and in that professional tone I can’t stand. The one that lets me know she’s only talking to me because she has to.
In my office at Cellular Global, I look out the window and wonder what the hell I’m supposed to do.
I’ve been grasping at straws lately for reasons why she and I can’t go public with our relationship. It’s only because I don’t want anyone coming up to me and wishing me happiness and congratulating me on finally finding someone. Being with her is a big enough step, I don’t think I can handle any of the other shit that would come with the territory. But for the life of me, I can’t say that out loud to her.
My attention is taken as my cell rings and I find it’s a number I don’t recognize. Swiping the screen, I answer the call. “Grant Jamison.”
“Don’t hang up, Grant. It’s me, your sister Jenny and we have to talk. And you should know that if you hang up on me, then I’ll come down to your office and make things very uncomfortable for you.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose as I try to find a way out of talking to my sister, I find I can’t come up with a single excuse. “What do you need?”
“I need you to meet me. I’ll be at the park we used to play at when we were kids. Be there in half an hour or I’ll come looking for your obstinate ass and make life a living hell for you until you hear me out.”
“This better be important, Jenny. I’m very bu…”
She butts in, “Busy, yes I’m completely aware of how busy you are big brother. Just meet me at the park. I’ll be sitting on the swings you used to push me on when I was a kid. Bye, see you soon.”
I put the cell in my pocket and head out, wanting to just get this shit over with. I have no idea what she thinks is so damn important, but I suppose it’s much better to meet her and hear her out, rather than have her stalking me. Which would lead her to my club. A thing I’d rather none of my family know about.
The drive to the park doesn’t take the whole thirty minutes and I see Jenny swinging away as I pull up and park my Jag. Her blonde hair is moving in long waves behind her as she flies through the air.
The sight of my closest sibling by birth does something to my heart. It pinches it a bit, making me feel the loss of time, and something else too. Remorse?
I wonder how much more remorse I can handle.
Coming up behind her, I ease onto the empty swing beside her and wait for her to stop swinging.
“Grant, you’re here!” She jumps off the swing as it’s high in the air, landing on he feet the way I taught her to when she was eleven-years-old. “Wow! I landed it. Didn’t know if I could still do that, but I had to go for it
.”
Her smile is radiant and I find my heart doing that pinching thing again as it lets me know I could’ve always seen my little sister’s smile. I only have myself to blame for that.
With a bit of applause, I let her know what I thought of the jump. “Bravo, Jenny. You did have the best teacher in the world, though. I have to take some credit for your tremendous talent.” I chuckle as she holds her arms out for me as she walks up to me.
“Get up and give your favorite sister a hug, you crazy man.”
I get up and she wraps her arms around me. Hesitantly, I wrap my arms around her and hug her back, smelling the vanilla scent of her shampoo. It pulls even more at my heart.
As the oldest by five years, it was always my job to be Momma’s little helper. I did everything from the feeding to the bathing of my younger siblings. It hits me hard that I let Mom down when I walked away from them.
I wasn’t a very good helper after the tragedy.
“You look like you’re doing well, Jenny,” I say as I let her go and sit back down on the swing.
She takes the one next to me and turns it sideways to face me. “It may look that way, but I’m not doing well at all. My husband and I are having problems. And I’ve been spending a lot of time over at Mom and Dad’s house.” She makes air quotes with her fingers. “Cleaning things up.” Resting her hands in her lap, she looks at them, instead of me. “He’s buying that so far. Not that he cares much if I’m around or not.”
That older brother protective instinct kicks in automatically. “Should I give this asshole a talking to?”
With a shake of her head, she looks at me with glistening eyes. “That’s not what I’m here for. I don’t need my big brother to go threaten my husband into treating me right. But I do need my big brother for other things.”
With a sigh, I try my best to put my selfish ways to the side so I can help my sister, who looks like something is weighing heavily on her narrow shoulders. “Give it to me straight, sis. I’ll see what I can do.”
With a nod she goes on, “First of all, I don’t want you to laugh at what I’m about to say. Keep an open mind. Promise me that, Grant.”
Using our old ritual, I extend my pinky finger. “I pinky promise that I will not laugh at a word you say, Jenny.”
She wraps her pinky around mine and it’s just like old times again. Somehow.
“Grant, since I’ve been alone a lot at the house we all grew up in, I’ve been experiencing things. Eerie things.” Her eyes dart to one side as if she’s just seen something out of the corner of her vision.
“Eerie things? At Mom and Dad’s house?” I shake my head, as that house has been in my dreams—or nightmares, rather—for far too long. And now she’s experiencing eerie things too? It’s all more than merely coincidental and I can feel the electricity in the air. “Like what, Jenny?”
“Like dark shadows that dart around at times. And things are moved around, too. I put a sponge down on the kitchen table and walked out of the room for only a second. When I came back in, I went to grab it and it was gone. Like it had utterly vanished.” She chews her lower lip nervously. “Later I found it in the oddest place.”
“Where did you find it?” I ask, thinking she probably didn’t realize she carried it with her somewhere, instead of actually putting it down on the table. Her thoughts must’ve been preoccupied with thoughts of her marital problems.
Gulping, I can tell she’s very uneasy with telling me this, or even thinking about it. “It was in Mom’s closet in their bedroom. Not that I was digging through her closet or anything like that. I heard something upstairs—a banging sound—and I hurried up there and found the door to their bedroom was standing wide open. I knew it had been closed before. So I grabbed a baseball bat out of your old bedroom and headed to find what I thought might be an intruder.”
“And what did you find, Jenny?” I ask as I look closely at her face, which had gone a bit pale.
Shaking her head, she goes on, “Grant, I went into their bedroom and found Mom’s closet door was wide open. Dad’s was closed and nothing in the room had been disturbed. I went to close the closet door and saw the light green sponge lying on top of one of Mom’s shoes.”
“No way,” I whisper. “What did you do then?”
“I screamed as if I’d seen a monster in that closet instead of a cheap sponge, and I hauled ass is what I did.” She laughs a little. “I drove straight home to get my husband to go back with me, because in my panic, I left the front door unlocked and I wasn’t even sure if I closed the damn thing.”
“And when you went back?” I ask her.
Shaking her head, she looks shaken. “When I went back—alone because he wouldn’t go with me—I found the door was closed, and locked. And when I went inside, I found every light was on in the house. So I called Jake and asked him to come over. He did and we went through the entire house, finding nothing missing and we turned everything off again, closed all the doors and left.”
“Have you gone back after that?” I have to ask because I know I wouldn’t have.
“Like I said, my marriage is rocky and uncomfortable, so I have gone back over there.” Her eyes cloud with tears. “Grant, Mom’s there and she wants to talk to you. I don’t know how I even know that. But I do. I believe it with everything I have in me. She wants you to go to that house so she can tell you something. Something important. You see, I’ve heard her call out your name on three separate occasions. As if she’s calling out to you, like she’s trying to find you.”
That cannot happen. I can’t do it. I can’t.
I sit and look at the ground, which looks to be moving back and forth slowly, but it’s me who’s moving. So many nightmares, so many bad feelings about that house. And she wants me to go there and do what? Perform some kind of a séance?
My silence spurs my sister on, “Grant, I know you’re scared.”
Scared?
Am I?
“I think you misunderstand my silence.” I look at her, instead of the ground. “I’ve had a lot of bad feelings about that house. I’m not scared, just uncomfortable with the idea of going there and trying to communicate with our dead mother.”
With a shake of her head, Jenny tells me something else, “Grant, I have this overwhelming feeling that Dad is innocent. I can’t shake it. And I know you don’t know this, but I was actively against Dad at first. This feeling is new for me. Please, help Dad, Grant. I think you’re the only one who can.”
I’m the only one who can help Dad?
Do I want to do that?
My father and I were close once. It was that closeness that had me hurting so much when I thought of him hurting my mother. A woman he loved so much it didn’t seem possible.
“Jenny, I’ve heard Mom’s voice now and then since about a year after she died. And I’ve pushed it out of my head each and every time. I’m not sure I can communicate with her.” I kick the dirt as I think it would be of no use for me to go to the house.
Jenny’s hand touches mine. “Grant, please. At the house, things might be easier for you. And we’ll all be there to support you too. Grant, we all need you for this. Mom needs you and Dad needs you—you’re the key to making things as right as they can be once again. Please, big brother. Please don’t let our family completely die. Don’t let your stony heart end our family for good. Please.”
Blinking, I find myself stunned that she called my heart stony. I mean I knew it was sheltered. But stony?
That made me sound so inhuman. Like some monster who goes through its life without a care for anyone other than himself. I care for others. Don’t I?
My fear of Isabel being hurt by that man has me keeping her at my home even though she’s mad at me. Even though she’s giving me the cold shoulder, I still care about her and won’t let her leave yet.
That’s because I care.
My heart pounds as the walls I’ve built around it over the years begin to sway. Has my pain caused my father to sit in pr
ison for years when he never should’ve spent one night there?
Has my pain caused me to hurt Isabel?
Has my pain left me blind to the hurt of others who love me?
My God, what have I done all these years?
The pain in my chest moves through my body as the walls crumble and something else fills me. For the first time since we came home from South Africa, my heart is beating for someone else. My mind is throwing away things I’ve told myself were necessary for me to stay sane.
“You want me to ghost hunt for our mother, Jenny?” I ask with a chuckle.
“I want that very much, Grant. I know that sounds crazy.”
“I’ve thought crazier things than that all these years. Things like you guys were better off without me. Things like I’d never be a whole man again. Things like love isn’t real.” I stop as a lump forms in my throat, stopping me from saying anything else.
Jenny gets up and comes to me, putting her arms around me. “Love is real. You are a whole man. And none of us are better off without you, Grant Jamison. Come back to us all and back to life. It’s time. Mom’s not physically here any longer, but I can feel her spirit coming and going in that house, and she has something she needs you to do. Only you can do it.”
Only I can do it. Only I can find out if my father is innocent. Only I can talk to Mom. A thing I’m getting more and more sure I can accomplish. So many years of shaking it all off, thinking I’m going crazy, has come to an end. Maybe everything I’ve been suppressing can come to an end.
Jenny interrupts my thoughts as she says, “There’s no time like the present to get this going, Grant. Can you find it in your heart to meet us all at the house this evening? I’ll bring the stuff to make spaghetti and meatballs.”
For Love & Torture_A Submissives’ Secrets Novel Page 11