by W. Winters
He commands me to spread my legs for him, and I do, although they still tremble. He cleans me and I can barely hear him, his shadow moving across the room and then to the bathroom. Turning to my side, I curl up and still, I can’t steady myself.
It feels as if everything has changed. It was so slow this morning, so slow for weeks, and then it happened. In a single moment. He took me there and I know there’s no going back.
He climbs back into bed, the frame groaning from his weight. The covers rustle as he lays behind me and then pulls me in close to him. The tip of his nose runs along the curve of my neck, his hand gripping my hip. He leaves a chaste kiss just under the shell of my ear and with the shiver of desire running down my body, I’m reminded of how sore he’s left me.
“Zander,” I whisper his name, still breathless, still unable to move just yet. His lips are pressed against my hair and he kisses me there before that deep, rough hum rumbles up his chest.
Without turning to face him, without having that much courage I tell him, “I think I want more than to just be your client …” My cadence is shaky when I add, not daring to close my eyes, “I want more than to just be your submissive.”
There’s a beat and then another beat of silence. And then another. Too much time passes with him still behind me, not moving, not saying a word. Betrayal grips my heart and fears run rampant in the back of my mind.
“We have what we have right now, Ella.”
He says Ella, not “little bird.”
I only nod, my cheek still firm against the pillow. It takes great effort not to let on how much it hurts. How much pain sits against my chest.
We have what we have. Those are not the words of a man who feels the same as what I feel. I remember falling … and I remember heartbreak just as well.
Zander
Any misconduct by a member of The Firm will be investigated immediately.
Sleeping with Ella breaks down a wall inside me.
It’s all I can think about. And on this drive back to the motel, it’s killing me.
I slept with her. I didn’t tell my brother. At this point, I don’t know that I will. Damon wouldn’t betray me. I’d be a shitty person to put him in that position, but if it’s for Ella, I’ll draw that line.
Everything is so fucked. And my little bird has no idea.
Selfishly I know I’ve failed her, but I wouldn’t change it. I want to hold on just a while longer, feeling those walls break down.
It’s been crumbling for a while now. Probably since the day I saw her standing at the front of that courtroom. Probably since the first time her eyes met mine. One some level, far below conscious thought, I knew I wanted her. All of her.
And I knew it would be different.
It is different.
It has to be different.
My mind can’t settle. It’s been a runaway mess since I got up from Ella’s bed this morning. There was so much rightness in laying her down in her bed, in fucking her like both of us wanted for so long. Peace, like I haven’t felt at any point in my life. And then the heartbroken expression on her face. The tears gathering in her eyes.
And the things she said—
They remind me of Quincy.
That combined with Damon texting me, reminding me that I need to be careful. He says he’s worried for me.
It’s too much like Quincy, man.
The hearing’s coming up. I’m worried for you.
You sure this is for the right reasons?
She could get hurt, and you might not see it coming.
It fucking guts me, to second-guess what I feel for her and what I know she feels for me.
Memories from the past keep sneaking up on me. Quincy’s face across the table from me at a wine bar in the city, her blue eyes bright with flirtation and confidence. The disappointment that stared back at me on a street corner, her hand on my chest, those same blue eyes filled with crushing disappointment.
Even now I feel the push as she shoved me away.
Quincy saying, “No. I’m going for a walk. Don’t follow me.”
I should have followed, but her final statement kept me from trailing after her: “If you don’t want all of me, then I don’t want any of you.”
She was my submissive, but she wanted more. She wanted a “real” relationship.
I hadn’t followed her, because she wanted space—and because she wanted something from me that I couldn’t give her. What was the point of following, when there was no agreeing to disagree? I didn’t want to marry her. I loved her in a way that wasn’t that. I broke her heart that night, but it was the truth. She knew when we started that I wasn’t looking for more. She said she wasn’t either.
She wanted things to progress past sharing an apartment that I barely slept in. Quincy wanted more commitment than a one-year lease. She wanted a ring on her finger, and I couldn’t do it.
Not because I didn’t love her. I did, in a way. But not in the way I feel about Ella. It was the way you care about a person when you’re trying to give them what you want, at the expense of giving up what you need.
Quincy wanted me to be different for her.
Ella just wants me to be hers.
Fuck, it hurts. The worst part of it all is that I am questioning everything. Does Ella truly want to be with me? Or did I take advantage of a young woman who would have clung to whoever had been there for her first?
The migraine combined with the sleepless night is too much as I turn onto the drive.
If she has the same feelings for me as I do for her, then I have to fix this.
It’s like a lightning strike, and I’m turning the wheel before I can think about it. Braking. Throwing it into reverse. I’m going back.
If Ella feels that way about me, then I have to make it right, and I have to do it now. I have to hold on to her the way she deserves.
I’m not far away. It won’t be long until I can fix this.
Ella’s house appears on the side of the road out of nowhere. I’m not aware of the route I took, or anything else. I’m only aware of a fierce pounding in my heart and a twist in my gut.
Again I question myself.
Did I take advantage of her last night?
Did I take advantage of her pain and her desires? Or is all of this meant to be and it’s just a fucked-up situation that brought us together?
I only wish I could pause. To take in every detail. To make sure she’s all right. To ensure that whatever I do next, is best for her.
Quincy left me that night, and I let her. I let her walk away. What happened next was a tragedy and I’ve never regretted anything more. If I could go back, I would change it all.
I let her walk home alone while I went the other way. I knew it wasn’t safe. Nearly midnight on the city streets. I knew I should have followed her.
But then again, I knew I should have ended it with her weeks before.
I will never forgive myself if Ella doesn’t make it out of this well and whole.
I can’t be wrong again. I pull into my spot behind the house. One, two, three, four. Again I repeat the breaths. Again. Until I’m calm enough to focus. Until I’m calm enough to walk inside and make this right.
The answers aren’t hiding behind my steering wheel. The answers can only be found by seeing this through.
Then Damon comes out the back door with his coat on. Alone.
He sees me, and the corners of his mouth turn down.
And then I’m out of the car, heading for him.
His jaw is hard, the clean cut of his button-down combined with how his shoulders straighten and he stares me down as I approach. Like we’re squaring up for a fight. “You didn’t tell him,” Damon speaks low and deliberately. “You’re my friend, but I can’t let you do this.”
“No, I didn’t tell him. I’m coming here to talk to you.”
“It’s too late.”
Betrayal feels like a hot knife in my gut. “You didn’t,” I grit out from between clenched teeth.
“You didn’t fucking tell him, Damon. You didn’t.”
He only stares back at me.
“Why are you out here?” It’s too much to come clean to him now, with this storm in my chest. “Is somebody else in there with her?”
Damon shakes his head. “There’s nobody inside.”
“What the fuck? You know we can’t—”
“There’s nobody inside.”
It sinks in then, what he means. I grab for the front of his jacket on instinct but Damon’s as strong as I am, and he gets me around the wrist. “You did this.”
“I didn’t tell him shit. It wasn’t me.” I let him go and run for the kitchen door. Throw it open. Go inside.
“Ella,” I call out.
The house is empty.
I know it, because I can sense it, because it’s my job to know. I know this stillness.
I look anyway.
The sitting room is both dark and quiet, without the lit fire, without her waiting there with her gorgeous dark gaze giving me a longing that echoes within myself.
Anger and regret are a bitter thing to swallow. I take the stairs two at a time, checking her bedroom, the guest room, everywhere. It still smells like her up here. I was only gone for twenty minutes. I run back down and grip the doorframe at the sitting room. She’s not here. It’s empty.
She’s not here.
Damon’s footsteps stop close by.
“Kamden had suspicions,” he says from behind me, an edge in his voice so hard I don’t dare look at him. I can’t. “He put cameras in the house, Zander. They know.”
Dread washes over me. But Damon doesn’t stop talking.
“Caleb and Ella are with him now. There may be an emergency hearing.” He’s pissed. At me.
“Cameras—more than the ones we installed?”
“Yes.”
I finally face him. Anger and desolation stare back at me. “Everybody knows what happened.” A deep breath. “You’re being removed. You aren’t allowed to see her again.”
My own rage boils over. “You’re not going to keep me from her. Whatever you said, whatever you did, you fucked this up—”
Damon stabs a finger into my chest. “You fucked this up, Z. You crossed a line. You hid it from everybody. You could have hurt her. You could be taking us all down, so don’t try to blame me for your own stupid mistakes.”
“You can’t do this.” I don’t know if I’m talking to him or myself. “You can’t take her from me.”
My oldest friend huffs out a breath and straightens his jacket, disappointment rolling off him in waves. “I didn’t do this. You did. Look me in the eye right now.” I do it, and he returns my gaze, furious and hurt. When he speaks, it’s with an icy clarity. “It’s over. For good.”
Don’t miss the emotional ending to this duet, Love the Way You Hold Me.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a United States-based suicide prevention network of over 160 crisis centers that provides 24/7 service via a toll-free hotline at the number 1-800-273-8255. It is available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress.
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