"We're celebrating a special weekend. That's why there are so many people around here, at this hour." He walked her through the place, stopping for a few minutes when she wanted to watch a particular scene.
So far, Alec had noticed her huge interest in ropes, all kinds of ropes. She had appreciated a simple corset made of silky ropes, but she had watched even more carefully how one of the riggers was placing a submissive in a strappado. The scene had been quite hot and he was able to see how much she would have loved to be in the other woman's place. He knew her level of arousal were spiraling up, and that was more and more obvious by the hard tips of her big, round breasts.
"Alec, my friend, it's good to see you down here," a man's voice behind them distracted the couple watching a sensuous flogging on a cross.
Alec turned around and looked over his shoulder.
"Jonas, how are you?" he greeted, in his usual tone, distant and cold.
"A new sub? I don’t believe I've seen her face around here before," the man asked, looking intensely at Katherine.
She had turned to see who he was talking to, sadly surprised to see the man was an iceberg with everybody. But she almost wished she hadn’t. The man, Alec had called Jonas, was one of those men she always tried to stay away from. Something in him gave her goosebumps in a very unpleasant way.
Unconsciously, she moved closer to Alec, out of the man's possible reach.
"Yes, she is mine." Alec's sentence was simple and yet incredibly clear. And though she could have discussed that 'mine', she certainly would never do it in front of this guy. She would settle things with Sir Alec later.
"You always manage to get the most beautiful ones. But you never seem to keep them long, so there's still hope," the man said before he walked away.
"In your dreams!" she said, loud enough for Alec to hear her. "That's a very repulsive man," she said, lowering her tone.
"You think so? He seems to have a lot of success with the ladies," he said.
"Well that won't ever happen with me," she replied, shuddering with disgust. "About that mi…" she started to say, ready to scold him for saying she was his, but she never managed to finish her sentence.
Chapter Seven
He leaned down, cupping her face with his hands, claiming a fierce, deep kiss from her lips, ripping any coherent thought from her mind, just leaving feelings and sensations.
His fingers explored her face, her ears, her neck, while his mouth assailed every corner of hers, stealing her breath, turning her into a shuddering doll.
His hands ran down her back, pulling her even closer to him, for a few more moments until his hunger became too wild.
He stopped, immediately. There were many more things he wanted to do that night and sex might or might not be a part of them. He took a step back enjoying the fuzzy expression on the little shrew's face.
"Have you decided what you would like to try?" he asked, taking dissimulated deep breaths.
"I believe it would be best for me to go home," she said, more thinking to herself, than really talking to him.
"I don’t believe that you're getting cold feet so soon," he teased her, shamelessly poking her to get her to stay. "Don't you want to try some ropes or even the sweet kiss of a flogger on your skin?"
"I don’t think it's a good idea to be doing that with a stranger," she answered, trying to sound as cold as he always did. She was still fighting off the devastating effects of that damn kiss, so she wasn’t up to putting herself even more in his hands.
Feeling her nervousness, Alec decided to play foul. He wanted to have her, and he was determined to get what he wanted.
With the tip of his finger, he traced a road from her neck, down and around her breasts, simulating the trail a rope would take.
"We're not strangers anymore, don’t you think? Just imagine, ropes around your neck, down to your chest, circling your breasts tightly, making them tense up, like you've never felt them before, then catching your arms behind your back, pulling them up, leaving you helpless and exposed to the one on the other end of the rope."
The image he was creating with his words, added to the brushing of his finger, had her breathless again. Her chest heaved beneath his touch and she could feel her arousal peaking to unexpected levels.
"You want to do it," he said, and for once, his tone wasn’t cold or scoffing. He was alluring, exciting, exuding the rawest passion she had ever experienced. "Give yourself to me for tonight, just this night, and I'll take you to places you didn’t know existed. Just say yes to me," he added, stretching his hand toward her, his palm up, inviting hers to join his.
She fell completely under his spell, and her lips whispered what he wanted to hear.
"Yes."
He smiled, pleased, not victorious, and that finished her off. She surrendered to him, her hand lying meekly in his.
Alec cleared his throat, shaking the incomprehensible feelings her surrender had evoked in him. This was just two people having a good time, with nothing more than pleasure being exchanged.
He decided to take her to a private room. He doubted she was ready to show her naked body in public, and somehow he preferred that too, that night. He didn’t feel like sharing, not even the delicious sight of her.
He chose one of the rooms he knew had a good cross and a spanking bench, and all the tying and suspension options all the rooms had. That would give him enough to work with. He wanted her to live all of the experiences possible of being tied for the first time. So, he intended to go easy on her and go slowly, very slowly, even if impatience already burned worse than hell deep inside him.
He wanted to make tonight for her, at least most of it. After all, he was no saint or monk.
Katherine followed Alec through several halls and stairs, but they were stopped again, this time, by a couple. The man was around Alec's age, mid-thirties, and the woman was probably around her age. She was an amazing redhead, with the greenest eyes she had ever seen, and the man could be Alec's brother. They had the same build and the same coloration.
"Alec, how are you?" the man greeted, and Katherine was able to sense some tension between them.
Alec looked at James and Hannah and considered grabbing the olive branch James was handing him, but then he looked at Hannah and decided it was pointless. He wasn’t going to change his mind about her, and that would always come between him and James. So it was better to just finish it, right there and then.
"James, Hannah," he said, his tone cold, and it was obvious he was displeased with this encounter.
"Won't you introduce us to your friend?" James asked. The man was trying to cross the walls Alec had around him but to no avail.
"I don’t think so," his cold answer made everyone else gasp in surprise.
"What's the matter with you? Why are you acting like an arrogant bastard?" James asked, his eyes showing just how much he was hurt.
Alec didn’t answer; he simply remained in silence, waiting for them to leave.
"Because he is one, James. Let's go," Hannah said and managed to take James out of there.
Katherine looked at Alec. His face was a stone-carved mask, and she was starting to doubt her decision to get involved with this man.
"Let's go," he said, clearly with no intention of talking about the recent event. He led her again, as if nothing had happened, down the corridor, but then he stopped.
Alec rubbed his face with his hand, realizing he wasn’t in the mood for this any longer. He turned to her. "I'm afraid I just remembered I have an appointment tonight I had forgotten. Can we reschedule this? For next Saturday at 07:00 pm?"
Katherine looked at him trying to figure what had changed, but his expression didn’t reveal anything.
"Yes, of course, there's no problem," she nodded, accepting the possibility he had lost interest in her.
"So, can I expect you next Saturday? I'll let you a special pass at the entrance," he asked.
'Or maybe not,' she thought. "Yes, I'll be here."
Katherine looked around a bit overwhelmed and decided she would better off to go back home.
Chapter Eight
Alec decided to go home immediately. He was in no mood to stick around another minute at the club. There, the silent house greeted him, making his dreariness feel even stronger, so he headed to his private gym. Practicing with his whip always relaxed him and tonight he needed it--a lot.
He took off his shoes, socks and shirt and prepared a big, white sheet of paper that he usually used in his practices and grabbed his favorite bullwhip.
After the first few strikes, he started to feel better, but he continued until there was not a piece of the paper hanging and his body was covered in sweat.
He put the whip away and headed to the shower in the bathroom inside the dungeon, dropping his pants and underwear on his way. Though he was feeling better, he still felt restless, angry.
He dreaded the fact that Hannah had managed to come between him and James, a man he considered more than family, a man that had been his unconditional friend ever since they met in high school.
He took a long, cold shower, letting the icy droplets hit his body until he felt numb. He dried himself and with no desire to go to his bedroom he jumped in the dungeon's bed and closed his eyes, trying to shut the world out.
'Alec woke up startled and sat on the bed. Someone had called his name.
"Alec, son," he turned his face and he saw his father standing next to the bed, as a blurry vision.
"Dad?" his tone revealed his confusion and his disbelief. His father had been dead for ten years now.
"Yes, Alec," the spectrum confirmed, "Son, what are you doing with your life? You're pushing everybody away from you, can't you see that?"
"I'm not pushing anyone away. They leave of their own free will," he protested, rubbing his eyes, sure he was having a weird dream, but feeling it was too damn real.
"You don’t let them in your heart, and that's why they leave," his father assured, looking at him with regret, "Am I the one responsible for this? For the way you are?"
"Of course not. If someone's responsible, it's not you."
"Oh, but I believe I am. I always blamed your mother for leaving me, for not trying to keep our family together, but that wasn’t true."
"How can you say that? She was the one who left," Alec protested.
"But I was the one absent. Don’t you remember how many times I failed you? How many times I was supposed to be there for you, and I wasn’t?"
"I don’t remember any of that."
"But you must. Deep within, you're a good man, Alec, much better than me. You just need to remember how to love, how to believe in people and let them come closer to you," his father begged him.
Alec shook his head in denial, "You're looking at me through the eyes of a father."
"Son, just open your mind and your heart, and you'll see things clearer. You'll be visited by three spirits: the Spirit of the Past, the Spirit of the Present and the Spirit of the Future. Receive them willingly and learn from what they'll show you," his father warned him.
"You have to be kidding me, Dad!" he snorted.
"Remember, open your heart and mind, Son," his father said before he vanished into thin air.
Starting to think he was losing his mind, Alec lay back in bed, and closed his eyes for a second.
The sound of a whip cracking in the air made him open his eyes immediately, and sit up in bed again.
At the footboard of the bed, stood a huge old man, dressed in black leather, with gray hair, and holding a bullwhip in his hand. His face was marked with the signs of a well-lived life, his blue eyes sparkled with so much life that it hurt to look at them.
"You have to be kidding me!" Alec said with a dry laugh.
The man cracked the whip, this time hitting him hard on his thigh with it. "Did that felt as if I'm kidding, newbie?"
The man's hoarse voice reminded him of the first Dom he had ever met, when he was eighteen and exploring the trails that were leading him into BDSM. He used to call him newbie, too.
"No." And it didn’t. He could feel the sting of the strike in his thigh and he looked at the man, intrigued.
"Who are you?"
"I thought they had sent your father to explain things to you," he ranted.
"So you're one of the so-called Spirits?" Alec shook his head. It was definite; he had lost his mind.
"Be more respectful newbie. I'm the Spirit of the Past, and I'm here to take you to your past."
"Oh, come on!"
The man walked around the bed and pulled him roughly by his elbow. "Let's go, I don’t have all night."
Alec felt as if his body was being dragged through a vortex, and all of a sudden, he was floating over a football field. He recognized the scene; it had been one of the most important football games he had when he was ten. He was playing on the field, but his attention was on the public, looking for his father, but he still wasn’t there.
"Do you remember that game?" the old man asked him.
"Yes, I do," he answered in a low voice.
"He never showed up. Your mother was there for you, always, but you wanted your father to see you winning that game."
Alec saw his friends carrying him after the winning point. His mother was standing there, and when his friends let him down, he ran to her open arms.
He could even hear her. "I'm sorry sweetheart." After that, she took him for pizza and ice cream with his best friend at the time.
"How many times did your father pull that one on you? How many times did he pull that one on your mother?" the old man asked, and Alec had to admit it had been too many. Her mother had started to lose her joy, her smile was a rare thing when she finally gave up and admitted her defeat; his father wasn’t going to change.
The old man dragged him to another scene, one he would rather not see again, that was engraved by fire in his mind--the day his mother had left. He was 16 years old.
His mother was in the living room with his father arguing once more, and he was hiding behind the kitchen door.
"I can't stand this anymore. I'm supposed to be married to you and I feel worse than a widow. You're never there for me, we no longer live as a couple," his mother was complaining.
"I'm working to provide you with all the fancy things you obviously appreciate," he retorted.
"I would much rather feel that I still have a husband, John…"
"I'm giving you all that I can," he replied in a very cold tone.
"Well, it's not enough, it never has been, but I just can't take it anymore." He could hear the defeat in her mother's voice and see the tears running down her cheeks.
"Well you're free to go find more elsewhere." The cold words of his father made his mother gasp in pain, and with a final look at her husband, she left the room. The next morning she had left the house forever. She had tried to make Alec understand her reasons, but he had given his back on her. He had refused to see or talk to her ever since, despite the number of times she had tried. After a few years she had stopped trying and he supposedly felt relieved, but it seemed to reinforce his idea she really didn’t love him. For him, she hadn’t loved him enough to stay with him.
He could see now, he had acted like a hurtful, selfish teenager.
"Your mother still thinks of you. She stopped trying to talk to you, but she seeks for any little news she can get on you and she goes to your office once in a while and waits to see you leave." The old man's voice felt like a stab to his heart. That couldn’t be true. He was sure she had forgotten she had a son a long time ago. The same way he had forgotten he had a mother.
Once more, the old man dragged him to another scene--the day he met James. James was the new kid at school and his size and strength made the school's bullies see
him as a threat to their kingdom of terror.
Alec was a loner, having the same built as James, people feared to go near him.
That day, the bullies had cornered James. It was an unfair match, 6 to 1, and for a moment, Alec had considered ignoring the scene and just going home, j but he couldn’t. He joined James, and although they didn’t win that fight, it made them inseparable friends.
"That man you see there would give his life for you, without blinking, and you're pushing him away from you, just because you refuse to believe he’s really found the woman for him. She isn’t what you think she is. Your fear of losing James over her has made you turn that tiny possibility into a certainty."
Once more, the old man dragged him to another scene, one he had feared ever since this damn nightmare had started--the night he had discovered Rose in bed with the engineer in charge of one of his ongoing constructions.
She wanted more than she thought he could give her, more money, more luxury, and more status. She had been his first love, his first submissive and he had believed she felt the same. But she only saw him as a way out of her sad life in the low-class neighborhoods where she was born. She wasn’t even really into BDSM, which had been a lie, too.
"Remember her?" the old man asked, in a mocking tone.
Alec frowned. "How could I forget?" he remembered the yelling, the accusations, the truths ventilated and how insecure he had felt for a while after that. He had also been furious with himself for not being able to see the truth sooner.
"Well, you should have, because she was an irrelevant episode in your life that you allowed to become the center of it, the yardstick by which you measure every woman who comes into your life. You keep them all at a safe distance from you, because you think they'll all turn out to be another Rose."
"How can you say she was irrelevant? I…"
"Before you finish that sentence, think about it a little. Was your heart really hurt when she left? Or just your pride? Did you or did you not hold on to that episode to avoid getting too close to a woman, and being abandoned like your mother abandoned you?"
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