Serenity's Key

by Charlotte E Hart

  We simply are.

  I stretch my arms above my head as I close the door at the top of the steps softly, smiling and turning to the right to head for the drinks tray. Job well done. Congratulations are in order. Champagne, I think. Perhaps with a strawberry in it, or six. I wonder if we have strawberries. I head off to the right again before I reach the lounge, crossing the large marble foyer en route to the kitchen. I snort at the whip as I throw it on the table and search the tops for fruit. A whip? In controlled Lilah’s hand. Amusing. Although, this leather is astoundingly seductive. I feel ten feet tall in it, and wrapped in sin, as if I could do anything to anyone, not giving a fuck about anything as I did it. Raspberries would be good, too. Mmm. Yum. Hungry.

  “Was anyone going to tell me?” Bless. Beth drifts around in front of me, still completely naked, her flame red hair tumbling over her breasts. I scan her briefly, enjoying the patterning on her skin from the ropes and wondering how she endures such pain from his hands.

  “I did, earlier,” I reply as I turn away. Where is all the fucking fruit? “In the lounge, remember?”

  “I didn’t think you meant now.”

  “I’m not sure even Alex knew it would be now. I pushed him into it.”

  “But he hasn’t–”

  “I know, just… WHERE IS ALL THE FUCKING FRUIT?” I throw my hands up in the air, consumed by my need to damn well eat something. If I can’t have multiple orgasms then I need food. Fruity food. With champagne and roaring log fires. Nice music would be good, too.

  “It’s here,” Beth says, smirking and holding a bowl out to me. I smile in reply and take it, instantly spinning on my exquisite heels and heading back for the drinks tray.

  “Do you have music?”

  “What?”

  “Phone? iPod? Anything with music on it? There’s nothing here. The place is bare of any normality.” Not that I care for normality all that much, it appears. I laugh lightly at the thought as I turn into the lounge and gaze at the flames licking up the chimney. “I’d like Beethoven or some other classical. Something soothing and dark, relaxed. We’ll do chitchat until they’re finished. If they finish. Be friendly, affable. You know? Might even get rousingly drunk and get back to liking each other.”

  There’s a giggle behind me, making me smile.

  “You’re so much like him. It’s not surprising really.” What? Who? I spin to face her. She’s standing there, still naked, giggling to herself about something I’m unaware of as she points at an armchair. “Go and sit down. I’ll pour us some champagne.”

  I’ve never felt more comfortable than I do now. Sitting here with her is calming as she hands me my drink, smiles again and then delves into her bag. She produces her phone and quickly selects something before grabbing a blanket and wrapping it around herself to sit. Actually, she’s calming. She has that aura he must need. It’s joy filled, warm. Probably comforting for him. What did he say? Something about needing respite. She could definitely provide that. She’s full of care. Everything about her screams compassion and sympathy. She may have learnt how to fight for what she wants, to stand up for herself and be stronger against these men, but it’s not in her nature. She’s too decent for that. Too nice.

  The sound of music begins to drift through the room as I balance the fruit bowl on my lap and stare into the flames again. It’s not loud enough really. I could do with it so loud I drown in it. Lose myself. Maybe I could picture them fucking if that happened. Maybe I could see Pascal’s face in that moment, join with him, sense the friction, the pain. I should have kissed him before I left. Felt his lips on mine and loved him. Shown him it was all okay.

  “When did you know?”

  Does it matter? I close my eyes and lean back into the chair, crossing my legs beneath my leather skirt and letting the music take me away as I sip at my champagne.

  “Lilah, please. I didn’t see it. I should have seen it coming.” I bite into a strawberry, rolling it around my lips and savouring the delicious flavour. “Lilah?” For fuck’s sake.

  “He’s in love, Beth. Everything that’s in love wants to fuck. Its nature’s way,” I snap out, irritated.

  “It’s hardly simple fucking.” She’s right, I suppose, but the base instinct is, isn’t it? The rest will come with time and thought. Neither of which are relevant here. And Pascal is so very fuckable. Loving, sin-filled, wicked, and talented with his fingers, and his cock. Yum. Alex needs that connection to him more than he presently understands. I mean, who wouldn’t want to fuck him? Or be fucked by him? Stupid woman. She over emotionalises too many things. It’s all so damn simple.

  “What would you rather? That Alex pretended forever, not achieving his potential and letting Pascal down at every available opportunity? They are in love, Beth. More so than they are with us, or at least differently. They should be fucking as much as the rest of us are.”

  “But...”

  “There aren’t buts anymore. There’s no room for any,” I cut in, picturing his smile and sparkling eyes coming at me.

  That’s all I’m saying on the topic. The rest will find its way, as will she, with any luck. Or perhaps Alex will just direct her. Or maybe she’ll leave. I don’t care. All I’m really interested in is Pascal and how he feels. As long as he’s okay, so am I. These two can argue, chat, discuss and mull over their lives for as long as they like. That’s nothing to do with me unless it affects Pascal or Claire.

  I suck in another strawberry, following it with a raspberry. It’s all fucking delicious, especially with the champagne and music, the fire, and the sounds I can visualise from downstairs even if I can’t actually hear them. It’s all quite lovely.

  “What’s this music?”

  “Clare de Lune,” she mumbles quietly, with more than a hint of sulkiness.

  “Oh good God, what is your problem?” I snap out, opening my eyes to find her curled up tightly in a ball and lying down on her side. “What?” Christ, she’s sniffing again. What am I supposed to do with that?

  I pop in another raspberry and watch her for a while, considering whether to make her feel better or just let her find her way herself. Maybe it is my job to help her, too, or maybe it isn’t. She’s not my problem really, is she? But then, I do like her, whatever the problems we’ve faced. She did help me out of my hole, gave me a place to stay, a job, and introduced me to Alexander.

  “You know, it’s all going to be fine. He still loves you.” I attempt compassion as I pop in some grapes and let their textures swirl about in my mouth. “I mean, you don’t have anything to worry about, if that’s the problem. He needs you as much as he does Pascal. You’re one in the same thing if truth be told. I’m the outsider here, not you.”

  Her sniffles quieten a little as she looks up at me and wipes at her eyes.

  “We’ll all be fine. You’ll both go back to the UK. Pascal and I will fight about who lives where and with whom. I’ll work for the big bad brute down there, and Pascal will... Well, I’m not quite sure what he’ll do yet because he’s training Thomas to take over, but he’ll flit about, probably between you two and me. Claire as well, obviously.”

  I end up walking over to her and dumping my fruit. God knows why, but I can’t push aside the need to console her, build up her resolve again. Weak women piss me off, certainly where these men are concerned. She’s so much more than this. Stronger. She must be to have come this far. I stroke her hair, moving it from her face and wiping at her eyes. Crying doesn’t suit her either. This isn’t the woman who found me in Eden and told me about fish and chips. She was amazing in her stature then. Brave, bold, unabashed. That’s the true Beth she needs to get back to. Perhaps it’s my job to keep her there when the dominoes start falling down around her.

  “We’ll be fine, Beth. All of us. Just fine. You said it earlier, didn’t you? We’ll find a way to make it all work.”

  “I’m just so tired of worrying about him.” Mmm. I daresay Alexander takes a great deal of worrying about from someone like her. Sh
e shouldn’t need to anymore, not now I’m here. My hands flick at her, offering her a hug if she wants one. She can have that from me if it’ll help her, and it’s likely I’ll need them too on occasion, I suppose. Time, I’m sure, will provide many more obstacles and hurdles for us to overcome. Arguments and misunderstandings. Encounters of dubious intent. Pain that I’m positive will be frowned upon by one or another of us. But that doesn’t mean those adventures shouldn’t happen, or that we should hide from them. Peace is coming. I know it is. I can feel it clearing my mind of confusion and concern. A strange sense of peace to most, I’m sure, but it’s ours to find nevertheless. I’m damned if anyone is stopping us search for it, Beth included.

  She folds herself into me, nodding as she does and breathing out slowly. So I rest back onto the sofa, stretching my feet out to prop them up on the footstool and carry on drinking my champagne with her in my lap.

  “This leather is so soft,” she mumbles, nuzzling her head into my crotch and relaxing. My brow shoots up at the proximity. It’s not an entirely unwelcome thought, but not yet. We’re not at all ready for that yet. I’m not anyway.

  “Alex bought it. You should ask him where from.” Her head twists round to look at me, surprise etched into her face as her lips part.

  “Did he?” I chuckle down at her and knock her head back into my lap, where it feels bizarrely okay. Kind of relaxing. Tranquil.

  “Mmm. I’m pretty sure he’s had this planned out for ages. Did you know about him training me? In fact, seems like he’s been planning a lot of things on the sly. I suppose that’s what Dominants do.”

  She shuffles around a bit, making herself more comfortable and then relaxing again. Enough so that she stretches her legs out, making me question how ‘not interested’ I am in indulging in another woman. She’s utterly beautiful as her hair tumbles about in my lap, and I’d be lying if I wasn’t contemplating the thought of kissing her, perhaps quenching this thirst for an orgasm that’s been taken from me because I had to leave the man I love. I smirk at the thought, knowing that one day it’ll come. I’m still not sure about Alexander, his odd sense of friendship means too much to me, but Beth? Well, time will tell, I suppose.

  “I knew about Jon,” she says, giggling to herself a little and rubbing her eyes into my skirt. “He was frantic to deal with that. He asked me first before he started preparing it all, but he’s spent hours calling people and arranging things, travelling when he should have been at home resting.” The thought doesn’t surprise me. I know how Alexander feels about Pascal. For whatever reason, I think I always have, regardless of them not actually fucking. She sighs and sniffs up the last of her tears, perhaps finally resolving herself to something I’m not aware of. “He wouldn’t listen to anything I said, he just seemed desperate to make Pascal and Claire safe. You too really.” Of course he was. He always will be. I smile down at her, knowing that she’ll see the truth of them together soon enough. Hopefully she’ll bear it well enough because it’s what will make the two of them complete too. He won’t find peace with her alone, he needs the physicality Pascal can provide too much. He needs them both. “But I didn’t know about you.” More lies. She should know it all. It won’t work unless she does, and if he won’t tell her, then evenutally I will.

  “Well, there you go then. Perhaps you two need a bit more communication going on, hey? Trust and all that. I’d start challenging a bit more if I were you. But then, I’m not you, and you’re not me. You do whatever you think is right.” Absolutely not. We couldn’t be farther from each other if we tried, and yet at this very moment, she seems like the closest person in the world to me as I keep stroking her hair. We are bound by the men we love, understanding them clearly without interruption from outside sources. “You’ll find your own way together, I’m sure. As will we. Love will conquer all. We’ll make it so. All of us.”

  She giggles, burrowing her head back down as we stare into the flames together and enjoy the music. Clare de Lune. Lovely song. It’s euphoric, elegant. Evocative. I smile, remembering that first kiss Pascal and I shared. I can still feel it now as I sit here, still feel it’s effect on me, and the way he held on to me. I should have known then my whole world would change. Should have guessed it the first time his tongue rolled with mine, sensed it in that first strike of electricity between us. Maybe I should have even known it when I saw him burst through the doors at The Parlour, owning the fucking world as he did.

  Now I’m sitting here, dressed in leather and holding Elizabeth together while the men we love make love to one another. Aggressively, no doubt. It’s their way, my way, our way. And it always will be, no matter the hurdles in front of us. I may not have known about this world before we all met, might have considered it a peculiarity had I known about its existence, but now, it’s my life. It’s the way I am. No one’s taking my love for these people away. Ever.

  We will endure and find our rainbows and pots of gold. We will bask in our pain and adore it.

  We will love in our own way, and we will make our time timeless.

  Together.

  Chapter 23

  The burst of chilled spring air was welcome on his skin as he exited the car and made his way steadily into Central Park, smirking at children playing as he did. Walking was still something of a problem. However, he bore the pain, holding his chin aloft and revelling in the memory of love’s first true bite. Everything was still tender, discoloured and battered. His thighs were blackened beneath his suit trousers as was his throat beneath his scarf. It was too discoloured for a shirt and tie, although the marks were slowly turning yellow at the edges now. Soon the bruising would be gone, but it would be replaced again, of that he was most sure. Alexander would not abandon this now. He would delight in his newfound need, realising how much pressure he could put on a male body as he did. How much he could ravage it, nearly breaking it without lasting effect. Hmm.

  There were no words he knew of for the sentiment attached to the act. Perhaps rudimentary, or elemental. Primal came somewhere close. And no matter how much he’d tried to charm the love back into the moment, it had remained so, causing a rawness so inhuman he’d barely talked or walked for two days. Nevertheless, it was as it should have been, as it always would be.

  Savage.

  “PAPA!” Her voice came calling across the field, high pitched and full of enthusiasm as she sprinted to him. He smiled and tried to increase his pace, only to be hindered by a sore ass and an even more troublesome knee ligament. “Lilah’s here, look,” Claire shouted, pointing behind her and then charging on towards him again. He tipped his head up to see the woman in the background as she waked slowly some distance behind Claire. She was clad entirely in black, as if darkening the mood and yet brightening it too, all in one fell swoop. Beautiful, ceaselessly eclipsing the world with her frown and flat smile. He still had so much to learn about her, and her about herself, but they had all the eons that time could offer for that. A lifetime pledged to each other’s needs. An most enchanting era of love’s endless curse.

  The whirlwind of arms and legs damn near attacked him as Claire finally made it to him, throwing herself up into his arms and knowing that she would be caught. She would, eternally, regardless of the pain that assaulted him as she squirmed against his skin.

  “Alex and Beth are coming, too,” she panted out. “I don’t know where they are, though. Mama said I should come with Lilah to meet you. They’ll come later on.”

  “Did she indeed?” How kind of the bitch.

  “Yep, she said I could spend the weekend with you, as long as you take me to school on Monday and we stay at Lilah’s. That’s what she said, isn’t it, Lilah?” She turned in his arms, looking for Lilah and waving her hands to get her to them quicker. The movement bought yet more wheezing from his chest, broken ribs undulating beneath her legs.

  “One whole weekend, hmm?” he replied, clutching her to him regardless of the agony she caused and nearly weeping at the feel of her in his arms again, let alone
the smell of her skin. The week without her had been torturous, only heightening his need to swaddle her in his arms again. But the endless discussions with Alexander on the terrace, the ones where he had duly nodded and capitulated to matters of sense, had been worthy of their time apart in some respects. Life would be simpler now that they all understood what was happening. If not painful.

  Lilah wandered closer, smirking at something and slowly taking her hands from her pockets. Her fingers brushed his face softly, then looped back to his hair, tickling the length of it as she chuckled and pulled it into a small tail.

  “Shall we have that ice cream then, Claire? It’s only there. You know where, right?” she asked, as she ran her fingers back along his jaw and then pointed over to the seller.

  “Yay!” Scrambling occurred within his grasp, pursued by an overly excitable Claire jumping down from him and racing, yet again, over towards the cafeteria. He coughed and placed his hand on his chest, wheezing yet more and begging the Gods above for some relief soon as he watched her red coat fly from her back.

  “Do you think she will ever slow?” he asked, trying to cover up the amount of pain he was in and raising his frame again. Lilah turned to him, narrowing her gaze and frowning slightly. He offered his hand to her, hoping that his sentimental face of love would stop the tirade of abuse from being thrown at Alexander, yet again. She took it, chuckling a little as she did and broadening her smile somewhat, but all was most definitely not forgiven. They would argue much about the result of the dungeon encounter in their future, and he would win the game every time, no matter her care for him. Alexander was now a necessity.

  “Well, I hope not,” she eventually replied, seemingly letting the injury go, for now. “I hope she keeps going forward in any direction she chooses, as quickly as she likes.”