"I was an idiot to let you go. I'm sorry, Kate. I guess there are some things I haven't dealt with yet, regarding Lisa. I'm glad you came back."
He led Kate to the loveseat and they sat down. Kate turned to him, her expression serious.
"I shouldn't have let you send me away. It was clear you were hurting. I kept thinking after I left of how you'd been there for me after that scene with John Brighton. How you not only stepped in as my knight in shining armor, but reached out with that email. You didn't even know me, but you made it clear you were there for me. You were a friend from the beginning."
She put her hand on his leg and he covered it with his own.
"Even if you aren't ready, Chase. Ready for something new with me..." She paused and swallowed. She smiled, though tears had suddenly appeared in her eyes.
"I want you to know I'm your friend. I'm here for you. You can talk to me. You can trust me."
"Thank you, Kate." Chase reached for Kate, enfolding her in his arms.
"That means more to me than you can imagine. I've shut myself off from the world for too long. You reawakened something in me, something I thought had died. I appreciate your offer of friendship very much." He stroked her hair.
"I honestly hadn't realized how isolated I had become, how closed off from my feelings."
He let her go and sat back, shaking his head.
"I like to think I'm so together. That I can handle anything. That I don't need anyone. And for this past year, I've managed to make that work, at least on the surface. But the truth is, there's a lot of stuff I haven't really dealt with. I thought I was doing okay, but really I was in denial."
He turned to face her, stroking her soft cheek. She leaned into his hand and his heart ached with longing. She was giving him a second chance.
Jesus, Saunders, don't blow it. Not again. He took a breath and continued.
"Finding you, making love to you today, it was like opening a raw wound. I want to heal, Kate. I want to let go of the past, of her."
"How did it happen?" Kate asked gently. "How did she do it?"
Chase didn't answer right away.
"Are you sure you want to talk about this?"
"Only if you're okay with it," Kate replied. "It might actually be good for you to say it out loud. I get the sense you've been keeping a lot in for a long time."
"Yeah. You can say that again."
Chase hesitated and then finally said, "She ... she slit her wrists. I found her in her bathtub. I still have nightmares about it."
"Oh, Chase, that's horrible."
"It was pretty awful." Chase didn't want to burden Kate with the images that were indelibly branded into his own mind, and so he didn't elaborate. When he'd come over that evening to Lisa's place, he'd discovered her body in the bathtub. She lay white as death in a pool of red water, her wrists slit with one of the utility knives he used in his workshop. It had been found in the tub when they'd drained it. An empty bottle of vodka lay on its side on the bath mat.
"To make matters worse, I must have passed out right after I made the call to 911. When the cops got there, I was all covered in blood, my own, of course, but they didn't know that for sure."
He paused, feeling as if his throat were closing.
It took him a moment to figure out the hot pressure behind his eyes was tears he'd never allowed himself to spill. He swallowed and blinked, forcing himself to go on.
"I'd hit my head on the corner of the countertop on my way to the floor. I was pretty much in shock, and wasn't very coherent when the police were questioning me.
"I was actually a suspect for a while, and Lisa's family didn't help matters. They told the police about what they referred to as Lisa's perverted lifestyle. They got a warrant to search my place.
It was pretty scary for a while, on top of the horror of what she'd done."
Kate touched Chase's shoulder and stroked his arm,
her voice tender.
"It must have been so hard for you. I can't even imagine." Chase felt raw and vulnerable. He'd buried the sorrow and helpless rage of that time behind a wall of self-control.
At her soft touch he felt the wall crumbling. He couldn't stop the tears that were welling from his eyes, rolling hot and fast down his cheeks.
"Jesus." His voice cracked. "I'm sorry. I don't want to do this..."
He hid his face in his hands.
"It's okay," Kate whispered, stroking his hair. "You're allowed to cry. It's healing."
The last bricks of the internal wall crumbled to dust in the face of her gentle kindness.
Chase gave in to the onslaught of his sorrow, unable to regain control. Kate wrapped her arms around his shaking shoulders.
He was barely able to catch his breath as the sobs wracked his body.
He cried for Lisa.
He cried for the life he'd lived, never quite managing to get it right.
He cried for the past year, spent in lonely, quiet desperation, clinging to a semblance of normalcy, when inside he'd blamed himself for Lisa's death. If only he could have done more, done something...
Kate held him, rocking him gently. He cried until there was nothing left. He felt lightheaded and completely drained.
Pulling away from Kate's gentle embrace, he let his head fall back against the loveseat.
"Where are tissues? I'll get you some," Kate said.
"In the kitchen," Chase said, somehow surprised that his voice box functioned. He wouldn't have been surprised if all that sobbing had sucked the very sound out of him for good.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried like that, if ever.
He'd shed tears at Lisa's funeral, but they'd been quiet, contained tears, nothing like this red-faced, heaving splatter
of emotion he'd forced Kate to witness.
She returned with the box of tissues and Chase gratefully grabbed a handful, wiping his face and blowing his nose.
"Man, I'm sorry," he began. Kate stopped him with a finger on his lips.
"No. Enough being sorry. For both of us. You and I apologize way too much. I'm noticing that. You've been through hell and back, that much is obvious. If you don't mind me crashing here, how about let's go to bed. I haven't been to sleep yet and bet you're wiped out. I know I'm always exhausted after a really good cry."
Chase smiled and realized she was right. It had been a really good cry. He'd always regarded crying as a sign of weakness, at least in a man, as something to be avoided at all costs. But he felt, well, not good precisely, but relieved.
The stranglehold of guilt and remorse that had been suffocating him without his conscious knowledge had been loosened with that one good cry.
He wasn't naïve enough to think he was done now, all better and Lisa completely behind him, but at least it was a start. It was something. And Kate had been there to witness it. To help him through it.
"Thank you," he said.
"For what?"
"For being there."
****
They were snuggled together in the bed, Kate on her side, Chase behind her, his arms around her. Chase had lent Kate a T-shirt to sleep in. They'd shared a midnight snack of cereal with banana before going to bed. They hadn't said much while they ate, but the silence was companionable, not strained.
Kate was so glad she'd come back, and even though it was going on three in the morning, she could have stayed up longer to let Chase talk, if he'd wanted to.
But looking at him, she could see he was dead on his feet, his eyes red-rimmed from crying and fatigue. A good night's sleep could do wonders, especially after a good cry. She sensed Chase didn't cry often, and that in doing so in front of
her, he'd shared something even more intimate than sex.
She nestled back against him, thinking she wouldn't mind a repeat of their lovemaking earlier that day, well, technically yesterday, but gave herself a silent scolding. The poor man was exhausted. Let him sleep. She closed her eyes and let herself drift, surprised how relaxed and cont
ent she was.
Usually she tossed and turned when in a strange bed, unable to get comfortable.
Chase's breathing was coming slow and even, with an
occasional soft snore. Could she sleep with someone beside her?
She'd grown quite used to her solitude over the past two years.
Even though it was late and she knew she should be wiped out, she doubted she...
When Kate next opened her eyes, the room was filled with the pink light of early dawn. Chase was asleep beside her on his back, one arm slung over his face. The sheet had slipped down, exposing his chest. On an impulse, Kate leaned over
and lightly kissed his left nipple, circling it with her tongue. He stirred but didn't open his eyes. She kissed his other nipple and then trailed her tongue down his body, as he'd done the day before to her.
"Mmmm," Chase murmured, though he still didn't move.
Emboldened, Kate pushed back the sheets and tugged at the string on Chase's pants, slipping her hand inside the waistband.
He was naked beneath, his cock nestled in its bed of pubic curls.
She wrapped her fingers around his cock and stroked it, enjoying the sensation of silky, warm skin covering his rapidly hardening shaft.
"Mmmm," Chase said again, and she could tell he was fully awake now. She glanced at his face. His eyes were still hidden by his arm, his lips softly parted. Kate released his cock long enough to pull down the loose cotton pants to his
thighs. She examined his cock and balls, something she hadn't had a chance to do properly the day before.
His cock was thick and straight, the balls full and lush beneath it. Scooting down on her side, Kate leaned over him and licked along the fat vein that ran its length, feeling the pulsing heat beneath her tongue. Chase moaned. Kate closed her lips over the head of his shaft, sucking at the drop of clear, sweet pre-cum at its tip.
She cupped his balls in one hand and lowered her head completely over his cock, milking it with her lips and tongue until the head was touching the back of her throat. Chase groaned and she felt his hand rest lightly on top of her head.
Kate felt her power as a woman and a sexual being. She loved pleasing a man in this way, not only for his pleasure, but for her own, thrilling each time that she could make a man come, make him moan and beg, make him cry out in
ecstasy. She began to suck in earnest, stroking his balls with one hand, using the other to grip the base of his shaft. The hand on her head pushed harder, forcing her down onto his shaft and, because she hadn't been expecting it, making her gag. When she tried to push back against it, he held her fast.
This subtle shift in power between them sent something shooting through Kate's veins like a thousand jolts of electricity.
She felt the ache in her pussy, a yearning to feel his power, his control. He was controlling her very breath with his cock, and the firm hand on her head.
When he let her go she reared back, gasping for air. He let her catch her breath and then the hand was returned,
pushing down steadily, forcing his way down her throat, though she was a most willing participant.
She reveled in what he was doing, thrilled in a way she never imagined. She'd explored the obvious BDSM avenues of light bondage, spanking and flogging, but no one had ever exerted this kind of overt, sensual control.
Kate became totally absorbed in the erotic interplay of pleasuring Chase, while simultaneously being controlled by him.
Each time he held her down a few seconds longer, testing her ability to hold her breath, or more to the point, to obey him. She knew she was completely safe with Chase.
Because the foundation of trust was there, it left her free to fully experience the thrill of breath play.
Chase began to moan again, thrusting up to meet her mouth, forcing his cock deep into her throat. With his hand still on her head, she was unable to resist him, but she didn't want to. She worked her throat and tongue, massaging him as best she could while impaled on the thick, hard shaft. Her pussy was throbbing.
"Kate, yes, oh god, Kate," he cried. She could feel him climaxing. He released her head as he did, stiffening and shuddering as long streams of semen shot down her throat, too far back for her to even need to swallow.
He sagged back against the mattress and Kate slowly lifted herself from his shiny cock. Chase raised his head and looked at her through half-closed eyes.
"That was incredible," he asserted with such sincerity that Kate laughed. She was pleased not only with herself, but with him.
After all, this time he'd remembered her name.
CHAPTER 14
Kate couldn't stop smiling as she drove back toward the country late that afternoon. She hadn't been looking for a man when she'd signed up for the BDSM weekend. She'd been looking for an experience. Something she could write about. She hadn't expected to meet someone like Chase. In fact, she hadn't known someone like Chase existed. He was a poet, not only in word but in action.
He took the excitement and intensity of BDSM, but shaped it into something altogether new. He lifted the experience from the merely erotic to something spiritual. That very idea seemed contrary to Kate's prior notion of BDSM, which, she now realized, she had viewed as exciting and daring, but certainly not sublime. She was aching to experience again that transcendent state of being he'd lifted her to during the flogging. When he'd talked in theory before about the power of erotic submission, she hadn't really understood. Even now, she recognized they had barely scratched the surface. They'd shared one scene and made love twice. Not exactly a long term relationship. Yet she felt closer to this man than she'd ever felt to the other men she'd been with. Maybe it was because of how he'd shared his grief and his tears with her. It had brought them closer more quickly than just the lovemaking alone would have.
They'd made plans to see each other again tomorrow. She'd wanted to stay at his place, reveling in the thrill and excitement of someone new.
But at the same time she needed to go back home. When she'd made the decision to drive down to Queens, she had left so suddenly in the middle of the night, bringing none of her things with her, no makeup, no fresh clothes, nothing.
She'd showered at his place, but had had to step back into her old clothes. Not to mention, she was exhausted. She hadn't fallen asleep until sometime after three that morning, and over the course of the next twelve hours she'd had maybe five hours total sleep, not in a row. It would be good to crash. She would go to bed early and awaken at dawn to write a chapter before their scheduled lunch date at Maude's.
When Kate arrived the next day at the café, Chase was already sitting at a table in the corner with two glasses of peach iced tea on the table. He waved and smiled, and Kate's
heart did a little flip flop. It occurred to her she was falling in love. She shook away the idea , it was way too soon, she admonished herself, way too soon.
They ordered sandwiches from the same waitress, who
remembered them and greeted them warmly. They talked of easy things at first, the novel Kate was working on, Chase's rope business, the benefits of country versus city living.
Carefully, she brought the conversation around to something more personal.
"Does it feel strange to be with someone new? After all this time?"
"It feels wonderful," Chase said warmly. "You know, I learned something yesterday. I've spent the past year grieving for a lost love that had really died well before Lisa did. I know that sounds harsh, but I've been thinking a lot about it. Lisa was a good person, don't get me wrong.
But the thing that was broken in her, the twist in her spirit, the flaw in her biochemical makeup, however you want to
characterize it, had been there long before I met her. She did take medication for a bipolar disorder, but only when she felt like it. She said it made her feel bland, like the life had been sucked out of her. She felt more alive, she said, when she was careening from the highs to the lows. It was both exhilarating and exhausting to be around her
.
"I was in love with her at first. She was exotic and unusual. She was wildly creative and sometimes very dark.
Back then I confused the mental illness as something romantic, she was the wild streak that offset my rather careful, plodding personality."
"Oh, not at all," Kate began to protest, but Chase stopped her with a raised hand.
He smiled. "I'm not putting myself down. It was more a matter of contrast, you see. I was quiet, stable, slow to speak. She was wild, tumultuous, at turns lavishing me with attention or totally withdrawing. Life with Lisa was never boring." He gave a rueful laugh but the smile fell away as he continued.
"I thought I could save her," he said quietly. "I thought I, and I alone, through D/s and through unconditional love, could repair the damage inside her. I think I had stopped loving her well before she killed herself, and well before she accused me of that very thing."
"She said that? That you didn't love her?"
Chase nodded. "She did. She even told me in advance she was going to kill herself. She said I no longer loved her, and therefore her life no longer had meaning, and so she was going to end it. This was several weeks before she actually did it. At the time I shook it off as more of her dramatics, and in fact it just made me angry. I denied her assertion, of course and reassured her of my love, but she was right. I didn't love her. In fact I resented the shit out of her, but I held those feelings down.
I denied them to myself because she needed me. I could save her if I just did X or Y or Z well enough. And then she would be happy.
"But it was never enough. I didn't understand then that it could never be enough. I couldn't save her."
His voice cracked and Kate felt tears welling in her eyes.
"We can never save someone else," she said softly.
She reached across the table and put her hand over his.
"We can't be responsible for someone else's happiness."
"I know." Chase nodded. "I understand that now."
He put his other hand over hers and smiled.
"Sorry for dumping all that on you. I'm telling you because I want you to understand that I've had a kind of epiphany. Since meeting you, it's like a six ton weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I feel so ... light. Yes, that's the word. I was carrying so much darkness for so long, I forgot what it felt like to be happy.
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