Learning to Move Forward: Novella #3.5 (8 page)

“I think all of you have been caught in a bad loop. Instead of keeping the lines of communication open and addressing issues shortly after the accident, you’ve instead widened the distance between all of you, allowing more of life’s issues to widen the gap even further, until now when you’re at each other’s throats, barely holding it in.”

She looked at both of us. “I think it’d be beneficial to have both Jonathan and Laurel with you when you confront your parents. They can help validate your statements and concerns and possibly get them to see you from a new point of view.”

I digested what was said and agreed. “You’re right. This needed to be addressed a long time ago, but any time I got close to doing it, my mother would always shift the conversation elsewhere. Having my cousin and my fiancé with me might make them listen.”

“What about your job?” Jonathan asked.

“I was going to talk with Garrett yesterday. I dropped by his house after the fitting to spend more time with you and the babies, not expecting you guys to get called into work. Then everything seemed to snowball from there and here we are.” I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I promise to talk to him as soon as he’ll spare a minute.”

“It sounds like you two have a good plan. Now just make sure you follow through with it. Feel free to call me if you have any issues or concerns that arise from your talks.” Jocelyn got up and came over to sit beside me on the sofa. “I think you’ll feel free to move forward with life once these issues are put to rest. Let me know how things go.”

I gave her a quick hug. “Thank you!”

“Any time, dear. Now go take back control of your life and live it.” She smiled.

“I will, promise!” Then I remembered. “What do we do about my fear of being put into a similar position of that night? You know…doggie style.”

She looked over at Jonathan. “Don’t use anything that puts her on all fours, whether it be a bench, bed, or whatever. Let her have full use of her feet or arms. A good thing to try would be using the edge of a desk, the sofa, or a flat surface, where she has use of her arms.”

My eyes started to widen a bit at the idea. Already this was sounding a bit scary to me. She patted me on the hands. “Not to worry, I’m sure he’ll let you have total control of the situation. You don’t have to be alarmed with this one, he’s got a heart of gold.”

That was definitely true. Jonathan would do anything for anyone he loved or cared about.

She turned back to him. “You’ll want to try this position for just a few minutes at a time and try to work up to longer periods of time. Give her words of praise, tell her how much she means to you, and that you love her. Be sure to ask her who has her and that she knows it’s you. From there you’ll want to slowly progress to all fours, but no restraints.”

“So what you’re saying is to take baby steps in trying to overcome my fears?” I asked.

“That’s right, Grace. You’ll progress from standing to all fours, then no restraints to breakaway ones, then to real ones, but no actual sex until you both are comfortable. Essentially, what you’re doing is retraining your mind to not associate the physical act with that night. Instead you’re refocusing on a better memory that you’ll make with your husband.”

Jonathan had remained quiet until then. “If you never get past it, then don’t worry. We can always try something else. I don’t need certain acts or submissions of pleasure to be happy, love. All I need is you.”

We said our goodbyes, promising to call her with updates and make an appointment next week, when we figured out our schedules.

Chapter 9

Jonathan stopped by his restaurant on the way home to make sure everything was running smoothly and to pick us up some food for dinner.

The place was busy, but everything was running smoothly and the customers had little wait time on their food. But my man had to go off and talk with every member of the staff to make sure they were happy and see if he was needed.

This has to stop or we’ll never have any time to ourselves!

I used his office to make a private call to Laurel. I told her about our meeting with Jocelyn. She agreed it was long overdue for me to talk with my parents. “You have some unresolved issues and it’s about damn time you get it in the open.”

She promised to be with me when we finally got my parents to pinpoint a time we could talk. She was surprised when I asked if Garrett was available to talk. I admitted my job concerns and—no surprise—she told us to come on over and she’d make sure he made time to speak with me. “At least I can help you resolve one issue today,” she stated firmly.

I made her promise not to tell him why I needed to chat. I know I overwhelmed him at times with my personality, and truth be told, I loved to see him sweat!

A soft knock came at the door. It was Jonathan. “Are you almost done, Grace? Ready to go home?”

I shook my head. “We may need to pick up some more food. We have a small stop to make on the way home. Laurel just promised me a tête-à-tête session with my brother-in-law to be.”

“Okay? Are you sure you want to do this now? What if he confirms your suspicions?” I could hear the concern in his voice.

“Then I have a choice to make. I can either keep working for him or I can find a job elsewhere.” Since we were talking about jobs, I had to speak up about something else that was bothering me. “Can I talk to you about something?”

He stepped inside the office and closed the door, surrounding me with his arms and capturing his lips with mine. “Sure.”
Why does he have to do this to make my mind melt and my knees go weak?

My mind was befuddled from the passionate kiss he’d just laid on me. It took me a couple of minutes to get my focus back. “I wanted to speak to you about the restaurant.”

“Okay? What about it?” He sat down with a curious smirk on his face. He knew I didn’t know much about running a restaurant, though I’d helped out a time or two when he had some staff out due to illness.

I straddled his lap, which caused me to gasp, when I felt his stiff rod poking my crotch. “I was wondering which you enjoy more, working for Garrett or working here?”

His hands came down on my hips and he rocked up into me, causing me to gasp. “I like both, but lately I seem to enjoy the contract negotiations at Waters Medical Industries. Why?”

Two could play this game. I ground down against the bulge in his pants. “Have you ever thought about keeping the restaurant, but promoting one of your staff to be a manager, so they’ll have to deal with some of the problems and not bother you as much?”

He leaned forward and plastered my neck with gentle kisses and swipes of his tongue. “I’ve tossed around the idea, why?”

I rubbed my chest against his, feeling my nipples harden as a result. “What if you promoted one of them, but maintained creative rights and ownership of the place, plus you gave them a small stake in the restaurant? It would probably boost morale, make for fewer missed days, since they’d all have a small piece of the pie, so to speak, and have to work more cohesively as a team.”

What he did next happened so quickly, I didn’t have much time to react. He locked the door, had my pants and his off, and had me splayed out across the desk on my back. “I want your arms above your head. Grab hold of the desk, if you can, and don’t let go until I tell you to.” He reared back and in one quick thrust he pushed balls deep into my pussy.

His lips came down hard on mine, capturing my gasp. “I need you quiet, love. This is a restaurant, after all.”

This wasn’t making love, like we’d done earlier this morning. This was hard, fast, dominant fucking. He set a pace that had my body whimpering with the need to release. “No coming until I tell you.”

Damn him! I needed to come now!

“But I—” I couldn’t get my words out as his tongue burst into my mouth thrusting in and out, much like his cock was doing to me. Jonathan took complete possession of me and I loved this.

His breathing began to quicken and I could feel his balls draw up against me. “I want your eyes on me, Grace. I want to see my beautiful bride-to-be come on command, now!”

I opened my mouth to scream as the orgasm rolled over me with such intensity, that lights shot off behind my eyes. No sound came out. He was the same as me, no words, no grunts, just extreme passion passing between two souls who’d experienced a bonding that defied words; a cathartic release of sorts.

His hands caressed my face as his tongue dove deep into my mouth, exploring every inch of me. My legs locked around his hips as he ground out his own release into me. We didn’t move for what seemed like an eternity.

“Are you okay, my love?” He hovered over me with apprehension on his face. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

I took a deep breath in, a smile spreading across my face. “Permission to touch you, sir?”

He smiled, biting my lower lip playfully. “Permission granted, subbie.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and drew him closer, where I could show him my gratitude by swiping my tongue into his mouth. He took control of the kiss and we were lost to each other yet again as his rod stiffened and began moving inside of me for round two.

A half hour later, we finally emerged from the office, no one the wiser. We took our food order and headed over to Garrett and Laurel’s house.

In the car he admitted, “I like the idea you have with the restaurant. Are you sure you don’t want to just work there for me? We can run it together and have plenty of conferences in my office.” His wiggled his eyebrows seductively.

“You know I enjoy working in the medical industry. I love the pharmaceutical sales, but I wouldn’t be opposed to doing other business work within the medical arena.”

He tipped his head to the side, pondering a thought. “I bet Garrett could—”

I didn’t even let him get the thought out before I opposed it. “No favors. I only want a job that I’ve earned, nothing more.”

His hand came over and clamped onto my knee, giving it a squeeze. “Are you getting mouthy with me, subbie?”

“We aren’t playing right now, sir. I thought I was to be open and honest with you always.”

“That’s what I love about you, Grace. You blew me away with your honesty and no holds barred approach right from the beginning. When you went after my brother in the hospital, when Laurel was attacked, that’s when I knew you were meant for me.”

“What?” I looked over at him and snickered. “You’ve actually wanted to belt your brother a time or two?”

“Sure. Who wouldn’t? Sometimes he can be a pompous ass. Why do you think I ended up in therapy for a while?”

“So that’s how you know Jocelyn so well?”

He nodded. “Yes. I’d been the only brother, the oldest son, until Garrett was adopted. Then he became the center of attention and I became the middle child.”

I stared at him in amazement. He was jealous. He didn’t seem the type. “But you were only five.”

“It didn’t matter. I still felt like I’d been abandoned. So I acted out for a couple of years until I was placed in therapy.” He paused a moment, laughing to himself. “I was a fool really. I didn’t understand why Garrett required so much attention. My parents and Jocelyn, who’d just graduated from college and started working with a group of psychologists, before starting her own practice several years later, kept trying to tell me why he needed help, but the biggest break came when I heard him crying one night.”

“So what did you do?” I wondered.

“Our bedrooms were connected by a shared bathroom. I heard him inside crying and managed to get the door open. He tried to shy away from me, but I scrunched down on the floor next to him.

“He asked me not to hate him. I told him I could never hate him, but I was jealous that he’d stolen some of our parents’ attention. He apologized about that and told me how he missed his parents and aunt.” His hand clutched the wheel tightly, causing his fingers to turn a bit white.

I placed my hand on his leg and gave it a squeeze and noted that his demeanor softened a bit. He had one tear in his eye. “I couldn’t understand how he managed to keep himself together with all that he’d gone through. My heart broke for him that night and we spent the better part of a few hours just hugging one another.”

I waited for him to regain his composure. “We finally became brothers that night. We did everything together from that point on until he’d graduated early from high school and went cross country to college. I had a hard time dealing with that and saw Jocelyn again to work through those issues.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” I admitted. “What issues exactly?”

“I’d felt like he’d run off and left me. I knew he was at school, but I was mad because I was left behind.” He looked over at me, half smiling. “Garrett assured me that we’d always be brothers and would one day work together. He’d already decided to follow in his birth father’s footsteps and study engineering, but cross it with the fascination he’d found for my dad’s love of medicine. By the time he was in his junior year, I was in my freshman year at Duke University and decided to focus on business and law.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, why the law part?” I understood the business side of things, but law?

“Garrett had plans to start his own business with the money his parents had left and my father had invested for him. He loves all aspects of developing new gadgets and can spot faulty work and weak business plans a mile away, but he doesn’t have the patience to pursue or negotiate a contract. That’s where I come in.” He turned and winked at me.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So all of you started the business together once you were out of college?”

“Garrett had already begun designing the new machine for my dad as part of his graduate work at MIT. So the machine was ready for a patent and testing by the time he graduated. At the same time I’d finished up my bachelor’s and started negotiating a place he could do business in and expand, if needed. Sarah, our sister, was in the midst of getting her degree in architecture and design. She helped make good use of the building and designed the interior.” He stopped and thought for a second, then laughed. “I guess we did all go into business together.”

He went on to add, “We’ve discussed how I’d gotten bored with things at work. That’s when I took a few classes, discovered a love for cooking and opened a bistro. I still did some consulting work for his business, but I couldn’t tolerate that bitch, Andrea. She seemed to fake to me and definitely had her claws into Garrett. I could see him trying to appease her and making bad decisions and I couldn’t sit around and continue to let that happen. I confronted him and told him I was leaving until he came to his senses.

“When he finally saw reason, and she’d exposed herself for being a backstabbing bitch, he kicked her ass out of the picture and I came back to work part-time. I actually enjoy the thrill of negotiating a contract and ripping apart the ones that tried to pull a fast one on my brother. I love business—the art of making the deal.” He leaned over at a stop sign and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.

“I guess we share that interest, about making the deal. That’s what I love about pharmaceutical sales,” I admitted.

We rode the rest of the way in silence. I knew he’d seen Jocelyn, but he always came up with a reason to change the topic before admitting why. I now understood. He was ashamed of being jealous of Garrett.

***

“Okay, Grace. You have my attention, now what did you need?” Garrett sat behind a desk in his home office. I felt like a school girl in trouble with the principal, almost too afraid to talk.

When I didn’t speak right away, he walked around and took a seat next to me. “We’re family, Grace, you can talk to me without worry. Now what’s wrong?”

I swallowed hard. “I need to know if I only got my job with your company because you were in love with Laurel.” Phew, the words were hard to start but then came rushing out.

He leaned back in his chair, his hand rubbing against his chin. “I’ve been expecting this question for a while. You’re like me, you don’t like handouts.”

He moved forward, clasping his hands together and leaning across his knees. “I’ll be honest with you. I was prepared to do anything, and I do mean anything, to get Laurel to move down to Orlando. I was enamored by her and wanted the chance to know her better.

“As you know, I gave you both the condo we had for business purposes just to get her in the same building as me. I could tell you two were close by the way she talked about you in her interview. I could sense she wouldn’t come without you.”

My heart deflated. I’d gotten the job as a favor to Laurel.