Dark Melodies (The Black Combe Doms Book 1)

by Ashe Barker

  The flash of lucidity is more than I can bear. Oh, dear God, what’s happened to me? What have I done? How could I have been so… What? Stupid? Deluded? Selfish? The bitter twist of self-loathing is like a physical pain, a punch in my stomach that doubles me over. I clutch my middle.

  “Eva? Eva, are you injured? Are you in pain? Grace, how are you doing with that ambulance.” Nathan is frantic, convinced that I’m hemorrhaging or, worse, about to expire from internal injuries. He is crouching beside me as I sink to the flags, hunching myself into a defensive fetal curl. I am shaking violently, my teeth chattering so hard I might break a few, a combination of cold and wet as well as the delayed shock. But far more profound than any physical injury I might have sustained—and I don’t honestly think I have injured my body in any significant way—is the psychological battering of knowing I have lost my grip on what’s real, on what matters.

  My little girl, what would she have done without me? My mother? Even Ben and Gina care enough about me to have given me a home all these months. Christ, what have I been thinking? And now Nathan wants to call an ambulance. I’ll be carted off to a mental hospital for my own safety.

  “No. No ambulance, please. No ambulance…” I grip Nathan’s arm tightly, pleading with him. “Please let me stay here a bit longer. I’ll be okay. Just, please…”

  “You might be injured. We need…” His voice is firm, adamant, he’s going to hand me over to God knows who. I start to panic in earnest, my only thought now to get out of there before the men in white coats arrive. I wriggle out of his arms and try to get to my feet, heading for the door. I don’t get more than a couple of feet before Nathan’s arms are around me again.

  “A hot bath, and then we talk.” He picks me up from the floor and carries me out of the kitchen toward the stairs, issuing his instructions to Grace as he goes. “Tom should be here any time now. He’ll fill you in on the details. No ambulance then, for now, but could you try the surgery in Haworth, see if Gillian can call round as soon as possible. Are you okay to look after”—he hesitates, glancing sharply at Isabella—“the baby…until we come down? You can ask Tom, or Ashley, to go pick Rosie up from school.”

  Ashley? Gillian? I have no chance to ask who these latest additions to our circle might be. Grace must have answered yes as he doesn’t break stride until we are in his bedroom. Ignoring the fact that I’m wet and filthy, Nathan places me on his bed, before striding off into the en-suite bathroom. I hear the sound of the tap running. A couple of minutes later he’s back. Pulling me up into a sitting position he tugs my soaking T-shirt over my head. I have relapsed into my pre-Nathan slovenly ways and am braless. He makes no comment as he lays me back down and starts tackling my jeans and underwear, which join the T-shirt on the floor in a wet, stinking pile in a matter of seconds. I lie there naked, and dumbly watch him strip his own wet clothes off just as quickly. Then, without a word, he picks me up and strides into the bathroom.

  The bath is huge. What is it with Nathan and huge baths? I’ve shared his shower in the past, and the bath at his apartment. But never this bath. Still cradling me he bends to turn off the taps and tests the water with his fingers. Then with no further ado he steps into the steaming water with me in his arms and sinks down.

  The warmth is intense. Wonderful, almost too hot. And scented—like pine needles. Very Nathan. It penetrates my chilled body instantly and I start to melt. Like an ice cube dropped into a cup of hot herbal tea. Nathan turns me in his lap so that I am sitting on his legs, my back against his chest. Conscious suddenly of the intimacy, and the fact that this man has betrayed me, I start to sit up, to pull away, but he’s having none of that. He pulls me back against him and his hands come around me, holding me in place. I give up the struggle—I can hate him again later, when I’m warm.

  For several long minutes nothing is said. We both lie there, still, absorbing the warmth of the aromatic water. But eventually it’s Nathan who breaks the silence.

  “How many fingers am I holding up, Eva?”

  “What?” I open my eyes to see his hand in front of my face, three fingers extended.

  “How many fingers, Eva?”

  No point in being difficult. “Three,” I whisper.

  “Right. Now how many?”

  He rearranges his hand, and this time it’s two. I say so, sullenly.

  “Excellent. Who’s the prime minister just now?”

  “David bloody Cameron. What is this, Mastermind?” His questions are really beginning to irritate me, but he seems oblivious.

  “What’s today’s date?”

  I have to think a moment, then, “Eighteenth of June. It’s a Tuesday.”

  “Okay. What’s your date of birth? And Isabella’s?”

  “Nineteen, four, ninety,” I respond automatically. I have to think a moment longer for Isabella’s, then give it. “Seventh of May, 2013.”

  “Right. Maybe we’ll manage without that ambulance after all. And now that we’ve established that you’re fully conscious and appear to be thinking straight, you can start explaining what’s been going on here. First though…” Lifting his hands to lightly cup my breasts he whispers in my ear. “Your breasts have filled out a little. Motherhood suits you, Angel. You’re even lovelier than I remembered.”

  My response is whispered, small. Hurting still. “Don’t touch me. I hate you.” But I know my tone lacks conviction and I make no effort to move, to pull away.

  Nathan continues to caress my breasts, my nipples hardening under his gentle fingers. “Why do you hate me, Eva?” His head has tipped forward and he is kissing my neck, breathing the words into my ear.

  “I don’t want to talk to you. Leave me alone.” But still I lie there, responding to his light touch feathering across my warming skin. He doesn’t leave me alone. He continues to stroke my breasts, my belly, now flat again as it was before Isabella, but the skin slightly marked from the stretching of pregnancy. If he notices that he doesn’t comment, just continues to slide his hands possessively over me. Clutching my carefully nurtured hate and sense of betrayal to me for later reference, I relax my weight against him, let the moment take over. I’ve already realized I’m mad—might as well get some benefit from it.

  Sensitive as ever to my response Nathan increases the pressure on my breast, my nipple, rolling and squeezing it until I gasp and arch against him. At the same time his other hand dips low, between my legs. He has nudged his knees between mine from beneath so when he opens his legs mine are spread wide for him. He holds me open and slides his clever fingers into my pussy, slipping between the soft folds to circle my clit before plunging two fingers deep inside me. I clench instinctively around him as he gently slides his fingers out, then in again. He repeats the motion, angling his hand to reach that particular spot that he clearly remembers so well even after all these months. How clever, I think to myself, that he manages not to confuse my G-spot with anyone else’s…

  But even the bitter taste of that waspish thought is nowhere near enough to sour the sweetness of what his fingers are doing to my starved body. He is playing me every bit as skillfully as I play my violin. My eyes closed, I thrust my hips upwards, silently begging for more.

  “Tell me what happened, Eva.” The command is whispered, but a command, nevertheless.

  My conscious brain is the part of me that answers. And that part of me is still angry, hurt. “I don’t want to talk. I hate you.”

  “No? But I do, Eva. Why do you hate me?” The wonderful fingers are slowing inside me, the sensations dimming. I need him to start up again, to continue. I wriggle my hips, trying to create the pressure I need, the friction I am craving.

  He responds to my efforts at self-help by withdrawing his fingers. He’s still touching me, my legs still spread wide open, held in position by his own legs. But his hand is still. I need him to move it, to help me. To satisfy me. It’s been so long. And so cold.

  “Please, Nathan, I…”

  “Tell me what happened, Eva.”
His tone is low, but commanding. This is my Dom speaking now, and I shiver in recognition. He trails his finger ends lightly across my clitoris to remind me what I’m missing. I jerk under his feathering touch and his hand stills again. “Tell me, Eva.”

  So, this is how it’s to be. An orgasm in exchange for telling him what he wants to know. Fuck that! My response is outraged indignation as I try, at last, to wriggle free of him. And find myself clamped hard against him. My legs are still wide apart despite my efforts now to close them, and his hand is once more tantalizing my sensitive flesh. My clit swells even more, throbbing as he takes it between his finger and thumb, rolling gently until my orgasm bubbles once more just under the surface. Only to stop, his long fingers splayed either side of the desperate little bud, waiting. I am shaking now, in desperation as I realize what’s happening. And I become aware of my helplessness as his next words are murmured into my ear.

  “I want to know what happened, Eva. And you’re going to tell me. I’ve got all day…”

  So that’s the deal. He can, and he will, hold me here for as long as it takes. He’ll tease and torment me, bringing me almost to orgasm again and again, but denying me that release unless I tell him what he wants to know. Until I expose my hurt and vulnerability to him. Just so that he’ll be able to trample on my soul again next time it suits him. I start to struggle in earnest now, but apart from a few ripples on the surface of the bathwater my efforts are completely futile. I even manage to duck myself as I try to buck my hips and slip under his arms, but he pulls me spluttering to the surface.

  “You don’t think I fished you out of the bloody tarn just to let you drown in my bath, do you? Be still, Eva. Give in gracefully. You can’t get away from me and I will have your answer. However long it takes.” And his fingers are again working their magic as he plunges first one, then two of them deep inside me. I gasp, then go limp as the glorious sensations threaten to overwhelm me again.

  This time, when he stops at the crucial moment, I am ready to cooperate. I dimly remember something he once told me, at the beginning of our ‘relationship’, about punishment fucking. Although his cock is not inside me, I can feel its hard length under my buttocks, and I guess it’s only a matter of time. And geography. This is punishment finger-fucking and it’s very, very effective. Particularly in my current distinctly fragile mental state. Any will I might have had, any resilience, has long been eroded and I am laid bare. Defenseless. I need this to be finished.

  “Okay. You win. What do you want to know?”

  “Why do you hate me? And what happened that morning? When Susanna came to see you.”

  He knows. He bloody knows!

  “She told you then? Your lovely Susanna? So why are you tormenting me with it?” I know I am whimpering, writhing against him in the hope that I can get some semblance of release. He holds me still, relentlessly not helping me in that regard at all.

  “The morning you left me, Eva. I know you were okay, we were okay, at breakfast. Before I left for work. And afterwards, you texted me about your hair appointment and you seemed normal then. But something happened that morning. I know from the security cameras that you had a visitor and I know who it was. So now I want to know what happened.”

  Susanna. It was bloody, fucking Susanna. Susanna’s what happened. Susanna’s what made me leave.

  Like lancing a boil, I feel a rush of blessed relief as I spill the rest. I pour the bitterness and betrayal out into the bathwater to float around us in great oily, noxious slicks. I tell him about Susanna, about our brief encounter in the apartment, and what she told me about all her other encounters with Nathan. How he was ‘playing’ his Dom/sub games with her in Leeds while he was sleeping with me back at Black Combe. I tell him about her earrings and about that fucking tie.

  “Ah. I see.” His cool response would have been comical if I wasn’t so tense, so over-wrought.

  “You just don’t bloody care, do you?” I snarl, humiliated beyond imagining by his casual attitude to my pain, to the pain he caused with his lies and broken promises. My hatred comes bubbling back, my only defense. I hurl it at him.

  “You promised me there were no others. The only thing I asked. You promised. And… And you said you loved me. How could you say that, get me to believe you, when all the time you were still… You were still…”

  “I thought it was from you. A present from you. That’s one of the reasons I was so fucking bewildered. You left me a beautiful silk tie and pissed off without a word.”

  “What? What present?” Has he been listening to me at all? Are we having two separate conversations here?

  “The tie. The beautiful tie you left on my bed.”

  “It wasn’t from me, you lying bastard. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? It was yours, Susanna brought it back.”

  “No, she didn’t. I’d never seen that tie before in my life until I found it on my bed.”

  “But…” My brain, usually so quick to process, is failing me now. Totally melting down. “How can this be? She said…”

  “She was lying.”

  The words, softly spoken, but so powerful, reverberate around me, around us.

  “She wasn’t lying. She couldn’t have been.” No, that would be just too cruel.

  “She was lying, Eva.”

  “But she had a key. She knew the apartment, where things were kept. She knew what the brown couch was for…” I’m clutching at anything, anything to justify my reaction, make sense of the callous wrecking of my life. Nathan is cool, calm. And incisive.

  “Yes, she did know the apartment. She went there three times as far as I remember. And yes, she did spend some time on that couch. She was one of my subs, Eva, before you. Briefly. You knew there’d been others before you. I can’t make them disappear, but there have been none since. Since I met you. And none since you left.”

  “You’re lying. You’ll say anything to…”

  Even as my voice trails away I know I’ve screwed up. Me. On my own. If my life had been a car crash at one time it was a total motorway pile-up now. With a train wreck and a plane crash thrown in. Multiple casualties, flashing blue lights, screaming sirens, a veritable fireball. Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. I fell for it. I never questioned, not once. I was so sure. Oh shit! Bloody fucking bollocking shit.

  “That about sums it up, love.”

  Thinking aloud again, but past caring now.

  Nathan goes on. “Susanna didn’t have a key. There’ve only ever been three key cards to my apartment. I have one, Grace has one, and so does Tom because he’s my business partner. You borrowed Grace’s for that visit. I don’t give keys to anyone else. No one, not to subs, to friends, to staff. But I was going to get one made for you. You left the door open. The security cameras picked you up coming out of the apartment, then you suddenly turned and went back in. You left the door open, as Susanna came out of the lift. She followed you in. It’s all recorded on the security tapes if you want to see it.”

  The sequence of events that fateful morning comes flooding back. It will always be vividly imprinted on my mind, in my memory. The day my world ended.

  “Yes.” My reply is a pale whisper, but he hears it. I can sense his attention, his listening. “I was leaving for the university. I went out into the foyer then remembered I’d left my phone on the table. I wanted to text you, so I went back in for it. I was on my way back out when Susanna came through the door. I left it open.” My final words are hardly audible, but he doesn’t really need to hear them. He knows. And now I know too.

  “You left the door open and she followed you in.” He repeats the vital piece of the jigsaw, avoiding all possible doubt, his tone gentle, reasonable. But the words are stark, their implications a tangled knot of misunderstanding and pain. How could I not have realized? How could I have let her dupe me like that? So completely. And with such devastating effect.

  “Yes. Yes, it seems like it.” Even though I am now starting to accept the reality of what’s happened, and my
part in it, I am still baffled. Still some questions unanswered. “But how could she have known I was there? And that you weren’t?”

  “She worked in a building across the dock, on the eleventh floor as far as I remember. But she doesn’t anymore. I went looking for her when I saw her on that security video and knew she was involved in whatever had happened to make you go. But she’d left there and left no forwarding address. I’ve not been able to track her down since. She used to joke that she could see her desk from my bedroom window. And from the decking. The view would have worked the other way too. She probably saw you and saw that you were alone. Did you spend any length of time at the window? Or out on the deck?”

  “I drank my coffee out on the deck. Talking to your sheep.”

  If the image of me chatting to a polystyrene life-size sheep seems at all incongruous to Nathan, he’s too polite to comment. Or too intent on unraveling my mess to allow any distractions. Instead he presses on, “What time did she show up?”

  “About nine, I think. Why?”

  “My guess is she arrived at work that morning and spotted you as she sat at her desk. Watched you for a while, maybe, if you were outside, and she realized you were alone. So, she decided to pay a little visit, but did a small detour first to pick up the tie. There are any number of designer shops around Clarence Dock where she could have bought it. She’d have needed a security code to put into the keypad to get the lift to go right to the top floor where the penthouse is, but that’s not so secure. She could have watched me key it in and memorized it. Once up there, she’s come out of the lift, spotted the door ajar, and walked in on you.”

  “But why? Why bother? What did she have against me?”

  “Well, I’m guessing… But she and I parted on bad terms. It was just before I met you—earlier that same day, in fact. That’s partly why I was in such a foul mood when I found you wandering around my property in the rain that night you arrived at Black Combe, why I blamed you for damaging my car. I’d just had a massive falling out with Susanna and dumped her. She wasn’t happy, kept phoning and texting me to try to make up. I wasn’t interested. If you recall I’d decided you were to be my next sub. I was obsessed with you and pretty focused on getting you over to Leeds and tied to my bed, preferably with a vibrator inserted somewhere interesting. You didn’t take that much persuading as it turned out…”