by M. S. Parker
Then he brought over the candle, and a part of me wondered if this would be the place I finally drew a line. He gave me the same reassuring smile that he always did when we got to a point where my nerves were about to get the best of me. He never coerced me into anything I didn't want to do, but he did have a knack for soothing my worries until I decided to give him a chance. Granted, I hadn't regretted it yet.
"It's going to hurt," he said honestly. "But it's a special kind of wax, made specifically for this sort of thing, so it's safe."
I nodded, the butterflies still fluttering in my stomach. He cupped my chin and ran his thumb along my bottom lip. My eyes locked with his – a no-no for most subs, I now knew, but one he permitted for a reason he hadn't yet shared – and I flicked out my tongue against the tip of his thumb. Those jade eyes of his darkened to near-black and he cursed softly.
"The things you do to me," he murmured as he straightened. His posture changed, and I knew we were transitioning from reassurance to whatever it was he was going to do with that candle.
The first drops landed on the tops of my breasts, and I jerked at the sharp pain shooting across my nerves. It didn't last long, quickly turning into a tender burn, similar to what I felt when he spanked me or used a flogger. Not entirely unpleasant, but nothing I would have described as particularly pleasant either.
Not yet anyway.
If my time with Jace had taught me anything, it was that how things began wasn't always how things ended.
I gasped as another drop fell onto my breast, a little lower this time. I'd never minded my smaller bust, but as he dropped another bit of wax on my breast, I wish I was a bit bigger, if only to avoid the place I knew the hot liquid was going next.
His thumb moved over my hardened nipple, then up to brush across the hardened wax. My eyelids fluttered, and I leaned into his touch. He made a sound in the back of his throat and took a step back.
"I still don't have as much control around you as I would like," he said quietly.
His admission warmed me in a whole different way. Before I could dwell on it too much though, he was tipping the candle again.
The next drop landed directly on my nipple, and I couldn't stop myself from crying out. But even as the pain burned through my sensitive skin, I could feel my pussy growing wet...
"Savannah?"
I jerked back to reality, flushing as I looked up to see Abel's secretary standing next to my desk. "Sorry, just lost in thought."
Kathy gave me a bored look that said she didn't really care. "Mr. Updike wants to know if you've spoken with Robby about when to do the pictures for the article."
Shit. I knew I'd forgotten something.
I reached for my phone. "I'll give him a call right now."
She sniffed as she walked away, making it clear exactly what she thought of my promise. I rolled my eyes and picked up my phone. I wasn't really that fond of our freelance photographer, mostly because he loved to talk about his 'art' like the rest of us peons didn't understand what it truly meant to be an artist. Now that I thought about it, he and Abel were two of a kind, which made sense as to why Robby got away with coming to jobs looking like he hadn't showered or washed his clothes in a week.
He answered on the first ring and was surprisingly pleasant as we discussed a schedule for the photos. I'd fully expected to have to argue to get him to go along with my vision for something that focused on the art rather than Jace, but for once, Robby readily agreed with everything I suggested.
Then I heard a girl giggling in the background and realized that he actually wanted to get me off the phone so he could get back to his company. I wasn't about to complain, not when I was going to hold him to everything he agreed to. As soon as we ended the call, I wrote everything up and sent it off to Abel to make sure it was locked in.
Once that was done, I pulled up the article and the outline I'd written and finished up the last of what I had to do until the show. Well, except the photos and captions. I still had those left. And any new pieces would need write-ups. I expected that it would have taken me longer if I hadn't had specific insight into the pieces Jace already had for display.
I managed to polish my work until it was time to leave, but before I could fill my head with thoughts of Jace and what we were going to do tonight, my phone rang. It wasn't a number I recognized, but I answered it anyway.
"Hello?"
"Savannah Birch?"
"Yes?"
The next words she spoke stopped me in my tracks.
Twenty-Three
Jace
I had a list. All the things I wanted to do with and to Savannah before this thing between us ended. Not that I was planning on breaking things off with her anytime soon. My list was too long for that. But it would happen soon enough. It always did. I'd enjoy my time with her, and then little by little, we'd want to spend more time apart. Any issues we ignored in the beginning would start to annoy us, and if we were lucky, we'd realize it was better to take a step back than to let things implode.
I enjoyed spending time with her before we started having sex, and if it was all possible, I wanted us to stay friends once everything else ended. I didn't want things between the two of us to become like they were between Bianca and me.
Which was another reason I always had to remember that Savannah and I weren't dating. I'd learned my lesson from Bianca. I didn't do the whole boyfriend / girlfriend thing. Erik's relationship with Tanya was the exception, not the rule. I wasn't going to risk it. I didn't want to risk it.
There was only one risk worth taking, and that was the one that came with the cuffs and whips and other toys I possessed in my playroom. I'd enjoyed introducing those risks to Savannah. The sight of her stretched out and bound, her soft pink skin glistening with arousal, had tested my self-control in ways I never imagined. I'd tasted her, touched her, and it wasn't enough. Even when we weren't together, thoughts of her kept coming to me. How she sounded when I took her to the edge but kept her from falling over it. The look of her skin striped pink by my hand.
A few nights ago, I introduced her to wax play, and I could almost still feel the different sensations of her soft skin and the smooth heat of the wax. She made the sexiest sounds when the melted wax landed on her nipples. And an even hotter cry when I slid the first small ice cube into her pussy.
I closed my eyes and muttered a curse. Being with Savannah had opened up a part of my artistry that had been locked away for years, giving me the ability to focus better than I had in a long time. Of course, that didn't mean I wasn't occasionally interrupted by the need to take her again even in the middle of what I was working on.
I'd never been with a woman I craved so much. Even though I had plans for us tonight, I wasn't sure I could avoid fucking her at least once before we started our games. Just the thought of burying myself inside her was enough to make me hard.
"Jace?"
Her voice came from the front foyer a moment before the door closed behind her. I'd given her a spare key and the alarm code a month ago, so I didn't have to worry about being so caught up in my work that I left her standing outside in the summer heat.
"In here!"
I didn't wait for her to come to me though. All of my planning and my preparation had heated my blood too much. I caught her in the connecting corridor, my mouth coming down hard on hers. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and when I boosted her up, her legs went around my waist, her skirt pushing up past her hips. She made a sound in the back of her throat as she rocked against me, the friction nearly painful against my cock. I gripped her hair tight as I bit down on her bottom lip, but even though I knew both actions had to sting, the moan that escaped was only one of pleasure.
I reached down, and with a quick tug, ripped off her panties, leaving her bare against my knuckles as I undid my pants. A moment later, I was inside her, driving up into her as she cried my name over and over. This wasn't about Domination or submission, about control or pain, or anything other than the fa
ct that I simply couldn't stand being near her and not being inside her.
Only a few minutes later, I pressed my face against her neck, and buried myself deep, coming with a muffled groan. When she exploded around me a moment later, I wondered if maybe there was something to Erik's change of heart after all.
As I lowered Savannah to her feet, I pushed the errant thought to the back of my mind. I didn't want to go there. Savannah and I were enjoying each other, that was all.
I kept my face turned away as I picked up her discarded panties and shoved them into my pocket. As I straightened, I tucked myself back into my pants but didn't bother completely doing them up. I didn't plan on either of us wearing much of anything once we were done with dinner. Having her now had only whetted my appetite, and I knew it would take most of the night to satisfy it. If it could be satisfied at all.
"Would you like some champagne?" I asked as I gestured toward the kitchen.
She followed me, apparently lost in her own thoughts. Neither one of us said anything until we each had a full glass of champagne and were carrying plates over to the smaller kitchen table.
"I had an interesting call after work today."
I glanced at her, but she wasn't looking at me. In fact, there was a strange expression on her face that I hadn't seen before. She took a drink from her glass, then raised her eyes to meet mine.
"Who was it?"
She swallowed hard. "It was your mother."
I stared at her, thinking I must have heard her wrong. She knew about my past and all the things my mother had and hadn't done. How she'd left me behind. How she'd chosen other people and herself over me. Hell, I even told Sav the whole truth about what happened with my sculpting. How it'd been my mother's birthday when I tried to surprise her with a present I made. How the guy had thrown it against the wall, nearly hitting me with it, and how my mom's reaction had been to throw it all away after the guy left.
Savannah knew all of that, and still, she talked to her.
"I don't know how she got my number, or how she knew I was doing a story on you, but she called me and–"
"What the hell were you thinking?" I snapped as I grabbed her arms, giving her a little shake. "Just because we've been fucking for a couple weeks doesn't mean you can introduce yourself to my fucking mother. What did you tell her about us?"
She yanked away, but not before I saw a flash of pain under the fury in her eyes. "Nothing. She didn't ask about anything like that." She took a step back. "All she wanted was to know if I could get a message to you, to ask you to call her."
Ever since Savannah and I made up after the incident at the restaurant, I'd ignored the handful of calls and texts I'd gotten from my mom. Every one of them said she wanted something. She hadn't even been subtle about it, though she hadn't said what this something was.
"I'm not interested." Everything inside me had gone cold at first, but I was hot again. "Why didn't you hang up as soon as she identified herself? Didn't you think it was even a little bit strange that she would track you down?" I held up a hand before Savannah could offer whatever flimsy excuse she'd planned. "Never mind. I already know the answer. You're a fucking reporter. Of course you can't mind your own fucking business."
Shock and hurt registered, and then it all disappeared. Her face went blank, and her voice was flat as she spoke, "Your mom said it was important. Life or death. I thought you should know."
"It's always important with my mother," I countered as I turned away from her. My head was spinning, stomach roiling.
How had things taken such a horrible turn so fast? I'd been planning a night of decadent pleasure for the two of us, and now I didn't want to even look at her. How could she betray me like that?
Or, the better question, how could I have let her get close enough to me that it would hurt when she showed her true colors? How could I have believed that she was different from any other woman? Different from Bianca?
"Get out."
The words dropped into the silence, and I waited to hear her argument about why she wouldn't leave, why I should listen to whatever excuses she planned to give. Instead, I heard the click of her heels on tile, growing fainter and fainter until they disappeared. When the door closed, I knew it was over, and I only had myself to blame for all of it.
Twenty-Four
Savannah
Everett had spent the night at Cal's, so I'd spent the night drinking alone. Which was good, considering I hadn't been in any mood to listen to my best friend tell me that he'd been right. He tried to warn me. Lei and Lorde had too. They told me they wanted me to be happy, but I knew they'd never fully forgiven him for how he treated me before.
The moment he attacked me for speaking to his mother, I wished I'd listened to them.
I wished I'd never forgiven him, that I'd walked away when he apologized for his behavior. But no, I'd believed that he'd changed, believed that I could trust him. People made mistakes. Jumping to a conclusion once was understandable, even as far as Jace had taken things, but after spending nearly three weeks together, the fact that he could turn on a dime like that...
I took a slow breath and blew it out just as slowly. The cab's air conditioning was on high this afternoon – no surprise considering it was the first of August – and the cold air cooled me off as it filled my lungs. I'd gotten drunk enough last night to have a killer headache when I woke this morning, and enough alcohol lingered in my system that I was still a little nauseous. Worse, it meant that my emotions were still a bit too close to the surface.
I probably should have still been in bed, getting more hydrated and watching sappy rom coms with Everett, but the first thing I thought after the painkillers kicked in was that I had something I needed to do.
The café wasn't far from my apartment, but it was too hot to walk, especially when half-hungover from a fairly cheap bottle of wine. I ordered my usual Iced Chestnut Praline Latte, then looked around for the woman I'd come here to meet.
"Miss Birch?"
I turned to see a woman a couple inches taller than me, early fifties, but trying to look much younger. She was thin as well, but the kind that came from dieting too much to be healthy.
She didn't really look like Jace, but I had no doubt as to who she was.
"Ms. Randell." I put out my hand and she shook it. Or, rather, she put her limp, cold hand in mine and let me do the shaking.
"I have a table over here," she said.
I followed her, telling myself that I'd done the right thing by coming here. Jace may have turned out to be an asshole, but I believed his mother when she said it was a matter of life and death. If anything, the way he treated me made me think that maybe he was overly harsh about his mom too. But even if he was correct in assuming that she was exaggerating the importance of what she wanted to talk to him about, I wasn't going to let him use me to blow her off.
I hadn't intended to stay, but something in her eyes made me think that I should hear her out. I hadn't been too happy with my gut's judgement recently, but I decided to trust it here. If nothing else, I'd enjoy my latte and have some closure.
When we reached the back booth, I was surprised to see that it wasn't empty. The girl had short, rust-colored curls, and the sort of pale skin that made me think she was ill. She also looked enough like Veronica Randell for me to suspect that Jace had a half-sister. One I was almost certain he knew nothing about.
"Miss Birch," Veronica began.
"Savannah, please." I felt too much like it was work when she used my surname, and despite what Jace thought, I wasn't going to use anything I learned here in my article. Nor did I have any intention of sharing private information with Ms. Randell.
Veronica nodded as she slid into the booth next to her daughter. "Savannah, this is my daughter, Iggy."
I wasn't a journalist as much as an art critic, but I'd spent enough time interviewing people for human interest stories that I'd learned to read how to best get the information I wanted from my sources. Veronica was pract
ically vibrating with her need to share, so I kept quiet rather than asking questions.
"Jace doesn't know about her," Veronica blurted out.
Iggy flushed, her eyes flicking to my face and then back down to the table. Her eyes were hazel like her mother's, but there was a sweetness in them that I didn't see in Veronica.
"I'm not proud of all the decisions I've made in my life," Veronica continued after a deep breath. "But I love my kids."
I nodded even though I wanted to comment on how poorly she demonstrated that love with her son. It wasn't my place, and if I was going to be more honest with myself than I had been lately, it had never been my place. Jace and I hadn't been dating. We'd been fucking.
I pushed that thought, and the pain that went with it, to the back of my mind.
"I know I've asked Jace for a lot over the years, and it's mostly been selfish reasons, but it's been for Iggy too." She put her hand on her daughter's arm. "Her father's not a part of her life. I got involved with him when he was married, and when I got pregnant, he ended things. He gave me a chunk of money to stay away and never contact him again."
Judging by the lack of surprise on Iggy's face, this wasn't the first time she heard the story of how she'd been conceived, but the way her ears were turning red told me that it still bothered her. Veronica, not surprisingly, kept talking as if everything she was saying was merely backstory that needed to come out before she could get to her real reason for being here.
"A couple weeks ago, Iggy went into the hospital and–" Veronica's voice cracked, and it was Iggy's turn to comfort her mother.
"I have chronic lymphocytic leukemia." Iggy's voice was soft but unwavering. "It's...I need a bone marrow transplant."
"And Jace is your half-brother," I said, leaning back in my seat. Shit. This was not what I expected when I agreed to meet Veronica this morning.