Chapter 3
Three
Alfie started most days working out in his home gym at an ungodly hour that no sensible person should ever be awake at. He had invited me to join him a few times, an offer that had earned him a withering look. Usually he was back in bed before I woke up. Not today. Today I woke alone.
Before I could worry about why, my phone pinged. It was a photo from Keira. She was at dinner with a group of people, one or two looked vaguely familiar. Actors, I presumed.
I missed my best friend. She’d been in New York for months now working as an assistant designer on some broadway production. I was happy for her but our apartment had been too empty without her. Another reason why I’d chosen to make the leap to Alfie’s place.
Her support of my relationship with Alfie was reluctant at best and I couldn't say that I blamed her.
He'd hurt her too. Part of me had been relieved when she gave me the news that she would be going to America for a while and that made me feel sick with guilt.
Keira had been the only constant in my life.
Dad, mum, gran, all gone. Natalie and Ryan had burst into my life, rocking my world.
Then came Adam to terrorise me. And then Alfie…
he had broken me, put me back together and then broken me again.
Throughout all of it, there had been Keira.
Refusing to lie in bed and wallow over my best friend any longer, I got up, showered and dressed. I dug around in my boxes until I found a white dress with dainty yellow daisies on it. That would do for today.
I felt uneasy seeing my belongings in Alfie’s house. They seemed out of place.
I was about to give myself a get-a-grip lecture when Alfie walked in wearing a towel, skin flushed from the steam he always took after his workout.
I smiled but still, he must have read the insecurity in my eyes. “What's wrong?”
I nudged one of the boxes with my foot. “Just feels weird having my stuff here.”
“Do you want to move it back?” He sounded sincere but I doubted Alfie would let me move out now that he’d finally gotten me here.
“No, that’s silly. I’m sorry, I don’t know why this is bothering me so much.” I sat down cross-legged. There was a pair of old, scuffed converse on the top of the open box in front of me. A far cry from the Gucci loafers lining Alfie’s closet. “My things just don’t look right in your house.”
“Then we change the house.” He shrugged and sat opposite me, somehow managing to keep his towel in place.
I gave him a look. “I’m serious. I want you to feel at home here.
Maybe we can loosen a window handle or two so they fall off when you try to open them?
Or I could have someone hammer a nail into one of the pipes so it leaks? ”
“Hilarious.” I rolled my eyes, biting back a smile.
“I’m not done. I could have someone mess with the door hinges so they squeak? I wonder if there’s a way to fuck up the water pressure so it’s as bad as you’re used to…”
That did it. I launched myself at him, planting my mouth firmly on his. He pulled me sideways into his lap, kissing me deeply. My dour mood lifted with just the feel of his skin on mine. It might not feel right having my stuff in his house, but there was nothing righter than his arms around me.
“I mean it,” he said when we finally came up for air. “I want you to feel at home here. And if not here, pick a different home. I’ll follow you.”
“The house is beautiful, it’s just an adjustment. I’ve had a lot of adjustments over the last six months. I’m excited for what’s coming and missing what's gone.”
Alfie was quiet, brows knitted together in thought. “Keira?”
I laughed a little, shaking my head. “How do you do that?”
“I’m observant. And believe it or not, I do know you quite well by now. Her moving away was hard for you.”
“Yeah, I feel like I’ve lost an arm or something.
For as long as I can remember we’ve been in each other's pockets. Talking at school everyday, sleepovers every weekend. We’ve shared everything together: our first periods, first bras, first kisses with a boy, first dates, first jobs.
Now our lives are so far away from each other. ”
“Keira has been your one constant, it makes sense that you’d feel destabilised by her absence.”
I gave him a curious look. “Those sessions with Priya really paid off, huh?”
“Yes. I’m now well versed in emotional literacy.”
“Spoken like a real life robot.”
He gave me a playful squeeze and we sat quietly for another moment.
“You can take my plane to see her anytime, you know that.” It was a deeply generous offer but I didn’t want to take advantage of him or cramp Keira’s new life. This was normal, I reminded myself, for friends to go their own separate pathways.
“I know.”
“But you won’t take me up on the offer?”
“I’m just not ready to treat your stuff like it’s my stuff yet.”
Alfie chuckled and kissed the top of my head. “Silly girl.”
In the gentle quiet, I let my fingers trace over the veins in his forearms, relishing the smoothness of his skin. His torso was a hard slab of muscle, yet it was comforting.
Still, the nagging voice at the back of my head whispered: remember what he did.
Remember how he hurt you. I didn’t want to remember what he’d done anymore.
I wanted to remember who he was now. It was a work day and I knew that Alfie had ten thousand things to do and yet here he was, sitting on the floor surrounded by my junk, trying his best to cheer me up. That’s the man I needed to focus on.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?”
“For making me feel better. I know you have other things to do today.”
“None of it’s more important than you.”
I turned my face up to be kissed. It was gentle, intimate and I wanted to exist in this moment forever, but the day was waiting. I broke away and tried to stand up but he shook his head and pulled me closer, his body moulding into mine in that way that made my skin heat all over. “Don’t go yet.”
I let out a sigh. I could fall asleep here, sitting on the floor surrounded by the remnants of a life slipping away.
“You're nervous for today. I can feel it.”
I smiled. This was my Alfie. He rarely asked how I was feeling, he observed and then he stated it, often telling me how I felt before I knew it myself. Today I was going to Harrington. It was the calm before the storm. The storm being tomorrow when my work would officially start.
“Do you have everything you need? Is there anything I can do?”
“Hmmm,” I pretended to think about it. “Relax me?”
“I didn't relax you enough last night?”
“I'm sorry, I didn't realise I'd worn you out. Well, I suppose you are getting up there in years…maybe I should have found myself a younger man.”
His face broke out into a wicked smile, showing me perfectly straight teeth. “Oh Lola, you are in so much trouble.” He lifted my dress, revealing my thighs.
“Don’t rip my dress.”
He chuckled in response and flipped me onto my front. He moved over me. One leg between mine, the other next to me, a firm hand on my back held me down. He spanked me. Hard. I yelped. He delivered another blow, then another, slow and methodical. Then he leaned over me, breathing in my ear.
“Is this relaxing, baby?”
“Not exactly,” I muttered through gritted teeth. He spanked me again, then again. “Okay, I’m sorry!”
“I know.” His hand snaked between my legs and with his middle finger he began to stroke in small circles, applying only the slightest pressure.
I moved my hips, moaning as he teased me.
I waited for his fingers to dive inside me but then he paused as if he was considering something and all of a sudden he was gone.
I rolled over, breathless on the floor. I watched in bemusement as he walked into the bathroom.
“That’s it?” I called after him but he didn’t answer. On shaky legs I followed him into the bathroom. He was already in the shower, washing the sauna from his skin.
“I want to take you to the club this weekend,” he said, pretending like he hadn’t just left me dripping wet with a sore bottom.
“What? Why?”
“For fun. There are things that I want to explore with you. Things that you weren’t ready for before but now I think you'd enjoy them.”
My stomach did a little flip. “Like what?”
“Like a continuation of what Kal started with you months ago.” His tone was a little stiff, that obviously wasn’t a memory he enjoyed bringing up.
I'd ended up with Kal after finding out that Alfie had been filming me for the last two years. He’d taken me in, calmed me down and then he’d tied me up.
And I’d liked it. I didn't like that it was him, but I’d liked it all the same.
Alfie peered at me through the glass. “I don't like that. I don't like you blushing when you're thinking about what another man has done to you.”
“You brought it up!”
Alfie switched off the shower and shook his head, droplets hitting the glass wall separating us. I watched, salivating, as he tied a fresh towel around his waist.
He pulled me to him, hands running over my sore backside. “I want to explore you more, I want you to explore yourself more with me.”
“And what about you? Will I get to explore you?” He knew what I meant.
In all the time we’d known each other, he’d never once let me pleasure him.
Ever. Since we got back together, he let me take the reins sometimes, but he never let me go down on him.
It wouldn’t bother me so much if I didn’t know that his reason for refusing was that he didn't feel ready for me to love him in that way yet. “I don’t want any more walls between us.”
“I know. Soon. I’ll do it in my own way.”
“Okay.” I squeezed his hand, not really sure what he meant but trusting him anyway.
“Will you be taking me to the Onyx rooms?” I'd only been down there once and it wasn't an experience I was eager to repeat. I’d found Damien down there doing shocking things to a woman who seemed to be enjoying it very much.
“Maybe. If I decide you’re ready.” If he decided? I arched an eyebrow but he didn’t amend his words. He meant it. He would take me if and when he decided and not a moment before.
“I don’t want to be a fetish, Alfie.”
He burst out laughing. My favourite sound in the world, it was so rare and almost exclusive only to me. “This isn’t about fetishes or kinks. It’s about sensation, intimacy, control, patience. Most of all it’s about trust.”
I stared at him, finally getting it. My Alfie’s brain had been busy. Trust was something we’d mentioned last night, how what he’d done still haunted me sometimes.
“This is how you want to teach me to trust you?”
“You trust me, your body doesn’t, not always.
The body remembers. It knows what I did to you.
I’m going to teach you to trust me again, and what could require more trust than allowing me to take you to a house full of strangers, where I’ll strip you and tie you up?
” My stomach clenched. “No one will see you.” He read my mind once again.
“I don’t want anyone to be able to count the freckles on your shoulders but me. Do you agree?”
“Yes. But if I say stop—”
“You won’t have to say it. I’ll see when you’re at your limit before you know it yourself. So, during the week you can work but on the weekends you come back here, to me. Agreed?”
I nodded and allowed him to kiss me. I gasped as he picked me up and placed me on the bathroom counter. Strong hands separated my thighs and he broke our kiss to look between my legs. That beautiful mouth of his smirked.
“Poor sweet thing, all red and swollen. Would you like this old man to do something about that?”
I closed my eyes, letting out a breathy moan as he knelt and placed his mouth over my most sensitive parts.
Once again, I felt as though I'd signed a deal with the devil. Only this time, I wasn't afraid.