by Vivi Paige
“The worst,” I snapped my gaze to lock with hers, “is that some people judge you just by your family and abandon you. Shun you.”
Ella stiffened and straightened her posture. “I see. I was wondering when this was going to come up.”
“When what was going to come up?” I demanded angrily, flipping open the menu and looking at it but not even reading the words.
“When you were going to take it out on me for leaving you when we were still practically kids,” she said bitterly. “Damn it, Deryk, what do you want from me? It was years ago, and I was in a bad headspace, okay? I couldn’t deal with your family’s… situation.”
“You didn’t even try to deal with it,” I snapped. “You just left. And wouldn’t return my calls, wouldn’t see me, wouldn’t even look at me.”
“I couldn’t stand to see you.” She shook her head.
“Oh, so I disgusted you that much?” I blurted.
“No, I couldn’t…” Ella sniffled, tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. “It would have hurt too much to see you, knowing we could never be together. Okay? It hurt because I cared about you so damn much. So, go ahead, punish me for leaving you. Nothing you can do to me could compare to how much it hurt to leave you.”
I settled back, the venom draining from my fangs. I reached out and clasped her hand with my own, squeezing it gently. “I’m not going to do that. What happened, happened. What matters now is the present.”
She sniffled, extricating her hand from under mine, but she did nod.
The waitress came over, and we made our orders. I did the ordering for Ella, which she didn’t protest. I knew she was just going to love the Monte Cristo sandwich. It was right up her alley.
“How about some mimosas?” I asked.
Ella glanced up, blinking away tears, and nodded. “Make mine with orange juice, please,” she said. Then a smile crept up onto her face. “If that’s okay with sir, of course.”
“It’s okay,” I said, suddenly abashed at our private dichotomy spoken aloud in public.
Our drinks arrived, shortly followed by the food. As I prepared to dig into my spaghetti, she picked up a ceramic dish filled with a purple gelatinous ooze and frowned.
“What is this?”
“Grape jam, for your sandwich.”
“Grape jam with meat?” she asked, arching a brow.
“Just try it. If you don’t like it, we’ll order something else.”
“What is this exactly?”
“It’s deep-fried lunch meat. You’ll love it.”
Ella dipped a corner of her triangle half-sandwich into the jelly and then brought it up to her mouth. Her teeth crunched through the crispy outer later, a bit of grease running down her chin. Ella’s eyes widened, and she quickly re-anointed her sandwich with more jelly and took another bite.
“How’s the sandwich?” I teased sweetly.
“Shut up,” she said, devouring the food with gusto.
I frowned, noticing for the first time how the veins and tendons in her hands stood out in stark relief. “Have you been getting enough to eat lately?”
She glared at me, chewing a dollop of sandwich and swallowing before she spoke. “I can take care of myself, Deryk.”
“What? That’s not what I meant at all…”
“Yes it is.” She glared across the table at me. “That’s exactly what you meant. It’s like when we were dating the first time around, and you were always second-guessing everything I did. Just because I spent the first twelve years of my life poor, and the last few years the same, doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”
“You’re putting words in my mouth,” I tried to soothe her. “Calm down. I never said you couldn’t take care of yourself.”
“But you’re thinking it. Right? Poor Ella, she has to work three jobs and she still can’t feed herself. Well, I’ve been taking care of myself and four invalids for almost as long as we’ve been apart. I’m a grown ass woman, and I don’t need your fucking condescending attitude.”
“Condescending?” I gasped. “Come on. Calm down. You’re causing a scene.”
She seethed, taking a long drink of water before speaking in a lower, more civilized tone. “Are you giving me an order, sir?” she snapped icily.
“No, not here. Not in public. Come on, Ella. Why are you so pissed at me all of a sudden?”
“Why? I don’t know.” She shook her head, eyes narrowed to slits. “I really don’t know. But it probably has something to do with you.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Nothing, and that’s the point. While I slaved away for the last few years struggling to make ends meet, you were getting high and partying it up, sleeping till noon and screwing every floozy you came across. You didn’t win me back. You bought me. Your money and privilege come so naturally to you, you just assume everyone is going to be so grateful for your help.” Ella inhaled deeply, her nostrils flaring, and then sighed. “I didn’t need you to come sweep into my life and make it better, Deryk. I was doing fine on my own.”
“Oh? Then how did you end up at the Jolly Roger, auctioning yourself off to the highest bidder?”
“Fuck you,” she sputtered. “That’s not fair. What are we supposed to do, us little people without trust funds? Would you have preferred I leave my dad on the street? Or at the mercy of my bitch of a stepmother? Hell no. Don’t you dare judge me. You can’t buy my love, Deryk. You never could, and maybe that’s as much why I left as your family’s ‘connections.’”
I laid my knife and fork down carefully and dabbed at my mouth, trying to give no clue as to the seething rage I felt in my belly. “Well, fine. I don’t have to buy your love. I already own your body. I think it’s time you were reminded of that.”
Ella’s expression seemed inscrutable, but I thought I detected a bit of regret in her blue eyes. Not that I was mad, but she’d said so many hurtful things—even if there was a ring of truth to them.
“Whatever sir wants,” she rasped snidely.
“That’s right,” I said, throwing three hundred-dollar bills on the table and grabbing her by the wrist. “Whatever I want.”
I dragged her out of the restaurant, seething with pent-up rage. If she wanted to play this game, she would find that I played to win.
Chapter Twelve
Deryk’s grip on my wrist was painfully tight as he led me half-stumbling out of the restaurant to the waiting limo. He yanked the door open and then roughly shoved me inside, climbing in after.
I rubbed my wrist and glared at him in silent fury. I had grown tired of his condescending attitude and the way he thought his money and privilege solved everything. His response was to behave like a petulant twelve-year-old and get all huffy.
“Jimmy, take us to Viking Age,” Deryk barked toward our driver.
“Viking Age—is that the tattoo parlor?”
“The same.”
Goosebumps rose on my skin at the mention of the phrase “tattoo parlor.” He wouldn’t seriously force me to get a tattoo. Would he? A myriad of feelings welled in me. I was afraid it would hurt, first and foremost, yet I’d always dreamed of having a tattoo. I was also afraid of what design he might choose. What if he did something purely humiliating and ugly? Like that viral photo of the poor woman whose jilted, friend-zoned tattooist inked a giant pile of shit on her back?
I kept hoping that maybe, just maybe, he wanted a tattoo for himself, but I knew I was wrong.
We rolled along, growing closer to my fate. I squirmed in the seat, butterflies swarming in my belly. Deryk remained stony and silent, looking out the window and trying to pretend I didn’t exist.
I soon began to calm a bit. Deryk couldn’t help it if his first recourse was to throw money at a problem. And he was probably just concerned for my well-being. Plus, I really hadn’t been eating very well. The bitter irony of working at a restaurant is that sooner or later nothing there smells or tastes the least bit appetizing. Plus, my manager only gave me a thirty percent discoun
t on meals.
So, maybe I was a bit underweight, though hardly a starving waif. Still, Deryk didn’t have to be such an ass. I decided I was still miffed, though willing to give him another chance. That was, until we stopped in front of the aforementioned Viking Age studios. The plate glass window out front was adorned with a busty, chain mail bikini-clad woman with a horned helmet riding on a dinosaur. Real subtle.
As we exited the limo, Deryk’s hand gripping my wrist tightly again, I noted the neighborhood was in the process of decline—for a long, long time. If I were alone, I wouldn’t dare to walk down this particular street.
Deryk ushered me inside, and a young man with multiple lip piercings and inked designs looked up with a cheerful smile. “Hey, it’s the D man,” he came out from behind the counter to fist bump Deryk. He turned toward me for a moment, his face contorted in confusion. “Who’s this? She’s a little, eh, vanilla for your tastes. Isn’t she?”
I scowled. Vanilla, am I? Is that how it is?
“Nice to see you, Sykes,” Deryk said, deliberately and pointedly not answering the man’s query. “You available for some work this afternoon?”
“For you, always.” Sykes rubbed his hands in glee. “You always come up with the most challenging things for me to try. Go ahead in the back and have a seat so we can discuss what you want.”
“I’m not the client.” Deryk shoved me forward roughly. “She is.”
“Is that so?” Sykes said, his eyes filled with anxious worry. “Uh, have you ever had a tattoo before?”
“No,” I said. “But apparently I’m going to get one today.”
Sykes glanced from me over to Deryk and frowned. “Uh, is this cool?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not as ‘vanilla’ as you might think,” I snapped, moving past him into the back room. The walls were covered in photos of colorful ink work, some of it more intricate and detailed than a Da Vinci illustration. Several of the images were quite beautiful, but what would Deryk choose to etch permanently upon my skin?
I was angry about it, but I couldn’t help but admit, even if only to myself, that the idea of him compelling me to get a tattoo was pretty hot. In practice, I wasn’t so sure.
“What are we going to do for you today?” Sykes opened up a binder filled with sketches. “For your first tat, I would recommend something simple and small.”
“Never mind that crap.” Deryk dug through his pocket until he found his phone and brought up an image on the screen. “This is what I want you to ink on her.”
I peered at the image on his screen, my nose wrinkling with disgust. It was a pair of artfully rendered glass slippers, the image managing to appear ethereal and translucent. Elegant, even. Someone with a lot of skill had rendered the design, but it wasn’t what I would have picked for myself.
“Man…” Sykes shook his head. “I can do it, but there’s a lot of white in this design. You know white hurts the worst.”
“She can take it,” Deryk snapped. “She’s not fragile.” Deryk looked me dead in the eye when he said the words. While Sykes sheepishly went off to prepare his equipment, Deryk leaned over the armrest to whisper in my ear. “Say the word, admit that you’re afraid, and we’ll walk out of here now.”
I leaned back and eyed him coolly. “Who said I’m afraid?”
Deryk sputtered, his attempt to be “gracious” backfiring in his face. “Fine, then.” He stood up and perched upon a stool like an angry gargoyle.
Sykes came back with his kit, slipping on a pair of disposable black gloves. “Where do you want it?” he asked as his laser printer churned out a larger version of the glass slipper image.
“Right above her ass,” Deryk said firmly. I glared at him. A tramp stamp? He was going to make me get a tramp stamp? Damned if I was going to give him the satisfaction of backing out or acting afraid.
Sykes glanced at me, as if to confirm. I shrugged as if it didn’t matter and turned around to lie on my belly on the table.
“You heard the man,” I said, flouncing up my skirt. “Oh, I’m not wearing underwear. That’s not a problem, is it?”
Deryk fumed, and Sykes seemed to pick up on the animosity between us, but he dutifully rolled up a towel and placed it over my naked rear before sterilizing the work area with a cotton swabbed with alcohol.
“At least let me spread this out over a few sessions,” Sykes tried to help.
“It’s not a large tat. She’ll be fine. Won’t you, Ella?” Deryk answered for me.
“Yes, sir,” I said, all chipper-like. “I’ll be just fine. I can take whatever you can dish out.”
Sykes frowned, but bent to work. “I’m going to do the outline first. Because it’s an image of glass, I’ll have to do it in white. It’s going to burn, honestly.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. When the tattoo needle jabbed into my skin with a buzzing akin to angry hornets, I regretted my stoicism, but I gritted my teeth and endured.
I could see Sykes’ work in the reflection of a chrome lampshade. The amount of blood he kept wiping away disturbed me, but neither he nor Deryk seemed alarmed. I supposed it was par for the course.
It took over three hours for Sykes to finish my tattoo, with only one short break in the middle while he smoked a cigarette. Did it hurt? Absolutely. You try getting a needle shoved into your skin over and over again at a machine gun pace. But it wasn’t as painful as I’d thought it would be, and when Sykes finished and applied a smear of coconut and emu oil, it felt more like a bad sunburn than anything else.
Deryk peered down at the small of my back, nodding in satisfaction. But when he met my gaze, I detected guilty regret lurking in his eyes. He had been bluffing, but I’d called it. And now we would both have to live with the results.
“Here,” Sykes said, holding up a photo snapped with his cellphone so I could see it. “What do you think?”
“I think you have a lot of talent,” I said honestly. “It’s lovely.”
Sykes gave me my instructions. No direct sunlight for at least a week, keep it covered, apply the emu oil liberally to prevent scabbing and help the healing process. I listened, but only with half an ear. I figured Deryk, with all of his ink, knew the best way to take care of a healing tattoo.
Sykes put Saran wrap over my burning lower back, and then I hiked my skirt back down. He favored me with a worried frown as we left. Well, I was a big girl and I’d made a big girl decision. Or maybe an immature decision. If I hadn’t been so intent upon calling Deryk’s bluff, I could have walked out of here three hours ago without a drop of blood spilled.
Deryk didn’t drag me out of the parlor, as he had the restaurant. In fact, he almost seemed afraid to touch me. As soon as we piled into the back of the limo, I turned my rear to him and hiked up my skirt.
“Does it please you, sir?” I asked without much emotion.
“Of course, it does,” he said sullenly. “Put your skirt down. The privacy screen isn’t up yet.”
“She’s got nothing I ain’t seen before, kid,” Jimmy called from the front seat.
“Shut up, Jimmy,” Deryk growled and rolled up the screen.
We rode back to his woodland retreat in silence. The sandwich I’d eaten earlier felt like a lead weight in my stomach. How had we gone from such a lovely time to being at each other’s throats? I guessed there were a lot of pent-up feelings on both sides.
Once we reached the cottage, a very flustered limo driver regained his keys from Jimmy the Bull. While they bantered, Deryk led me inside the manor.
“I’m going for a swim,” he said, doffing his shirt and showing off his chiseled pecs. “But you can’t go in the water because of your new ink. You are still expected to attend me, however.”
“Whatever sir wants,” I said with exaggerated obsequiousness.
“Watch your smart-ass tone,” Deryk snarled.
“Whatever do you mean, sir?” I asked sweetly. “Isn’t this what sir wants? Someone docile and compliant?”
Deryk’s face da
rkened by several shades. He took my wrist again, dragging me into the kitchen. He began throwing open drawers, cursing under his breath.
“Where is it?” he grumbled. “Should have put it away where it belong—aha.”
Deryk pulled a red rubber ball gag out of one of the kitchen drawers, shaking a wash cloth loose from the shiny chrome buckle. He approached me with it held in two hands, raising it to my face level.
I opened my mouth without being told, locking gazes with him. Deryk shoved it in my mouth and buckled it tightly. I grunted as the leather dug into my skin, the ball sinking tightly between my teeth.
“There. Now your smart-ass mouth can’t bother me.” Deryk slapped my cheek twice firmly before taking a step back and spreading his arms out wide. “Take off my pants.”
I did so, sinking to my knees and unbuckling his belt. Once his underwear was off, he suddenly grabbed the back of my head and shoved my gagged face into his crotch. Obviously I couldn’t take his member in my mouth, but I responded with worship. I rubbed my face all over his rock-hard cock, rolling my eyes up to meet his gaze. The tat burned like fire, but not as much as what I felt between my legs.
“That’s enough of that,” Deryk snapped and pulled me by the hair away from his body. “Follow me.”
He headed out to the pool and dove right in. I wasn’t sure what “attending” him would entail, so I just sort of stood there feeling dumb with a ball gag in my mouth. I had expected it to be far less comfortable than it turned out to be. The idea of Deryk preventing me from speaking turned me on, or at least it would have if he hadn’t been so angry.
I stood there by the pool until Deryk swam over and demanded I towel him off. As I did so—paying a lot of extra attention to drying his privates—his phone rang.
Irritated, he snatched it up off the poolside table and put it to his ear. “Who are you and how did you get this num—what? Ella Ashmore?”
Suddenly I was rapt with attention, pausing with the bunched-up towel encompassing his balls. Who was trying to contact me?