Not My Heart to Break

by W Winters

  It’s quiet for a long moment. With my eyes closed all I can hear is the fire, followed by the sound of our glasses being set on the slick all-black coffee table and then of Seth drinking from his.

  “It stayed covered for… it had to have been three or four years. I’d forgotten about it until I unwrapped it along with everything else that was shipped here.”

  The sofa dips with his weight as Seth sits on the opposite end of the sofa.

  “It stayed on the floor, leaning against the wall with its back showing, for a long time.”

  I finally peek up at him through my thick lashes and dare to question, “Why? Why not get rid of it?”

  “It was a reminder of what I lost. Those memories can give a man a lot of power. And motivation.”

  I only nod my head before reaching for the glass. It’s cold and the beads of condensation are welcome when I grip it.

  With my eyes on the painting, hung up to the right of the fireplace, not centered above it, I take a sip of the vodka and soda.

  “Do you like it?” Seth asks easily. “I thought about taking it down before you came, but I wanted to know if you remembered.”

  “My birthday,” I say, giving him the information he’d need to know that I recall exactly when the photo was taken. “I remember… I love it.”

  His exhale is easy as he takes another drink. I watch as he swallows and he only glances at the art piece before looking into my gaze. “I thought you’d like it for the bedroom,” he admits and a flash of emotion plays in his eyes. He breathes out like his thought is funny before downing the drink and abruptly standing. “I couldn’t throw it out,” he says with his back to me as he walks to the kitchen. “I couldn’t touch it.”

  As he makes himself another drink, not bothering with ice and simply adding more whiskey to his tumbler, I hold on to mine. Feeling the diamond pattern carved into the heavy lead crystal.

  Even with the cool drink, my throat feels dry and tight.

  “A painter hung it while I was out. He thought I meant to hang it. And I couldn’t touch it to take it down.”

  “I’m sorry it bothered you,” I speak and my voice cracks before I down my own drink.

  He’s there, placing his glass on the coffee table and holding his hand out for mine when I finish.

  On his walk to the kitchen, he doesn’t respond to my comment other than to say, “Everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it?” Damn, do I hate that response right now.

  He can’t hear my faint yeah from where I am as he stands in the kitchen. After handing me my glass, this one full to the brim rather than only halfway, Seth takes off his jacket and unbuttons his shirt.

  My pulse quickens when he continues to undress himself until he’s only in his suit pants. I watch as he takes off his shoes, slipping his socks into them like he used to do. His muscles ripple with power and precision. The fire emphasizes every dip I crave to touch.

  He’s older, his shoulders broader, his body more muscular and toned. I can’t take my eyes from his taut skin and the way his body moves. The warmth from the fire is nothing compared to the heat that kisses every inch of my skin while watching him.

  “Getting comfortable?” I ask him. Again, nearly teasing. He looks up at me first, dropping his polished black shoes to the ground next to the fireplace, closest to the hall we walked down last time. With an asymmetric smirk, he comments, “You didn’t change, did you?”

  “So much of me has changed,” I answer him without thinking about what to say. Without forming a list in my head of every aspect of my life that doesn’t at all resemble who I used to be.

  With my manicured nail tapping along the glass, I speak up, telling him something I decided I had to confess hours ago when I was thinking about how tonight would play out. “I made excuses for you today.” My hardened voice and the confidence in it, makes him hesitate before he takes back his seat in nothing but those pants. Everything about him reads powerful and dominant. “I blamed myself for your actions.”

  With his legs spread, he leans back with his drink, his gaze moving between me and the fire, but landing on me in the end when I don’t take my gaze from his.

  He sips his drink rather than responding and I tell him, “I won’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Blame myself.”

  “Then don’t,” he answers easily enough. My bottom lip wavers until I take another unsteady sip and close my eyes.

  “What you did yesterday…” I trail off as I remember how I felt on his desk and the wave is an onslaught to my confidence.

  The sound of him leaning forward forces my eyes to open wide, the sofa groaning, before I feel him closer to me.

  “What did I do that was so wrong that you felt the need to make an excuse?” His question holds a taste of menace.

  “You wanted to humiliate me.”

  “The fuck I did.”

  Anger rolls off of me in harsh and unforgiving waves. “Yes you did, you acted like I—”

  “I wanted you to know how I coped with you leaving; I wanted you to feel it.” His words are rushed, pushed through gritted teeth. Clearly he’s referring to the note. Which is an entirely different matter.

  “You had me lay on that desk so you could prove your power over me.” I know that’s why. I know it is and I can’t even breathe as I wait for him to deny it. “To demean me.”

  He shakes his head. “I wanted to taste you again, that’s not humiliating.”

  “Could any pussy taste that good?” I mock him, feeling that humiliation once again.

  “I didn’t say it like that,” he speaks clearly, sucking on a piece of melted ice between his teeth. He lets it fall back to his empty glass. It pisses me off how he hides the emotion he clearly had a moment ago.

  “How is that not humiliating?”

  “I wasn’t aiming for humiliation,” he admits. His gaze unwavering, he fixes me with a calm and dominating stare, not moving. “I was just telling the truth.”

  Not knowing how to respond, I move to the next item on the list. “Worse, you wanted me to feel bad about the note. You wanted me to feel guilty.”

  “You are guilty. You’re the one who left.” Again his answer is matter of fact. Guilty. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand the word. As if all of this is my fault. The control he has makes me lose what little of it I have.

  “You’re the one who didn’t change!”

  “You’re the one who wanted me to change.”

  I don’t know how I’m able to stand, my legs feel so weak. But I do, as quickly as I can, reaching for my purse to leave.

  “Sit down.” Seth’s authority makes me pause.

  “Everything hurts,” I admit to him. “I can’t be here without hurting. I can’t see you without hurting.”

  When I look down at Seth, through the glaze of tears I hold back, I feel a wave of fear and desire mix. It swirls through my blood and I lose my own thoughts, my concentration. I lose everything to the way he looks at me.

  “You’re going to do what I say, because you want to… and there’s no humiliation in that.”

  “I never said I wanted to.”

  “You’re here early, Babygirl. You didn’t have to say it.” Babygirl. The desire is immediate and warms everything. He stands and steps forward, taking my purse and tossing it back down onto the table. My breath comes faster, my head feeling lighter.

  He whispers, his lips only inches from mine. “Know that I want you, too, because I stare at that painting every day, wishing I could go back to that moment.”

  Taking his seat again, he repeats, “Sit down.” And this time I do.

  “You’re going to obey me, because it will take that pain and that guilt away.”

  I close my eyes slowly, careful to hold back any tears and calm myself down. “Not everything. I don’t agree to doing whatever you say.”

  His answer is spoken with confidence. “You will. You’re better at it now than you were back then.”

  �
�Don’t do that,” I say and glare at him. Feeling a wash of anxiousness.

  “What?”

  “Bring up the past.” My heart thrashes in my chest, as if it’s at war.

  “You will do what I say, and I will be mindful of what I tell you to do and how I say it.” Seth’s proposition eases a burning pain that’s quick to ignite every time I think back to what used to be.

  As he waits for me to agree or to continue this fight, I consider what he said… the guilt.

  God it hurts.

  “I just want it to stop,” I whisper, feeling the pricks at the back of my eyes.

  “Want what to stop?”

  “The guilt.” Admitting it out loud brings a torrent of emotion.

  “Strip down,” Seth commands me, not responding to the emotion I’m clearly displaying. Not giving it any credence in the least. He doesn’t try to comfort me, and damn my desire, I want him to. I want to crawl into his lap, I want to beg for his forgiveness.

  “Strip down to nothing,” he demands in a calm and controlled voice. His glass clinks as he sets it on the table and then leans back, his large hands clasped as he waits for me to obey.

  The discord of what I want, what I need, who I am and what I used to be rips apart who I know myself to be.

  The crackle of the fire feels like a whip against my bare shoulder when I slip off the cardigan. It glides slowly down my skin and I feel it settle against my shoes into a puddle of fabric. The blush tank top is harder to take off. Not physically, but emotionally.

  I’m so aware of the fear. I feel like nothing when he looks at me. But I want to feel like everything. I have to close my eyes to do it, to pull the tank top over my head and do as he wishes.

  “Look at me,” he says and it’s as though his command physically strikes me. Inhaling and exhaling, controlling my breathing and holding on to the fact that I refuse to leave here without trying, I do it.

  I don’t know what I’m trying to do though. Even as I kick off my shoes and my jeans are stripped from me by my own hands, I don’t know what I want.

  As if reading my mind, Seth sits up straighter on the sofa, his erection evident against his suit pants. The fabric is tighter along his length, outlining it and he rubs it once before telling me, “You want to feel better and so do I.”

  I do.

  God, I desperately do.

  His eyes darken, the fire flickering within them. “Your bra and then your underwear.”

  I do as he says. The clasp easily parting and the sound of my bra hitting the floor is louder than it ought to be.

  When I step out of my underwear, I’m a half step closer to him, but before I give in and let go, I make him promise me something. “Tell me you don’t just want to embarrass me and toy with me.”

  I can’t explain why it means so much to me. But I need to believe it’s more than that for him.

  “I want to toy with you, yes. But you were never embarrassed before. Humiliating you doesn’t get me off.” His gaze roams down my body, his lips parted as he exhales. “I want you to listen to me. That’s what it boils down to. I just want you to listen to me.”

  He has to look away, back to his drink that’s empty when he tells me the last bit. He just wants me to listen. He stalks off, leaving me naked as he goes back to the kitchen, feeling miles away.

  He thinks if I’d listened things would be different. The whispered explanation brings a new hurt and new guilt.

  “Stop it. Stop thinking. Do what I tell you to.” Seth reappears without a glass in hand.

  So many years have passed but I still want to please him. I wonder if that will ever change.

  “What do you want?” I ask him as calmly as I can. I can still remember the first time I was conscious of that desire. I wanted to please him.

  As I watch Seth push the coffee table toward the fireplace, I recall that night.

  It was at the old bar, the one my father used to leave me at all the time growing up. And it was just after his funeral. Derrick called me “Babygirl.” Derrick did. I knew him to be a friend of Seth’s. I even liked him. He would look out for me. It was he who welcomed me into the bar to wait for Seth.

  I wasn’t Derrick’s Babygirl and my reaction must’ve told him as much. “Oh,” he’d said with a smile. “You want that just for Seth, don’t you?” His question wasn’t teasing, only knowing. At that moment Seth walked in. Everything was chaotic back then, after Vito was killed. Seth’s father was in charge; he hadn’t been murdered yet in the war for that territory. Still, Seth was needed and commanded more than anyone else. It was like his father was grooming him.

  Seth came in and needed a beer. Looking distracted, he kept heading to the bar but man after man stopped him. They needed him and he gave them the time they wanted. Those days, he still walked me to and from home at night. Just me, not letting anyone come with us. He made time for me. We hadn’t even kissed, but he liked to touch me when I was around him. He always held my hand, touched my back; he’d run his finger down the back of my neck absently when Derrick talked to him. He hadn’t done a damn thing sexual, but it felt like everything to me that he wanted me near enough to touch. He never made the first move though. Not that quickly after things changed, and not for months later.

  I was no one when it came down to it, and he was going to be everything. I could feel it.

  I would only be his Babygirl. With that thought in mind, I got a beer for him and put it in his hand as he talked. I wanted to please him, and I had. The way he looked at me, ignoring whoever had been speaking, did something inside of me.

  I can feel the same stare now as Seth rounds me years later. He did exactly what I expected him to; he ruled, like the king he was meant to be.

  Myself, on the other hand? I wasn’t even strong enough to be his Babygirl.

  “Did you sleep last night?” Seth’s question brings my gaze to his, makes me focus on the present.

  “Some,” I answer honestly. He doesn’t look in my eyes when he stands in front of me, because he’s focused on my chest. It’s not until his hot touch grips my right breast and my head falls back just slightly that his gaze reaches mine. With his thumb and forefinger, he rolls my nipple and I have to bite down on my bottom lip to keep from moaning out at the sharp pleasure.

  “Did you touch yourself?”

  “What?” My eyes widen as I betray myself. I know it’s obvious. I’ve never been a good liar.

  “You used to. You used to punish me with it too. Taking care of yourself and letting me know you had.” He squeezes my left nipple harder than the right, causing me to lean forward until he pulls back. A wave of pleasure rushes through me, stirring in my belly when he releases his hold.

  With my lips parted, I breathe in deeply, sucking in a breath when Seth does it again. Both of my nipples, both at once.

  “Look at me,” he commands and I do. Staring into the depths of his eyes as he rolls my nipples between his deft fingers. “Did it feel like this?”

  “No,” I answer immediately.

  “Did you think of me?” he questions and I hate to admit it, I hate knowing I thought of the good moments with him. All the nights I gave myself completely to him.

  I can’t answer verbally, so I only nod.

  He plucks them both at once and the hot sensation is linked to my clit. I nearly stumble from the pleasure.

  “You’re a bad submissive.” Hearing him say submissive forces a smile to grace my lips. He turns away from me, moving to a chest that sits by the fireplace, just under the painting hung on the wall. Standing there, watching his muscular shoulders, I dare to toy with him. “You’re not my dom.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Babygirl.” He stands up as he breathes out, holding a leather paddle in his right hand and slapping it down on the palm of his left. I instantly clench, feeling how hot and wet I am already. His burning gaze heats my own as he tells me, making his way to me, “Your body knows it. One day you’ll get it through that thick skull of yours.”r />
  My body’s tense with the sight of the paddle. Braided strips of black leather are wrapped around the entire length. His gaze is heated when he tells me to bend over and grab the back of the sofa, but not to rest my knees on the cushion.

  It’s awkward to stand like this, since I’m so short. I listen though, knowing full well he plans to use that paddle on my ass.

  Thwack! He doesn’t waste any time. The moment both my hands grip the sofa, he spanks me with it. The burning pain ricochets through me, starting at my right ass cheek, and I swear, by the time it returns to my core, it feels like heaven. The pain and pleasure are braided together as tightly as the leather.

  Seth takes his time, kicking my clothes out of the way before touching his palm to my heated flesh. He squeezes my sore cheeks and in return, I moan a strangled sound. Leaning my forehead against his sofa, I try to keep still when he smacks my ass with the paddle again.

  “Three times,” he tells me before quickly bringing the paddle down again. The pain is more intense this time, the strike unexpected and I scream out in brutal agony as my legs buckle and beg me to brace myself on the cushion of the sofa. I don’t though; balancing on the balls of my feet, I make sure I stay where I am. My face is contorted until the leather slips through my thighs, brushing against my clit. He rocks it, letting the pleasure build as he wraps my hair around his other wrist and pulls back so I can no longer rest on the back of the sofa. “No more touching yourself or all of your punishments will be as hard as that last one was. Understood?”

  With my eyes closed, I agree. “Understood.”

  He’s never been like this before. Never with me. The control, the patience, I know that is his nature, but this is so much… more.

  He releases me too quickly, far before I’m ready to let go and fall from the cliff of my release. The pleasure wanes, the pain of my punishment returns and I find myself needy and turning around to see what he’s doing.

  I turn at the perfect moment, seeing him in all his naked glory as he kicks off his pants, the last remaining garment covering him from me. Every inch of his body reminds me of Adonis. He is sex personified. My inhale is sharp when he turns around, and his gaze is narrowed as he tsks me.