Shadow Haven
Page 10
Julia grabbed her hand and squeezed it, then dropped it. “Thank you for taking care of me,” she said softly as she closed her eyes.
“Thank you for letting me,” Alexandra whispered.
Chapter 7
Julia groaned and rolled over. “Motherfucker.” What a way to wake up.
Alexandra snickered before moving over to Julia and looking down at her. “Forgot you were on the couch?” she asked and she held out her hand.
“Yeah.” Julia took the offered hand with a glare. “And you’re not allowed to laugh. I have a concussion. It’s not the polite thing to do.” She began to fold up the blanket.
“For someone who was so adamant that she didn’t have a concussion, you’re really milking the situation now,” Alexandra said. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I just fell off the couch—what do you think?” She sighed. “Other than that, I’m okay.”
“Dinner isn’t quite ready yet. I thought you would be asleep for at least another hour.”
“I probably would have been if you hadn’t put me on the couch instead of the bed,” Julia snapped. “Honestly, sleeping on a couch—what were you thinking?”
Alexandra’s brows furrowed as she looked Julia over. “Did you wake up with a temper? Or are you embarrassed because you fell off the couch?”
“Neither. It was just a rude awakening.”
“Good.” Alexandra sat back down. “Because I honestly don’t know how I’d deal with a cranky house guest.”
“Seriously?” Julia crossed her arms. “Well, now I’m cranky.”
“Just like that?”
“What did you expect? If you tell someone they can’t have a cookie, they are going to want a cookie. If you tell me I can’t be cranky, I get cranky.”
Alexandra clapped her hands and laughed loudly. “Would you like a cookie instead?”
“That’s not funny.”
“I disagree,” Alexandra said. With an air of casualness, she opened her book and continued reading.
Julia threw herself down on the couch and pulled her knees up. The rational part of her knew she was acting childishly, but the irrational part of her couldn’t care less. If she wanted to be cranky, she damn well would be, and no one was going to stop her. She sighed at her train of thought before looking over at Alexandra. Sometimes it was utterly exhausting being herself. “What’s for dinner?”
“Definitely not cookies,” Alexandra said.
“Oh my God.” Julia hissed and threw Alexandra a deadly glare. “Are you in Domme mode again?”
Alexandra looked up and smiled sweetly. “All I’m saying is, if one of my clients were displaying the same attitude as you are now, you would be doing some serious begging, as you would be over my lap while I spanked the crankiness right out of you.” Her smile turned into a teeth-baring grin. “Luckily for you, physical punishment is not my personal style and you are definitely not a client.” She lowered her head and focused on her book again.
Julia gulped as heat crept up her neck. “Whatever,” she muttered, looking out the window.
“You definitely wouldn’t be ‘whatever-ing’ me,” Alexandra mused.
“Stop it.”
“I do believe you started it.” Alexandra sighed as she closed her book and turned her attention to Julia. “Close your eyes.”
“I’m not in the mood for a game.”
“It’s not a game. Close your eyes, please. I have some questions for you,” Alexandra said calmly as she crossed her legs and waited for Julia to close her eyes.
“I can answer your questions with my eyes open,” Julia argued.
“You are more honest when your eyes are closed, because you don’t feel the need to impress me as much. So, please, close your eyes.”
“Fine,” Julia mumbled as she closed her eyes and rested against the back of the couch.
“What were you most afraid of as a child? I don’t mean things like spiders. I mean, when you were in the company of others, adults, what were you most afraid of?”
Julia inhaled sharply as her jaw clenched. “That I would look weak to them.”
“What does it mean to be weak?”
“When you can’t take care of yourself, when you need others to take care of you.” Julia sighed heavily. “I didn’t want them to think that I needed them to survive.”
Alexandra nodded. “What do you do when you feel weak?”
Julia opened her eyes, looking straight at Alexandra. “What do you mean?”
“Close your eyes, Julia.”
Julia sighed and rolled her eyes before closing them.
“How do you behave when you don’t feel strong? When it appears that you might need someone else to take care of you?”
“I lash out and push people away.”
Alexandra smiled softly. “What would happen if you let someone take care of you?”
“They would see that I’m not a strong person, and they would use it to their advantage. It would come back and bite me in the ass later.”
“Is this why you’re lashing out at me?”
Julia’s eyes shot open as she looked straight into Alexandra’s eyes. But soon she had to avert her gaze. “I suppose so,” she quietly said.
“Close your eyes.” She waited for Julia to close them before she spoke again. “When was the last time you felt truly safe?”
She didn’t want to answer that question. She knew very well when she had felt completely safe. It was a sensation that she was not familiar with. “I don’t want to say,” she mumbled.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to. Answer me this instead. Aside from me holding you throughout the night, when was the last time you let someone close enough to give you a hug? Or even a cuddle? When’s the last time you let down your guard, Julia?”
When? She couldn’t even remember what it felt like to let down her guard, to not feel as if she had to look over her shoulder all the time. Julia took a shaky breath as a tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away, not wanting to break down in front of Alexandra. “I don’t think I ever have,” she said quietly.
“Why did Caroline send you here?”
Julia frowned at the question. “You already know why.”
“Julia…”
“Because I needed a break.”
“Good girl. Why did you need a break?”
“Because I’m tired, tired of fixing things for everyone else when I feel broken myself. I’m not strong enough.”
“On the contrary,” Alexandra said. “I think you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.”
Julia scoffed. “Then you don’t know me very well.”
“I’m getting to know you better, though. I think a part of you is aching for someone to take care of you, but you are scared to be seen as vulnerable. I think you are fighting certain cravings because you’re afraid I will think you’re weak. You’re not weak, Julia.”
What to say to that? She knew Alexandra was right, but actually hearing it out loud, coming from someone else’s mouth, wasn’t something she’d expected.
“I have a proposition for you,” Alexandra said carefully. “You can think about it for as long as you like. For the next hour, you don’t have to say another word, and I will not say another word either. If you want, you can come sit here on the floor by me. I will not judge you, and when you feel uncomfortable, you can move away at any time. We will not discuss it, and when dinner is ready, we will eat like nothing happened. If it’s something you would like to try, you may consider it as me trying to give you some comfort without pushing your buttons or asking you for something you’re not ready for. See it as a moment in time where you don’t have to be strong. Whenever you’re ready, Julia.” Alexandra opened her book and rustled the pages.
At the sound, Julia sat frozen on the couch until her shoulders ached. Her heart pounded in her chest. She wanted to scream at Alexandra that she didn’t need her, but the mere thought of giving in and not having to think for a while was
greatly appealing. She opened her eyes and slowly moved over to Alexandra. She took a deep breath, then lowered herself onto the ground with her knees pulled up to her chest as her back resting against the front of the chair.
Julia froze in place for a second when Alexandra’s fingers gently threaded through her thick, blonde curls. She swallowed the knot in her throat before relaxing into the touch. The gesture may have seemed small to Alexandra, but to Julia, it felt as if she could finally let down her guard. She could trust Alexandra to take care of her, at least for the duration of the hour. There was no need or desire to think beyond that; Alexandra had said as much. And as they sat there, Julia had never felt safer in her life, aside from when Alexandra had held her in her bed.
Memories flooded Julia’s brain. After she had been taken away from her second foster family, she shrugged off the touch of adults, finding it suffocating. On the rare occasion that Julia did open herself up, people then disregarded her and cast her aside as if her feelings hadn’t mattered all along.
But Alexandra was different. She had let Julia make the first move, with no judgment whatsoever. It felt both strange and liberating, and she sighed heavily when the oven beeped. Their dinner was ready.
When Alexandra didn’t move, or even extract her hand from her curls, Julia felt a warm glow throughout her body. She was still letting Julia make the first move, and if it weren’t for Julia’s growling stomach, she could have sat there for another hour. And there was no doubt in her mind that Alexandra would have happily let dinner burn to give her as much time as she needed.
“So, I’ve never really liked overcooked food,” Julia joked as she pushed herself off the ground and onto her feet.
Alexandra closed her book and looked up. “Are you insinuating I regularly overcook the food I’ve been offering you?” She stood up and winked. “Would you mind setting the table?”
Julia chuckled and nodded. That must be one good book if Alexandra had missed the oven’s piercing beep that echoed through the house. “Sure thing.”
A minced leek pie was pulled out of the oven and placed on the table. Julia watched her with a certain curiosity. Even the way Alexandra removed the oven gloves from her hands seemed to be done in an elegant manner.
“What would you like to drink?”
“Wine,” Julia said as she sat down.
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh right, concussion,” said Julia. “No alcohol and no caffeine. Water?”
“Very well.” Alexandra poured them both a glass of water before sitting down. They mostly ate in silence, both of them still processing what had just happened. “What do you want to do tonight?” Alexandra finally said. “I feel like I should be offering you some sort of entertainment.”
“Can we watch a movie?” Julia took another bite. Alexandra’s cooking was truly superb.
“Sure. Which one would you like to watch?”
“Hmm. What’s your favorite movie?”
“I’m not sharing that with you,” Alexandra said.
Julia was delighted to see a light blush appear on Alexandra’s cheeks. “Now you have to.” She pointed her fork in Alexandra’s direction.
“The Little Mermaid,” Alexandra mumbled under her breath.
Julia burst into laughter, and Alexandra’s scowl only made her laugh even more. “Wait, wait,” she said, catching her breath. “You’re telling me that your favorite movie is The Little Mermaid?”
“Don’t look so smug.”
“So,” Julia drawled, “is it Ariel? Prince Eric? Wait, no, let me guess. You love it because Ursula reminds you of yourself!”
“I’m glad you find it so amusing. I just love everything about it. I like the singing.” Alexandra sighed as if she had just given away her biggest secret.
“I can’t believe it,” Julia said. “That is too funny. You should advertise that to your clients! ‘Come for an ass-whooping, stay for the cartoons!’” Julia couldn’t stop giggling.
“I told you I was a normal human being,” Alexandra shot back. “What is your favorite movie, hmm?”
“Don’t have one. I love all movies.”
“That’s a cop-out answer. Try again.”
“It’s the truth.” Julia shrugged. “The only movies I don’t like are horror movies. I know they’re fake, but there are just some movies that never should have been made. And,” she pointed out, “I don’t want to talk about which ones, because we’re on a freaking island, and bad stuff will happen if I think about it too much.”
Alexandra laughed. “Got it.”
“So, do you regularly pretend to be a mermaid while you’re in the pool?”
Julia grinned and ducked when Alexandra threw a napkin at her.
Later, after Julia had helped put the dishes away, she let herself fall down on the couch and groaned. “Look,” she said, pointing a finger to Alexandra, “you’ve gotta stop cooking me all these delicious meals. It’s too much. I ate way too much. I don’t think I can ever move again.”
She grinned when Alexandra unsuccessfully tried not to smile.
“Sometimes, Julia, you can be very dramatic.”
“True. Not even going to deny it. I think it’s my specialty. It works in my favor, though.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, so far you’ve been very accommodating to me. I figure if I keep this up, you’ll treat me like a queen during this entire vacation.” She flashed Alexandra a broad grin.
“I think you’ll find there’s only one ‘queen’ in this house, and it’s definitely not you. But hey,” she said, winking at Julia, “you can be the Queen’s Consort.”
Julia was surprised at the warmth that soared through her body with that statement. She took a deep breath and rolled onto her side. Alexandra had picked up her book once more, and Julia studied her as if it were the first time she’d laid eyes on her.
There was something almost regal about Alexandra’s posture. Her legs were crossed and one foot slowly bopped up and down. Alexandra turned the pages gently, as if she were holding a rare artifact. Even from her position, Julia could see the golden specks in Alexandra’s eyes, and there was no doubt in her mind that when Alexandra was truly in Domme mode, those eyes would display nothing but burning passion for the job she was obviously meant to do. Julia’s gaze dropped lower to Alexandra’s luscious lips. It wasn’t a word Julia often used, but it seemed to perfectly describe Alexandra’s mouth: slightly plump and, well…luscious.
She wondered what it would be like to kiss Alexandra. Would it be a power struggle? Would Alexandra immediately claim dominance over Julia’s mouth? Julia licked her own lips. She bit down on her lower lip and, for a second, indulged in the fantasy that it was Alexandra biting it.
“Show me your playroom,” Julia said suddenly. When Alexandra looked up at her, Julia nodded to show she meant it. “Please?”
Alexandra stroked the cover of her book with a finger before placing it on the small table beside her. “Why?”
“I feel like it’s this giant obstacle between you and me, and I don’t want it to be. I’m not asking you to tie me up. I’m just asking you to show it to me so I can put to rest the worst scenario in my mind.”
“My playroom is…sacred to me,” Alexandra said as she furrowed her brow. “I know it can be overwhelming to see all of the equipment, but please try and keep an open mind. I take my job extremely seriously, and if I’m going to show you my playroom, I need you not to make fun of it.”
“I promise. No judgment whatsoever of what’s in there.”
“Very well, follow me.”
She got off the couch and followed Alexandra down the hallway. As she passed her own bedroom, she realized she was not looking forward to sleeping alone tonight. Sleeping in Alexandra’s arms had provided her with a feeling of safety that she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt before.
“Are you absolutely sure about this?” Alexandra’s hand rested on the doorknob. “There’s still time to run.”<
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“I’ve done enough running for a lifetime. I’m ready.”
Slender fingers immediately sought out the light switch. Alexandra flicked it on and motioned for Julia to step inside, closing the door behind her. It was a strange sensation to feel her heart pound in her chest. In this room, she was usually in charge and she usually only brought clients in here. But now…now it was personal.
As Julia stepped into the room, Alexandra watched her closely, trying to see what Julia would notice. When Alexandra had designed the room, she’d chosen burgundy paint for the walls, something that would radiate warmth. The floor was made from dark hardwood, and she always reveled in the way the click of her heels echoed when she walked through the room.
“It’s easy to forget that the outside world exists when you’re in here,” Julia said. Her words seemed carefully chosen, and it made Alexandra smile; Julia had touched on the thing Alexandra had hoped she would. When her clients were in this room, the outside world didn’t exist.
“Will you tell me what all these things are?” Julia gestured around her. “I mean, I can imagine what some of these are used for, but I’d rather get the grand tour.”
Alexandra wondered where to start, not wanting to overwhelm Julia. “This,” she said as she walked over to a piece of equipment, “is a Saint Andrew’s cross.” The saltire was firmly attached to the wall, and the cuff rings at the ends of the cross shone brightly in the artificial light of the room.
“I can’t believe I’m actually going to demonstrate it to you.” She laughed softly and stepped in front of it as Julia took a step back. “Relax. I wasn’t planning to demonstrate it on you, unless you ask me to.”
She waited until Julia nodded, then raised her arms and slipped a finger through the rings on top. She tugged on it hard. “A submissive would be wearing cuffs, which you can attach to these rings. As you can see,” she said, “there are several attachment points. Depending on someone’s kink, I can immobilize them, giving me free rein to tease them relentlessly.”