by Eva Gill
“I will see you again at the club, I am sure. Be a good girl, and I wish you all the best.”
Alex stood, walked into the kitchen, and called a cab. Then he went straight to his bedroom, seeing the envelope on his pillow. After stripping off, he climbed in the shower. Alex stood under the stream of scalding water for a long while, and when he came out again, Anya was gone.
***
After the end of his relationship with Anya, it was tough, but Alex knew he had to keep up the face he showed to the world, to the club. He attended events while Anya seemingly disappeared into the ether. Bartholomew had let Alex know that Anya had come to him, to explain that she needed a bit of time away to think things through, and wished him well for the future.
Alex saw her everywhere: in the shape of the bowed submissives, wrapped in his bedclothes, he smelled her perfume whenever he turned his head. Everybody thought Dominants, and men in general, to be void of emotion, but nobody saw Alex cry about the loss of her.
Nobody saw him break until several weeks after she had left, when Jonah unexpectedly entered his private chambers looking for him. It was a special night, a collaring ceremony was taking place, and Alex had gone off to seek quiet from the gushy happiness on the main floor.
“Alex?” Jonah called around the doorframe, and when he poked his head into the room, Jonah saw the saddest sight he had ever witnessed. Alex sat on the floor at the foot of his bed, clutching Anya’s collar in his hands. He hastily wiped his face and made to rise when he saw Jonah, but was stopped by Jonah’s hand on his shoulder.
“What is it? Are you okay?” Jonah asked, putting his arm around Alex.
With his voice gruff Alex faced him. “We broke up a while ago. I am surprised you haven’t heard. She left me.”
The meaning of the words didn’t dawn on Jonah for several moments. “What? You guys were the perfect couple, how did this happen?” He stopped asking questions when Alex stared blankly at him.
With a big sigh Alex stood and straightened his clothing out. “Anya felt indebted to me for a long time, and she loved me very much, just as I love her still. She needed a break from the intensity of our dynamic and she felt neglected. I work too much, and pretty much every facet of my life is involved with The Realm. She couldn’t deal with that anymore.”
“No, I can’t accept that.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Have you heard from her since she left?”
“I am giving her space. I trust she would talk to me if she needed anything. Jonah, I know you love her, Bartholomew told me. If you really care for her, if you can promise me now that you will never hurt that girl, I give you my full blessing to go and tell her what you saw and felt at the meditation session. But so help me I will kill you if you treat her badly.” Alex faced him squarely, and Jonah sank to his knees in front of him.
“Alex, I couldn’t hurt her if I tried. I would never do that. I want her in my life. I have known this from our first accidental touch, to the one kiss we shared. She is meant for me, only her.”
Alex nodded once and placed a hand on Jonah’s head. “Then I formally give you my blessing to go to her. Help her, because I know she is hurting. I can feel it.”
He lifted his hand and left Jonah kneeling on his floor.
***
Back at his house, Jonah sat down in his study. He chose the armchair where he had cuddled Anya, remembering the sensation of her body in his arms, and later, her lips on his. It had been a beautiful night, getting to watch Blaine put a collar of ownership around Persephone’s neck in a formal ceremony. It had been the BDSM equivalent of a wedding, and every bit as beautiful, if not more so.
He picked up the cup of coffee he’d brought with him and cradled it in his hands. The clock showed it was two thirty a.m., and even though he was exhausted Jonah’s mind was stuck on how he would go about finding Anya. He didn’t know where she was staying, nor did he know her work address. As he thought of her work he leapt up.
“Bless the internet!” he exclaimed, walking to his desk to flop down into the chair there, splashing a stack of work with coffee in his excitement.
He found her business details with one search, and wrote down the telephone number and address on a notepad he dug out from under a pile of papers. Now all Jonah had to do was think of what he would say to her. He knew all the preparation in the world couldn’t ready him for facing her, but he needed at least a basic plan.
Jonah got caught up tidying his paperwork after cleaning the coffee spill. After that he decided he was so thoroughly awake he may as well work, so he fetched a second cup of coffee and fell on the club’s books with gusto. When Jonah’s phone rang at seven in the morning, he was hyped up on caffeine and buzzing from lack of sleep.
“Hey,” he answered, not checking who it was. The voice on the other side of the line caught him completely off guard.
“It’s Anya speaking, Jonah. I was wondering if you would like to have coffee? I want to apologise for my vanishing act, and it would be nice to see a familiar face,.”
She sounded lonely and depressed, and as Jonah sat trembling, he answered. “Oh, oh wow. Yes! I need to see you.”
When she didn’t reply Jonah realised he had sounded a bit manic. “I am sorry I sound crazy, haven’t slept at all and I think I’ve had eight cups of coffee since two this morning…”
Anya giggled. “That’s not healthy. You should be careful, so much caffeine is bad for your heart.”
The tension broken, Jonah asked Anya to dinner at his house. He only realised afterward that it was perhaps not the wisest idea to be in close proximity to a bed, or so secluded. She had just come out of a hell of a relationship and the last thing he wanted to be was her rebound guy.
“Anya,” he said when they were about to hang up. “It is good to hear from you.”
She ended the call.
***
Two days later, Jonah stood at his kitchen counter rubbing olive oil, rosemary, coarse salt flakes and ground black pepper into a lamb roast, just as his mom had instructed. The sun made its slow arc across the sky beyond the large windows, and all the vegetables stood prepared. He was cooking for Anya, and the roast needed at least three hours in a moderate oven to render it juicy and perfect. He opened the bottle of wine to breathe, a rare Malbec he had located at an exclusive wine boutique, and set it on the counter.
He wasn’t much of a cook, but Jonah had explained what he wanted to do for Anya to his mom on a quick visit. She had jumped to the challenge, advising on food and wine; she’d even given Jonah a table-setting guide with pictures. The wine and food didn’t matter to Jonah, but he wanted to impress Anya, and she clearly had much more experience than he did with the fancy things in life. It had taken a lot to explain Anya to his mom without including any details about The Realm, and he had ended his attempted explanation with, “Mom, she’s the one, there’s nothing more I can say...”
His mom had smiled and given him a tight hug. “I hope everything goes well, baby, this girl would be a fool to let you get away.”
He’d walked away grinning. “You, mother dearest, are biased in your opinion.”
Anya arrived at exactly six o’clock and rang his gate buzzer twice to let him know it was her. Jonah jogged from the living room, where he had left Diana Krall to croon softly on the sound system, to let her in. He stood fidgeting with a tiny white remote when she walked in, his back to the door, trying to get the music to play throughout the house. He turned to the door only once he got it working, and his jaw dropped at the sight of her.
She stood before him wearing a fitted deep red dress. He guessed it must be satin, the colour more like blood than wine. Her hair lay in large curls down her back and across her shoulders, to fall into her deep cleavage, and her makeup was old-Hollywood subtle and classy. He stood speechless, looking into her eyes.
“You take my breath away, you just…” Jonah eventually croaked, lowering the remote to a counter nearby.
Anya slowly lowered her eye
s. “I wanted to look really nice tonight, it’s been a difficult few weeks and I needed to do this, for me I think. Guess I want to feel pretty again.”
Jonah strode up to her and kissed her cheek, breathing in her perfume and own unique smell as he rubbed his cheek against hers. He didn’t lay a hand on her because he knew himself, as well as the strength of his desire for this woman.
“Anya, I cooked you dinner. Come, let’s go get some. I apologise for walking you straight into food, but I need to occupy my hands or I’ll do something I am bound to regret.”
He never saw her satisfied little smile at the remark as he confirmed what Anya already knew, he still wanted her.
He led her into the kitchen and watched as she sniffed the air appreciatively. “That smells amazing, I haven’t bothered to eat decently lately, there’s been too much on my mind.” She saw the wine and automatically reached for two glasses to pour it.
Every move she made accentuated her curves as the fabric of her dress slid over her skin, and Jonah felt so thoroughly on edge he could barely focus on removing the roast from the oven.
Every brush of hand past hand as they ate, or legs touching under the table, sent electric shocks through his skin and straight to his brain. Jonah felt as though he would die if he didn’t have her right then and there, and Anya felt exactly the same. As they finished eating, she glanced up furtively and met his gaze, and that was the moment which ended their evening of walking on eggshells around each other. She spoke just as he did.
“Jonah, I want…”
“Anya, I…”
They each instinctively knew that the other was about to say: ‘I want you’ and ‘I need you’. They were the most obvious and cheesy sentiments, used in hundreds of books and movies, but right now, the only words needed. It was obvious, in the way Anya was dressed, in Jonah’s efforts to make her dinner and impress her.
They stood simultaneously, mirrors of each other’s movements as they leapt across the table between them. Neither heard the plates as they went crashing to the floor, or cared about the chair going flying as Anya threw it aside. Their lips met in a moment of perfection, with just the right amount of rough abandon, careless passion and deeply felt longing.
Anya clung to Jonah as he pulled her even tighter into his arms, gripping, yanking at fabric, his fingers tangling in her hair. Somewhere in the far distance they heard the tearing material, and Anya felt herself turned and pushed onto the edge of the table, sitting with her legs wrapped around Jonah’s waist, her skirt in disarray around her.
Reality sunk for a moment through the thick fog of lust they were both drowning in, and Jonah held her face away from his, his lips still burning from the heat of their kiss.
“Are you sure you want this?” he asked, watching as her pupils focused on him.
Anya nodded. “More than anything, since the first night I met you, and especially since that one kiss…”
He let out a groan and lifted her into his arms.
“Bedroom,” he muttered, walking toward the stairs.
As he went, Anya picked at the buttons of his shirt, undoing them one at a time. He carried her into his bedroom and placed her on the bed, then reached down to remove her shoes, tossing the stilettos toward the door. When she sat up he unzipped her dress, noticing the large tear down a side seam.
“I’m sorry about your…”
She cut him off with her lips on his, and pulled him onto the bed. “Forget the dress,” she mumbled against his mouth. “You can always buy me another.”
They tore at each other’s clothes, and Jonah’s buttons went flying as she ripped his shirt open the rest of the way. He threw her dress aside as she untangled the skirt from her legs, and when he sank down on top of her, their skin made contact, his chest against her breasts, his denim-clad legs entangled with her bare, smooth ones. While Jonah devoured Anya, kissing, nibbling and licking her neck, ears and décolletage, squeezing her firm breasts, she worked at his jeans, desperately trying to unbutton them.
Jonah raised himself off her body, sitting back on his knees to do the job she couldn’t manage, and then stood to drop the jeans on the floor. Anya made little appreciative noises as she reached toward his erection, which strained at the fabric of his boxer briefs. He pushed her back onto the bed, pulling her toward the pillows and falling with renewed appetite on her breasts. While he bit and teased her nipples she moved against him, rubbing herself on his cock. Both of them still wore their underwear but Jonah felt the wetness and heat radiate from her sex as she moved.
Jonah reached for the bedside cabinet and a condom nearby, and then he lowered his body, crawling down the length of Anya’s spread out form. He tugged her underwear down while she lay squirming and moaning beneath him, and he smiled as she raised her hips, allowing him to remove her underwear completely. This was surely the moment in a relationship every man lived for: the permission, the final ‘okay’ to go near a woman’s most intimate body part.
Jonah tossed the scrap of fabric aside and lowered his mouth to the smooth, hairless lips as he pushed her legs farther apart. Tasting her was the most exquisite experience of Jonah’s life, and he breathed deep the scent of her body. The heat of her skin scalded his lips as he licked her. Her fingers hesitantly, then firmly, tangled in his hair. He thought about why she might have hesitated and lifted his face.
“Anya, there is no Dominance or submission here tonight. We are simply a man and woman.”
She nodded, and he kissed a path from her hipbones to her neck, using his one hand to balance and the other to remove his briefs. His cock bounced free to rub against her skin, and Anya moved more desperately against him, searching to instinctively guide him into her. He felt the urge to slip thoughtlessly into the comfort of her body, the sensation he’d longed for right there, but Jonah took a deep breath and lifted himself away from her.
Anya stroked his thigh while he rolled on the condom, and when he lowered himself to her again she claimed his lips, kissing him and exploring his mouth as he slid slowly and smoothly into her. She moaned softly against him and changed the angle of her hips to let him fill her completely. They froze, enjoying the feel of each other’s bodies. Anya reached for Jonah’s face and kissed him again and again while she held his face in her hands, then she started moving under him, relishing the little groans escaping his lips.
Jonah savoured the feel of her lips against his and her skin on his. He pulled Anya upright, and they adjusted their position so she sat on his lap, her hands on his thighs. Jonah placed his hand between them and with his thumb he kneaded her clit. He watched her face, her hair wild and plastered to her cheeks and neck. She had her eyes closed as she moved on him, and when his thumb made clit contact she dropped her head backward.
“Oh Jonah, oh God, don’t stop that.”
He dropped his gaze and saw her breasts moving as she did, the muscles of her flat stomach working under her smooth skin, her hairless sex against his hand. He gasped when he saw his cock as it slid in and out of her sex with his thrusts.
He increased his pressure, and she lifted her head, leaned close to kiss him as she uttered, “I am going to cum…”
The rest was lost in the convulsive tightening of her muscles around him, and her head fell forward onto his shoulder as she shuddered with release. Jonah breathed deeply as she moaned against his shoulder, and with his hands around her waist he lifted her off his cock to turn her around, placing her on her knees in front of him, her face buried in the pillows. When Jonah thrust into her again Anya clutched at the blankets and pillows, her knuckles turning white.
He pounded savagely into her, letting go of all the frustration and lust he’d felt for her over the past few months. He grabbed her hips and fucked her until she whimpered with the need to cum again, and when she did, he let his own orgasm wash over him. It was the most intense release he had ever experienced, and with his legs shaking and weakened, Jonah collapsed on top of Anya.
She giggled under him.
“Guess you really like doggy style…” she mumbled from between the cushions.
Jonah rolled over onto his back. “Guess so.” He playfully smacked her arse. “Apparently so do you.”
Anya moved onto her side next to him and nodded, placing her hand on his chest. “I do.”
They both took time to catch their breath and enjoy the comfortable sensation of being near another person. Anya was lonely in what she viewed as her new life, and not used to being alone. She knew she needed time to find herself again in the ‘after Alex’ phase, but that didn’t make things any easier.
For Jonah, the moment was a point in his desire for Anya he had been dreaming about for a very long time. Having her in his bed was just the beginning, a step along the road from their first kiss.
***
They lay side by side on the destroyed bed-linen, basking in the afterglow one could only get from great sex.
Jonah exhaled. “So, anticipation eh?”
He chuckled when Anya playfully smacked his hand. She sat, scrambling to gather the pillows still left on the bed into a pile to lean against, and from her perch surveyed the mess around the bed. Linen and pillows were strewn far and wide, with a garnish of clothes sprinkled around.
She rubbed her eyes. “Geez, we made a hell of a mess.”
As if to mock them and emphasize the truth in her statement, her stiletto fell over with a thud just inside the doorway.
When Anya sat back against her pile of pillows Jonah reached to stroke her leg. “Anya, I never fully understood the idea behind marking someone’s skin until now, because fight the desire as I might, all I want to do is leave my marks all over you.” He paused, and she saw him battle those urges; it showed in his eyes. “I have waited patiently to have you, through the destruction of both our relationships and the aftermath, and now that you’re here, I don’t want to share you, and if anyone else should see your skin I want them to know you are mine, only mine.”
