Captive Heart (7 page)

             
The cuffs gave way abruptly. After releasing her, Fabio took off her blindfold, but then sat on the edge of the bed unspeaking, his back to her. Saskia could sense that his mood had drastically changed. “Is that it?” she asked, bewildered. For all the pleasure, it disappointed her that their encounter had not led to intercourse or seemingly, any kind of reward for him.

             
“We are even,” he said glumly. “Go back to your apartment, Saskia. We won't speak about this again. Forget about me and what I do.”

             
“So that's it? You're just--”

             
“I said
forget.
I don't really care what you think about me as long as we are done.”

             
Saskia got dressed and stormed out. She didn't know what had become of his letter in the midst of everything, and she no longer cared. She had thought Fabio had gotten her in some humiliating positions that night. It turned out she'd had no idea.

             
Saskia paced and fretted around her apartment for hours after the episode with Fabio. She should have been infuriated at his sudden rejection of her, but she could tell something deeply troubled the man. What angered her was the thought that after the brief taste she'd had tonight, it would all be over. If Fabio went back to his activities with those clients, and she was forced to hear them every night, knowing she was shut out forever, she didn't know what she would do. She could not live under those circumstances, let alone work under them.

             
But that was the future. Right now she could not stop thinking about what she had wanted from Fabio and not gotten. It had been so long since she had last been with a man, and even at the best of times she had never quite found the satisfaction that she sought. With Fabio De Lucca, it just might have been possible. Instead it had been cruelly denied.

             
Eventually she wore herself out. Her body told her she had to go to bed, but her mind remained too keyed up to sleep. She wanted what she wanted, and she had to find it one way or another. After all those orgasms, she would not have thought she'd had another one in her, but the knot inside her wasn't going to let go unless she tried.

             
The toy that had been her constant companion since the noises from upstairs began was there for her now, far more reliable than a real man. But it could not hold her or listen to her, and it definitely could not keep her mind from wandering. She fought vainly to fantasize about anyone other than Fabio De Lucca. Needless to say, he was there at every corner her mind turned until finally, she lay naked with the dildo laying useless by her side, ready to try again when she was. But Saskia's spirit was given out. SaskiBlue had the validation of people all over the globe. She did not need a man like Fabio De Lucca. But Saskia Bergen wouldn't have minded having a little bit more of him in her life.

             
How did you stop being crazy about a man you had been crazy for before you'd ever even met him?

             
Saskia lay half asleep when the noises began. The scratching noise affected her dreams, and it took a great deal of time for their external nature to rouse her into consciousness. She sat up, blinking, not even wanting to imagine what time it was. The sound came to the right of her. She looked that way and bolted out of bed with a scream. A man, an intruder of some kind, was crouching on her windowsill tapping on the glass. But she had to still be dreaming. There was no way a man could be on the ledge this far above the ground. And there was no way that man would be Fabio De Lucca.

             
Except that it was.

             
Paying no heed to her nudity Saskia stormed to the window and flung it open. Her dom crouched in the night, dressed in black workout clothes, smiling at her.
“What the hell are you doing?”
she demanded.

             
“I couldn't sleep,” he said laconically. “A certain buxom blonde who wanted answers earlier just wouldn't leave my mind. I opened my window for some fresh air. One thing led to another.”

             
“We've
thirty feet
off the ground! Are you trying to kill yourself?”

             
Fabio shrugged. “I said earlier that what I do is about expanding boundaries. I guess that applies to me, too. I spend a lot of time at the climbing gym, and I guess it paid off.”

             
Saskia folded her arms, not to cover her breasts, but in anger. “If I don't let you come inside, can you get back up there?”

             
He glanced to the ledge above him. “I hope so.  But it's my first time trying this, so I'm rather hoping you'll let me inside.”

             
Now Saskia unfolded her arms. This night had taken a turn for the whimsical that she could not pass up, despite her mixed feelings about the man. “The way you yanked me into your apartment earlier, I'm surprised you don't just yank me out there with you and have your way with me right there on the ledge.”

             
She might be enjoying the game, but Fabio clearly wanted it to reach the next level. He climbed inside, seized her, and kissed her. He had given her four orgasms, but this was their first real kiss. It did not disappoint. If anything, it was intense enough to get her dangerously ready for number five. “If it's all the same,” he said, “I'd rather have my way with you in here. So much more room.”

             
They barely got the window closed. From that moment on it was a tangled blur of arms and legs: a frenzied mating, too long delayed. Fabio had left his dom act behind in the room above. This was pure lovemaking -- no frills, but plenty of intensity and action. Saskia managed to brush the dildo off the bed and onto the floor before he saw it, not that she thought he would care and not that she would care if he did. The damn thing was just in the way. Besides, when he pushed into her, it only made her realize what a poor substitute the dildo was.

             
“Why... Why didn't you do this before?” she asked as she rolled with the tide of his thrusts.

             
“I had to test... myself,” he said breathily. “Giving myself to you would have been losing control... I wasn't ready for that. Maybe I'm still not but... Ugh! I can't hold back from you anymore. You're all I've thought about since that one day...
Saskia!”

             
Fabio had brought with him a condom and had kept the presence of mind to put it on. Protected, he came inside her and Saskia felt every throb and pulse of him within her deepest parts. The motion and the shape of his cock hit her just right, literally. As his orgasm subsided hers began. She grabbed him close, Fabio showing no pain at her nails in his back as climax took her away to a place beyond herself.

             
They lay enjoying one another's company for a long time, not saying much and not needing to. Eventually Fabio rolled onto his back and lay looking up at the ceiling that had kept his secrets so poorly.

             
“That contract that arrived today was actually kind of important,” he said at last. “Dominique is scheduled for an appointment tomorrow night.”

             
Saskia's heart sank. Oh no. Why did he have to go and talk about this now?

             
“She will be disappointed when I cancel again, but the way things stand, I can't see myself in the dom business for the foreseeable future.”

             
“Why?” asked Saskia, puzzled, yet hopeful. Sensing her hopefulness, he smiled.

             
“Because the way things are going, it looks like I might wind up with a girlfriend, and that line of work would be highly inappropriate.”

4

             
Fabio De Lucca was changing, and he was not sure how it made him feel. He was in his office at work one day, when Bryant Jameson, a fellow attorney at the firm, walked by and got a look at his workstation. Fabio's team had just finished representing a tech company that had brought a successful suit against a former employee who had violated his non-disclosure agreement, and he had earned a little downtime before turning his attention to his next case. Jameson walked over to the desk, grinning, and began reading aloud over Fabio's shoulder.

             
“'Ancient Egyptian banquets and festivals were lengthy affairs held in the desert's scorching heat. To give their bodies a pleasant aroma, noblewomen would wear scented candles on their headdresses. As the wax melted it would give off refreshing scents.'
What the heck are you reading here, man? I thought you were Italian, not Egyptian.”

             
Fabio shot Bryant a look that told him he was not being funny. “I'm not Italian either, I'm Peruvian, like I've told you a thousand times. It's some research that my girlfriend is doing for her work. She's been showing me stuff like this, and I'm finding it quite interesting.”

             
“So you're dating an archaeologist now?”

             
Fabio steepled his fingers patiently. “Actually, she's a fashion writer.”

             
“In college I once dated an art history major, but that never got me interested in Egyptian deodorant candles.”

             
Fabio shrugged, “What can I say?”

             
Bryant shook his head and smiled again. “You're weird. Later, man.”

             
“Yes,” Fabio mused to no one in particular as his colleague walked away. “Yes I am.”

             
The encounter with Bryant Jameson was just one way in which Fabio's life had changed. He had never been much for joking around at work or explaining his pursuits, either one. Most people didn't even know that he
had
pursuits. The fact that he could have friendly, teasing banter with Bryant and that Bryant felt comfortable enough to approach him with it in the first place, revealed just how much had changed in just a few short weeks.

             
Even outside of being a dom master, Fabio's relations with women had always been tightly controlled. He did not have dates with women so much as he'd had meetings, stiffly formal and designed to keep him in tight control. Now he was taking Saskia with him to the climbing gym or laughing with her at Leo Podolski's stories as he guided them to one of his favorite hidden shops or cafes.

             
Thanks to her, he had gotten to know more people in their apartment building in a few short weeks than he had in years. He did not know how to feel about that.

             
These things and more stormed across the dark recesses of his mind as he came down the sidewalk toward their building. Already he anticipated her. The loss of control was becoming disturbingly familiar. With her, even his need to dominate had not even been as great. She was still very much a stranger in the strange land of BDSM, and he took care to not force his lifestyle upon her. The old Fabio would never have had such qualms. Anyone whose interests were not compatible with his own could simply go the other way, but to even consider such a thing now seemed abhorrent.

             
He entered Saskia's apartment and walked into an amazing aroma of cooking food. Spanish this time, apparently. She had been a mediocre cook when she arrived in New York, but the lesbian couple downstairs were prodigious amateur chefs; and Saskia had been learning everything she could from them.

             
“I hope you can tolerate Chinese take-out as a back-up,” Saskia said, rushing back to the stove after a quick kiss of greeting. “I've never done anything with chorizo before, and I have no idea how it's going to turn out.”

             
“So that's what I smell,” Fabio replied, setting his briefcase down by the sofa. “It's been a while. I haven't had chorizo in years.”

             
“I didn't even know what it
was
until two days ago,” Saskia said as she took a simmering pan off the burner. “I swear the more I learn about the different things people eat, the more I feel like an idiot. I can't believe I didn't know about all this stuff before.”

             
When Fabio did not respond, she noticed the distant look that had come over his chiseled features as he sat on her secondhand couch. “What? What is it?”

             
“This,” he said with a gesture that encompassed the room. “Coming home to home-cooked meals every night. When I lived on the Upper West Side before I moved here and started my side business, I had a housekeeper who cooked and a personal trainer who set-up the menu. I never even cooked in my own kitchen. This is just... strange.”

             
Fabio regretted his confession the moment he said it, the look on Saskia's face telling all. “Oh no, I didn't mean it like that,” he said, rising and going to her. “I appreciate this so much. You have no idea. It's just so different from all I have ever known. Sometimes, I don't know if I'm still quite the person I was.”