Break Me (3 page)

Specific, sexual thoughts and fantasies of her hadn’t ever really entered into it, but I couldn’t get the idea out of my head.

Playing with her, toying with her, making her moan, stretching her with my fingers, with toys, with objects, with my cock… Making her squirm, making her sticky. She’d be a delight to tease and deny.

I’d thought to spank her, definitely take her afterward, but these ideas of playing with her were different. They were playful, erotic, naughty.

The allure of Claire was untapped and I wanted to know every square foot of her depth.

“Can I get you anything else, Sugar?”

I glanced up as I wiped my mouth with my napkin. “No thanks, Jo. Just the check will be fine.”

She stared down at me for a second longer, then nodded and walked away. I didn’t want to decipher the look in her eyes. I didn’t want to have to say no to what she wanted, but when I saw what she’d written on a separate slip of paper under the bill, I knew I’d need to skip the diner for a while.

Damn shame, too. I loved their pancakes.

* * * * *

The café was full of life when I arrived. I was a little later than usual, but I didn’t think I was
that
late. I didn’t see Claire among the tables, either, which was odd, so I started wandering through book aisles. It wasn’t a large store, but it housed a lot of titles, with an emphasis on history. Italian. Texan. American. It was warm and inviting. I loved to read and it drew me in.

Claire owning the place was the bonus. I loved coffee. And submissive women, too.

She made a fantastic cup of Joe and served it just the way I liked it.

Every time I got a view of the café, I glanced toward it, but never saw her. Maybe she wasn’t working. Maybe yesterday had pushed her too much. Maybe my gut was wrong about her. It wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong about a woman, but it would be one of the rare ones.

I rounded the fiction section, Mystery, in particular. I loved a good suspense novel with gritty crime scenes and even grittier sex. The really good ones were hard to find, but there were a lot of decent ones. I bought two from her last week and devoured them both. I was in need of more.

I’d read all the blockbusters and best sellers and new releases that I cared for, so I was back in the stacks searching for something I hadn’t read before.

And that’s when I heard her. Jo. From the diner.
Fuck
.

I slipped around the end of a bookshelf and stood stock still. She was just on the other side, directly behind me, sitting at the table I usually occupied.

Wasn’t I the epitome of Dom? Hiding from a waitress because she’d given me her phone number and a hint of the panties she’d been wearing when serving our breakfast.

“He’s playing hard to get,” I heard her say. I hoped she wasn’t talking about me, but I knew she was.

“You really think so?” someone else asked.

Jo giggled like a schoolgirl. “I slipped him my number this morning and told him about the black lace thong I was wearing.”

Yep. Me. “
Shit
.” The emphasis was clear, even in the whispered hiss of the word.

“What did he say?”

“He just smiled at me.”

I didn’t. I hadn’t. And I sure as hell wasn’t smiling about it now, either.

“You think he’s interested in someone else?”

“No. Why else would he come into the diner every morning?”

“Because he’s hungry?”

“Nuh uh. He always sits in my section and always at the end closest to where I approach the table.”

My thoughts from this morning came flooding back. I would need to avoid the diner at all costs for a while. Jo was seeing things that weren’t there. I sighed, leaned my head back, and closed my eyes.

I tuned out the rest of the conversation. I’d heard too much already. It was nice to be wanted, but this was different.

I didn’t want the unwanted and unwarranted attention of Jo.

I wanted the hard to get and definitely desired attention of Claire.

“Jared.”

Speak of my personal devil… I opened my eyes and turned my head. She stood there, uncertainty in her gaze, holding a cup of coffee toward me.

I wanted to smile, but I kept it on the inside. Deep down inside. I didn’t want to frighten her away. “You’re busy today,” I remarked softly.

“Yes. A last minute gathering of one of the book clubs.”

“How did you know I was here? I’m pretty well hidden from sight and I didn’t see you at all.”

Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t know.”

“Liar.”

It was her turn to sigh. “I knew the second you walked in. I saw you through the stacks and bookcases. And then I saw you disappear behind this one. Why? Why are you hiding?”

Did I tell her? Did I tell her about Jo and her advances? Did it matter? Would I let it? In the end, I just shrugged and opened my mouth to tell her why, but she opened her mouth, too, and the words that came out shut my mine down to all else but her.

“Dead,” she said. “He’s dead.”

I didn’t have to ask who she was talking about. I saw it in her face, the haunted sadness that infused every pore on her face told me who it was.

The man in the picture.

Her Dom.

“How?”

“Accident. Rainy night and he was driving too fast. Late leaving a meeting.”

“Where was he going?” I had a sneaking suspicion I knew, though.

“To meet me at
The Club
.”

Chapter Three

Claire

The stunned look on Jared’s face quickly turned to sympathy. I didn’t read pity in his gaze and relief swamped me. I couldn’t have handled that. I had seen it all too often from friends, that I simply wouldn’t have been able to bear it from him. It took time for sadness to take over for most, but they’d all moved on quickly enough. And that had been okay, too. I was allowed to grieve in private; to wallow in oh woe is me, to indulge dark depressions that lasted for days, sometimes weeks. No one telling me it was time to face the world again. No one telling me it was time to let it go. No one telling me it was time to move on.

I was there, barely existing. And that’s just the way I’d wanted it. Until fucking Jared.

“This bookstore was his,” I said. “The café sat next door. There used to be a wall between them.”

“What happened? To the wall?”

I smiled at his question. Did he know I needed to talk about it, all of it, even if I hadn’t known until just this minute? Did he know that I hadn’t talked about any of it, to anyone since it happened? “T…” I shook my head as my chin began to tremble. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and blinked back sudden tears. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

“Take your time,” he said softly. “I’m not going anywhere.” He took my hand and led me to a small table that was set at the end of another bookcase. It was there for the purpose of work, and study. That had always been important to my Sir.

Even in my head, I had a hard time saying his name.

I folded my hands on the surface of the table while Jared sat silently, watching me, his coffee cup between us.

“Tell me, Claire,” he said after a long silence, his voice allowing for no argument. “You can tell me anything.”

It wasn’t permission to talk about it that he was granting, but his request for me to do so, helped me move forward.

“He wanted my space and my café because he wanted to expand.”

“What was his name?”

“I…” I swallowed past the lump in my throat and closed my eyes. “T… Tim. His name was Tim.”

“Good girl. Now, open your eyes and talk to me about Tim.”

Slowly, I did. Slowly, Jared came into view. And slowly, I began to feel calm in the midst of inner turmoil. “I haven’t talk about him for so long.”

“Then now is a good time to start. I didn’t know him, but surely he wouldn’t want the memories to be painful, but rather bring you joy.”

“He wouldn’t. He’d be pissed, actually.” I knew he was pissed. Wherever he was, he was pissed. I could feel his disappointment in the way I’d chosen to live since he died. I would never be able to explain to anyone how I could feel something like that across space and time, but I did. He’d been that much a part of me.

It might have been my own subconscious talking in my head last night, but I knew it was from him too. My gut knew it. My heart knew it. It’s what he’d be telling me if he could talk to me.

“Then…”

I nodded. “He’d come into the café every day. He was all about wearing me down. He tried the highhanded stuff. Big, bad businessman. I laughed. I rolled my eyes. But, it never angered him. Frustrated, yes. My defiance definitely frustrated him.”

“What changed things?”

I smiled. I couldn’t stop it from pulling at the corners of my mouth. I tugged Jared’s coffee cup to me and pulled the cardboard sleeve from it. I needed it, something to fiddle with, to keep my hands busy as I talked. “He started to walk away from the counter one day when I’d said no in some very creative ways, but he turned back and got so close to my face… He said if he wouldn’t get arrested for assault, he’d pull me over the counter, sit in a chair, pull me over his knee, and spank my ass the way I deserved.”

Jared’s eyes widened for a second before he barked with laughter. I laughed with him. It felt good. For the first time since that night, I laughed without hurting so much I thought I’d crack. It wasn’t fake. It wasn’t forced. It came from deep down inside.

When Jared pulled himself together and allowed me time to do the same, he asked, “And what was your reply to his statement?”

“I said please. There was no thought in the word, it just came out. I had never been spanked before, but I already had a crush on him and I didn’t know how to get him to see me as more than an annoyance. That was my in. I wanted it. I wanted the tone of voice he used, the heat in his eyes. I wanted him to touch me and that was when I knew he wanted the same thing.”

“He was your introduction in BDSM?”

“If you can call what we did BDSM. Everyone, I guess, has their own definition and what it means. It wasn’t about the pain and toys and scenes for us as much as it was simply the way we existed with each other. He gave me a sense of purpose and a measure of centered calm I’d never had. I loved him. He taught me so much about myself, how to accept myself, and about how I wanted to live, that the things I enjoyed weren’t weird or wrong. They were a part of me and Tim wanted all those parts of me.”

When I stopped talking, I hadn’t realized I was crying until Jared reached across the table and wiped my tears with his thumbs. I cried harder and he sat there, my face cradled in his hands, letting my tears soak his skin and fall through his fingers.

I laid my hands over his, letting his warmth and strength sink into me. It was cleansing, this crying. It was different than the sobfest I’d had last night when I got home. That was heartbreaking. That was the pain of loss all over again. That was the anger at Tim’s death coming out, and for him doing what he swore he’d never do. Leave me.

I felt a shift in Jared and when I pried my eyes open, he was kneeling beside my chair, a wealth of emotion covering his features. He was a good looking man, blond, well built from hard work, and younger than me. Tim had been older by a few years, but Jared was younger by at least ten. His eyes were soft, but banked with heat that was never absent when he looked at me. It was different than when Tim had looked at me, the hunger different, but it was there and it was mine if I wanted it.

And I was terribly afraid that I did want it. I was terribly afraid I wanted him.

“You said he was coming to
The Club
that night,” Jared prompted. “Have you talked about it?” I shook my head, scared to voice it for the first time. Ever. “This probably isn’t the best place to do it.” This time, I nodded. It was. It was the perfect place.

“Tim loved this bookstore almost as much as he loved me.”

“All right. Tell me about that night. Let me share the burden with you.”

“Why?” I hadn’t meant to ask, but the question had been burning up inside me. I needed to know why he was interested in me, why he wanted me raw and bleeding on the inside.

“I told you why. Because I want your smile for myself and I can’t have it until you let him go.”

He was a stranger. A man I barely knew and I was laying my soul at his feet. Why was I compelled to do it? Why was I allowing myself to be put through this? “That’s unfair of you.”

“Is it? Don’t lie to me, Claire. But more importantly, don’t lie to yourself. I’ve seen how you look at me. I’ve seen the need in your eyes. I’ve heard it in your voice. It’s more than a date you want and it’s more than a date I want to give. Tell me about that night. Please”

The
please
undid me. “Public scenes were rare for us. He didn’t like making a spectacle of himself or putting what we did on display. He was so buttoned up, so professional. A scholar and he never let that side of him go in a public setting. It’s what made that one day in the café special. It was out of character for him to make a statement like that where others might hear. But, that night, he’d booked one of the larger play rooms for us and had invited several other members to watch as he flogged me, as he took me. It was a lesson for me. I’d been fighting some body issues…” I stopped talking, caught a shaky breath, and after a few minutes, forced myself to continue. The hard part was coming and I was scared of it, of what it would do to me. He called. A meeting with the contractor here at the store had started late and ended late. Tim valued punctuality and abhorred tardiness. He called
The Club
and told me he was on his way, that I was to get into my body stocking, get into position, and wait, that he’d be there as soon as he could. I did what he said. I waited. And waited. At first, it was okay because I knew he’d walk in the door at any second, but he never did. He never…” I tried to stem the fresh wave of tears that fell. I wanted to call them back, to stop the words that needed to come out. I didn’t know how I was going to get through the rest of the telling. I was this far in. Jared wasn’t going to let me stop now. And that’s where I focused. Jared.