Jake and I were over.
In my uniform, I sloshed in the mud to the barn hoping to find Lele. I stopped, startled by the sight of Sir Dane combing one of the mares. “Hi…”
“Hello,” he said with a sexy grin. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I muttered, shaking my head as he tossed the brush and picked me up. He sat me on one of the benches.
“What is wrong?”
“I hate him, I love him,” I whispered with a scowl. “And I just want it all to disappear.”
Leaning closer, Sir Dane nipped at my bottom lip as his hand caressed over my thigh. I was looking for a way to hurt Jake and sleeping with Dane seemed as good a recourse as any. I wrapped my legs around his waist as I encouraged his pillaging of my flesh. We fucked like savages in the barn that afternoon.
I never said yes. I never said no. I just let it happen.
What did I have to lose?
Little did I know Wilma Manley had made one phone call to heal all of my wounds. With my mud covered legs, I headed up to my room to find none other than Luca Raniero sitting on my bed in his fine suit with his fedora on my nightstand.
The leader of the uprising Boston mafia traveled all the way across the ocean to come and visit me at the BDSM school. And all bets were instantly off.
* * *
Peeling my soiled clothes from my body, Luca kissed my lips and proclaimed his love for me as he brought me back from the brink. He ran a bubble bath and placed me into the clawfoot tub before stripping his clothes off. I was bathing with a mob boss at twenty.
And the only reason it happened was that he met me before he was the Luca Raniero. I helped him, and he felt eternally indebted to me. I stretched my feet onto his chest as I stared at those emerald eyes across a sea of bubbles.
“…Do you know?” he asked with a grin.
“I do,” I giggled. “I know how you feel because you’ve been showing me for years.”
His hand dripped with water as he lifted it to make a circle in the air. “You really do all of this?”
“I really do all of this,” I said, smirking. “You want to try me?”
“How important is it to you?”
I curled my lips as I considered my answer. “Now, it is very important to me.”
“… Is Jake?”
“I thought he was until…”
“Until Paris…”
“Yes,” I freely admitted as he stretched out his arms for me. I bumped his erection in the water with my thigh as I moved across the tub. Our lips collided as the steam rose from the water.
“Let me make love to you, Anna,” he said, holding me steady as I straddled onto his shaft. His wet black locks curled at the tips as he locked his arms around me and thrust up into me from beneath. He was so intoxicating that I forgot all about the barn with Dane. It didn’t matter. Luca was caviar—sacred and divine.
Water splashed out of the tub as bubbles hit the floor. “If I could keep you, I would.”
“I know,” I mumbled, letting his hard cock ease away the pain. He was cathartic and holy for my busted soul.
“God, don’t stop riding me,” he breathed against my neck as he buried his head between my breasts. “You feel so tight on my dick. So hot. So good.”
I have no idea how many times Luca and I made love that weekend, but it was enough to bring light back to my heart and a smile to my face. With his come dripping out of my petals, I laid on his bare chest when he muttered, “I have to go soon, beautiful. And I want to take you to the states.”
“I can’t go back to Vegas,” I mentioned, glancing up at him.
“Why don’t you go home to Texas?”
I squinched my nose as I had never even considered returning home. “I suppose I could,” I said, running the idea through my head. “It’s not like there is a reason not to. I certainly won’t be marrying anyone. I think I’ve made my point with my father by now.”
“Ya, you should trust me,” he said, pulling my body on top of his. “But first you should fuck me one more time.”
Luca was insatiable with a ravenous sexual appetite. Those few days with him in the English countryside were some of my best memories, and I owed Wilma for all of it.
There was something more to be said about that weekend. Not only was I continuously on Luca’s dick, but rediscovered how much I loved being doted upon. Jake had misplaced the balance in the equation. We could have all the love in the world, but his slacking aftercare skills had started to affect our relationship adversely. I didn’t know if I could forgive him again, but I missed him.
I understood how fleeting Luca and I were. We weren’t a real relationship, but a fairytale. We were imaginary and a thing of fantasy. We wanted one another, but logically, we were both in an impossible situation.
Luca had a wife and children, including a son he had already promised away. And somewhere in my heart, I still had dreams of making the D/s world more transparent because it was a quagmire to the naive. That night as Luca laid sleeping. I pulled out the notebooks I started at L’Académie and started adding more ideas. By morning, I hadn’t slept a wink as I sat up scribbling away on the pages.
“What are you doing, Stellina?”
With a kiss to his wine-stained lips, I snickered, “I think I’m drawing up a business plan. You want to invest?”
We spent the next three hours brainstorming my ideas. I had never shared them with anyone until that moment. The truly odd part was Luca wasn’t Dominant in the sense of my sadomasochistic world, but he was a Master. I could have walked into any dungeon, and Luca would have played the role. But it wouldn’t have been playing a role because it was who he was—an intimidating, confident, Dominant male.
My submissive bloomed because of a man named Luca.
The blossoms I sowed at Les Pétales flourished in his capable hands as my petals showered his world with mine. His excitement brought on mine as I discovered pleasure and pain—all we would gain and all we would lose—and the only thing that mattered was our love. And the love we shared would have to be enough of a promise to see us to the other side because…
… Because you never know when it will be the last time to have a lover inside of you. You never know when it will be over. You never know when the last kiss comes to pass, or the final touch of skin will be all you have for the rest of your life.
We get shuttled from one chapter to the next. We never know when those will end. We never know what the next one will bring. But we do all we can with what we have and pray for some greater meaning in it all. We hope for validation. We strive for acknowledgment. We seek out the praise of strangers. While we quietly only hope for one.
Luca Raniero was mine.
And I was his for a few brief breaths of my journey.
But he gave me enough purpose to last beyond this life.
The Old Ford
CHAPTER 14
I had been gone for five years when I stepped foot on Texas dirt again. I left a child and returned a woman. My brother Frank drank himself into the ground, and because of that, my brother Jessie wanted nothing to do with my father or the family business.
I wasn’t coming home to play good girl.
I was coming home to be the wicked bitch.
Arriving in Houston, my father picked me up in the morning. We had a ranch west of San Antonio, where I was raised. I expected we would go there, but he said we needed to check on the family estate near Austin. My grandparents—who I never really knew—left it to him at their passing.
I enjoyed the day-long trip in his car with the windows rolled down and my hair tethered in a red scarf. Our conversation was light and airy as he never once mentioned my marital status. I thought it was odd, but beneath my white framed sunglasses, I concealed all of the pain of our history.
I was a showgirl…a submissive…coming home to take on the daughter role that I wasn’t sure I wanted.
The terrain of Austin was entirely different from the dusty lands I had grown up with.
There were trees and rolling landscapes sparking my memories of France and the forest. I did my best to not think of Luca and all we left behind in England. Impossibility was a word I didn’t like, and it fit Luca and me with perfection.
I noted the giant for sale sign as my father swung open the rusted, broken gate to the property. I tried to remember if I had ever visited my grandparents. “What are you thinking about?”
“Have I ever been here?”
“When you were little,” he said, pointing with his wrinkled hand to a swing under an old oak tree. “You used to swing there. Your grandmother used to push you. You’d giggle and laugh.”
I gasped—not at the swing or the old dilapidated southern antebellum house—but the man standing on the steps.
“… Why is Jake here?”
“Because you are,” my father said, clasping my hand. Those three words were the greatest thing he ever said to me. “You’re staying here until the property sells. I know you don’t want to stay with me, Anna. Besides I’m less than an hour and a half away. I don’t want you out here in the backwoods alone, so your friend will be staying with you. I’ve spent the weekend with him, and he seems pretty fond of you.”
“… Dad,” I whined, unable to explain the complex dynamic of my relationship with Jake.
“Go on, go see him.”
Nervously, I opened the door and slid out of the car. He was there. Really there. Standing on my familial property—my inheritance—with his leather jacket and a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. I walked along the path and stopped before the house. We stared at each other. So many words unspoken. So many emotions hurt.
Stepping off the porch, Jake made his way to the bottom step and stood at the halfway point between where we both were. It was up to me to bridge the rest of the distance. He was so tall and good looking, so unkempt and reckless. My eyes shed tears as I took a step closer.
“What are you doing here?” I giggled, hearing my father depositing my bags on the ground.
“Well,” he said, lifting his eyebrows. “Long story short, I called Luca last week and asked him if he knew where your father was.”
Oh. Shit.
I quietly cursed Luca’s name for years for this stunt. He’d sent Jake to my father and sent himself to retrieve me. It was diabolic, and a well-played move. I turned back to my father who waved me on. I laughed and cried. “We messed up,” I said, biting my lip. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Sure, you can,” he encouraged, reaching for me. “I made mistakes, Anna. You made mistakes, too. But I don’t want to do this without you. I love you so fucking much it hurts. And I’m sorry I did what I did, but I would’ve done anything to keep you safe.”
“Jake…”
Running his hand through his hair, he asked, “Yeah, baby girl?”
“I love you so much.”
“Try again with me, Anna. Don’t give up on us. Not now. I’m trying to do better than being a hoodlum.” He opened his jacket and showed me the dress shirt and slacks as he beamed a smile at me.
“You still have your combat boots,” I pointed out.
“Because I have a brand new motorcycle in the backyard waiting on you.”
I peered over my shoulder at my father again. “Anna Rebecca, you get your ass up there to that man. You got to have patience, but you also need to know when to show your teeth…”
“If I can do those two things well, I’ll find joy in all I ever do,” I interrupted, laughing as I stood between the man of my past and the man of my future.
“That’s right! Now go!” my father prodded with a point of his finger. “So I can get home before dark!”
Turning toward Jake, I ran as fast as I could and leaped into his arms. He held me close as we spun and kissed. My dad drove away. “Promise me we won’t ever be apart again, Jake.”
“I swear we’re never getting that messed up again, baby. No more tests. No more stunts. No more gardeners. No more wrecking something so fucking good.”
Tears stung my cheeks as I made the promise that hurt like nothing else ever had. “No more Luca.” I swallowed back the pain, knowing how impossible we were. “No more anyone else.”
“No,” he reassured as I stayed in his arms. I was trembling and terrified, but I loved this man despite all the bumps and bruises we had along the way. “We can do this if we do it together, Anna.”
“I guess that should be Mrs. Ballister,” I teased with a smile. “But I’m still not marrying you, Jake.”
“I don’t care,” he said, walking us up to the house. “I don’t need marriage. I need you.”
The floorboards creaked with every step as he set me on my feet. He clasped my cheeks in his hands and brought my lips to meet his as we kissed. My fingers latched onto his jacket and pulled it from his body as my craving awakened for his bad boy. I needed him—then and there. His fingers fumbled with the button on my culottes, and we made love on the rickety front porch of my Great Grandparents home.
We christened the future with our baptismal waters, and ultimately, it was all because of a lover I could never have. The very same one who watched over my shoulder, kept me safe, and gave me every happiness in the world.
But one.
* * *
The wilted house was a mess with broken floors, water leaks, and flickering electricity, but my father provided a new mattress, a pantry full of groceries, and a wish for good luck. He had the old mansion cleaned, but it was far from livable. Fortunately, we only needed to stay there until the sale, after which, Jake and I planned on buying a place of our own. We had no idea what we would do with such an expanse.
However, the property itself was incredible with over fifteen hundred acres, the grand antebellum, numerous buildings, outbuildings, and barns. There was even a small rodeo arena, a water tower, and silos for grain storage. The terrain was a mixture of rocky pastures and dense, thick forest.
The sunrises and sunsets were glorious shades without anything obstructing our views. We went for a walk every evening. I started imagining paths then where the lands curved and contoured, envisioning a grand scale garden like the ones at L’Académie or Highlandale Hawthorne.
It never occurred to me where those early dreams would take me.
Our time in Sin City was over, and despite my father’s objections, he conceded to allow his only daughter to live in sin. It was better than me leaving the state or the country, both of which were viable options. We seriously contemplated returning to L’Académie, but the fear of our misdeeds caused a pause in our hearts. We loved the school, but we couldn’t fathom risking what we had fought so hard to recover from.
We even considered moving across the pond to be with Wilma Manley, but we deemed it too close to the source of our almost mortal wound. With no other options, we started looking around Austin for a suitable place to call home.
Jake and I were getting along remarkably well. Though we were having sex, we didn’t touch the hotbed of our fetish. Bad things happened the last time we played. I longed to communicate and rediscover our kinky magic, but I kept silent until he brought it up late one night.
“I’m sorry,” he mentioned as I crawled into bed.
My hair was wet from the shower as I combed through my auburn tangles. “For?”
In the darkness, I felt his hand grab mine as I swooped through my locks. I cast a glance in his direction, but in the dark—well, we were always better in the night with more places to hide. “For what happened in the library, Anna. For what happened in Paris. For the shit, I did when I got to Vegas.”
I rubbed my lips together as his apology came out of nowhere. “I understand, and you are forgiven, but I don’t think I can…” I couldn’t say the word submissive and not think of the Master I longed for—and he wasn’t Jake. “Not yet. Baby steps.”
“I want you to know, when you are ready,” he paused as my warm tears trickled to the pillow in the cool night air. “If you’re ever ready, I will be there for you.”
I placed his words in my heart as I curled into the crook of his arm. We were happy and peaceful, and there was no need to stir the pot of my true desires when I wasn’t sure he could be the man I needed.
I stayed awake most of the night trying to convince my mind what a good man Jake was even if he couldn’t be that for me. He may have stolen me away to a faraway land, but the fangs of BDSM kept me. I was starving for someone to take control.
But I ignored the need.
I wanted a Dominant, and I knew he wasn’t Jake. I could put those needs on the back burner I believed. I would take Jake over jeopardizing our love again. I wasn’t entirely certain we would ever work as a D/s couple, and I had to come to a place of acceptance.
I hated it—every second.
I wanted a collar. And structure. And time alone with a man controlling every bit of me. But I stayed quiet because there was no other option.
There were times when a woman kept secrets to preserve the future.
And in 1960, I did just that. I went to the doctor two months after my arrival in Texas. I had been feeling a bit off, and I thought I might have caught a bug in my travels.
ln the little town of Sugargrove, I discovered I was pregnant.
Jake Ballister. Phillipe Kerris. Luca Raniero.
I didn’t know who the father was, but I knew Jake and I were happy, and there was no need to burst the bubble of our perfect harmony. I wasn’t going to draw up a line in the sand now. Not after all we had been through. Not after all the tears, I cried.
So I lied.
Or kept it to myself.
Either way.
What happened at Highlandale Hawthorne didn’t matter, I could impose that much self-discipline upon myself. It was no one’s concern who I spread my legs for or what I did before now. Jake was guilty; I was guilty. Hurts had been made and forgiveness was in our grasp.
Bad Girl (Les Pétales) Page 14