by Sara Cate
This little moment with my dad was great, but it was far too late for me this time.
Everything with my dad has left me feeling raw and exhausted, so after we finish lunch, I get up from the table and head inside. I just need a break from people and penetrating eyes for a moment. Standing in the kitchen, trying to decide if I need a drink with alcohol or caffeine, I hear a small cry coming from the living room, so I walk over to inspect. Harper is awake in her little car seat, clawing helplessly for a pacifier that fell out of her mouth. The buckles take me a moment to get undone, but once I do, I pull her gently out of the seat.
Her sweet blue eyes latch onto me immediately, staring up at me with her little mouth open.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I say to her. “I’m not the cool, fun brother. I’m the mean one.”
A smile spreads across her face, putting deep dimples in her pudgy cheeks.
Jesus, she’s fucking cute.
She starts rooting around for something, so I put the pacifier in her mouth and carry her in one arm to the kitchen. “The question, little sister, is vodka or coffee? What do you think?”
She’s going to town on that pacifier, and I laugh. “Yeah, coffee.” It’s not easy, but I manage to get the machine loaded with one hand, and she hardly moves, watching every single thing I do like it’s the greatest thing she’s ever seen.
While I wait for the machine to brew, I look up and notice there are a pair of mismatched eyes gazing through the window, watching me. It makes my chest ache. I wish she’d stay, but I know I have no right to even ask her to. I said I was going to be better for her, and somehow, I ended up being worse.
“Harper, never believe a man when he says he’ll change.”
She coos against her pacifier, and when I look up again, Hanna is staring away from me, a contemplative look on her face. Then the patio door opens, and Zara walks in, looking at us with a tight smile.
“I’m fighting the urge to take a picture right now.”
“Thank you for that.” I love pictures of Harper, but memories of this day, no thanks.
Keeping Harper in my arm, I pour myself a cup of coffee, and when I look back at Zara, she looks almost impressed. Sitting at the counter across from me, she smiles.
“Want one?”
“Sure,” she replies, so I pass her the one I just poured.
It’s only comfortably silent for a moment before she starts with the questions.
“Have a good talk with your dad?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, he can get you all caught up later.” I desperately don’t need to go through that whole thing again. It was awful enough once.
“I think I’m just about caught up,” she says while walking to the fridge to pull out the coffee creamer she uses.
“Think so?”
“Don’t forget I know you, Nash Wilde. I used to know you better than anyone else, but I don’t think I get to say that anymore.”
I catch the way her eyes glance out to the patio, and my mouth goes dry. Here we go.
“If you think I’m mad, I promise I’m not.”
“I thought you’d hate us together.”
As she sits back on the stool, she looks at me for a moment before leaning forward and saying, “Don’t be mad at me for what I’m about to say. You’re holding my baby. But Nash, I never wanted you with Hanna…to protect Hanna.”
Ouch. I probably deserved that.
And as I bring the cup to my lips, blowing on the hot coffee, I don’t argue.
“I was that bad, huh?”
“You were that broken. I expected you to come back from Amsterdam a stronger, happier version of yourself, but you were more broken than when I first came to Del Rey. You just hid it differently. I knew something happened there, and I assumed it was my fault. I was afraid your dad and I got married too quickly, and it didn’t take much digging on your dad’s part to figure it out.”
“What do you mean figure it out?” I ask.
“He had some friends there. He made a few calls, found out you were spending all of your free time with Ellis Prior. He just didn’t understand the scope of it yet, but I had my ideas…”
What the…fuck?
“Why didn’t anyone say something to me?”
“Talk to you? We could hardly get you to look up from your phone for three years straight. Alistair assumed once you got the company back, you’d have something to distract you. He just wanted you to be okay. And when it was very clear you weren’t…he called him.”
Shit, it all makes sense now. When my dad called him, I assumed it was because he didn’t trust me to handle it on my own. Naturally, he had to fucking meddle in my personal life.
“Granted, he thought you were just friends, but at lunch that day, it was very clear to me it was more than that. Then I went shopping with Hanna…and that’s when I realized shit was a lot more complicated out here than I thought.”
“Fuck,” I mutter, leaning against the counter. Glancing down at Harper still in my arms, and I realize she fell asleep, snoring peacefully in my arms.
Zara gets up from her stool, walking over to place her lips against the baby’s head. When she looks up at me, she ruffles my hair. “We don’t care who you love, Nash. We just want you to be happy. Then maybe you can have something like this for yourself.”
She carefully rolls Harper out of my arms and carries her over to her car seat, lying her down with care. I’m left reeling in the kitchen, feeling a little side-swiped by this news that not only did my dad know about Ellis and me in Amsterdam but he wanted him out here to try and make me happy…again.
This is the second time he’s done this. I just wish I knew why the fuck it doesn’t ever seem to work.
After saying goodbye to my dad and Zara, I go to my room to hide. I don’t want to be around when Hanna leaves. I’ve faced enough failure today. I just need to be alone with it for a while. But it’s only a few minutes after I drift off to sleep that I feel someone’s weight settle on my bed.
When I open my eyes, I stare at her as she crawls across the mattress and rests on the pillow next to me.
“I thought you were leaving.”
“I can’t. Not with us like this.”
I let out a sigh. “You don’t have to feel bad. Just go.”
“They already left. You’re stuck with me. For a few more days at least.”
It’s silent between us as she watches me with sadness in her eyes. Then she tells me about her apartment and giving the restraining order to her mom and her new job at the restaurant. It feels good…to see her moving on. Living her own life.
“Are you going to see him?” I ask, not because I’m jealous but because I’m just curious. It’s weird that I hope she is. It’s bittersweet, but I want them to be happy, even if that’s without me.
“Not like that.”
“Why not?”
She looks at me like I should know the answer to that question. Rolling onto her back, she drapes an arm over her head. I have to fight the urge to touch her. I want to kiss her so bad it hurts.
“Because he may never be over you enough to date, and he’ll never be over you enough to date me.”
“That’s not true,” I say, leaning on my elbow.
“You think this is what I want? I wish I were wrong, Nash, but he will never be able to look at me without seeing you.”
“Fuck,” I say with an exhale, reclining against the headboard. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Well, have you tried apologizing?”
“For what? Being an asshole? You think after the two times I have fucked him over, saying sorry will make any difference? Would you believe me if I told you I’d really change this time? That I wouldn’t fall apart and go back to my old fucked-up ways next time shit gets hard?”
“But why don’t you lean on us? Open up. Tell us when you’re stuck in your head. Stop punishing us for loving you?”
Raking my fingers through my hair, I let out a loud groan. “I k
now that now. I’m trying. I promise, but a lot of good that does me now. He would never believe me if I told him that.”
“You should at least try. He might do it against his better judgement, but I believe he would take you back, Nash.”
“Hanna,” I say, looking at her. “I would let him do whatever he wanted to me to make that true. If he wanted me to get on my knees and beg I would. I’d let him…”
My voice trails, my mind latching onto an idea.
“What?” she asks.
I hate to get my hopes up, but my mind immediately goes back to a moment three years ago when it felt like Ellis offered me everything I ever wanted. Control over him, the opportunity to make him completely mine.
It was a moment so simple yet so powerful, to be handed his trust so complicitly. Am I crazy to think if I offered him that right now, he’d consider taking me back? Isn’t that what he always wanted, my complete trust. To have me so vulnerable in his hands that he could own me without question.
There’s only one way to find out.
35
My hands are shaking as we get out of the car in front of his building. In classic Ellis style, it’s sleek, expensive, but not intimidating. Stopping in front of the door, I start to panic. Maybe this is a bad idea. What if he has someone over? What if he’s already moved on? What if…it doesn’t work?
No, it has to work. This is all I have left. I have no idea where to go after this if it doesn’t.
Hanna sends the doorman a charming smile and tells him we’re here to see Mr. Prior on business. His eyes linger on her a moment too long as he makes a call up to the apartment, and I stand there shaking in my shoes. When he tells Ellis over the phone it’s Ms. Thurber, he smiles. Leaving my name out is a good idea.
“Penthouse,” the doorman says, pointing to the metallic, shining door of the elevator.
With one push of the button, we’re headed up. Hanna clings to my arm. “It’s going to be okay.”
Then the door chimes, opening to a grand entryway that leads to a large living room on the left and a marble white kitchen on the right. He’s waltzing toward us from a room off the side I recognize as his office when he sees me and freezes.
“What the hell is this?” he asks.
In my periphery, I see her bite her lip. “Go on, Nash.”
Here I fucking go.
“I know you don’t give a shit about apologies at this point—”
“You’d be right.” His jaw clenches.
Clearing my throat, I continue. “I’m not here begging for you to take me back or to forgive me. I’m here because I think I know what I need, and you’re the only person I trust to give it to me.”
His brow raises in curiosity, and I’m sure I have his attention now.
“I remember that night…with Lilac and I remember something she said about being submissive, about giving up control, how freeing it is, and I need that, Ellis.”
With a gentle squint in his eye, he steps forward. “I’m not going to force you into submission so you can feel better—”
“I’m giving it to you,” I say, stopping him. “I trust you.”
Silence fills the room like a dark cloud, and I can see in his eyes he wants this. Maybe it’s what he’s always wanted but was too afraid to ask for.
His hands tighten into fists with his arms crossed over his chest, the thick veins of his forearms popping as he clenches. He’s thinking about it, imagining me vulnerable and powerless. He wants to break me. I just hope he wants to build me back up afterward.
His eyes drift to Hanna who is standing next to me, and without looking at her, I know she softens under his gaze.
“It’s not that easy,” he says, more to her than to me. At least he’s apologetic about it. As if he wishes he could offer her a better solution and the guilt I feel for being the person, the problem, the broken cog in this machine, stings like acid.
“I know it’s not,” I reply, stepping forward. “But since when did we ever take the easy route? And I’m not asking you to take it easy on me. I’m asking you to give me what you’ve wanted to since we met. You’ve known this about me the whole time, haven’t you? You could see what I couldn’t. I was meant to do this. It’s what I’ve always needed when I was so convinced I needed to be the one in control. Ever since my brother died in the crash I should have prevented, I’ve been in a tailspin, thinking I only needed to regain control. But you knew…what I really needed was to give it up. Let go.”
He stares at me a moment, his chest moving with his heavy breath, his pulse pounding in his neck. Then he steps forward, his body almost touching mine as his dark stare penetrates all the confidence I walked in here with.
“You remember the safe word?”
I swallow. “Trust.”
“I’m going to crack you open, tear away every single layer, until all that is left is you. Just Nash.”
“I’m ready.”
His thumb touches my chin, and instantly the contact makes me melt, missing him so much I could cry for him to do it again, even if it hurts. Then he runs it down along my jaw toward my neck as his hand encircles my throat.
“Hanna, are you staying or going?”
She steps up next to me. “I’m staying.”
“It might get intense. You won’t like it,” he says and suddenly I get nervous for her. A cool pit of fear settles in my bones. Hanna nurtures, she worries, she cares. This will be too much for her to watch, and as much as I want her here for the aftercare part, I don’t know if she can handle everything leading up to it.
“You should go,” I tell her, but she only shakes her head, a quiver to her lip already.
“It’s all of us or nothing at all.”
His hand slips from my throat and he walks away toward the hallway leading to the back of the apartment. His place is large, expansive, with thick white marble floors and floor-to-ceiling windows.
Following close behind him, my shoulders begin to tighten along with the heavy knot in my gut. He goes straight for the large bedroom at the end of the hall, and I know immediately by the scent of him as we pass through the doorway it’s his room. The bed, with its black bedding, is large and neatly made. The instant memories of Amsterdam hit me hard.
He passes through the space for the large walk-in closet he enters and turns for the drawers along the back. After opening one, he begins pulling things out and turns to set them on the bed. I recognize them immediately: the rope, the blindfold, the paddle, the flogger, and last, he adds something else.
My pulse quickens.
“Take your clothes off,” he says in a low, authoritative tone.
Without hesitation, I pull off my shirt, folding it and setting it on the dresser against the wall. Hanna finds a spot in the opposite corner, watching as I peel off the rest of my clothes until I’m down to my boxers.
Ellis walks slowly over to me with a familiar black piece of silk running sensually between his fingers. “On your knees,” he says, tilting his head back and glaring down his nose at me. “You might have asked me for this, but that’s all the say you’re going to have from here on out. I know what’s best for you, and I’ll be the one giving it to you. You don’t ask and you don’t argue. Understood?”
“Yeah,” I answer in a shaky breath as I lower to my knees. Ellis bends at the hips, gripping my hair tight in his fist and pulling my head back so I can look at him.
“What was that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can make this difficult, and that’s fine. I like a little fight, but I have a feeling you’re not going to like this so much.”
He drapes the black silk over my eyes and the world goes dark.
“Arms up,” he says coldly. There’s a subtle boredom in his tone as if he’s uninterested in this, and I know he’s doing it on purpose. To deny me his attention and interest is its own form of torture.
Obediently, I raise my arms, and I feel the cool leather of the cuffs as he snaps them around each wrist.
Pulling a little harsher than he might pull anyone else, he hoists me to my feet and leads me across the room. When I feel the bed against my legs, I freeze.
“Climb up, on your knees.”
Doing as he says, I get on the bed and wait for his next instruction when I feel him walk away, no longer hearing his breath or smelling his scent. Somewhere in the room, Hanna is sitting silently watching, and I wish I could look at her, touch her, feel her comfort, know she’s not too scared.
When Ellis returns, I feel something large and soft against my legs. It comes up to my hip bones, and when he hinges me forward, I realize it’s a wedge ramp, putting my ass up in the air as I rest my forehead on the smaller wedge attached to the opposite side. It’s a form of humiliation, having my ass in the air, and I breathe through it.
He’s making me vulnerable, and I knew going into this he could do just about anything, and after everything I’ve put him through, I prepared myself for him being harsh. He knows my wounds and now he can throw all the salt he wants in them. I just fucking hope it pays off in the end.
Suddenly my arms are pulled tight over my head and I hear the snaps as he attaches each one to his bed post, so my top half is completely stretched out across his bed with my ass high for him. When his hand rests possessively on my back, I flinch.
“A little jumpy,” he growls. Then he’s close to my ear, and I shiver as he whispers, “I knew you’d hate this, but this isn’t for you. It’s for me.”
He runs his strong hands along the muscles of my back, and it’s a contradiction to his harsh tone. They are soothing, like his touch speaks a different language than his words, and I melt into the contact. Even as he peels down my boxers, leaving me completely exposed, my semi-hard dick presses against the velvet texture of the ramp. There’s a cool breeze on my balls as Ellis nudges me to spread my knees. Stretching the skin, I know this is about to hurt like a bitch.
“We’ll start off slow with just the paddle. You will count. Eight for the first round.”
When his hand leaves my back, it’s silent, and I stiffen, trying to breathe. “Yes, sir,” I mumble.