Blue (Darkness Falls #3) (12 page)

“Yeah, she’s just cleaning herself up. Crying isn’t pretty.”

No it certainly wasn’t. By the time Noelle had dished up, Lisette had returned to the table. Her eyes were a little red and puffy, but mostly she just looked embarrassed. He was going to say something, but Noelle shook her head, warning him not to, and he trusted her. They ate dessert, chatting quietly through the conversations they’d started during dinner and before he knew it, Noelle was sending the girls to bed and they were alone.

“You look exhausted.” He cupped the back of her head and pulled her in for a hug.

“It’s been a crazy day.” She slumped into him. “I am exhausted. You should remind me how I feel right now if I’m ever crazy enough to think about starting a family.”

Her words might have been a throwaway comment, but they cut deep and he dropped his arms. “You should go to bed.” It came out more cold than he had intended, but he couldn’t take the words back.

“What did I say?” She stepped back and looked up at him.

“You didn’t say anything.” He lied. “We’ve all had a long day.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Blue.” She crossed her arms. “We’ve been through the worst things together. Why did you suddenly freeze up?”

Fine. She wanted honesty, he was going to lay it on the table. “Because you said that like you were never intending to have a family and damn it all to hell if I don’t want you to be part of mine.”

Her brow creased in confusion. “We are family-…”

“Not
that family. Not Manor family. I meant you and me and the girls. I want you to be my lover and them to be our children.”

She still didn’t get it. “But we are lovers. We have been for a while. I don’t understand what you think will be different. You know I’ll love those girls. They’re family too now.”

“How can someone so smart be so freaking stupid?!” He shook his head. “I’m trying to tell you that I’m in love with you and you’re just not getting it!”

“I love you too, but-…”

“Noelle, will you shut up and listen to me!” He roared, startling her into silence. “You are mine. You’ve always been mine. I want us to date and move in together and maybe somewhere down the line get married and have more kids. I love you. Not as a brother, or as a friend; I love you in the way that a man loves a woman who is his everything. Fuck it.” He ruffled his hair as she just gaped at him and he saw the moment the penny dropped.

“Blue, I-…”

“I tried to give you your freedom.” He shook his head. “I let you go to Sean even though it broke my heart into a thousand fucking little shards. If you love something, you’re supposed to let it go, right? If you loved me, you’d come back. But you didn’t – you gave him your everything and then let him walk away from you. I thought that perhaps just being in your orbit would be enough, but it’s not. You’re not just my sun; you’re my solar mass and my north star. You’re my gravity and my atmosphere. I can’t breathe without you and I’m tired of hiding it. However horrible it sounds, I was delighted when Sean broke up with you. I knew you were hurting but I just wanted you to come home. To me.”

“I...Blue, slow down.” She took a couple of steps back.
“You’re not making any sense.”

“What’s there to make sense of?” Could she really be this far in denial? “We were made to be together. We’re so right, in everything we do.”

“No, we aren’t.” She shook her head, her face pale. “Loving you in that way would be one long fight for dominance until we tear each other into shreds. You don’t know how not to be an alpha and I’m not going to let anyone destroy me the same way Gabriel did. I can’t fight you, Blue, and that’s what loving you would be.”

“It wouldn’t be any different to how it is now.” His heart clawed into his throat at the thought he was losing her. He should never have said anything. “We don’t fight now. We play. We have a good time and we have fantastic sex and we laugh so much I go to bed with my sides aching from it. All I’m asking for is a commitment to whatever this is we have.”

“It’s not perfect now!” Her curls bounced around her jaw. “I warned you the other day that you couldn’t treat me like some sort of fuck toy. You don’t just get to choose and use.” Her own words shocked her. “Oh my Gods…that’s what it was all about, wasn’t it? Trying to make me say I’d only ever be yours.” Her eyes widened and she looked stunned with hurt. “Oh God…that was exactly the sort of thing Gabriel would do. How could you? Blue! How could you?”

Incensed at being compared to Gabriel, he ground his teeth.
“There’s a big difference between me teasing you and the way I feel about you.” He couldn’t believe she’d brought it up. “I don’t think of you as a fuck toy at all. I just want you to be happy.”
I just want you to be mine.

“Is this about Alexandra?”

“What? What the fuck? No! This is not about Alexandra.” He growled, the change in direction totally throwing him for a loop. “Noelle, I’ve loved you since the day I walked into Cal’s office and you were poised to fly like some scared little bird. Don’t bring Alexandra into this.”

“How can I not?” She turned away to pace, clearly trying to gather herself. “Blue, I’m not arguing with the way you feel, because I don’t know what’s going on in your head, but you’ve got to admit that this was not the best time to blurt it out. You’ve just been landed with two kids you haven’t got the faintest idea how to care for and your crazy bitch mistress just strolled back into your life. You’re a hot
freakin’ car crash right now. You can’t tell me that you’re not afraid and upset and uncertain about the future and that you didn’t just say all that because you’re terrified I won’t help you deal with it.”

“I know you’ll help me.” He argued. “I don’t need to tell you I love you – it’s just the way you are. We’re family. I know you wouldn’t leave me to deal with this one my own. I’m telling you I love you because I actually fucking love you and I’m tired of watching you mess around with other people that break your heart.”

“I can’t deal with this right now, Blue.” She stopped pacing. “Everything is such a clusterfuck and you’re making it worse. I just…”

“Red-…”

“No!” She pushed him away when he tried to comfort her. “We’re not doing this now! Maybe when this is over and Alexandra is dealt with and the cameras are gone, we can talk about it. I’m just not doing it now.”

“Mama?” Amelie came into the kitchen, her face fearful.

“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Noelle’s smile was strained as she went down to her knees to hug the shaking child. “We didn’t mean to scare you. Everything is okay. Papa and I were just having a discussion and got carried away.”

Blue felt like he’d been socked in the chest with
Mjolnir. He couldn’t breathe from the power of that single word. Amelie had called her mama and she’d responded. It hurt and it was so full of hope he didn’t know what to do with himself. He watched as Noelle bundled the small girl upstairs back to bed and then pressed his head against the nearest cool surface. He couldn’t believe how spectacularly he’d screwed that up.

When he went up to bed, Amelie was tucked in with Noelle and it broke his heart. He couldn’t bear to get into that bed with two females who could flay him raw with a look, so he found an empty guest room and crashed out to think.

The next morning, he was halfway down the stairs when he heard Lisette talking to Noelle in the kitchen.

“No, I don’t beat people up just because I feel like it.” Noelle was explaining. “It’s a lot more complicated than that. What I am, what your father is, it’s born in us, like other people are straight or gay. The need to dominate isn’t about being a control freak; it’s about being a nurturer. Do you ever feel sometimes like your life is careening wildly out of control and there’s nothing you can do to rein it in?”

“All the time.” She sounded both curious and sad.

“So do a lot of subs. The way they make that go away is by coming to people like us and trusting us to deal with it. We take away the pressure, the anxiety and the fear. When a man comes to me it’s because he wants to let someone else take charge for a while. He needs to let it go to come back to himself. He needs a basic set of rules he doesn’t have to think about and clear punishments if he fails in them.”

“But a beating?” The sadness was fading in favour of horrified fascination. “Doesn’t that seem kind of harsh?”

“It has its place.” Blue sat on the stairs to listen as she explained it. “Do you have a strict teacher at school?”

“Yeah. My biology teacher, Mr Wright. He’s really strict.”

“And how does it feel when he praises you for getting something right?”

“Good, I guess.” There was a pause. “I get it. You’re saying that being strict with someone makes the rewards more valuable.”

“Exactly. How did you get so smart? You clearly didn’t inherit it from your dad.” They giggled together as Blue winced. He deserved that one.

“So this Thomas…” Lisette asked the leading question. “He’s your sub?”

“Yes. Thomas is special to me.” The clattering of plates made him realise they were eating breakfast. “He’s wired differently to most people. He has an illness that was slowly killing him. Letting me be in charge of his life and care for him allows him to forget about the problem.”

“It was killing him?” Lisette gasped.

“Kind of. Thomas’ addiction to pain was destroying his body. His nerves are wired up wrong. He doesn’t feel a slap like you or I would. When he gave me control, he let me take away his addiction and he’s okay.”

“And he’s coming here today?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry. You’ll love him. He’s really very sweet and he’s an actual, honest to God genius.”

“Does my dad like him?”

As if on cue, Blue’s stomach rumbled loudly and everything fell silent in the kitchen. He was so busted. “I like him a lot.” He answered for Noelle as he descended the rest of the stairs and entered the room where they were all eating breakfast. “He was my sub before he was Noelle’s.”

“Are you gay?” There was no judgement in Lisette’s question, but Noelle still had to smother a laugh.

“No, sweetie. I’m not gay. I just don’t discriminate.”

“Okay.” She went back to her pancakes and he had to admire her attitude. He got the feeling she wouldn’t have even blinked if he’d said yes.

Noelle pointed silently at the plate of pancakes in the centre of the table and he pulled up a chair between Lisette and Amelie. Her glare said she was going to have words with him later for letting her have The Talk with the girls. Amelie was still sleepy, but Lisette had so many questions. It wasn’t like this was a typical family.
He fielded as many as he could, but frankly Noelle was so much more tactful than he was and answered what she could within reason.

“So what are we doing today?” He asked, helping Noelle to clear the table.

“I called the theatre this morning and booked tickets for us to go and see the show again tonight. The girls will love it and you know how much I wanted to see it again.” Her tone was still neutral. “I thought I’d take the girls for a mani-pedi and pick out some nice dresses.”

“Oh.” He couldn’t stop the disappointment leaching into his voice. He knew he’d messed up, but he’d been looking forward to spending the day with them. “Can’t I come?”

“What will you do while we’re in the beauticians?” She frowned up at him.

“Get a facial, I guess.” He shrugged
as Amelie and Lisette burst out laughing. “I’m sure they do man stuff too, right?”

“Papa, can you paint your nails the same colour as mine?” Amelie asked and he blanched.

“It would be a terrible waste of money because he can’t wear it to work.” Noelle rescued him and he shot her a grateful look. She sighed. “I’ll call ahead and let them know we’re bringing one extra.”

Thomas arrived shortly before the camera crew and efficiently tidied the rest of the kitchen while Noelle tried to organise Amelie to get ready to go out. She was so excited by all her new clothes that trying to get her into just one outfit was like trying to herd a shoal of eels.
Blue envied her patience – he was waiting by the front door with Lisette, Thomas and the two doms Cal had sent for their protection for nearly ten minutes before she managed to get the young girl down the stairs. Along with the camera crew, it felt like a ridiculous entourage to be trailing around with and he read the irritation on Noelle’s face as clear as day when she finally got Amelie together.

They had to take three cars to get everyone in and Noelle finally got exasperated enough to speak to him. “If it’s going to be like this every time we try to go out somewhere, we’re just going to have to start staying home until Alexandra has been dealt with.”

“I’ve got some great board games at home, Mis…” Thomas offered helpfully from the back, trailing off when he remembered he wasn’t supposed to be addressing her as Mistress in front of the girls.

“That would be appreciated, Thomas.” Noelle smiled back at him and the girls. “When are you going back to work?”

“My secretary is organising private security for me.” He shrugged. “Whenever she gets it together I’ll go back. I’ve got a lot of projects on at the moment.”

“Okay.” She smiled and faced front again, affection written clear on her face as Lisette started asking Thomas about his job and the things he invented.

“Now that I have you as a captive audience, we need to talk about last night.” Blue said, glancing across at her. She looked uncomfortable.

“
Not in front of the girls.”

“
They’re not listening.” He glanced in the rearview mirror to see them chatting away to Thomas. “This is the only time we’re going to get today without cameras in our faces. I’m not going to let it fester all day. Let’s just say what we need to say and clear the air.”

“I don’t have anything else to say.” She picked invisible lint from her skirt. “I said it all last night. This isn’t going to work and I don’t think you’re being honest with your reasons for saying it now.”

“Fine.” He reached across and squeezed her thigh. “You can believe what you want, but I have no intention of giving up trying to persuade you otherwise. I’m going to seduce you with everything I’ve got until you give in, Red. You will be mine.”

“Because that doesn’t sound at all creepy.” She shook her head, turning to face out of the window.

“Creepy would not involve seduction.” He disagreed, inching his hand up her leg. “And I fully intend to seduce you. When you give in to me, it’ll be because you want to, because every inch of you is aching for me. Consider this fair warning.”

“Blue, I don’t…”

“I can be a smug bastard.” He overrode her protests. “When you’re begging me to make you mine, I’m going to make you say I told you so.”

“
I don’t beg.” She snapped.

“I bet I can make you.” He grinned, glancing at her again.

“Watch the damn road!” She shifted, pushing his hand from her leg.

“Interesting response.” He chuckled, putting his hand back where it had been and gripping her thigh so she couldn’t move it. “If you weren’t scared, you’d have taken the challenge.”

“You’re going to have to try better than that if you want to go with mind games.” She gave up shoving his hand and relaxed. She was obviously forcing her nonchalance though.

“Still trying to divert it.” He teased. “You too scared to take me up on that bet?”

“I’m not scared of anything.” She was starting to get exasperated. “But you’re going to have to set a few more guidelines in place before it’s anything we can bet on.”

“One hour.” He jumped on the opening. “
Give me one hour with open access to whatever I want and I’ll make you beg.”

“You need to get narrower than that.” She shook her head. “You’re a devious bastard. I’m not signing up for an hour of tickling where I have to beg you to stop.”

He paused. That option hadn’t even occurred to him. She was more devious than he would ever be. “One hour of appropriate foreplay to make you beg me to fuck you.” He said bluntly.

“
Eww! Dad! Little ears in the back here!” Lisette made gagging noises from the back seat and Blue burst out laughing as Noelle’s face flamed scarlet.

“And what have we learned here?” He asked, loud enough for his voice to carry into the back seat.

“That we don’t talk about getting laid with our kids in earshot?” Gods, she was so like him.

“No, we’ve learned that if you eavesdrop on conversations, you’re likely to hear something that you don’t want to.” He corrected her.

“I was hardly eavesdropping!” She protested. “You’re less than a metre away and you didn’t exactly say it quietly. It’s not like I wanted to listen to…to that. And you!” She leaned forward so she could look at Noelle. “You aren’t going to let him demean you like that, are you? I thought you were the strong one here?”

“I am.” Noelle grinned, some of her blush fading. “I’m just winding him up. It amuses me to let him think he’s getting away with things. I was going to throw it back in his face later.”

“Glad to hear it.” Lisette high fived her and then turned to look at Blue. “You treat my future stepmother with a little more respect please, Papa. She’s our role model now.”

Well damn if that didn’t push all kinds of freaky buttons. A deep pang of desire to have Noelle playing that role in his life and in his family roared to ignition, clashing with an equally deep determination that no daughter of his would ever be spoken to like he’d just spoken to Noelle. If he ever caught a man threatening to make them beg, he’d break their neck.

“Woah…wait a minute!” It was Noelle’s turn to freak out. “Sweetie, your dad and I are just good friends. We’re not getting married.”

“Aren’t we?” Blue quirked an eyebrow. “Woman, you are the love of my life. We’re getting married one day.
” He couldn’t help himself. “I can’t wait to try married sex. Do you think it’s different?”

“Blue!” Noelle shrieked, mortified,
at the same time as Lisette blew up.

“Dad! That’s gross!”

“It’s not gross.” He replied mildly. “It’s the most natural thing in the world.”

“We need to stop talking about sex. Right now!” Noelle was scarlet again.

“You’re right; we’ve arrived.” Ignoring their mutinous glares, Blue parked the car and got out. He went to open Noelle’s door, but Thomas was already there, helping her out.

“Thank you, Thomas.” She turned to help Amelie out of the car and they went into the salon, without bothering to wait for the camera crew.

They ended up having a great day. The girls got treated, and dressed, like princesses and they adored the show. Noelle was just as entranced as she had been the first time around and Blue spent most of the performance watching her face light up with delight as the actors cast illusion after illusion.

They were buzzing when they got home and it took Noelle a long time to get Amelie to bed while Blue thanked their guards and locked up the house, turning the lights off. Thomas’ extension for Noelle’s bed hadn’t arrived yet, so he was tucked under the covers at her feet when Blue emerged from the shower. He was of half a mind to ask the sub to use a guest room, but he wasn’t Blue’s to boss around and he didn’t want to open that kettle of fish. The last thing he needed to do was piss Noelle off again.

Towelling off, he got all the lights and then slipped into bed, gathering her up. She mumbled something softly under her breath and he realised that she was already fast asleep.
He very nearly woke her up, but guilt stopped him. He’d caused the mess they were in, however inadvertently. It wasn’t fair to deprive her of sleep when she’d spent the day running around after his children.

His children. Just thinking it scared the hell out of him all over again. He could joke and laugh around them but there was a yawning abyss of
fear beneath it. What if he failed them? What if he was a terrible father? He didn’t have a lifestyle cut out to cope with children. What if he screwed them up for life? Kids were so fragile. One throwaway teasing comment on his part could traumatise their whole childhood. He didn’t know how to be a father. There wasn’t an instruction manual for being landed with a teenager, let alone a five year old.

Lisette was so grown up already, probably from her time in foster care. Being shuffled around and forced to live with strangers was bound to force her to grow up too quickly. Beneath his fear, his anger was still raging. It was worse because of the helplessness. He was so furious at Alexandra for not telling him about the girls, but however angry he was, he couldn’t take back the last decade or more of not being in their lives.
He’d just have to do his best to make up for it.