Queen (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (58 page)

“Oh, I know. There isn’t any of Grant in Ella’s personality. She acts just like you. It’s rather annoying.” I don’t sound put out though, I’m in awe of him.

It’s no wonder Marcus is worried. If Whitt doesn’t trust and respect Marcus as his Master, then we’re screwed. In five or ten years Whitt could overpower him. I have no doubt of it.

The trickle of Cort’s semen makes itself known and I smirk at Whitt.

“You-” I point at him. “You are diabolical. You made sure than even if I agreed to let her go down on me she’d never do it because of Cort’s release. You know I can’t do it. I’d have sex with you willingly before I made her touch me unwillingly.”

I look down at Syn and all I see is a ten-year-old child with dirty-blonde pigtails. I remember her excitedly chattering as she played Barbie and I played Ken while Fate directed the scene. I couldn’t ever touch her like that. She was my little sister for four years. My daughter is the same age she was when I met her. It doesn’t matter if her hair is asymmetrically razor-cut and dyed blue-black or that she has tattoos covering her body. It doesn’t matter that she calls herself Syn and gets off on hurting people. She will never be that woman to me.

“Faith, Cynthia, Syn- whatever you want me to call you, I’ll make a deal with you. If you forgive your sister, I’ll walk away from this. If you refuse, I’ll make you suck the cheating bastard’s cum from my cunt.” Queen’s voice delivers the request. I notice several Masters shiver at its tone and the power builds inside of me.

“I know they both hurt you. But you don’t know your sister the way I do. Fate is one of the most submissive people I know. She had no defense against Cort, even when he was fifteen he was still dominant, he was still the most charismatic person she’s ever met. She couldn’t even resist him two months ago with her Master holding her hand. A virginal Fate didn’t have a chance in hell. Hate Cort- don’t hate Fate. And stop pushing me away.”

“I’l
l try,” she whispers somberly.

“One hour, once a week, you’ll have a meal with her. I can buffer if you’d like. You don’t have to be best friends, but you will be sisters. You don’t have to like each other, but you have to love e
ach other. Do you understand?”

“If I say yes, he’s going to hurt you,” she points at Whitt. “I’m sorry, but I’m a coward and I want my sister back.” She hides her face against her knees and with that, Whitt gets what he wants.

I’m proud that he doesn’t gloat or even smirk. He sits stone-faced and doesn’t blink.

“Do you really want to have sex with me that ba
dly?” I incredulously ask him.

“Yes,” he says soberly. “I really do, Queen. I need you.” He looks away from me and I see his cheek dent. The little shit’s trying not to smile.

“You could’ve just asked me instead of playing this therapy bullshit we’ve all had to endure tonight. None of us are unscathed, well except for Dexter, I guess.”

“You would’ve never said yes. I needed you to see that it’s the right thing to do,”
he manipulates me flawlessly. 

“You think that if I love the sex that much I’
ll keep doing it?” I bait him.

“No,” he says defensively, but that’s exactly what he thought.

“I can’t believe I’m really going to do this,” I scrub my face with both my hands. I’m going to regret this. No going back now. “What’s next?” I ask our Master.

Marc looks like he wants to hold me or he wants to kidnap me and never come back. Frustration etches his face. Fine lines make an appearance at the corners of his brown eyes.

“We Queen you.” He says with pride.

As if by some unspoken cue, Whitt stands and walks over to a cart that I hadn’t seen earlier. He pushes it over, refusing to meet my eyes. He looked embarrassed. He’s still so young. He thinks like an adult, but he doesn’t own or understand the consequences, much like a child.

“Time to Master stamp you.” He grins gleefully holding a tattoo gun in his hand.

I look around in confusion. Marc shows me his hand, stretching the webbing between his thumb and index finger. Inked within the webbing is an intricate O.

“What am I getting?”

“An M.”
He replies.

“What’s it mean?”

“Master or Mistress. I assume that you won’t like that moniker. Master it is,” he sings. 

He knows that Grant called me Mistress and I don’t want that said to me by anyone ever again.
Cort snorts from Ezra’s lap. I wrinkle my brows at him and he chuckles. He confuses me. Ezra’s eyes keep darting to our Master and back to me- back-and-forth. I finally shrug and shake my head that I don’t get it. He sighs dramatically and says
daft much
under his breath.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Scalding water flows down my body, but it can’t wash the confusion from my mind. My thoughts swirl in chaos. I can’t pull a single thread and resolve it. I’m inundated with several thoughts at once that meld into confusion.

After I was tattooed and declared Queen, the gang escorted me to a room that had a plaque on the door that said Queen. The room wasn’t very big and devoid of furnishings. A small three-quarter bath adjoined it. Marcus told me this room could be anything I wished. I’m actually excited to make it my own.

Marc took me to a door at the end of the hall near mine. My door locks with a key, but his is by a keypad similar to the one that you use to get into the dungeon. I assumed that his room would be similar
in size to mine. I was wrong.

His or rather, Ezra, Cort, and Marc’s room is an efficiency apartment. Half of the large room is a miniature dungeon and the other half is a king-sized bed and seating area. I didn’t get to inspect the room since my only view was as Marc ushered me to the bathroom. The bathroom is three times the size of mine. I’m not complaining since its shower is now washing my shame down the drain, along with my silent tears. I don’t even know why I feel shame or why I’m crying.
Or I could just be in denial.

“Are you going to be alright?” Marcus’ voice soothes my frazzled nerves. I give him a quizzical look as he starts to remove his dress shirt.

“I don’t know. It’s weird how we want things and then when you get them, you wish you hadn’t. And then you wonder why you ever wanted them in the first place,” my murmur is washed out by the sound of the spray of the shower. But I don’t doubt Marcus’ ability to hear me. He has exceptional hearing. 

“May I ask which part of tonight you feel that way about?” He toes his designer loafers from his silk-clad feet.

“I wanted to be a Master and I don’t regret it. I feel like I was meant to be Queen. I missed Whitt so much and now I’m scared to death to know the man he’s become. Cort- I can admit it now. I wanted to fuck him something fierce. Now I wish I hadn’t. You can’t unfuck someone. It was torture. I felt like I was betraying someone and I don’t know who. Is it you? Jamie? The memory of Grant? Hell, maybe Whitt. I wonder if ultimately I was betraying myself,” I muse.

I hide my face in the spray of the water so that Marc doesn’t see the silent tears streaming down my face.

“Let me ease your fears,” he says in comfort and enters the shower behind me. He pours shampoo into his left palm and then starts to wash my hair.

“Whitt is an amazing young man. He isn’t spoiled or entitled, but he believes that he should get what he wants. I know what sounds like entitlement. What I mean is, is that he will make it happen and no obstacle will stand in his way. You just happen to be what he wants and he will ma
neuver you until he gets you.”

“Why me?
I don’t understand it,” I scrub my face with the palms of my hands trying to stem the tears and clear my muddled thoughts. 

“You will have to ask him, but he will not tell you. Truthfully, I think he was jealous of you loving Grant and he feels guilt that Grant is gone. Sometimes it isn’t logical- it just is.”

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

He pulls me against his chest and continues to massage me with the lather of the shampoo. I close my eyes and wish I could stay like this forever. It’s not sexual- it is pure comfort.

“I think Cortez will regret how things played out for you two. He was so in-tuned with Ezra that he forgot about you. I don’t mean to say that to hurt you, Regina,” he says softly to lessen the blow. 

“I know,” I mumble. “I was the one who called Ezra over, so it’s my fault that I’m feeling this way. I don’t mind because it drew them closer together, but it makes me uncomfortable.”
“He’ll regret it. He’s wanted you too. I don’t think he has ever been with anyone and failed to give them a release. His ego will deflate,” Marc laughs.

“But he will regret that he was with a friend and he ignored you. I don’t recommend you revisiting this. Just move on; some things are better left unexplored. He’ll undoubtedly try again since you were the one woman to think he wasn’t God’s gift and then he managed to leave you upset at the end of your time together.”

“It’s over between us, isn’t it?” I ask as soon as I pull the thought from the chaos in my mind.
“I don’t want to talk about this right now, Regina,” he says somberly.

I can hear the finality in his voice. I know we’ll never touch
again as lovers and we’ll never talk of this either. Our last time will be when he joined Jamie and me. I silently weep cursing that I realized that I was in love with him just as I was losing him. 

I turn to leave the shower and he stays me with a hand on my waist. I can’t torture myself with him right now; especially with what I have to do in the next room.

“I offer this word of advice. It’s advice I learned through experience. Whitt’s not your child- he’s a grown man.” His eyes are haunted by a memory he’s reliving.

“He has thoughts and feelings that you’ll never understand. You can tell him no. He won’t hold it against you. This isn’t about force. He wants to reconnect with you and this is how he envisioned it. Everything is a choice, Regina, even if it’s difficult to make. I make hard choices
daily, choices that go against my happiness, choices that may leave me alone and broken. I do this for the greater good. I do this hoping that in a few years that not only will I be happy, but all of those I call mine will be as well,” the determination in his voice would be inspiring if I didn’t also hear the underlying agony. 

I don’t dare look him in the eye. I know he’s cutting me loose because I cause him to think erratically. I’m one of his hard choices. I’m angry, hurt, and sad that I’ll never be worthy enough to be someone’s positive choice.

“Time to get this show on the road I guess,” I say as I draw courage from my Master.

I pull away from him and exit the shower. A box is on the counter that wasn’t there when I entered the shower. I just shake my head in shame.

I arch an eyebrow, “Another one of his requests?” I ask of the douche on the vanity.

Whitt doesn’t want a soiled Queen for his first time when it was his idea that Cort spend inside of me.

“No, Whitt didn’t suggest that. I thought you would prefer be clean of Cortez. I know it wasn’t something you were prepared for. I think that kind of intimacy shouldn’t be casual. I apologize if it was presumptuous of me,” he says so quietly I can barely hear him. 
“Thank you,” breathes past my lips.

I don’t like knowing he’s still inside me. I was fine with him using me to connect with Ezra again. I just don’t want to feel soiled afterwards, like a wadded up tissue.

“I will get dressed in the other room and leave you to your privacy,” he says cordially and leaves the shower stall.

Marcus won’t look at me either. I don’t want to know what he thinks of me now. I’m sure none of
it’s any good.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The room is silent and nearly dark when I enter. Marcus sits on a sofa facing the bed. I wonder how many people have made love or fucked on this mattress. It isn’t where I would have chosen to lose my virginity. But then again, I’m not a hormonal young man who grew up in Misery Castle.

I crawl between the crisp, fresh-scented sheets. They’re new and freshly laundered and incredibly soft to the touch. I lie on my back and clutch the sheets to my neck.

“You’re the first person to use this bed. Ezra has slept here when he was upset after a scene with Aaron, but no one has ever done anything but sleep in this bed,” Marcus says i
n the dark quiet of the room. 

“Aaron is the boy at the front of the club, right?
The blond, blue-eyed bruiser?”

“Yes, he was with Cort when they were abducted. He has issues. That’s what this room is used for- Aaron’s issues.” His voice sounds hollow in misery. He strums his fingers along the back of the sofa creating a beat only he can feel.

“I’m so very sorry. I remember how Grant was while they were all missing. I know you now and I can only imagine how you must have felt then. It must have been torture.”

“It was. And the boys came home forever changed. My adult life has been about righting their wrong, a wrong that began a long time before their abduction. I was thrust into this life because I was young and impressionable. I grew up fast and I evolved. That is one of the reasons I love you, Regina. While we started life differently, our experiences par
allel one another.”

I don’t get a warm fuzzy feeling when he says he loves me. It doesn’t change anything. I laugh when I realize I’ve never told a man that I was in love with them- never. Grant never heard those three words from my mouth. I can freely give that love to my friends and family. I readily tell them often. To this day I’m still unsure if I loved Grant or if it was something else. I don’t even know if I love Marcus. I assume it’s the case or it wouldn’t feel like someone is twisting my insides. I think I loved Grant since I felt as if I died that day, too. I’m thirty-one years old and I don’t have a fucking clue.

“You don’t need to be here. I think I may be more comfortable if you weren’t. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I think this should be private between Whitt and me.”

Marcus laughs without humor. “Regina, that’s precisely why I’m frightened. But you are correct; my being here will change nothing except create more pain for all three of us. A young man shouldn’t have an audience during his first time.”

We sit in silence and he doesn’t move to leave.

“I hope that someday you’ll forgive me for all the secrets I’ve kept. I want you to know that it has been difficult for me. I only do what is necessary. I want to crawl into bed with you and I cannot. I’ve spent two months trying to gather the nerve to cut ties with you. Know that I do not wish for this. I’ll miss you and ache to speak with you. Regina, you can’t call me or see me unless if pertains to Restraint. I can only be your Master. I can’t be here for you in the way I want to be or the way you need
me to be. I’m so very sorry.”

He leaves as soon as he’s finished talking. He gives me no chance to change his mind, no chance to respond.

I curl up into the fetal position and I wait for the tears to fall. I don’t cry, though, I become resolved. I need to do this for him. He may not be able to give me what I need, but I can give him what he needs- space. In the interim, I need to find what satisfies me.

I didn’t hear him come in because I was lost in my whirling thoughts. His body curves around my back and his arms enfold me. He doesn’t speak or try to touch me ot
her than patiently holding me.

I know that if he had come in here leering and acting cocky I would have kicked his ass out no matter how badly I’ve missed him. I was prepared for a boy and instead I received a man. Marcus wasn’t man enough to tell the world he loved me. He was ashamed of his feelings for me. I know that Whitt has always been proud to call me his Queen. That thought makes me roll over and embrace him back. I bury my face into the crook of his neck and inhale his clean scent.

“I’ve missed you,” I sigh against his skin. “I’ve missed you so fucking much I thought I was dead inside, Sunshine.”

“Regina,” he says softly against my hair.

I freeze up. He’s never spoken my birth name, not even once. The moment I met him, I was Queen.

“I want you to call me Daniel. When we’re alone in private I want us to be Regina and Daniel. The only times I’ve heard my true name is when our Master chastises me or when someone sneers at me for acting as my namesake. I want to hear my name from someone’s mouth that truly cares for me.” The pain in his voice draws tears from my eyes. Oh God, I
never looked at it like that.

“Daniel,” I breathe.

“Thank you, Regina,” I can hear the smile in his voice. 

“I know I was cocky when we kidnapped you and during your initiation. But I really just wanted
to spend time alone with you.”

“Oh,” I sag in relief.

“We’re still going to make love, but I’d like to talk first.” He snickers when I freeze up again.

“Why?”

“I don’t know if I can explain it to you. I barely understand it. When I met you, I just knew that you would be in my life forever. Do I look at you and think,
Oh my God! I just have to fuck her,
” he laughs deeply.