Once Upon A (Stained Duet Book 1)

by Charlotte E Hart

  “I need to know more about you,” I say softly, wanting nothing more than for him to accept that and let me find my way inside him too.

  “Push, push, push,” he says, two of his footsteps easily closing the distance to nothing at all.

  His aftershave wafts past my nose, the scent of wood smoke immediately flooding me with ideas I have no right to consider, but I do anyway. I imagine the ability to lie with him and talk of futures together, smiling as I do and remembering his tone when he came inside me. And then again when he wiped my back, his hands as soft as velvet when he remedied the pain he’d caused.

  “I need to be inside your head, Blaine. Let me in or take me home.”

  There’s silence for a few minutes as I keep looking out across misty old buildings, some near to crumbling with the town’s weight upon them. It seems to go on forever as I wait for him to reply, but I’ve said all I will. For this to continue, for me to get my story and invest myself in whatever this is as well, I want more than a teacher now. I want him. He feels it as much as I do. And I know it without doubt now because he has come back. He’s right here, his hands probably lodged in his pockets as he weighs up what to say next. I don’t need words from him, not ones that intend to play games or toy with me. I want the truth, all of it, whatever it might be. I want whichever Blaine Jacobs he doesn’t release to any other women.

  His fingers suddenly slide around my waist, drawing me back to him as he leans to rest his chin on my shoulder. The relief that shudders through me is palpable, surprising me, and making me gasp for air as he increases his hold. It’s a thud of contact, his groin lined up perfectly with my backside, his chest smothering my back again and making me feel tiny in his arms as the other wraps around me, too. And then his lips brush my cheek, the softness of them only helping me conceive more ideas of warmth and love. They sigh out of me, as whimsical as the images of beaches and dreams. As heartfelt as they’ve ever been.

  Chapter 18

  Blaine

  “I want her to watch me,” comes out of my fucking mouth as Delaney walks the length of his bar and then fiddles with one of his sub’s outfits.

  “What?” I’m not surprised by the blatant expression of astonishment that looks back at me, but it’s the right decision whether he thinks it or not.

  “Bring one of the pain sluts in, or several. Make her watch.” The guy half hesitates, then refocuses on his task of tightening a corset.

  “Interesting technique,” is the eventual response, hardly audible above the classical bass blaring out into the room. I swivel on the bar stool, trying to find a better option than the one my fucked up brain is considering.

  “It’s not a witticism, Delaney,” I mumble, wandering to the other side of the room in thought.

  Three women pass me in the twenty-five foot distance, any of whom should be useful for the kinds of things I’m thinking about. And I half turn for the third, ready to deliver what my hands have been thinking about the entire journey here.

  “It sounds like it to me.”

  I sigh and continue walking, remembering the way Alana looked at me as I take a seat by the far wall, her eyes begging for something she neither understands nor will be able to handle when the time comes for niceties to be dispensed with. I barely recalled the need to choke her where she stood at the restaurant, both in awe of her offering and disgusted with my reaction to it. Fuck, she’d smelt so good, her chest heaving under the realisation of the love between us. And it is fucking love, too. Always has been, right from that moment beneath the water. I saw it then as I let her feel herself drowning, and I feel it now, even though I’ve tried every technique to deny it. I fucking hate it. It stinks of moral obligations and responsibilities I’m barely ready for, let alone happy about. And yet it floods me with hope, too, reminding me of Eloise and her open soul, waiting for me to destroy it with both hands should I choose to.

  “Why would you make her watch?” Delaney eventually asks, sitting himself opposite and flicking the top button on his collared shirt.

  “She needs to know. I’m not doing it again unless she knows.” I’m not. It doesn’t matter the way her eyes plead, and it doesn’t matter that she’s wound her way into my heart, leaving me no ability to fight the thoughts that circulate there.

  “Eloise knew. What difference does it make?” I laugh at the idea of Eloise knowing anything. She was young, in love, and addicted to pain. What happened between us was neither right nor honest. I never loved her, never made the promises I’m considering with Alana, and I never gave her the chance to see that what she was falling into was wrong on so many levels.

  “I never gave Eloise a chance to make a choice, and you know it. She was too young, and so was I. She didn’t know what had hit her until it was all too late.” Delaney smiles, his drink sinking down his neck as he watches on and waits for more explanation. “She was my student. One I should have looked after. Instead, I took every opportunity to use her with no regret or thought for the consequences.” The thought saddens me as her eyes still glint in my mind softly, regardless of my constant attempt to quash them. “It’s not something that will be happening again. Alana deserves better than what I did to Eloise.”

  “Why?”

  I’m not shocked by the question. It is Delaney after all. The man’s a never-ending torrent of confessions, but I am surprised by my own inability to give a succinct answer as I stare at prying eyes. I turn my gaze out into the church to avoid the inquisition, considering the depravity of the small gathering in full swing instead and wondering why the air seems thin. Lacking. It makes me smile to myself, realising its lacking her as I remember her breath mingling with mine.

  “See, good man.” Hardly good. Perhaps better than previously, certainly older and wiser, but these hands are still as aberrant as they’ve always been. They might even be worse now they’ve been contained for so long, something I try not to concede to as I watch them turn over in front of me.

  Delaney snorts and leaves me, his frame owning the floor as he wanders away, barely acknowledging the sub who crawls by his feet the entire way.

  “Where is she now?” he calls back, as he picks up a chain and hooks it onto the little sub’s collar. “Pretty thing, aren’t you?” he says, cooing at her and then slapping her face so hard she tumbles to the floor, groaning with desire. The whole scene makes me gaze for a second, assimilating the vision and trying to understand its lack of transparency. I don’t. I may have tried to fit into its diversity and find a place in its hierarchy, but I’ve never been truly at ease with it. Dominants and submissives. A woman or man on their knees, happy to concede and admit their needs beneath hands willing to help them through it. I understand its phycology intimately, proving its definition has a right to exist. And there isn’t a thing, substance, tool or art form within the scene that I haven’t mastered, but all this isn’t what I am. I’m neither Dominant nor a Master. I know that. I’m not interested in the process nor do I deserve the title. Delaney does. He’s everything a good Master should be. Sane, lucid in his requirements and precise in his delivery, turning his hand to whatever someone needs from him. The man works for the harmony of his subs, resolutely resurrecting them to something more than before. What he doesn’t do is fly free within their destruction, ready to demolish with only selfish endeavours in mind. And, unfortunately, at base instinct, and regardless of the years confining it, sadistic predilections still explode inside my mind rather than the want or need to reconstruct. It just waits there, ready to humiliate and shame someone. Hurt them, purposely, with a sentiment only comparable to abhorrence. Of what, I don’t know, still, even after years of scrutinising and analysing the thoughts. Nothing is kind as a result of whatever it is that continually lays dormant inside me, though. Nothing is done with a purpose to allow love to shine. It’s only ever about the decimation of someone’s frame, the need to watch them bleed and scream. “Blaine? Where is she?”

  “I sent her home,” I murmur, still too far inside
my own mind to care what Delaney thinks. ”Tyler took her.” All I can suddenly see are her eyes looking back at me, her ass in the air as she struggled to pull herself from my grasp and get to what she believed was the safety of Delaney’s hands. Perhaps they are safer in some way, certainly more restrained, anyway. I look at the floor area leading into the main nave, gazing at the lectern with a small spiral staircase behind it, then follow the turn of the metal as it snakes down to the floor again. Of all the places for love to eventually complicate me, Delaney’s church is the last place I thought it might happen.

  “And you thought that was practical, why?” For escape. So she can realise what she’s doing and remove her need to return if she wants to. Love is a connection she doesn’t understand in this instance. She doesn’t know what it will mean for her skin or her state of mind when she lets me on her, telling me she loves me for it.

  “You know exactly why I’m doing it this way. You know what happened with Eloise. You want it to happen again?” Delaney immediately seems affronted as he walks back, his hackles rising and ready to fight his own defence. He needn’t bother. He’s not the one who killed someone. I shake my head at him, signalling my own contrition before an argument starts.

  “That was before, Blaine. You’re different now,” the guy eventually says quietly, sitting and tumbling his glass around in his hands as he watches the liquid spin, irritability written all over him. “And it never would have happened had I been there.” I hold up my hand, defusing my friend’s irritation before morbidity takes hold and sends the whole discussion to an emotionally driven diatribe. It seems I’m quite capable of doing that on my own anyway, my eyes still roaming the spot she’d screamed on as I remember her strength fighting at me. “Can you at least give me a reason?”

  “What?” I have, haven’t I?

  “A reason why you shouldn’t just tell her what happened last time?” I remove my eyes from the floor, levelling them at Delaney and considering the virtues of just telling her and seeing what she does with the facts. “Why don’t you? I’m assuming, given the way you backed off from her, that you think this is love. Love conquers all.” I doubt it does in reality, but Delaney does have more experience with the emotion, so perhaps there is an element of truth to his words. “You came inside her, Blaine. You never come in anything. I heard the fucking groan from the back of the church.” I sit back, suddenly ready, for some reason, to rip the guy’s body from his head at the thought of him listening to something private. “When was the last time? At all since Eloise?” The thought alone rallies more visions of intimacy, including the way Alana kisses me. It’s so much more than Eloise. She’s vibrant, assailing me with an acceptance and longing Eloise never rivalled. And the way her delicate fingers grip into my back as she takes another battering, pulling me closer and warming something inside that doesn’t deserve any attention, it’s incomparable. Nothing like Eloise.

  My gaze travels to the lectern again, the eagle at the top branching its wings in a display of open acceptance to its congregation. “If you admit you love her, I might help. Why you didn’t tell me in the first place, I don’t know. I thought she was just another toy, an amusement.”

  I sigh again and close my eyes, willing one of these women dancing around to cause enough curiosity to challenge Alana’s hold over my mind. Not one of them does. Not the slut grinding on another one. Not the one by Delaney’s feet. There’s nothing in here but the sound of her voice, the resonance of her groans, and the sight of her barley able to articulate her words as she told me she loved me.

  “You haven’t answered.”

  “I don’t have to answer anything,” I snarl out, wondering how much she’ll ask of me. She wants inside my mind. She said that, said she wanted to know more, that she won’t carry on without access to the haunting memories.

  Delaney sighs this time. It’s loud enough to cause another one of his subs to come running to the rescue, presumably offering an ass to spank should the need arise. I wish it were that simple.

  “Will she sub?” he asks, his hand flicking at something on the table.

  “With enough patience from me, yes.” Something I’m not entirely sure I can handle, or even want if I’m honest. It makes me look at the brown haired girl at Delaney’s feet again, considering the inclination and wondering if that’s the only route forward for us.

  “Do you want her to?” The direct question is enough to make me stand and point at the exit, my feet narrowly avoiding the woman beneath my own feet offering up services I’m not the least bit interested in. Delaney nods, not bothering to avoid the hand of one of them as his foot lands. There’s a small scream, which only results in her being glared at for inanity.

  “I want the fight. You know that. The brat is always more inspiring to me. It’s immaterial whether she bows down or not.” I pocket my hands and walk, unconcerned with the fate of anything in this building. “That’s why she needs to see before she makes a choice to go further. I need her to see the truth.” Because the only thing of any relevance is my purple haired madam, one who’s shown enough reverence to offer herself into the unknown for me. Even if it is for a story she doesn’t know the ending of.

  We continue through the nave, heading along the route I carried her through, desperate to get some food inside her so she could rebuild her strength.

  “Delaney, why did you end your relationship with Flick?” The man chuckles as he wanders along beside me, more than likely amused at my need to discuss love’s endless turmoil.

  “Flick ended it, not me.”

  “Why? You never did tell me.”

  “She wanted more than I could give her. All things I wasn’t prepared for at the time.”

  “Still?”

  “Still. Tabitha is more manageable. And I’m not grown up enough.”

  Hmm. The thought makes me imagine Alana and her future, wondering if she has a view to where it’s heading. Presumably it has never been imagined under the hands of a sadist, let alone becoming part of a community she deems revolting. I picture her fingers typing, her hands furiously scribbling her notes and relaying her version of a story. She’s probably there now, continuing to depress levers and stain her fingers further with the ink I’ve provided for her. Maybe she’ll be remembering the reality of life without me, relishing it and enjoying her sense of freedom again. Or perhaps she’s as lost as I am now, simply remembering the feel of our skin together and sighing.

  “Where then?”

  “What?” I reply, as we walk out into the fresh air, the dull sounds of the beat dispersing behind us as Delaney closes the doors to his home.

  “Where do you want this meeting to happen?” I don’t know, and the vision of the church suddenly fills me with thoughts of anything but dirty meetings, rather offering a saintly glow that shouldn’t be anywhere near the fucking place.

  “Why the hell do you live here?”

  “I’m a priest,” he replies, mock shock encompassing his face. “Where else would I live?” I suppose the man has a point—not that he is, but the place does suit him nonetheless. “It’s the same reason why you have a home on the coast. It suits your disposition.” I frown at the man, not understanding the likeness. “Destructive.” The word makes me snort, conceding the analogy as I begin walking down the steps to leave. “You could make a home there, Blaine. You could be at one with her if you choose to be. It only takes an element of concession. And frequent confessions, obviously.” I smirk back at the guy, wandering the path towards his car. “Go on holidays. Walk in the sand. Forget the rest of the world exists?” The thought is more appealing than I’ve previously given credence to, making me turn back to look at Delaney’s smiling face. “It’s alright to fall, my friend.”

  Is it?

  I scan the cemetery, reminding myself of Eloise again and wondering if I should go and visit her grave, the same one I’ve banned myself from. Perhaps she’ll have the answers.

  “Find a club, the dirtier the better, somewhere I hav
en’t been before,” I call back. Alana hates the dirt, and that will show her the whole sordid monstrosity of what she’s about to become a part of. It is obscene in some respects, and it is vile in its own way, and she is leagues above those levels of depravity regardless of how much I want to debase her.

  “Sable?” Delaney asks, his feet slowly coming down the steps, as if the emotive conversation isn’t finished with. It is. But Sable Jennings? I raise a brow in thought, still surveying the grounds and imagining Eloise’s haunted eyes staring up at me from beneath the ground. Sable is something I’ve had plenty of fun with on occasion. Someone who laps up every strike and cut with the precision of a wild banshee in heat. I muse the memory of her body, somehow merging both her and Eloise, thinking of the scars crisscrossing their frames, ones they’d both begged for. The thought hardens my cock in its confines, making me wish Alana was within feet of me, not the hundred kilometres I’ve purposely put between us.

  “Or something like her. As long as it bleeds, Delaney. You choose.” I turn from the continued advance of emotion related questions, ready to leave the ground exactly where it currently is, and suddenly far too absorbed in my own state of fucked up arousal to talk over the topic any more. “In fact, bring five of them. Just organise it.”