Sacred Revelations (17 page)

“These damn suits are too hot to be completely enjoyable,” he comments, unzipping the back of the suit as well, exposing my back. Cool air floods my skin and I feel several big wet drops of perspiration roll down my skin. Garrett is suddenly close, too close. I’ve been sprawled mostly over his legs, but until this moment, he wasn’t really there. Or maybe I wasn’t really here. It seems I am seeing him for first time and he is incredible to look upon. Sensual. Intense. Holding himself in check, like a high-tension coil ready to spring.

“I like the catsuit, it’s beautiful,” I assure him. As quickly as I say it, I realize just how uncomfortable I am in the PVC, the row of thin welts covering my back itchy and stingy at the same time. I wiggle and arch, trying to get relief from the discomfort.

“Beautifully uncomfortable.” He chuckles softly, running his hand down my bare back and I find myself willing my body to not move.

“Relax,” he demands softly with an eerie calmness that makes my insides quake. I feel my eyes drop, my cheeks heating.

His fingers trace each welt, drawing my attention back to the sting, making me remember how I received each one. I close my eyes, embarrassed. How did I ever think I could return to Garrett and it would be magically okay?

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, not regretting what I did with Lord Fyre, but feeling like I owe Garrett an apology. For a second, I wonder where Lord Fyre is, if he has joined his wife and children yet…if he’s thought about me as often since he left as I thought about him. I open my eyes to find Garrett watching me and know my face is drooped with sadness because the gaze he reflects back is one of empathy. It kills me that he knows I am hurting this much.

“For what?” he asks softly.

Shrugging my shoulders, I reply, “Isn’t it obvious?”

Reaching around me, he tilts my chin toward him, so that I have to look over my shoulder to his face.

Caressing my cheek, he draws me back against his chest so that our faces are almost touching. To look at him, eyes slanted, head lying tilted against the sofa, he is relaxed, but the energy simmering from his body is all but relaxed.

I shiver nervously against him, and even though I am leaning into him, I am wired tight. Something glints beneath his own hooded lids, he is projecting comfort, ease, so hard, but there is nothing comfortable or easy about the energy passing between us.

“There is nothing to be sorry about,” he says, leather sofa squeaking as he pivots me, slowly, carefully, so that I am bent over his elbow, my back completely exposed to him.

I swallow hard, not believing him. My heart speeds to triple time, sounding like thunder in my head.

Carefully, slowly, he peels open the back of my suit, exposing more flesh. I feel myself tense, I can’t help it as he arranges me. His hands move to my shoulders in a flash of heat and silkiness, pushing the PVC

over the sides of my arms.

His hands are so soft and gentle, though he touches me deliberately, willing me to relax with silent strokes and gentle squeezes, no longer focused on the welts and bruises but focused on tense muscles.

Loosening bits of me I wasn’t even aware were tight. He draws his fingers down my spine, tickling,

teasing, waking me up on the inside.

Stroking me in a way that makes my skin melt and my brain mushy, he whispers, “I need you to talk to me about it, so I’ll know what you’re feeling.”

Every nerve ending jumps in response to the demand in his voice, even though he whispered, maybe because he whispered. I had forgotten his feral intensity, so much a part of him that it is forgotten until he makes me remember.

“Tell me about your time with Lord Fyre,” he says, turning my shoulders and leaning me back into the crook of his elbow. “Tell me what you are thinking, what you are feeling now that you are back here…with me.”

I squirm in his lap, trying to escape, uncomfortable beyond belief, trapped by the PVC holding my elbows against my body, held by him.

“Do you think you’re going somewhere, Kitten? No, I don’t think so. You’re uncomfortable, and I understand that, what you shared with Lord Fyre was intimate, mentally, physically, emotionally, but if you are mine, the only way this will work is if you submit completely. You will share all of the intimate details of every moment, of every scene.”

What is it about sadists and their insistence on submission? If I am truly a masochist, and judging by the amount of chaos I’ve caused myself, it’s true, then I should want this. I should want to totally submit to Garrett all things, even this. But I sit, silent, not willing to share what I haven’t even had time to digest myself. I am saved by a knock on the doorframe, calling my attention to one of his men in black. I cover my breasts, wrapping myself in my arms, hiding. Garrett doesn’t allow me the luxury of modesty, pulling my arms down to my sides, exposing my breasts, holding my wrists until he feels me relax, resigning myself to this forced exposure.

His man in black asks from the hallway, “The package is here. Where do you want it?”

“Here is fine.”

Two more men appear, maneuvering a dolly, I turn to look at the wall behind Garrett, flustered, embarrassed, trying to figure out what to say, what not to say while the men shuffle about in the room.

Finally, I hear their footsteps retreating, a man asking, “Would you like the door open or shut?”

“Open is fine.”

Garrett chuckles, turning my face to look at him, I feel my blush rise. “What is this? You’re embarrassed, honestly embarrassed?”

I shrug.

“Why?” he asks, sounding incredulous. “I saw the pictures highlighted in Inappropriate Voices from your Lost Kitten tour and I can honestly say, you were more exposed then than now. What happened?”

I shrug again, my voice lost. He shakes his head. “Fine, let’s break this down and make this very simple for you. Tell me about that .” He nods his head toward the spot on the floor where his men left his delivery, I turn my head just enough to see what he is taking about and my mouth drops. My cat cage.

Everything unravels at once, my brain, my body, my heart, emotions I haven’t felt in years as the cat cage recedes behind a blur of tears. I will not cry. I will not!

Suddenly, I am buried against him, sobbing, saying things I never meant to say aloud, declaring my love, admitting how much I miss my mother, wishing I’d lost my virginity to anyone besides Lion, hating my father, blaming God, and then the tirade stopper, because after I say it I can’t say anything else, “I miss Fyre.”

He lets me cry, holding me, waiting for my sobbed litany to stop and then waiting for the pathetic hiccupped sobs to cease. Waiting, patiently, until I can look at him.

I heave a sigh, in that all sobbed out way that sounds especially pathetic when nothing can be said to make things right.

“Better?” he asks, his voice like warm, smooth bourbon.

I nod my head, thinking, please let this go .

Garrett pushes me up and forward, readjusting my catsuit, pulling the fabric back over my shoulders, zipping me, snapping the straps over my breasts to hide my nipples. Shit, shit, shit, I’ve ruined everything.

“I’m sorry,” I say, but I know it is too late for I’m sorry. I start to stand but Garrett holds me in his lap, holding me while he pulls his cell phone from his pocket. He dials, saying, “Bring the car around,” then folds the phone closed.

“No, Kitten, I’m the one who’s sorry. I wasn’t brave enough to take you to the penthouse, I thought it would be easier to get reacquainted here, where we first met, but the thought of taking you to The Oasis…I can’t.” He brushes my bangs out of my face. “I’m not ready for that. When I take you back into The Oasis, to share you with my friends, I want it to be a celebration…that you are mine, and I am yours.” He tilts my chin up when my face drops. “I thought bringing you here would reverse time, make things automatically right, and I was delusional to think so.”

His gaze holds me still, searching my face for answers.

“I can’t reverse time. I can’t take what I shared with Lord Fyre back,” I whisper.

“I don’t want you to take it back, I don’t want you to regret it—but I do want you back. The question is do you want me back?”

The raw emotion in his eyes makes me start to cry again but I nod.

“Good. We’re going back to the penthouse now, so that we can restart where we left off. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Heart thudding because I think he’s implying that he wants to make love to me. Am I ready for this? I nod, trembling, nervous.

“Is that what you want?”

I nod.

“No, ask me.”

“Make love to me?” I ask and it sounds uncertain even to me.

The limo ride to Garrett’s isn’t nearly long enough. I sit on the edge of my seat, worrying a fingernail, and he lets me, not even attempting to touch me. This ride to his place is so much different than my first trip to his house. That trip seemed to take hours, but in a good way; this trip, speed of light, and that is bad, very, very bad. I need time to think, time to process, and time to figure out how I could ever convince him that I want him. I’m here, isn’t that good enough?

Sure, lots of really cheesy ideas come to mind—a strip tease, a lap dance, a welcome home blowjob—and I’m not up to any of them. I don’t want to play games. I lied my way into his life, got caught, and promptly got dumped. It doesn’t sound pretty when put that way, but damn it, that’s what happened. He didn’t want me. Even when I obsessed about him, exposed my soul to most of theCalifornia coast, and generally made a really big fool out of myself, he didn’t want me. Then, kidnapped and almost killed, I got his attention. I tell him I want his best friend to play with for a while, still not sounding pretty, but yeah, I got his attention on that one, too. Now, voilà , he wants me?

Does he?

What can I possibly do to make him believe that I want him?

Too soon the limo door is being opened by the doorman, Gerard. Too soon, we ride up the elevator to his penthouse.

God damn. I give up worrying the fingernail and rip the painted acrylic tip off with a solid grip of teeth.

This shouldn’t be this stressful.

Fyre went to his wife.

I came back to Garrett.

All is right with the world. Right? I didn’t know it was going to hurt so much. I am happy to be here with Garrett and it hurts like hell. I miss Lord Fyre…and that hurts like hell too.

Garrett holds open the door for me and I am assailed by a million memories. It is said that everyone’s home smells a certain way, their scent, and I think that’s true because I wasn’t really homesick until this minute. Now that I’m here, I know I’m home. Turning to him, I can’t take another step. I reach out my arms, looping my hands around his neck, crying, because that seems to be all I can do tonight. “I’ve never had a home. Not where I knew I was loved, knew I was safe, until I came here. This feels like home to me and it’s not because of the walls or the floors or the ceiling, or anything that makes this place other than a building. It’s you, Garrett. You feel like home to me. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I do,” he answers, pushing his forehead against mine. “Welcome home, baby.”

Fur rubs around my ankles. “Monet!” I shriek, squatting in my four-inch heels to pick her up. “Oh my God! You kept her! Oh my God! Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I say, standing with her in my arms, stroking her, but she doesn’t like the feel of the PVC and struggles from my arms, bouncing back down

onto the wood floor with a thud.

“What was I going to do, throw her out?”

I shrug, screwing my face into the universal scrunch for “duh.”

“I’m a sadist, not heartless, there is a difference, besides, there were the kittens to think about.”

“She had kittens?” I gasp.

He points with his head to the sofa where five kittens sleep. I race across the room to see them, kneeling, stroking their round bellies while they sleep. I whisper, “Thank you.”

“You said that.”

“I really, really mean it.” My head nods, and more tears flow. When did I become such a baby?

“It’s okay,” he says, taking my hand and pulling me toward his bedroom. “Come with me.”

I stall in the middle of the doorway, shaking.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“What are you talking about?”

“To make you know that I want you because I want you to feel wanted, cherished, and I don’t even know how to reconnect with you.”

He pulls my hand and I go two steps farther into the bedroom. His eyes narrow. “Resistance isn’t making me feel cherished, Kitten.”

“I know!” I shriek, frustrated that I’m screwing this up…again.

He catches my cheek in his palm as my face drops forward and he closes the gap between us, lifting my face so that he can kiss me. I don’t resist and he kisses me like a man well skilled, making my body want to melt into him, but my brain rebels, thinking too much. He pulls away, holding my gaze, drawing my hand, me attached, to the bed.

“Look, Kitten, I know you don’t have a switch that clicks from on to off and off to on. I know that you experienced something very powerful and amazing at Lord Fyre’s, and for a while, you may even make comparisons. I’m not promising to not get really ticked off when you do, because I might, and I say that because I’m getting a little ticked off that you’re not trusting me enough to help you make this all right.”

I let him pull me forward.

“We do need to talk about the time you spent with Lord Fyre, and we will talk about it, but you can’t share the last two months in a few minutes. So, I am taking you to my bed, because what we shared once was powerful and sexual. I enjoyed you. You enjoyed me. And that is where we are going to start again. Someday, you may ask me to Master you. And if you can make me believe you mean it, I will

Master you. Until then, if you are willing to let me, I want to love you, because while you were with Fyre, I wasn’t thinking about the times I spanked you, or the times I bound you. I missed the times you held my hand. I missed your smile and your laughter.”

My knees hit the edge of the bed and he pushes me down onto the mattress. Holding my shoulders he looks into my eyes, commanding, “Relax.” He rolls me onto my side and slides the zipper of my catsuit down my back. Drawing it down off my shoulders, he pulls my arms out. Lying me all the way back, my upper half nude, he lifts my hips and shimmies me the rest of the way out, leaving me nude, exposed, shaking. Just his gaze sweeping over my body makes me quake.