It was just one petty bullshit thing after another with me. When would it end?
It was nearing dinner time by the time the phone finally rang for Mr. H’s collection, I was still feeling absolutely rotten and had retired to bed, so Dad went for me, he was more than willing, he was grateful someone had taken to Jason like he had wanted to do himself.
I could hear Mom down in the kitchen, such a comforting thing – having your Mom in the house. I had no idea what she was doing, but once the smells had finally wafted their way upstairs, I had no more doubt. Her famous chicken Vege soup, perfect for healing any ailment.
I heard a brief knock at the open bedroom door before Mom came barrelling through, and saying I was glad we had tidied any evidence of last night away would be a massive understatement, could you imagine your Mom walking in to find a humungous dildo on a stick propped up in the corner of your bedroom? No, I didn’t think so.
“I’ve made a big batch of soup for dinner Honey, are you going to come down before the boys get back? Or do you want me to send Callan up with a bowl for you after he arrives home?” Mom asked, stroking my flushed face, “You’re very warm, I’ll attempt to turn the temperature down in here on my way out.”
“Mom – don’t worry about it, I’m just going to take a shower and see how I feel.” I was starting to feel a bit better anyway, and I wanted to make the most of our time with my parents here. “Oh – Mom –” I called out, “Any chance of some garlic bread with the soup?” My stomach started growling at the thought of it, no wonder I felt so bleugh, I realised I hadn’t eaten more than a bite of toast all day.
I’d barely been in the shower for five minutes before the master bathroom door flung open, and in walked rocky – ah – I mean Mr. H.
“The fucking bastards were going to charge me with assault.” He started, “That was, until they checked my spotlessly clean record. I spent the rest of the time there arguing that they needed to keep that nutcase locked away.” The way he was acting so aggressively was leading me to believe that it hadn’t quite gone as he hoped. “They let him out Hannah! They said they had no other choice, he pleaded ignorance to either of the protection orders you had in place.”
I burst into tears. I wasn’t normally such a cry baby, but ever since Jason started harassing me, I’d cried more than ever. I was inconsolably beside myself, wailing against the shower wall, how could they let him go? How could they not see he was stalking me?
Mr. H reached inside the shower and turned it off, wrapping an oversized towel around my body and holding me tight as I sobbed into his chest.
“Everything is going to be ok Hannah, I will make sure of it. He knows the orders are in place now, so if he breaks it again, he’s going directly to the cells.” Where he should already be. We didn’t know what state of mind he was in.
“Get yourself dressed and come down for some of your Mom’s special soup Baby girl, we picked up some garlic bread on the way.”
“Ok Sir. I love you so much, you know that right?”
“Yes Baby, I love you too.” And I felt every word of it, I’d never felt someone’s love like this before. He risked criminal charges to protect me, he risked getting hurt to protect me, and he got arrested because he was protecting me. This man was an angel, an angel on an earth that was beginning to resemble Hell.
They were all sitting at the dining table waiting when I wandered down the stairs, Mom’s soup taking centre stage, with a huge basket of garlic bread next to it, as much as I was looking forward to the healing powers of the soup, the garlic bread lathered in extra butter was screaming my name. I hadn’t spoken a word to anyone before I’d launched a wad of buttery bread into my gob.
“Oh Mom.” I said with a mouthful, “Thank you so much for doing this.” Mom smiled at me from down the end of the table, as if to say ‘you’re welcome.’
“Hannah, we would do anything for you, you know that, that’s what parents do.” Dad said, “It’s Callan here that I really want to thank. I will never be able to thank you enough for looking after my daughter the way you do. It gives me such peace of mind to know that when I go home, she’s safe here with you.”
I unengaged myself from all conversation to put myself into food disposal mode, ladles full of soup were devoured, and I will never admit to just how much bread I manged to fit in. I’d never gone from ‘I’m not hungry’ to ‘I’m fucking starving’ so fast before.
“So, what’s on the agenda tomorrow, what time is your flight home?” I asked, spooning the last drop of soup in to my mouth.
“We need to be at the airport by 4pm I think, is that right Callan?” Mom said, to which Mr. H nodded, “Should we give a bit of sightseeing another try in the morning?”
“We can, I do have a meeting with the publishers first thing, but I can meet you all after I’m done, I’m sure Callan won’t mind showing you around without me for an hour or so.”
He shot an interesting look in my direction, but I didn’t know if it was directed at the use of his name, or offering him up as a sightseeing guide. Probably both.
Walking into my meeting with Mr Bernard, I realised that this was the first meeting I’d gone into alone, but I was glad I didn’t bring Mr eye candy Callan Hart, I didn’t want a repeat of last week’s debacle.
“Hannah, or should I say, Samantha? Come in, take a seat.”
Mr Bernard held my seat out for me to sit before walking back around behind his desk, briefly joking about how I didn’t bring my body guard with me today, which I thought was a strange thing to say. Not that he would know the circumstances of my current life. But still, even if all he knew was that Mr. H was my boyfriend, why would he call him that? My body guard?
As the meeting progressed, Mr Bernard came back around to sit beside me, he was attempting to show me the revised design with the new Author name. It seemed weird seeing someone else’s name on my book, I wasn’t sure I liked it, but I liked it a hell of a lot better than my parents reading my smut.
Mr Bernard’s overly friendly hand came to rest on my knee, I laughed nervously, I didn’t know how to take it, he’d always been friendly, but, this was a bit beyond friendly and into inappropriate.
“Hannah, you are so talented.” He began, “Every time I read your words, my dick gets so hard.”
I tried to push his hand from my knee, but it only made him grip harder, and it was beginning to hurt.
“I want to do all the things you talk about in your book, and I want to do them to you. Fuck Hannah, you’re so beautiful.” He began moving his hand further up my thigh as he spoke.
“No. Please stop.” I choked out, “Get your hand off me.”
“Come on Hannah, we could have fun together, you do want this book to be published, don’t you?”
Of course I did, but no fucking way, not like this. And we’d signed a contract, a contract with the publishing agency, not just him alone. I’m no dummy Mr Bernard, I know my rights, and this, whatever you were trying to do, is no part of that.
“No!” I stated, “Not like this. You do not get to touch me like that.”
Getting up to leave his office, he suddenly met me at the door, I was afraid he wasn’t going to let me go, but he just opened the door for me, smiling nonchalantly.
“Have a lovely day Miss James, make sure to bring Mr Hart next time.”
I had no idea why he did that, I had no idea whether he’d done that to any other girl, I didn’t really know what to do, he hadn’t technically done anything, other than aggressively attempt to hit on me, even though I knew he was trying to achieve much more than that.
Stupidly, I never told anyone, I just wanted my book published, I thought I’d had a lucky escape and that would be the end of it.
Climbing up in to my new Range Rover’s passenger seat, all eyes were on me.
“So, how did it go?”
Oh, if only I could’ve told them about Mr Bernard, I wanted to, but like Mr. H needed another assault charge headed his way. And I knew
, without a doubt, if I had told him right then and there, he would’ve been out of the car and up into Mr Bernard’s office quicker than I could count to ten, and my Dad would’ve been hot on his heels behind.
“Ah, yeah, it looks good, 14 days until its supposed release date, Monday the 2nd of August. It’s being sent to print as we speak, so we’re really pushing it to get them done in time, fingers crossed we make the deadline.” Fingers crossed I hadn’t blown it by turning down a man who held the power over my book’s future. “So, where are we off to?”
“Well, Callan showed us a couple of boring monuments earlier, but we’re not really all that interested in that kind of stuff, we just want to see where and how you live your life here, we’d love to go to your restaurant for lunch.” Oh Mom. Of course you would say something so sweetly, that there would be no possible way for me to say no.
“Great idea.” I said with gritted teeth, turning to look at an equally worried Mr. H.
In my head the whole drive to Collared, I was trying to come up with a reasonable explanation of why they didn’t need to see the menu. But there just wasn’t one. There would be far too many other customers around that I couldn’t possibly pull anything off.
There was also one other small problem that I’d overlooked about coming to the restaurant for lunch… Katie. When we walked through those front doors, and I locked my eyes on to hers, I remembered exactly what I had been trying to forget the night Jade died.
Our kiss. The kiss that had sent me into a tailspin.
“Wow.” Dad said as we walked in, “This place is real funky.” Typical Dad style, trying to say something cool but ending up looking the opposite.
“It’s so dark in here, how do people even see the delicious food and what beautiful tables they’re eating at?” Typical Mom style, finding something to criticise, yet wrapping it in a lovely compliment bubble so you don’t even realise she’d been negative.
Katie walked us over to our seats, accidentally brushing my arm as she went.
“I’ve put you guys in my favourite booth, it’s just so lovely to finally meet some of Hannah’s family” She said with a noticeably fake smile as she handed out the menus, “Let me know if I can help with anything, anything at all.” Locking eyes with her again, she sent the slyest of winks in my direction, causing me to feel that same deep burning desire as just over a week ago, and I knew she could feel it too.
“She’s being weird.” Mr. H said, and he got up to go follow her. I wanted to scream ‘No!’ but I couldn’t do that, not in front of my parents, my parents that Mr. H had now left me alone with, to deal with the thousand questions over the kinky menu. Great.
Dad started laughing, not like nervous laughter though, like proper belly laughing,
“You know, these names are really clever.” He said, in-between laughter, “Hogtied, that’s just great, hey Pat remember that time we tried to –.” Thanks Dad, really, I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Even though you stopped there, it was a little too late for me not to have that fucking image etched into my memory for all of eternity.
“Oh Ken, stop.” Mom said, clearly flirting with him. I am glad they’re still active and in love, like I said at the wedding, but did I want to hear about it? All kinds of no.
Mr. H returned, and I could tell instantly that he knew about the kiss, and he didn’t look very happy about it. Katie wouldn’t even be returning as our waitress, he’d sent her home for the day. Which as unfortunate as that was for Katie, it did somewhat make my lunch a little more bearable.
Mom ordered the lunchtime special, ‘The aphrodisiac.’ Which was, no real surprises here, Oysters. Dad decided that he just had to have a ‘Threesome.’ And Mr. H and I just shared today’s platter, ‘Spread ‘em’ which comprised of loads of different types of my favourite food of the moment – bread, with a variety of spreads and dips.
While we waited for our food, Mom again mentioned how she wanted to read my book, I knew now was as good a time as any to tell her that it just wouldn’t be happening.
“I’m really sorry Mom, but, I’m actually publishing my book under a pseudonym, which means you won’t know what book is mine, nobody will. I want to be anonymous.”
“What? Why? That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard Hannah, if it’s any good, won’t you want the world to know it was you who wrote it?” I knew it would hurt her feelings, and that honestly wasn’t my intention. I had to make her see that, and the truth would be the only thing to set me free in this situation.
“Mom! I talk about sex in it, a lot. Okay? I don’t need you reading about my sex life, I think we can agree that neither of us want that.”
“Oh, god, Hannah, no I do not want to read that. I had no idea you wrote that stuff.”
Sorry Mom, but I do, and I love writing about it. Sorry Dad, but it’s true.
Your little girl, is someone else’s dirty girl. And, she loves it.
I was glad that conversation was finally done, it wasn’t exactly how I wanted it to go, but at least they now understood why I couldn’t let them have a copy of their daughter’s first ever novel. Their daughter’s dirty, kinky, smutty novel.
Now, we could just enjoy our lunch. And our very limited remaining time together.
“This is the best threesome I’ve ever had.” Dad happily announced loud enough that the entire restaurant heard and had a good chuckle over.
“That’s because it’s the only threesome you’ve ever had Ken.” Oh Mom, you’re too much. Poor Dad. But I don’t know if I hoped that it was a true or a false statement more.
As we finished up our lunch I decided now was the perfect time to make a toast. “Mom, Dad,” I said, dinging my knife against a glass, “I just wanted to say a huge thank you for coming all the way out here to help support me through this rough time, and for helping to celebrate what was going to be the most miserable birthday ever. Mom – I’m so thankful and so proud of you for getting on that plane. But please, do it more often.”
Chapter Nineteen.
After we’d dropped my parents at the airport, Mr. H told me we needed to have a chat. There was only one thing, or one person, that this could possibly be about, I knew my reasoning for not telling him straight away was valid, even I had basically forgotten about it until laying my eyes back on her. But, still, he didn’t seem happy.
“So, you decide to kiss my best friend, and not tell me about it?” He said, the very moment we stepped foot back inside his condo, as if he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“What did she tell you? She was the one who kissed me, and I only remembered about it when we arrived at the restaurant today. She kissed me right before Jade died, Jade was coming over to talk with me about it, when, when, when she didn’t make it over.” I started to cry. Damn all these tears lately, I didn’t seem to be able to stop crying.
“Fuck, Hannah, No, I didn’t mean to make you cry, please don’t cry.”
“I don’t even want to be crying, I just can’t help it. Sorry.” I apologised.
“Come here.” He said, wrapping his big warms arms around my tiny frame, swallowing me up, and holding me there until all the tears had subsided.
We sat on the couch and had a good long chat, Mr. H revealed to me that Katie is actually gay, that she likes women and only women, and at this moment in time, she was attracted to me. He wasn’t mad with me or Katie after all, he hadn’t even sent her home, she had asked to leave as she was finding it too awkward to be around me. Especially with that big kiss secret looming over us.
“So what do I do then?” I asked, “If I find her attractive, and she finds me attractive, and we’re both seemingly drawn to each other, how do I turn that off?”
“Well…” Mr. H said, “Do you have feelings for her? Or is it just like a sexual attraction thing for you?”
I thought about it for a moment, I knew I had friendship feelings, and I-want-to-rip-your-clothes-off feelings, but romantic feelings? No, I don’t think so, I couldn’t imag
ine going on dates or planning a future together.
“No, definitely just sex.” I said, “I love you, you’re all I need. But, I want her.”
“Interesting.” He got up, walking over towards his phone, opening up and reading me part of a text, “Katie told me something similar, this here says she’s not interested in dating you. She just gets overcome with an intense desire to do bad things to you.”
Bad things? Oh shit… what kind of things? My pussy shuddered at the thought.
“This hasn’t answered my question though, what do I do about it?” I asked.
“If it’s purely sexual, I don’t mind you exploring with her. I do have to warn you though, she and I are fairly similar…She, is a Domme.”
Oh fuck, well, that makes sense actually, so many things were adding up.
“You know, she spanked my ass the first day at work.” I smiled, “I didn’t realise why at the time, but I really liked it – so, if I’m correct, what you’re telling me is, I can have sex with her?”
“Yes Hannah.” Mr. H grinned, ear to ear, “I think I’ll allow it.”
“Does she know you feel this way?” I asked Mr. H, “Does she know you’re okay with me and her playing together?”
It turned out that no, no she did not, and he wanted me to tell her, to invite her to his place, when I felt ready. He even said he would give us full access to the toy room, and his bedroom. One small catch though, Mr. H has to be present, which may cause Katie to decline. Even though he would only be there to look, not touch, that may be enough to sway her decision. I really didn’t want to lose the chance to feel her soft lips again, mmm, no, I wanted to feel both sets.
“So, what, you’d like sit in the corner?” I was curious, how would this all work? I felt like it would be awkward to have your boyfriend watching your every move, “Would you jerk off while you watched?”
“Probably.” The deviant grin was back.
“Wouldn’t you find this weird? Katie’s been your best friend for forever, have you ever even seen her naked?” You know those questions that you ask, that you immediately regret – yeah this was one of those.
MR. H. Page 18