by Brianna Hale
“Does what we do make you feel different, too?” I whisper against his mouth. “Is there dom space?”
Slowly, he nods. “I thought I was used to it, but…” His arms come around me tightly and he breathes hard. “I never want to lose you again, Isabeau. No matter what we become to each other. It will kill me if I lose you.”
I press my lips against his mouth. He might be satisfied with friendship but I can’t be. I need this. I need Laszlo. “I’m yours. I only want to be your Isabeau, your slutty little girl and all the other tender, filthy things you want to call me.”
“Shh, baby. Not now.” There’s delight burning brightly in his eyes, even though he tries to hide it from me.
I put my head down on his shoulder and close my eyes, feeling my body rise and fall on his chest as he breathes. My mind drifts in a warm, gentle place. When I feel him start to hum I smile, because I know it means he’s happy.
His fingers trail through my hair. “Who was he?”
I open my eyes and look up. “Who was what?”
“The man you went to bed with.”
I try to detect jealousy in his voice but he just sounds curious. “How do you know it was just one?”
“The way you touch me. It hasn’t really changed since that night you were eighteen.”
I make a face, embarrassed. “Am I rubbish?”
“No. You’re incredibly sweet and tentative. Incredibly horny, too. It’s wonderful.”
I giggle, scratching his nails through his beard, because I am so very needy for him. “He was just someone in my second year. I regret it.”
Laszlo looks pained, as if he hates the idea of me regretting anything, and I go on quickly, “It was impersonal and unpleasant and I did it for all the wrong reasons. I was lonely. I missed you.”
He presses his forehead against mine and cups the back of my neck, a rueful twist to his lips. “I’m sorry, baby. For all those long years apart.”
But we needed this time apart, to figure out what we truly wanted. I tilt my head and kiss him, still unable to believe I can do this whenever I want. That it won’t make him angry. I reach down and stroke my fingers along the shaft of his erection through his trousers, hard and hot and thick. I’m fascinated by him. He watches the path of my fingers, his breath hitching.
I hesitate, and then look up at him and whisper, “I want to rub myself against you like I did that night. You felt so good, daddy. Can I, please?”
Chapter Twenty
Laszlo
Now
“Oh, Christ. Yes baby,” I groan. My hands slide around her hips and I pull her sex tightly against me. She wraps her arms around my neck and begins to rub back and forth, back and forth, and I drink in the sight of her naked body as she moves against me. The gentle curve of her waist. The pale buds of her nipples. The redness of her bitten lower lip. She’s so beautiful, but it’s not that which is entrancing me.
It’s that she’s mine.
She wants me how I want her. I could feel it in the way her body responded to my voice, could hear it in her plaintive, Yes daddies she cried as I finger-fucked her ass. My beautiful Isabeau wants to submit to me, please me, be good for me. When I kiss her deeply she sucks the tip of my tongue, making me groan. Her fingers stroke through my beard and I remember how good this felt the first time. How good it feels to give into it completely now. To slide my fingers around the curve of her ass and squeeze tightly. Possessively. Mine. I’ve waited so fucking long for this.
“Do you like that, daddy?” she pants against my mouth, a pink blush over her cheeks. She’s still shy and uncertain and oh so fucking sweet, and I nod and let out a moan as she rubs her bare slit along the length of my cock. I can admit it now. Yes, I like that. It’s more than good. It’s magical, watching her show me how turned on she is.
“Did you like it that night, daddy?”
“So fucking much. You have no idea how many times I thought about it since, sweet girl.” The wet heat of her pussy is making me ache with the need to be inside her but I just watch her, enraptured. Her breath is hot against my mouth and there’s a look of sweet supplication in her eyes that I remember so well. I have a strong urge to push her down on the couch, to get my mouth on her, to make her come myself, to take control, but I make myself keep still. We’ve both waited three years for the culmination of this moment.
The movements of her hips become small and rapid and the pressure of her sex against my cock is driving me crazy. Her fingers clench my shoulders, her cries coming short and fast. Come for me sweet girl, I urge silently, drinking in the needful look in her eyes. Show me what I’ve dreamt of so many times.
Isabeau’s body flexes against me and her head tips back as she comes. She’s like a swan, her neck elongated as she flies high.
“Good girl,” I say roughly, feeling her sex pulse against me through my trousers. Her pussy is so strong and responsive and the ache to bury myself inside her surges afresh.
When Isabeau comes back to me she presses panting kisses to my mouth. “I wanted to do that for so long. I love rubbing against you and…and showing you and…” She looks down into my lap and strokes her fingers along the hard rod of my cock. Then she looks up at me, uncertain. “Can I touch you?”
I nod, and watch, barely breathing, as she undoes my belt and zipper and tugs my length free. She strokes my cock gently with her fingers.
“How do I feel, baby?”
She blushes and lowers her eyes, her lips curving into a smile. “You feel…hot and stiff. Soft, too. I like the way your breath catches as I touch you.” She trails her fingers down my length, the fingers I’ve seen so often playing her cello. “I like the veins,” she whispers, curling her hand around me and squeezing. “I like how thick you are.”
Isabeau strokes me up and down and it’s sweet torture, the way she’s touching me.
“Daddy, I want you properly.”
If it hadn’t all gone to hell that night maybe this is how it would have played out. Tight, delicious lovemaking with Isabeau on the couch. But I would have felt terrible in the morning, knowing that she hadn’t been ready for this.
She’s ready for it now.
Isabeau unbuttons my shirt and I watch her, letting her lead, wanting her to feel safe, unpressured, trying to hide how urgently I want her. I can feel her growing confidence in the way she’s touching me, how she pushes my shirt back from my shoulders. I might like to be in charge but sometimes it’s even better to sit back and let someone show you what they need. I’m learning Isabeau inside and out.
I reach down without moving her off me and fumble inside my cabin bag for a condom, and she helps me roll it on. When she squeezes her fingers around me I groan, needing more of that tightness. I glance at the bed and then back at her, but she shakes her head.
“Here. I want it to be here.” She wants to know what it would have been like with me that night. I’m not her first, but I’m her first who counts.
I put one hand on her hip and wrap the other around the base of my cock, keeping myself steady as she raises herself up on her knees and then slides against my cock. She fumbles back and forth a little, thoroughly wetting the head of my cock. I feel myself slide into place against her and pull her down. She gives a few inches and cries out, her eyes going wide. I wait, giving her time to adjust, to work herself back and forth on me. She feels like fucking heaven I don’t want to wait but I have to, and I make my hand unclench on her hip.
She rests her elbows on my shoulders and bears down, whimpering, trying to force herself around me.
“Easy. Take your time, baby.” Isabeau works me deeper into her tight, wet heat with her tentative movements. My eyes run over her naked body, her full breasts with their pink nipples, the curve of her hips. I let go of my cock and wrap my hand around her throat, holding lightly but firmly, feeling her pulse thrum beneath my fingers. I grit my teeth, making myself hold still when all I want to do is push her onto her back and thrust into her hard, over and over.
She seems to notice my struggle and puts a hand over mine, the one holding her throat, and her eyes are glittering. “Daddy? Make me feel you. I want to feel you.”
Make me feel you. Oh, yes, I can do that for her. I hold tight to her waist and pull her down roughly on my cock at the same time I thrust my hips up, penetrating her deep and fast. She cries out, her tight flesh yielding to mine. I don’t give her any time to recover. I pull her up and then thrust again, even deeper this time, and then again, watching her with a narrow, heated gaze. Her pussy is clamped around me.
But it’s not enough. I need more.
I turn her and push her against the arm of the sofa and get out from beneath her. She braces her hands while I take hold of her hips from behind and when I penetrate her she cries out. I pound her hard and she presses back, needing every inch of me. She feels like heaven and I’m so greedy for her. To hear each and every one of her whimpering cries. To keep going until I burst.
But I stop and pull out, going down on my knees so I can lick her, lovingly, thoroughly, working her clit with my tongue. Isabeau’s breath comes faster and faster and I know she’s almost at her peak. Almost. I pull away and she cries out in dismay, but then I take my cock into my hand and find her tight sheath and I’m thrusting into her again. I wrap her hair around my hand, to keep her still, keep her aware of me, and so I can enjoy the lovely silken feel of her vulnerability. I want her to come like this but I don’t know if she can, if it’s too soon, if it’s enough for her, and I’m about to tell her to rub her pretty little clit for me when she gives out a long, low moan and I feel her clench around me.
“Fuck, babygirl.” She feels so good rippling along my length that I come a moment later, pressing deeper and holding tight to her hair and waist, feeling myself spill into her, pulsing slowly as we breathe hard.
I gather her up into my arms, holding her tightly. She gives a soft cry and turns to face me, burrowing against my body. I know she feels it too. This need we have for each other, this connection that has withstood so much and grown into something new and wonderful.
I half-carry, half-walk her over to the bed and after I get rid of the condom we lay down together, naked bodies pressed close. Isabeau looks up at me, her fingers trailing through my chest hair. I smile and kiss her softly, feeling so at peace. It’s a strange thing when you’re a man who’s used to driving your own destiny to open your eyes and see the thing you were too afraid to hope for in your arms.
“I’m so grateful to you, Isabeau. For this, and all the years with you. I always got to smile when I was with you.”
Her fingers move up to my brow, smoothing the frown lines there. “You know, for years and years I thought you were the same with everyone as you were with me. I thought everyone knew you as sweet, indulgent, smiling Laszlo.”
I pull her closer, the only person I’ve ever wanted to be sweet with. To indulge. “No, baby. Only with you.”
I remember her so clearly as a child with a pink lunchbox. Half a cheese sandwich, half a marmite sandwich. A bunch of grapes. I used to like making her lunch and holding her hand as we crossed the street. It felt so wonderfully grounding to have her to look out for. It was a simple time, and so very happy.
I want that feeling again. To be able to look out for her and keep her safe.
“Daddy,” she says tentatively. “Will you tell me about that last year that I lived with you? About why you weren’t the same Laszlo with me anymore?”
I don’t want to tell her, because I’m not proud of any of it. But I have to. “I could feel you slipping away from me and I hated that, but at the same time I knew I had to let you go. That it wasn’t right, the way I felt about you. How possessive I felt, and how viciously pleased I was that you didn’t want to date anyone. I’d had you to myself since you were eight but I was going to have to watch someone else take you from me.”
She presses her soft, plush lips against my mouth. “No one was ever going to take me from you, Laszlo.”
I kiss her fiercely and roll her beneath me. The urge to declare that no one ever will is so strong but I make myself stay silent. I’m conscious of not saying too much. Being too much. I don’t want to push her or smother her when I’ve only just encircled her in my arms. I press my forehead against hers and whisper, “I knew I was screwed when we played that piece.”
“Vocalise,” she guesses.
I nod. “You were so beautiful when you came to me with that piece. A woman just about grown up, and yet you weren’t. I couldn’t tell you how I felt. I couldn’t tell anyone.”
Isabeau looks pained and starts to speak, but I put a finger over her lips. “I’m not asking for sympathy. It was my responsibility to deal with. I’m glad you didn’t know how I felt at the time, though I’m sorry I was cold to you and it upset you. It wasn’t on purpose, sweetheart.”
She nods sadly, remembering. “You started to pull away from me that year. You stopped saying good girl. Giving me hugs just because. I wondered if it was because I was going to leave and you didn’t think there wasn’t any point to us being close anymore.”
I hold her close, as greedy for her as a parched man in the desert is for a drop of water. “No. It was because I liked doing those things too much.”
“You kept playing Vocalise with me,” she points out.
I remember all those hours in the music room together. The turmoil in my heart. The longing as I watched her play. “I made myself give up a lot of things, sweetheart, but I couldn’t give up that.”
Her hands move over my throat, my collarbone, my shoulders. I love her touching me, her fingers moving lightly, exploring my body. Her hands are fine and pretty against my thicker bones and muscles. As I watch her those instincts to protect and dominate surge up. Such a pretty little thing she is. How I love to feel her fluttering like a bird in my merciless grip.
“Did you ever date, Laszlo? While I was living with you?”
It takes me a moment to drag my mind out of the dark place it’s delved into and I have to repeat her question in my mind. “Date. Not exactly. I had, ah, friends.”
She smiles. “You mean those women who used to come round late at night and you’d sneak them up to your bedroom?”
I feel my face transform in horror. Isabeau knew? But I was always so careful to get those women into the house quietly and to keep them quiet once they were there. The gags I like to use served two purposes back then. I didn’t want Isabeau hearing anything and it just felt unseemly for a child to know I had casual female company in my bedroom every other week, and rarely the same woman for longer than a few months. “God, you didn’t hear—”
“No, no,” she assures me quickly. “Just a woman’s voice sometimes. Some laughing. There was one who sounded like a goose.”
I grin. “Oh, her. Do you know she was one of the most talented sopranos I’d ever met? And with a laugh like that.”
Isabeau giggles in my arms. “But why didn’t you date? Properly I mean. You…you seem to like company.”
I enjoy “company”, but dating, there’s a difference. When Isabeau was younger I didn’t have the time—or rather, the time I wanted to invest was in Isabeau. Her schooling, her tutors, playing music with her. Later, when she was more independent, I did have the time, but I kept myself busy with the youth orchestra and my work. When Isabeau wanted to spend her free nights with me it was easy to tell myself she needed me. “I don’t know,” I hedge. “I didn’t find anyone I wanted to date.”
But she’s too perceptive for that. “It was because of me, wasn’t it?”
I clear my throat. “In a way. I had you, I had music, I had my orchestra. I didn’t want anything else. I was happy.”
Isabeau sits up, her expression bright and urgent. “All that you’re saying, it was the same for me. I only wanted to be with you. I was happiest when I was with you. I don’t want you to have any regrets, Laszlo. Promise me.”
In this moment with my arms around her my happiness is complete
. My beautiful girl, the only one I will ever want. But I’m silent for a moment, thinking. “I have one regret.”
She looks distressed by my confession.
“I wish I could have spared you your pain,” I tell her. “I regret making you feel like you’d done something shameful by kissing me. I know I did and I’m deeply sorry for that, sweet girl.”
Isabeau threads her fingers through my hair. “I know you are. I’m sorry, too. For running away.”
“But you came back.” I’ll never forget the sight of her in the Mayhew, a vision with auburn hair, clutching the cello that I’d watched her grow into.
Isabeau smiles. “I came back.” She props her chin on my chest, thinking. “Laszlo? What are we going to tell people once they start finding out about us?”
I feel my face harden and in that moment I hate every person in the world who isn’t Isabeau. Why can’t they just leave us alone? I can feel them pushing at the boundaries of our happiness, eager to spoil it.
She strokes my bristly cheek thoughtfully. “People might think terrible things about you. I hate the thought that this could damage your career.”
It’s sweet of her to be concerned for me but I’m more worried about her. It’s not new to me, worrying about Isabeau. The worry has become an old friend nestled deep in my heart, right next to my love for her. As long as she’s not hurt by any of this I don’t give a damn what people say about me.
But she could be hurt. She could be hurt badly.
The year she turned seventeen I started having terrible dreams, about Isabeau turning to me with loathing in her eyes and telling me she wished she’d never met me. I seemed to have the dreams every other month and they became more frequent as her eighteenth birthday approached. I feel that witching hour dread fill my heart now, because my feelings for her could still hurt her.
I’m silent for a long time, thinking about her questions, not wanting to pierce the happiness of this moment but also needing to prepare her for the worst.
“Isabeau. It’s not a case that people might think bad things about me, or us. Some people will. I want you to be prepared for that. That there might be a cost for us, being together.”
