Trust Me to Know You (44 page)

“The hotel staff, the manager, they all came to search for you. You looked like a frozen statue sat there. I thought you were dead. The manager carried you back in, checked you over, I couldn’t touch you. Your skin was so cold and I wanted to feel warmth from you.” He came to a sudden halt as if he
did not want to think about yesterday any longer.

I could not bear it anymore and I emerged from my warm cocoon and crawled next to him. I took one of his hands in mine and he let me. He had done what I wanted him to do, showed me his feelings and they had made me contrite.

“I’m sorry,” I said with sincerity. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I don’t think I was aware what I was doing by then. I couldn’t believe you would accept my departure so easily. I couldn’t see a future without you. The snow looked so pretty and inviting, like the sheets of a bed. Somewhere to retreat to and give up.”

He wrapped my hand in both of his and leant down to kiss it.

“What did you have planned for me this weekend?” I asked intrigued.

He looked slightly embarrassed. “All the things you would desire, romance, my devoted attention and a... a proposal.”

His lips curled up and I was sitting up looking up at him intently.
“Gemma. I want you to stay with me, but things are going to be different from now on. I promise you. I do love you and want you to have my love unconditionally. From now on I won’t make you submit to me in any office, hotel room or any room in our houses,” he was speaking earnestly and with passion.
“Do you understand?”

I nodded but I had serious doubts. There was the unmet need in both of us - his need to control me and mine to be dominated. The traits were innate in both of us.

“What of your needs, Jason? And mine too. I’m not saying I don’t want to be your submissive, it’s the boundaries which need to be defined better.”

Jason cupped my face in his hands, stroking his thumbs across my cheeks. He smiled in relief, in spite of everything, I knew he wanted to be my master.

“You will only ever be my submissive in one room. We will enter together as equals, no more waiting for me, and there you can freely submit to me when I ask you to and we will do our scenes, nothing more.”

A
wave of release flooded over me. That arrangement could work for me if he could manage the rest of the time to control his urges.

“What about your rules?”

Would he expect me to comply with them all the time?

“Outside of the lair? They're gone, out of the window. No asking permission, no kneeling. If you want to take pleasure in yourself while away on a business trip, I’ll cope with the idea as long as you’re thinking of me.”

Jason had a boyish look on his face. Our conversation was going well, I felt liberated and these boundaries were making sense to me. “Flirting, your type of flirting, I will have to come to terms with, I’ll need time though. I don’t want to share you, not with strange men.”

I agreed, his concept of flirting would be harder for him to deal with, especially if he could not even bear me talking to strange men.

Jason moved off the bed and knelt at my feet. It took me by surprise to see him at my feet looking edgy and meek. He took my hands in his and squeezed.

“Gemma. I
love
you and I want to be with you forever. My proposal is marriage. I would wish you to be my wife.”

For a spilt second, I thought I had misheard him or imagined
this strange scene in a dream. A dom
inant asking me to marry
him because he loved me. I
could not stop the tears of delight. I leapt down into his lap and wrapped my arms around him.

“
Yes
! Yes, yes,” I burbled the words out at him.

We sat on the floor for some time, not speaking and just holding each other. Our breathing conjoined in excitement. After a while, I
did not
know how long, we got up, climbed back into the bed and snuggled down in each other arms. We both wanted to sleep, it had been a stressful night, but our tribulations were over now.

Later we made up for lost time.
I did not wear my evening gown. We did not leave the suite and we barely left the bedroom. Whatever Jason had planned for the weekend had been ploughed away with the snow. The bed became our sanctuary and my body rediscovered its warmth with Jason’s help. As darkness descended again,
his eyes summoned me into his arms. I saw beyond their intense blueness into his heart and mind.

There had, and always would be, an unequalness between us but we were balanced in our own way. Even without the things I had long craved – the whips, ropes and sensual toys – we were compatible in our love-making.
I adored his masterful ways:
the manipulation of my body was done with subtleness and I could not stop my mouth from seeking him out in reply.
Never one for many words during sex, Sunday night in Scotland, Jason gave me all I desired. The next day, I vaguely remembered his utterances, his affirmations, the gentle caresses and my blissful climaxes – they were mere essences of that night. They were sufficient for my memories. I wanted nothing more. I had Jason’s love.

A month had passed
since that tumultuous weekend in Scotland. I thought back on how our relationship had developed over the previous weeks and I was blissfully happy with the outcome.

We had eventually returned from Inverness on the Monday when the airport reopened. The changes to our relationship were apparent from the outset. Jason had been far more forthcoming with expressions of endearment and affection and remained keen to prove he was genuine about his declaration of love.

Changes to
our routine in the week too. There was n
o more cooking evening meals for Jason.
Mr
Brooks had been resurrected from his basement flat to cook evening meals for us, freeing up my time to do other things in the early evening.
Mr
Brooks was retired from the army where he spent his years as batman for a colonel. He turned ou
t to be an excellent chef too.

I
spent my free time doing my own preferred form of exercise: zumba and salsa dancing. Jason
had released me from his required gym sessions, which
were intensely boring and begrudgingly agreed to my own regime. Convincing him salsa dancing was innocuous fun took some doing as he
had combated his issues over me dancing with other men.

“It is a professional dance class, no hanky panky.” My hands were on my hips while he had suppressed a strongly worded rebuttal. Then he had sighed and raised his hands in defeat.

Jason continued his relentless pace of work and I accepted he was not going to be much company in the evenings. He came to bed
with stress more evident on his face. Since our
engagement, he no longer hid his feelings from
me. His unreadable face was fading from view and he embraced his emotions more readily. Some nights he came to bed aroused and we made rapid, urgent love, letting him release his frustrations through me. It could be rough sometimes, but never without pleasure, and he remained the director of our love-making. I
came loudly and when I wished. It was very therapeutic and the freedom helped heal my fractured passions.

I made a special effort to meet the elusive Mrs Harris by turning up mid-day on the first Friday back from Scotland. She had been noticeably perturbed by my presence. She had been
busy preparing food for the weekend and keeping a watchful eye on a cleaner. I thought though I won her over quickly when I
had
complimented her on her food and asked that she continued to treat us to her culinary delights. We
had
chatted about the house and its furnishings. We laughed together when I
had
mentioned my desire to feminise the property more. I
did not
mention the engagement, it felt more appropriate coming from Jason.
Mrs Harris had been
further delighted when in the afternoon I took her off in my BMW to buy food from that the farm shop. She
had gone home at four o’clock with a basketful of fresh fruit.

My first evening with Jason, back together at Blythewood,
was perhaps the tensest of the last few weeks. I had sat doing a crossword while Jason checked his emails on his laptop. Both of us were showing signs of agitation as our unrequited needs remained unspoken. I
had taken the initiative, went over to him and pushed his laptop to one side so I could sit on his lap.

“Gemma?”
His eyes had flashed with amusement. “Am I boring you?”

I had wriggled on his lap. “I want to be entertained, Mr Lucas,” I said cheekily.

“Indeed.”

The prod was enough to spur him into action.

As he had promised in Scotland,
we both entered his lair together. Only when we were both inside the room, door shut,
would
he turn and ask me to submit to him. I would kneel, offer myself willingly to him, calling him master.
It
became the pattern of our visits over the coming weeks. I
would called him master and he called me other names – little subbie, slave or something else - to help reinforce the difference our relationship took in his
room. We used our personal names only when communicating about the nature of the play. The sessions were often very intense. Jason came close to pushing me to my limits on a few occasions. He could read my body language like a book though and each time I felt a safe-word was going to be
uttered,
he withdrew or eased up. The trust between us continued to be built.

The announcement of our engagement was postponed until we had let our respected parents know. Jason’s parents
could not
hide their delight. Their son was finally settling down and fulfilling their dreams. I hoped the tension
, which Jason felt towards his siblings, would abate too.

Naturally, my parents had been concerned.

“This engagement is awfully quick, Gemma,” my mother had whispered to me in her kitchen. “Are you sure?”

“We’ve had to work through a few issues,
mum, but honestly it is good, really good. Don’t worry about me. For one
thing,
I’m going to be very rich, so I don’t want you and dad to worry about anything. Jason is very generous with his money,”

“I don’t want your money, dear, just your happiness.”

Jason had been much more relaxed during this visit. He did not
look too out of place in my parents’ semi-detached house. We came in my BMW leaving his Austin Martin back at home; too ostentatious to park in a quiet cul-de-sac. My dad and Jason shared a common interest in cricket and I
had sighed inwardly when I realised my summer months would include cricket clubs as well as golf clubs.

Trudy had been over the moon, threw her arms around me when I told her. “Oh well done, Gemma. A
ll this time you’ve been beavering away and you’ve hit the jackpot. Those excuses about your weekends, tut, tut...”
She had stood back and smiled at me hands on hips. “You clean up good too, manicured and polished, wealth suits you.”

I had gone red in the face at the reminder of how rich I was going to be when I become Mrs Lucas.

Trudy had
looked noticeably thinner and had slight scar above her eyebrow. I
had
shuddered at the thought of what had happened to her. She
had reached out and taken my hand.

“I’m alright,
Gemma, honestly. I
cannot
recall a thing about that night. I’ve got to come to terms with what has happened to me, but I don’t have a sense of trauma about it all. Hopefully I never will.” I
had tried to smile back at her. It was hard as I felt nothing but guilt for her predicament.

“The counsellor has been very helpful and I’m ready to go back to work. I’m very grateful to your Mr Lucas for his support.”

Jason had been paying a highly respected psychologist to meet Trudy regularly.

“No ring?” Trudy had noticed the absence of my engagement ring.

“Soon, he’s promised me.”

The very next day, I stood in a Cartier shop examining a whopping great big diamond engagement ring.

“It is nice,” had been all I could say.

“
Nice!?
” had glared Jason. “That word nice again.”

I had placed the ring back on the counter.

“They are all nice,
Jason, but I just don’t see myself wearing a big stone on my finger. I prefer restrained, unpretentious. I don’t want to worry about losing it all the time,
” I had tried to speak quietly so not to embarrass the shop assistant.

“Look, Gem, it is your choice. I’m a bloke, it all goes over my head.”

I had smiled at his comment and looked over yet another tray of rings.

“This one,” I had pointed at a platinum ring with a three small diamonds set into it. Slipping it on, I held my hand out to show it to him.

Jason had lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it.

Gradually the news of our announcement seeped out. My best moment was when I went to Jason’s office
on a Friday morning and revelled in my new status as the future wife of t
he boss.
I had called into the office one Monday
to meet Jason for a lunch break.

~

Gone was snappy Carla. Instead, the smiling PA quickly offered me a coffee and a selection of expensive biscuits. I declined. Arriving at the entrance of the building I had been
waved in by the security desk, no pass required. I
had made my way up in the lift to the top floor. The temptation to step out at my old floor had been strong, however, I did not wish to see Penny or Amanda, not
after what Libby did to me. Jason had Andy moved to a different division, a sideways move for a fresh start in the company. Andy had felt guilty that he
had not
spotted Libby’s psychopathic tendencies. Nobody had though, including her heart-broken father.