The A Little Bit Trilogy Bundle: A Little Bit Submissive; A Little Bit Rough; A Little Bit Controlling - A BDSM Erotica Romance (18 page)

I started to ask him what he wanted, and what was in the bag. My hand rose off the bed but then fell back down as I was overcome with tears once again. I was so sad. I hadn’t realized the impact Roman had had on my life, and on my heart. But it was over now and I had to find a way to move on.

“What’s wrong, strawberry?” Kier asked and set the bag down then walked over to the bed and sat down. “Tell me what happened.”

I was a fool, that’s what was wrong, but he didn’t have to know it. However, I wasn’t about to tell him that. “Stress,” I said and burst into tears again. “I’m just so stressed.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said and took me in his arms. “
It’s
fine,
Teagan
.
Shh
.”

I allowed him to hold me, to kiss away my tears. I allowed it because there was no one else to do it and I needed that right then. I needed someone to tell me everything would be okay.
That
I’d
be okay.
But would I be okay? The question made me cry harder and I leaned into Kier, wanting so badly to rid myself of this feeling of being heart-broken.

He pulled back and smiled a little at me, then wiped my tears away with his thumb. Then he leaned in and kissed me softly on the mouth, pulled back and took my head in his hands so that he could stare into my eyes. “God, I love you,” he said. “I don’t know what it is about you,
Teagan
, but I love you.”

His words resonated with me. They made me come alive. They were what I needed to hear, not the stony silence I knew I’d get from Roman. I stared into his eyes and hoped he’d continue to say things that made me feel better about
myself
.

“I’ve missed you,” he said. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

I nodded. I had. He knew it. I knew it. It was no secret.

He bent and kissed me again, this time harder, as if he wanted me to feel his love. And then I did. I felt what he felt from me. He’d told me once that Roman was just a fling, a distraction, someone to fill the time with. He told me that because he’d done the same thing. Maybe that’s what people did; they passed the time with one another between the sheets.

I pulled away from him and shook my head. “God, I need to get up.” I sighed loudly and with emotional exhaustion and my eyes fell on the bag. “What’s that?” I asked and pointed at it.

“Your stuff.”

“My stuff?”
I said, shaking my head. “I don’t have any stuff at your house.”

“No, not stuff like that,” he said and got up and retrieved the bag, carrying it over to me,
then
placed it on the bed in front of me.

I stared up at him, then shrugged and opened the bag. Inside I found several little red, blue and black jewelry boxes, some wrapped in velvet. I recognized the boxes immediately. This was my jewelry, every last piece I had sold over the last few years to keep myself afloat in the market. The jewelry I’d bought for myself, the jewelry Kier had bought for me. My mouth dropped as I uncovered each thing I had sold. It was all there, every single piece.

“Wow,” I said and shook my head, feeling new tears stinging my eyes. It was such a bold, warm and loving gesture, I literally burst into tears.

“Hey, I thought you’d be happy,” he said and pulled me into a tight hug. “
Shh
. Girl, what has gotten into you?”

“Why did you do that?” I asked and pointed at the bag.

“Because you deserve to keep your jewelry, not sell it off like that.”

I couldn’t help but smile at him. He was good. Kier, at his core, was a very good man. Yes, he had cheated on me countless times, but I knew that he loved me. Suddenly, I was overcome with his love at that moment, and almost smothered by it. It seemed to fix everything, his love for me. Somehow, it was making everything right again in my life. Sometimes his love was too much but right then, it was just right and just what I needed to get over the hump of heartbreak.

“I knew you were doing it all along,” he said. “The jeweler called me every time you sold something and I’d go buy it back. I’ve been waiting to give it back to you so I decided that now was as good time as ever since we’re probably never going to get back together.”

I stared into his eyes and wondered why love was so very complicated. Why couldn’t it be easier? I didn’t know. Roman’s words when I was leaving came back to me, “
Teagan
, you are making a mistake.” Was I? I didn’t know but going so far in with him frightened me. I stared at Kier and felt that sense of familiarity I always had since the moment I had laid eyes on him. Kier was familiar to me; he was my comfortable place, all that I knew. He would take care of
me, that
was for sure. But did I need that?

“I will say this, though. I was glad to see you didn’t sell your engagement ring at least,” he said.

It was next
, I thought bitterly. I sighed and kept looking through the jewelry, like I was revisiting old friends. I really did have too much. Well, I’d
had
too much. But it was back again. Thanks to Kier.

A box I didn’t recognize suddenly caught my eye. I pulled it out and smiled at the designer name, one store I hadn’t visited in a very long time. But when had I bought this?
And a ring?
I was usually more of a bracelet, watch and earring girl. Rings were nice, but I liked having my fingers free. I chuckled at the thought and opened the box, gasping at what I found inside. It was a gigantic canary yellow diamond ring set in platinum and surrounded by smaller, yet no less dazzling, diamonds. This wasn’t my ring. It was an engagement ring, something a celebrity might give to their fiancée. It was stunner and probably worth more than my car.
A lot more.
If it was mine, and I ever had to sell it, it would take a big chunk out of my
mortgage, that
was for sure.

“What’s this?” I asked and held it out to Kier. “This isn’t mine.”

He sighed and took it from my hand. “I guess it’s a ring I bought you a while ago, thinking we might get back together sometime. I bought it just in case.”

Uh, what?

He grinned and slipped it on my ring finger and jokingly said, “Will you marry me,
Teagan
Finney?
Again?”
He paused and smiled at me, then shook his head slightly. “Remember the first time I asked?”

I stared at him and did remember the first time. It was only a month after we met. A month! But it had been right. I knew it was the right thing to do. It was so romantic and the diamond was much smaller. But it had meant more. We were in love and when you’re that in love, nothing matters but solidifying your love through marriage. I had wanted to marry him with my body, heart and soul. And I had, readily, eagerly.

I stared into his eyes and he stared back. The proposal, said in jest, was real. He really was asking me to marry him again.
God, he must love me,
I thought. How could he love me this much? It was just so overwhelming right then, especially after what I’d just gone through with Roman.

“Kier,” I said. “Are you serious?”

He nodded. “I am. I want you back.”

I sighed, not really wanting to deal with this right then.

“We should do it again,” he said and took my hand and kissed it. “I want to marry you again. I never wanted you to divorce me.”

He started talking then, telling me things I needed to hear. And he was there, begging me to trust him, begging me to be with him, wanting me more than anything. It stirred something inside of me, I had to admit. But I knew it was because I was so unsure of myself, of Roman.
And him, too.
But wasn’t it time to let that go and move forward?

“Quit your job,” he said. “Let me be the man I’ve always wanted to be with you. Let me earn all the money. Let me take care of you. Let me just take care of everything.”

Those words should have scared me but they were like music to my ears.
Let me just take care of everything…
They represented security, I knew, and security in uncertain times was a big deal. And my career and life in general was very uncertain right then. It was tantalizing and very, very tempting. Why not? Why not just give in and allow him to take care of me? Let the burden lift off my shoulders and feel the relief of knowing everything would be okay.

“I want you to have everything I have,” he said. “I want us to be together. This time, I promise, it will be different.”

Would it now? Could it be different? What he’d done to me had been so hurtful I never saw past that.

“Let’s stop playing games,
Teagan
,” he said. “Let’s do this and do it right this time. Let’s make a baby! Let’s have a family, a life! We can do it. We can make it happen.”

He made it sound so simple.

“We’re getting older,” he said. “We need to do this soon. I don’t want to be an old man with a cane pushing a baby carriage around.”

I couldn’t help myself and laughed at his comment.

“Let’s make it happen,” he said. “What do we have to lose?”

What did we have to lose?
Nothing really.
Roman was gone now and it was, again, just Kier and I.
But what about all that other stuff, the cheating, the lying, the trust issues?
How could I get over that to trust him again enough to start a family, enough to just be with him on daily basis?

“I will never hurt you again,” he said, getting animated at the fact that I was acting receptive to his request. “I promise you that.”

He meant all of that. He did. During that moment, he did mean what he said. I believed it, too. He had a way of making a person believe anything that he said, mainly because he believed it himself. The only problem was whether or not he’d follow through with it. I didn’t know if he had it in him. People rarely changed and when they did, it was usually not for the better. I stared into his eyes, he stared back and I felt something shift in me. It was all the resentment I’d stored up over him, over the things he’d done to me. The resentment shifted and then seemed to float away, telling me to trust him.

“Okay,” I said out of nowhere, surprising myself, and him.

“Okay?” he asked as if hadn’t thought I’d ever agree.

“Okay,” I said. “We can try again.”

He grinned. “That was easier than I thought,” he said and kissed my cheek. “Are you really agreeing?”

I stared down at the ring. I was. I nodded and held up my hand with the ring on it. “How could I say no to this?”

“It’s cool, right?” he said.
“One of a kind, too.
There is no other ring like that in the world.”

And that’s all a girl needed, right?
A big, obscenely expensive diamond ring.
Well, it was a lot more than Roman ever offered me. This told me that I had been right to break it off with him. He and I were too different. I felt the weight of the ring on my finger. It was so heavy I knew I wouldn’t be able to wear it on a daily basis. But it still felt good and looked even better.

“It’s beautiful, Kier,” I said.

“Not as beautiful as you,” he said and kissed my cheek. “I love you,
Teagan
.”

I turned to him and said, “I love you, too, Kier.”

He grinned. “We’re gonna do it right this time. I know it!”

We’d better
, I thought,
or I am the world’s biggest fool.

He climbed over me and started to kiss me. As he kissed me and I kissed back, I let everything go. I kissed him harder, wanting more from him, wanting his body, the weight of his body, on top of me. I wanted him inside of me so that I could forget about everything else that once mattered. All of my hopes with Roman, all of my fantasies, were now gone. It was just Kier and I, once again, in each other’s arms. Yes, there I was, back in his arms again, back in his heart. But where was my heart? I realized it didn’t matter. What mattered was having someone you knew loved you, even if you did have to put up with a measure of doubt: Would he cheat again? And would I even care if he did?

Maybe I was doing it for security, because I’d had a bad few years. Maybe knowing he would take care of me, and take care of me well, was a greater aphrodisiac than a riding crop across my ass, something that put me in my place and allowed me to submit to my desires. I had to go back to my familiarity, the comfort of the known and that was Kier, my ex-husband. Roman hadn’t offered this, hadn’t offered anything more than the sex. And he never told me he loved me.

On the other side, there was no evidence to suggest that I should believe in Kier but I wanted to. I wanted a resolution to all of this. I wanted to move forward in whatever direction I was meant to move forward. Time was
a’wasting
and I didn’t want to wake up one day and know I’d pissed the best years of my life away holding grudges over things that were out of my control. I didn’t want to miss out on having a family, a life, a
real
life. I was getting older and with that came the responsibility of knowing time does not stand still for anyone. I also remembered my mother’s words about how you had to overlook things when you were married to a good looking man. I had to admit, albeit grudgingly, she was right and I probably should have done it in the first place.

I also had to admit that it wasn’t just the sex that turned me on anymore. It
was knowing
I had someone who would catch me when I fell.

Right then, it was
Kier’s
turn. And he didn’t hesitate.

Welcome Home

“Welcome home,” Kier said and smiled at me.

It was official. We were getting back together and, like he’d said, this time we were going to do it right. I was moving back into our old house, the one we’d bought together years ago, the house in
Bel
Air. It was a gorgeous house that we’d loved and Kier had never sold it, living in it alone since our divorce. Now, it was newer, updated. Kier had done some renovations to it, but still kept the charm and character of the house. The crown moldings had a fresh coat of high gloss white paint and he’d had all the wood floors stripped and stained a darker, more modern, walnut color. They were beautiful. He’d bought all new furniture, cool, sleek and modern couches and chairs as well as a new dining table, an eight foot rustic piece that almost took my breath away. It was fabulous.