Crossed Lines

by Sarah Mosby

  “Are we going to have any more problems?”

  The man shakes his head and Matthew nods before letting him go.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she says but his eyes are still fixed on the man before him, for dramatic effect. Demarco has taught him that Dom’s win many wars without fighting, just by invoking a little dramatic effect. It sounded silly to him the first time he heard it but over time he found it to be true.

  “I didn’t,” he responds turning to face her. When he stares down into her blue eyes, the rest of his words faded. He has wrestled with these eyes all evening. He has struggled to place them for years and here they are. Something about them seems slightly different but he is almost sure this is her. He glances down at her name tag, then back at her eyes and smiles. “Hello, Emily.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “Mr. O’Donoghue?” Matthew is pulled back into the present by his driver, “We’re here.”

  Matthew looks around and up at the hotel before him.

  “Thanks, Aaron.” He sighs before making his way up. His entire plan seems to be falling apart before it even came together. He has found her. Isn’t that supposed to be the hard part? He has dug around through old records of the foster home and found her full name before tracing her entire family and ultimately finding her. He remembers that she didn’t want to find her family or even check if they were alive. He wanted to gift her the option of finding them if she ever changed her mind. Now, he realizes that things will be a lot more complicated than he bargained for. He thought he left Emily behind in California but somehow, he managed to sub the worst possible person he could, if he ever intended to claim Amanda as his own. Matthew strips out of his suit and walks into the shower, turning the faucet over to hot before lathering his hair.

  Maybe there is a way to work things out without Amanda getting hurt. Maybe karma will allow him, just this once, to have a drama-free life. He knows it’s highly unlikely, but is willing to take karma by the balls and squeeze hard until he gets his way.

  The steam from the shower fogs the glass and he remembers the first time he flogged Emily. She wasn’t submissive at all but she was open to learning and seemed to care enough about him to not be a pain in the ass. He wishes he had paid closer attention to her ramblings. Perhaps she had mentioned something about Amanda in the earlier days that could have triggered his memory sooner than it did.

  “Fuck,” he punches the wall before turning off the shower and stepping out into the wet room. He wraps a towel around his waist and strolls into the bedroom. The white walls seem bleak, instead of peaceful and he feels miserable in the soft memory foam. Sleeping won’t be a strong possibility; he won’t even waste his energy. He knows only one thing will fix this and it’s across the state probably fuming and confused about why, after waiting for ten years to reappear, he has suddenly vanished again. He hates being that guy. The guy who breaks promises. The unreliable guy. That’s not who he wants to be. Not for her. Not for anyone. He reaches for his phone and scrolls down to the old man’s number. He’s been gone for months now, but Matthew can’t bring himself to delete it.

  “I don’t want to do to her what you did to the women you claimed to love.” He sighs. He scrolls down past the old man and lands on Emily. She picks up on the third ring.

  “Hello?” She whispers.

  “Meet me at the coffee shop at the end of your block.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  Her words hold no meaning to him anymore. Their weight disappears into the pixels of the photograph he receives confirming that his PI has found Amanda. Emily has served her purpose and he can appreciate that, but he won’t have her getting in the way.

  ***

  After their first meeting, it didn’t take Matthew long to know that he found Emily attractive. She was a surgical resident who was as good with her hands as she was with the rest of her body that she so willingly gave to him for about eight months. It was the longest he had ever been with anyone and Demarco was sure he was going to have her collared. Matthew seriously considered it too. He saw her in her natural element, a strong, smart-mouthed defensive woman but around him, she completely transformed into someone else. She was his. And she was proud to be his and her pride turned him on.

  “Emily!” Matthew called out one day when he walked into the loft and found it eerily quiet. He walked around to the kitchen to find it empty. He checked the bedrooms, the bathrooms, his study, still no sign of her. He was about to ring her cell when he heard something fall in the study and he walked over and pushed the door open to see her, prancing around the room dressed in a tight black leather bodice that supported her breast with a sturdy under-bone and a thin, barely-there lace around her breast. She had on heels, with her hair pinned up as she thumbed through some books and sashayed across the floor. Stuffed in her ear were her two pods and she wiggled her gratifying behind to whatever music she was listening to that prevented her from hearing him when he called. Matthew leaned against the door frame and watched her dancing for a few minutes, deciding what to do. She hadn’t technically broken any rules and she was already dressed, just the way he liked it. He knew she would be tired from her shift at the hospital but she looked delicious in her little outfit and he needed to have at least a bite of his new favorite snack. He cleared his throat and she kept dancing so he stepped into the room and closed the door. Emily caught movement in the corner of her eye and turned to see Matthew standing there with his back against the closed door, watching her.

  “Master,” she gasps, falling to her knees almost instantly. He smiles at how willingly she does it and thinks back to the first time he instructed her to do so. It was also the first time he flogged her and the first time she realized that she was definitely into him and his lifestyle.

  “Come here,” he points at the spot before him and she starts to stand but he stops her.

  “Tsk tsk,” he wags a finger at her, “Crawl. Slowly.”

  She lowers herself onto her hands and her breasts strain against the thin fabric. He can feel the immediate pressure building up in his pants as he watches her crawl over to him, her round ass moving behind her like the subtle ebb and flow of the ocean. She keeps her head down until she gets to his feet, and brings herself up to just her knees.

  “Stand,” he whispers, the urgent need to have her, pounding in his chest. He watches her stand slowly then slips a finger under her chin to lift her face up to his.

  “Good evening Emily,” he smirks and she blushes.

  “Good evening Master.”

  “You may call me Matthew this evening Emily. I’m actually quite pleased with your floor show today.” Her cheeks bloomed red under his praise.

  “Would you like some dinner? I brought food home.”

  She licks her lips and he knows she has seen his erection before looking up at him. She is hungry but it isn’t for food. That’s the other thing he enjoys about her. She has an unusual amount of energy, considering what she does outside of their time together. He hasn’t grown tired of her in the three months they have been paired, and she apparently wasn’t getting tired of anything he did to her, even if he tried. He hasn’t though. He respects who she was before she met him and all that she is willing to do to adjust to fit his lifestyle. He has agreed to her weekly phone call back home with her friend, provided that she never reveals too much about his lifestyle outside of the community. She has free reign to speak to the other subs at CRAVE about anything she wants, he actually encouraged it as he soon found that the more she learned from other subs, the better she became.

  “Let’s eat,” he smirked at her, surprising her by running his hands up between her legs before cupping her sex, “I’ll have this for dessert.”

  ***

  The coffee shop is particularly quiet as she sits across from him. Just last week he made her cum three times in one night before putting her to sleep and now, here he is, explaining to her, why she needs to let him go.

  “Do you understand?” he asks an
d he can see the horror in her eyes as she scans through the contents of the envelope he brought with him from the room. Emily’s eyes water and she tries to speak several times before finally breaking down into a sob.

  Matthew sits across from her and tries not to feel her devastation. He knows she has grown attached to him; they almost always do, but he has never been able to attach himself to anyone, though he has to admit that she came the closest to leaving an impression on him. He thought perhaps she was the one he was meant to mate with, but the second he read the envelope he understood why he was always so drawn to her. He tried to leave California cleanly enough. No drama, no muss no fuss. He didn’t want to see Emily again unless he really had to and by then he hoped she would have gotten him out of her system. He certainly had no issues getting her out of his.

  “Did you know all along?” He asks her, his face stern, hiding whatever sympathy he may have felt towards her.

  “What?” she shrieks. “What do you mean did I know?”

  “Do not raise your voice at me.” He snaps and she whimpers. He tries to take a softer approach with her. If she genuinely did not know then this will all be a shock to her too.

  “I found when I was in high school...I didn’t know how to process any of what I had found out and naturally, I hadn’t confronted my parents in the beginning. I started lashing out and I would end up getting expelled. That’s how I met her. She came to me. She spoke to me first. I swear I didn’t know.” He can hear the bewilderment in her voice.

  “She waited for you for years. I know this because you were all she would ever talk about. Non-stop. She had a picture of you that she carried everywhere and a camera that you apparently gave to her.”

  Matthew feels a small smile creep upon his face as he thinks of younger Amanda walking around with his photo in her breast pocket, and cringes at the realization that it only made his late return that much more painful. She actually waited for him.

  “She refused to make any more friends. They bullied her before I got there.”

  “Did you protect her?” Matthew asks with a tone that says the answer had better be yes.

  “When I could which wasn’t always, but I did when I could. She was the only friend I had there for the first year. Everyone else thought I was some kind of monster but not Amanda. She’s been there with me since her first bad joke.”

  Matthew sits in silence and watches Emily struggle with the deep-rooted conflict of interest that lay on the table before her. “Master,”

  “You don’t need to call me that any more Emily. I’ve released you.”

  She winces as though stung by a bee but slowly nods, “Matthew, you should know that your broken promise really shaped who she is. Well, I guess it’s not just you though is it.”

  “What do you mean?” he asks her, ignoring her insertions of self-pity.

  “She doesn’t make friends easily because she expects everyone to abandon her. To leave her with empty promises and a broken heart. Her heart is only strong enough to hold one of us. She may try to hold both of us, now that you’re back, but I don’t know if she’ll be able to handle the truth of what we are.”

  “That is why you’re not going to say anything to her about any of this.”

  “She deserves to know, don’t you think? You want me to lie to her? I’ve never lied to her in my whole life. That may be familiar territory to you-“

  “Watch it,” he growls and her breath catches in the back of her throat. Will she ever get over him? Even now that he’s released her and dropped these enormous bombs in her chest, she wants to climb into his lap and ride him in the middle of the coffee shop.

  “We’re not telling her anything. You’re going to go back to school in the morning. I’ll pay for your airfare. You’ll say nothing to her and I won’t say anything to her either.”

  “I don’t think this is a good idea. The truth is bound to come out at some point.”

  “I don’t quite care what you think right now though, do I? You’re going to be on a plane in the morning heading back to California and that is the end of that.” He looks at the raw sadness in her eyes and softens. She hasn’t done anything to deserve this.

  “Emily,” he takes her hand into his, “I have searched for Amanda my whole life. Even when I didn’t realize I had been looking for her. That is how I found you. Your eyes reminded me so much of her, and I saw so much of her in you. Even without realizing it I was drawn to her. You can always find another Dom, but there is only one of her.”

  Emily smiles at him across the table. Her Dom. Her one and only. He has taken her as a young submissive and molded her into the obedient woman she is today. She is sure she loves him, but she knows she loves Amanda too. He is right. She may be able to find another Dom to steal her heart and pleasure her body even half as much as he had, and that will be enough for her but she is certain that there is only one Amanda and she wants to protect her now more than she ever has before.

  “Okay.” She responds softly. “I’ll be gone in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Emily has kept her word. Matthew has seen her taxi leave for the airport early in the morning and as he stands by the door ready to know, he wonders idly if she has somehow managed to let something slip before she left. When Amanda opens the door, he can see several walls go up before his very eyes. Emily was right- Amanda is heavily guarded, and it pains him to think that he has somehow added to that.

  “Can I help you?” she asks brusquely and he has the urge to take her across the knee right there on her doorstep.

  “May I come inside?” he asks coolly, ignoring her tone. She looks him up and down and notes the subtle scent of his aftershave and how much her stupid body is reacting to just seeing him here. He completely ghosted on her last night and then Emily had disappeared by morning. It felt almost as though they were tag-teaming each other and that is not a visual she wants in her head.

  “Well?” he asks again when she doesn’t answer and she steps to the side reluctantly letting him in. She closes the door and stands there leaning against it, watching him as his massive frame crosses the room and stops by the kitchen counter. He turns around as though realizing for the first time that she hasn’t been following him. He stands there, quietly observing her as her back desperately clings to the door, as though her soul is using her body to block the fact that it is tunneling a hole into the door, in an attempt to escape.

  Her shoulders are far too rigid and his jaw flexes as he watches her trying to decide whether to not to run away from him. It pisses him off about as much as it hurt him.

  “Do you have to work today?” He asks, removing his jacket slowly, and resting it on the counter. He notes that there is no air condition on in the room but there a single oscillating fan struggling to keep the room cool. She doesn’t respond. Her eyes remain fixed on him as he rolls up his cuffs before walking back into the living room and taking a seat on the couch, close to the fan. Every nerve in his body wants to make her sit. To make her relax and trust him the way she had when they were kids, but he knows he has lost the trust, years ago and if Demarco has taught him nothing, he has certainly made it abundantly clear that the most important thing in a D/s relationship is the element of trust. His lack of response is slowly starting to grate on his patience, as he pulls the top button on his shirt open. She walks into the living room but instead of walking towards him, she walks over to the windows and opens them to let fresh air in.

  “Thank you.” He says, his eyes never leaving her as she settles into the seat across from him.

  “I believe I owe you an apology,” he starts.

  “Two.” She cuts in and he narrows his eyes at her.

  “I’m not a big fan of making apologies so I’ll do one to cover both offenses.” He keeps his voice level and she pouts, before folding her arms across her chest.

  “Before I apologize, I believe I also owe you an explanation-”

  “That would be the understatement of the decade.”


  “Interrupt me one more time Amanda and I will drag your tempting sweet white ass over here, prop you up on my knee and give you the spanking of your fucking life.”

  Her mouth falls open at his promise and her eyes become baby-bird wings, fluttering at his delicious threat. She feels a tiny fit of moral outrage spring up in her chest but it is overpowered by the loud cry of her stolen orgasm from the night before.

  He watches her slowly decide not to argue with him and feels just a twinge of disappointment that he won’t be spanking her so soon. Her face had always shown vividly what her thoughts were and so he held her gaze as he explained to her the reason he took so long to come back to her. He walks her through the details of the crash and tears fill her eyes as he explains that not only did he lose the ability to move or speak for a long time, he also forgot who she was and how much she meant to him. He tells her about Demarco and the fact that he had proven to be more of an influence on his life than he could have expected.

  “I think it’s because when I started getting to know him, I didn’t remember enough to have too many walls up and by the time my memories came back, I had already formed a new opinion of him.” She smiles at him through her tears and nods. He can tell that she is happy for him. “So your memories of me were the last to return?” she asks quietly.

  “Not exactly. I remembered your face. I would see you in the most random moments. I would hear your laughter in the silence but I couldn’t figure out who you were. In time I made the connection and figured out that we met at the home but that was it for a very long time.”

  She studies his face. She always had a way of knowing whether or not he was lying, and even after so many years has passed, he can see her doing it now. Assessing his words, studying his face, reaching down into his soul and shining a floodlight to see him for who he is.

  “So how did you eventually remember who I was? How did you find me,” she asks, trying not to throw herself into his arms and hug him. He hasn’t lied to her. He almost died. She suddenly feels selfish for hating him all those years and believing the worst of him. He never lied to her. He didn’t then and he isn’t now. She is finally able to allow herself to be happy to see him, as she waits on his response to her question.