Temptation Tuesday – Break Me
Sneak peak at my upcoming BDSM novella that is part of The Club series…
I waited on him. It was my job. Or one of them. I owned the shop, both bookstore and café, so my jobs were numerous and unending. I could have let someone else, the only other someone else who was in the café working for me wait on him, but I didn’t want that. I wanted to wait on him. I wanted to serve him the cup of coffee, black with one ounce of heavy cream, no more and nothing less. I wanted to be the one who set it in front of him, who received his smile and nod of approval, his satisfied sigh. I wanted all that.
And…
I wanted none of it. I didn’t want to need that feeling deep down in my soul that I’d pleased someone, him, only him. I didn’t want to feel anything again. Not for a man like him. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I’d vowed it, sworn it, done everything but write it in blood. But he walked in three months ago and I knew. I fucking knew in my gut there was no turning back. Not when he looked at me like that. Not when the corners of his lips tilted up or the desire lit his eyes when he saw me.
I was lost and he found me when I didn’t want to be found. Not ever again.
Only…
“Will that be all?” I asked the question each time I brought him coffee. And each time, he gave me the same response.
“No. I would like you to sit with me.”
I was running out of ways to say no. Truth was, I had run out of ways to say no the very first day I met him. I knew the questions he would ask and he knew the answers I would give. “Thank you, Sir. I can’t.”
I quickly bit by tongue. All the words were the same with the exception of Sir. It slipped out, unwarranted and unwanted and completely perfect. I hadn’t used the term in years. I promised him… I sighed inwardly at the lie. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t use it ever again. Not with anyone.
He smiled over the rim of his coffee cup and it lit his eyes in a way that caused my thighs to squeeze together, my belly to roll with need, and my palms to sweat. I knew he wanted me, and I knew I wanted him, but this was more than simple lust and my saying of the word Sir, admitted it to both of us.
“Why do you always say that you want me to sit with you?” I had an inkling of an idea, but until he said it, it was just that, an idea. However, once he did, it would be real, as everything was when spoken aloud.
It was something I’d always known, deep down inside, but had never thought about until that January day five years ago. If they didn’t speak the word, it couldn’t have been real, so I avoided them, the people and the word, existing in denial as long as I could. It hadn’t been long enough when I emerged and let it sink in.
Dead.
He was and I wanted to be.
But now, there’s a new, different him when I never expected there to be, when I never wanted there to be, and he’s here every day, sipping my coffee, and wanting me to sit with him.
“Because I want to know where you go when you get that far away look in your eyes. Because I like looking at you and seeing one of your rare smiles. Because I want you to ask my name. Because I want to know what happened to him.”
My heart lurched in my chest and my throat threatened to close off all air from my lungs. I grasped the edge of the table to keep myself from falling. He reached out but I stumbled back before he could touch me.
“Claire?”
I loved my name on his lips, even as I hated him knowing my name at all. To hear it uttered with concern, as though he cared, nearly broke me. “H-how do you know about him?” I whispered the question around the thickness of my tongue and through my dry lips.
“The Club.”
The Club. I closed my eyes and moaned softly. The words evoked so many powerful memories and desires. The room spun and my world tilted. I’d forced myself not to think about The Club, not to remember its existence. For years, I drove out of my way so I wouldn’t be anywhere near it, so I wouldn’t be tempted.
“They had no right.”
“They didn’t. I saw the pictures on the wall. I did ask, once. I was told you were no longer owned, but for any more answers than that, I would need to ask you. I was also told I likely wouldn’t get very far.”
“But that’s why you’re here.”
“I’m here because I saw a woman in some pictures that I couldn’t get out of my head. I’m here because it was insane for me to want a woman I didn’t know. I’m here because I wanted to see you in person, to see if my reactions would be the same, to see if I would still be enchanted with more than a picture on a wall.”
He was too young to use words like enchanted. I wanted so badly to smile, to enjoy the fluttering going on inside my body at his admission to wanting me, whether he knew me or not. I wanted to revel in the very real fact that I wasn’t dead inside.
But I couldn’t. That would be a betrayal and I couldn’t do it. Saying Sir had been bad enough. Giving in to the pleasure of being wanted, even if I was the only one who knew, was another kind of betrayal altogether.
“I think you should go.”
“I think you want me to stay.”
Coming January 26th!
~lissa
