Out of the Darkness (Untwisted #2) (19 page)

Should I knock? Nah, this was my house and Stella was my submissive. Pushing the door open with my foot I entered and then kicked it shut behind me. Glancing at the bed I saw the side lamp was on and Stella was still awake. For a change, she was breaking my rule and looking straight at me almost reverently.

‘I didn’t think you were coming back,’ she murmured quietly, sounding like a lost child. I winced at the hurt tone to her voice and felt like a complete shit for making her wait so long, deciding that on this occasion, I’d let her off for not using ‘Sir’ in the bedroom.

‘May I join you?’ I asked, to which Stella immediately nodded. Good, she might be a little hurt emotionally, but she still wanted me. Remaining quiet, I placed the wineglasses on the bedside table and silently began to remove my clothes as she watched with parted lips and growing heat in her expression. Oh yeah, I still had it.

‘You were very angry with me for being late … Sir,’ she commented softly, adding my title quietly a second or so later.

‘Yes I was,’ I conceded, feeling another slice of guilt for my earlier treatment of her. Guilt? I never felt guilty over my actions, what the hell was this woman doing to me? Mind you, I had been pretty mean, orgasm denial was frustrating enough anyway, but I’d brought her close to climax what, three or four times? She must feel like an unexploded bomb right now.

‘Was
,’ she said hopefully, picking up on my wording. ‘Does that mean you aren’t mad any more?’

‘No. Not any more,’ I acknowledged with a nod. I wouldn’t apologise, though; Stella knew what she was getting into from the start with me, and apologies weren’t something I did. ‘Now, I think you might need some relief,’ I commented lightly as I lowered myself onto the bed. ‘Assuming you’ve followed my rule and haven’t touched yourself.’ Interestingly a blush bloomed on Stella’s cheeks and I raised an eyebrow. ‘Stella? Have you broken yet another of my rules?’ I asked in a deadly soft tone.

Staring at her mouth I saw Stella purse her lips as she shook and nodded her head simultaneously, making it blindingly obvious that she was hiding something from me. Lowering my eyebrows, I flashed her my firmest look and almost immediately saw her quail and give me an apologetic shrug.

‘I rubbed myself a little bit, Sir,’ she admitted, flushing even redder.

Touching herself? I felt an unnecessary flare of jealousy towards her fingers and my eyes narrowed further as I crawled higher up the bed so I was sat right next to her. Gripping the edge of the blanket under her chin, I pulled back the duvet roughly to reveal her naked body. ‘I didn’t come, I swear!’ Stella yelped with wide eyes.

‘I see.’ For some reason I believed her. ‘Why did you do it?’ I asked as I picked up her right hand and rubbed my thumb gently across her knuckles.

‘I was … it was throbbing, Sir.’ Stella conceded weakly, dropping her eyes again. Yes, it probably would have been after my little teasing session.

‘But you didn’t come?’ I enquired, lifting her hand to my lips and placing a kiss on the palm.

She looked confused by my oddly gentle actions, apparently wondering when I was going to lose it and go mad at her for breaking my rule, but I wasn’t going to flip out again tonight; after realising I’d been too harsh earlier I was now intent on some pleasure for us both. Perhaps with a bit of mild teasing thrown in too. ‘Stella, did you come? Tell me the truth?’

‘No. I promise. You know I never lie to you, Sir,’ she added.

This was true. As far as I knew, Stella was always completely honest with me, even if it meant she took more of a punishment like earlier. Her complete and utter integrity was one of her defining qualities, and something that I respected a great deal.

Shifting my grip to her wrist, I sucked one of Stella’s fingers into my mouth and enjoyed a moment of running my tongue around it. ‘Nope, not that one,’ I murmured, before placing the next finger in my mouth. I repeated this process until I put her index finger into my mouth and tasted the slightly salty, musky tang of her bodily fluids. Looking up at her, I grinned darkly. ‘Ah-ha,’ I said around her finger, once again running my tongue the length of the digit. ‘This is the one you used to touch yourself, isn’t it?’ I asked softly.

Apparently shocked by how light-hearted my tone had become – it was shocking, I was rarely this playful – Stella looked up at me with wide eyes, smiled shyly, and then nodded. ‘I thought so, I can taste you,’ I added, sucking her finger harder and giving it a little bite. Removing her hand, I rubbed my thumb over the small indentations where my teeth had been. ‘That’s to remind you not to touch yourself unless I say so,’ I told her with another darker smile breaking on my lips as I decided that I rather liked marking her as mine.

Placing her hand down near her groin, I straightened up and made myself comfortable against the headboard. ‘Show me how you rubbed yourself.’

Stella frowned, and in return, I smiled, she was obviously embarrassed by my demand. ‘It can be embarrassing to talk about sex, or do something sexual when your partner simply watches, but Stella, look how much the idea of watching you excites me,’ I explained, jerking a nod down at my straining erection. As if on cue it jerked up against my belly expectantly, and as I glanced back at Stella, I saw a soft smile on her lips as she looked at my arousal. Yeah, I often grinned when I eyed my big boy too. Someone upstairs had been generous when creating me because I was pretty lucky in that department.

‘You must have been very frustrated, I bet it felt good to touch yourself a little bit, go on show me what you did,’ I coaxed her, placing her hand even lower on her belly in assistance. Thankfully, my persuasion had worked this time and with a small clearing of her throat Stella averted her eyes and began to stroke herself. Greedily I watched as her finger dipped between her folds only to come out glistening with her arousal as she moaned softly.

Christ, it suddenly felt warm in the bedroom. Really fucking warm. Swallowing, I watched Stella fondle herself for a few more seconds before my composure cracked and I leapt on her. Literally, like a caged tiger suddenly released. Time to relieve her frustration. Not to mention mine.

Chapter Twenty-two – Stella

Glancing at the clock, I was shocked to see that it was 2.30 a.m. Shaking my head I smiled to myself. Two thirty, and Nathan had only just finished getting his fill of me for the night. Or should that be morning? A broader grin spread on my lips at the thought. Blimey, that had been a sex marathon and a half; perhaps I should turn up late to Nathan’s more often if that was the reaction it got from him.

Rolling over towards his warm body I barely had time to blink before I registered that Nathan was up and gone from the room with a curse. Then it was another second or so until I could co-ordinate my ears to realise that there was a huge commotion going on somewhere outside the bedroom.

Bloody hell!
Burglars! Surely it must be, it was two frigging thirty in the morning who else could it be? Jumping up I wrapped a sheet around myself and half tripped, half stumbled my way after him before realising that I’d be absolutely no help to him wrapped in a sheet. Cursing I dropped the sheet and quickly yanked on his discarded T-shirt before high tailing it out of the room.

My heart was hammering erratically in my chest, but as I reached the hallway, the scene by the front door was not what I had expected at all. Nathan wasn’t fighting off some intruder as I had expected, nope, before me I watched as Nathan was stood frozen to the spot clad only in his boxer shorts staring helplessly at an agitated man who looked startlingly similar to himself. The man must surely be related to Nathan because apart from his dark, wavy hair the two could practically be twins.

Grabbing at his hair, the mystery man started swinging helplessly around on the spot crying and grimacing and uttering nonsensical sentences to a dazed Nathan who looked like he was chewing on his lip hard enough to break the skin.

The only words of his rant that I caught were ‘Rebecca’, ‘gone’, ‘crazy’, ‘cane’, and a huge string of fiery expletives. Clearly, something major had happened involving someone called Rebecca.

Then before my eyes, the man dropped to his knees, shaking, sobbing, and growling as if in great pain, followed shortly by Nathan, who to my astonishment simply wrapped himself around the guy and pulled him to his chest, trying to soothe him by rubbing his back and murmuring soft words I couldn’t hear.

Christ, this was a show of emotion I had never experienced or expected to see from Nathaniel Jackson. He obviously cared a great deal about this guy and I suddenly felt as if I might be intruding on a hugely personal moment. There was no might about it: as I watched Nathan rocking the distraught man in his arms, I knew I
was
intruding on a hugely personal moment. As if reading my mind, he chose that exact moment to look up and uncharacteristically catch my eye. Nathan shot me a scowling glance before tipping his chin towards the bedrooms in a sign for me to leave him to it. I nodded my understanding, but as I turned he spoke. ‘In fact, get dressed, Stella, you should leave.’ Glancing back at him in surprise, I saw that he had already dismissed me and was once again intently focused on the other man.

Walking back to the bedroom, I felt the adrenaline rush from earlier leave my body and be replaced by a slighted feeling from Nathan’s cold dismissal of me. It was clear that something major had occurred to Nathan’s friend, brother, whatever he was, but I still would have expected him to treat me with a little more respect than just ordering me to leave.

I stopped dressing abruptly and closed my eyes on a grimace.
Bugger
, I was getting too attached to him, wasn’t I? Allowing girly fantasies of Nathan as a knight in shining armour to cloud my view of things, but this was no fairy tale and he was certainly no knight, he was my dominant who fucked me at the weekends, end of story.

My posture slumped and I collapsed into a chair, resting my face in my hands and breathing heavily. From the ache in my chest, it was suddenly shockingly clear that I no longer just thought of Nathan as my weekend sex guy. Shit. What a mess. Huffing out an irritated breath at my own stupidity I pushed my wayward hair from my face and jumped up, dressing in record time so I could leave a place where I was no longer wanted.

Returning to the lounge, I was intent on slipping out if possible, but found that Nathan and the man were now both standing and near the door, thwarting any ideas I had of a stealthy escape.

Chewing on my lip as I quietly made my way up the corridor, I watched Nathan carefully and saw the tension obvious in his bunched shoulders. He didn’t notice my approach. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the mystery guy who seemed to have got himself marginally under control now, even though he still looked terrible and had blood red eyes from crying.

It was odd, as stressful as this situation was I couldn’t help but notice that Nathan had no issues with full eye contact with this man at all, meeting his gaze boldly and continuously. Interesting.

They were talking softly but as I got closer, I overheard Nathan’s last sentence. ‘Stay here tonight, Nicholas; it’s Sunday tomorrow; we can spend the day chilling here, you can talk if you want. I’ll send Stella home. I can work from home next week so stay as long as you need. Maybe after work one night next week we can go for some drinks and talk once you’ve calmed down.’

As I heard Nathan refer to the man as ‘Nicholas’, it all fell into place for me. I’d been right; they were related. This man was Nathan’s brother, Nicholas. A couple of years ago I’d been reading some crappy work magazine and it had featured an article on Nathaniel Jackson Architecture and how both the Jackson brothers had hit the top of success in their fields, Nathan in industry, and Nicholas for skill with musical instruments. If memory served me correctly, which it might not have because it was the middle of the frigging night and I was knackered, Nicholas was famous for his piano playing.

Glancing again at the brothers I noticed that although he looked marginally more composed, Nicholas’ hands were shaking and he was chewing on the inside of his lip like mad. Similar agitation habits to his brother then, I noted with a raised brow.

Finally seeing my approach Nathan briefly flicked a glance at me then shuffled awkwardly on his feet. ‘Stella, this is Nicholas, my brother.’ He indicated between us with his hand. ‘Nicholas, this is Stella, my sub.’ I winced at the introduction, then blushed. It might be true but it still sounded strange out loud to be referred to as a ‘sub’. In fact, why did he even have to say ‘sub’ at all? He could just have said, ‘This is Stella,’ and left it at that. Although thinking about how blunt Nathan usually was when it came to conversation it could actually have been a hell of a lot worse I suppose, he might have given a more full definition that would have left me cringing even more … ‘Nicholas, this is Stella. Stella enjoys light bondage, rough sex, and last week she let me stick my finger up her arse while in a nightclub full of people …’ A huge blush heated my cheeks. OK, so being introduced as his sub was a hell of a lot better than
that
description. Sub or sex slut? Jeez, what the hell was I doing with my life when stuff like this was actually a consideration for me?

Placing a light hand on my back Nathan then guided me towards the door indicating that he wanted me gone. I hid my upset from Nathan by keeping my eyes averted, but I couldn’t hide it from myself and my stomach roiled and twisted uncomfortably as we reached the door.

Nathan stopped just short of the door and turned to me, but I stared at his bare feet not happy at all at how my body was reacting to his sudden dismissal of me. ‘I need to spend some time with my brother, he’s had a bit of a crisis tonight,’ he said in way of apology, although to be fair I’d have had to be blind and deaf not to figure that much out on my own. ‘Nicholas’ driver, Mr Burrett, is downstairs, he’ll take you home,’ Nathan said before pausing thoughtfully. ‘You’ll come next weekend?’ he asked, apparently wondering if I would show after being chucked out tonight.

To be honest I’d been asking myself the same question, but, as tempted as I was to take my mood out on him, it was obvious Nathan needed to help his brother so I resisted the urge to be snarly with him and decided not to jump to any rash decisions either. It was the middle of the night after all, and I was functioning on barely any sleep.

‘Yep. I’ll see you next Friday. I hope your brother is OK,’ I mumbled as I stood waiting for him to open the door. An awkward moment hung between us, Nathan never saw me out at the end of our weekends, normally when Monday morning came around he had either already gone to work or was ensconced in his office as I left. We both loitered, him looking uncomfortable and me feeling like a teenager on a date, would he kiss me goodbye? I soon got my answer as Nathan opened the door and stood back. ‘Close the door behind you,’ he murmured giving me one last look before turning back to Nicholas.

No goodnight kiss, then. Not that I’d really expected one. My abrupt departure from Nathan’s left me seriously thinking about exactly what I was doing in this ‘thing’ with him, and as I did the mortifying walk of shame past the night watchman in the lobby of his swanky apartments I’d never felt quite so much like a used and discarded sex thing in all my life. Maybe it was time to do more than just walk home, maybe it was time to walk away for good.