by Corgan, Sky
“My boss will come out here if he sees you lurking around.” I frown.
“Let him come. I'll tell him the truth, that I'm your old employer, and I was just checking on you.”
I cringe at the thought. The last thing I want is for Kevin to find out the real reason why I quit Chilly Creations, Inc. And there's no telling what Trent would say if they started talking. I can't afford for him to jeopardize my job.
“You're horrible,” I growl.
“Fennel,” he lets out a breathy sigh. “Despite what you think, I'm not your enemy.”
“You are my enemy. My little tryst with you destroyed my life. And now you're here because Marcelene sent you. I'm not dense, Trent. She was here yesterday. I know she ratted out where I work.” It's taking everything in me to keep my voice at a manageable level. The anxiety building up within me is overflowing. I don't need the customer to walk up on us arguing. Or worse, for Kevin to show up when he realizes that I'm having a confrontation instead of a discussion.
He takes a step back and holds up his hands in surrender. “Alright. You've got me there. I am here because Marcelene told me that this is where you work now, but it's only because I wanted to check on you. When we talked, you said you wanted to work in an office. What happened to that dream?”
My self-esteem takes a nosedive as I remember that I sacrificed my desires for my needs. “I don't want to talk about it.”
“I think you do want to talk about it, and I'd like to hear about it.” Trent turns his head just in time to see the customer walking up with his merchandise. He doesn't move though. “I'm not leaving until you agree to come to dinner with me.”
Panic races through me, and it's magnified the moment that I see Kevin on the customer's tail. This conversation has gone on long enough. The animosity between us has been detected, and things are going to get a whole lot uglier if I can't get Trent to leave.
“Fine. I get off at seven. I'll meet you there at eight,” the words come out of my mouth in a jumbled mess, and my heart threatens to follow. My eyes are locked on Kevin. My hatred of Trent doesn't even matter anymore. All that matters is making sure I get him out the door, tend to the real customer, and keep my job.
“Excellent. I'll see you at eight.”
CHAPTER SIX
“I wanted out of my mother's house. If you didn't notice of the way she was staring at us when you came over to talk to me, she's always up in my business. It's hard when you live in a house that small. It's not really made for two people, I don't think.” I stare at my wine glass, looking at how the light plays off of the curved surface. The red wine inside is half drained. I need all the liquid courage I can get to make it through this dinner with Trent.
“So you took the first job that came along.” He swirls the wine in his glass before taking a sip and then grimacing. The wine is cheap. I'm not a wine connoisseur, and even I can tell. It has this bitter tangy aftertaste to it, for lack of a better word. At least, it has a high alcohol content. That's the only thing that matters to me in the moment.
“I did.” Though I don't feel proud of it. “It could have been worse. I could have ended up flipping burgers.”
“Or you could have just sucked up your pride and came back to work for me.” His gaze pierces me, and I feel small and vulnerable beneath it. This dinner was definitely a bad idea. I should have stood him up, but by the time I got off from work, my craving for a good meal beat out my logic.
“It wasn't pride that's kept me away from Chilly Creations.” I can't even look at him when I say it. He knows the real reason. I've explained it to him multiple times already.
“You still have a job there, you know.” His voice softens, and he leans back against the booth. “You'll always have a job there as long as I'm in charge.”
“You know I'm not going back.” I shake my head. “If you approached me to offer me the job a hundred times, I'd decline every time.”
“What about the hundredth and one?” He grins at me.
“You're tenacious.” I roll my eyes at him.
“It's because I want you back. It's because I want you.” The way he's looking at me sends a chill down my spine that sticks at my core. He's so serious. So handsome. I take a drink of wine, but it doesn't want to go down. It sits at the back of my throat, keeping me from saying anything. I'm not sure what I should say, how I should respond to that.
Thankfully, he breaks the connection between us by lowering his gaze. His fingertip moves to trace the rim of his wineglass, and my mind immediately falls into the gutter, remembering all the magical things he can do with his hands. “You know, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. That's really why I'm here. It doesn't have much to do with the job. I've just been trying to find a way to bring you close to me again.”
“Is this some kind of romantic confession?” I let out a short nervous laugh.
“I'm honestly not sure. Romance has never been my forte.” He picks up his glass and downs the remainder of its contents in two long gulps. Then he grabs the bottle of wine from the bucket of ice sitting on the edge of our table and fills his glass again.
“What is your forte?” I put my hand over the top of my glass when he tries to top it off. A little wine is okay. Too much wine, and I'll find myself in his basement again. Alcohol tends to stimulate my libido, and it's stimulated enough in his presence.
“I think you know what my forte is.” His expression darkens as he sets the bottle back on ice.
“Being an asshole?” I quip.
“Dominance and pain,” he replies. When he looks at me, I feel transported back to his basement. There was no kindness in his eyes then. More sadism than lust.
“Sounds like a personal problem.” I decide to ignore him and pick on one of my nails instead. He's getting too intense for my liking, and I don't want him to get the feeling that he's in control, because he's not. This little meeting is all about me.
“It is a problem.” He deflates a bit without my attention. “It's hard finding other people with like interests.”
“You should try the Internet. There are a lot of girls into BDSM. You just have to know where to find them.”
“I told you,” his voice drops to a low whisper, and he looks around to make sure that no one is listening. “I'm not a Dom.”
“Well, you could have fooled me.” I smirk in amusement at how uncomfortable the conversation is making him.
“Besides, I don't want other girls. I want you.” The sincerity coming from him is almost staggering. Still, I don't know how he wants me. From the way he treated me last time we had sex, I'm pretty sure I fall into the booty call category for him.
“I don't want to be your whore, Trent.”
“And I don't want you to by my whore.” He knits his eyebrows, making the word sound just as dirty as I meant it.
“Then what do you want?”
“You.” He gestures to me. “Me. Like this.”
I look around the restaurant, still confused. “I'm not sure what this is.”
“I don't know either.” He laughs, shaking his head. “But I'd like to find out. I'd like to see where things could go between us, if you'd just give me another chance.”
It's hard to resist him when he's being so transparent. For the first time since I met him, I feel like I'm seeing a very real side of him. He doesn't know what he's doing, and that's kind of endearing. I like that he's not in control of what he feels. All he knows is that he likes me enough to have gone pretty far out of his way to pursue me. That should mean something—should count for something.
I sneer at myself, at the fact that he's breaking me down. It's happening though. I'm far more interested than I want to let on. “I don't know anything about you,” I grumble.
“Ask me anything. I want to do this right. If you just give me a chance, I'll be better, starting now. Anything you want to know, I'll tell you.” His mood picks up as he realizes I'm receptive to the idea of letting him back into my life.
&nbs
p; “I hope you mean that, because I'm about to grill you like a steak.” I straighten myself before reaching over for the bottle of wine. Now that I'm feeling more comfortable around him, it seems okay to let my guard down a little.
“Try not to leave too many char marks.” He winks at me.
“Oh, you're about to be scorched.” I giggle.
“Ask away.” He lifts his hands to his sides as if opening the book of his secrets.
“First off, are you still being the caped cock-blocker?”
“The what?” He nearly spits out the swig of wine he just took.
“You know, busting into hotel rooms to save women from their morally corrupt ways.” I can't think of a better way to explain it.
“I haven't done it in a while.” He swallows the wine that was in his mouth and smirks.
“Have you done it since you did it to me?”
“A few times.” He wrinkles his nose as if he's embarrassed to admit it.
“I still don't get why you do that.” I shake my head before screwing my face. “It's so bizarre.”
“It's a long story.”
“I like long stories.” I clasp my hands together beneath the table.
“It's a really long and personal story.” He eyes me, indicating he doesn't want to get into it.
“I'm charring you, remember.” I grab the stem of my wine glass and take a long drink of wine.
He runs his tongue across his top lip before rolling it in his mouth. His gaze stays fixed on the ceiling as he contemplates whether or not to share. “It would help you to understand me better.”
“Then share away.” I make a sweeping motion across the table with my hand.
“I'm not really sure where to start.” He slumps as if I've defeated him.
“Now you're just stalling. Start at the beginning.” I settle against the seat of the booth with my glass in hand.
He takes a deep breath. “Well, I've always known that my sexual inclinations were...unique. I've never really enjoyed vanilla sex. I mean, sex in any form is good, but it just didn't...I'm not sure how to explain it. Let's just say that eventually it wasn't enough for me. I became discontent in the relationships that I tried to pursue, and eventually I began having problems.” His expression takes a shameful turn as he says the word problems. I have a pretty good idea of what he's talking about. More than likely, erectile dysfunction. The thought of him not being able to get it up makes me want to chuckle, but I try to cement my mouth into a straight line, wanting to look nonjudgmental. He's sharing something very personal about himself, and I don't want him to recoil back into his secretive little hidey-hole because he thinks I'm making fun of him. “I wasn't sure what to do about it. For the longest time, I thought something was wrong with me. I pushed girls away, because I knew I couldn't give them what they wanted. Not the kind of relationship they wanted.” He shakes his head, looking lost in thought. “I didn't discover BDSM until my early twenties. I think I was twenty-two when I went to my first much. In the beginning, I thought I had found my safe haven. There were so many rules though. I spend so much time controlling every aspect of my own life. That's difficult enough without having to do it for someone else. I didn't want that. I didn't want to be a Dom, but I still craved the kink. Not that I didn't try it.
“I was an epic fail as a Dom. More dismissive than attentive. My sub was receptive, but neither one of us were really getting what we wanted from each other. Someone had already trained her, and I never got the kind of reactions out of her that I was hoping for. She expected everything that was coming. And I couldn't control her to the degree that she needed. After a few weeks together, we parted ways.
“I fell into a depression, feeling lost in the world. Feeling like I'd never find what I needed to be sexually fulfilled. I attended some play parties, hoping to still participate in BDSM activities without having to be a full-time Dom, but the reaction was the same. The girls whom I was with, there was no excitement behind their eyes. They enjoyed what I was doing to them, but they expected it. They never feared me. It wasn't working.”
I'm trying to wrap my head around what he's saying. It sounds like his sexual issues are rather complex. “Did you ever go to counseling?”
“Yes, and it didn't work,” he sighs. “My therapist told me to engage in normal sexual activity. That once I got used to it, my need to infuse kink play into sex would magically disappear. The first few times I tried it, I was fine. But as my need for something more grew, I started having issues again. I couldn't hold down a relationship to save my life.
“It took a while, but I thought I finally figured out what I needed, someone who wasn't into the lifestyle. Someone who would look at me with fear and excitement when I did things to them. That type of person couldn't be found in the BDSM circles, where they feed off of that pain and submission.
“I posted an ad on the Internet. It was the best place I could think of—where I could be discrete and anonymous. The first few girls I met backed out, but the fear behind their eyes when I approached them lit something inside of me that I hadn't ever felt before. Finally, I found one willing to play.” Though it seems like he should sound excited about that, the way he says it is labored.
“This girl was troubled, stuck somewhere between wanting the pain and needing it to stabilize her psychologically. I knew when I met her that she was messed up—more so than I was. Our relationship worked though. There was a sparkle of fear in her eyes when I tied her up and...did things to her. She loved it, and since she'd never experienced anything like it before, I felt like we made a connection. The fear eventually left her, and excitement took its place. It's only natural that you begin to trust someone over time. Even though the fear I needed was gone, I felt like we had somehow grown together. I had molded her to fit me like a glove. Perhaps too well,” his tone takes a solemn turn.
“So what happened to her?” I ask hesitantly.
He bites his bottom lip for a second, looking remorseful. “I only ever wanted her for sex. That's all it ever was to me. I knew when I met her that I'd never love her. She was too troubled. She self-harmed and had low self-esteem, even though she was a pretty girl. She was always having problems with someone, her parents or friends. Half the time we got together, she was in the middle of some emotional crisis, so she needed the pain just as much as I needed to give it to her.
“She fell in love with me. After spending over six months together, almost every weekend, I suppose I should have expected it would happen. She was too free with her emotions.”
“And you didn't love her back.” It's not hard to put the pieces of the puzzle together. He's harboring deep regret from their relationship.
“No. I didn't love her back. When I told her that, she couldn't handle it.” His eyes fall to the red table cloth, and he pulls at a loose thread at the edge of it with his fingertips. “She killed herself.”
My hand moves to my mouth almost involuntarily. “Oh Trent, I'm so sorry.”
“Don't be sorry for me.” He shakes his head. “Be sorry for her family and those who loved her.” His expression hardens for a moment. “It was my fault, of course. I knew she was damaged, and I used her anyway. I fed the darkness inside of her. She was always teetering on the edge. I just never cared enough to pull her back from it.”
I don't know what to say. Even though he's trying to act tough, I can tell that it bothers him. He wouldn't have been reluctant to share the story if it didn't.
“Naturally, after she died, I felt tremendous guilt. I renounced my ways and went celibate, thinking that my desires were poisonous. It didn't seem enough to atone for my sins though. The thought that there were other girls like her out there, looking for someone online to take the pain away when most of the guys just want sex...I wanted to do something about it.
“I talked to Leo one night about this crazy plan I had. He regularly trawls the Internet for girls to have sex with, so I honestly didn't think he'd be up for me intervening. The idea amused him thoug
h, the thought that I might be able to sway the sluts of the Internet to not want to have sex with him. There's a lot at risk though when you meet random people for sex, more than what I did to Charla.
“I didn't just do it for the girls though. I did it because I wanted to know I could control my own dark desires. Every time I meet with one, it's like peaking inside of Pandora's Box, but knowing that I can shut the lid before anything bad comes out. The girls are always willing.” He stares into the table cloth as if seeing something that I'm not. “But my desire to save them is always stronger.”
It sounds noble and twisted at the same time. To be honest, I'm not really sure what to think. He's given me so much to process.
“Does it even work?” I ask, unable to come up with something more substantial to say.
“What?” He glances up at me.
“Saving the girls. Does it work?” I look at him with interest.
“Sometimes.” He smiles, giving the tattered string a firm yank to dislodge it. “A little less than half of the time. It does when the girls are like you, just down on their luck and looking for a good time but questioning if what they're doing is right.”
“So you did know I wasn't a slut?”
“I knew. And that's part of what drew me to you.”
When our eyes lock, I feel a connection between us. He just shared something very deep and personal with me, and I can understand why he didn't want to. By all accounts, I should think he's a psycho. He already admitted that he can't get off to sex without hurting someone, without seeing fear in their eyes.
“How long has it been since you last had sex? Before me, I mean.” I take a few gulps of wine and immediately feel warmth flood my body.
“Over three years.” Trent pulls his napkin across his lap as the waiter sets our plates in front of us. “Not since Charla died.”
“Three years. Wow.” I can't hide the surprise from my voice. Even though the food looks delicious, I don't feel very hungry, wanting to talk instead of eat. “So what made you pursue me then?”