Forbidden Pleasures (NSC Industries Book 11) (12 page)

My body was on fire, but not with pain, with the pleasure
Bea was currently bestowing on me. I blinked at her softly as she knelt before
me, her wide eyes watching me as my hands twisted in the shackles above my
head.

Another ripple of ecstasy trickled up my spine as she
plunged her mouth down on my dick, jolting delicious throbs through my balls.
Unable to brandish the whip, she had fallen to her knees before me with tears
of apology in her eyes, her soft sobs and her murmurs of not being able to hurt
me twisting my gut. Then she had dropped and taken my cock between her lips.
The sweet worship of her mouth was actually enough to take my mind into
paradise, her gentle torture not allowing for any regret on my side. I didn’t
care if she couldn’t hurt me, it told me more about her than anything else.

“Tell me,” I whispered, “tell me you love me.”

Beatrice frowned up at me and I didn’t miss the way she
stuttered around my cock, her throat closing as she swallowed with
apprehension. The look that descended in her eyes made my chest hurt. She
couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say it.

She closed her eyes, the moment lost as she leaned back
on her heels and lowered her face. “Jay…”

Sucking air through my teeth, I blew it back out on a
long drawn breath. “Don’t worry about it, sugar.”

She winced, hearing the hurt and embarrassment in my
voice. She leaned forward to take me back in her mouth but it was gone, my dick
now soft and flaccid. “Oh Jay…” she whispered with a tight whisper. “I’m
sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I sighed. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”

She reached up and released the locks on the cuffs, her
eyes still low as she struggled to look at me.

Rubbing at my wrists, I watched her, the pain and guilt
crossing her face making me ache for her. She blinked and jolted when I
extended my arm and gently touched her face, turning her head until she looked
at me. “So what is this?”

“This?”

“This,” I gestured to us both, “Between us. Is it just
sex, a way of relieving the stress of daily life?”

“No,” she said quickly, her head shaking just as eagerly
as her regretful answer. “No it’s so much more than that.”

“But?”

“But…” She sighed and sat down of the floor, huddling her
knees up and wrapping them in her arms. Looking up at me I could practically
feel the self-hatred roll off her. “You have no idea how much I want to let you
in Jay. But there’s this… hollowness inside me, and even though it’s a void, it’s
incapable of being filled, by anything or anyone.”

“You don’t think I want to help you fix that? That I only
want the good parts of you?”

“It’s not that,” she argued with a deep sigh. “I want to
accept what you have to give so much, so much but it’s not that easy. I care
for you Jay, so much so that I won’t let you become… dragged under by my shit.”

Sitting before her, I took her hands and held them
tightly as I made her look at me. “What do you think love is Bea?”

She smiled softly, her eyes softening. “I know what love
is Jay. And I know what you’re trying to say.”

“And what am I trying to say?”

“That you love me enough to take on my shit.”

“Then why won’t you let me?”

I couldn’t say it didn’t hurt, her rebuff and refusal to
accept me. I wanted to help her get past whatever was grieving her soul. I
wanted to be the one to take her hand and drag her through to the other end.

She framed my face with both her hands. “You understand
what love is when you want someone to be happy. Even when their lives don’t
include you. Love is when you are willing to sacrifice your own happiness to
allow someone else to be happy. Love is not wanting them to hurt, even with
your own shit. Love is an overwhelming pain inside that cannot be eased by just
their smile, their own love for you, it’s accepting that you’re no good for
them and wanting them to move on and be happy, even if it’s with someone else.”

I stared at her, understanding but not daring to
understand.

“I’m too broken to be fixed, Jay. The pieces are so
fractured that there isn’t enough damn glue in the world that can repair what I
have done.”

My skin prickled with unease. “What
have
you done?”

She looked away, her eyes closing with pain. “I’ve
stepped over the line.”

My mouth opened to question her when her phone rang. She
sighed, blinking away the heaviness that had descended over us. I caught Jack’s
name on the screen of her phone. That man always picked the worse times ever.

“Hey,” Bea answered quietly, her eyes shooting up to mine
as she jumped up. “I’m on my way.”

“What?”

She smiled at me, widely and happily. “Noah’s awake.”

***

I wanted to fold her in my embrace and push back all the
heartache until she couldn’t feel anything but love. Her brothers were all
waiting for her when we got to the hospital and as soon as I had caught their expressions
I had been ready to catch Bea.

She hadn’t seen it, too excited to get to her brother that
she hadn’t seen the pain on their faces.

It had taken Ollie three attempts to tell Beatrice that
Noah had died. She wouldn’t,
couldn’t
, accept it, her refusal finally
making the pain of realisation devastating. He had woken and then not ten
minutes later, as we raced to the hospital, suffered a fatal heart attack. Yet
Beatrice hadn’t understood how he could go from being fine to dying in a matter
of minutes and had thought her brothers were playing a sick game with her. It
wasn’t until she finally saw Noah’s dead body that she accepted her brother’s
death.

Her soul destroying screams will haunt my dreams for the
rest of my life, my heartache as potent as hers. I wanted to rewind time and
make these last few months disappear. I was sure she couldn’t cope with much
more.

But anger had consumed me and I had sworn I would find
who was responsible for all this suffering to Beatrice.

And when I did, may God turn his back on him too.

***

I didn’t know how to help her. She was asleep now, her
despair so strong that her chest still stuttered with a sob every now and
again, even after two hours of sleep.

I drained my glass then refilled it with another whisky
before settling back in the window to watch another day break. I wanted it to
remain night and keep us all in perpetual darkness until this unbearable pain
Beatrice was in had passed.

The street was quiet, the light rain producing a mist in
the early morning light, dawn approaching way too fast for my liking. The
gentle breeze from the last two days was stirring into a wind, the coppery
leaves on the tree by my front lawn no option but to drop to the grass, the
rude awakening that autumn was upon us. My heart reflected their weakness,
dying a slow death day by day.

My mother’s words filtered into my mind for some strange
reason.
“I know it’s still so raw Jay, but I can’t help you move past it if
you’re unwilling to.”

I turned to look at Beatrice and frowned. It was only
then that I realised I had moved past the thing that had haunted me for over
twenty years. My mother
was
happy. My dad
had
made her pain
tolerable, if not deleting the many awful memories she had of her life with
James. She
had
moved on and she loved life.

I had escaped my mother’s nightmare, and landed in my
own. It wasn’t my Mum’s ache that lived in me now, it wasn’t her nightmares
that controlled my own. It was mine, my own life that hurt me, the emptiness
inside starting to swallow me whole after, for so long, being alone.

I turned back to the window and watched the sun rising
over the back of the hill on the horizon. This had been one of the reasons I
had bought the house, the beautiful picture it offered every morning to
announce a new day. Yet for the first time, I didn’t want to witness life
moving forward, leaving the pain of yesterday in just my memories. Bob the guy
who lived in number six across the road exited his house, his lips pressed
together as he whistled his usual tune. Every morning he’d wake me, that damn
happy tune he whistled making me grind my teeth. This morning, I didn’t grind
my teeth. I imagined shooting the twat right in the middle of his forehead, the
hole that appeared slowly seeping blood down his fat red cheeks and…

“I want to get high.”

I blinked at her sudden quiet voice and turned. She was
still laid on the sofa, her eyes staring forward as the fire blazed. Her sorrow
was engulfing, its agony making me swallow against the pressure of it. “Tough.”

She snorted, generating a frown. I had thought she would
go into meltdown, screaming and shouting at me that I had no say in how she
lived. But her resignation grieved me more. She had nothing left to shout and
scream with.

“You want coffee?” She shifted from the sofa, still not
looking at me as she made her way into the kitchen.

“Sure.”

She nodded but still didn’t glance my way.

Following, I watched the swing of her arse, then
disciplined myself. Not now for fucks sake. “How are you feeling?”

She shrugged as she shoved a cup into the machine and
peered at each of the buttons, pressing random ones and sighing each time
nothing happened. Reaching over her shoulder and catching her familiar scent, I
pressed the start button and it sprang to life. She gazed at it for a moment,
and nodded. “Huh, so easy.”

“It always is when you know how.”

“Cream or milk?” Her eyes remained forwards, away from
me, as she opened the fridge door.

“Milk, it’s too early for cream, makes my guts grumble.”

“Really? I always find that cereal does that to me in a
morning,” she offered back.

“So what do you eat in a morning then?”

“Toast, or muesli works.” She frowned at herself and
considered her own statement. “That’s weird, I’ve never thought about it before
but muesli’s cereal isn’t it?”

“I suppose, although it could be the bran or wheat that’s
in regular cereals that you’re affected by.”

She nodded slowly, adding milk to the first cup of coffee
and passing it to me, her face lowered as she did. She proceeded to make her
own, her eyes only lifting to look down to the garden through the window.
Spooning sugar into her own steaming cup, she decided to forego the milk and
placed it back into the fridge then held the cup in both hands and turned back
to look down the garden.

The silence that descended was nauseating. It was full of
grief and anger. “Look at me.” Ignoring me, her attention stayed on nothing –
anywhere but at me. “Beatrice, look at me.”

She huffed then turned and waltzed across the kitchen and
back into the lounge. Closing my eyes, I prayed for my sanity and trailed after
her. She was now sat in the window, staring at the quietness of the street.
“There’s some pretty houses here, how long have you lived on this street?”

“Not long, only a few months.”

She nodded. “Are your neighbours friendly?”

“I have no idea, I don’t really associate with them.”

She pursed her lips and nodded. “I get that, sometimes
it’s best to keep yourself private, especially where you live.” Suddenly, she
stood up and switched the TV on, the early morning news filling the quiet.

“I get what you’re doing, Bea, and I understand that.”
She maintained her concentration on the screen, the anger growing within me.
“But you need to let go.”

She took a drink, feigning interest in the bloody program
and ignoring me yet again. My mouth watered with rage and I blew out a silent
breath. Slamming my cup on the table, I shook my head. “Will you fucking look
at me!”

Her chest heaved but other than that she showed no
response, her attention still on the fucking telly.

“God damn it, Beatrice. Shout, scream, cry… just…
anything!”

“No,” she finally whispered.

Standing in front of her where she sat on the sofa and
blocking her view, she looked to the floor, her top teeth sinking into her lip
and finally showing me a reaction. “Look at me.”

“Jay…”

“Bea! Fucking – look – at – me!” I grabbed her face and
forced her head to tilt back, making her look at me.

She hit out at me, her head shaking left and right and
her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she pulled back and tried to get free but I
held on tight and refused her any leeway. “Let go,” she growled quietly.

“No, not until you look at me.”

“I don’t want to fucking look at you.”

“Why,” I pushed, “Why don’t you?” She shook her head
again, fighting with me. “BEA! Open your damn eyes!”

“No!”

Dropping her face from my hold, I seized her shoulders
and shook her. “GOD DAMN IT WOMAN! LOOK AT ME!”

“NO!” she screamed. “NO!”

“Why? Why?” Her head shook frantically as she tried to
pull away but I refused her, my anger making my fingers dig into her soft
flesh. “WHY?”

“Because it hurts!” she cried out at long last. “It
hurts!”

My heart stuttered and I froze. “What?” my voice quiet,
“Why?”

A small sob echoed in her chest and finally, fucking
finally, she looked at me. Her red eyes brimmed with tears, her nose glowed and
her bottom lip trembled. Her shoulders sagged and the struggle in her throat
made my head ache. “Because I’m scared to. Because I know if I look at you I’ll
give in.”

Wiping away one of her tears, I lowered myself into a
crouch before her. “You’ll give in to what?”

“Don’t make me do this,” she pleaded with her voice and
her eyes.

“I’m not letting you go until you give in to whatever
you’re frightened of, Beatrice.”

“Please…”

“Tell me!”

Rage suddenly consumed her and her lips curled back until
her teeth were bared and her eyes blazed angrily. She pushed out at me,
knocking me on my arse with her sudden movement and she ran. “Bea!” I shouted
as I shot up and chased after her when she darted out of the front door and
tore off down the road. “BEA!”