by Ivory Quinn
“Of course.” He leaned into the vehicle and kissed her forehead. “I’ll text you.”
“Okay.” He was replaced with Jax, who leaned down and gave her a hug.
“I’ll see you in a few days.” He murmured. “Get well soon. I can’t wait to have you back at home.”
“You just miss my cooking.” She joked, trying to ease the ache in her chest.
“True.” Smiling, he pressed a sweet kiss to her lips. “I’ll text you later.”
“I’ll speak to you then.” She reached up and caught him as he began to straighten, pulling him back down towards her. “I really am sorry, Jax. I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“I know.” There was so much acceptance in his voice that it stung even more than his anger had. “At least I know you won’t do it again.”
“I swear.” She rose up and kissed him again. “I swear I won’t ever do it again.”
It was dark in the boot and Noelle closed her eyes, trying to relax against the movement of the car as it rolled slowly down the driveway. The sound of the engine was muffled, but she could hear voices outside as they slowed to wait for the gates to open. When the car started moving again, she realised she’d been holding her breath and let it out, only to flinch when the sound suddenly exploded around the car. Hands drummed on the side of the vehicle and there was a distinct click as Storm engaged the central locking system. Heart hammering, Noelle tried to shut out the sound of journalists screaming questions by putting her hands over her ears, and then her phone vibrated in her pocket.
At first she ignored it, but then it rang again so she pulled it out, allowing the glowing screen to illuminate the enclosed space around her. Blue’s gorgeous face was showing on the screen and she took a moment to smile, her panic starting to recede. He must have snapped the picture when he put his number in her phone. She’d been in the bath at the time.
“Hello?” She pressed it to her ear and whispered quietly, scared that someone outside the vehicle might hear.
“How are you holding up in there?” He sounded worried and she was about to reply when the car jerked to a sudden stop and she went sprawling into the back of the seats.
“It’s a bit like being in a tumble drier.” She admitted, wondering what the hell was going on. The sound hadn’t abated at all.
“As long as you’re not freaking out.” She could hear voices in the background at his end and then he came back on the line. “They’re coming down to help you through. The journalists are blocking the road, trying to get Storm to say something.”
“I wondered why we’d stopped.” She admitted, her fear flooding back as she realised the vehicle was surrounded. It felt like being thrown in a shark cage and dropped into a shoal of great whites.
“Don’t freak out, okay?” She could hear more sound in the background. “We’re leaving now. We’ll be with you in two minutes and I’m staying on the phone, all right?”
“I’m okay.” Closing her eyes, she tried to calm her breathing, inhaling and exhaling to the count of five. She had to wonder why the paps were making such a big deal. They had surely realised by now that there was no-one hiding in the seats or lurking in the foot well.
“We’re almost with you.” Blue’s voice sounded calm in her ear, even with the urgency of their flight down the hill. “Just a few more seconds and then you’ll be out of here.”
She heard more engines roaring and then several car doors slamming as the guys bailed out of their vehicles.
“I’m hanging up now.” Blue told her. “See you later.” He didn’t wait for a response, cutting the line dead as she tried to hear what was going on. She’d need to speak to John about hiring security. This was getting ridiculous. She strained her ears to try and make out any words in the shouting going on outside and then flinched as there was a massive thud up against the side of the vehicle.
Almost immediately the sound receded, and moments later they started moving again, picking up speed until the noise had completely faded away behind them. Noelle let the rocking motion of the vehicle soothe her into a doze and jerked awake when the car stopped again. She heard the driver’s door opening and closing, followed by the sound of footsteps crunching on gravel, and sighed in relief when the boot cracked open, letting fresh air and what was left of the daylight come flooding in.
“You okay?” Storm sounded worried. “I wasn’t expecting them to be so persistent. I nearly ran someone over.” She took in Noelle’s calm face and grinned. “That was a little hairy and no mistake, but I really am going to have to take Blue to task if he dented my car.”
“That was the thud?” Noelle accepted Storm’s hand to steady her as she climbed out onto the asphalt at the edge of the road down into town.
“Yes, some journo was getting too pushy, so he introduced him to the side of the car with a hand around his throat.” She sounded delighted with her colleague and Noelle smiled ruefully.
“He does get a little overprotective.”
“You should have seen them.” She made a disgusted sound as she closed the boot and headed back for the front of the car. “It was like a feeding frenzy at the zoo. I don’t think we’re being followed though.”
“That’s good to know.” Noelle slipped into the front passenger seat and relaxed. “Thanks for doing this, Storm. I’ve caused such a ruckus this last few days, you must think I’m a total nutcase.”
“You’re welcome and not at all.” She put the car in gear and pulled back out into the road. “I’ve read your file, so I’ve got some idea what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours.” She smiled across, taking any condescension out of the words. “At some stage I’m going to take over your training from Blue. It’s more appropriate for you to see it from a female perspective.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but why wasn’t I put with you to start with?” Noelle asked curiously. Surely it would have made more sense to be with another woman?
“The Master felt you had clear issues towards the role of men in your sexuality and I’m not known for being a gentle Mistress.” Storm shrugged easily as she explained, without any sense of self-deprecation. “They thought it might be more damaging for you to see male denigration of that nature straight out of the gate. You need to accept who and what you are and what role men have in your life before you learn the tricks of the trade.”
“Can I ask you something personal?” Surprised by Storm’s frank openness and warmth, Noelle wanted to ask her something she’d been dwelling on for days. At the petite woman’s nod, she continued. “How do you come down? After a scene, I mean. Blue always seems so calm and in control, but after being in the play room with Thomas I had so many feelings raging through me I didn’t think my skin could contain them until he brought me down.”
“That was an impressive dent in the wall.” Storm grinned and nudged Noelle’s arm as she blushed. “It’s just experience. The more you do it, the easier it is to contain. Do you have a specific reason to ask?”
She was clearly perceptive and Noelle sighed, turning to face her in the seat. “It’s a real bone of contention with Jax. I want to try and make it work with him, but he won’t accept me being with other men and I can’t say I blame him. I know how bad I’d feel if he went out and slept with another woman. I tried to talk it through with Blue and he just said that Jax was putting unfair expectations on me.”
“He is and he isn’t.” Storm thought it over, a small frown marring the perfection of her face. “He can’t be expected to understand what you’re going through. ‘Coming out’ as a domme is a difficult period of change. His reasons for feeling betrayed are misplaced, which is why his need to insist on faithfulness is unfair. That said, your feelings also need to be taken into account. If you feel that you’re betraying him, then you need to find some other way to make it work.”
“It’s all just such a mess.” Noelle sighed, leaning her head against the back of the seat. “At the time I didn’t feel guilty. I knew it was the right thing to
do. I’d accepted it, right up until Jax found out and went ape-shit. I genuinely didn’t realise how hurt he’d be.” Saying it loud made it seem even worse than it was and she face-palmed. “I think I must be the least emotionally aware person on the planet.”
“Not really.” Storm disagreed. “When you’re going through something like this, it’s quite easy to become self-absorbed. Once you become aware of it, you’re less likely to fall victim to it.” She glanced across. “Stop giving yourself such a hard time.”
“Were you born like this or did you struggle to adjust?” Noelle asked curiously, wondering if this strangely elegant creature would open up to her.
Storm laughed, her soft voice rising around them. “I’m an almost classic example of the lifestyle.” She admitted. “I married young at eighteen, started getting restless at twenty-three, divorced at twenty-five and found Cal at twenty-five and a half. I fit just about every statistic there is – wealthy family, extensive education, inability to maintain any pretence of normality when my more sadistic tendencies started bleeding through. When it comes to this, I’m a walking cliché. But, and this is the most important thing, I’m okay with that. It doesn’t matter to me how I got here, just that I did.”
“I envy your ability to let go.” Noelle confessed before she could stop herself. “I feel like the worst kind of cliché and I don’t know how to get past that.”
“I believe it’s about understanding the value of things.” Storm turned pensive, absently watching the road as she thought. “In the end it was more important to me to be somewhere that I was understood and accepted than it was to hang on to where I came from. I made the decision that my new life with the Master and Blue was more fulfilling than living with my parents in a style that suffocated the best parts of me.”
“What did your parents think of your decision?” She knew it was a deeply personal question, but she couldn’t help wanting to know.
“They disowned me.” There was old pain in Storm’s answer. Scarred over and healed, but still pain nonetheless. “I’m okay with it. I am who I am and I can’t change it. If they can’t accept me for who I am, they can only be a destructive force in my life and hanging onto them won’t help either of us.”
It was such a profound answer that Noelle settled into silence, looking at her life through new eyes, yet again. It wasn’t an easy journey and acceptance would be a long time coming, but at least, she thought, she was starting to understand the value of things.
***
It was after nine by the time they got back to the manor and, after a cup of herbal tea, Noelle was tired enough to go to bed. Storm showed her to one of the guest rooms and left her to it, wishing her goodnight. Noelle had a quick shower and then crawled gratefully into the clean sheets, drifting off almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
She awoke briefly in the night when Blue climbed into bed with her, but he was warm and she snuggled up to his chest, half asleep. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head and she drifted off again with a smile on her face. She was safe.
Chapter eighteen
“I’m led to understand that young Jaxon has made you an ultimatum.” They were sat in the private rose garden behind the manor, sipping tea and enjoying the sunshine. The air was heavy with the sweet scent of the blooms and Noelle was reclining sleepily in a lawn chair under Cal’s watchful gaze.
“He gave me a month.” She opened her eyes and sighed. “If I’m going to make him wait for me, I have to marry him.”
“And if you choose not to marry him?”
“I don’t know.” She admitted. “I don’t know if we’ll just be friends or if he wants me out of his life forever.”
“And how do you feel about the situation?”
“Scared and confused.” She gave a bitter smile. “Much like everything else in my life right now.” He remained silent and she’d been talking to him long enough to know that meant he wanted her to expand her statement. “At first I was confused because I didn’t think I was worthy of him.” She began. “Lately I’ve been more confused about my feelings towards him. He’s a sweet, kind and generous man and I find him very attractive physically. I love him, but I don’t love him in the same intense, overwhelming and smothering way that I loved Gabriel. What I feel for Jax is gentle. It’s not earth-moving. I don’t know what love is supposed to be like. I don’t know if a gentle love is enough to sustain us through all the stress and strain that every relationship goes through, let alone all the issues of my needs and abhorrence of fame. I’m just...” she took a deep breath. “I’m just terrified of losing him. I can’t imagine my life without him in it and part of me is scared that if I do say yes and marry him, it’ll be for the wrong reasons. I don’t want to end up committed to him because I was too weak to live my life without him in it. I’m scared that I’ll say yes because I’m up to my old tricks and just want him to be happy. He doesn’t deserve that.”
“An engagement isn’t the same thing as a marriage.” Cal said thoughtfully. “You have more than a month to make the final decision, if you feel you want to at least try to make that commitment. You can say yes and then back out at a later date if it’s not working between you. Are there other issues, or is it just that you question the depth of your feeling for him?”
“There are other issues.” She lifted her teacup to her lips, trying to put a label on her fears. “I’ve seen enough of what goes on here to know that I need it. On some level I know that Jax understands and accepts that. He spent fifteen years of brotherhood with Gabriel. But I think that understanding and accepting in principle are very different to understanding and accepting in practice.”
“Go on.”
“He got so jealous about Blue and, while I can totally understand his anger and hurt, I can also accept that Blue was exactly what I needed at that time. I needed someone that could take away my fears with no pressure for the future.” She put her cup down and absently studied the arm of the lawn chair. “It’s hard enough for me to come to terms with what I am, without him making it harder by pushing his feelings into the mix. I know that sounds selfish, but I’m so scared I’m going to turn into Gabriel.” She took another deep breath. “I also feel guilty as hell for even wanting to think about Jax in that way. Sometimes it feels like Gabriel is barely cold in the ground and I’m already moving onto his best mate.”
“It’s been more than six months, Noelle.” Cal reminded her gently. “That’s more than double the time you were actually with Gabriel.”
“I know. But it was so intense...so cataclysmic. He changed my life forever.”
“Do you think that what you had with him was genuine love?”
She opened her mouth to say ‘of course!’ and then snapped it shut again. “I don’t know.” She replied eventually. “Sometimes it seems like it was more of an obsessive infatuation. Part of me wonders if I was in love with the fact that Gabriel was in love with me, rather than the man himself. I didn’t care about his money or his status...but to be loved by someone so special?” She shook her head. “That was a pretty powerful emotion. It was like being bathed in the radiance of the sun.”
“So do you think there’s any meaningful way of comparing what you felt for Gabriel with what you feel for Jax?”
“Probably not.” She admitted.
“What about the other band members?” He took a side step. “How does the way you feel about Jax compare to the way you feel about Raze, for instance?”
“It’s different.” That at least was something she could be sure on. “Although Raze is attractive, I don’t feel attracted to him physically in the way that I am towards Jax. It’s more brotherly love.” She smiled as what the nurse said came back to her. “He’s my Papa Bear.”
“It seems to me that you have trouble trusting your emotions.” Cal shifted, not looking at her directly. “You have to be the foundation for everything that you build on from here. You have to trust yourself before you can trust anyone else. Noel
le, you’ve survived some pretty intense things. It’s a cliché, I know, but that which doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger. If you can trust in one thing, it’s that you won’t ever allow yourself to fall prey to this kind of manipulation again. I get that the world is a scary place. We all have our own demons. I think you’ve learned the true value of life. It’s up to you now to decide how you’re going to live it.”
They sat in silence for a long time as she mulled that over and then she sighed. “I need to let go of everything that went before. I’m a different person now. I can’t keep comparing everything to the way it used to be. I can’t hold up Gabriel as a shining example any more. It’s just so ingrained.”
“It takes time.” He surprised her with a smile. He didn’t smile often and for a moment she saw genuine and deep warmth beneath the exterior. Then his mask slid back into place and he sipped his tea. “It takes time to change a belief system. Don’t expect everything to fall into place in days or weeks. It might take months, or even years. But it’s the beliefs you have to fight for that you become most passionate about. Believe in your strength, Noelle. Believe in your compassion. Believe in your innate goodness, and everything else will fall into place.” He leaned across and pinned her with his gaze. “Believe in yourself, the way we believe in you.” Piece said, he sat back in his chair. “I suggest you go and lie down for a bit. I gather that Storm has an outing planned for you this evening. I’ll send Blue to wake you for dinner.”
Knowing she was dismissed, Noelle set her empty cup down on the table and rose. “Yes, Master Henway. And...thank you. Believing in myself is a little easier with others leading the way.”
“You’re welcome.” He turned back to the roses and Noelle left him to his thoughts.
***
“Where are we going?” Noelle was sat in the back of one of Master Henway’s luxurious town cars with Storm, heading into the city. It was late and she was glad she’d had a nap that afternoon. If she hadn’t, she’d have been drifting off by now.