by Kira Blakely
She nodded and assumed the position, and I swore my cock was going to tear through my jeans. “Anything for you, Master.”
I walked up behind her and traced my fingers over the soft, creamy skin of her neck and then slid them over the cool stones of the collar. “I missed seeing you in this. Did you know that? It’s all you should ever wear. You look fucking fantastic in it. Did you know that?”
“I do, Master.”
“Good, princess,” I replied, sliding my hands down her shoulders and over the pale expanse of her back. I stopped just short of her ass. “Do you know what I’m going to do to you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You ran away from me again. I can’t accept that. You know that you aren’t ever supposed to do that, princess, don’t you?”
“Yes, Master.”
I ran my hands over the curves of her ass then and cupped the generous mounds in my palms. She moaned under my grasp, and I had to remind myself I was making a point here and not to get distracted. There would plenty of time for fingering her later, for feeling that clit slick against my fingers.
“Then don’t you think you need three quick strikes, three reminders that you’re mine, now and always?”
“God, yes, Master,” she said, her breath ragged and her breasts heaving with each gulp of air.
“Then you remember the safe words?”
“Always!”
“Good, because this will hurt,” I reminded her, before pulling my arm back.
The first strike caused her to arch her back and cry out with the pain. My cock jumped at the sight of the red mark welling up on the white skin of her left cheek. Another quick flick of my wrist and the right cheek had a matching mark. Belle was breathing hard but she’d bit her lower lip for the second smack and hadn’t screamed again. I paused for a moment and leaned into her, kissing her cheek and reaching low to run my fingers over her vagina and feeling the slick juices there.
“You’re doing so well. Just a moment longer and we can do the aftercare. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, princess?”
“Yes, Master,” she said, the hunger obvious in her tone.
“Good girl,” I said.
Then I pulled my wrist back one more time and struck her firmly across both cheeks. Belle let out a scream of ecstasy, not of pain this time, and shuddered before me. I set the crop down and turned to the lotion I’d set beside her hands on the desk. Rubbing the coconut-scented ointment on my hands, I rubbed over the mounds of her ass, over the soft and tender flesh of her body. She mewled under me, responding to my touch with utter precision.
I knew my princess well, knew how to make her scream.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Thank you,” I replied. “Thank you, Belle, for understanding me, for understanding everything I need.” I carefully undid her collar and let her understand that the scene was over. “I think I owe you the same favor.”
I stepped back from her and stripped naked before Belle. It was easy to slip off my jeans, since my cock was already straining to be freed, as hungry with need as it was. It was harder to pull off my shirt. Even now, even after her gentle touch earlier tonight, I always hated my scar, hated that it branded me as a failure.
I stood before her and then knelt, letting her take in all there was to see of me.
She kissed my lips, then my cheeks, and then her kisses worked their way down my collarbone and chest. Belle got to her knees, too, and licked at my abs, running her tongue over every ridge. I moaned under her, enthralled by the magic of her tongue. Then she got to my damaged hip and kissed it tenderly, taking time to trace her lips over every inch of it before she sat back up to stare into my eyes.
“I love you, Drake, every inch of you.”
Looking into those sincere blue eyes that shone like sapphires, I believed her. I knew the truth of her words, and my heart swelled with that knowledge. “I love you, too, Belle, forever.”
She stretched out on the rug before me, a few yards from the fireplace, and the flickering flames painted colors over her pale skin. “I want you to make love to me, Drake, please. Just us.”
I nodded, putting the Dom side of me away and shoving the beast with him. Yeah, I was a fucked up guy, and maybe had more identities than I could count, but I could be everything she needed for tonight. It would be Belle and me, that gentle combination that had left us feeling so connected that first night we’d made love and that last night on the beach.
I crawled over to her, and I breathed deeply. The smell of freesias and lilac tickled my nose and mixed with something deeper; the rich scent of her arousal was so strong that I could smell it in the air. God, was she wet and ready for me. I positioned myself over her and grazed the head of my dick over her entrance, teasing her slick opening. She mewled again like a goddamn kitten and, reaching up, dug her fingernails into my back. It drove me mad. Thrusting my hips out, I plunged inside of her until I was balls deep.
Until her tightness and her warmth was caressing me.
It was like I’d been given a fucking day pass to heaven.
When I was with Belle, she was all I’d ever need.
Rocking my hips slowly at first, I tried to tease her with a torturous rhythm, but I couldn’t keep that up. After weeks apart, our bodies were too hungry for each other to be separated for long. Maybe there was a place for the beast in me to come out just a little bit in bed. My thrusts grew frantic as I plumbed her depths, my hips thrusting furiously against her own. Sweat poured down my brow and dripped from my hair, even as my hands dug into the plush fabric of the Persian rug under us.
Then Belle rocked her hips just so and I lost it, coming into her, filling her deeply. She came moments after, her body quivering, spasming all around me. I felt like my skin was on fire, like I’d burst into flames, and gone fucking supernova.
Panting, I collapsed to the side of the rug next to her and pulled her into my embrace. For a few minutes, she said nothing, just moaned. “I love you, Drake, every part of you. I always will.”
I swallowed hard. After I’d come home a literally broken man and then realized how fucked up emotionally I might always be, I hadn’t dared to hope for anything better, for anything at all. Hope had been dead. But it was alive in me again, just like my furiously pumping heart, and it was all because of Belle.
Of the spell she’d broken.
Pulling her tightly to me, I kissed her on the lips, loving that she nibbled mine as we pulled away. “I love you, too, princess. We’re going to live happily ever after.”
Epilogue
Belle
One Year Later…
“What are your plans for the rest of your week off, dear?” Mom asked.
I smiled and spooned out the Cobb salad she’d made with fresh shrimp onto my plate. The glow had finally returned to her skin and her body was no longer skin and bones. The mix of treatments the new specialist from UCLA had given her was working and the cancer was in remissions. I knew that it didn’t mean it would stay this way forever. After her first chemo round when I was just fresh out of undergrad, she’d gone into remission for six months. Then the hard times came. But she was doing great now, and I was happy for that. After four years of pain and fear and hospital runs, we had a respite, and Mom was on some of the most advanced therapy in the world. We had a real shot, and before Drake had found the right medical team for her and paid for it, that was the last thing on Earth we could have dreamed of.
I nodded and bit into the plump shrimp and avocado bunch on my fork. “Well, tomorrow I think that we’re going back to San Diego. I don’t have classes again for a bit, but there’s a lot to sightsee near campus, and…” I squeezed Drake’s hand next to me at the table. “He gets so little time to enjoy town when he’s there. Running such a huge company doesn’t exactly make him a tourist.”
Drake winked at me and played into the fiction. What that actually meant was that whenever he came to the city, we spent long weekends making love in a five-star hotel su
ite. That wasn’t anything I was going to bring up with my parents. Talk about far too much information. Also, even though he only visited once every two weeks from L.A., that was my call. I loved him. Hell, my body craved his touch so two weeks at a time was like going through a drought in the desert for me. Naughty Skype sessions and phone calls couldn’t compare. However, my grades the first semester had been lower than I’d liked because marathon sex and BDSM sessions didn’t exactly leave space for a lot of research on the weekends.
I was lucky I had such an understanding boyfriend, someone who supported my passion for conservation and marine biology and wanted me to get my master’s even more than I did.
“Yes, I definitely have something special to surprise her with, but if you had other plans for her, Angelique, I understand that fall break only comes around so often.”
Mom chuckled. “You kids are so sweet to spend time with me and Maurice. I know that’s the last thing on a young person’s mind.”
I snorted and kicked Drake playfully under the table. “I dunno, Mom. In about four years, Drake will be the big 4-0. Maybe I’ll get him his walking cane early.”
“You do that,” he teased. “And you’ll regret it.”
He punctuated his point by leaning down to my ear and whispering a mock threat about exactly how he would use such a gift.
I had to admit my clit throbbed at the thought.
“It’d be nice if Dad could make lunch, though,” I said. “We were hoping to get on the road back to San Diego before the traffic got, well, even more shitty.” It was L.A., after all; it wasn’t like the traffic was ever even close to decent. “He said he’d be here.”
Mom sighed and offered me a tight smile. “He should be here. I know he was looking forward to it. I think he was running late meeting with Carol’s doctors at the hospital.”
Drake’s jaw clenched, and I squeezed his hand tightly. I wanted to anchor him to the here and now. His flashbacks were getting rarer and rarer these days. Still, rarely anything set him off like what had happened with George and Carol. I couldn’t blame him. I’d been in therapy for six months to help deal with all of it, with my own panic attacks. When he’d seen a flash of George at trial on the local news, he’d thrown a remote through the TV.
Sometimes, I didn’t think he understood why I wasn’t mad at my sister.
Yes, I had nightmares. Yes, I’d never fully understand what happened, but my anger was aimed squarely at George. The only way I could explain it to him and to myself was that Carol was always going to be family, and that I remembered her. She’d been the one to teach me how to ride my big girl bike. She’d been the one helping redo my hair and makeup for prom when some trainee at the beauty salon left me looking like Bozo the Clown. I don’t know how that got so messed up, but when I was ready and her doctors thought she was more stable, I’d go see her with my parents beside me and try to be there for her, too.
It was just what family did.
“Is it going well?”
Mom bit into a tomato. “She’s not speaking much right now. Dad and I go to see her every day, but she’s not usually in the mood to even talk with us. It’s hard on him. He blames himself, but the doctors are working hard with her and that’s the best place she can be. Maybe one day she’ll be rehabilitated, but…” Mom trailed off.
I wasn’t sure any of us believed that Carol would ever be a fully free member of society again, but so many impossible things had happened this last year, who knew what five or ten more would bring.
Of course, it would take that long to get Drake used to the idea.
“Still, I miss Daddy,” I said.
Firm arms wrapped around my shoulders and I giggled a little when Dad’s mustache tickled my cheek. “Then, sweetie, do I have a surprise for you.”
“Dad!” I squealed, twisting to throw my arms around his neck. No trip home for fall break could have possibly been complete without him.
He grinned at me as he stroked my back. “Sweetie, how are you doing? Getting all As like always?”
I snorted. The first semester had been a close call and I’d gotten a B-. I hadn’t mentioned this to my parents though. Hence the limited sexcapades after that with Drake. “I’m doing well. How’s Carol?”
Dad pulled away from me and hugged Mom and then offered a hand to Drake. “She’s doing as well as we can hope for. She’s quiet, but the doctors say she’s participating in the treatments, so that’s something.
I nodded. “I think so.”
“Hey, honey, can I have a minute with you in the study?” Dad said. “I know it’s my fault I’m running late, well, that and my three million closest friends on the freeway, but I wanted to catch you for a minute before you went back to San Diego to solve all the ocean’s problems.”
I laughed and slid off my chair. “I wish I were that smart.”
Drake chuckled. “Don’t let her fool you; she is.”
“Oh, I know,” Mom said, grinning. “Where do you think she gets it from?”
Drake laughed heartily at that as I followed Dad into his study down the hall. He shut the door behind him, which muffled whatever conversation Drake and Mom were having. I frowned back at him.
“What’s with all the cloak and dagger? If you have anything to say in front of me then you can say it in front of Drake, too.”
“I don’t think I can.”
I bit my lip and started picking at my cuticles. “Is Carol getting released early? Is something going wrong with George’s trial?”
“No, and definitely not. That rat’s going to rot forever in prison if I have anything to say about it, and the lawyers of L.A. County agree with me.”
“Then?”
He walked over to his desk and leaned against it. “I wanted to congratulate you.”
“Really, my grades won’t be in for another eight weeks. I’m pretty early into the semester.”
“No, honey, I wanted to congratulate you for being brave.”
I blinked. “I don’t understand how. I study some fish and ocean currents and, well, a lot of global warming. It’s not like I have a cape and a superhero title.”
“It’s not because of that, not completely, but I am glad you’re actually doing something you love. I knew PR was never your thing.” I blushed and started to spin about how I’d always cared about it. How it mattered to him so it mattered to me, and that was true enough. Dad shook his head and held up his hand. “No, honey, you did it for me. You did something important and kind for me and for your mom. I appreciate that.”
“Daddy, of course I’d help.”
“And you did so much in the Bahamas. The deal you worked out, the way you and Drake found a solution that was best for both companies. It was like a miracle.”
I blushed, hoping Dad didn’t press harder on negotiating details because you’d have to rake me repeatedly over hot coals before I revealed any of that.
“I wanted to help.”
“But now you’re seizing the day. You’re doing what you want, and I’m so glad you took a chance on Drake. I’ve never seen you this happy, even before your mom got sick. It’s like a brand new Belle, and I really like her.”
My cheeks flushed. “I think that’s all Drake. He’s wonderful.”
“Good,” he said standing back up and sweeping me into a hug. “I love you, honey, and I’m sorry we ever held you back.”
I squeezed him back and buried my head in his jacket, sniffing the hint of cigar smoke that would always be so my dad. “There’s nothing you could do that would even come close to that. Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you, too, sweetie.”
***
When Leonard turned down the wrong street in San Diego, I frowned. “Hey, the hotel’s not over here. I get the idea to be all spontaneous and grab a late dinner or whatever, but I’m really exhausted.”
Drake smirked and wrapped me up tightly with one arm around my shoulder. “We’re not staying at The Westin tonight.”
“Okay,
so we’re trying a new place?” I asked.
Leonard pulled up before a high-rise close to the marina. “Actually, chickadee, Drake might have a bit of a surprise for you.”
Intrigued, I took Drake’s proffered arm as he helped me out of the car and waved a quick goodbye to Leonard. We’d catch up tomorrow, of course. He’d give me all the latest gossip on the comings and goings of all the servants who worked for Drake, especially dirt that Mrs. Johnson would be hiding on herself. I heard someone was entering the dating pool again after being a widow for so long. Too bad Leonard was happily married. I always sort of felt those two had a good vibe. Anyway, after I’d bid goodnight to Leonard, I waited patiently for Drake to lead me past the doorman and to the executive elevator—one of those that had to be operated with a special key—to take me up to the top floor.
The elevator opened out to a penthouse-level apartment that had to be close to three thousand square feet. The massive living room and open kitchen were decorated with plush leather furniture, sparkling quartz countertops, and the finest antiques. I gasped at the beauty of it all.
“Is this your place?”
Drake shook his head. “It’s our place. I know that you don’t want me to always be around, as it can hurt your grades. I have business every week I have to deal with in L.A., but I’m not happy with just two weekends a month. Besides, I’ve seen that shitbox you call an apartment. Princess, that whole place is a fire hazard.”
I laughed. “I’m a grad student with loans. It’s what I can afford!”
“It’s probably got rats. Rats carry the plague,” he said with a devilish smile playing on his lips. “Obviously, I’m saving you from contracting the Bubonic Plague and am your hero.”
Crossing over to him, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him, my tongue lingering over his. “You’re always my hero. Now, what? Are you my roomie?”
“I’m your master,” he said, his voice taking on that low growl that brooked no argument.