Chapter 20
Twenty
Istretched out in the sheets like a cat in the sun. My body felt worn out in the best way. My bottom was sore and I blushed at the memory of what I’d let Alfie do to me the night before.
This whole thing was supposed to be an exercise in trust. I felt impatient to get to the finish line.
I loved him completely but leaps of faith were hard to take.
It made sense that Alfie would have me take lots of little leaps first and bind them up in toe-curling pleasure to take the bitterness away.
I smiled as the door opened and the man responsible for my sore bottom entered the room in only a towel. “Hey you.”
“Hey yourself.” The mattress sunk as he sat next to me. His skin shining with sweat, cheeks flushed. I could have him all over again. “How’re you feeling?”
“I’m…processing.”
“Are you in pain?” He pulled back the sheets, studying my breasts, checking for marks from the rope and clamps.
“Some. I’m sore.”
“But you’d do it again.” It wasn’t a question.
I bit back a smile. “Does it always have to be at the club?”
“No. The club is just so you can have some distance from your real life to process what we’re doing. Besides, everything is set up there. I doubt you’d want Ada picking up butt plugs off the floor.”
I groaned and threw the duvet over my face. He laughed.
“Don’t be embarrassed. You were amazing.”
“You were amazing,” I told him. “You were really in your element. You enjoy it so much, don’t you? Control, power.”
“It used to just be that but now it’s different with you. Deeper.” He leaned over me and I met his kiss. It was gentle, the way you were supposed to kiss on a Sunday morning.
The sound of my phone ringing interrupted our kiss. Then his phone rang too, interrupting mine. We both groaned as we reached for our devices.
“It’s my mother.” He sounded grim. I checked my own.
“It’s Natalie.” We gave each other a ‘here we go’ look and answered our calls. He went into the bathroom, greeting his mother with all formality, and shut the door behind him.
I swiped my screen. “Hey Nat, what’s up?”
“I just wanted to see if you were free for dinner this week?”
“Um…Yeah, I’d love to.” I could order food to Harrington no problem, but I loved Natalie’s home cooked meals.
“Great! I’ve invited dad too. We’re having lasagne. Do you want to bring dessert?”
“I can bring dessert. Do you want to back up to the detail about our father you just tried to sneak past me?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t want it to be a big deal.”
I bit back a retort. He’d been gone for more than twenty years, him being back was a big deal. “You invited him to the house?”
“Yeah of course, where else?”
“Maybe a restaurant would be better? That’s still my house, my mother’s home and my gran’s. I don’t want him there, eating at my family's table after how he abandoned us and screwed us over. He doesn’t have the right.”
“It’s my house too…” she said softly.
“I don’t care. I’m sorry but I don't. Having him there is disrespectful to my mum’s memory, I don’t like it. I support you having a relationship with him, I’m considering it myself but I don’t want him at my family's table, on our couches, or in her garden. No.”
I wanted to pull the it’s-not-your-house-on-paper card but I didn’t. I knew I was probably being unreasonable but this was too far. It was still my home, I wanted it respected.
“Okay, a restaurant then. Do you want to come?”
Was I ready to see my father again? To sit down in a restaurant and make polite conversation? “I’ll think about it.” I didn’t say that I wanted to talk to Alfie first.
“Alright. On a brighter note, I think we’ve found a church for the wedding. In Dublin, of course. My mother doesn’t want to travel. They’re booked up until next year but we’re hoping for a cancellation so we can get married in the next few months.”
“The next few months? Why the rush?”
“Oh…well, we’ve just been waiting long enough to be a real family.
I don’t want to put it off.” She let out a nervous laugh and I decided not to push it.
I knew that becoming a single mother without the father of her child anywhere in sight had been a dark time in her life.
Her family and friends in Ireland hadn’t exactly been gracious about it, hence her move to England.
“Maybe Riley can grease some palms?”
She laughed. “I don’t think Riley is a grease-some-palms kind of guy.” No he wasn’t, but I knew someone who was. We talked for a minute longer and then hung up. The blissful good mood I’d woken in had dissipated and all I was left with was a sore bottom.
I looked up to see a pair of grey eyes on me. “Jesus, Alfie. Wear a bell next time!” I hadn’t heard him come out of the bathroom.
“I’d have thought you’d had enough of bells for one weekend.” I rolled my eyes at him and he chuckled. “You’re seeing your father again?”
“Maybe. It’s not like I’ve got so much family that I can be picky.”
“That’s not true.” He came to sit next to me again. “You deserve the best people around you. Anyone who would abandon you, doesn’t deserve you.”
“You don’t want me to see him.”
“I don’t trust relatives that show up after twenty years when money is suddenly on the table. I get this is new to you but I've been wealthy my whole life, not everyone has good intentions. He’s already hurt you enough.”
“You’ve hurt me too and you want me to forgive you, right? Why not him?”
Alfie toyed with a lock of my hair, twirling the auburn strands around his fingers. “It’s not the forgiveness for his abandonment that's the problem, it’s his motivation for being here now that I don’t trust. I don’t think you’re seeing the full picture because of your emotional involvement.”
I scowled. “Don’t patronise me.”
“Hey, I’m not your enemy.” He cupped my face, brushing a thumb over my angry pout.
“I know. I don’t know what to do. I’ve wanted a father my whole life but I’m so fucking angry.”
He smoothed a hand into my hair, fingers stroking the nape of my neck, soothing me. “You take this at your pace, no one else's. Just because you step forward doesn’t mean you can’t step back.”
“You’re wise, you know that?”
“I’m introspective. Especially when it comes to you. I spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about you.”
“Right back at you.” We shared a smile. I snuggled up to him, relishing in his closeness.
“Speaking of introspection, how’s your backside?”
“How was that a segway?” I laughed. I loved his playful side. “My backside is off limits for a while. Speaking of off limits, how’s your mother?”
Alfie snorted. “She’s confirming our lunch date. We’re meeting at the restaurant at the Carlton.” I raised an eyebrow. The Carlton Hotel. That would be a trip down memory lane.
“You sure you don’t want to go somewhere less public?”
“No.”
Okay, I guess that was the end of that topic.
“Hey, can I ask you a favour, first?” I said, changing the subject.
“First? First before what?”
“Before you let me spend the rest of the day worshipping you. With the amount of time you’ve spent with your head between my thighs, I’ve got some catching up to do.”
He shook his head. “There’s no catching up.”
“Yes there is. You’ve spent years denying me the chance to pleasure you, you don’t think that hurt me? How would you have felt if I would only give and never take?”
He frowned at the thought. “Alright. Ask your favour.”
“Natalie and Riley want to marry soon but everything is all booked up until next year. I know Natalie would make do with the bare minimum but I want her to have the perfect wedding, exactly how she wants it. The fairytale. She deserves it. Do you think you could…I don’t know…
wave your Alfie Tell wand and pull some strings? ”
Alfie bit back a smile. “Lola O’Connell, are you asking me to bribe a priest?”
“No, just like a hotel manager or something, for the reception. Do you mind? Is it taking advantage?”
“No, I’m glad you asked. I care about Natalie and Riley too, remember? I’ll call Riley, offer him my services.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Gross. You didn’t need to phrase it like that.”
“And telling me to wave my Alfie Tell wand was better?”
“Fair point.”
He threw back the covers and scooped me up. “Come on, baby. You’ve got some catching up to do apparently.”
I took my time with him, learning the pace that he liked, when he wanted it rougher or gentler.
He coached me through opening my throat for him.
It was going to take practice but I was determined to become as skilled at pleasuring him as he was in pleasuring me.
I learned his favourite position was to have me on my knees but I loved it when he was lying down and I got to watch him writhe.
There was something intensely erotic about watching such a powerful man come apart at my command.
As we spent the day exploring each other and testing the new limits we’d discovered the night before, the world fell away and for a little while, I forgot that I was a woman with old ghosts nipping at her heels.