Husband Heel (Husband #3)

by Louise Cusack

  I nodded, wanting to be a grown up, wanting to be honest. So I said, “I don’t know what I want. I just feel bad.”

  He gazed at me a moment longer, then he stepped forward and pulled me into his arms. “You trust me,” he said against my hair, and I listened to the thudding of his heart against my ear, not bothering to answer because he knew I did. Then I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him close.

  I didn’t have any words. I loved him, and I was suddenly terrified of losing him. The seven days were almost over and I couldn’t see how we could be a couple when we went home. It just didn’t fit in my mind. Yet if he was gone—the emptiness that would create seemed impossible to bear.

  When he stripped the nightgown from my body and carried me to the bed I kissed him hungrily, wanting to stamp my sexuality on him, to mark my territory, before it slipped through my fingers.

  But as I lay on the bed, watching him strip, loving the fact that his body was mine to explore and to arouse, I felt the keen edge of loss, as if it had already happened—as if this was our last time and I had to make it good.

  So when he climbed over me and said, “I can’t be gentle this time,” his voice low and raw with need, I simply nodded, prepared for whatever might occur. But there was no pain. There was only Nicholas, kissing me greedily, molding me to the shape of his desire and stripping every inhibition I’d owned. The first time was fierce as he pinned me to the bed and pounded out an orgasm that sounded almost painful—whether it was the bruises or simply a primitive desire gripping him.

  But when it was done, he carried me to the bathroom and showered us both, soaping me and taking his time with slippery caresses, realizing I was aroused but hadn’t climaxed. Then he crouched to play with my ass, stroking, squeezing, biting and licking while slowly teasing an orgasm out of my clitoris that was so strong it wiped the memory of everything that had gone before and left me shaky, throbbing and dazed by the pleasure my body could experience.

  I was sleepy then and wanted to go to bed but he wasn’t finished, and he hadn’t gentled. In fact, if anything, he was firmer as he turned me around and rested my cheek on the cool tiles so he could enter me from behind, still molding my body with his hands, more firmly than before, as if he was having trouble restraining himself.

  His hands on my breasts squeezed and pinched, and despite the cataclysmic orgasm I’d just had, he quickly reignited the spark, driving me into a world of pure lust, pure sensation. Every grip of his large hands felt as if he was marking his territory, and I willingly and wantonly encouraged him with growls of pleasure.

  When his hand captured my hair in a fist and he turned my head so he could kiss me, I felt thrill tingle over my skin. There was a surety to his possession that relaxed my boundaries completely, and I had a flicker of wondering if this was why people wanted to be submissives. It was so liberating to put your body into someone else’s hands, and to be the instrument of their pleasure, without requirement of thought on your part.

  I could simply experience, and as he let my cheeks slide back on to the tiles and then pulled my hips back to slide a hand down over my clitoris again, I surrendered completely to his will. The first confident stroke of his fingers made me shudder as pleasure wormed up inside me again, and that seemed to encourage him to tighten his hold on my hair and pound into me harder, faster.

  The fact that he was saying nothing, spoke volumes. Our lovemaking was normally filled with endearments and exclamations of delight. This time it was guttural and primitive, as if our fears had wiped away everything but our deepest needs.

  And my need was bliss. I wanted that explosion of physical release, and as it grew closer, I lost coherence. My mind filled with white-noise and my body swarmed with tingles of hot licking pleasure, tightening my breasts as they rubbed against the tiles, abrading the hard nipples.

  I felt Nicholas’s breath on my shoulder, and then his teeth, hard, before he sucked it and bit it again, his breaths growing harsh, and then my orgasm slammed into me and his hand on my groin pulled me tight against him as I shuddered and groaned and scrabbled on the tiles beside my face, oblivious to his thrusts as he came again, mashing me against the shower wall with his body as he groaned against my skin, a sound so deep and harsh it seemed almost inhuman.

  My eyes were closed and I was physically exhausted, so I simply breathed, knowing his body against me was the only thing holding me up. For the longest time, we just stood there, breathing, then at last he kissed my shoulder where he’d bit it and let go my hair, carefully removing his hand from my pubic mound, and then turning me to face him.

  “Louella,” he said softly. “Open your eyes, honey.”

  I shook my head. “Too tired.”

  “Okay.”

  I heard him turn the shower on again and simply stood there as he used it to clean us both, trembling as the soft jets cleansed my sensitized genitals. Then he patted me down with a fluffy towel and carried me back to bed.

  I didn’t open my eyes. I just drifted to sleep, but the last thing I remember was his kiss on my shoulder where he’d bit me, and the softest of whispers, “I know you love me, so I’m going to say it. Tomorrow…”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I woke in the night to Nicholas’s head between my thighs, softly, persuasively, pleasuring me with his hot, wet, tongue. It was as if he knew the flesh was tender and he was being careful not to rub, but instead to slide wetly over it, gliding along the edge of shimmering bliss and then back to where the sensations were more diffuse, and all the time, cupping my ass cheeks in his large hands, caressing and squeezing and edging me closer to the inevitable orgasm that wound inside me like tightening bands and finally snapped, sending shards of pleasure arrowing up my body and emptying me, yet again, of energy.

  I slept again and woke to soft light filtering into the room through the closed drapes. I knew there was a private garden outside for our use, but in that moment of remembering the day before, I wanted to simply stay in the bed. Forever.

  Nicholas was sprawled out beside me, one arm over his head, the other resting on his abdomen. Above it the bruises were darker across his ribs than they had been, as was the one on his cheek. For a moment I wondered how much pain he’d suffered in the pursuit of our pleasure the night before, but I wanted the rest of the world to go away, so I understood his focus. It was easier to stop thinking when you were swept up in sex.

  So I leant over to gently kiss a bruise below one nipple, I promised myself that today I would think of nothing but sex. When his bruises were all kissed, I moved lower, and soon my attentions woke him to the same pleasure he’d woken me to in the night.

  I took my time, edging him closer and then easing back, wanting the orgasm to be fierce when it gripped him, but at last he said, “Louella,” his voice strained with the same tension that was bunching the muscles of his arms where he gripped the bedhead behind him.

  I looked up innocently and popped his penis out of my mouth. “Yes?”

  “Stop torturing me.”

  I smiled and said, “I was just working up an appetite,” then I went back to feasting, but with more vigor than before and soon I was enjoying the sounds of his own submission as he clutched the headboard and finally roared out an orgasm that not only provided me an appetizer before breakfast, but as I lapped that up, he shivered with aftershocks and threw an arm over his eyes.

  “Sweet mother of God!”

  I sat back on my haunches. “We’re not in the convent anymore. You can stop praying.”

  He shook his head, still not looking at me. “And you’re worried about gypsies killing me.” At last he dropped his arm, and with eyes still closed he said, “Come here,” and opened his arms so I could snuggle in against him, being careful of the bruises. “I should punish you for that,” he said softly, and kissed my forehead. “I should tie you up and lick you until you beg me to make you come.”

  “You didn’t beg.”

  “A man has pride.”

  I
snuffled a laugh.

  “All right. Not much. But I have some.”

  “All you had to do was say, Louella, make me come, and I would have.”

  “Because you’re so easily bossed around.” He kissed my hair this time.

  I thought about that. “In bed I am.” When he’d molded me to his pleasure the night before it had been a revelation, and I wanted that again. “I liked you being so firm with me.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  I shook my head against his chest. “The second time in the shower, the penetration stung a bit, but that just gave the pleasure an edge.”

  “So pain and pleasure?”

  I was about to nod when I realized there was something different about his voice. Somewhere along the line he’d stopped bantering. I sat up in bed and looked at him, and he gazed back at me quite solemnly.

  Before I could speak he said, “I know what they do at The Rock’s Spa, in the secret rooms.”

  I blinked, and all the warmth of the morning fled as cold prickled over my skin. Within seconds my mouth was dry and tingling, and I couldn’t speak.

  He swallowed, clearly not enjoying the conversation but there was determination in his eyes, and I suddenly realized he’d known about this for some time and had probably been working up the courage to broach it.

  “I don’t understand,” he said quietly, “why any woman would want to be hurt. But my mother did. I grew up watching my father beat her and she did nothing, nothing to stop him. When I tried to stand up to him, she protected him. And eventually she committed suicide. That’s why I protect women, because I don’t want anyone to get away with what he did.”

  There was such depth of emotion in his voice, I felt myself pulled away from my own fears about the conversation to say, “I’m sorry. That’s completely understandable.” If I’d ever wondered why someone would become a bodyguard, that would be a good motive. It made perfect sense. But… “Why are you bringing that up?”

  “I know you were in one of the private rooms.” He gazed at me for the longest time while I struggled to breathe. “That morning, I asked you if you were hurt and you said quite the opposite, so I’m assuming you experienced that pain as a pleasure. Did you have sex?”

  “No.” What was he saying? “What pain?”

  He breathed silently for several seconds, then said, “Submissives go there to be dominated, often to be whipped. I don’t understand why—”

  “Wait! What?” My mind was jangling with thoughts that were wrong. “Do you think I let someone hurt me? That I let a stranger whip me or…” I shook my head. He was classing me in the same pathetic basket as his mother who he clearly pitied—being beaten by her nasty husband. It was so far from the Louella I knew myself to be—despite my excitement last night at our rough sex—that I blurted out, “I was the one dominating. No one hurt me.”

  Horror clouded his handsome face and it took him seconds to say, “You…hurt someone? A stranger?”

  I was angry at Marcus. I was poisoned by the past. I needed to purge it or I’d go insane.

  These were all valid things I could say, but in that instant of watching his reaction, I kept my mouth closed. He was sickened by what I’d done, and was in the process of classifying me alongside his nasty abusive father. Any explanation on my part would require me to reveal the disgusting details of my sexual relationship with Marcus and I wasn’t doing that.

  Nicholas might already suspect what I’d been through, but I didn’t want to confirm it, to re-awaken it in my mind. I’d moved so far away from the person who’d permitted that, I wasn’t going back. I was healed. Nicholas himself had healed me. I couldn’t let him undo that healing and turn me back into the woman I had been—someone who feared they were perverted, someone who couldn’t live with what she had become.

  Besides, it was clear from the look on his face that he’d never understand my actions in any case. His world was black and white. Good people and bad people. And I was on the bad side. I was the person who inflicted pain because it made them feel better, exactly as his father had.

  Completely true.

  There was no way I could deny what I’d done, no justification that would erase my sin. I’d considered it behind me, but I realized now that I’d paid no penalty for my crime.

  Clearly, this was the price—the withdrawal of his affections.

  I got out of bed and stood beside it. “I’m not who you thought I was. It’s completely understandable that you’d withdraw your love.”

  He shook his head, his eyes so dark and tortured I couldn’t face them anymore. “Did you hurt someone?”

  “Yes I did.” He said nothing, so I added, “Stay in the bedroom. I’ll be gone in ten minutes.”

  I didn’t give him time to reply, and tellingly, as I dressed and phoned the concierge and the travel agent, he did as I asked. He stayed in the bedroom while I walked out of his life, taking only my handbag with me.

  While I waited by the concierge’s desk for my taxi to arrive, I could feel something bubbling up inside me, as if my skin was a fragile shell that was about to break and let lava flow out, but I clamped down on that. Unfortunately, Sharona materialized as I was stepping into the taxi, but that only infuriated me enough to say, “Yes, I was having an affair with my bodyguard while Marcus was dying. Are you satisfied?”

  Self-punishing behavior perhaps, but there’s something about attack that feels better than self-defense. When the taxi door closed I was alone, more alone than I’d ever felt in my life, but I didn’t call anyone. I just breathed. In. Out. Get to the airport. In. Out. Get on the plane. Navigate the stopover. Arrive in Sydney. Taxi home.

  I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I didn’t think.

  When I was back inside my home, I went to my room, showered and went to bed. It was only 4pm, but I took tranquilizers and pulled the drapes, only taking time to text Betty and tell her I was back and wanted the house to myself for a few days. I knew she came and watered plants and tidied while I wasn’t there, but I didn’t want to face anyone.

  So I slept.

  When I woke in the middle of the night, I simply took more tablets and went back to sleep—not because I was worried about jetlag. I simply couldn’t be awake and inside my own mind. It was full of jagged edges, self-condemnation and recriminations.

  When I was awake, I sat in the library and looked out the window at my trees, not letting myself think, not letting myself feel. Just observing. At night I used tranquilizers. On my third day home, however, Angela appeared at my door, pressing the doorbell relentlessly until I appeared.

  The moment she saw me her determined expression faltered into confusion, and then she—with her tiny baby bump clad in bright green Punjabi suit—was stepping over the threshold and closing the door behind her. Sandalwood scent enveloped me as she gave me a hug, then she pulled back and said, “You look terrible.”

  I hadn’t looked in a mirror for days, so I had no reference.

  “Fritha rang me,” she added, and I simply nodded. When nothing more was said, she added, “Come into the kitchen.” She took my hand, leading me in and then seating me on a barstool where the four of us had sat only a month earlier. So much had happened. That time felt like another life.

  “I’m making you lunch.” She went to the refrigerator and then tisked about the contents before pulling out some things and setting a saucepan on the stovetop.

  I watched her calmly, even managing to say, “Thank you,” when she put a weak, milky tea into my hands. Then I sipped absently, wondering if this was the first thing apart from water that I’d taken since I left Nicholas.

  Nicholas…lying on the bed naked, so sexy with his arm thrown over his head as he slept. That had been a perfect moment.

  I sighed to myself and Angela looked up from the vegetables she was chopping with a worried frown, but she didn’t say anything until we were seated at my big dining room table—the same table where Nicholas had grumpily served me pasta.

  I couldn
’t taste my soup, but I suspected it was good. Angela was an excellent cook, and it was in her nature to prepare food when people were upset. So she must have perceived me as being upset.

  I put down my spoon. “Why are you here?”

  “Fritha rang and told me about Nicholas and the extra week with him. I had to come to Sydney to finalize the wedding details, so I said I’d call in on you. I’m so glad I did.”

  “I’ve been home three days.”

  “Have you eaten? Slept?”

  “I’ve slept.” I gazed back at her while she frowned, and eventually I added, “I broke up with Nicholas.”

  “I see,” she said softly.

  “Well,” I thought about it for a second. “Technically he was about to break up with me, so I saved him the trouble.”

  Angela squirmed on her seat for a moment, and I thought I saw her blush but her skin was dark olive so it was difficult to tell. At last she said, “Fritha told me what you’d said about doing a bad thing. Did he find out about that?”

  I nodded.

  Jill would have tried to drag out the truth, but Angela just gazed at me. At last she said, “You told us he did some bad thing when you broke up the first time. You obviously forgave that. So why can’t he forgive you?”

  I admired the fact that she didn’t need to know the details. She cared enough about me as a person to put curiosity aside. But on the topic of forgiving… I shrugged. His bad thing had been about loving me. My bad thing had been about selfish anger. It was quite clear in my mind who was in the wrong. “It doesn’t matter—”

  “Yes it does,” she cut in, her eyes gentled with sympathy. “Louella, I’ve never seen you like this. Ever. You’re a train wreck. You must really love him.”

  I nodded then, because it was true. I did really love him. I remembered that feeling. It was all gone now—covered in a blanket of cotton wool, but that was for the best.

  She covered my hand with her own. “I want to ring the girls. I want them here.”