by SE Chardou
“We both know this has nothing to do with Aurélie.”
Severin walked towards us, murmuring in German and what ever he said wasn’t exactly pleasant. I could tell by his tone of voice alone. He spoke quickly, his words clipped and the only name I caught in their conversation was “Mathilde.”
Rory’s fingers dug into my side as if he was afraid I might try to flee. “Listen, I don’t want to talk about this right now. We can discuss it another time when we are both more levelheaded. The way I’m feeling at this particular moment, I want to fucking kill you for your insinuations alone. Neither Trésor nor Mathilde have anything to do with this and for you to suggest otherwise is sheer lunacy. Are you listening to yourself?”
“Yes, brother, live in your dream world with your fantasy whore but if you think you can just walk away into the sunset and live a vanilla life with this bitch you are sadly mistaken. She will break your heart as sure as the sun rises. She cannot be trusted because she doesn’t understand you and we both know what happens when her type freaks out because we’ve been down this road before.”
Severin strode to us until he and Rory were separated by mere inches. It was too scary and eerie. He placed a hand on his brother’s jaw and said, “She’s not right for you and you know it so why are you doing this to yourself yet again? I am tired of saving and protecting you. The next time you get yourself into trouble, I will make you dig the grave. I have my limits you know and I’m tired of being your keeper.”
Rory flinched and slapped his hand from his face. “Go home, Severin.”
“With pleasure,” he murmured before he walked past us and slammed his way out of the suite.
I forced a breath from my lungs and failed to realize I hadn’t bothered to breathe the whole time they spoke. There was too much tension in the room and all because of me. I knew I wasn’t the only cause but this time I had certainly been the catalyst and I felt paralyzed and shocked in my own skin.
Rory let me go and I walked back to the window. The view was gorgeous and I needed something to take my mind off the intense conversation I had witnessed between the two brothers. I almost felt like an intruder who had seen something play out I had no right to observe and the feeling drove me mad with frustration.
I could feel my lover’s presence behind me as he pressed a champagne flute in my hand. I looked his way before I sipped Cristal. “Isn’t it a bit early for a drink?”
“What are you talking about? It’s five o’clock somewhere and besides after what just transpired, you’d be lying if you said you didn’t need a drink.”
I turned away from the window yet again and faced Rory but he was a much more pleasant sight than Severin despite them being identical twins. “What was he talking about? Why didn’t you tell me Astrid was your cousin or that you owned Vogue Hotel, Casino and Spa? Hell, why didn’t you tell me you gave up your interests in the clubs? He blamed me for that but you never said a word to me so why am I the receiver of such shitty treatment?”
Rory looked at me with determined blue-green eyes but there was something else behind them. He didn’t want to lie but he didn’t exactly want to tell me the whole truth either.
He held out an arm to guide us back to the sofa and although I was a bit pissed off for not being as informed as I thought I had a right to be, I followed him anyway. After I sat on the sofa beside him, I turned toward him with an accusing glare.
I drained my champagne glass in a couple of swallows and set the flute on the glass coffee table. My arms immediately crossed in front of my breasts, a defensive position that clearly conveyed I was in no mood for bullshit. I wanted the truth even if he didn’t think I deserved to know the dirty details just yet.
“I didn’t give up my controlling interest in the clubs forever, I merely signed them over to Severin for the time being. He’s frustrated and angry about the situation but it isn’t as daunting as he probably made it seem. The clubs run themselves since there are employees and Gabriel oversees the payroll and all the tax shit.
“All my brother has to do is simply put in an appearance when ever he wants. He enjoys hanging out there and for the moment, I would rather not be involved with anything remotely involving the clubs. The pain is still too raw and I don’t want to be reminded of Trésor every time I walk into one of my establishments. Besides, I have you now—I don’t want anyone else.”
He cleared his throat before he looked into my eyes again. “I suppose that is what he was going on about in German though you didn’t understand the words or the implications behind them. He said I take everything to the extreme and in the game of love, he couldn’t be more right. There are no half-measures with me. Mathilde and I were very passionate but we were also a destructive force of nature. I was madly in love with her but she wasn’t a good influence on me. We were bound to crash and burn. He’s worried it might happen again because I haven’t felt that way about anyone ever . . . until you.”
I laughed out loud then. I couldn’t help myself until I glanced at his face and realized he wasn’t playing along and laughing with me. He was deadly serious and I didn’t know what to say. For once, I was speechless but that didn’t mean I couldn’t dig in the knife and twist.
“Seriously, Rory, that’s very . . . heartfelt and sweet. I know it’s been extremely difficult for you since the death of Trésor but let’s be adults about our present situation. I speak now because I understand you had intense feelings for her even if you weren’t in love but you don’t have to wax poetic about us to make me feel better. I’m thirty-two—not twenty-two—and what may have worked on me then sure as fuck doesn’t work on me now. Call me cynical and old. You need to try those tired old lines on an empty-headed twenty-something that would probably get week-kneed and soak her La Perla thong on command. ”
“This isn’t . . . a joke, Aurélie. I don’t fall in love because it isn’t something I do and you know that. If I could have prevented this, I would have never taken you to Southampton in the first place. It was supposed to be a bit of fun. I already knew I’d never feel anything for you but pity and disgust after my brother and I had our way with you. That was the plan and it was one I should have stuck to had I been thinking clearly.
“Yes, he was always part of the arrangement even if I didn’t tell you. I never do anything without him and sharing you was always something we planned to do together. He would degrade you physically and I would break you down psychologically. It’s what we do and how we get our kicks. He kept up his end of the bargain but I haven’t kept up mine because I don’t want to do that to you. Can’t you understand that?”
I wanted to slap him across his carefully constructed face of contrition and walk away but I couldn’t.
I hadn’t followed my own plan either.
No man was ever supposed to touch my heart. Hell, I’d built up a fortress so thick and prickly, no one had ever managed to penetrate my walls . . . until now. How this man managed to crawl his way under my defenses and wrench any emotion out of me was a complete and utter mystery.
He knew my one and only true love had been Renaud. I wouldn’t ever allow myself to feel that naïve or taken advantage like that by anyone ever again. I was too old and always questioned the motivations of everyone. It was part of what made me so damned good at my occupation.
However, I knew he was deadly serious and what hurt me the most about his ill-timed confession? The fact that he had admitted he and his brother had used me or I felt the same about him but he would never hear those words leave my mouth?
I couldn’t and wouldn’t ever confess dying love to anyone ever again.
But I do love you, Rory, I love you more than I have ever loved a man in a long time and perhaps I am falling in love with you too.
The words never actually left my thoughts but perhaps he could see it in my eyes? It would have to do because to say I loved him at the drop of a hat would never happen. I wasn’t the insta-love type and never would be.
Even now, I blamed ou
r unusual circumstances. Our feelings seemed to form overnight because we both had lost someone who was very special to us. His lover and my sister and over this unique bond we’d come together naturally and found solace in each another.
It was so very easy for us to lose emotional control because we spent so much time together. Our hearts were open and raw—we’d lost someone who meant so much to both of us. Instead of acknowledging the pain, we clung to one another in a highly dysfunctional relationship.
It also didn’t hurt he was a highly accomplished lover that he made me feel alive, free and sexually adventurous. I’d never been so secure in my body or craved sex as much as I did now. He made time feel urgent and important—our lovemaking swept through and blazed a path of fire, want and need through me. My whole body was a live wire twenty-four seven—of course I’d want to feel something for him.
I was very fond of him and enjoyed his friendship, companionship and the sex of course even if it wasn’t what I was completely used to. I’d had a lot more anal sex than I’d ever experienced in my life but he made it feel special and sexy, not dirty and unnatural. There were little rituals I had to do to prepare and over those strange activities, he made me feel sensual, wanton and normal.
Most women would have been quite embarrassed about sharing their personal habits with their lovers but nothing about my body was a mystery to Rory. He knew my bowel habits and when I had my period. He asked me about my diet and what I’d eaten. He instructed me on what I should consume and what I shouldn’t.
We’d attended his personal physician and I’d had my IUD removed. The doctor proceeded to prescribe a low-hormone birth control pill since it would regulate my cycle. Rory could also decide whether or not he wanted to have sex with me during those times.
I wasn’t ashamed to admit I didn’t mind having sex while menstruating with Rory where as I would have balked out loud if it had been any other man. It was the same way when I had to clean myself out for anal intercourse though we both agreed to him wearing condoms regardless. I just didn’t want him to have his cock back there and then inside me. I didn’t care how clean I supposedly was after a ‘cleaning out,’ I still needed time to adjust to this new lifestyle.
“You won’t always feel like that. Eventually, it will become normal,” he’d assured me.
And slowly, over the past three weeks, my life with him felt normal, free and not the least bit unusual.
I could understand how my sister had become so enraptured with him despite our age difference and her being in her impressionable twenties. I felt like I should have known better at my age but for some reason I didn’t want to since I enjoyed everything we did together. The guilt of being with my dead sister’s lover—the way he fucked me, claimed my body, ate my pussy, licked my ass and used his toys on me with my permission—ebbed away with each passing day.
Yet he stood there and he gazed at me as if I had truly embarrassed and surprised him because I couldn’t say I was in love with him too.
Perhaps I’d misjudged him after all. I didn’t expect him to be the first to raise the white flag and admit feelings for me.
He was the strong, alpha male. He didn’t need anything from me except the physical pleasure I could provide for him. Why did my emotional state have to become involved at all?
All the sudden, I felt like the man between us. I wasn’t willing, able or ready to admit feeling anything for him. Not now, perhaps never. I loved what he did for me in the bedroom but that was where our ties were bound and the door was where they were to be severed. Why had this become such a difficult situation to understand especially when he was the Dom and I was his willing sub?
Rory didn’t beg me for anything. He had his pride and a part of me knew he wouldn’t.
Instead, he sighed out loud. “I think I need to get some air and take a walk. I’ll be back a bit later.”
“What about dinner?” I inquired.
“I’ll get some takeout. Don’t worry.” He kissed my lips quickly and though I tried to hold on to his waist, his body stiffened at the physical connection between the two of us.
His heart closed and his emotional ties broken, he no longer wanted me to touch him unless we were physically sexual with one another. And even now, he couldn’t comprehend that. His body language spoke volumes without further words exchanged between the two of us.
In fact, he couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
What had I done and didn’t he realize all I needed was a little bit of time he didn’t want to give me? How was that fair to me? Why couldn’t he give me the space I needed to process all of this before he gave up on me completely?
Chapter Fourteen
MOMENTS AFTER RORY LEFT, I walked to the spare suite and opened up the box which contained my sister’s possessions. I had organized all her journals chronologically though I hadn’t opened any of them to read any of her words.
I felt reckless and grabbed one of the notebooks out of order and allowed it to fall open to a page.
I used to put a date on these entries but what difference does it make when I am the only one to read them? I have decided to just talk about how much time we have been together and I think that is enough. It’s been a little over a year and R. keeps amazing me and frightening me. I sometimes wonder if he does what he does to drive me absolutely batty or if he is trying to help me?
We have some pretty wild and amazing times together but none of that made me fall in love with him. It’s the person he is when it’s just the two of us and he is completely vulnerable and I can see the real him. I want to worship him and lay at his feet for hours but he eschews that kind of behavior. He says it is too much like how S. treats his slaves and he doesn’t want that.
I don’t even know their names because S. says it is unimportant and R. says it doesn’t matter but it matters to me. I rather like the blonde number one. Blonde number two is his toilet slave and she freaks me out because she is such a beautiful package but she allows herself to be degraded like that.
Speaking of degradation, we have to go to Los Angeles to see S. and it gives me the creeps when we visit him. I don’t like him and I hate he purposely confuses me so I don’t know R. from him. I wish I was as smart as my sister because they would never be able to pull that shit on A. I feel bad I don’t contact her or M. and P. but if I do then they’ll just know something is different. For starters, I’m not on drugs and then they will ask questions about what I am doing with my life, who I am dating and I don’t want to have to explain it to them. It would exhaust me.
Anyway, I have to go because R. is home and I can hear his shoes against the marble tile. He would be upset if I didn’t meet him and kiss him. We haven’t seen one another in a couple of days so I look forward tonight. I am the luckiest woman in the world.
I flipped through several entries, stopped and began to read again.
Ugh, today has been such a shit day and it was a shit day for R. too because he is a total prick. I would get twenty lashes with the cane for that but this is my special place and he would never read these so it’s cool and besides, if I don’t write this crap down, I’d believe I dreamed it all up.
He degraded me because he brought that bitch, A., home and he knows how much I hate her. She wants to possess me and make me her own but I would rather die than be with her. Anyway, he was angry at me yet I have done nothing and when I began to cry as he whipped me with the flogger, he told me, “I beat you now because you cry about not deserving a beating.”
I couldn’t win for losing. Especially when he was done, he handed the flogger to A. and she had him turn me over. She used it on my breasts, stomach and thighs. My whole body felt like it was on fire. If that wasn’t bad enough, after she finished beating me, she hiked up her skirt and shoved her asshole in my face and told me to tongue her deeply.
The thought makes me want to puke now and I only hold the bile down because I can write this shit down. Then I had to watch him fuck her and I was left there, m
y hands secured by handcuffs and my clit on fire with desire. He wouldn’t touch me. He didn’t even acknowledge me. After he came inside her, she made me eat all his come out of her pussy and I thought I would be sick.
I swear to fucking God I feel like I am living with Jekyl and Hyde or something. R. would usually never do that to me. Part of my brain wants to believe it wasn’t him but S. instead. First of all, I have asked R. if he ever had a sexual relationship with his cousin and he said no. He actually looked a bit taken aback as if I were the sick one for suggesting it but if that was him fucking her then why lie about it?
It’s days like this I feel like walking away but then I think about the money and the sweet side of this man and I can’t do that to him. Not now. Perhaps one day I will have the strength but I think not. I am a sub and this is what I am supposed to do and everyday isn’t going to be great but it will get better. I truly believe that. I have faith because it is the kind of person I have always been and I won’t let anyone take that from me.
A tear dropped and hit the filament paper. I closed the notebook and began to sob for my poor confused sister. She couldn’t have known but I knew that incident happened with Severin and not Rory. He would have never done that to her. He didn’t particularly get off on humiliation and that definitely was up Severin’s alley.
If Trésor had let me in, I would have been there for her and perhaps I could have given her some advice. My career was too important to me. So fucking important I had gone almost a year without speaking to my sister and didn’t think it was strange at all.
There was always the next huge story, which was about to break and I would have plenty of time to catch up later. It was always not at that particular moment, tomorrow, and next week, next month, next year. If I’d known how much time she had left, would I have been so blasé about getting in touch? Probably not but that was the beauty and the frightening yet, the unexpected part about life. We weren’t given exact dates when everything just stopped and our world as we knew it was no more.
