by Talon P. S.
Lucid heat turned bone chilling cold in the fraction of a millisecond. He’d warned her when he arrived she owed him an answer. She just didn’t expect this to be his question nor did she expect it to just come out like this.
But she saw it in his eyes just like she’d seen it in his restless sleep last night, he was already shredded by this and he wanted to know why. She shouldn’t have been surprised, he was always direct about his questions and if he thought he was to blame for her pain he wanted to know why and he never let her get away with not answering. And as if the one question was the magic spell that ripped barriers down, she felt her own feelings come crashing through her. She slowly slid off the counter and stepped out into the living area watching him over her shoulder carefully. She needed just a little bit of space between them, because if he wanted to know, it was about to come out. It just wasn’t likely to come out pretty.
“You abandoned me.” She stopped and turned to face him now. “You refused to include me in your life unless I do so sitting at your feet. You’ve never asked me to do anything else and when I couldn’t keep up with you, you left me alone in a room without your protection—without explanation.” There! Heart and feelings on the floor now. She huffed, it almost felt like she sprinted around the block just to get that out.
Trenton stood still. She’d actually just thrown a number of things at him, some that had no relation to each other and he needed to decipher which was more important— which was tied to her emotions the most right now. He had included her in his life. Hell he’d done all he could to draw her in without actually kidnapping her and taking her hostage. He’d slowed his own pace so she didn’t have to try to keep up rather he went at her pace. That left the alone part to talk about. “At the hotel?” He shook his head troubled by her perception of what had happened, “No Katianna you were never left unprotected.”
“But it wasn’t you!” Her voice raised, she was going to cave really quick, the wrath of emotions that spiraled inside her, cresting up in a wave that threatened to funnel out with the next request for her to answer him. “You left me to go be Dominus for everyone else.”
“Please don’t ask me to be anything, but who and what I am.” He felt slammed by her. Yes he wanted an answer. Hell she ran out on him. Never gave him a chance to talk with her, to ease her past the overwhelming emotional tide that came from the auction event. He’d known it was going to be hard on her, he talked, did all he could to help her through it, but then she took off and shut him out, never allowing him back in to repair her emotions over it. Clearly she still needed that from him.
“I’m not. I never wanted to change you, but you only want one part of me and the rest feels cut away and abandoned.”
“Nothing of you will ever be abandoned. I don’t care if one day you stand up and say Dominus I want to take up knitting and soft ball. Then fine I will buy you the finest knitting needles and bribe who ever I have to, to get you on the women’s champion softball team and make them knit with you.” He shook his head, the pain rippled across his face and she hated it. She knew he meant her no pain, but she didn’t know how to not feel it. “I will tend to everything you want, everything you need. You just have to let me in.”
Her strength drained she was on the cuspate of sobbing, “I did. Or I was trying—I don’t know. All I know is I was there and everything went crazy and then you weren’t there when you kept saying you would always be.” She shook her head. Hell she didn’t know what she was trying to say. She just hurt and she didn’t know how to make it stop hurting, because she was too afraid to walk through that door and want. Too afraid of what would happen to her when it was over, too afraid to go on not knowing what it was like to be completely submerged in his lust and the safety of his arms.
Trenton took a step toward her. “Let me help you get through this, I brought you into this weakened state now let me tend to you like I have always done.”
She rattled her head. She didn’t need him to point out her weakened state. Didn’t he always do that to her? One way or another? Weakened her, but being weak in his arms had always been such bliss, unlike being weak and afraid out in the world alone and fitful. Too small to keep the shadows of the world away. Again she shook her head. What was she thinking? Oh god he spun her about, that he felt so strong and hot against her body, so intense if he didn’t hold her up she would crash to the floor and right now she wasn’t allowing him to hold her and she could see the floor rising up like an explosive volcanic lava floor, rocketing up its shoot towards her and it was going to shred her to pieces when it hit.
“Make love to me here. Take me to your bed? Just let me be a fragment of your life? Perhaps that’s all I need.”
“No. Your body knows what you need. I know what you need and it can only be satisfied with your submission. Your complete submission, nothing half way.”
Why did he always refuse her under his stipulation? The rejection mixed with everything else, heated her face, surging inside her. “What are you Gorean?!” The insult snapped out. She didn’t know why, but she regretted it the second she blurted it out. But all, if nothing, just felt—she didn’t know really—she was just over whelmed.
Trenton snapped straight eyes glaring, “Who taught you that terminology?”
“Writer.” Overwhelmed flipped to sass, “Besides plenty of the clubbers talk about it. Claim it. Debate it.”
“Then you should know better—I have never thought little of you or tried to diminish your worth. I have nothing short of adored you and never looked or treated you as a thing.”
“But still something to own.” Back to being overwhelmed and pained.
Teeth gritting and jaw clenching Trenton willed out a huff before giving his admonitions. “I cannot argue that. I do want to own you. So I can have every part of you. That every breath and orgasm your body has is because of me. I don’t deny that, but never as a thing, but always my precious Katianna, my little mouse.” His voice trailed off.
She stilled. Eyes blinking, watching him come apart inside. Something she’d never seen. She’d seen it in Paris, felt it inside herself, but never with Trenton. Never the Dominus. He‘d come to her knowing what he wanted and now she was ripping that away from him. Taking the lifelong desire he’d always searched and hoped for—she was ripping it from his grasp and the pain was unbearable for him. He was struggling to hang on, but something was telling him—egging at the back of his mind telling him there was such a thing as holding on too tight, “I even assured you you’d still write—as long as you wanted. I love that you’re a successful and extraordinary writer.” One last desperate argumentive fact to throw out there, but that one wasn’t going to work with her.
“How would you know? You’ve never even read a single one of my books!”
“And arguing this is getting us nowhere.” His desperate argument turned back to what he did best, dominate.
He closed in on her abruptly pulling her into his arms and his mouth came down over hers. The taste of her saturated his senses, stampeded his intentions and in his storm he found himself pulling her down onto the sofa bench, his kisses pressing her down on her back and dropped the weight of his body over her pining her. Without prodding or command, her arms coiled around him and her legs did the same. His need sinking into her soul, in her warmth and his kiss hardened becoming pure unabated, fervent hunger threatening to do just what she begged for, but he quickly pulled his head away and sucked a lung full of air before lowering his gaze at her.
Her head fell back on the bench, her swollen lips parted in a panting breath, “Please—I want to feel you inside me, Trenton. So I know it’s right.”
His fingers stroking her hair, tangling into it and curling until his fists held much of it in his grip pulling at her scalp with a biting sting. “God baby—” he gasped his eyes floating over her, her features, her lips and he licked over them with the tip of his tongue like a dragon licking his next meal. “I want you—I need every part of you, but if I take you now I won’t st
op. I won’t ever let go. I’ll drag you back to New York kicking and screaming if it comes to that.” God he had to stop or he’d do to her what Paris did to him, steal what he wanted. “Tell me you submit to me. Tell me you belong to me. That’s the only way it will be right.” He whispered his last plea to command her. He took her mouth kissing her again, one last deep kiss rough like she kissed him, ending it with a painfully tender sucking on her lip. Kissed her cheek—kissed her forehead.
She was still silent asking him for nothing. He pressed against her face and let out the breath he’d been holding, his heart pounding out desperate goodbyes and painfully letting go. She pushed her hips up to press against him, tempting him to let go of his control, but he didn’t. A firm hand dropped to her hips, pressed her down and he lifted his own body till he only hovered over her. “No Katianna I will not. I don’t want to just be your lover. It's not enough for me. Either you give yourself to me or I can’t be around you anymore.” His voice ripping just like the heart in his chest. But that was his answer, not only to her spoken plea, but also her non spoken ones.
Her whole life—how was she supposed to give him that? She didn’t have much, but what little she did have could be destroyed when he had finally grown tired of this fantasy of his. All fantasies have endings, and then what? Men don’t marry their fantasies. They go on to the next fantasy or marry someone completely different from them. She didn’t care of he never married her, that wasn’t what she asked for, but she didn’t want to be just dumped without warning without a safe place to land. Truthfully she didn’t want to be dumped ever at all. But she didn’t come from his world. She wasn’t the fulfillment for that heated expression of his desires, so it was inevitable that he’d eventually grow tired of her and she would be alone and on the street once again like a stray cat that had been dumped off in a back alley.
A back alley—she couldn’t suffer through that again. No matter how much her heart hurt to be with him, she couldn’t risk having to endure that kind of nightmare ever again.
The tears were welling up. She wanted to be with Trenton, wanted to surrender to him and become his unicorn—but too scared to take the step. Because on the other side of bliss was something far worse.
Trenton’s chest was caving in watching her, the tears she tried not to shed, the things she refused to say or ask. He couldn’t fathom how little of a thing had managed to build such a thick wall around her and refused to let him in. She wouldn’t even open a window for him to glimpse in to see the real Katianna. What had brought her to such imprisonment in her mind and what she needed of him? He knew her desires, she had told him, but he could not give them to her until she acknowledged them to herself. For four years she had been running and hiding. And she still was.
Trenton sat up on his heals pulling her up with him as he straightened, keeping her in his arms. Hoping if he held her, if he wiped away the tears as they fell she would open up, but she flinched away instead. The pain from it sliced through him all the way to his heart.
He dropped back against the back of the sofa bench, his head falling over the back edge, his hands releasing her to come up over his face. He didn’t know what else to do. He had to let her go. He had to stop chasing her. She would only keep running from him and that was destroying him even more.
He pulled his hands down, scrubbing across his face as if the act could wipe away his pain and frustration. His eyes fell on her cell phone on the small end table and he stared at it for a long moment as if it was something foreign and unknown to him. What seemed like an age later he stirred, recognizing the small gadget for what it was and picked it up. He popped the back along with the battery, then pulled the tracking chip out and put the parts back together. He returned her phone to the table, dropped the chip in his pocket and looked at her, who only starred back with wide, pain stricken eyes.
“I promise not to bother you anymore Katianna.” His voice heavy and mournful. It hurt too much to look at her. She sat so frozen, something in her eyes was on the verge of panic, but if she wanted him to stay—if she wanted anything at all from him all she had to do is ask and as he headed out, she didn’t.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
The very next day after Trenton left, Katianna was walking home from the store after picking up a few food essentials, enough to last her a few days so she could just lock herself away and cry. And stare and cry some more. Her unseeing eyes dragging down around her feet. Her mind in a painful void, numb was probably a good thing right now. She’s hardly paid any attention to anything as she walked, all but the unmarked black executive helicopter in the open field next to the marina. It was impossible to tune it out. It was too damn big and very much out of place and as she crossed over the road dike to the island where her boat was she spotted the man who’d come with it.
Diesel was leaning against one of the pilings at the dock next to her houseboat browsing on his phone. Knowing Trenton he sent Diesel to watch over her or just flat out drive her crazy till she changed her mind and submitted.
Diesel spotted her coming up, “It’s just me, Katianna, Diesel Gentry.” He announced his identity to her just in case so as not to frighten her, before pushing off the piling to cut across the gravel lot toward her.
As soon as he got close his brow went up in a scrutinizing expression, “Good god do you really risk walking around dressed like that? Trenton would skin your behind if he saw you right now. As a matter of fact I should to.” He gawked at her turquoise cheerleader-like-too-short, shorts matched with the pale yellow baby T that didn’t even reach her shorts allowing a few inches of her midsection to peek through.
She swallowed hard, “Is he here?”
“No.” He relieved her of her load of groceries then followed her to the boat.
“So he says he’ll leave me be, but then sends you?” She tried to stifle the mild irritation she felt as she started to put away the food that would hold her over for the next few days. The boat was equipped with a kitchen galley, but a very small one, so stocking up was nearly impossible and still have some uncluttered space inside.
“No, but I love my brother deeply enough that one of us had to come down here to tell you what he won’t say. He deserves that much.”
She paused turning to him, “How is he?” She asked, but just as quickly diverted her eyes. She probably shouldn’t ask. If he was fine without her, Diesel wouldn’t be here right now.
Diesel stepped up taking the jar of peanut butter and reaching over her head, tucked it away in the over head cabinet, alongside the other two jars of identical peanut butter, “You want to know that, you should give him a call and ask yourself.”
“Did you just come down here to be mean to me? Cuz it really isn’t fair that you can just drop out of the sky anytime you feel like it and do that to me.”
“Hey life usually isn’t fair, but just when you had the best thing that could possibly happen to you, staring you in the face, look what you did? You ran. You don’t deserve fair right now. What you deserve is a hard spanking and a dosage of reality.”
Katianna stilled with a nervous glance, “You’re not really going to spank me are you?”
“Will it help?” He watched as she swallowed hard against the suggestion and she shifted only slightly, but enough to notice, shifting so as to guard her behind further against the cabinets. Ironic wasn’t it, of all the women in the world for Trenton to fall in love with and desire above all others, he did so with the one least likely to give in to his passion for spanking. Yet everything else about these two synced in perfectly.
Even he had come to treasure her just as Trenton did. She was the perfect unicorn to have. He had watched his brother with her so many times; he often let his mind drift to daydream when Trenton might share her with him just as he would one day share his treasured unicorn with Trenton. Just as their parents had shared their lives together.
“I usually sit on the roof to watch the sunset before I sit down to write.” She volunteered to change t
he subject if only for a moment, but maybe this discussion wouldn’t feel so claustrophobic if they moved it outside.
“Have you been writing any?”
She shook her head. She had told Amelia she had, but really all she had done is stare at her screen night after night.
Diesel followed her out as she climbed up on the roof deck of the boat and they both sat at the edge. Diesel hung his legs over the side while she pulled her knees up against her chest and wrapped her arms around, hugging them to her and rested her chin on a knee.
“How’s Paris?”
“He’s gone now.” He took a deep breath, acknowledging his own feelings towards the man’s absence.
“Did he ever get his wish?”
“What wish was that?” He stared down his legs and at the ripple of water below.
“You.” Her head tilted over till her cheek was rested over her knees.
Diesel shifted uneasily. He hadn’t realized Paris desired him that much, but that he had nearly begged him to come see him at his hotel room before he flew out in the morning had been hard enough on his emotions. He wanted to go to Paris, but knew he could not. Slaves—especially fresh ones always believed they had fallen in love with their masters. It’s not until they have been sent back out into the world they realize it is something else. Perhaps it is still some amount of love, like a fondness for your favorite teacher, but rarely anything more. But for Diesel it had been different. Paris was his match.
Paris had come at him from every desirable angle possible and when Diesel delivered he’d taken all the lust he was capable of dishing out and matched it. That he didn’t have to hold back one ounce of his hunger doomed him to bond with the man. The man with the face of a fallen angel and the fucking strength of a bull.
“I think he got a little more than he was expecting.”
Lots of new submissives become attached to the people who played them well. But it did nothing to explain what was going on with him, why he hadn't been able to maintain the carefully held control he'd developed over the years he'd been involved in B&D. He'd held himself back from having sex with Paris because he'd been aware from the first moment he'd seen him that he could easily lose control. The attraction had been too strong—insanely strong. So, why hadn't he just turned away?