Cries of Penance (6 page)

“Yes, Mistress.” She pets the top of my head and I apologize. “I don’t know why I’m shaking.”

She bends at the waist to meet my gaze, lifting my chin with two fingers to keep me from looking away. “Sure you do. You’ve had people in just this place, ridden by adrenaline.”

I lick my lips, the truth of her words making my mouth go dry. She can’t know the truth, not possibly. If she was an agent, my brother would have told me.

“Are you a sadist, mutt?” She lifts my chin a notch higher. “Do you think this is the way to gain my trust so that you can play a power-switch on me?” Her voice seems verged on hysteria. “I. Don’t. Switch. Understood?”

I don’t blink. “Understood, Mistress. Al I desire is to be your puppy.”

She laughs in my face before spinning away from me. I sit stil , quiet, watching her pace the room like a caged cat. She clicks her incisors together, and I know that she is thinking too hard. Almost to herself she says, “There’s no 49

Cries of Penance – Roxy Harte

fraternizing between employees. It isn’t al owed. Period. I could lose my job, and I can’t lose my job here.”

Stil pacing, she hugs herself in her arms, and it is as if she has forgotten I am in the room.

“Garrett wouldn’t fire me.” She stops suddenly and looks down at me. “Can you keep this relationship a secret?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

She sighs, seeming to relax with my assurance. Her entire posture changes.

She drops the strap-on harness to her ankles and steps out of it. She peels herself out of the latex panties she wears beneath the dress and drops them to the floor as wel . In a slow, sensual tease, she peels down one long glove at a time, rol ing them off and discarding them.

My heart speeds up as she walks away, turning her back on me. Her scent is thick in the room as she sits in front of her vanity and removes her makeup. I don’t move, I can barely breathe as her true beauty is revealed. Pale skin, freckles, and a soft fringe of auburn lashes. She pivots on the cushioned seat, her knees wide enough to give me a ful pussy view. She is shaved bare, her labia pink. “Help me with the boots.”

Exhausted, I lumber off the platform and crawl to her. I take her ankle in my hand, lifting her foot to slide down the zipper. I tug off each boot one at a time, revealing bare skin, bare feet, toenails painted bright red. Without asking permission, I lift her foot and suck her big toe into my mouth.

She doesn’t reprimand me, her eye lashes flutter closed and she sighs softly.

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Encouraged, I worship each toe with my mouth, sucking, licking. I draw my tongue down the arch of her foot.

“Enough! Back off, mutt.”

I sit back on my heels and note that her expression reflects the confusion I feel.

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“I don’t want to own anything until I know I’ve found the place where me and things belong together. I’m not quite sure where that is just yet.”

Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tif any’s

San Francisco

Pregnancy has given me new insight about myself. I’m a perfectionist. And a workaholic. Who knew? I would have never believed the truth of it but how else can I explain how hard I drive myself, pushing the limits of mental and physical exhaustion to new heights? At twenty-seven weeks, my back aches constantly and I feel grotesque, I’m constipated…and today al I can think about is strawberries. Strawberries! I sent Hol y, my secretary, to the market to fetch them and immediately felt guilty for having her go. But I needed strawberries! And I ate the entire quart without sharing. I should feel guilty, and not solely for the sake of the strawberries. Today she has done her job and most of my work too.

I just can’t concentrate. I keep wondering how long I should wait to ask her to run to the market and get me more strawberries. I’m a horrible, selfish person.

Awakening from fal ing asleep at my desk is the last straw and a sure sign I need to be home...in bed…sleeping, not having sex. Because despite what I consider my enormous, very pregnant with twins, not very sexy shape, my Master can’t seem to get enough of my body. Especial y now that my other Master, Thomas Stephanopoulos, has been cal ed away on an assignment. A very long assignment. On the other side of the nation.

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Garrett has taken advantage of the situation and feels that sex twice a day every day is not too often. Normal y, I’d agree. Two times, three times, a dozen times. Let’s go! I love sex. But not this week. Emotions, deadlines, and pregnancy on top of a ful night crawling around in feline persona as Garrett’s sex pet has taken a tol on my body. I know I can’t keep up the pace I’ve maintained for the last year…and the truth is, no one except myself expects me to.

It’s just—I need to work. I miss Lord Fyre so much. The pain is so raw in my chest. It seems like he only left this morning, it seems he’s been away forever. I was twenty-three weeks pregnant then, and now I am into my third trimester. I am absolutely miserable. I’m done with the whole thing and have considered begging for a Caesarian section now just to put me out of my misery.

Staring into space, a field of turquoise is al that I see, my office wal at The Darkness, though I could as easily be at Lord Fyre’s beach house, the place he took me to when I was solely his for three months. I close my eyes, breathing deeply, my hands held over my baby bump. I feel one of the babies stretch inside me, and I fight back tears. I miss their father so badly.

With my eyes closed, I stil see the blue. Blocking out the ringing telephones, copying machines, and people chatter on the other side of my closed door, I can even see the shadows cast by the flickering flames of candles spent long ago.

There was a time when I was solely his, Garrett and I had separated so that I could spend three months finding my darkness with Lord Fyre. Our time was cut short. God, our time is always being cut short. But that particular time was because his estranged wife was having a baby. He rushed to her side and she 53

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wasn’t even carrying his child. I wonder if he wil be so noble when my time to deliver comes.

Fighting tears is useless. I want to cry. I want to sob and rant and rave and scream, and although it might be al right for Kitten to do any one of those things at Lewd Larry’s, Celia Brentwood, CEO of The Darkness has to represent at least a modicum of respectability.

Silent tears slide down my cheeks as I embrace the memory of Lord Fyre paying tribute to my body a final time before leaving me for his wife. I laid across his bed face down, my body exhausted from a night wel -spent and warmed from the attention he paid it with paddle, flogger, and his bare hand. I was surprised when he asked, “Are you ready for the birch cane, sweetheart?”

He’d never used a cane on me before. No one had. And I was so afraid. I almost safe-worded, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I loved Lord Fyre so in that moment that I would have al owed him to do anything he wanted to my body.

Surrendering to the fear was the hardest part but once I did, once I said, “I am ready, Lord Fyre,” I knew utter and complete peace.

He helped me to rol over, because my body was already settling into the pain of our previous encounter, and then there was no delay, no time to regret or renege.

The birch landed across the tops of my thighs. Once, twice…four times.

Agonizing pain split me in two, making my body spasm in reflex. I screamed and covered my thighs with my hands, not because I wanted him to stop. Because I didn’t. Primal instinct made me try to protect myself from more injury.

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I was trying to force myself to relax, embarrassed I couldn’t, when he flicked the birch against my stomach. My hands flew to the new source of pain. I wasn’t consciously in control any more, my body reacted on instinct. He would have had to restrained me at that point to keep me from trying to block the blows, but I didn’t know where or when the birch was going to bite next. I’d stopped screaming, I was resolved to more pain.

More pain.

Anything for Lord Fyre.

Anything to please him.

Because he was saying goodbye and as far as either of us knew, he was saying goodbye forever. He would never own me again. Never master me again.

He slashed the cane against the inside of my thigh and the pain tore through me, such ridiculous pain, I sat up. That was the reflexive move. That was the only way left to protect myself. I sat up and threw my arms around his neck, not begging him to stop, not begging him to stay, but begging him to remember me…without words...just with the language of my body, then he left me.

And now he’s gone again.

At least this time I have his promise to return.

My secretary, Hol y, buzzes my intercom. “Celia? Line three.”

I sit up, wiping my face and grabbing a tissue before pushing the intercom button. “No cal s, Hol y. Remember?”

She answers, “I know, I’m sorry, but he said it was urgent and I thought…

Celia, it’s Thomas.”

“Fuck, Hol y, why didn’t you say that.”

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I pick up line three. “Thomas?”

“Why aren’t you answering your cel ?”

He sounds frantic, and I wonder what is wrong but then I realize he is worried about me. I rummage in my purse and find my cel , my Thomas only cel , registered to an alias he created for me, Blair Harrington, which makes me feel so much closer to him, being part of his cloak-and-dagger world, even though I’m not, not real y. I check the settings. “I’m sorry, I had it set on vibrate and I didn’t hear it.”

Seeing ten missed cal s, I feel horrible for making him worry.

“As long as you’re al right.”

“I’m fine,” I lie, because what would be the point of tel ing him that I’m mourning the lack of him in my day? “I miss you terribly.”

“I miss you, Sophia. I love you. Do not scare me like that again. What in the hel are you doing at work?”

He cal s me my birth name, and it makes me feel cherished. He is the only one who has ever cal ed me Sophia except my mother. I shake my head although he can’t see it or the smirk on my face. Neither he nor Garrett understand that whether I am miserable at home or at work—I am stil miserable.

“Stop worrying. Please. I saw Dr. Wang yesterday. Everything is fine.”

“Just be careful. Twins almost always come early and often unexpectedly. I just want you to be prepared.” He sounds wistful when he adds, “God, I wish I was there with you.”

“I wish you were here. You sound so close over the damn phone. It’s hard to believe you are two thousand miles away.”

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“Almost twenty-seven hundred,” he corrects. “Closer to three thousand.”

I growl. “You aren’t helping.”

He chuckles and I know he is teasing me. Stil , it is very far and I am very sad.

“I don’t have long, sweetheart, so tel me everything as fast as you can.”

“Everything?” I can’t think of a single thing to say beyond how much I miss him. “The babies miss you. They’re kicking and rol ing around al of the time now.

I feel like my stomach is going to split open any moment and an alien with lash out and this wil have al been a dream.”

“It isn’t a dream,” he assures me. His voice sounds wistful. “I’l bet you are sexy as hel .”

I chuckle, shaking my head. “What is it with men and pregnant women? Trust me, I am not sexy.”

“So-o, Garrett thinks you’re sexy too, huh?”

I bite my lip, feeling like I’ve said too much, but I’m also smiling, because I can hear the smile in his voice. I answer, “Maybe,” before admitting, “It’s weird. I just don’t get it.”

“Do you feel more sensual?”

“I feel fat.”

“And?” he encourages.

“I feel…raw…you know? It’s different now, when I’m at Lewd Larry’s, when I’m crawling around. It seems like I can connect with my animal more now. So, yes, when I am in character, I feel sexy, primitive, feral.”

“Then that is what he’s responding to.”

I sigh, holding onto the sound of his voice. It’s so comforting—hearing him.

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“He wants to move us out of the penthouse,” I blurt out.

“I know,” he admits. “We’ve discussed it.”

They talked? Wel of course they did, but knowing they did hurts a little. Not jealousy, never that, just a little left-out-ed-ness. “You think it’s a good idea to sel the penthouse?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m the guy that owns more properties than I can keep track of. And if it was me, I’d hold onto it. But I also understand Garrett’s perspective.

You have to remember he shared the penthouse with Tony. They lived there.

They loved there. After Tony was kil ed, Garrett couldn’t let go of their home, he couldn’t move on. He’s ready now. He wants a new place to start over in. A place to create fresh memories in.”

Duh . I feel like a nimrod. “I didn’t even think about that.”

“So you wil stop fighting him now?”

Garrett told him we’re having a major war over this issue if he’s mentioning it now. “Is that why you cal ed me? Master asked you to?”

Thomas sighs heavily. I don’t want to fight with him. I don’t want to fight with Garrett. I just don’t know that I’m ready to move back to suburbia and nosey neighbors.

“What are you afraid of, Sophia?”

“People talking. People saying that I don’t deserve my babies because I’m a sexual deviant. I don’t ever want Children’s Services to show up on my doorstep to take my babies away. It’s crazy, but I feel safer in the city than I would in suburbia.”

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I can imagine him nodding, understanding. We get each other. Why can’t it be this easy with Garrett?

“First, you would have to invite them in. They can’t just enter your residence.

They won’t be able to just take our babies without some provocation and then they would come with a court order.”

“What if a neighbor complained?”