by Erika Masten
Ten minutes into his exploring of the gardens he could faintly hear her voice echoing throughout the night. He made his way toward the voice and found her in an unexplored area. To his surprise, it was actually a family cemetery. He had no clue where his adoptive father was buried and would never have guessed it was here.
She was knelt in front of two classic white granite headstones, presumably her mother and father. She was crying softly, but her words were hard to make out. It broke his heart because this time he was the cause for the tears. There were other headstones, those he could only harbour a guess on who they belonged to. He’d entered so quietly she hadn’t noticed him arriving.
He took a few steps into the cemetery. “Angelica?”
“Go away! How could you!”
“Please, let me explain.”
She rose to her feet and spun around to glare at him.
He stopped his progression toward her.
“Explain what? How you were using me all along to get Dad’s company? You were never here for me, you were here for yourself! What was the plan, Logan? Get in my good graces and persuade me to sell my shares in the company for next to nothing to William? Then laugh at how gullible I am all the way to the bank.”
He took a step toward her, but she backed up, keeping a solid six-foot distance between them.
“That was a long time ago. My business with William has nothing to do with you or Richard.”
“Bullshit!”
“Why would I take you to dinner with me, to meet the man I’m secretly plotting with, if I planned on deceiving you?”
Her hands balled into fists at her sides. “I don’t know, so you can rub in how stupid I am to trust you?”
“You’re not stupid and I didn’t deceive you.”
She charged up to him and poked him in the chest. “Bullshit!”
He grabbed her upper arms, scared she would flee at any second, not giving him a chance to explain. “Please, let me explain.”
“You mean lie to me some more.”
“Just give me five minutes to explain. Five minutes.”
~*~*~*~*~
Angelica didn’t know what to think. How could he explain what was written in black and white? She’d woken up an hour earlier and as if by magic the identity of William Vaughn came to her. She couldn’t go back to bed until she found out for sure, so she’d made her way to her father’s office and rummaged through his files until she’d found what she’d been looking for.
A part of her told her to tell Logan to go screw himself, but another part begged she give him the five minutes. It wouldn’t kill her. Five minutes. Looking into his worried eyes, she couldn’t have refused if she’d wanted to.
“Fine, five minutes.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. Releasing her arms, he took her hand and led her to one of the marble benches and motioned for her to sit. She reluctantly sat next to him and waited on bated breath.
“All right. I’ll be straight with you here. William and I did make a play for Lawson Enterprises a few months before his death.”
“I know that already.”
He raked his fingers into his hair. “I know, but the takeover bottomed out and he was able to save the company from us. I tried to hurt him by taking one of the things he cared about most. I guess part of me did it because I wanted to prove to him I was good enough, to make him notice me. Maybe even regret he left me and my mother. But I failed.”
“So you decided to target his daughter who you hate just as much!”
“Angel. No. Not at all. I don’t want the company. I only wanted it because it was his. I don’t want it now.”
“How am I supposed to believe you, you’ve been lying to me from the start.”
“I didn’t lie, I just… didn’t tell you the full truth. I was scared you’d hate me if you found out right now. I would have eventually told you, Angel.”
She didn’t think it was possible to have any more tears left after the day she’d had, but lo and behold, she felt them threatening to escape down her cheeks. She couldn’t let him see her cry again, not over this, not over him.
Angelica stood to escape, but he was too fast, grabbing her arm and pulling her into his lap.
“I can prove it to you, honey.”
“Screw you Logan!” She attempted to pull away from him, punching at his chest, but he tightened his arms around her keeping her tight to him and settling her struggles.
“I can prove it, Angel. Clayton can prove it.”
She stilled in his arms, her brow furrowing. “How? What does Uncle Clayton have to do with anything?” Her eyes widened in horror. “Was he in on the attempted takeover?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. When I decided to come here, because you asked me by the way, not the other way around… If you recall when you arrived at my place I had no interest, I told you to take it all. But anyhow, I digress, when I decided to come here I called Clayton and asked him to draw up papers giving it all to you. I was still required to go along with the will to bring the estate out of probate, but the contract I signed and is safely in Clayton’s hands gives the complete estate to you once we fulfill the requirements.”
“You really don’t want any of it?”
He shook his head. “Not a penny, Angel. I lost interest when Richard died. It wasn’t business, it was personal.”
“And Uncle Clayton has the signed, legal document proving it?”
“We can call him as soon as we get into the house. Not sure he’ll answer since its 5am, but we can certainly go into Boston in the morning and you can see it with your own eyes.”
“So you’re here…”
“I’m here because I care for you, Angel. I’m concerned about you. And you drive me bat-fuck crazy –” a smile cracked on his lips and he stroked the side of her face and wiped the tears from her eyes “– but I want to be with you anyhow.”
She laughed, despite the tears. “That was almost one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.”
“Hey, I told you last night, I’m not good with women and relationships and all that stuff.” His expression grew serious. “But I want to try, Angel. Just give me a chance.”
She brushed her lips across his. “How could I say no to that?”
“You can’t.”
~ Epilogue ~
“You kids look –” Uncle Clayton looked down at Angelica and Logan’s intertwined fingers from his spot across the desk “– like you’ve gotten along.”
Angelica’s face grew warm under Clayton’s scrutinizing stare. “We’ve found a lot of common ground over the past month, Uncle.”
She looked over at Logan and they shared a smile as he gave her hand a gentle squeeze. After their night at the cemetery things changed. She wasn’t unsure of how he felt or where she stood with him, she knew. They were opposites in so many ways, but at the same time complemented each other perfectly, both in and out of bed.
“Mmmm. It would appear so,” Clayton grumbled, breaking their moment and bringing them both back to reality.
It was evident he didn’t approve of their relationship, but then again, this was the first he’d heard or seen of it. Angel imagined it would take some time. Other than Clayton, neither one of them had anyone close to them to voice their opinions – all they had was each other.
“So we’ve satisfied the requirements?”
Clayton nodded, raising a brow at Logan. “It would appear that way. I have a few forms you both need to sign.”
Angelica and Logan signed so many forms her hand actually began to cramp. And true to his word, one of the documents was to give up all of his rights to all of her father’s estate.
She looked at Logan, who had already signed. “Are you sure? He was your father too.”
Logan shook his head, his expression gravely serious. “No, he wasn’t, Angel. It’s yours.” He nodded to the document. “Now sign it.”
Her hand shook slightly as she signed the final document making Richard Lawson�
�s estate, $2.3 billion worth of assets, all hers. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as she sat back in the chair and retook Logan’s hand. Surely this wasn’t Richard Lawson’s vision when he decided he wanted them to get to know each other, or maybe it was. Either way he gave them both what they desperately needed – love.
The End
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Katie and the Dom
A Power Play Story
By Selena Kitt
Selena Kitt Singles
Short Story—Big Bang!
It was Mr. Thomas Dunn, in the library, with the book. Her best friend, Lori, kept saying. “If it wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t have this stupid bee in your bonnet about this whole BDSM thing!” and she was probably right. It was quiet, polite, balding and bespectacled Mr. Dunn coming into her library looking for “The Erotic Bondage Handbook” who had created an itch she couldn’t quite scratch, who had set her, unwittingly, down this very path, a long and winding road that now ended with Katie sobbing uncontrollably, naked, on her knees, and choking on a ball-gag.
Katie learned everything from books—she always had. She supposed most librarians did. So while it started with her own copy of “The Erotic Bondage Handbook,” it didn’t end there. She moved on to more titillating fare quite quickly, from Anne Rice’s novels, written under a pseudonym, of course—there was always an air of the obscene about the topic, no matter where she turned—to “The Story of O.”
She couldn’t seem to get enough of the commanding Doms, the bright red spankings, the maddening restraints and there was something about the allure of a flogger that promised to sting like bees and fall like rain on the tender, untouched terrain of her pale white flesh that left her breathless and desperate, twisted in her sheets at night, crying out with longing.
And then she started going to the BDSM Internet sites. At first it was just to glean information, and then, she had to admit, to meet people. Maybe there was someone out there, someone local, who might be interested in teaching her? Because more than anything, Katie wanted to learn. She wanted to be the one on her knees in front of her master, following his lead, giving herself over completely to his desires.
Well she’d gotten what she wanted, and as Lori, from whose mouth dripped the most tried and true clichés, had warned before she went to meet Patrick for this first-ever play-date, “You should be careful what you wish for!” Lori was also full of stories about serial killers who posted ads on Craiglist just like Patrick’s, psychos looking for their next eager, willing victim. Lori had been sure that Katie was doing this at her own peril.
And Lori had turned out to be absolutely correct.
Once Katie was naked and shackled and gagged, she’d discovered something she didn’t expect—she was afraid. This man wasn’t a psycho. He’d made her sign an agreement, they’d negotiated a safeword and limits, they’d worked out the scene, just exactly what he would do to and for her. She knew she was taking some risks. She was, after all, in his basement, in a soundproof, padded room—but it was a nice, suburban house with a picket fence for god’s sake! And Lori knew where she was and why she had come. She had safeguards.
So why was she trembling with fear?
As Patrick plucked equipment off the wall—a crop, a flogger, things they’d discussed—she suddenly realized her mistake. She didn’t trust him. For whatever reason, she didn’t trust this man to take her where she needed to go. In fact, she was quite sure he couldn’t, that this, whatever it was they were playing at, was wrong. After all her anticipation and dreaming about this moment, she knew, as Lori would say, “with every fiber of her being,” she needed to stop.
She knew her safeword—she’d had it in her head for months and had told Patrick what she wanted to use—but she couldn’t say it because the red ball gag in her mouth made her effectively silent. He’d given her clear instructions though on how to “tap out” if she was gagged—three short taps on the mat and the scene would end. Except her hands were restrained above her head. And she was sure Patrick hadn’t anticipated her wanting to end things before they even really began!
Patrick turned toward her, tall and lanky, a handsome specimen of man in his snakeskin boots and leather pants, his shirtless chest smooth, his belly flat and ridged with muscle. There wasn’t a thing in the world wrong with him. She liked him a great deal, in fact, had since the beginning, or she wouldn’t have agreed to any of this in the first place.
You’re just being stupid. She tried to reason herself out of her fear. It’s butterflies, that’s all.
Except some part of her knew it wasn’t.
She’d read an article on one of those endless BDSM sites she’d perused over the past year written by a submissive waiting for “the one.” It was about the woman’s experiences, going to clubs, doing scenes, all the while feeling unfulfilled, because even if it was pleasurable, even if each Dom took her just where she wanted to go, it all felt empty because she hadn’t found “the one.” And of course, the end to the tale was how she felt when it finally was right, when she found “the one” and they lived happily ever after.
And as much as Katie had tried to convince herself otherwise, she knew Patrick wasn’t “the one” and anything they did together was going to leave her feeling just the same—hollow and unsated. There had to be a way out of this. Katie tried to speak but the gag did its job quite well, trapping her tongue, making anything but grunting impossible. Besides, Patrick’s gaze was on her body, not her face. She felt the heat of it, the way he looked at her breasts, his eyes dipping to the dark triangle of hair between her thighs.
She tried again, but Patrick was focused on the crop in his hand, trailing it over her shoulder and down to her breast. The “scene” had started and Katie found herself desperate to end it. Now. Right now. Even as the crop flicked over her nipple and her body responded, her pussy clenching with lust—she’d been fantasizing about this for so long, so very long. Yet here she was, and she couldn’t go through with it, in spite of the way her other nipple hardened when the crop found that one too.
Katie tried again, determined now to communicate her wishes, looking at Patrick, desperately seeking eye contact, but he seemed transfixed by the sight of her, bound and gagged on her knees, lost in the path his crop was taking down her belly. She grunted, pulling at the restraints above her head, feeling her body sway from side to side.
“Shhh,” Patrick insisted, flicking the crop lightly but quite soundly against her hip. The sting was incredible and brought tears to her eyes. And once the tears came to the surface, well, that was it. It was over. There was no stopping them. Her chest hitched as she began to cry and she grunted again, trying to say the safeword, over and over, but Patrick’s crop was parting her pussy lips and he was licking his own in anticipation.
She had never felt so vulnerable and exposed, tears streaming down her face, falling from her quivering chin in droplets onto her bare breasts. She could barely catch a breath now let alone try to speak or communicate and, oh god, there was snot running down her face too, just to make her humiliation complete. She hung her head, giving up, giving in, wondering if this was what surrender felt like—hopeless, powerless, helpless. If this was it, she didn’t want any part of it.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
Katie looked up at the booming sound of an unfamiliar voice. The man who appeared was like a bigger-than-life version of Patrick—the same dark hair and eyes, the same broad forehead and full mouth, but he was twice the other man’s size, his body literally filling all available space in the doorway.
Patrick straightened, frowning, t
aking a step backward from both her and the looming figure. “I’m… wait, what are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“Did this woman give her consent?” The man stepped into the room, his eyes never leaving Katie. He knelt by her side and the moment his hands reached for her gag, she felt her body relax, the restraints holding her arms up going taut, taking her weight.
“Of course she did!” Patrick’s voice grew angry and Katie looked at him with big eyes. “She signed all the forms!”
“I’m Liam,” the big man said to her, speaking softly as he worked the leather strap on the side of her mouth loose. “You’re safe.”
“What are you doing?” Patrick was mad—practically hopping mad, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “She wants to be here. She—”
“Take another look, little brother.” Liam sneered over his shoulder at Patrick and then turned his attention back to Katie, taking the ball-gag gently from her mouth, glistening with her saliva. “She’s sobbing.”
“Aardvark! Aardvark! Aardvark!” Katie croaked hoarsely, her face full of tears and snot and, she imagined, a great deal of mascara.
“Your safeword?” Liam guessed, using the sleeve of his black turtleneck to gently wipe her cheeks.
She nodded, looking at Patrick, her chin quivering. “I tried to say… I tried…”
“But we hadn’t even started,” Patrick whispered, his expression moving from anger to confusion.
“You need to pay attention!” Liam roared and Katie shrank back from him as he shifted focus to his brother. “Every minute. Every second. Every single fucking breath.” Liam’s jaw clenched as he turned back to Katie, his massive hands gentle as he loosened her wrist straps, moving more carefully when he saw the fear in her eyes.
