God, I wanted to feel him doing that. “I can feel you.”
“I’m going to make you scream my name out into that room when you come. You’re going to be throbbing all over when I’m done with you. Then I’m going to take you home and do it all over, again and again. You will enjoy every minute of it, I promise.”
My heart was pounding in my ears, as my insatiable need consumed me.
“Now you want me, don’t you?” he teased.
I rolled over to my side, clenching my phone. “Yes, very much.”
“You want to come, don’t you?”
“Damn you,” I sighed, surprised by my bravado.
“Soon, Lexie, I will satisfy your hunger for me. Until then, think only of me, and what I’m going to do to you. Nothing else concerns you. Can you do that for me?”
“I’ll try, Garrett.”
“‘I’ll try,’ Master,” he corrected.
“Master,” I repeated.
“I’ll see you Saturday night.” He hung up the phone.
Letting out a long, frustrated breath, I rose from the bed. Despite Garrett’s detailed accounting of what to expect, I knew the ceremony was going to be a lot more difficult to get through. I ached more than ever for him. Shit.
Returning to my computer, I decided to put Elise and Ralph in a torrid love scene, very similar to the one Garrett had just described. I figured if I could not have the real thing, writing about it was going to have to do. When I opened my book, an alert from my e-mail flashed in the lower right hand corner of my screen. The e-mail was from Al.
Attached is contract with Donovan Books. Congrats, Lexie. You’ve hit the big time!
Opening the attachment, I excitedly read through the five page document. The terms were better than I could have hoped, with proposed contracts for three more books after Taming Elise to be part of the Taming…series. Sitting back in my chair, a brief flurry of pride came over me. I had always wanted to be with a big publishing house. My previous publisher had been small, yet well-respected. With Donovan Books, I could really reach a wider audience. I had achieved my goal.
Thoughts of Garrett began to cloud my celebration, and I debated if I had actually attained that coveted pinnacle of success. Without Garrett to share it, my victory felt incomplete. In the space of a few days, he had worked his way into my heart. Now every success was going to be meaningless without his approval. What had become of the independent woman I had strived so hard to be? Was I any less of a woman for wanting a man? Was I nothing more than a sub wanting her Dom’s approval? Perhaps every one of us needed that pat on the back from the person who held our heart. After all, what was success without the best wishes of the ones who helped you to attain it?
What about Lily?
The unwelcomed question slipped into my mind like liquor at a junior high dance. My mother’s approval was something I had never sought. Like any alcoholic substance banned to those under the age of twenty-one, Lily’s remarks were sure to be detrimental to my future. I had long ago given up on trying to please my mother. Why re-open wounds that had scarred over?
After gleaning the contract, I sent a reply to Al, telling him I accepted the terms. He could work out the rest of the details. That was what he was getting paid to do.
Business out of the way, I returned to my story, eager to get back to Elise’s night of passion with Ralph. As my love scene came to life on the page, I was painfully aware that bringing my two fictional characters together for sex was not placating my need for Garrett. Reaching for my mug of coffee, I took a sip of the lukewarm brew and thought of Garrett’s silky voice in my ear.
“Bastard. I’m going to need a cold shower before this day is out,” I muttered. “I just hope he does, too.”
Day 15
The next morning I was beyond edgy. The ceremony was fast approaching, and I felt doomed to go through with it. I yearned for it to be over, and was sure I would be thankful when it was done. Or would I?
During the night, while tossing in my bed, I had thought ahead to a possible future with Garrett. I knew this wasn’t the most ideal way to find a partner. I hoped that after the games had been played, and the intimacies established, we might finally have the chance to just be together. Did I know what I was getting with this man? Then again, did any woman know what she was getting with any man?
Back at my desk I settled down for a day of writing. I had a book contract to fulfill and deadlines to look forward to. I needed to focus on my career and not the man who had re-awakened it.
Deep in thought over which way to go in a scene, I was startled when my front door opened. Luckily I had left the safety chain on the door, keeping the intruder from gaining access. Jumping from my desk, I ran to the door, considering whether or not to grab a knife from the kitchen.
“Who’s there?” I yelled.
“Alexandra, open the goddamned door!”
I ripped the chain from the track. “Mom?”
Dressed in a cornflower blue designer pantsuit, her deep brown hair was coiffed to perfection about her oval face. Her makeup was flawless, highlighting the pink in her lips, cheeks, and skin, while the warm gold necklace draped about her glistened in the pale light of my doorway.
“What in the hell are you doing here? How did you get in?”
She held up a gold key ring in her hand. “You gave me your keys. In case you ever got locked out.” She peeked into my apartment with her round brown eyes. “Is he here?”
“Is who here?”
She rolled her eyes. “That man of yours…what’s his name?”
“His name is Garrett, and no he’s not here. It’s ten in the morning. He’s at work.” I looked past her to the staircase, paranoid that she might have been followed. Garrett’s warning about being watched still troubled me.
Lily came in the door, dangling a blue leather Chanel purse in her hand. “At least this one works. The last character you were with made loafing something of a profession.”
My raging stomach began working on my long-awaited ulcer. “Sid worked. He was a musician.”
Lily went to the antique sofa and keenly inspected the fabric. “Sid was an idiot.” She waved her hand over the cushion. “When was the last time you cleaned the velvet, Alexandra? I told you to wipe it down and vacuum it dry at least every week.”
“It’s furniture, Mom, not a puppy.”
She dropped her blue purse on my coffee table. “Figures. I buy you something beautiful and you neglect it. Sounds like the story of your life, if you ask me.”
I made a mental note to search for Tums. “Why are you here?”
“Because I wanted to see what was going on with that man of yours. Did you sleep with him?” She had a seat on my sofa. “If you haven’t, you’d better do it quick. Otherwise, you’ll come across as a tease, and he’ll dump your ass.”
“Gee, Mom. When did you become an expert on men? I don’t remember you having a relationship that lasted longer than a weekend at the Holiday Inn.”
My mother sat up on the sofa, looking as stiff as a sinner in church on Sunday. “You always were a smart-mouthed kid. It was cute when you were six, Alexandra. Now it just makes you look bitter.”
“Bitter?” I shouted, and then I stopped. I was not going to let her get to me. Not today. I had a book to get through, a twisted ceremony to dread, and a future with a dominating man to plan. “Why don’t you just tell me why you’re here, Mom? I have things to do.”
She clasped her hands about her knees. “What things?”
“I have a book to write for starters, and I don’t need you to—”
The buzzer at my door rang out.
“Maybe it’s him?” Lily said, a little too enthusiastically for me.
I furrowed my brow. “No, it’s not him, and I don’t like the way you….” I shook my head. “Never mind.”
Leaving my mother on the sofa, I went to the speaker at my door and pressed the intercom. “Yes?”
“I have your delivery, Ms. Pa
lmer,” a man with a high-pitched voice returned.
I gathered this was the white robe Garrett had told me would be delivered that morning. “Ah….” I glanced back at my mother, cursing his timing. “Can you come upstairs? I’m in 2A.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered.
Moving away from the speaker, I immediately saw my mother’s eyes were all over me. “What are you having delivered, waffles to go along with your…,” her hand waved over my favorite gray sweat suit, “pajamas?”
“These aren’t pajamas, and it’s not breakfast. It’s clothes.”
“I find that hard to believe.” My mother rose from the sofa. “The last time you took an interest in clothes was when you were six and tried to talk me into letting you wear your princess costume to school.”
“I don’t remember that.”
She came up to the door. “You were six; no one remembers when they were six.” Lily stood next to me, smiling. “It had little roses sewn into the skirt and lace about the hem. My mother made it for you, right before she died. You said you wanted to wear it for her.”
“I remember Grandma Bea. She made all of my clothes.”
“She used to care for you when I was in nursing school.” My mother swept a few hairs that had fallen from my ponytail out of my face. “She always called you her little Lexie.”
“I thought you called me that.”
“No, Alexandra, I never called you that. It never suited you.”
Heavy footfalls came from the landing. Anxious to retrieve the robe, I opened my front door.
An older gray-haired man approached from the stairs. He was not dressed like a delivery man, and wore a black suit with a black tie. In his arms was a long, black garment bag, and as he came to a stop before my door, he held out the bag to me.
“I am to collect you tomorrow night at eight,” he said in a girlish-sounding voice.
I took the bag from him, as my mother curiously watched me. “Thank you,” I said, not sure if there was anything else he needed to hear.
He nodded to me, then to my mother and turned for the stairs.
Carrying the garment bag to my bedroom, I could hear my mother’s high heels tapping on the hardwood floor behind me. Placing the bag on my bed, I glanced back at her.
“Go ahead, ask; it’s killing you.”
She waved a hand at the bag, making the gold bracelets on her wrist jingle. “Is it from him? Do you have some special date?”
I stood next to my bed trying to come up with an explanation. Sure, I could have lied to her and agreed with her story. It sounded like a good idea and a way to keep her out of my hair. On second thought, she would probably want to see the dress and give me pointers on my makeup. It was time I told my mother the truth about what I was doing. If I was lucky, the shock would kill her.
Placing my hand on my hip, I took a deep breath. “It’s not a dress, Mom. It’s a ceremonial robe for tomorrow night. I’m going to be inducted into Garrett’s club as a submissive. Garrett is a Dom, a man who likes to dominate women and tell us what to do. He is collaring me in a special ceremony at his club. Yes, we will be having sex after that, and no, I haven’t slept with him, yet. The reason I’m doing all of this is because I’m writing a book about Garrett. A book, I might add, that just went under contract with a publisher in Atlanta, who is paying me a nice advance and is going to make me a lot of money. I’m even going to make a series out of this, and being with Garrett is research.”
She stood in my bedroom doorway staring at me for several minutes. Her brown eyes were dissecting me, determining if what I said was true. Then she adjusted a few bracelets on her forearm, frowning at me. Big surprise there.
“I don’t know where you got your imagination from, Alexandra. It must be something on your father’s side, because no one in my family would have thought up such a cockamamie story.” She motioned to me. “If you’re going to have a big date and sleep together, then just say so. I don’t need all the dramatics.” She spun away from my door and headed into the living room.
“Yes, Mom, we’re going to have a big date and sleep together.” I quietly chuckled. I should have known the truth sounded too strange to believe.
Gliding across my small living room, she paused at the sofa. “The last bit you told me about the book deal…is it true?”
“Yes. I signed the contract yesterday with Donovan Books. Al is very excited about it.”
“Al?”
“My agent. I told you about him.”
“Yes, I remember. Well, at least he’s earning his ten percent.” She picked up her purse. “Tell me one thing, Alexandra. Do you like this man, Garrett?” Her eyes connected with mine. “I mean, really like him.”
“You could say I’ve tried harder with him than most men I’ve known.”
“Even Sid?” Mom tucked her purse under her arm. “I wasn’t a fool. You never married Sid because you loved him…you married him to piss me off. Don’t throw this one away because you think it will make me unhappy. Worry about your own happiness for a change.”
“I didn’t marry Sid to make you—”
“Please, Alexandra.” She held up her hand. “I’m not going to stand here and pretend that we’ve got a great relationship. You’ve always been so different from me, and so hard to understand.” Mom’s rigid posture relaxed as she studied me with her judgmental eyes. “You want to know why I detested Sid? He wasn’t good enough for you, and I didn’t want to see you make a mistake with him. Garrett, on the other hand, can be the kind of man you need.”
“How would you know what kind of man I need?”
“You need the same kind of man every woman needs: a partner, a friend, a lover, and most of all a supporter. One who will pick you up when you are down, and love your faults, as well as your assets. Lord knows, I’ve been searching for one of those. Just like your father, they’ve all come up short.” She moved toward the door. “I came here this morning to tell you not to walk away from Garrett to spite me. I can see now that I was wrong. You don’t want to walk away from him; you want to be with him…very much.”
“I’m going to be with him after tomorrow night,” I told her, rubbing my hands together.
“After that collaring ceremony you told me about?” Mother’s well-tweezed eyebrows went up.
“I’m going to be his.”
Lily shook her head with impatience. “Lord, Alexandra, you’re already his, why do you need a ceremony to prove it? Collaring ceremonies, weddings, it’s all the same thing. Why do you think I’ve never married again? You don’t need the paperwork, darlin’. You need the emotional commitment. You just have to ask yourself if Garrett feels the same way as you.”
“That I don’t know,” I confessed, in a mumble.
“You’d better find out, fast.” She opened the door. “If I was going to go through with one of Mabel Bergeron’s tacky ceremonies, I would make damn sure how the guy feels.”
I gawked at my mother’s back “Wait…you know about the club, about Mabel, and…?” I was too shocked to go on.
She turned on the landing and glanced back at me. “Of course I know. You don’t think I’ve dated some of the city’s most connected businessmen and not heard of Mabel’s place. This is a small town, Alexandra…everyone knows about her club. I just never figured you to be into such stuff.”
“I’m not into it. Garrett is. If I don’t do this ceremony with him…it could hurt his business.”
Lily dropped her chin. “Did he tell you that?”
I nodded my head.
“So you’re doing this for him?”
I leaned against my doorframe. “In the beginning, I thought I was doing this as research for my book. Somewhere along the way, Garrett became more important than my story. That’s never happened to me before. I’m not sure why I’m going through with any of this. All I do know is…I can’t let him down.”
Lily smirked, coming across as smug. “That’s what happens when your heart takes over your thinki
ng from your head. You start making choices you can’t explain.” She opened her purse and began rummaging through it. “This is good for you. You need to have a relationship like that at least once in your life. It will help your books. The stories you write aren’t realistic.”
I folded my arms over my chest, smirking back at her. “What would you know about my books? You’ve never read any.”
She pulled her sunglasses from her purse. “Don’t be silly, Alexandra. I’ve read every one of your books. I’m your mother, after all.” Waving her sunglasses in the air, she added, “Bring Garrett around for dinner some time.”
Lily turned on her expensive heels and went to the landing. In amazement, I watched my mother ease down the steps, appearing every inch the gracious lady. When I was a little girl I had tried to emulate her walk, only to discover it hurt my feet. When I grew older, I tried to do everything the opposite of my mother. My sarcasm started out as a way of getting even with her for being ignored through the years. As I watched her head disappear down the steps, I realized that despite my efforts, I was like her in many ways. Not only did we share a certain drive to be our own woman, we shared the same fragile heart. Hers had suffered through so much more than mine, but we hid our pain in the same way…we shut out those who needed us most.
Shaking my head, I stepped back inside my door. All these years I thought my mother had never bothered with my books. I had misjudged the depth of her emotions. She wasn’t the heartless witch I had envisioned, she was simply being …well, Lily. A woman who lived life her way, and the rest of the world bedamned.
Closing my apartment door, I thought back to all the years we had been at odds. Perhaps it was time to cut my mother some slack. She had done the best she could. Maybe I was finally growing up. Reaching a point in my life where I could look back at how I was raised, forgive the faults of my upbringing, and embrace the fallibility of my parent. She was, in the end, only human.
Taming Me Page 19
