The One Worth Finding (18 page)

His eyes were liquid with
love
, tears
trickling down his cheeks.

She pushed her forehead against
his.

“I should whip you raw for doing this
without permission,” she panted against his sweat-streaked face,
and he sank down at her feet, desperate sobs wrecking his
body.

“
Please, mistress,” he whispered
“please punish me - teach me that I’m yours.”

But she closed her eyes against a pain
that felt ages old and so deep that it threatened to suffocate her,
and grabbing a robe to cover herself, walked away from him without
turning back.

When he stood in front of her door some
hours later, his face wet with tears that just wouldn’t stop
falling, eyes holding a misery that made her gasp, she took him
into her arms and pulled him inside.

“
One night, Aaron,” she breathed
against his lips, “one last night; your plane for L.A. goes
tomorrow, and this will be over, do you understand?”

He nodded slowly, and she started to
undress him.

They didn’t hurry this time. He slid
inside her as if he were coming home, and he stayed for hours,
stopping himself when he was about to climax, not wanting it to
end, keeping his hard, hurting rod perpetually embedded in her. She
allowed him to take her the way he needed, held him in her arms
until he finally came in the early morning hours, after she had
climaxed for what seemed the hundredth time.

She watched him dress, the word
“over” repeating itself in her head like the beat of a drum, and
she was so desperate, didn’t know what to do, her insides so raw
she felt a
n
abrasive pain whenever she moved.

When his cab arrived and he walked out of
the door, his shoulders hunched with misery, time stood still, and
Tara thought that this must be what dying felt like.

He turned one last time and looked at her,
his face so beautiful and tired, sad and frozen in
resignation.

“
You’ll stay my mistress, my
Domme forever,” he said slowly
. “I love you more than my life. I will never
belong to anyone else. I want you to take my love and remember me
when you are lonely and sad. Remember that out there, my heart
beats for you. Goodbye, Tara. Goodbye.”

He
got into the cab and was gone.

And Tara crumbled on the steps before her
house and felt as if her whole life had ended.

Inside her, nothing but dreadful
silence remained.

Chapter 14

Grace
waited at the airport, her dread
growing stronger and stronger as the minutes ticked by. When the
loudspeaker announced that the flight from Seattle had landed, she
stood anxiously at the arrival area, her hands clasped so tightly
in front of her that her fingers hurt.

She saw him
immed
iately,
and damn, he looked bad, pale and malnourished, deep blue circles
under his eyes from lack of sleep. He looked at her so lost and
miserable her breath caught in her throat.

“
I…” he started, his voice weak
and broken. “I’m so sorry, Grace. You know you don’t have to put up
with me…”

She was with him in two huge strides
and pulled him into a bear-hug.

“
Don’t you dare to apologize to
me, you fool,” she hissed, “and don’t you dare suggest that I
should leave you!”

And
Aaron wrapped his arms around her and
cried against her shoulder like a little boy.

He spent the whole afternoon staring
out of the window, hardly moving at all.

She was scared. She’d quarreled with Sid
about the fact that she was going to spend the night here, which
didn’t sit well with her nervous Dom, but she couldn’t leave Aaron
like this. So sad and destroyed, silence surrounding him like an
impenetrable cloud. It was eerie. And she had no idea how she could
get him out of that mood.

“Have you eaten?” she
asked.

“No.” His voice was barely a
whisper.

“Do you want something to
eat?”

“No.”

Sam came over, and she’d never seen
the huge, bulky man so clueless. Aaron didn’t talk to him. He just
continued to look out of the window as if for him, the world had
been frozen to ice.

He didn’t acknowledge
anybody, his face
still and empty, all tension contained in his trembling lips and
tear-filled eyes.

Grace felt miserable, lost
against his obvious destruction. She’d never thought it would be
possible to hurt him like this. Aaron Harte had always been
cheerfulness
personified. Now, he looked hollow and sick, sorrow eating
at him like a fatal disease.

She exhaled in relief when he came out of
his catatonia.

After three days, he started to
eat again. On day fo
ur, he walked to the beach with Grace. They watched the
seagulls hunting for food, and Aaron told his friend about Tara -
about her smile, the warmth he had detected beneath all the
loneliness, her ability to give. Her eyes, those hypnotic, deep
green eyes, and her lips, which had been like a lifeline for
him.

He felt
Grace’s frustration; she desperately
wanted him to move on, to be done with it, and Sam wanted the
same.

He smiled. They just didn’t understand,
couldn’t see that he would never let this go. That this was the way
his life would be from now on. He hid his pain as well as possible,
put on a brave front for his friends, knowing full well they didn’t
believe his charade one bit. But it was all he could do.

He forced himself to eat,
but
noticed
that he had started to lose some weight. He wasn’t really hungry,
feeling so sad and empty all the time, most comfortable with just
staring into space.

His insides were in so much
turmoil he had lost all sense of direction
.

After a week, he went to work
again. He found he
could actually smile at his young patients, but at the same
time knew they could see his true emotions in his eyes and posture.
Children were far more perceptive than adults.

Ten
-year-old Bill Chapman looked critically
at him while Aaron pulled the stitches from his arm.

“Why are you so sad, doc?” Bill asked
after a while.

“
Well, Billy,” Aaron said,
straightening slowly, “I failed to win my princess’ heart. And now
I’m sad.”

“Doesn’t she love you back?” Bill
inquired.

“
I think she does, Bill,” Aaron
muttered, carefully removing the remains of the black surgical
thread, “she’s just too sad to let anybody into her life right
now.”

Bill thought for a moment.

“
But now you’re sad, too,” he
mused, “why doesn’t she take you as she is, sad and all? Then you
wouldn’t be sad, and you could try to make her happy,
too.”

Aaron smiled, putting tweezers and
scalpel into a metal bowl.

“I’m afraid grown-ups aren’t entirely
logical beings, Bill.”

“
Oh yeah,” Billy snorted, “as if
I don’t know that.”

Every evening he put his lab coat in
the closet and declined James’ offer to come to the club. Instead,
he walked to the gym and worked out until he almost lost
consciousness. At home, he fell into his bed and passed out with
exhaustion, finally able to sleep a deep, dreamless
slumber.

He still administered a daily enema, out
of habit. He was dead below the waistline. Nothing gave him an
erection, even the memories from Seattle were overridden by his
bone-deep misery.

He
hadn’t expected it to hurt quite so much.
But what had he known about love?

He did this day by day, each morning
astonished at how much he suffered, how much it hurt, how the pain
filled him up until there wasn’t room left for anything
else.

He breathed to the slow throb of
sorrow deep inside him.

H
e spent a lot of time at the ocean, for
staring still worked best for him.

One day, Sam stood in front of his
door when he came home from the gym. Aaron sighed and nodded,
knowing full well he couldn’t avoid his friends forever.

Sam followed him into his dark
house.

“
Why don’t you come to the club
anymore?” Sam asked as soon as Aaron had switched on the
light.

Yeah, that was Sam, never one to beat
around the bush with friendly small talk.

“
Why should I?” Aaron shrugged.
“I don’t scene anymore, because my Domme isn’t here. I would just
taint you with my ongoing depression. No need for you to watch me
stare into space, Sam. I’m okay. I’ll survive.”

“
Why don’t you let us decide if
we want to watch you, Aaron?” Sam growled. “You’re our friend, boy.
We’re worried about you. And yes, we plain selfishly miss you, you
imbecile. We don’t care if you’re bawling your eyes out or
whistling a happy tune. We just want to be there for you, dammit!
But we can’t because you’re avoiding our calls and never come to
the club where we all happen to hang out.”

Aaron was silent for a while, watching
the birds who gathered in his garden at this time of
night.

“Who is this woman, Aaron?” Sam asked,
his voice surprisingly gentle “What did she do to you?”

“
She’s the most wonderful human
being I ever met in my life, Sam,” Aaron said quietly, “she simply
isn’t free. I knew it all along. I thought I could fight it. But it
hurts so much it’s crippling me. Deep down, I don’t want to go on.
Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal. I won’t give up; I’m just so damn
tired all the time.”

“
Come back,
Aaron
,” Sam
whispered, “hang around with us. Grab some hugs. Let us hold your
hand while you stare out of windows. Beer’s on me. You know you
don’t have to scene, I gave you the black bracelet myself. Now you
can rightfully wear it, you ARE committed after all. Hell, we’ll
shoo the horny Dommes away from you. Please, Aaron. It’s not the
same without you.”

“I’ll think about it, okay?” Aaron
answered, his voice small and downcast.

Sam stood up and patted Aaron’s
shoulder before he lost his overcoat.

“
Come on, buddy” the big black
man said, “there’s a fucking opera on TV tonight. Let’s watch it
together before I remember that I hate this smart-ass
shit.”

And for the first time since he
had left his
future behind in Seattle, Aaron chuckled
faintly.

Jack rang the doorbell for the
umpteenth time. Just when he thought about leaving without actually
seeing her, the door opened.

Nobody greeted him.

He heard her receding steps , soft
sounds on the wooden floor.

He stepped inside. The apartment
was much too neat. No dishes in the sink. No books on the tables.
The laptop was closed. Dust lay on every surface, like a freaking
haunted mansion. Everything was stark white, furniture,
walls,
even
the few decorations she had. More unfriendly than a hospital, but
just as orderly and organized, except for the bed. The sheets were
crumpled, stained. She sat in the middle of it, staring at him with
intense, stark-green eyes.

Jack sighed.

A white shirt hang over her desk chair,
looked like a man’s. He brushed over the collar
absentmindedly.

“Don’t touch that!” she
hissed.

Jack sighed again. Harte’s,
then.

“
You don’t come to the club
anymore.” He stated. “Your public scene with Harte was a roaring
success.”

“
I don’t want to talk about the
scene.” She muttered. “I’ll never come to the club
again.”

“
Because he’s not there?” Jack
growled. “Why don’t you go where he is then, you stubborn, stupid
woman?”

“I don’t love him.” She whispered, and
it was so clearly a lie she cringed herself.

Damn, she looked bad. She obviously hadn’t
eaten enough, had hardly slept. Had entertained her ghosts in this
crumpled bed.

“
The hell you
do
n’t,” Jack
bellowed, “you love that perpetually smiling little sub so much you
pretty much died the day he left. Look at you, you were a ghost
before, but now you’re a zombie. Do you think there will be a third
guy who manages to finish you off anytime soon? Or will you bury
yourself in this mausoleum here and never see a living soul
again?”

Tara said nothing. She buried her face
in her folded arms.

“
Would Jeff want you to be a
coward, Tara?” Jack asked harshly. “Eight fucking years! Would he
have wanted you to die with him that day? Would he be happy to see
you turned into that? What happened between you and Harte, for
god’s sake?”

She straightened and looked into his
eyes.

“
I wasn’t careful enough,” she
said coolly. “I fell in love. Hard. Madly. I didn’t only fuck him.
I made love to him. Now I’m paying the price. I can’t give him
anything, Jack. I’m not free!”