Sacred Revelations (7 page)

“No, not because of Celia, or me…” I shrug, looking at the ceiling for answers and seeing cobwebs in the chandelier. “…once she thought she wanted all the United States had to offer and would have done anything to come here. Now, she still isn’t happy, if happiness was what she was seeking. She still doesn’t know what she wants. She only knows that she doesn’t want her children raised in theUS .”

“I’m sorry, Thomas,” he says. “I’m pissed as hell at you, but I’m sorry. I hope you two can come up with a solution.”

I sigh, making excuses for her, even though I don’t need to. “She’s more French than she’d like to believe.” The foyer becomes quiet, neither of us moving, the plaster walls too thick to hear anything happening behind the solid wood door. Funny thing how time seems so very agonizingly slow in moments like this, a second seeming like an hour.

“There’s no fixing this, is there?”

My mouth twitches, “Which fix? There’s a lot that needs fixed.”

His answer is stopped by George’s return. “She’s fine now.”

“What happened?” Garrett demands. “Why did she collapse?”

“I need to talk to Thomas, Garrett, could you step outside?”

George waits for Garrett to step outside and close the door before turning to me. “It’s nothing serious, but I wanted what I am going to tell you to be heard by you—not Garrett.”

I frown, worry knotting in my belly, and I am not one who worries.

“It seems that Celia has limited experience with men.”

My frown deepens.

“Aside from Lion and Garrett, there haven’t been any other lovers.”

My jaw drops, quickly corrected, but my brain is still rolling on the floor waiting for the further explanation I know is coming.

“She said you were leading her to the bedroom when she fainted?”

“To put her to bed, not to have sex with her,” I defend.

“You haven’t had sex with her?”

George sounds annoyingly surprised that I haven’t had sex with her yet. It makes me angry. “No!”

“And you had no intention of having sex with her tonight?”

My mouth opens and shuts twice before I decide to remain silent, my silence a larger betrayal of the truth than if I’d lied.

“She’s terrified of having sex with you. She thinks that if she has sex with you, Garrett won’t take her back, and she thought that sex was imminent when she collapsed. She didn’t know how to refuse you without losing this .”

“What?”

My exclamation echoes Garrett’s, both of us saying the same thing, though our inflection making our difference in meaning clear. George and I turn to find him loitering in the doorway of the living room, he must have re-entered the house through the kitchen, coming in behind us.

“I told you to wait outside!” George demands.

“And miss this?” Garrett asks, amusement making his voice a higher pitch. “No way!”

For some reason it bothers me immensely for Garrett to know I’m not having sex with her. I pace away, retreating to the kitchen for an iced tea, not surprised at all when they follow me. Ridiculously, we sit at the kitchen island, silent, sipping, thinking. The kitchen window is open, emitting a soft ocean breeze. The sound of crashing waves and bleating seagulls arrive with a quickening wind. A glance outside reveals darkening clouds on the horizon. A storm is coming, though I’d estimate it still hours away. Tonight we’ll be in for it.

George breaks the silence. “Is sex necessary to make this arrangement work?”

“Yes!” collides with “No!”

Garrett glares at me. “The agreement was for you to top her for three months. You can top her without sex.”

“I don’t want to top her without sex.” I stop myself, irritated that I sound so adolescent, “I mean to say—I never planned, I want…” I start and stop myself so many times, I’m confused. “I am going to continue this relationship in the manner I see fit and there’s no room for discussion.”

“I feel we should discuss this.” Garrett slams his empty glass onto the granite countertop, ice cubes clinking against each other as they resettle, and I am surprised when the glass doesn’t shatter.

I stand my ground in silence. I am not debating how I plan to top her.

Calmly, George pours more iced tea all around and we are quiet again, drinking our tea, each of us lost in our thoughts. I find it slightly odd that George has offered no opinion since breaking the news of what the underlying problem was and I can only imagine Garrett’s thoughts. His body language is self-evident, sitting back in his bar stool, arms crossed, his silence screaming loud and clear that he is furious. I can’t understand his obvious resentment. He had to assume that I would have sex with her. Is it because he learned that I hadn’t yet, giving him reason to think I might not?

I’ve never known Garrett to be jealous. He loved once, his business partner, Tony Giovanni. They’d shared a committed relationship that made room for others even though they loved each other completely, passionately. He’d never exhibited this kind of jealousy. Maybe because it’s been so long since he’s been in a relationship, five years, almost six, since Tony was murdered, and Celia is Garrett’s first interest of any kind since Tony. It may be a reasonable explanation. I could probably think of dozens more, but my job is not to psychoanalyze Garrett. Right now, my duty is to Celia, and I am not meeting her best interests by sitting in my kitchen, arguing with my friends about how to top her.

I stand, coughing faintly to get their attention before announcing, “Thank you for coming George, Garrett, sorry for the scare. I’d like you to leave now.”

Garrett stands. “I want to see her.”

“You agreed to accept my professional advice, correct?” George asks.

Great, now the psychiatrist wants to speak.

“Yes.” Garrett answers, leveling his gaze.

George faces him squarely and reaches a hand out to grip his shoulder. “It’s not in either of your best interests for you to see her right now, she’s too conflicted, and you’re too emotional. If she is to stay here, she needs her dominant link to be Thomas, not you, and part of the struggle within her right now is her connection to you, knowing you are waiting for her.”

Garrett jerks away, not liking the answer.

Turning to me, George doesn’t offer a touch, folding his arms across his chest instead. His stern look is what keeps me from making a comment. “I want to caution you, Thomas, she is very vulnerable emotionally. The men in her past have been manipulative and abusive, which is one of the reasons she is here. She needs a safe place to fight her inner demons and, from what she’s told me, I think you’ve exceeded my expectations. You used good judgment today calling me, and I assume you will continue to use your best judgment after we leave.”

My level of respect for George ups a notch. Nodding, I open the front door for them. The sun is bright

but dark clouds are gathering over the ocean, lightning strikes visible far out to sea. It’s beautiful, too beautiful not to share, so I point for George and Garrett to take notice. We stand for a while watching, the storm moving closer. George comments unnecessarily, “Still a few hours away.”

“Did I mention Kitten is afraid of storms?” Garrett asks.

“Yes, you told me. I’ll keep her safe, stop worrying.”

His jaw tightens and it is his tension that makes me react, pulling him into me, hugging him, holding him, even when he would struggle away. “Stop worrying. You love her. I get that. It’s going to be okay, just trust me.” A second later he relaxes, hugging me back.

“I trust you, Thomas. If I didn’t, she wouldn’t be here.”

I stand on the other side of the heavy carved door that leads to my bedroom, technically her bedroom since she is occupying it, and the easy solution for today would be to just retreat and leave her alone.

After a week in a cage, she deserves time alone, but that is a chicken answer and I am no coward. The truth is that, after a week caged, she especially needs the mental and emotional support of her Master—of me.

I press my forehead against the door. Two hours ago, I was ready to jump her bones, now I’m afraid to be in the same room with her and I am not sure what’s happened to cause the change in how I feel. It wasn’t seeing Garrett, though seeing him reminded me of their bond. Learning of her inexperience made a definite difference, but it’s still not completely responsible for what I’m feeling. Sighing, it is a now or never moment, and mastering myself, I push open the door.

She lies on her side, facing away from the door. I approach her quietly in case she sleeps, but I know immediately that she is awake because she stiffens beneath the blanket.

I sit on the edge of the bed carefully, not touching her. “I know you’re awake, look at me.”

Rolling onto her back, she groans and I know it is sore muscles not the command that causes her discomfort.

“Are you okay?” I ask softly, seeking her eyes and finally making eye contact.

“I’m okay,” she answers, holding my gaze. It seems a good start.

“Hungry?”

“Not yet,” she whispers, her lower lip quivering into a pout. “I’m sorry.”

I stroke her cheek and draw my thumb over her pouting lip. “Whatever for?”

“I’m weak. You were right. Maybe I’m just not tough enough for you.”

There is honest desolation written across her features. Scooting closer to her, I lift her to pull her halfway into my lap, causing her to gasp.

“Long-term bondage is exhausting. Where do you hurt?”

“Everywhere,” she moans. I have no doubt.

“I’ll run you a bath; a good soak would be good,” I offer.

“Not yet. Did you mean what you said when you first brought me here about being honest enough to tell you what I need?”

“Yes.”

“Does that include asking you to just hold me?” Her lip dips out farther and I know it is not contrived.

Quivering, it is an honest pout. A tear slips and slides over her cheek.

“Do you need me to hold you?”

“Yes, Lord Fyre.” Her voice breaks, a prelim to the larger sob that wracks her body when I pull her fully into my lap.

“You were a very good girl caged, Sophia, you were very brave,” I commend her, stroking her head, letting her cry.

“Constantly just to herself, mind! This is the quality of true passion.”

-George Meredith, Sandra Belloni

Kitten

I fell asleep in his lap, actually cried myself to sleep, and obviously he let me. Awake, I am still exhausted, and still held in his arms. He sleeps as well. I shift in his arms and he is awake instantly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay,” he answers, looking down at his watch. “You’ve only been asleep an hour,” he says, shifting his weight to lie me on the bed. “Scoot beneath the blankets.”

I obey, gladly, every muscle on fire from too long in the cage. Stretching out, I moan, unable to help myself. Lord Fyre stands. “I’ll be right back,” he says before he disappears into the adjoining bathroom.

He leaves the door ajar and I can hear the sounds he makes, his piss hitting the water in the toilet bowl and then the water running as he washes his hands. I flush, embarrassed that I’ve overheard the intimacy of such a small thing as him using the bathroom. Was it only a few days ago that he caught my piss as I urinated out of desperation? Does it get any more intimate than that?

He returns with three pills, a glass of water, and a bottle of liniment, Icy Hot. “Ibuprofen,” he explains, having me open my mouth so that he can put the pills directly in. He holds the glass of water to my lips and helps me drink, washing down the pills.

“That was a very un-sadist thing to do, Lord Fyre.” I say bravely, thankful for the pain reliever.

“How do you know I am not thinking of my own comfort?” he asks.

I frown, not understanding, as he lays me back onto the pillow and takes my right arm between his hands. I had not noticed he had already squeezed a good size measure of Icy Hot onto his palm until he started rubbing the cream into my muscles. Massaging me until the massage and the Icy Hot covers every inch of my arm, his massaging fingers paying particular attention to the places that make me gasp and moan, his fingers pressing harder, finding all the agonizing tender spots.

“My God, you’re enjoying this,” I hiss between clenched teeth, trying to breathe through the pain he is causing. He spreads the cool cream into the other arm, bringing me to tears because he won’t stop, even when I beg. He doesn’t stop torturing my muscles with the firm pressure of his fingers.

“Relax,” he commands, spreading more over my sternum, between and around my breasts, over my abdominals and my ribs. I’m embarrassed that he is touching me intimately, but it isn’t sexual. It still feels sensual. When he rubs my stomach, I tense, feeling things happening low in my belly that I am not ready to face and am relieved when he moves on to my thighs, skipping my private places, not because I fear the sting of the Icy Hot on my genitals, but because I fear my reaction to the man. Bending my knee, he works the liniment into both the front and back muscles of my thighs and my calves until finally he sits back, finished.

“Icy Hot is such a double-edged sword. Soon your skin will flame, becoming almost unbearable, but within a few minutes the flames will recede and you will be left feeling very warm and deliciously languid—and then you will sleep, and more importantly at this juncture, I will sleep,” he tells me.

I realize that he has had little to no sleep the entire time I was caged. “You must be exhausted.”

“That, dear Sophia, is the understatement of the century. Make room.”

I scoot to the left, making room for him on the right, suddenly forgetting my pain and the burn of the Icy Hot, thinking too much, worrying too much as I watch him pull his shirt over his head. He chuckles. “No worries, sweetheart, there will be no debauchery tonight. Your Master isn’t up to it.”

Master.

Is he my Master? I have thought of him only as Lord Fyre, but yes, I suppose he is my Master. I try to not make mental comparisons as he pulls his slacks down his legs. Chewing my bottom lip, I cannot stop making comparisons. Lord Fyre is taller, wider-shouldered, and heavier-muscled than Garrett. He is also darker, a warm golden bronze, his dark brown tan line displaying a paler ass. For some reason his tan lines make me smile.