by D. D. Wyatt
“Where?” Jesse’s deep voice resounded with that one word inside my aching head.
Where? Where can I go? A few more nights with Jenette and her cracked out shit hole of a apartment and she would be done with me too. Where? There were no more ‘wheres’ to go to.
Like a cornered, injured animal, I did exactly what my life had trained me to do.
“What does it matter Jesse? Don’t fucking pretend like you care or something out of some bizarre sense of guilt over Kent. I’m not YOUR problem, okay? Maybe if you had been there that night Kent wouldn’t be dead! Right!!?? No one’s ever had the balls to tell you, but YOU left him! YOUR the reason he’s dead!!!”
A black hole of silence swirled me into it’s dark arms as the words hung in the putrid air over my head. My chest heaved and my heart ached with the venom of my words. It wasn’t even true. Kent left the party on his own. Jesse didn’t even know until he got the call.
Jesse moved with like a bullet out of a gun as he came around the desk and cut me off two steps to the door, his huge hand encircling my neck. Black light shot from his eyes as his towering form stared down at me, his calm demeanor only that much more intimidating. At least if he had lost control, yelled back at me, screamed and told me to fuck off, then the playing field would at least be even. Instead, he stayed ice calm, not a hint of sweat on his brow as I watched the movement of the tendons flexing and stretching in his thick, perfect forearm.
My hands instinctively reached up and grasped around his thick, steel like wrist, working in futile effort to have any impact on his grip. The deep carved granite face staring down at me, not with contempt, but something else. Something genuine, warm yet surrounded with pain and sorrow.
“Let go.” I managed to whisper.
“You’re the one that needs to let go.” He rumbled back.
All the years of looking at him, dreaming about him, wanting him like a star struck little girl exploded inside me knowing I could never have him in the way I wanted. He was too much, too perfect for a broken, thick hipped girl with no family and no future. With every ounce of my being, I wanted to disappear and never be found. Especially by him.
I felt the slightly loosening of his fingers around my throat, and I took full advantage, pulling back one hand from his wrist, with every piece of my bitter, empty soul, my fingers curled into talons and I screamed. Scratching him across the pained expression in his chiseled face, three bloody angry streaks staring back at me at Jesse’s eyes gave only a flicker of acknowledgment to the injury I had inflicted.
My stomach knotted more than before as the dark stare from the icy former Marine flipped my insides up and down wondering when the reaction would come.
To my shock, he let go of my throat, quietly turned and opened the door, staring me down like a raptor on a mouse.
“Make a choice Kat. Right now. Go and your life is yours, on your own. I won’t try to track you down.” I watched, as the formidable figure that had dominated my dreams and desires for so long dropped his eyes, cleared his throat once and continued. “ When Kent knew he was dying, he made me promise him one thing. Just one, and I’ve held onto that promise for all these years. But, now, it’s time to let go. Because watching you destroy yourself is killing me the same way it would have killed your brother.”
“What choice? I don’t have any choice!” My vision blurred as Jesse’s rumbling calm voice filled the room.
“Or, you can stay. But if you do, shit ain’t gonna be the same. I’m fucking done Katrina. Fucking done watching you kill yourself on my watch. Things are gonna change and you’re gonna fall in line or get the fuck out. If you stay, I promise you, on your brother’s grave, I will take care of you. I will give you a better life. But you have to trust me and do shit MY fucking way. No more punk ass shit like you pulled last night. That’s not the Kat I know. That’s not the Kat that wants to make her brother proud.”
He took a deep breath.
“Why the fuck you think I hang around this shit hole? I got eight other clubs, and I spend 95% of my time here. Why do you think that is??” His dark eyes narrowed and heat began to rise up and off my body as I stared at the open door.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged, trying to decide what to do. My head was still screaming and my hands were beginning to shake and sweat. I needed a drink, fast. Bile danced a the back of my throat and the dark fingers of the black pit where I lived my life began to tug at me and pull me toward the bottom.
Leave. Go. Get a fucking drink and let’s get the fuck out of here. Fuck him.
“You! God damn it Kat! YOU! Now make a choice, ‘cause this is it. Stay and I’ll be here for you, more than you could ever imagine. Or fucking go and be gone.” The furrows in his brow deepened as there was the slightest catch in his voice. The thick, broad muscles in his chest raised and lowered with his restrained breath.
The voice in my head was bellowing, incessant and beyond demanding. I couldn’t think, I needed a minute. My legs took two steps toward the door before my lips moved.
“Just let me get a fucking drink Jesse!!! God damn it!!!”
All 6’6” and 250 pounds of iron muscle and ferocious determination kicked the door closed in front of me, scooped me up around the waist and before I could take a breath, flipped me over as he sat down on the sofa, ripping my jeans down around my knees as I screamed and kicked with whatever power my sick, weakened body could muster.
“STOP IT! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!!”
I couldn’t see Jesse’s face, but his hands moved like a fury, the cool air of the room washing across my naked ass as he ripped my panties off and threw them against the door, pushing my body down hard onto his thighs. My disheveled hair stuck to my face as I hung upside down over his lap, vile words and noises streamed from my mouth until the screaming bright white light blew up inside my head with the impact of his first blow.
SMACK
Then the next.
SMACK
I’ve had two other moments in my life where time seemed to alter itself. Become flexible and stretch itself out before me. One, was when the police showed up at my house and took me from my parents. The second, was the moment I saw Jesse, standing in the hallway at the hospital waiting for me, the look in his eyes telling me everything my nightmares were made of.
There was a power in Jesse, it was the deep strike of his blows, restrained as they were. But, it was so much more, something deep inside every fiber of his being that made him almost vibrate. Elevate. The energy that surrounded him made people take a step away, give him a wide birth, without even knowing why.
SMACK
SMACK
SMACK
“STOP!!!” My pitiful voice barely a whisper as I lay ensconced against the legs of the man that had been the object of my deepest desires for as long as I could remember. His open bare hand making sickening smacking noises against the naked flesh of my upturned bottom. The force of his blows immeasurably more intense than a mere spanking.
SMACK, SMACK
My eyes exploded in stinging rivers of tears along with soul shaking sobs that emanated from a place so walled off and fortified deep with in me, that no light had penetrated there since Kent died and left me utterly alone in the world.
SMACK, SMACK
Jesse’s hand pressed down on my back as his other continued to wield it’s painful punishment on my round cheeks. Somehow, in a moment between the blows, I teetered on that knife’s edge, that thin space between pleasure and pain as the heat and stinging impact of the spanking wrenched through my body. The thunder of the spanking making my ass sing with scorching pain, then a strange warmth gathered under the deep impact, sinking down, wiggling it’s searing red fingers into my outer lips, teasing and tingling there before the next impact.
SMACK, SMACK, SMACK
My world turned utterly and completely upside down at that moment. My breath coming in huge gulps and gasps between the sobs as Jesse’s flaming hot hand rested firmly on top of my welted ass
, creating a vortex of heat between us.
“Why? Why Jesse?” I croaked out the words but honestly wasn’t sure what I was asking. There were so many ‘Why’s’ in my short life and I knew he didn’t have the answers. But, something I did know, into the deepest, most sacred place in my soul, is that he would take care of me as he promised, if only I would stay. In that moment, I knew I wasn’t going to leave.
“Kat?” His voice deep and firm.
“What?” There was no more bravado left in me, just a sinking sense of my own shame and emptiness.
“It’s going to be okay. I promise, you just need to trust me.” There was a restrained hunger in his voice like I had never heard and my heart clenched in my chest.
“Okay.”
“You promise then? Whatever I say you have to trust me. I’m going to take care of you, you just have to let me. Tell me you promise.”
I was so tired. Tired in my body, tired in my spirit and my soul. Tired in my mind. There was no one else, nothing else to rely on. I was spent and I needed someone to show me the way out of the darkness and back into the light.
“I do Jess. I promise. Please, just help me. I’m so lost.” The tears overflowed as I spoke. The deep depression that always overtook me the morning after I drank myself into oblivion was a place I sometimes was not sure I could lift myself out of, and I desperately needed his help.
Powerful arms lifted me up and onto his lap as he pulled my head against his shoulder, and the tears came without any noise, but flowed like rain down my cheeks. Sitting there, I realized something else had happened as Jesse’s hand stung and reddened my skin. I was wet. Like soaking, pounding, throbbing, screaming to be fucked kind of wet. And, there was a desperate part of me that wanted to tear off that fucking white t-shirt and beg him to fuck me as I pressed myself against his shoulder that felt like straining fissures about to explode.
But, suddenly I was so self conscious sitting there with no panties and my jeans pulled half down my legs. My full, round hips and not-so-flat tummy on full display. I knew when I stood up, there was sure to be evidence of my soaking sex on his pants and my heart began to beat like a mad man running from some invisible specter.
“You ready to go?” The deep timbre of his voice vibrated in his chest as I pushed my hands down into my lap, trying to cover myself.
I nodded, breathing in his scent and feeling the gentle scrape of the masculine stubble on his jaw line against my forehead.
“Can you live without your panties ‘til I get you home?” He pushed me until I stood up, turning his head slightly to the side as I pulled my jeans up and over my naked lower half. He thankfully pretended not to notice the small dark spot on his lap where I sat.
“Yes.” My voice shook.
Home? What did that mean? He’s taking me to his home?
“What time is it??” I was still so disoriented. There were no clocks and certainly no windows in a strip club.
“It’s 10:30.” He rummaged through his desk drawer, pulling out his black key fob.
“A.M. or P.M.” Honestly, I really was a mess.
There was the slightest upturn on one corner of Jesse’s lips, his hard, intense face showing the smallest of softening.
“Come on. I guess you’ll see when we get outside.”
I slept like I hadn’t slept in years those first few days at Jesse’s place. It was more than having a beautiful room that looked out over a huge lake with the peaks of Tarrington Mountain range in the background, although, it was a nice perk.
Jesse didn’t go to any of his clubs for four days while I laid in bed, shivering and sweating. He carried me once when I couldn’t even walk from the convulsions that wracked my body into the bathroom, gingerly taking off my clothes and lowering me down into a steaming hot bath that smelled like fresh linen and rose petals. He washed my back and neck, sending wild torrents of desire deep inside me even as my body fought the sickening pull for a drink, a joint, anything to feed the dark fingers of my bad habits that curled around my neck.
But, Jesse stood quiet and commanding when I cried and begged him to just let me have a sip. Something, just a glass of wine. He never wavered. Nothing. He didn’t even drink. EVER. And, he didn’t keep anything in his house.
“You can’t be you when you drink Kat. And the world needs you. So, quit asking. It ain’t gonna happen.” His set jaw and steely eyes giving me no room for negotiation.
Fuck. Now what?
Little things were beginning to happen and it took me a couple days for my head to clear and start noticing. Like, the clothes he brought me. I usually would just sleep in a big t-shirt and some sweats, but when I woke up that second day, he had changed me into a soft little nightgown. Now, I’m not talking Victoria’s Secret sexy soft nightgown, I mean soft, light yellow, with little puffy sleeves a princess neckline and tiny pink flowers all over. It was just long enough to cover my rear end, which I also noticed, was wearing something that looked like a ruffled pair of some kind of panties that a toddler would wear.
Then, the next morning, I noticed there were two pacifiers sitting out on the dresser across from my bed and a couple stuffed bears, big enough for an adult. Jesse actually put one next to me that night when I drifted off to sleep. I was still too tired and weak to really care, so I went along with it, but it was definitely feeling strange. Although, truth be told, I loved when he pushed that over sized plush bear down under the covers next to me and gave me a kiss on my head.
There was a flutter in my stomach and a small throbbing between my legs as he rubbed my back and said, “Sweet dreams”. I wasn’t sure what was going on and when I felt better I surely was going to find out what this little girl shit was all about. I drifted back to sleep and woke up a few hours later to the sight of my pseudo step-brother sitting spread legged, hands across his rock hard abs watching me sleep.
Flickering my eyes open, I had to be sure I wasn’t still dreaming. This Adonis of a man that had dominated my desire for so many years still made my skin tingle.
“What’s up?” I stretched, the sun was streaming in the far window cutting across Jesse’s angled face as his intense eyes devoured me from the chair.
“Looks like you. Finally.” He shifted slightly and I could see the hard, flat muscles in his stomach flex under the ever present perfect white t-shirt. The flutter in my belly quickly moved lower.
“Ummm, yep, I guess.” I wasn’t quite ready for the world yet, so I gave another big stretch and turned onto my side, my hands snaking around the huge teddy bear and pulling it close. I buried my face in the soft fur feeling a wondrous sense of contentment for the first time in years.
I could hear Jesse breathing and smell his masculine scent as his quiet dominance radiated even across the room to the bed.
“Jess?” I kept my eyes closed and buried in the bear.
“Yep…” I could feel his eyes on me and I began to squirm a bit under the covers.
“You know girls my age, like, don’t wear this kind of stuff. I know you still think of me as your ‘little sis’, but you do know I’m grown up, right?” The sarcasm was thick, but I didn’t exactly know how to ask differently.
“Are you? You’re all grown up, huh? Well, I don’t see it that way little girl. From what I see, you are still in need of a strong hand to guide you. You certainly haven’t done all that great on your own the last few years.”
I jerked my head around and narrowed my eyes.
“What the fuck Jess? Thanks for helping me out, but really? You think I need to hear that shit?”
“Watch your mouth.” His eyes turned to slits and his voice lowered two octaves but his formidable body remained perfectly still in the chair.
“What? You can’t tell me what to do Jesse. I’m an adult.” I whipped the cover off and bounced to the edge of the bed. Today I was dressed in soft white flannel pajamas with little bears on them complete with lace trimmed collar and bottoms that snapped onto the pajama shirt around the waist and had fee
t in them. Really??
“I mean, what the fuck? This is baby shit Jesse! It’s weird!!” My volume increasing more than it probably should.
“So you’re all grown up then are you? What exactly does that mean?”
It was making me more nervous that he was just sitting there, his body flexing but not moving. The muscles in his jaw revealing his growing irritation but he always stayed calm. Scary calm and I knew there was so much more brewing behind that icy stare. The smart part of me told me to be careful, but the not-so-smart part of me always seemed to drown out the other.
“Shut up Jesse. Thanks for letting me crash, but I think it’s time for me to go.” My feet hit the floor and my righteous indignation lost some of it’s steam when I looked in the mirror and saw my reflection staring back at me. The little pajamas, my long sandy blond hair tied in two braids and my eyes were actually bright and visible. Not sunken in, my cheeks the color of the living instead of the dead. Then, my next thought was, where are my clothes?
My eyes left the mirror and dared to meet the dark penetrating stare of my step-brother as he actually moved, crossing his legs and leaning back slightly in the chair. The air of his power still hanging heavy in the room.
Suddenly, the words he spoke just before he gave me that bizarre spanking in the office drifted through my thoughts. What did he mean he stayed at that club for me? He was right, he owned eight other very successful clubs. The one he let me work at was not on the top of the prestige list, but was probably the quietest and safest. But, what did he mean he stayed there because of me?
I looked around the huge guest suite and realized I barely knew anything about his life anymore. I mean, I knew he left and went off with the Marines and was a Green Beret. Then, when he came back, he started these clubs and they took off like wildfire. But, I guess I never put it together until now just how successful he was. This house on Wolverine Lake with the mountains in the background? Really? Had to be in the millions.
