by Shae Black
Elijah stands to leave as I return to bed with no idea of what movie to watch…or not to watch. Elijah glances at Marcus and then at me and back to Marcus. Marcus nods his head. “It will be fine Elijah you can give it to me.” Elijah retrieves something from a bag at his feet. At first I think it’s a vase of some sort but then the realization that its an urn hits me square between the eyes. What the fuck is Elijah doing with an urn? And why is he giving it to Marcus? Elijah hands the urn over and quickly exits the room, leaving us alone in an awkward silence; me staring at him wide eyed and mouth hanging open. He holds it in both hands caressing his thumbs across what I assume is the name of the person inside.
After a moment adrift, he looks up at me as if he just remembered I was there.
“Ahh… who’s is that?”
“Megan,” he answers flatly.
“The women that was in the accident with you?” Why does he have her ashes instead of her family?
“Yes.”
“Was she…special to you?” I am so curious about his past and finally I’ve been given the perfect opportunity to uncover something, Elijah gave him the urn right in front of me after all so technically I’m not prying. “No, it’s very complicated.” I move to his side of the bed and perch there next to his legs. “I’d like to know.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus I’m sleeping with you, practically living in your home and I know next to nothing about you.”
He sighs deeply, “I’ll tell you about her but after I do, no more discussing it.”
“Ok… fine.” My heart picks up the tempo as I wonder if I really want to hear this after all.
“When I was in college I found her, she was a dirty little girl, 10 years old, homeless, hungry, and alone.” He’s staring at the urn, turning it in his hands while he tells me her story. “I don’t know what it was about her, she was crouched next to a dumpster outside a coffee shop I frequented, I’d seen her there for several days when I finally spoke to her. I know how it feels to be alone and hungry with no one to depend on. I learned that she had been in foster care after being abused by her biological parents and then the parents the government assigned to did the same. I took her home with me. I was well off living on the money my Aunt Angelica left me, and I wanted to help her, something in her eyes reminded me of myself. I home schooled her, it was easy to do online. She was smart; I paid for her to go to college. After she was eighteen it didn’t matter if she lived with me, she was an adult and foster care wasn’t interested anymore. She worked hard, never complained, she was always grateful for my help, stayed out of trouble. When she turned 22 she wanted to support herself. I had recently opened Dominus here in Seattle; she worked as a server all through college and made a hell of a living while she looked for a career in business. My customers have money to throw away and they tipped her outrageously, she was beautiful, proficient at her job and it didn't hurt that they thought she was related to me. The money she earned brought her freedom and soon without school to focus on she started going out all the time after work, hooking up with a bad crowd, drinking, drugs and the whole fucking loser scene I’d worked to keep her out of all those years. She befriended a few of the strippers who work in the club at Dominus and started learning routines, stripping, and behind my back she began working in the club. I hired her as a waitress not a fucking stripper slut.. I was livid; I thought I was going to kill her, along with the manager at the time for letting her do it. Needless to say, that manager is no longer with us.”
The way he says ‘not with us’ sounds like he wasn’t simply fired from the job…but something more permanent. A chill runs up my spine, and I shiver as he continues, “Anyway she insisted on working in the club and when I refused to allow it she threatened to quit and work in a different club where I would not be able to keep an eye on her. I chose the lesser of the two evils and I let her strip in my club.” He pauses and I get the feeling he’s done talking, but I stay quiet, afraid that if I interrupt he may clam up and stop letting me in. He continues. “I was so angry when she threw the life that I had given her away like it was nothing, I wanted to punish her and I did, in the most twisted way I could. I knew it would be easy to make her to fall in love with me, she already loved me like a brother or a father so transitioning that relationship into a sexual one was child’s play. I tortured her for years, allowing her to believe there was a future with me for a while and then showing her how little she meant to me by dating other women right under her nose. We would argue, she would take me back and I’d do it again and again. I secretly hated her for wasting my generosity. I made her into something good and pure and she threw it away to be a fucking stripper and let men chain her up and fuck her for money. The night of the accident I was driving her home after closing the club. She told me she needed to take our relationship to another level, she wanted me to stop having sex with other women forever.” His cold glare frightens me, as well as his evil admissions.
“What does that have to do with the accident?”
“We were arguing, I was distracted, furiously yelling at her and she at me. I thought I had control of the car, we swerved a few times when she swiped at me but I was in control. I don’t know how we went over that bridge; my memory between fighting and seeing her floating lifeless in the seat next to me has been erased. One minute she was screaming that she couldn't live with out me the next she was gone. She died on impact, the coroner told me her neck snapped, she didn’t suffer. Elena put together a service for her. I don’t know why, she had no family; the only people who showed up were her junkie friends and some of the staff from Dominus. She sent me the ashes, Megan didn’t have anybody who would want them.” Silence blankets the room; the only sound I can hear is my heart beating violently in my chest. I want to leave, this isn’t the man I love. The Marcus I know would never play with a young woman’s love that way.
When I was in that coma I wanted to let the darkness take me, I felt so guilty knowing that I hurt Megan purposely; I should have never touched her. She was like my little sister for Christ’s sake it was so wrong, I knew she loved me but I didn’t care, she pissed me off by getting into drugs and essentially blackmailing me into allowing her work for me as a stripper. I thought she deserved it after all I did for her.”
I gasp and pull away from him heedlessly and he closes his eyes, shaking his head. “This is why we can never talk of this again.”
“Wait… I remember you saying you wanted to let the darkness take you. But you hung on…why?” I already know the answer to my question; he’s told me before that my words kept him anchored to this world. But after that story I need reminding of his goodness, of our connection and even more importantly that he’s not a monster.
“You…you were my savior Imani, you know you were. Your voice, your words, your music, they called to me they kept me holding on. I had to stay alive so I could get to you.” He’s pleading with his eyes for me to understand, to accept all that he’s done. And amazingly I do. There isn’t anything from his past that could drive me away, he owns me, I am his. He is my Dominus the Master and Lord of my heart. I cannot admit this to him now, exposing myself like that to anyone could be a fatal risk. He is or used to be capable of destroying a woman’s heart effortlessly, I can’t let him know how easily he could ruin me, and he could ruin me completely.
Chapter 24
Magically Maria appears at the bedroom door, knocking lightly on the frame, it’s open, as usual. “You need something Senior Castillo?” she asks timidly.
“Yes Maria take this and put it in my office, I’ll put it away later.” He holds out the urn and her eyes widen for a split second before she hurries to the bed to retrieve it. I watch her bustle away, carrying the last of Megan.
“How did she know you needed her?” I ask, baffled as to where she must keep herself to be at his disposal so quickly.
“She knows,” he answers flatly, as if that were an answer at all.
“What do you mean she kn
ows?”
“Just what I said, she knows.” That’s not the answer I want and he knows it he’s being stubborn. Rolling my eyes, I step away from the bed, all of the information he has just provided is swimming around in my head. This is not at all how I expected our relaxing evening in with pizza and a movie going. I need to get lost, I need music, I need a book, online shopping, anything normal and familiar to get my mind off all of this crap. “I’m not in the mood for a movie, can we just eat, listen to some music and go to bed?” Oh please, please, just don’t argue with me I pray silently.
“Yes, we can just eat, listen to music and go to bed Imani,” he says with a sigh and a touch of regret in his voice.
“Ok” Studying my feet and fiddling with the belt of my robe, part of me wants to take off into my room to sort this shit out. But I know he won’t allow it, he was apprehensive about telling me this story and with good reason. Any woman with any sense at all would have been out of here a long time ago but I’m in too deep now, if I try to escape he’ll follow me. The other part of me wins, the crazy part that craves Marcus’s presence and his endless ability to distract me. I lay my iPad down and turn on one of my favorite a playlists. Scooting across the bed while he opens the pizza box the notes from the first song on the playlist float through the room. After a few bars he stills to search my eyes. “I remember this,” he says softly. I’d almost forgotten that this was the music I played for him when he was unconscious. “Why do I remember it, who is the band?”
“Of Monsters and Men,” I say, tilting my head to the side to look at him out of one eye.
“I don’t listen to them, where do I know this from?” He bows his head closing his eyes in concentration when he suddenly looks up at me. “You played this for me, when I was asleep, you played music for me didn’t you?”
“Yes. I did.”
“Can you start it over? I want to listen to the words.” The song is half way through. “Why?” I ask.
“I just do.” There’s a long pause while I sit staring at him. “Please,” he asks, and that’s all it takes for me. When he acts like a gentleman I’m putty in his hands. I replay the song; the artists take turns singing the verses while he closes his eyes, listening closely.
“I’m looking for a place to start
But everything feels so different now
Just grab ahold of my hand
I will lead you through this wonderland
As the soft walls eat us alive”
The song continues and we sit listening together to lyrics that I never imagined I would relate to. When I made this playlist I chose songs I liked, things that moved me or invoked emotions whether they were familiar or foreign I added them to the collection.
“Imani you are my yellow light.” Impulsively I crawl across the bed accidentally pushing the pizza box off onto the floor and straddle his beautiful chiseled body. I am so very grateful he hasn’t disappointed me in the distraction department. With greedy hands I hold his face and kiss his mouth with a fever unmatched until this moment. His hands roam my body sliding over my shoulders searching my back and seizing my ass pulling me close to grind his length against the exact spot that sends electrical jolts from my chest to my core. My hands are everywhere at once desperately trying to get closer to him. I need him inside of me now. He pushes the silk robe off of my shoulders and I fervently slip my arms out as he continues with my tank top. I only move my lips away for a microsecond to allow him room to yank the tank over my head, and then our mouths crash together again. I kiss a blazing trail down the side of his neck where his blood pulses through his arteries under my lips, to his chest where his heart pounds furiously and ending at the edge of the pajama pants that he begrudgingly wears for me. I pause to look into his heavy lidded bedroom eyes and drink in the lust there until one corner of his lip lifts in that sexy fucking smirk. Without an ounce of restraint left I pull at the elastic waist of his pants, his hips thrust up immediately allowing me to remove them. I kneel between his legs moving down his body while taking his pants with me until finally I stand on the mattress and shimmy out of my shorts, dropping them on the floor next to us and into a pile of pizza and clothes. I press pause on my sudden attack to admire Marcus lying under me, hard as hell and ready, I can’t wait another second, I nudge his legs together with my foot and drop to my knees hovering over him, teasing him until he’s finished being tempted. He takes control as only he can, guiding my hips down until he slides his impressive length into the hot liquid of my sex plunging into me again and again I meet him thrust for thrust until he begins circling my clit with his thumb.
My head swims from all of the simultaneous stimulation, my heart hammers in it’s cage and I’m panting so hard and I can hardly breathe. I don’t think I’ll survive the delicious torture one second longer when Marcus plunges into me so deep that my vision goes white. I gasp and he intensifies the penetration by sitting up until he is so deep I don’t know where I stop and he begins. Wrapping our arms around each other our mouths reconnect and our tongues circle with an indescribable hunger. He begins lifting my body and I ride his thick cock sliding up and down a fire builds inside my belly that begs to be extinguished, I hold on sensing he isn’t fully satisfied yet. Matching the increasing intensity of the music that builds and builds, his thrusts become faster more demanding until he interrupts the sounds of our heavy breathing, panting and the slapping of our slick bodies.
“Now Imani!” We explode together in a supernova orgasm that simultaneously claims every cell in our bodies. We yell one another’s names; the moment is so intense it’s impossible to focus. The music fades away taking our little moment of heaven with it. Holding each other tightly we come down together and the playlist continues to ‘Stay’ by Rihanna. Pulling away, his loving eyes convey the meaning of the song straight through my heart… he wants me to stay. Overcome by emotion, tears slide down my cheeks, and he sweeps them away with his thumbs in a sweet gesture of understanding. He places his cheek against mine and sings with Rihanna into my ear. I’m blown away by his beautiful voice, he can really sing. When the song is done he backs away from me. “Will you?” Understanding exactly what he’s asking I answer with no hesitation. “I’ll stay, I promise,” I whisper. He lowers our bodies down and gently shifts me into our sleeping position. I rest my cheek against his chest and listen to his heartbeat until sleep claims my sated contented body.
Chapter 25
“Imani.” Marcus nudges me softly with his shoulder. “Imani.” He says again, only slightly louder. I snap my eyes open, trying to see something in the dark room. Except for the soft glow of Marcus’s ‘night-light’ as I have come to think of it the room is pitch black.
“Hmmm?”
“You fell asleep.”
“Um… yea.” So it appears but I’m wondering what the problem is with this situation. “You didn’t take anything, I was worried you might have a nightmare, I stayed awake as long as I could watching you but I need to close my eyes for a few minutes.” Propping up on my shoulder I look at the time. Shit! It’s 4:30 a.m. I haven’t slept this long without a sleeping pill or a nightmare for…well for 10 years!
“Shit, I’m sorry. You didn’t have to do that, you should have woken me earlier!” “Baby, you were sleeping so well, there was no way in hell I was going to interrupt that. I enjoy watching you sleep. All of your wheels stop, the worry melts away, every muscle on your face relaxes, you are so peaceful…” he says, brushing the back of his knuckles against my cheek.
“I haven’t slept without a nightmare since it happened,” I whisper. “I figured as much, another reason I let you be.” He smiles.
“Thank you.”
“You my dear are very welcome,” He says, feathering his hand from my cheek down my shoulder to my arm ending by entwining his fingers with mine. I follow his hand until it meets mine. He hesitates a few beats before he offers me another piece of him, of his history. “I have nightmares too.”
“I remember, I heard y
ou once when you were in the hospital.”
“Oh yes, you did that’s right.” Not wanting to extinguish the beginning of a new chapter from the life of Marcus I try to keep him talking.
“Why…do you have them?” His eyes close and I sense he’s changing his mind about opening up so I lower myself off of my elbow and snuggle into his side. Maybe if he doesn’t have to look directly into my eyes it will be easier. I know it worked for me when I told my story to a therapist. His body relaxes microscopically and he begins again, “I did not have the best childhood, actually that is putting it extremely mildly. My mother, was…. ill…. mentally ill…schizophrenic.” He pauses for my reaction from me but I give him nothing. This is important; I intentionally work to reign in my feelings until he can say what he needs to say. “My sister and I were left home with her a lot, my father traveled for work and he was in serious denial of my mother’s condition. Elena and I had no idea what was wrong with her, but we knew enough to know that other children’s mothers didn’t act like ours. She was delusional, psychotic, and abusive, she had hallucinations. She forced new religions and beliefs on us every week. We barely slept trying to stand guard and protect each other. She starved us in the name of sacrifice to whatever god she was worshipping at the moment. We were locked us up in dark closets to pray for hours on end. Teachers and people in the community turned a blind eye to us; no one understood mental illness back then. Every one knew something was wrong, but my father was an influential man and they followed his lead, ignoring all of the obvious signs of abuse. We thought it was our fault, why else would a mother treat her kids that way?” When he pauses the enormity of his pain starts to sink in, how could two little kids survive with no hope of ever being rescued from the abusive hands of their own mother? “What about your family, didn’t they suspect? Why didn’t anyone intervene?”