Restless Spirit (21 page)

Epilogue

Snow came to Allister Lake on December 14th. It just so happened that was my birthday too. It had snowed the day I was born so I had a natural love for it.

The apple festival had come and gone. Adrian had ended up with Tammie and had told me that he was going to propose by Christmas. He was still my caretaker, helping me get stuff situated around Nan’s house but was moving on to another position soon. Stan had been arrested and was undergoing psychiatric counselling. Annie reported the boarding house baby as they called him was growing so fast and so big they thought they might have an NBA player on their hands. And Shepherd had asked me to move in.

‘What about Nan’s house?’ I’d asked. Fear was in my gut. It would probably stick around for a while, but I knew when I’d been able to let Reed off the hook and assure him I had no further interest in him beyond friendship and his wonderful fresh berries, that I was done for. Monogamy so soon on the heels of swearing off serious relationships – go figure.

‘Writing cottage. It’s paid for, it’s yours. You have plenty of time to figure out what you want to do with it.’

‘Why here? Why not there?’

‘We can go there if you like.’

That shut me up. A man who listened to me … respected me … considered me. I loved that he reminded me daily that I was a bad ass all on my own but he was always there to back me up.

‘Well that took all the fun out of the bickering,’ I snorted.

Shepherd pulled me in and said, ‘I know how much she meant to you. If you want me to …’

‘But your workshop. Your stuff. It’s all here and I was just settling in. It’s all Nan’s stuff there and …’

‘Scared?’ He kissed me.

‘Terrified.’

‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said.

Tears stung the corners of my eyes and I nodded instead of speaking because my throat was so tight.

‘Don’t hurt me,’ he said.

I clutched at him then and stood on tiptoe and kissed him. Hard. ‘I won’t.’

‘Happy birthday,’ he said.

‘Yay! I’m older!’

‘Better than the alternative.’

He backed me down the hall, kissing me all the way. My buttons gave up under his fingers. He pushed his hands in my jeans and then down in my panties as we staggered-stumbled-walked down the hall to a spare room.

‘Ooh, new room. Kinky.’

‘Your birthday gift’s in there,’ he said.

I never went in there. So it was the perfect place to store my present. I never went into his spare bedroom or anywhere else just yet. I was still worried I was overstepping my bounds. It was my hang up not his issue. And now he wanted me here. Every day. Every moment. Every room.

My ass hit the door and it popped open. ‘I can’t …’

I couldn’t see or think because his finger was on my clit pressing me there with the perfect amount of pressure. It thumped through me like a drum beat – my need.

He yanked my jeans open and the button fly gave with a whispering sound. Then his arms were turning me and I was thinking kinky again and then I faced the room.

The room.

‘Happy birthday.’ He chuckled at my silence and pushed my jeans down along with my striped pink panties. I was bare there but for my long sleeved navy tee and black vest.

‘Fuck,’ I said.

‘I plan to. Do you like it?’ He bent me at the waist and my hands found the back of a heavily padded desk chair. I clutched it as he moved behind me. The leather of his belt hissed behind me and I shivered, my heart speeding up and my stomach dipping crazily.

‘Is it mine?’

‘Your office.’

‘My office,’ I said.

‘I’ve been reading your work.’

‘That’s not fair. You’re not supposed to do that,’ I said as he slid the leather along the flare of my hip – the swell of my ass.

‘Sorry. You can sue me if you like.’

The leather of his belt was a warm worn kiss against my skin. The small of my back pebbled with goosebumps and my nipples tented my soft cotton tee. He was going to whip me … he was going to whip me. I thought that conversation had been forgotten and here I was in my new office, my new office that was outfitted with …

‘The bookshelf,’ I said.

The bookshelf from the day he’d bound me in his underground work room and fed me tomato sandwich and fucked me and …

‘It was for you. All along. It’s for your books. Books you will surely have if you decide to write. Which you should … that’s just my two cents.’

I hung my head as his fingers slid into my cunt and then withdrew to slide into my ass. I hummed low in my throat, curving myself up to meet his touch. Moving my body to accept his ministrations.

‘Thank you for your two cents.’

‘You have a real voice. A lot to say.’

I hung my head lower and my bangs draped my vision. Out the window the lake was shades of grey. Snow falling fast and furious. The house smelled like the cake he’d baked me and now the slight smell of varnish off the book case.

‘I’ve been afraid to say it.’

‘Don’t be. Now … birthday girl … how many?’

I blinked, momentarily confused and then. ‘I don’t’ know. I’ve never … I don’t–’

‘It hurts,’ he said. But somehow that only served to make me want it more. To crave it more.

Then softly– ‘But I’ll make it worth the pain, sweetheart.’

‘Four?’

‘And one for luck,’ he laughed. The tip of the belt licked my hip, my lower back, the top of the crack of my ass.

‘And one for luck,’ I agreed.

His bulk of his body withdrew from me and I felt the absence of it tingling along my skin. And then the belt tingled along my skin.

Each nerve ending went on red alert. A smarting, startling pain that stole my breath and then a brushfire rush of heat along my flesh.

‘One,’ he said and I sobbed.

‘Keep going,’ I said.

The second blow landed on the opposite side, a scalding stripe of pain. ‘Two.’

My back bowed and sweat broke out on my upper lip. I felt the pulse and beat and swell of my cunt and the flicker deep inside of me that signified arousal. I gripped the back of the chair and let the tears roll down my face.

They weren’t from the pain. They were from how much I trusted Shepherd to do this. The trust felt more intimate than the fucking.

He paused to slide a thick group of fingers into my pussy and when he flexed them I sobbed again, but for an entirely different reason.

The brutal kiss of the leather belt crossed the original welt and I yelped. His fingers returned, thrusting, driving, digging into the plump flesh of my pussy until I white-knuckled the leather chair and pushed back against his hand. The fourth blow crossed the second and in my mind I imagined demon-red Xs flared across my buttocks.

‘And one for luck.’ This blow landed horizontal.

He stepped out and to the side, emerging in my peripheral vision for a moment. Then flicked the belt so it crossed the top of both cheeks but below the small of my back. It hit the meaty part of my ass with a thwack and then the belt hit the ground and Shepherd stepped into me.

He pressed the hot head of his cock to my slit and slid into me, plunging so deep my feet – but for my toes – left the floor for a moment. He looped a big arm under my waist and held me as he fucked me. His words – a stream of heated chatter – slid into my head, filling my mind. But I couldn’t make any one sentiment out, just the sound of lust and need and affection and love. He fucked me so that I begged him to go harder thought I doubted he could and all the while my heartbeat marched itself through all of me. Chest, throat, cunt and ass. I was my own pulse.

And he was part of it all.

His other hand came under me and flicked my clit. His thrusts had grown shorter and more intense. The base nature animal sensation of being humped during the throes of mindless passion is a wonderful thing. There is something so intensely dirty about it that it adds to the chemistry of arousal.

‘Come for me.’

My bottom burned with fire that bled out to fill my womb and my pussy with a warm liquid heat. I was up, I was down, I was inside out – but above it all I was safe.

And without thinking, as I came, I said the catch word I used with the one person I considered family in my life. I came and I sighed and I cried out softly and simply said ‘Love.’

And Shepherd echoed, ‘Love,’ as my eyes found the beautiful bookcase that this man, this amazing man, had been crafting for me before he even knew I could love him. Let alone that one day I would.

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