“Thirteen years? You were with him that whole time?”
“Yes, sir.”
Thirteen years? If my addition is right, she’s thirty-eight. I thought she was about twenty-nine or so. I watch her as she eats and I notice that she seems delighted with the oatmeal. No wonder I thought she was younger―she’s thankful and excited about anything good that happens to her, no matter how small. Even a simple bowl of hot cereal is cause for celebration. That strikes me as one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.
Thirteen years of pure hell. Thirteen years of torture, of confinement, of pain and suffering and brutality. I feel that fury again, the one that always rises inside me when I hear about abused children, women, and animals. “You’re not going back to that,” I blurt out.
Her face falls. “I sure don’t want to.”
“We’re going to make sure of that, Rayanna. No more of that. It’s over.”
She’s silent for a few minutes. When she does speak, she asks, “Do you think they’ll let me see Carly? Just for a few minutes?”
“I think it’s going to take you proving that you’re independent and you’re not going back to Connor. That’s what they’re trying to protect her from, not you.”
“How am I going to prove I’m independent if you’re taking care of me?”
“That’s for me to take care of. I’ll make sure of it.” I stare straight into her eyes. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes. But Dr. Lawrence has told me I’m too trusting.”
“Do you think he would’ve sent you with someone who shouldn’t be trusted?”
“Of course not. That’s why I trust you.”
It appears to me that it’s time to have a heavy-duty conversation, so I reach over and take the bowl out of her hand. “So let me explain about the Dominant and submissive relationship. We call it ‘the lifestyle.’ Some people call it BDSM, but that’s not what we’re looking at here. I take care of you, and in exchange, you take care of me.”
“But I―”
“Don’t interrupt your Dominant,” I snap, all my training kicking in, and she falls silent. “The part of the lifestyle you most need to understand right now is simple. The entire concept is built on the basic tenets of a relationship―trust, honesty, integrity, faithfulness, openness, respect, concern, devotion, admiration. But an extremely important component is helping the other person in the relationship achieve the best version of himself or herself. That’s what our relationship is about, me helping you do that.”
There’s no sarcasm in her voice when she asks, “But what am I supposed to be helping you do?”
“I think,” I say haltingly, “that’s something you’re going to have to figure out.” Oh, shit. Now I really need to talk to Ted.
We sit there for a minute or two in silence, and I can tell she’s thinking about everything I’ve said. Then she asks a question that horrifies me.
“So what’s the worst part of you? The thing that you hate the most, that you need to change? Maybe knowing that would help me figure out what I’m supposed to be doing.”
I’m not sure how to answer that. I mean, what are you supposed to say when someone asks you what’s the absolute worst thing about you? I don’t think I’m particularly vain, I’m not sloppy, not judgmental, don’t have racial biases, I’m not lazy, I think I have very good manners, try to be polite and kind in everything I do, and I’m generous to a fault. Then it hits me.
I don’t trust people―specifically women. Why would I? Look at Esme. Hell, look at my mother and what she did to Brian and his dad. In all honesty, ever since I started this, I’ve wondered if I’m going to pour hours, days, weeks, months into this woman, only to have her go back to that piece of shit who nearly killed her. Am I going to care for her, give myself to her, protect her and nurture her, and watch her walk away like I mean nothing to her?
And I think she’s got problems? Looks like she’s not the only one. I’ve got my own brand of craziness, it seems, and until she asks that question, I’ve never really thought about it.
From this answer springs another problem: Can I be honest with her about this? Will that undermine her confidence in me? Now I have no idea what to do.
What did I just tell her? Trust, honesty, integrity, faithfulness, openness, respect, concern, devotion, admiration. Trust. Honesty. Openness. I’m about to screw everything up. Thank god she’s got a therapy appointment tomorrow morning―she’s going to need it. “The worst part of me …” Say it, Pelletier. Now! “I don’t trust. I especially don’t trust women after what happened.”
“And now I get to ask you the same question you asked me. Do you trust me?” Her eyes are soft, almost begging, and I can tell she wants me to pour out my heart to her, but I’m not sure I can do that.
My hedge: “We’ve only known each other for a short while.”
She battles back with, “But I trust you already.”
“But that’s different,” I lie, and I know it’s a lie when it comes out of my mouth.
She gives her head a firm shake. “No. It’s not different. You haven’t done anything to cause me to not trust you. Have I done anything to cause you to not trust me?”
“No.”
“Well, then, can I at least have the benefit of the doubt?”
Holy shit. This is not how I expected this conversation to go. “Well, uh …”
“Master Lucien, as long as you want me as your sla … submissive, I’ll be faithful to you. I’ll dedicate myself to doing what you ask. I won’t lie to you, or cheat on you, or tell lies about you. If you ask me something, I’ll do my best to answer honestly. I sure won’t steal from you or tear up your stuff.”
“Oh, I don’t think you would,” I reassure her.
“So I guess your trust issues don’t have anything to do with stuff.”
Wow. I’m in deep shit here. She goes straight for the gut. “Uh, no. They have to do with …” The words just won’t come.
Leave it to her to fill in the blanks. I’d somehow gotten it in my head that the woman is a simpleton because she let a guy beat her senseless. How especially idiotic of me. Her voice is soft and sweet when she says, “They have to do with feelings. I get it. And if I ever do anything to hurt you, it’ll be accidental, because I sure wouldn’t do it on purpose. Do you believe me?”
Damn it, it’s like she’s listening to my thoughts. What the hell? But once again, there’s not an ounce of guile in this woman, in her face or her voice, and I know she believes everything she’s saying. I wish I could believe it too. “I want to believe you,” I answer.
“Good. Then I won’t give you a reason not to and everything will be fine, right?”
“Uh, yeah.” It sounds so easy. I know it’s not. It won’t be. And I don’t have the guts to admit that.
“Then we should eat our oatmeal. I think it’s probably like glue now,” she says and giggles.
Just like that, the spell is broken. The air in the room thins to breathable and once again, there’s a smile on her face and she’s lighthearted, just like she was before I started this fiasco of a conversation.
Or maybe it wasn’t such a fiasco. I learned a lot about her. On the down side, I learned a lot about me.
And some of it I really don’t like.
* * *
Her voice calls from the closet, “Are there more hangers?”
When I check the other closet, I find none. “No. We’ll have to go get some.”
“I’m sorry, sir. It can wait,” she says quietly, folding the things left that we don’t have hangers for. I have to give Cirilla credit, the clothes they bought are beautiful, and I saw some of the price tags. They did a great job of getting her plenty of nice things without sending me to the poor house. I’ll have to thank my sister-in-law for that.
“No, we can just run down to one of those dollar-type stores and get some. I’m sure they have them.” I’m reaching for a pair of jeans as I’m talking.
“I look a mess. Should I sh
ower first and …”
“Nah. Let’s just throw on some clothes, run down there, and run back. Won’t take but a minute.” I’ve got the jeans on and I’m slipping on a pair of shoes without socks while reaching for a tee.
“You sure you want to be seen with me looking like this?” she asks as she pulls a little dress on over her head.
“What? You look adorable, babe. You’re cute as a button.” A few seconds later, I realize I haven’t heard a sound and I turn to find her standing there, staring at me, mouth hanging open. “What?”
“You think I’m adorable? You called me babe.”
I side-eye her with my eyebrows cocked up. “Um, let’s see. Yeah, you’re adorable. And we had sex last night, and I think we both pretty much liked it, and we’re sort of committed to this relationship, whatever it might be, so yeah―I called you babe. Do you not like that?”
She lets loose a tiny giggle. “I love it. I just wanted to make sure that, you know, you weren’t losing your mind or anything.”
I walk straight up to her, wrap one arm around her waist, and use the other one to smack her ass, grinning when she gasps. “I’m not losing my mind. Let me do nice things for you, talk sweet to you, treat you like you’re important. Because you are important, precious, and I’m not the only one you’re important to. Ted wants to make sure you succeed. Brian and Cirilla want to get to know you. And you have a little girl who wants to come home to her mommy.” And that does it―she starts to cry again. I just pull her in tight and hug her to me. “Shhhh, babe. I know. Just give it time. That’s pretty much all we’ve got at this point. In six months, you won’t want me or need me anymore and you’ll be ready to go out on your own for a big adventure.”
“Will you not want or need me in six months?” she whimpers.
“Time will tell, sweetie. Let’s just enjoy the time we have and see where it goes, okay?”
“Okay.” She’s still sniffling when she looks up at me. I know what she wants, and I want it too. I tip my head slightly and when I press my lips to hers, she comes back at me with a hunger I can feel low in my belly. There’s something about her that I simply can’t resist, a quietness and gentleness, and it’s beyond refreshing for me.
I love playing with the submissives at the clubs but a great many of them are totally jaded. No fault in that―I’m pretty damn jaded myself―and yet I don’t want to be jaded. Seeing things in a new light, feeling things I’ve never felt before, being with someone who doesn’t really want anything from me, those are the things I really desire, and this woman represents all that to me. She knows I can send her off at the end of six months and never see her again, and yet she’s just happy to be here.
The touch of her hands as she slides them up my bare chest and around my neck makes my knees weak in ways I don’t like to admit, and when I deepen the kiss, she responds instantly. What is it that makes being with her feel so different from everyone else I’ve ever known? Almost as though someone has spoken aloud, I get it.
She needs me. The other submissives I’ve been with? Even the men I’ve been with? They didn’t need me―they wanted me, but they didn’t need me. Esme certainly didn’t. Even as my submissive, she topped me from below every chance she got. But this woman? Her survival depends on me. That’s a heavy burden to bear, but something about it makes me want to do right by her, to hold her and comfort her and help her heal.
The kiss ends, but her touch doesn’t as she lets her lips wander across my collarbone. “Rayanna, what do you want from me? What do you need from me?” I already know, but I need to hear her say it.
Those eyes are soft, their lower lids filled with tears, when she looks up into my face. “I need to matter to somebody, and not just so they can fuck me or beat me. I need to matter to somebody who really does care about me. Master Lu―”
“Say my name, Rayanna.”
A big tear slips down her cheek and worms its way into the crevices in my heart. “Lucien, do I matter to you? At all? Am I just an assignment?”
“No, precious. You’re not. I do care about you.” More than I should, I think.
“Someday I’ll find somebody to love me. I wish it could be you,” she whispers, her lower lip trembling. And that’s when I see it.
The face looking back at me is my own. It’s plain to see―all the pain, all the longing, all the fear. I remember being eight and finding out what Mom had done to Brian and his dad, and I was terrified she’d do the same to my dad and me. I wanted to ask her why, but I was afraid if I did, she’d leave instead of answering, so I just kept going, questioning it in my mind every day.
That’s what Rayanna’s doing. She’s questioning why anyone would want her around for something other than fucking, beating, or slavery. In her eyes, she has no value as a person. I have to show her that value. “I do love you, babe, just not like you want.”
She drops her forehead to my chest. “Like somebody loves a bird with a broken wing.” Her voice twists something inside me into a pretzel knot and makes me wince.
“Fall in love with me. Make me fall in love with you. I don’t think you can do it, sir.”
God damn it, those words just keep cycling in my head. I crush my lips onto hers, a little tickle rising in my chest when she comes back at me, and I can’t control the panic that fills me. I’m falling for her and I know it. That was not part of the plan, but I know now that I’m committed to the challenge. “No, Rayanna,” I whisper back to her. “Like the beautiful woman you are.” Her hands tighten around my neck, my arm snaked around her waist and my free hand cradling her face, and I kiss her like I’m drowning. It feels like I am, so lost in terror and passion that it’s hard to think. She’s tugging me toward the bed and I know that trip to the store is going to have to wait. As much as I feel the need to push her away, everything below my waist wants to pull her closer, and I do.
I make up my mind right this minute that if I’m going down, I’m taking her with me. My voice almost a moan, I tell her, “Whatever you give to me I’ll give back. I promise.”
“I’m falling for you, master,” she announces. “Are you prepared to give that back?”
“I already am. You do something to me, precious, something no woman’s ever done.” And there it is―the truth. I’m not sure what it is that she does, but it’s taking me over. There’s a kinship here that’s pulling me to her and there’s no denying it. It’s physical, yeah, but it’s also something so pure that it’s almost spiritual.
The next thirty minutes are like something out of an epic love story, my hardness driving into her and connecting us in a way I’ve never been connected to another woman. Sex has always been something I enjoyed but it meant little else, even with Esme. Our connection was different, far more visceral and aggressive. This is warm and sweet, soft and gentle, almost reverent. When she cries out, I feel strong. A simple whisper is a cashmere sweater wrapping me up on a cold day or warm sugar cookies coming out of an oven. The look on her face tells me I’m satisfying her, but the sensation of her arms around my ribcage tells me I’m home.
Her voice is tiny. “Lucien?”
I can barely breathe when I answer her. “Yes, babe?”
“Come with me? Please? I want you, Lucien. I want to make you happy.”
“You do, baby,” I whisper to her. “You truly do.” Tensing around me, she gasps as the orgasm takes over her body and in seconds, mine does the same.
It’s magical, this thing between us. We lie there, arms and legs braided together, and I can’t even consider turning loose. I want to fuse us together until no one can tell where one ends and the other begins. “You know, sir, we’re not getting any clothes hangers this way,” she whispers, her words interspersed with giggles.
“Fuck clothes hangers. Who needs clothes hangers anyway?” I reply with a chuckle.
“I do if I’m ever going to get my clothes put away.”
“Ahhh, precious, don’t worry. We’ve got time for that.” My lips land on her forehead
and the kiss I leave there is as soft as a marshmallow.
“Precious. Is that my name?”
“Do you want it to be? Because I think it suits you.” I squeeze her a little tighter and she sighs against my skin.
“I like it. Will that be your name for me?”
I nod. “Yes. Because you’re precious to me.”
“Sir, don’t play with me. I can’t take it,” she says, her voice suddenly strong.
“I don’t play like this. We have something here, Rayanna, and I think we both know it. How did this happen? I have no idea. But no matter how it did, I like it.”
Her finger traces little circles in the hair on my chest. “I do too, sir.”
Chapter Four
The rest of the day is like some kind of dream I never want to wake up from. We get showered and dressed, go to the store for the hangers, then stop at the grocery and pick up fruit and ice cream. When we get back, we hang up all the rest of the clothes, put away the laundry, and throw away all the bags and boxes. That’s unremarkable.
What’s remarkable is the evening. I call a local Asian place and order pad Thai, which she proclaims the best food she’s ever eaten. I have two shows I watch on Sunday night and she eagerly asks to dive headlong into them, so we settle on the sofa in front of the big TV. It only takes about ten minutes and I’m sideways, legs up on the sofa, and she’s in my lap, leaning into my chest, my arms around her and hers gripping them. A few minutes later, she’s got a throw over both of us and we snuggle there, watching the show and eating Boston baked beans and old-fashioned nougat candy with jelly bean chips in it.
I wish there was a way I could explain the happiness I feel with this woman sitting in my lap, warm and safe in my arms as we laugh at the TV and nibble sugary snacks. I feel light and young, almost childlike, but she’s the one who looks the part. Her face is very nearly glowing with an innocence I find charming. Rayanna Hardesty is the embodiment of everything I’ve wanted for years and never thought I’d have. Long ago I gave up on the idea of true love and a solid relationship, but I see now exactly what one looks like. Will I give this up in six weeks?
Eternally Yours: Bliss Series, Book Six Page 7