“It’s safer that way, I can’t break you or taint you if I don’t tell you anything,” she responds, crying now.
“Let me worry about that,” I assert, stepping toward her, but she steps back.
“It’s not easy, Ben,” she whispers, looking away.
“You’re a complicated woman, I don’t expect anything you have to tell me to be easy,” I say, earning a soft chuckle from her.
I make my way closer to her and spin her so I can unzip her dress. When I do, I instruct her to go up and change, that I’d be right with her. She nods mutely and heads off.
Taking a deep breath, I will myself to calm down. It took all of my self-control not to grab her, force her on all fours and take my belt to her ass for pushing me like that. She would eat it all up, though; anything to divert attention away from what happened at the gala. She forgets, though, that I know what she needs. I may not know the intricacies of her past, but I know her and I will always have her best interests at heart.
I grab two beers on my way upstairs, knowing she’ll need something to take the edge off of her inner pain and anguish, to loosen her up enough to tell me all that she needs to.
I go up to the room to see Delilah taking her clothes off mechanically; almost as if she is operating on autopilot. I stare at her from the bed as she loosens her hair then drapes the long mane over her shoulder and wraps her arms around her middle as she stares at herself in the mirror.
I rest the beers on the nightstand and walk over to her. Gathering her into my arms, I carry her like a bride and lay her on the bed. I need to relax her, coax her into telling me who this guy is. So I start kissing her.
Lifeless lips kiss me back, but I soldier on, making my way down her neck, to her breasts and down to her stomach. I gently spread her legs apart and nuzzle my face at her warm center, inhaling her scent. Her fingers tangle into my hair and it is the most life I have seen from her since we’ve been home.
“Tell me who he is,” I urge her, nibbling her swelling clit through her lace panties.
She doesn’t say anything but I know she’s shaking her head in the negative. Stubborn girl.
“I could punish you, Delilah. Force you to tell me,” I tell her, between harder bites to her pussy. She’s squirming now.
“Ben, please, not-not now,” she begs.
“Do you want me to punish you, my sweet girl? I want to protect you and you aren’t making my job easy.” I bite the inside of her thigh, leaving a mark.
She moans above me, her legs trembling already. I could mark her all day.
“I have yet to practice Shibari with you. Would you like that?” I ask, biting her harder on the inside of her other thigh.
“Oh, God, yes” she groans out her response, whether it’s from the bite or the suggestion of bondage, I’m not sure. Over the course of these few months I’ve come to find out that Delilah loves bondage, loves being restrained and asphyxiated. She says they center her.
“Tell me, talk to me, Delilah, or I bring you to the edge and leave you there…” I trail off, threatening darkly, my erection fighting to get lost in her depths as it throbs in my pants.
“For days,” I finish.
Delilah gasps and shoots up to look at me. When she sees how serious I am, she flops back onto the bed. I smile against her pussy and give it a suck through her panties causing her to whimper and lock her legs together, trapping my head between them.
I shove her thighs apart and chuckle as I rise up and sit next to her. Her body is alight with her arousal, burning with unrequited need. Her arm is covering her face and I can feel her trembling next to me.
“I…” she starts, but trails off. Turning her back to me, she speaks again, “I knew him when I was a kid…before my Mom and Dad.”
“And he made you so scared? Delilah, you have to know I don’t believe that that’s all. Tell me,” I urge her.
“That’s all you need to know, Ben. He’s someone from my past, let him stay there.”
“Obviously, he can’t,” I snap. Her eyes widen with fright before filling again with sadness.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath so as not to lose my shit. She is so frustrating. I bring her body upright and turn her face toward mine.
“He came very much into your present, Delilah, and from the way he looked at you he wants very much into your future. What is he to you?” I insist, my voice stern.
“Please, Ben, let it go,” she pleads, her eyes begging me.
“No,” I flat out refuse. “Did he hurt you?” I ask, the thought rocketing my anger.
“Ben, please, let it go. Whether he hurt me or not, it’s all in the past.”
“Did he…hurt you?” I repeat, my jaw clenched.
Tears well in her eyes as the chocolate jewels plead with me to let it go. Her face contorts in pain and suddenly I don’t want to hear what she has to say, if she wants to say it. I have a feeling I might not like what I have to hear, but all that is insignificant as I stare at the despondence written all over her face. I just want to hold her and take her pain and terrible memories away.
I know he hurt her; and God help me, he’s going to pay.
“Max,” she begins, an errant tear escaping her dark brown pools.
The telephone rings, interrupting her big revelation, and I curse the day I ever thought of putting one in the bedroom.
I scrub a hand over my face and an annoyed sound curdles at the back of my throat. Delilah uses this opportunity to escape and crosses to the telephone quickly, picking it up, glad to have a distraction. But if she thinks that I’ll just give up…
My thoughts trail off as my sweet girl loses all color from her face. I race over to her and try to hold her up as her body goes limp.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” I ask, trying to pry the receiver from her fingers, but it is secure in her panicked clutch.
Tears slip from her eyes as she starts to shake, while on the other end I can hear laughter. I grab the phone from her finally and put the receiver to my ear. Before I can rip into whoever is making Delilah freak out, the nasty rasp of a nightmare comes through the phone.
“Did you think you could keep me away from her, asshole?” Rick spits with a cackle. “Did you like that blast from the past at the gala dinner? Has she told you who he is yet?”
“How did you get my fucking number?” I growl, trying to restrain my anger.
“Oh, I got that quite recently. All I have to say to you is know your friends, and be careful of who you reject,” he warns cryptically. “Oh, and watch that pretty girl of yours. She’s still someone’s obsession.” He laughs diabolically as he clicks off the phone.
I slam the receiver down and take Delilah into my arms, squeezing her impossibly closer to me. She is sobbing now.
“What did he say to you?” I demand. “What did he want?”
“He said, he said,” she stammers. “He said he loved me and th-that you c-can’t keep me away-way from him or-or…him.”
“Him?”
“Max,” she whispers.
“Max? I don’t get it. Talk to me, Delilah,” I implore her.
“I want to, Ben, but I can’t. Not right now,” she answers.
Delilah looks exhausted, absolutely drained. So I let it go…for now.
All day at work the next day, I am uneasy. I have called Delilah about thirty times, ensuring she’s okay. She’s annoyed with me and that’s fine. I’d rather have her annoyed with me than not have her with me at all. The thought pits a hole in my stomach.
I pick up my cell phone and call her again. She answers on a half ring.
“Yes, Ben?” she sighs.
“Are you okay?”
“What could have possibly happened to me in…” she trails off then speaks again, “Five minutes?”
“A lot!” I say aghast.
“Oh please,” she says, and I sense her rolling her eyes. It makes me smile.
A feeling of dread engulfs me in that moment, however, my comfort leve
l shot. Unease settles like a pit in my stomach and in moments I feel like I am being suffocated. One person flashes across my mind: Delilah. I’m talking with her now so she couldn’t possibly be in any danger, but I have an overwhelming desire to wrap her in my arms, kiss her deeply and savor her essence. I need her.
“I’m coming home,” I decide.
“Good, because I miss you,” she says softly, almost tearfully.
All this time she was just trying to act tough. She needs me as much as I need her. And I know exactly what she needs…what we both need.
Chapter Thirty Two
“Argh!” Delilah grunts as she takes another slap from the paddle.
She is bent over the whipping bench, sweetly restrained with her ass in the air.
I came home to find her blessedly naked and rubbing that damn clit of hers. She looked so ravenous, so lost in pungent lust that I ripped my clothes off before I even reached the bed. I brought her to two screeching, toe-curling orgasms with my mouth licking and sucking furiously at her pussy and the bundle of nerves that is her clit, before I dragged her to the Fulfillment Room and secured her to the bench.
She requested the paddle, confirming how similar our thoughts are. We know what the other wants; what can bring us most pleasure, what can sate us, what can get us to the height of satisfaction, what can stabilize us. We both know I need to be in control in order to have some semblance of order; just as much as we both know that she needs to cede over control to me in order to balance herself out.
We are symbiotic.
It baffles me how we existed without each other for so long. I never want to experience that ever again and I will protect her to the ends of the Earth to ensure that no harm comes to her. It will take the Jaws of Life to take her from me. I own her and she owns me. There is no one else for me now but her, and there is no one else for her but me.
The alien concept of forever knocks at my heart’s door begging me to let her in. She is my heart, the love I never knew I needed. She is my Aphrodite, my queen, my goddess.
And my goddess is writhing beneath the sting of my paddle.
“Your ass is deliciously red, my sweet,” I rasp when I bend forward to her ear.
She moans, wiggling her ass higher. I rub my hand over her flaming round globes, trailing a finger lower nearing her quivering, wet core. Plunging a finger inside, I feel her warm, weeping center and my dick grows perceptibly larger, jutting forward in search of the goodness that is her tight sheath.
I definitely can’t wait much longer. Dropping the paddle from my hand, I position myself at her opening and tease her with the tip of my hardened arousal.
“Oh, God, Ben,” she cries out. “Don’t tease me. Not right now, please,” she pleads in a low squeak of her voice.
“Tell me what you want,” I demand, slipping the tip inside her but quickly pulling out. I do this repeatedly, driving her insane with lust.
Delilah tugs hard at her restraints, but she is secure. She can’t move unless I release her. Her body is enflamed. Desire radiates off her skin like an aura around her. My hands find her curves, greeting each curve with caressed force.
“Tell me what you want,” I say in a gentled tone.
“You,” she gasps. “I want you. Inside. Hard. Now.”
“Say it.”
She groans and thrusts backward – only the few inches that the position will allow her. The movement impales her a few inches on my hard cock but I retreat quickly, though inside she feels exceptionally desirable.
“Say it,” I urge her, digging my fingers into her hips and brushing my throbbing length against her moistened core.
“Fuck me,” she breathes. “Oh, God, fuck me, Ben!”
And I do.
Hard.
We lay on the bed in our room sated and exhausted. After the first round on the bench, we had another round five minutes later on the bed, which promptly led us to the floor and then, up against the window. We eventually literally crawled out of the Fulfillment Room into the bedroom.
“I think I pulled a muscle,” Delilah says as she lies with her ear to my chest.
“Where?”
“Down there,” she quips, gesturing to her vagina.
I chuckle in spite of my shattered state and hug her tighter, the ominous feeling still not gone. She sighs and rubs her nose into my chest, clutching me tighter and I do the same.
“You’re suffocating me,” she mumbles, jokingly.
“Ha, ha,” I deadpan, loosening my grip.
Sighing, she looks up at me.
“I talked to Dr. Munroe today,” she tells me.
“And?” I ask, absentmindedly stroking my fingers through her hair.
“She says it’s about time you knew some stuff, especially with the resurgence of Max,” she says, and I know it’s difficult for her to say.
My heart is beating hard, wondering if I’m ready to hear all of this. I have waited so fucking long it almost feels like this isn’t happening. Delilah is willingly giving up information on her past. I would ask for somebody to pinch me, but I don’ want to miss a damn thing she says right now.
“What do you want?” I press. I want to know she is doing this because she wants to. Not because some shrink forced her to.
“I want to, Ben, I promise,” she vows. “It’s time for me to stop hiding. It never did any good anyways. It all eventually comes back to haunt me.”
I know she’s thinking about Rick. That psychopathic motherfucker ruins the best things. God, I hate him. They ought to hurry up with that damn trial and send his ass away for life.
“Okay,” I say calmly, although I am bouncing on my toes with anticipation. “You talk. I promise I’ll listen.”
But if I hear something that makes me want to murder somebody, I might have to break that promise.
We both sit up in bed, our backs to the headboard we had been banging earlier. She crosses her legs and tucks strands of her wild hair behind her ear and takes a very deep breath.
“Fiona…my birth mother, wasn’t a good person, and neither was Uncle Max,” she confesses.
Max is her uncle?
“Not my uncle uncle,” she corrects herself quickly. “But my Mom’s boyfriend. He told me to call him Uncle Max.”
“You know those daughters who are the apples of their mother’s eyes and whose mothers love them with all their heart? Well, I didn’t have that. I tried to love my mother though.”
She laughs mirthlessly before continuing, “I think I still do. The little girl in me still loves that woman. Pathetic, huh?”
She is asking a genuine question, so I answer with a genuine response, “No, you’re not.”
I tilt her face to me and kiss her softly on the lips. In her eyes I see fear, but beyond that, I see love, strength and resolve. She’s going to tell me everything whether it keeps us together or not. She’s tired of running from her past, tired of hiding, and I am her resting place.
Just as she is about to continue, the telephone rings again and we both jolt staring at the device like it has ten heads. Last night when it rang, Rick was on the other end.
It rings again and crackles and that’s when I realize it’s just the intercom.
“Mr. Hayes, sir,” Geoff’s voice comes through.
“Yeah, Geoff,” I answer, relaxing.
“A woman is out here to see Miss Keyes, says she’s her mother,” he tells me.
Delilah and I both look at each other quizzically.
“Don’t you know Mrs. Keyes, Geoff? Let her in,” I insist. The man must be drinking.
“No, sir, it’s not her,” he counters.
Confusion spirals around me. What is he saying?
The look on Delilah’s face concerns me, though. Her face has lost its color and she looks afraid.
“It’s not her,” Delilah says, shaking her head.
“Who’s the woman, Geoff?” I ask, jumping into protector mode.
The intercom crackles and I imagine my head of secu
rity asking this woman her name. When he comes back on, both he and Delilah answer my question at the same time.
“Fiona,” they both say.
“Fiona Redd,” Geoff finishes.
“My birth mother,” Delilah whispers, her breath hitching.
Speak of the devil and the devil appears.
Chaos Theory
Rick
Ah, the wonderful sound of chaos unfolding. This is how people like Adolf Hitler and Attila the Hun survived: piles and piles of chaos.
When I got a visit from a Molly Cartwright a few weeks ago in hospital, I never thought it would bring me such good fortune. Never underestimate a woman who wants something bad enough.
Things just fell into place. Molly wanted information on Delilah that she could use to tear her and that asshole Ben apart and I was all for breaking them up. After all, I got rid of her rich kid boyfriend, Jared, four years ago and the same would’ve happened to the pretty boy eventually.
If I can’t have her, no one can.
We made our plans, watching everything unfold. We had thought of everything, except Maximillian Trace. The man sought me out. He was like a godsend. He is just like me; he’s in love with Delilah. He just holds more cards than I do and what cards he holds!
So, in the next few weeks to a month – I have to be patient – things should be progressing as they should. Delilah will go missing, and if all goes well, I should be out of here. Max has someone on the inside, on his payroll, working to get me free. With no victim to testify – and the evidence suddenly missing – the prosecution will have no choice but to drop the case. If that doesn’t work, we have a plan B.
Ryan had taken video footage of our encounters and on those videos are damning evidence that pretty little Delilah wanted all the sick shit we’d done to her. Thanks to Miss Molly, we also know that that rich piece of shit, Hayes, is into that sick shit. He’s got the dungeon or whatever the fuck to confirm it. He either risks his sordid life being sprawled out in magazines, losing his cushy life and job; or he testifies that she is a pain slut, effectively throwing my case out…and losing her. It all works out in my best interest in any event.
Broken Love Page 30