“There was a time in my life when I felt like I was never worthy of a woman’s love,” Ben reveals.
I turn swiftly to him, staring blankly. Ben is looking out at the river and his face looks almost pained.
“What makes you say that?” I ask, thinking his notion is ridiculous.
“When I was in college, I had this girlfriend. We had been together for a year and we decided to take our sexual relationship a little further. I had always been fascinated with BDSM since I was a teenager and saw it first hand when I was in France. I even had a, uh, sub there.” He chuckles and I smile.
This has me intrigued. So, he’s been a little Dom since his teenage years. Interesting.
“Well, my college girlfriend, she knew about my tendency to be a little…rough in the bedroom, so she agreed to submit to my fantasies. We had a great dynamic, she and I. She really had a knack for the submissive, more than a knack I believe. She started wanting to feel more pain. I was uncomfortable at first, but I loved her, you know? So as a Dom, I wanted to please her because her pleasure would be my own. So, the punishments intensified.”
Ben swallows and I see him visibly struggling with the story. I rest my hand on his chest, stroking the tattoo on his pectoral, giving him silent encouragement. He looks down at me and when I look up at him, he is smiling sadly. Leaning down, he kisses me softly, the emotion I feel for him resurfacing and momentarily dazzling me. It is terrifying to be feeling this strongly emotional for him in such a short time. It’s dangerous. How will I break away from this relationship unscathed when that time comes?
“One day, things got out of hand,” he continues, breaking through my thoughts. “I went too far…” he swallows.
I see a look of pain and regret in his features and I kiss his chest. He shudders at the contact.
“I hurt her,” he reveals. “Badly.”
I blanch at his revelation. He badly hurt this girl? I can’t imagine Ben hurting anyone. Well, anyone who didn’t deserve it.
“What’s worse,” he goes on. “After everything, she still wanted to be with me. I couldn’t,” he sighs, but continues, “I couldn’t get over the guilt of hurting her. She kept saying it didn’t matter, that she forgave me. When I finally decided to try again, I couldn’t be who she wanted me to be. I couldn’t be who I was comfortable being. I became the complete opposite of who I was. Instead of intense and commanding, I became cautious and gentle. She hated it. After a while we started arguing, not seeing eye to eye, and we just called it quits.
“For years I felt like because of what had happened, I didn’t deserve a woman in my life and for a while I didn’t have one. I was scared. And even when I did have relationships, I couldn’t engage them with the same dominance as I used to,” he explains.
“What changed?” I ask softly.
“When I started working at Fielding House, I saw her again,” he answers. “We had dinner a few times and then decided to try again. But instead of dating, she offered to be my submissive. I was scared to jump back into that dynamic, but we took it slow. We did this for a while, her reintroducing me to something I loved, until she felt like moving on. We parted ways amicably and since then, all I’ve had are short Dom/sub relationships. My longest relationship was Molly.”
I raise an eyebrow, not knowing who he is referring to.
“Blondie,” he clarifies on a chuckle.
“Oh,” is all I mutter, hating the mere mention of that bitch.
He tilts my face upward to see sincerity in his eyes when he says, “But it was meaningless. All of it.” He kisses my lips softly and I shiver, reeling from what he just said. I shouldn’t be happy, but hell, I am.
“It was all play so I could get off,” he continues. “If I kept it in the Fulfillment Room, it was meaningless. But with you,” he pauses to stare at me, nerves fluttering in my belly at the intensity. “God, Sully, you throw me. I didn’t know what I wanted with you; I just knew I wanted you. It didn’t matter if we never did anything S and M related. I just wanted to know that whatever it was, we did it together.”
My heart swells with his confession and I can’t help the tears that brim in my eyes. I can’t hurt this man. I am so fucked.
“Sometimes this feels so unreal. Like you aren’t real and at any moment I’ll be forced to wake up,” he reveals. “But I’ll take the dream if reality doesn’t have you in it.”
My heart rate accelerates at the utterly saccharine sincerity of his words. Is it possible that he feels the same way I do? And if so, I am in so much trouble. Finding the truth about who I am will crush him.
So tell him, a voice says. But, I know I can’t. It will be catastrophic if he finds out. He has an image and a company to protect from people like me. People with a past so dark, that you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s better this way; him not knowing who I am. It still leaves me to ponder, though. Can I break up with him if things get too serious?
As if it hasn’t gotten there already.
“So you see, Sullivan,” Ben speaks up, once again breaking me out of my gloomy thoughts. “You’re not the only one who struggles with feelings of worth at times. But, baby…” He stares intently into my eyes. “You make me feel worthy. When I saw you at the party, I wanted you…needed you. And now that I have you, I feel like the luckiest man God ever created.”
Ben stares at me and I see that intensity again. It scares me because now I know what it is. He loves me.
How can I not accept it? It is so real. So deep. So intense. He doesn’t even have to say it. The way he takes care of me. The way he looks at me. Every caress. Every whisper of my name. Everything he does echoes, so loudly, his love for me. I am wrapped in it. Enthralled in him. He loves me.
But am I worthy of it?
Tears pool in my eyes and I weakly push up to face him. I caress his cheek and he leans into my touch. My tears fall.
“It’s not until you that I ever felt worthy of a woman’s love, did I ever feel worthy of her…appreciation. When I tell you that that night is my most memorable, please believe me, Sullivan. And please believe me…you’re all…more than I ever expected you to be,” Ben expresses.
I choke on the words I really want to say, covering my mouth with one hand and clutching my chest with the other. When I remove my hand from my mouth, I know I’m going to say them yet again.
“Ben, I–”
But Ben pulls me in close and seals his lips over mine, silencing me, kissing me gently at first, then deeper. I whimper into his mouth, tears cascading down my cheeks. Ben shakes me to my core with every stroke of his tongue on mine. I feel his reverence, his love, and I am completely taken by him.
Ben lays my body down and hovers over me, still kissing me deeply. He breaks contact to slip his shirt over his head and returns to my lips. His hands meander down the length of my body, caressing my thigh. My legs fall open automatically and he settles himself between them. I feel him harden and the flutters in my belly travel to my pussy where it clenches, anticipating all he will give me in short order.
“I want you,” Ben groans.
“Then take me.”
He growls and I feel it all the way to my toes. He grips my nightgown, ripping it down the middle, exposing my breasts. The cool air hits them and I shiver, my nipples pebbling under the temperature and Ben’s intense gaze.
He swoops down and devours a breast, covering a nipple with his mouth and suckling gently.
“Oh, God,” I groan, delving my hands into his hair and gripping tightly.
Ben makes a low sound in his throat as if in pain and clamps down on my nipple. The pain sends a delicious signal to my already quivering core and I moan in response. He soothes it by laving at my nipple and releasing it, allowing the air, now cold when blown over the wet peak, to pass over it and soothe it further.
He starts on my other nipple and I find myself begging him to take me. I’m dripping with need.
“Please,” I whimper. “Oh, God, please.”
“Please, what?” Ben mumbles around my nipple, nipping gently.
“Oh, God, just fuck me!”
“No,” he refuses.
“Jesus, Ben. Please,” I grumble, sexual frustration reaching its peak.
Ben releases my nipple and stares at me. He bends and kisses my lips then goes back to staring at me.
“I want to make love to you, beautiful girl,” he says softly and with so much feeling that my heart swells.
“Okay,” I answer in a tiny voice.
Ben kisses me deeper this time, reverently. He undresses me the rest of the way, while I divest him of his pants. When his erection bobs in front of me, I greedily reach for it, but he restrains me.
“No.” He shakes his head. “Let me take care of you, Sullivan. Let me appreciate you.”
Ben lays kisses from my forehead all the way down to my soaking wet slit, where he licks, nips and sucks me with relish; moaning and groaning in appreciation.
I shoot off like a rocket when Ben coats the entrance to my anus with my wetness and inserts his middle finger into the long since been explored rosette.
Before I even recover, Ben is rocking ever so gently into me, staring into my eyes. Usually I would look away from any man trying to look into my eyes, fearing what they might see. At the moment, though, I couldn’t if I tried. Ben has captured me and I’m afraid that he will never let me go.
The rest of the week passes quickly. I hardly see Rachel and when we do get to speak on the phone, Ryan is always there. I’m starting to accept his presence in her life; he’s good for her from what Rachel has been telling me. I’m still a far way from loving the guy, but it’s a gradual process for me. Ben thinks we should all go out on a double date. Not a bad idea.
Ben and I have had a few fights, especially with regards to how he treats his employees. The moment he said I was trying to run his life, I backed off and away. I went back to my apartment, refusing to go back to him. Needless to say, he dragged me back to his house, kicking and screaming and gave me a good spanking and left me tied to the spanking horse with a vibrator shoved up my pussy for an hour. I didn’t talk to him for the rest of the day, which got me a mighty fine dicking that night. Good times. Amazing times.
It’s Saturday again, the day before we go by his parent’s house for Sunday dinner. We’re watching basketball – one of our favorite sports coincidentally. We end up arguing about who the best basketball team is.
As a Philly native he loved the 76ers, but couldn’t deny that he was a Lebron James and subsequent Miami Heat fan. I gag on his choice, expressing that I am Knicks fan through and through but that I had a love for the Chicago Bulls, Spurs, Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder. Ben expresses his hatred of Kobe and we spend the rest of the evening looking at videos and arguing about which player is better: Kobe or Lebron.
We order in pizza and we eat like pigs as we watch The Hangover Part II on DVD in Ben’s mini theatre. It is a perfect day filled with, quality time and good laughs. I never imagined Ben could be so laid back or funny, but he is and that makes me fall so much deeper in love with him.
Sunday morning comes around much quicker than I want it to. I am going to have to face Roman and his family. I have been able to keep it under wraps with all that happened this past week, but will I be able to keep it together knowing this very big and potentially catastrophic secret? Crap.
It is going to be an interesting evening at the Hayes’ is all I know.
I am a nervous wreck as we near the sprawling brick mansion. The driveway to the house is nestled between large stone walls. Driving up to a large gate, we are buzzed in and we make our way around a fountain to the front doors where Diana, Roman and Matt await us.
Roman opens my door first, giving my hand a firm squeeze as he helps me out. I bet he’s wondering if I’ve said anything to Ben. Well, I didn’t, buddy.
Diana hugs and kisses my cheek, welcoming me to her home. I guess he hasn’t told her either.
Matt gives me a soft kiss on the cheek and a naughtily raised eyebrow and I just know he’s still seeing me bent over and pounded like tenderized meat. Can’t he get over that visual already?
Diana and Roman give me a grand tour of the six-bedroom house which is mostly filled with huge paintings and antique furniture. The house has a modern flair to it that off-sets the rest of the house beautifully; just like Ben’s house. Now I know where he got his design ideas from.
The backyard is vast. Not worthy to be called a yard. It has a putting green, a lagoon pool and a horse stable farther out.
“We have six horses. Ben’s horse is called Zeus,” Diana tells me.
“You ride?” I ask him.
“Didn’t you know?” he quips, shooting me a wry look, and I know he’s referring to sex.
“Oh, Ben!” his mother exclaims, slapping his arm. “You can’t speak like that in front of your mother.”
“What? I just thought I told her that I rode horses,” he lies.
Matt sniggers, knowing full well what he was referring to and I roll my eyes. He really needs to get over that image already.
“Like I was born yesterday,” Diana mutters. “I know you were talking about sex, Ben. How do you think I got you and your brother?”
“Mom!” Both Ben and Matt groan.
“Too much information, Mother,” Ben says, trying not to smile.
“Whatever, son. I just hope you’re being a gentleman to sweet Sullivan here.”
“Sweet,” Ben snorts mockingly.
I nudge him with my elbow and glare at him. He kisses me on the forehead and then pulls me closer to him as he whispers, “I’m going to bend you over in that stable later and ride you like a stallion.”
My core dips and tightens at his lustful promise and I can’t wait. Goosebumps flood my body and I become red all over as I anticipate what later will bring.
We sit down in the warm, spacious dining room eating and chattering. I bet there have been a lot of wonderful memories shared here. I can’t help when my thoughts race back to my own family.
I feel Ben’s hand caress my cheek and I realize that I must’ve spaced out. He looks at me with concern and I produce for him a smile, kissing his palm. I mouth a thank you to him and he leans over, kissing my cheek in return.
His mother gasps quietly and when I look at her, she has tears in her eyes as she watches Ben and I. She swallows and shakes her head with a watery smile.
“Thank you,” she mouths to me. I smile at her, feeling the most amazing feeling settle over me.
Rightness.
It’s never been right like this with anyone. By the time it got to this with Jared, he was ripped from me. Can I love like that again, only to have Ben taken from me? Could I survive it?
Before I get lost in a world of sadness, I choose to enjoy the meal in front of me.
The food is delicious: veal Milanese, spaghetti with marinara sauce and grilled vegetables. Every taste makes me moan, which garners a raised eyebrow from Ben.
Naughty to the core, Ben slips his hand under the table, running his finger along my bare thigh. He made me wear a very short flared white dress with black flats and now I see why. With his parents and brother distracted by conversation, he trails his hand further up. I lose my train of thought as his touch ignites my libido and I blaze for him. I sit back in my chair, slouching a little so he can cup my already drenched sex. I hear him groan as he gropes it and I know he wants me.
Matt clears his throat and I look up to see him staring at me from across the table. His finger is tracing his bottom lip as he bores into me with his dark gaze. He wants me too. I shudder, closing my legs and trapping Ben’s hand. He tugs it from between my legs quickly, banging it under the table. Diana and Roman are startled and Matt does nothing but chuckle. My face reddens with embarrassment. Everyone knows what we’ve been up to now. I know it. Ground, swallow me up now!
I continue to eat in morbid silence while the rest of them converse.
The
doorbell rings and the butler steps away to answer it. Yes, they have a fricking butler!
He returns moments later with a sealed envelope and hands it to Diana. Curiously, she takes it.
“Who’s it from?” she asks, inspecting the large item.
“A Kaylee Stone,” he answers.
Roman coughs and gets up hastily, rushing over to Diana. “Let me see that,” he insists.
“No, it’s mine. Sit down, jumpy,” she refuses, smiling at her husband.
I can see fear and dread in Roman’s eyes as Diana opens the envelope. Out she pulls a myriad of pictures and I see the blood drain from her face.
“What is this?” she asks Roman flatly as she flashes through the pictures.
“Darling, let me explain,” Roman begs. Holy shit.
Before she even slams the pictures down on the table, I know what they are. The pictures contain his secret.
Diana rises angrily from the dining table and slaps Roman so hard that the whole room echoes with it.
“Mom!” Matt shouts, rising from the table to restrain her.
“What is it?” Ben reaches for the pictures and I see his face redden with untamable anger.
He pushes his seat back violently and lunges for his father, who Matt shields. Matt is yet to know what is going on.
“Diana, I’m sorry,” Roman cries.
“Fuck you, Roman!” she screams. And it is the first time I’ve ever seen anger from Diana or heard her curse. She is mad alright and I don’t blame her.
“Mom, calm down. What the fuck is going on?” Matt asks, but no one responds.
Ben is glowering at his father. Diana is in tears and Roman looks like a scared puppy.
“Dad?” Matt speaks up. “Mom?” But no one answers him still. “Would someone tell me what the fuck’s going on?”
Ben thrusts the pictures at him and Matt slowly deflates into the chair he had vacated.
Taking the opportunity, Ben reaches for his father again.
“Ben!” I scream, now in tears. “Don’t,” I beg.
Tainted Love (Book 1) Page 28
