by Rebel Carter
I wasn’t a man that worried about feelings or people because that distracted me. Because it put them in danger from shitty men who had no right putting their hands on them, much less knowing they existed. So I’d put distance between me and everything that meant something to me to protect them. But now I was at the top. Now I was legit and free, and I had no one to show for it.
It was better this way.
A clap of thunder made the room as bright as daylight and it reminded me of Honey’s apartment. I pushed away from the door and went further into my apartment, turning on a lamp as I went. It was a big place, not just an apartment but a penthouse, with floor-to-ceiling windows, white and grey marble fucking flooring that was a bitch for my cleaners to keep clean. Not that it mattered. The floor hardly had time to get dirty with the amount of time I actually spent here.
I leaned against the back of the leather couch and turned my head, looking into the dining room from where I stood. The whole place was luxe, top of the line with the newest appliances and a pricey zip code with a door man trained to keep the paparazzi at bay. The building was exclusive and it didn’t matter if you had the money, you had to have the name, the sway in the city, to be given the privilege of cutting the fuckers a check every month.
I’d bought my penthouse outright for 15 million. It was worth it for the peace. The second I stepped inside the brightly light lobby and nodded at the door man, my world narrowed down to nothing. Everything was simpler. Peace was mine. A thing I had chased for years and finally found. But then why did it feel so empty in now? Why were these big open rooms, the ones with the high end finishings and furnishings suddenly not enough?
Why the fuck did I want to be in a drafty barely furnished apartment with a boiler that rattled and windows that shook every time it thundered? I crossed my arms, pissed that the place I wanted to be wasn’t my home.
“Honey, that’s why.” It was her. It had been for a week. I licked my lips and groaned when I picked up the faint taste of her. She’d been sweet and wet for me, pussy eager as anything for my mouth and hands. She would have taken my dick if I’d let myself offer it to her. If I’d let myself stay with her.
But I hadn’t.
I’d left as quickly as I’d arrived. I’d left her.
I could still see her face scrunched up, the way she’d looked impossibly small and lost sitting on her kitchen table with my spit still wet on her pussy lips. She hadn’t wanted me to leave. I’d known that, and I’d still fucking done it even if every part of me had wanted to rush back to her. I’d wanted to gather her up in my arms and take her to bed, to kiss her and undress her. Take my time with her. But that didn’t excuse the fact that the sex I wanted, the way I wanted to touch her, how I wanted her to respond to me, was more than what we’d done.
It was more than most casual encounters ever fathomed. It was a kink, a dynamic that had to be explained and explored with clear boundaries and safe words.
I hadn’t had that with Honey.
I had a drunk girl with a big beautiful smile and a mouth that I wanted to claim, so I’d done what I would allow myself. God, the way she looked when she laughed, her head thrown back, dark curls bouncing over her shoulder and spilling down her back. She was a woman, but she was cute, and that was what sparked my interest. I had a soft spot for cute, for pastels and soft lace. For sundresses, and pink umbrellas with bows bigger than they ought to be. But Honey wasn’t mine to keep, and I wasn’t hers to have. So I’d given her an orgasm. Laid her out and eaten her pussy on her dining room table like it was the finest delicacy, because it was. And something was a delicacy if it was rare, right? I wasn’t going to get another go at her, which made her pussy a meal no chef could ever come close to replicating. I’d eaten her like a starving man. God, she’d been good, naturally following directions and making me question if this had to be a one time thing.
If she could learn why did I have to stay away from her? She’d listened when I told her not to move, her thighs shaking as I went down on her, she’d let me wrap my tie around her and kept her hands glued to the table like I wanted.
She’d been a good girl.
A very fucking good girl.
“Fucking damn it.” I pushed away from the couch and strode towards my bedroom, yanking off my jacket and tossing it onto the couch as I went. I needed to get out of my suit. It smelled like her, light and flowery, whatever perfume she’d been wearing had rubbed off on me and I could scent her all around me. I licked my lips again and there she was filling up my mouth, dancing across my tongue and making my dick hard.
I entered my bathroom, flipped on the light and balked at the man staring back at me. I looked like I did when I’d been put on the tail of a group I needed to shut down. Like I’d been up for thirty hours but wouldn’t be slowing down anytime soon, an edge of manic light had entered my eyes. When I was like this, I was obsessive, I was unstoppable. A woman had never made me like this. It wasn’t that there hadn’t been opportunities. Of those there had been plenty. But I knew that what I had to offer a woman had to be given to the right woman. A woman with a darker side, a kinkier side. Smart, capable, engaging in her everyday life. But sweet, submissive, a little twisted in her desires when it came time to let her walls down.
A little girl just for me.
I blew out a breath and willed away the image of Honey laying splayed out on her kitchen table with her bound hands above her head. She’d been fucking gorgeous. Perfect. If I had an artistic bone in my body, I would have sketched it to have it somewhere outside of my brain. But I wasn’t, so a memory would be all that I had. One that would fade and twist until it was too hard to recall. The thought pissed me off. But it was better this way. Better it be a misremembered moment than to go after her, to push for another night with her, a night I knew she’d easily give if I asked. I’d gone down that path before and there was nothing good there, not for either of us.
My thoughts strayed to Jane and I leaned forward, bracing both hands on the cool marble of the sink and hung my head. When we had met at the Cairn it seemed like we might be a good fit, but she’d been too insecure and possessive, and I’d been quick to give up, my patience short when it came to a relationship that existed outside of the Cairn. What Jane wanted was a 24/7 dynamic and that was not something I could give. Not something I wanted to give, anyone, ever. The lines of the intimacy we explored within the safe space of the Cairn had been blurred, fucked over and twisted when we’d tried to bring it outside of the club.
In the light of day, our faults were exposed, all the worst bits of us bubbling and rising to the surface. The result was a big fucking mess that I couldn’t end quick enough. Jane had tried to dig her feet in, but when I was done, I was done. She was still a member of the club, but I hadn’t seen her during my visits. I wasn’t concerned if we did happen to choose the same night to play. I’d faced down men not knowing if I’d get out alive, I’d also gone toe-to-toe in enough billion dollar deals and gotten my way that a run in with an old flame wasn’t high on my radar.
But it did make me think about what it might be like when I found a woman that interested me. It was on my mind right fucking now, because I’d met Honey. And I was very fucking interested, even though I knew chances were she would want nothing to do with the sex and play I wanted from her. She’d called me sir and that had gone straight to my dick, but that wasn’t the title I wanted to hear come from her pretty mouth.
What I wanted to hear was Daddy, and I didn’t want her to just say it, I wanted to hear her scream it. I wanted her to mean it. It was concerning. I hadn’t been able to give Jane what she wanted and we were on the same page when it came to sex and kink, so how the hell was I going to give Honey what she wanted when I didn’t even know if we were reading from the same book?
Although...what was I doing worrying about a relationship with a woman that I’d only met twice?
“Honey, what are you doing to me?” I shouldn’t have left. The dark thing that had started to gr
ow in my stomach the second I left her, had kept growing on the ride back to my place, and was now wrapping itself around me, threatening to choke off the air I was breathing. It was screaming at me that I shouldn’t have left her.
I flipped on the sink tap and let the cool water rush over my hands. “She wanted you to stay.” I splashed some water on my face and unbuttoned my dress shirt. The cold water dripped down onto my skin and it cut through the fog of want Honey had left me sitting in. “I wanted to stay with her,” I said, admitting the thing that I hadn’t wanted to say out loud. Now that I had I knew it was going to be running through my mind for the rest of the night on a loop.
“I wanted to stay with her,” I said again, lifting my eyes to the glass in front of me. I looked like shit, the light in my eyes only more intense. Wanting Honey was like a drug and I’d left my fucking fix sitting alone and half dressed, eyes pleading for me to stay. The Dom in me was riled and it would be easy to blame it on that, my natural instincts to care for a sub. A role Honey had played with, flirted with, but hadn’t taken on in truth. She wasn’t my submissive, but we had enjoyed a taste of the power dynamics that colored my sexual appetite. Honey had been sweet and willing, eager to do as I asked without question, even in the restaurant when I’d lost control for a second and threatened to spank her.
I’d seen the intrigue in her eyes. But how much of that was from alcohol and how much was from the woman? That was the entire problem with all of this. I wanted to stay away from her and give her more, but I couldn’t when she was like she was-—a little too drunk, a little too clueless. It couldn’t be like that. She needed to know what I wanted, what I craved from her. And tonight was not the night to introduce her to that.
So I’d given her what I could. A damn good orgasm, and me leaving her for the night. I’d only been able to do that by keeping her hands off me and her panties on. If I’d let her touch me it wouldn’t have worked. I would have kept going. The thin cotton of her panties had been the slightest of barriers, but it had been enough for me to keep my resolve to not fuck her on her kitchen table.
If I’d done that I would still be there. If I’d done that, if I had claimed Honey, she would never be free of me.
She deserved better than that, so why the hell did I feel like shit for leaving her the way I did?
Chapter Twelve
HONEY
After Law left my apartment I sat in my empty dining room for a long time. I kept replaying the last moments we had and then cringing at them before I replayed them one more time just to make it sting extra. Finally, when the cold had set in and I couldn’t feel the ghost of his hands on my skin anymore I slipped from the table and onto my feet, scooping up my underwear and sweats before I headed to my bedroom. Cleaning myself up and getting into bed had been...difficult, but I’d done it. Part of me had wanted to keep waiting where Law had left me. Any second I was convinced he would come back, knock on the door and stay with me. He’d sweep me up in his arms and carry me into my bedroom. But that hadn’t happened and now I just felt stupid for wishing it would.
I showered, changed again and got into bed. I laid in bed for a very long time, eyes on the window, trying not to think about much I wanted him to come back. When I finally fell asleep it was in the early hours of the morning. I’d seen the first glimmers of the sun peeking over the buildings when I’d finally dozed off. The storm was over when the pinging of my app woke me up. Bleary eyed I swatted at it when another ping sounded.
“Shut up,” I whispered, even as I was turning my phone over to look at the screen.
BaristApp has 12 new notifications.
“Shit.” The shops in the city must be desperate if they were all posting shifts at sunrise. With this many notifications I’d have my pick of any shift and location. And it was a Friday and people always tipped more on Friday. I bit my lip, hovering over the screen, not swiping open on the app. As nice as it was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to take any jobs today. For one, my head was pounding. The previous night’s drinks had made themselves known by way of a slight hangover, and two I felt like shit because the man I wanted had left me alone when I desperately wanted more.
He didn’t even have my phone number so I couldn’t even pin my hopes on the long shot that he would text me later. When Law walked out of my apartment that had been it. The man was gone, in the wind. The only thing I knew about him was that he was the CEO of Law Acquisitions, liked Korean Barbeque and got coffee at a shop that I sometimes worked at. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but maybe I would see him if I took a shop in Hudson Yard? I tapped the screen, opening the notifications and scanned the shift postings hopefully. But no dice. There were no postings in Hudson Yard. There was however, a posting in Tribeca which would be perfect for what I had planned that night.
A night at the Cairn.
If I took the job in Tribeca I could walk the short distance to the club and take my time. It would be easy breezy before a night of possible play. I was sure even if I didn’t find anyone to my liking that me showing up earlier would give me a pretty great shot at getting a room for myself so I didn’t have to take the train back to Queens. I never liked taking the train back home at night after spending time in the Cairn. There was something about it that didn’t feel good. When I spent time at the club I let my defenses down, I embraced a softer more vulnerable side of me when I indulged my little side. Public transport at night in the city wasn’t the best place for a little trying to get home.
I shivered beneath my covers, remembering the time that I had tried to do it and had been left scared and running from a group of catcalling men that had followed me the length of my platform before the train had arrived. I’d tripped and bloodied both of my knees before getting on the train. It had taken everything in me not to burst into tears on my way home, but I’d managed it.
Now I didn’t take the train home. I stayed at the club even when I wasn’t sure I would meet anyone, which was fine. I could decompress and relax after what was usually a grueling work week. I didn’t take many days off, just my regular one day a week, but when I went to the club I took two. The extra day added a bit of luxury to my time off. I always came back well rested and happy even if I didn’t find a partner I fit well enough with to play. The time to be myself as I wanted to be at the club was enough all on its own.
I pushed myself up and hit accept on the Tribeca posting. It was a short shift and didn’t start until noon. I had plenty of time to try and get myself together before I needed to be there. Plenty of time to try and shake off my hangover and the funk that had settled over me when Law walked out of my apartment, and my life.
“Why didn’t he stay?” I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself. It had been good. He had enjoyed himself, or so I thought.
“I don’t want you to stay away from me either. That’s why this is all fucked, Honey. We can’t do this ever again.”
He’d said that. I knew he had enjoyed it, I knew that he had wanted me as badly as I wanted him. But if all of that was true when why had he said we couldn’t do it again? Why had he left me the way he had?
“You were lovely, Honey.”
I felt tears well up in my eyes. Lovely. Law had called me lovely. He’d given me his laugh. He’d carried me home in the rain, and he’d noticed my hallway lights were too dark.
The man was paying attention to me. There was no way he’d wanted it to be a one time thing, but even so…
“He still left. Respect it,” I told myself, swinging my legs and standing from my bed. It didn’t matter if my paths crossed with Law ever again. I would give him his space. I would pretend that last night hadn’t happened. Even if it sucked. Okay, it was mostly definitely going to suck. I knew that every cell in my traitorous body was going to want to go to him the second he came into my field of vision but I wouldn't do it. I’d maintain my distance and give him a bland smile, the kind that you gave to people you recognized in passing but weren’t really sure if you knew them or not.
I w
ent to the sink and brushed my teeth, glaring at myself in the mirror. My eyes were red-rimmed from crying, my hair was wild from the rain and from my time with Law, I could see bags under my eyes from the lack of sleep. In short, I looked like shit. Just fucking great. I spit and rinsed my mouth putting away my toothbrush with more force than necessary. I blew out a deep breath and considered myself. I was going to need makeup today for sure if I wanted to roll into the shop looking human. It would be necessary for the club as well.
I couldn’t show my face there looking like I had cried the night away over a man. I turned the sink on and washed my face. I hated that I had spent the night crying over a man.
I applied my moisturizer and began applying my foundation, my mind wandering while my hands worked. My mind wandered a lot when I was stressed. Daydreams had always been my escape when I was younger and it hadn’t changed the older I got. After last night, it was second nature to vanish into a daydream, but I normally vanished into a happy daydream where everything was perfect and I guessed this was sort of that.
This daydream featured Law.
I’d be walking down the street window shopping and he would see me from across the street. I wouldn’t notice him, I’d be drinking a coffee and enjoying the perfectly sunny day, eyes on the shop’s offerings when he would approach me. He’d call out to me and I’d turn, not seeing him right away. But then there he would be walking towards me through the crowd. We’d lock eyes and he’d smile at me, a real genuine warm smile and he would tell me that he was happy to see me, surprised that it was here and now, but happy. I’d be happy too and I’d tell him that, and then before we could say anything else he would apologize for leaving.