by Anya Summers
Chase whistled when she finished. "That's got to be tough, carrying a secret like that around, Elise. I can't begin to imagine how hard it must be. But did you ever mention it to Tyler?"
Feeling small and rather petty, she replied. "No."
Zeke chimed in with a stern Dom expression she understood all too well. "Elise, pardon my saying this, but you did your Dom a great disservice in not being honest with him and allowing him to decide. That is one of the fundamental pillars to a Dom/sub relationship: trust and honesty, in all things. You don't get to pick and choose what you should and shouldn't tell each other. I get that this situation, your medical condition, has to be excruciating for you on many levels. But if you truly love Tyler, then you need to tell him. Hiding it from him does both of you wrong and puts a cloud over your relationship."
"But what if I already screwed everything up? I don't even know if he will talk to me, or if he feels the same way."
"Take it from someone who knows what it is to almost lose the ones you love," Zeke said bluntly. "Talk to him, confront him, and tell him how you feel. He might just surprise you."
Elise wouldn't bet the farm on it. Except she understood deep in her bones that she had to try. She did owe him—everything. The least she could do was be honest with him and tell him why she'd broken things off that way.
Elise thanked them all profusely for their aid, declining the invitation to have to dinner with them and go to the club. After garnering a big hug not only from Kara, but both Zeke and Chase, she left their apartment. She'd been right in visiting Kara and asking for help. They'd given her so much food for thought that when she stepped into the cab that whisked her away to her apartment, she had a firm course of direction in mind.
In her one bedroom apartment, she yanked her suitcase from her closet and began tossing clothes in. With her phone in her hand, she checked the time and dialed Zoey.
"Hi Elise, what can I do for you?" Zoey's voice came through the smartphone.
"Hey Zoey, I'm sorry to bother you at this time of night. I messed up, and need to talk to Tyler. Is it all right with you if I fly over?"
"Tyler left, Elise."
"What?" Where was he? How was she going to find him?
"Yep, shortly after you did. As far as I know, he's back home on his ranch."
"Can you tell me where that is?"
"Let me check with Declan." Zoey put the phone down.
And then Declan's voice came over the earpiece. "Elise, why do you want Tyler's address? Before I agree to give it to you, I need an explanation. Ty's a good friend of mine, and I've never seen him so hurt before."
Her heart plummeted. "I know. I'm trying to fix the hurt I caused. I love him, and there are things he needs to know, to understand why I left. I can't do that if I can't see him. And I don't want to wait until the week of your wedding to do it. That might be too late, it could already be too late, but I have to try."
Declan was silent for a moment on the other end. "I emailed you all his contact information. Good luck."
"Thank you for everything." Elise hung up, checked her email, and bought a plane ticket. She was heading to the Wild West and the country after all.
Chapter 13
Elise made the final turn of her more than twelve-hour journey. If she weren't so keyed up about what she would find when she arrived at the end of the drive for Hope Frontier Ranch, she'd be drooping where she sat. The fact that she should have been there four hours previously, before the sunset, made little difference. Her connecting flight out of O'Hare Airport had been delayed due to inclement weather in the Northwest. So by the time she was able to board the connecting flight to Denver, she had already blown her itinerary by a few hours.
Dusk had already fallen in Denver by the time she had acquired her rental car and set out eastward on interstate seventy toward Tyler's ranch. Elise had left the interstate an hour ago, and had been maneuvering two lane country highways ever since. A dusting of white flakes had begun falling over the last thirty minutes of her drive. Nothing too heavy, but the forecast was calling for about eight inches by morning. If Tyler tossed her out, she'd have to backtrack and stay at the Holiday Inn she'd passed forty minutes ago. The tiny town had boasted a hotel, a Walmart, a grocery store, McDonalds, a steak house, and a few other small businesses on a parcel of land so minute that if you blinked, you'd miss it.
Would he want her still, or had she destroyed their fledgling relationship by being a coward? In the darkness she couldn't see much of his ranch, other than it seemed to stretch on infinitely, and when he'd mentioned he had a wind farm with some turbines, he'd never mentioned that he had a damn herd of them. The blinking red lights over the field continued past her line of sight, disappearing below the horizon. Just how many of them did he have? A hundred? Two hundred? More?
The long drive switched to gravel and the Toyota Camry proved that it was not built for the country as she checked her speed, slowing her progress to no more than ten miles per hour. With the slight roll and dips in the land, in the dark, she knew her headlights could be seen for miles as she approached the ranch house. It was a large affair, much larger than the farmhouse she'd grown up in, and she'd love to see it during daylight hours—if Tyler didn't toss her out on her ass first, and she wouldn't blame him if he did. The lights in the ranch house stood like a bastion against the dark. Elise's anxiety climbed to near nuclear levels at the shadowed outline of a man standing on the porch of the Victorian style farmhouse.
Tyler.
Her gut clenched at his imposing figure as she parked the car. With a deep breath, she shut off the engine and climbed out. Icy air that smelled of snow and wood fires enveloped her. Elise walked around the car and approached the house, stopping at the base of the steps to the wraparound porch leading to the front door. Tyler stood at the top of those stairs. His face was unreadable in the shadowed light. A golden retriever, his muscular body vibrating with excitement at a visitor, stood next to Tyler, his tail wagging, waiting on a signal from Tyler to see if she was friend or foe.
"Elise, I can't say that I was expecting you. What brings you to these parts?"
"Can we talk?"
"I thought we'd already said all there was to say. A phone call would have sufficed."
His words sliced her to the bone. The man was not going to make this easy. Not that he should, she'd bungled things well and good.
"Please, ten minutes of your time is all I'm asking for, and then I will leave."
Elise wished she was closer to him, wished she could read the emotions in his eyes. As it was, with the distance separating them, Tyler's face was in unreadable Dom mode. He'd not give her an inch if he wasn't of a mind to give it. Elise felt her heart sinking in her chest and blinked back tears.
"Let's get this over with. Max, come on, boy." Tyler grudgingly walked over to his front door, held it open, and waited for her. Max, excited by the prospect of company, and heading into the warm house, pranced around the porch, waiting for her to join them.
Elise stiffened her spine and ascended the stairs, hoping Tyler didn't see how badly her hands were shaking. The last thing she wanted to do was show fear. Max sniffed her, investigating her scent, and followed her into the house. Tyler trailed her inside, closing the front door with a sharp thud that made her start. Max planted his nose in her crotch and she tried to push him off. At which point Max thought she wanted to play and began leaping all over her.
She giggled, which made Max deliriously happy as he danced around her. Elise didn't know why but it seemed to lessen some of her anxiety.
"Max! Jesus, get down."
Max turned his head and she could have sworn the dog was grinning from ear to ear with a look that said, 'Can I keep her, puh-lease?'
"Come on you mongrel, how about some dinner."
Max woofed, then jumped down off her and took off down the hallway to some unseen room, his paws pounding over the hardwood floors as he bounded.
Tyler still wore an unreadable ma
sk as he addressed her, moving deeper into his house. "Let me just go take care of him and I'll be right back."
"It's fine. I'll wait."
She laid a hand over her heart at Tyler's retreating back, trying to keep it contained in her chest. She could do this. She just hadn't bargained on the effect of seeing him again, the realization of how strongly she cared for him, wanted him in her life permanently, with a desire that was so deep in the bones as to be a part of her. Would she even survive if he told her no thanks?
She puttered around the foyer, a wide expanse that was more homey than ornate. The oak banister, the cherry wood, was smooth under her fingers. She could imagine miniature grubby hands from a day spent playing the yard gripping the banister, a boy with a face that was a carbon copy of Tyler as he must have looked in his youth.
Elise could never give him that. Knowing that, seeing his house up close and personal, was she being selfish in depriving him of it?
She was gazing at a watercolor of the ocean, attempting and failing to instill her system with calmness, when Tyler prowled back into the room. The man was like a caged mustang, with far too much energy, who resented being kept in captivity.
"Sorry about Max, he's a bit of a goofball, but he's harmless."
"That's all right. I was interrupting your evening."
"So what did you want to speak to me about?" Tyler slid his hands in his front jean pockets and regarded her warily.
It was now or never. With her heart lodged in her breast, she began, her words tumbling out fast and furious. "Tyler, I'm sorry. I needed to say that. I'm sorry that I let you think that what we had in Scotland didn't matter. I need you to know that it did mean the world to me. I can't ever thank you enough or repay you for the kindness and care you showed me."
She twisted her hands, swallowed, and was about to continue when Tyler cut her off.
"Well, thank you for that. Now, if you don't mind, I have work to finish up this evening." He nodded toward the front door, his face and more importantly, his heart, shut.
Her heart stuttered madly in her chest. "Tyler, I'm not finished."
"I am."
She stepped back a foot, as though he had struck her. But instead of whimpering and crawling away to lick her wounds, she straightened her spine, pulling at her reserves of strength, turning them into fury. So he was finished. Well, she wasn't, and she had flown all this way, so he could damn well listen. Reversing her course, she approached him until they were toe to toe and stabbed her finger into his chest.
"Well that's too damn bad, because I'm not. You need to understand something about me. When I was sixteen, I got sick, really, really sick, with a virus. It was so bad at one point that the doctors warned my parents that they needed to have preparations, as in funeral arrangements, in place, should my body not fight off the viral infection. I did recover, eventually, but one of the unfortunate side effects of the prolonged exposure to the virus and sickness was that it left me sterile."
She watched as that bit of information sank in. The shock he masked quickly behind a pissed off, stubborn Dom exterior.
Before she lost her edge, she continued. "I can't have children, Tyler, biologically speaking. And you can't tell me that that is not an issue. I've had too many relationships in my life where the moment it was discovered I was barren, the guy opted out of the relationship."
His nostrils flared and he still looked like one furious Dom. His words were clipped and brutal when he responded. "But you didn't even give me the decency of letting me decide that for myself, Elise. You didn't trust me, or even ask what I wanted before you decided to end our relationship without even giving me the benefit of an explanation. Instead, you acted as if everything that had transpired between us meant nothing to you."
And her furor died on the spot as she felt her shoulders droop in defeat. She really had mucked everything up beyond repair. "I know. I'm so sorry I hid it from you. If I hadn't started falling in love with you, maybe I wouldn't have freaked out like I did. I just couldn't face the possibility of you leaving me, so I hid it and left first."
Tears filled her eyes when he didn't speak, just stared at her. Realizing utter defeat when she saw it, Elise nodded. There was nothing left for her to do but retreat and lick her wounds. And that was exactly what she did. Wrapping her arms in front of her chest, Elise swiveled, heading for the front door. With her hand on the door knob, she said over her shoulder, "I hope one day you can forgive me. Please know I never meant to hurt you."
Hands gripped her arms and spun her, pushing her back up against the door. And then they were in her hair and Tyler's mouth, that glorious wonderful mouth of his, kissed her like a man who hadn't had air to breathe in days. Elise was only too happy to oblige him, returning his kiss, showing him with more than words that she loved him. She plastered herself to him; gripping his flannel shirt, she tore it open up the front. Buttons pinged and scattered onto the hardwood floor. Tyler growled against her lips as she pushed aside the confines of his shirt to reach his chest.
Tyler never broke the kiss as he hoisted her into his arms, using the door for purchase as he yanked her jean skirt up over her hips. Her hands were at his fly, freeing his rigid erection as he pushed the sliver of lace covering her sex aside. She fit him at her entrance, reveling in the feel of him. She'd missed this, missed him more than she had realized. And then Tyler's cock shoved inside her pussy and all thoughts or reason escaped her as she moaned.
Only then did Tyler release her lips, and as his eyes the color of dark sapphires blazed with longing, her breath strangled in her throat. He stilled, buried deep inside her, cupping her face.
"I love you. I have from the moment I first saw you at Mullardoch. It just took me a little bit to get there."
"Tyler." She blinked at the tears clouding her gaze. She wanted to remember this moment forever. He loved her. She searched his face and knew she was home. "I love you, so much, Sir."
"That'll do," he murmured, as he took her hands and locked them together over her head with one of his. It left her completely dependent upon him as he finally canted his hips and began to thrust.
And Elise surrendered it all to his capable hands. She didn't have to worry when it came to Tyler. He would always be steady and strong, her rock of Gibraltar, when the rest of the world became too topsy-turvy. From this angle, he furrowed and drove his cock deep, hitting her womb in an almost painful fashion. Elise met him thrust for thrust, their lovemaking more of a hurried reclaiming.
Tyler's lips were on hers as he pounded his thick turgid member, her pussy greedily welcoming him. She writhed and moaned as he hammered his cock inside her, hanging on for the ride. Between one thrust and the next, her body splintered as she came, groaning into his mouth. Tyler stiffened against her, breaking the kiss, and roared as his seed spurted and poured from his member.
He buried his face in her shoulder, holding her tight as their bodies descended from their orgasmic glow. Eventually he released her hands, pulling her tighter against him, giving her free rein to run her fingers over his back.
Tyler looked at her then and her heart trembled.
"I do love you, Elise, but are you sure you want to trade the Manhattan skyline for life on a ranch with me?"
"Well, maybe we can compromise on that. You said you have a business manager. Maybe we could split time between the two. I still have my company, you know, but with the influx from Zoey and Declan's wedding, I might be able to hire an assistant to oversee incoming clients."
"Best of both worlds, huh? I think that's a feasible arrangement. I can't guarantee that I'm going to want to stay in the city for long periods of time."
"Tyler, I want you. I love you. I'd rather get daily doses of you in a Stetson and Levi's—which I still have yet to see, by the way, if you want to know a fantasy of mine. You mean more to me than a place made of steel and brick. I just worry that I might be cheating you out of your chance to have children."
"Is that right?"
; "Uh huh. I've always had a thing for country cowboys, don't you know."
"Well now, darlin', I think I can oblige you there. I have some fantasies of my own that we should get caught up on. As for children, Elise, I can't imagine having a child or wanting to have one if you aren't their mother. So we'll adopt when the time is right, or look at a myriad of other options. The only way you would be cheating me out of anything is if you walked away from me out of fear. I don't want you for your ability to make a baby or not, I want you for the incredibly gorgeous, strong creature you are, and for the way a simple look from you, that one right there you're wearing now, can make me hotter than an August heatwave."
His hands gripped her face and he gazed into her eyes with such warmth and tenderness, her heart fluttered in her chest as he murmured, "I love you."
"I love you, too."
Then Tyler kissed her. It was a kiss of promise and a homecoming, that no matter the odds or what the future held, they would face it together.
And with his kiss, Elise knew she'd made the right decision. It didn't matter where her home was, as long as Tyler was there, she was home. So she'd have to do the bulk of her shopping online. As he carried her deeper into his home, murmuring something about showing her his dungeon, she knew leaving Manhattan was worth it, that Tyler was worth everything to her, and that her world was perfect as long as Tyler was her country Master.
The End
Love Me, Master Me
The Dungeon Fantasy Club Book Six
© 2016 Blushing Books® and Anya Summers
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