“Oh, I acknowledge her existence; I just have no desire to be a part of it.”
“You selfish bastard!” she screamed, forcing my handset even further away from my ear.
“Yep! Goodbye, Natalie.”
I dropped my phone onto the bedside cabinet and vowed not to answer a single call from her again for the foreseeable future. She could fuck off with her constant guilt trips. If I wanted to visit my mother, I would visit on my own accord. But I didn’t want to visit her. I hated her. I hated her for what she put us through as children, for what she allowed us to see. And I hated her for being weak enough to put herself through it. Besides, institutions were one of few places that actually frightened me. I would never admit that fact to another soul, but the place where my mother resided absolutely terrified me.
My phone screen illuminated as Natalie called again and my eyes travelled to the top of the screen. 9.13a.m. Shit, Emily would be back any minute and I hadn’t yet set up my plan. Well, I had laid here the whole time she had been gone anyway, that was an accomplishment in itself.
I reached for the loose end of the tie and tugged sharply, checking that it was still secure after last night’s strain, knowing that, if I was indeed to follow through with my earlier idea, then it was certain to face a hell of a lot more force. My head snapped around at the sound of the bedroom door opening and I dropped the thin band of fabric. Emily was grinning at me, her brows lifted as she studied me, seemingly in wonder.
“What are you doing?” she asked, stifling a laugh, I assumed.
“Waiting for you, I told you I would.”
“You’ve been there the whole time?”
“Yes. I’ve been mastering up a plan.”
“Have you now? And what would that plan be?” She placed a hand on her hip and eyed me through her thick lashes.
“I want you to tie me up. It’s your turn to take control.”
Her brows twitched slightly as she appeared to be masking a frown. “I can’t,” she whispered as her cheeks turned crimson.
“Why?”
“I wouldn’t know what to do. I’ve never...” She trailed off as her obvious embarrassment got the better of her. I felt myself smile.
“You mean you’ve never been on top before. So what? We all have to learn someday.” I smirked. Yet again, a very inappropriate moment for a very inappropriate joke. “Sorry, that was a bad joke. You don’t need to worry, Emily. Just go with it, do what your body tells you.”
Her eyes narrowed as she studied me and I wished I knew what she was thinking at that very moment. Her eyes scanned over my chest and my arms before they rose to the tie that sat securely above my head. She sat down gently on the edge of the bed beside me and fingered the soft hair on my chest. “So, now you’ve had a lay-in you must be full of energy, shall we go for a walk?”
Her ridiculously huge grin completely gave away her bluff, so I grasped her arms and pulled her towards me until her body lay flush against mine. Looking deeply into her eyes, I realised how much I loved this woman. I would do anything for her, give anything for her. Including my entire self.
I pressed my parted lips gently against her mouth and then I kissed her with everything I had. I thought about each and every movement before I made it, and controlled each and every movement as I made it. Believe it or not, I was happy just to kiss her like this for an extensive amount of time, but she obviously had other ideas as her fingers grasped cautiously at my wrist and pinned it to the bed. I opened my eyes slightly and nodded my approval to her before pushing my mouth greedily against her chest.
“Hang on,” I panted, twisting my wrist out of her grasp. “You don’t need to be wearing this.” I pulled her jumper over her head and then flipped her over onto her back and hastily removed her jeans and ridiculously large woolly socks. We were in London for Christ’s sake, not the Antarctic. “There,” I rolled back over onto my back, pulling her astride me as I moved, “I’m all yours.”
Within minutes she had my wrists bound tightly together and secured above my head. There was something incredibly sexy about this. It was exciting, naughty almost. This wasn’t something I was familiar with. I had never let a woman restrict me before. Sure, I had bound many a women in my time - in fact, that was generally how I preferred it, that way I didn’t have to endure their shameless groping and sharp fingernails - but I drew the line when it came to giving up my control. That was something I had never been comfortable with. But I trusted Emily. I trusted her with my entire life, and I trusted her with my body.
And my trust proved to be rightly placed as she slowly eased herself onto me. It was incredible. To feel so exposed, so vulnerable as I gave myself completely to her mercy was somehow extremely liberating.
I tugged hard against my restraint as I desperately longed to touch her. To twist my fingers into her hair as she kissed me. To grip my fingers tightly around her hips as they ground against me, as they moved up and down, up and down in a steady rhythm. To grasp her backside as she moved in small, agonisingly slow circles on my erection.
A loud groan rumbled from deep inside my throat as her every thrust grew more urgent. I wanted to reach out and tease her breasts, but I couldn’t. The overwhelming realisation that I couldn’t touch this perfect, beautiful woman who was transporting me into a complete oblivion was almost too much to bear. As sexy as it was at the beginning, now I was struggling. I simply had to touch her. I tugged hard against the tie until I felt the stinging burn against my skin.
“Emily, untie me.”
She paused briefly as she looked down at me, her eyes so easily revealing her uncertainty.
“Please, Emily,” I begged. “I can’t hack this, untie me. Now.”
Her large eyes widened as she read my no doubt panicked expression and she instantly leaned forwards and began fumbling with the knot at the side of my wrists.
“Hurry,” I pressed.
“I’m trying!”
What must have only been a mere minute or so felt like forever as I waited patiently for her to release my hands. The hands that I could then use to worship every part of her body.
The second I felt the fabric begin to loosen, I ripped my hands from its grasp and lunged myself forwards, pinning Emily to the mattress beneath me as my mouth pressed against her neck. Ah, how I had missed having the ability to do that. One arm supported my weight whilst the other free hand grasped and clutched at every inch of her silky skin urgently as I pounded into her, again and again.
“You okay?” she whispered, her voice jolting as her body jerked with each thrust.
“I am now,” I assured her. “I can’t not touch you.”
Her crinkled forehead smoothed instantly and her narrowed eyes returned to their usual state before she reached her chin up towards me, inviting my mouth to hers. This was more like it. The control thing, I suppose I would have to work at, but right now, it didn’t matter to me. And as she groaned and I felt her fingertips gripping firmly at my back as her insides clenched deliciously around me, I suppose it didn’t matter much to her either.
I draped a small lilac coloured towel around my neck, purposely leaving my hair dripping wet this time, as I made my way downstairs and into the kitchen, wearing only a fluffy white towel wrapped tightly around my lower half. Emily was at the sink, washing up the dirtied dishes from breakfast. I sneaked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, kissing her ear softly as my naked chest pressed against the warmth of her jumper. That was my favourite jumper of hers. It hung loosely on her slender frame and draped across her chest and down her left arm, revealing a single bare shoulder. My mouth watered as I imagined running the tip of my tongue across her naked skin, tracing the line of her delicate collar bone.
She twisted her head around, interrupting my thoughts, to greet me and I heard her sharp intake of breath. “Do you have to be quite so distracting?”
“I didn’t realise I was,” I lied. I had fully intended to seduce her with my dripping hair and naked chest.
She grinned, raising her perfectly shaped brows mockingly. “You’re prancing around half naked, Julian.”
“That’s because some hot blooded, desperate female ripped my shirt,” I joked, purposefully raising a single brow. She blushed and took her bottom lip between her teeth. Ah God, was there anything this woman could do that wasn’t such a turn on? “The picture on your wall, of a woman, is that your mother?” This probably wasn’t the most appropiate way to change the subject before I had her on the kitchen table, but it had been bothering me since I noticed it this morning.
“Yes. Why?”
“You look like her. She was a very beautiful woman.” I pressed a kiss against her cheek as she continued to make work of something in the sink.
“Thank you.” She inhaled deeply and appeared to hold the breath in its place for a few seconds before carrying on. “That reminds me, Natalie called me, said something about your mother being ill and asking for you.”
Fucking bitch!
How dare she call Emily? Emily knew nothing about my past, about my family. Now I was sure to have awkward questions to answer to. Fuck! As much as I knew that I would tell Emily every secret I had, at one point or another, I was certain that now wasn’t the right time. I took a deep breath to calm my suddenly tensed body and looked around for something to do to hide my discomfort.
“Yeah, she called me too,” I said casually as I playfully nudged her out of the way to fill the kettle up.
“Is your mum okay? Are you going to see her?”
I breathed a deep, deliberately noisy sigh. “No and no.”
“What?”
“No, she’s not okay, well, I shouldn’t think so anyway. And, no, I’m not going to see her. Natalie had no right to call you.”
Emily removed her hands from the sink and grabbed the tea-towel, spinning around to face me. “But if she’s ill, Julian, maybe you should...”
“Maybe I should nothing, Emily,” I interrupted. “My mother is ill in the head, she’s been that way for a very long time and nothing I do is going to change that fact.”
“You’ve never spoken of your mother. Do you see her often?” she pressed. I could fucking kill Natalie for this!
“No, I haven’t seen her in over ten years and I don’t intend to now.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate her, Emily. I have no desire to see her,” I replied, truthfully.
“You can’t hate your own mother, Julian. Don’t say that.” Her eyes took on a saddened gaze, her deep frown marring her perfect features.
“Oh trust me I can, and I do. That’s enough; I don’t want to talk about this.”
She looked wounded by my words. Her eyes quickly dropped to her feet and I felt a sharp pang of guilt as I realised that I had been too harsh - again. After all, she never had her mother and I’m sure hearing me say that I hated my own must have played with her emotions.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. Natalie shouldn’t have called you.”
“I’m glad she did. You never would have told me a thing if she hadn’t.”
“There’s nothing to tell, Emily. My mother is crazy. She has funny turns all the time.” I kept my tone light and casual. I didn’t want to admit that I did have a slight feeling of concern for my mother’s well-being. As slight as it was, it was there. Damn, I couldn’t even admit it to myself. Every time Natalie had informed me of my mother’s funny turns, or of her desperate pleas to see me, I had ignored it. I had ignored that tiny part of my heart that was screaming for me to go to my mother, and I had pretended that I didn’t care. To myself, and to everyone around me. I couldn’t let myself ever get close to my mother again. She was the only woman who had ever been successful in hurting me, and I knew if I let her back in, she’d do it again. I couldn’t go through that kind of pain again. I wouldn’t.
“Maybe it’d help her to see you. After all, it’s you she’s asking for.”
Un-fucking-believable! Those words sounded as if they had come straight out of Natalie’s mouth. “Did Natalie put you up to this?” I asked, my annoyance obvious in my sharp tone.
“No. I just know that when you no longer have a mother you would do whatever it took to have her back. You’ll feel the same one day.”
Ah, my poor Emily. She believed that because she had a loving mother who cared for her and adored her. Not one who left her to bring up her younger sister at a very young age and regularly exposed them to scenes of violence and abuse. How could I make her understand that?
“Emily, the last time I saw my mother was twelve years ago, I was sixteen. I visited her at the institution, or hospital, whatever you want to call it. She gushed over me, showed me off to all the doctors, and when she asked me to stay with her for dinner, I did.” I took a deep, steadying breath as I recalled the one event in my head that I had fought so hard to keep out for the best part of my life. “Then, she flipped. For no reason at all. She blamed me for her illness; she blamed my fame, my success. And then she just lunged at me, out of nowhere.” I moved closer to where Emily still stood, frozen in front of the sink, and stretched the skin above my right nipple tightly. “Look, I still have the scars now.”
Emily’s eyes narrowed as she studied the small, slightly raised areas of blemished skin that were usually hidden well under their fine covering of hair. “What did she do?”
“She stabbed me repeatedly with her fork. She managed to puncture the skin about five times before she was restrained. I have never visited since.”
Emily’s mouth dropped open and her eyes creased as she glanced up at me through desperate eyes. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, Julian. I shouldn’t have pushed you. I’m sorry.” Her delicate arms snaked around my waist and she held me tightly, pushing her warm cheek against my scarred chest.
“Don’t apologise. I suppose Natalie left out that detail when she called you. You weren’t to know. But now you do.” I pressed my lips to her hair, inhaling deeply as drank in her exotic scent.
“What’s wrong with her?” she mumbled against my skin, causing a scattering of goose bumps to tingle my body.
“It’s complicated. They think her condition could have been triggered by severe head trauma, but who knows? I don’t really want to talk about it.”