Master's Flame (21 page)

“Well, it’s true. Both of you are a little...different. But the pieces of you fit together just right.”

“How would you know?” An impatient edge crept into his tone. “How do you know what’s going on between us? It’s not the loving scenario you envision. It was an ill-advised entanglement to begin with, one that will shortly be over. I assure you, we will both be relieved.”

She started to say something else but he cut her off.

“While we’re on the subject of grandparents, Sara, perhaps I should tell you why I’ve never talked much about your
grand-mere
and
grand-pere
Leveille. Perhaps I should explain where I’m coming from. There’s enough bad blood in this family—”

His voice cut off as Sara visibly flinched.

“I didn’t mean your blood,” he said. “You’re the only good thing...the only good thing in my life,” he finished with some difficulty. He took a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Can we not talk about this?”

“You brought it up.” Of course, his daughter would know how to be brutal. “Tell me about my grandparents. Tell me about this bad blood. I’m curious.”

He needed more wine. Where was the damn waiter? “Have you ever loved someone so much that you wanted to kill them?” He said it softly, because in some way he didn’t want her to hear. “Do you know the feeling of being destroyed by love? Your grandmother—my mother—killed my father, but it could just as easily have gone the other way. That was how they loved each other. And me… Well.” He forced a pained smile. “Thank God you’re so much like your mother. I’m glad about that.”

“No, I’m just as much like you. You don’t have any bad blood, daddy, if that’s what you’re getting at. So my grandparents were fuck ups. You got away from them. You explored the world and you learned stuff and created a big circus that brightens millions of people’s lives. You’re one of the best men I’ve ever known.”

A forced laugh joined his forced smile. “That’s not true. Jason’s a great man, but me...” He shook his head. “You’re kind to humor your father.”

“I’m not humoring you.” Sara pushed away her plate and placed her napkin on the table. “I’m inviting Valentina to the wedding, okay? As for the rest of it, you need to figure it out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out.”

She shook her finger at him. “There’s plenty to figure out, but I have faith in you. You’re really smart.”

He bit his tongue.
I love my daughter. I do, even when she’s pummeling me into a heap.

“Oh, and Jason and I are flying to California in mid-March so I can meet his family. Unless you want to come with us, the Citadel is yours that entire time.”

“I wish I could come with you,
ma chère
,” he said, seizing on this new, less threatening turn in the conversation. “Jason’s family is going to love you.”

No bad blood there
, he added silently to himself. He was sure of it, or he’d never let her go.

Michel took his daughter home shortly afterward. She hugged and kissed him at the door as always, but there was tension between them he didn’t like. Well, brides-to-be were a ball of nerves, weren’t they? And so was he.

He didn’t want to think about why.

*** *** ***

One more day.

Mr. Lemaitre had warned her at the start that she would regret giving herself over to him. He seemed to believe that returning to her own life and her own control was something Valentina should be happy about. And she was happy, a little. There was some sense of relief that after tonight she wouldn’t have to answer to his whims anymore. She wouldn’t have to submit to his sadistic play times or his huge cock coming at her from every direction. She wouldn’t have to report to his office during the day whenever he had a horny craving for her.

She also wouldn’t be close to him anymore.

Not that he had ever let her close. He put her away in a cage every night, but still, she was in his life. She was at his house. She was a room or two away from him even if he never allowed her to cuddle in his arms. She’d been awakened by him every morning and done BDSM scenes with him every night, not just play scenes, but intense, heightened scenes she’d become addicted to.

Who else would be able to excite her that way? She ticked through the list of men she knew at the Cirque. There were plenty who were strong and attractive, but none of them were Michel Lemaitre. None of them came close.

Her mind got all caught up when she tried to figure out why he attracted her so much. There were no words to explain it. She had tried to draw pictures of those feelings, pictures of how she felt about him, but she hadn’t had any success at that either. None of them were good enough. Maybe when she returned home she would work some more on her portrait of him, but now that she knew him better, she worried it would be all wrong.

She didn’t even want to think about going home.

Her Master had given Galvin their last night off. She wasn’t sure what that meant and she was afraid to ask. Was he going to finish their thirty days with such horrifying activities that he didn’t want anyone else in the house?

She wasn’t expecting any Valentine’s Day romance, that was for sure. She looked down at her plate, at the meal Mr. Lemaitre had cooked himself.
Coq au vin
, and it was the best she’d ever tasted. What would she do without him? The idea was so depressing she could barely breathe.

“Eat,” he said when she paused. “The vegetables too.”

She shivered, feeling especially naked tonight, even though she’d been naked every night she’d been under his hand. When she was home, and free, would she eat dinner naked every night to recall these times with him? Maybe. Yes, she probably would.

“If you can cook like this,” she said aloud, “why do you pay someone else to do it?”

“Time,
mignonne
,” he replied with heaviness in his voice. “I have very little of it. But it’s our last night together, and this is my favorite dish.”

He’d cooked this for her, his favorite dish. She wanted to cry.
Tina, pull yourself together.
Across from her, her Master took a leisurely sip of wine and leaned back in his chair as if this night were like any of the others.

“What will you do with your time once it is your own again?” he asked. “Return to seducing every single heterosexual man at the training center?”

“I was never that bad.”

“You were. You even broke up Silas and Peter’s relationship, and they’d been together as long as I could remember.”

“They were on their last legs. They would have broken up by the end of that month anyway,” she protested. “And obviously, neither of them was one hundred percent gay.”

“None of us are one hundred percent anything. Anyway, I’m only teasing you. You may do as you like. After tonight you’ll be free, at least when it comes to service. I’ll probably still have my fingers all over your career.”

Oh, that imagery didn’t help. “I hope you will, Master. I mean, Mr. Lemaitre.”

“It can be Master for one more night.”

“Master,” she repeated quietly. “I’ll miss calling you Master.”

He stared at her a moment, then down at his plate. “We’ll take everything into the kitchen and leave it for Galvin. I’m not in a dishwashing mood tonight.”

Valentina couldn’t frame a reply to that. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imagine her Master up to his elbows in soap suds, or loading the dishes into his gleaming oversized dishwasher. She didn’t want to imagine him that way.

Once they carried their dishes into the kitchen, her Master led her to the white room. He was still dressed in his work pants and a white shirt, and she was still naked.
Please, please tell me to do something. Tell me to get on my knees. Tell me to suck your cock.

Instead he took her sketchbook from the top of her packed belongings. Oh no. She didn’t want him to look through it but if she tried to stop him, he’d punish her and look at it anyway.

He flipped through the pad, expressionless, studying page after page of half-drawn, scribbled, smeared, and scratched-out renderings of his face and body. She wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. “I didn’t really... I wasn’t really able to...draw anything.”

“Except me. You tried, anyway.” He turned one page to the side with a dubious expression.

“I couldn’t get it right. I’m sorry.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No apologies. I know more than anyone that art is a matter of trial and error. Some works take years. A lifetime.”

Valentina nodded, biting her lip, but she knew there’d be no “lifetime” with them. If she hadn’t been able to draw him while living as his slave for thirty days, she wouldn’t be able to draw him when they were merely boss and performer. She wanted to tell him
you’re too much of a puzzle
, or
you’re too complicated
, or
you’re too great and beautiful
, or
you’re too
... Whatever. She could never explain why she’d been unable to draw him, and they would all seem like excuses anyway. Better to let him believe what he probably thought right now—that she was talentless.

He tossed it on top of her neatly stacked suitcases and gestured to her. “Come here. Kneel in front of me.”

Thank you, God.
In this, at least, she wasn’t talentless, especially after a month of his training. He reached down and wove fingers into her hair, brushing them against her nape, tugging until she felt some pain.

“Oh, Master,” she sighed. He didn’t permit her to go on and on when they were scening but all the words screamed in her brain.
That feels so good. I’m going to miss this. Please hurt me. Please force me to do whatever you wish.

He let go of her hair and tipped up her chin, so she gazed at him from the floor.

“I wonder...how have you changed,
mignonne
? What have you learned?”

She thought hard because she knew she ought to say something wise and submissive at this moment. But all she could think was
I’ve learned that I love you. I want to be with you
. He wouldn’t want to hear that. He’d been perfectly clear the entire time that this was temporary, that he’d wanted to play with her and control her, but only for a while.

“I’ve... I’ve learned to be more attentive to other people. To be less absorbed in myself,” she finally said.

“I would agree with that.”

His softly spoken words sounded like high praise, especially after all her struggles to please him.

“And I think I’ve learned to be less impulsive,” she continued, feeling emboldened. “You’ve taught me to think before I speak and before I act. I’m so grateful for that.”

His mouth turned down a bit. “Valentina without her impulsivity. I don’t know... I’m happy to have curbed it a little, but I think it will always be part of who you are, just as controlling and subduing people will always be part of my nature. But yes, you’ve progressed. Become more balanced, perhaps.” He studied her with an expression of gravity. “I haven’t had to fuck you against the contract wall in some time, have I?”

“No, Master.”

“But it would provide a certain delightful symmetry if I did it tonight. Don’t you think so?”

She swallowed hard. “Yes, Master.”

Were there to be no trips to the attic torture room this last night then? No beatings, no mindfucks? No restraints or tests of pain? Only this, the ultimate symbol of surrender? It was the way they’d begun, and he was right. It only made sense to end the same way.

He lifted her and led her to the wall and pressed her against it. “Stay.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead to the words as she waited. She heard him undressing, heard the scrape of the drawer and the lube’s cap flicked open. She remembered how panicked she’d felt the first time, how certain she’d been that he wouldn’t be able to force his way in there. He’d proven her wrong so many times since then. He was about to prove her wrong again. She felt his thickness sliding between her ass cheeks as he took his place behind her. He pressed his thighs to the backs of her thighs and trapped her against the wall, his willing, trembling victim.

There were no words, no commands, only his calm, steady breathing as he positioned his cock against her hole. He was slicked up. She wasn’t. He’d stopped giving her extra lube about halfway through the training, when she’d learned to compensate by relaxing her tense muscles and letting him in. He squeezed her ass and she arched back, offering her tender orifice to be impaled.

He didn’t wait.
Oww…
Oh, it still hurt, even when she relaxed and cooperated. Because of his size it would always hurt, at least at the start. She moaned and let the pain fill her, wash over her and make her into that most delicious of things, an obedient slave. With surrender came pride and pleasure and arousal. As the pain eased into a lesser discomfort he forged deeper, grasping her hips so there could be no escape.

Her hands balled into fists against the wall, then relaxed as he began to move. He slid in deep, so deep, then out again so she felt alarmingly empty. Then in again... It wasn’t a drilling. When he was in her ass, there was no need for him to be rough or brutal. The fact he was there was brutal enough, and she felt a low-simmering anxiety the entire time. There was a kind of pleasure in that fear, and a pleasure too in being so filled and so controlled. She made a small sound, a little moan of contentedness that she couldn’t contain.

And then it occurred to her: this was how she’d changed. The first day when he’d done this, all she could think about was herself, how scared she was and how much it hurt. She hadn’t thought once about what he got out of it, or what she, as his slave, ought to have been getting out of it. She’d only thought,
I wish I could come, but I’ll never come this way
. She’d shivered and shaken and wished for it to be over because it wasn’t what
she
wanted.

Now, she wished it could on forever because it brought pleasure to her Master. She wished she could be his forever, to control and use, with his beautiful eyes and body, and his wild dark hair, and his stern, French-inflected voice. At her moan, he turned her head and lowered his mouth over hers. While he pinned her to the wall with his cock, he kissed her, deep and hard, his fingers curled around her chin. After a while he thrust his tongue in her mouth, and then he bit her. It wasn’t a kiss after all. He was devouring her, and she answered back with her own desperate passion.