Sebastian - Secrets (12 page)

“What the hell is that?” I demand.

“Sshh.  Enjoy the sensation.”  The coldness is gone from my nipples.  I wait, panting.  Every fibre, every nerve ending awaits the next sensation.  When it touches me once more, it’s on my thigh.  The coldness drags slowly up each thigh in turn, before pressing hard against my pussy.  Pushing harder now, the cool phallus struggles to enter me, it’s too large.  I’m frantic, arching my back to aid the passage so that I can be filled, and it’s inside me.  Gloriously hard, it’s thrust further until the pain almost overwhelms the pleasure.  He rotates it and repeatedly drives it against my G spot, and I scream for him to stop, lest I climax without his permission.

“Co
me for me now.  That’s right, feel it, baby,” he instructs and I abandon all control as the orgasm courses through my body in waves that don’t subside

The tremors
continue until he slides the thing out of me, only then does my body settle.  He removes the blindfold and kisses me but I’m spent and confused.

“That was just for you, Elizabeth, but this is just for me now.”  He turns me over
roughly, pulls me onto my hands and knees, and slaps my raised bare buttock with the flat of his hand, so hard that it stings and I cry out in surprised protestation.  Then he’s kissing my smarting skin, before holding fast to my hips and pounding into me hard.  He drives deeply into me, faster and deeper, his testicles thwacking against me, until he reaches his own throbbing climax, collapsing over my arched back as he finds his release.

He lies beside me
now in silence.  I feel puzzled.  On one hand, I’ve just had the most amazing sex but, conversely, his roughness, and memories of my afternoon with Simon are awakened.   The roughness is so erotic, and again, I feel ashamed that I enjoyed the sting of his hand.  I have so much to consider, such a disparity between my real life and my experience here at Penmorrow, with Sebastian.

“So deep in thought my love
,” he traces his lips across my shoulder and pulls me into his embrace. 

“What was that?” I croak.

“This?” he reaches over the side of the bed, and scoops up the object of my torture from the floor.  He rests on one elbow as he holds it out to me.  I take it and feel the weight in my hands - it’s heavy and cool in a matt silver finish.  Cone shaped, it is wide at the base and tapers to a rounded point and is so enormous, that I need two hands to hold it.

“Holy crap, Sebastian.”  Wide eyed I pass the thing back to him.  He drops it to the floor with a loud thud.

“That was too bloody much,” I’m angry.

“Yes, I agree,” he says.  “But that was the hardest you’ve ever come, wasn’t it Elizabeth?”

“Well, yes.  But the way you teased me, I was going out of my mind Sebastian.”

“It’s part of my dynamic
.  By denying and then allowing you an orgasm, it’s so much more intense when it comes.  For you and me.  From now on,” he whispers against my ear, “you only come when I give you permission.  I own your orgasms.  Understood?”  He kisses my earlobe.

I sit up,
ouch I’m sore
, and slap his shoulder.  He laughs!

“Good shot!” He’s smirking at me
then grabs my hand as it rises to strike him again.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” I yell, really mad now.

“Go with it, darling.  You know you want to.”

He pushes me back against the pillows and tickles me while I fight to push him off.  He’
s too strong for me and soon I’m laughing and giggling when I want to be furious with him.

“Go to sleep Elizabeth,
we’ll talk about it all tomorrow.  I want to show you the grounds and more of the house tomorrow too.” 

“Night Sebastian
, you infuriating, weird, twisted man,” I murmur drowsily as sleep envelopes me in her grey cloak.

I’m running through the house and it is dark, so unnervingly gloomy.  I can’t look back, I have to get out but a woman dressed in black is gaining on me. Her face is white – almost translucent – and she’s screaming at me, “he’s mine.  You must die.”

I slam into furniture, throw it aside, I have got to escape,
she’s coming, she’s coming…oh so near now…
MY GOD...MY GOD…NO DON’T…

8

I open my eyes, sweating, scared.  Where am I?

“Hush, you had a nightmare darling
.  It’s ok you’re safe, you’re here with me in bed… it’s all over Elizabeth” he soothes. 

I look at him and
my eyes start to focus but the face of the woman in black haunts me still.  I shudder and sit up, turning on the lamp on my nightstand.  Blinking, my eyes adjust to the light and all is as it should be and so I start to calm down.  Sebastian is stroking my back, and yet I can’t shake off a feeling of foreboding.

We nestle under the covers together and a more peaceful sleep comes eventually.

After a fitful night, the morning brings a languid start to the day.  Sebastian brings mugs of coffee and we sit up against our feather filled pillows, drinking and chatting easily and I welcome the domesticity. 

“Hungry?” asks Sebastian.

“Ravenous” I reply.

He lifts his eyebrow and I know that wicked glint in his eye.

“For food.  I’m hungry for food,” I laugh.

We are soon washed and dressed and making our way downstairs to the kitchen. 

When we reach the hall I stop to retrieve my phone from my bag while Sebastian continues to the kitchen.  I text my mother, telling her that I’m fine, to kiss the children for me, I’m missing them all.  There are no messages from Alan and I make a mental note to text him later, guilt besieging me.

In the kitchen the hired help
is cracking eggs into a bowl, I recognise her as the woman to whom I gave my business card previously.  She smiles at me as I enter, but her smile seems disingenuous.  The hairs prick on the back of my neck as realisation dawns on me that hers is the face of the woman in my nightmare. 
Don’t be ridiculous, Beth.  She was on your mind, that’s all.

“You must be Scarlett
,” I say with a cheeriness I don’t feel. “We haven’t really been introduced.” I hold out my hand and she shakes it lightly and returns to her eggs.  She’s dressed in the black slim fitting dress again I observe, and then I freeze.  She’s wearing a black choker around her slim throat.  Walking nearer to her so that I can look more closely, it’s apparent that her band isn’t adorned with diamonds but even so, it denotes the same amatory look as mine.  Rage and resentment simmer inside me with the realisation that Sebastian dresses his ‘staff’ as he does his lover. It’s bizarre and in my opinion, unacceptable. 

As I sit down on the hard pew opposite Sebastian, my mind tries to make sense of the relationship between them.  Seeing her this morning, domestic Goddess
in his kitchen cooking breakfast, sharing the intimacy of his gift, just confirms my suspicions about their relationship and a knot deep in my belly tightens with the apparent affirmation that I’m sharing my perfect man.  I feel used and stupid.

Sebastian is studying me and when I look at him, he has a qu
izzical look on his face.  He’s presumably detected my sudden change in mood.

“Everything ok?” he asks me.

“Fine.  I’m just not hungry suddenly,” I say resolutely, as a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon is placed before me.

“Eat Elizabeth, then we’ll go for a w
alk.”  He cannot command me, I’m not one of his salaried harlots and I shoot him a frosty glare.

“I’m not a child, Sebastian,” I rebuke. “If I’m not hungry then I won’t eat.”  Sliding the plate away from me, I sit defiantly with arms folded across my chest daring him, with my stare, to push the point further.

“Very well Elizabeth, we’ll discuss this later.  Scarlett, fetch our coats.” He barks his order to the girl, and I see how she immediately does as he bids.

“Yes Sir.” Scarlett leaves the kitchen to fetch our coats.

“You’ll learn I hope, Elizabeth, that when I ask you to do something it’s for your own good.  By defying me you haven’t achieved anything other than to be very hungry and to make me cross.”

I stare at him, perplexed.  He’s the most infuriating person and yet his imposing manner is appealing, masculine, and contrasts so distinctly to Alan.

Scarlett returns to the kitchen and passes each of us our coat, which we shrug on.  Dressed for the cold winter morning we leave the warmth of Penmorrow and I prepare myself for the confrontation that seems inevitable.

The cold salty air is bracing and our cheeks blanch from the biting wind.  Sebastian proffers a hand, which I take in mine reluctantly, and leads me across the formal gardens and through a wooded area beyond.  The trees break to reveal a spectacular rocky precipice and dramatic seascape ahead.  We are prevented from nearing the cliff edge by a high barbed wire fence.  Standing side by side, we don’t speak as we take in the view of the inky blue sea with foaming surf, below.

He breaks the silence, “why do you stay with Alan?”  I don’t reply but he continues, “It’s quite obvious that you aren’t happy.”

“I can’t afford to go it alone.  The business is doing ok, but if we don’t expand soon we’ll get left behind and competitors will force us out of business.  He doesn’t earn much but it keeps us going financially.  Mainly though, it’s the children keeping us together.  If you had kids you’d understand,” I snap.  I know immediately that it was a cruel thing to say and I squeeze Sebastian’s hand, glancing at him and noting with regret his hurt expression.

“I’m sorry, that was mean.  I know you wanted children, what I meant to say was there’s an enormous pressure to play ‘happy families’, when you have kids they become your sole focus, or should
do.”  I realise as I’m speaking, that I’m not exactly putting my children foremost by being here with Sebastian, leaving my husband and children at home and basing my absence on a lie.

“I’m not a father, as you point out, but I should think that your children are astute.  I imagine that they hear arguments or certainly pick up on the negativity between you?”  

He has a valid point.  Alan and I often forget the children are within earshot when we fight, it’s so easy to be entirely wrapped up in ones’ own world and not see the impact it has on others.

“He used to make me ha
ppy, when we first met,” I reflect, “but we’ve grown apart over the years… I guess our differences just became more evident.  I feel … I want more.  I want him to be assertive, for once I’d like him to take the lead, make decisions … man up and grow a pair!”

“And if he did that, Elizabeth, would he make you happy? Fulfilled? Or would you still want ‘more’? From what I sense, he can’t give you what you need.
”

“And can you really give me what I need?” I ask shrilly.
  “Because from what I’ve seen in your house, you are the very last person to give me advice on relationships, mister.”

He looks startled and takes my hand in his. 
              “Whatever’s gotten into you this morning?” 

I pull away and thrust my hands in the deep pockets of my coat.
“I’m just so confused,” I tell him.  “I feel like you and I have something… special, but then you go and do things that make me feel cheap.  It’s not normal, Sebastian.  Not normal to do what you did to me last night.  Not normal to give an employee the same sensual choker you gave to me.” 

“I see.” His dark eyes regard me icily and the coldness sends a shiver through me, I pull my coat more tightly around me
but it offers little warmth against the chill within.

“It doesn’t mean anything … she doesn’t mean anything,” he garbles
.  “You’re overthinking things, Elizabeth.  Look, we’re getting to know each other and that takes time and patience.  You’ve got to realise, I know what you need and you’ve got to trust me on that.”  He takes my hand again and this time I don’t pull away.

“And what would that be, Sebastian?”

“You need a dominant man, Elizabeth, one who’ll tell you what you need to do, in all things.  That isn’t something Alan can give you, it’s not in his nature from what you’ve told me about him.  Not all men are assertive.  They rely on their wives - mold them into a replacement mother.  Men, like me, are born to dominate.  We know what we want and how to get it but we also know what women want and we give it to them, Elizabeth.”

“It sounds more like control.  Is that what this is about?” I ask weakly.

“Control yes.  I need to be in control and if you don’t relinquish control to me, I can’t help you.  You’ll drift along.  Stressed.  Unhappy.  Don’t settle for less … for Alan.”

I shudder, not just because of the bracing wind whipping across the sea and lashing at our coats; my emotions are stirred by Sebastian’s words, which are so incisive
and to which I relate so wholly.

“Well, we are still married, so I have to make the best of it.  Come on. It’s freezing, show me Penmorrow?  I’m dying to look around.” I take his hand in mine and we walk back toward the house, taking a different route so that he can show me the walled garden, maze and the old oak where he used to picnic as a child.