Month: April 2017

Carrick POV: Birthday Dinner

~ Tara Nichole ~ Leave a comment

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“Mia, I swear to god if you’re not home in fifteen minutes…” I threaten her coldly through the phone.

“You’ll what dad?” Mia snaps. “Cut me off? Throw me out? Pretend I don’t exist? At this point, I think I’d find that preferable.”

I take a deep breath and swallow back the anger at the words my teenage daughter spits at me. This attitude of hers has gotten out of control. “Amelia Grey, I am not playing around with you anymore. It is your mother’s birthday and you will be here to celebrate with her. Get your rear-end home right now.”

“If Christian isn’t good enough to come, than neither am I,” she says bluntly, and then I hear a small click as the phone goes dead and she’s gone. I immediately dial her number again, but it goes straight to voicemail and as I hang up to prevent myself from leaving my 16 year old daughter a long, angry, expletive filled voicemail, I lean against the wall trying to compose myself. Today is supposed to be about Grace. All she wanted was to have our family together for her birthday and I’ve now driven two of our children away from this dinner.

No, Christian has. I think darkly, my mind immediately shifting back to him seated across from her in the restaurant the other day. It always comes back to this. Christian and his involvement with Elena Lincoln. He’s picked her and her fucked up lifestyle over his family, I can’t be held responsible for that. I will not have him around my daughter while he’s still involved with that woman, and I will not let him walk back through the door until he takes responsibility for the choice he made in that courtroom.

I feel a stab of pain at that sentiment, knowing that deep down that’s not really what I want. I want him here too… I want to hear his stories about how he’s built his company and all of the things he’s seen and done over the past two years. I want him here for holidays and Sunday brunch… I miss Christian just as much as his mother does, but I can’t just accept what he did. He lied to his whole family, to a court of law, and he betrayed everyone who loves him. His lies have threatened my law firm, have started a silent cold war amongst all of our friends and Elena Lincoln, destroyed our friendship with Andrew Lincoln, and nearly shattered the girl who loved him.

My throat tightens thinking about Anastasia and I quickly reach over for one of the scotch glasses on the desk next to me and pour myself two fingers of the amber colored liquid. Once I throw it down, I take another deep breath and make my way out of my office and into the dining room where Grace, Elliot, and Kate are waiting, ready to eat.

“Did you get ahold of her?” Grace asks, the worry apparent in her voice.

“She not coming,” I say shortly. “Let’s eat.”

“What do you mean, she’s not coming?” Elliot asks, and I shoot him a warning look, but he ignores it and pushes me further. “Where is she?”

“She’s staying with a friend this weekend,” I reply as concisely as possible, because frankly, that’s all I know. “I’ll deal with her when she comes home, but for tonight… she won’t be here. She’s refusing to come.”

“Then call the police,” Elliot says, “Report her as a runaway.”

“And have your sister brought back here in handcuffs on your mother’s birthday?” I ask him and he looks over at me, conflicted for a moment, and then frowns. When he doesn’t say anything more, I take a deep breath and then start sawing into the filet of salmon on my plate, pouring my frustration into the violent movement until the serrated edge of my knife is scraping against the china.

“You know, you could just call Christian and ask him to come over,” Elliot says, quietly. My teeth grind together as I silently, but very purposefully shake my head. “I know why Mia’s not here, Dad. It’s because you blew up at Christian and now he’s not here and so she doesn’t want to be either. She misses him, Dad. We all do.”

“No we don’t,” I say emphatically.

“Yes, we do,” Grace chokes next to me and I feel a fresh slice of guilt and pain cut through me when I look over at her and watch her set her fork down on her plate and break into tears.

“Mom,” Elliot says, getting out of his seat and wrapping his arms around Grace. “Please, don’t.”

“All I wanted was to share my birthday with my family,” she sobs into her napkin. “ With my children. With the son I haven’t seen for more than a few seconds in almost two years. But instead…”

She chokes out another sob and as Elliot holds her more tightly into his chest he shoots a dark look at me.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” he says, though he looks at me. “I’ll call Christian.”

“You will do no such thing,” I say flatly.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Elliot says as he stand up. “Do you really have your head so far up your ass that you can’t see how this feud you’re in with Christian is ripping this family apart? My whole life you taught me that family is the most important thing in the world, but the first time this family is faced with any real kind of adversity, you’re willing to just watch it slip through your fingers. You can fix this, just pick up the fucking phone and call Christian.”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to take care of this family, Elliot,” I say, getting out of my own seat now.

“Maybe not. But you sure as hell need someone to tell you how to be a fucking father,” he says, and as the impact of his words hit me, he storms out of the room.

“Excuse me,” Kate whispers uncomfortably as she gets out of her seat and hurries out of the room after Elliot. I lower myself back into my chair, picking up the napkin that has fallen to the floor and toss it on the table. My wife is staring at me across the table with an almost incredulous look in her eyes as she slowly shakes her head back and forth.

“This is where we are,” she says. “This is what your pride and your stubbornness has done to our family.”

“Grace, you know that I…”

“I don’t want to hear it, Carrick,” she interrupts me. “I’m so tired of hearing your excuses. I can’t take it anymore. I never thought you’d be the kind of man who would make me choose between my marriage and my children, but I can’t keep pushing Christian away for you.”

“Grace…”

She holds up her hands to silence me again. “I’m not going to do this with you right now. It’s my birthday, so if you’ll excuse me… I’m going to go and spend it with the one child you haven’t managed to drive out of our lives.”

She gets up from the table and stalks out of the room, leaving me alone. I sigh and slump back into my chair. No matter what I do, I always seem to be the bad guy. All I wanted to do was to help my son, to have justice for the atrocious things that were done to him by the woman I brought into his life, because after everything that’s happened, that’s still the part I can’t seem to get past. Everything that happened to him, happened because of me and as hard as I fought for him, it wasn’t enough. The truth is, Elena Lincoln took my son from me a long time ago, without me even noticing, and I couldn’t bring him back. And when I tried, it blew up in my face and has destroyed my family.

Because I failed to see what was happening right in front of me, my son is lost to me and my family hates me.

So maybe I am the bad guy. Maybe I am letting my family be ripped apart because I won’t let go of what happened, but I can’t in good conscience go back to the way things were without a little give from Christian. How am I supposed to just invite him back into our lives when he still openly and proudly maintains a relationship with Elena Lincoln? How do I look past what he did when he is completely unapologetic for the things he’s done? To forgive him without his acknowledgement of his wrongdoings would be to accept that we not only failed to put a child molester behind bars, but that we still continue to protect her because we’re all protecting him from what he did.

I swallow back the lump in my throat and leave the dining room, circumventing the family room where I can hear Elliot and Grace talking. I don’t want to do anything to further ruin this night for her, so I lock myself in my office and pour myself another drink, leaving my wife to spend the rest of her birthday with her son, alone.

When I finally go to bed, Grace is still awake. She’s sitting up in bed staring into space and when I see her, I step into the room, and very cautiously close the door behind me.

“Do you remember when we bought Christian his first bike?” she whispers.

“Yes,” I nod.

“He spent so much time trying to learn how to ride it. It was so frustrating to him that he couldn’t just get on it and ride away the way Elliot could. He didn’t like being left behind.”

“Christian’s always looked for shortcuts,” I say bitterly, but she shakes her head.

“He’s never been patient and he’s always been stubborn, something he gets from his father. He used to stay out in the street until after dark practicing riding his bike…” Finally, she looks up at me. “And you were out there with him. No matter how long he wanted to try, no matter how many hours he would stay out there, no matter how many times he failed, you stayed with him. You gripped onto the back of his seat and ran along beside him until he asked you to let him go. When he fell, you kissed his bumps and scrapes and told him that being good at something doesn’t mean you never fail, it means you never give up.”

“I remember,” I tell her, and she reaches up and wipes a tear from her cheek.

“What happened to that man, Carrick? What happened to the man who put his family before anything else? What happened to the man who knew that to love a child meant to love them unconditionally? What happened to the man who stayed out in the street until it was dark trying to help his son learn how to ride a bike?”

“I haven’t stopped loving him, Grace,” I say, diverting my eyes as I shrug out of my dinner jacket. “I’ll always love him, but that’s not enough this time. I can’t just forget about what he did.”

Her head falls and tears roll down her cheeks. I cross the room to sit on the bed next to her, but when I reach out to take her into my arms, she pushes me away.

“Don’t,” she says, sharply. I look back at her, confused by the hostility in her voice, and she takes a deep breath and sits up straighter in the bed before she speaks again. “I’ve seen a lawyer, Carrick.”

“A lawyer?”

“A divorce lawyer,” she clarifies and, suddenly, I feel winded.

“You’re… you’re thinking of divorcing me?” I ask. Her eyes begin to glimmer again with a fresh wave of tears, and she nods.

“My family means everything to me, Carrick, and that includes Christian. It’s my job to love and to protect my children and I’ve failed at that. I won’t fail at it anymore. You see his continued involvement with Elena Lincoln as a lack of remorse, but all I see is that our child still needs our help.”

“He’s not a child, Grace,” I say in a low voice.

“He’ll always be our child, Carrick. And you if you don’t understand that, then I’m… I think it’s better that we separate. I can’t do this with you anymore. I won’t abandon my children for you.”

I look at her, feeling a thousand thoughts and emotions tugging at me, pulling me in different directions, but I can’t hold onto any one of them long enough to verbalize the conflict I’ve been trying to work through for almost two years to my wife. She lets out a harsh, incredulous breath through her nose and then shakes her head before turning her eyes away from me again.

“I’m tired,” she says. “I think it’s better that you sleep in the guest room tonight.”

“Grace…” I argue, but she shakes her head again.

“Just go.”

I stare at her for a moment, imploring her to say something more, to ask me to talk this out with her, but she doesn’t. She crosses her arms and looks back at me expectantly, waiting for me to leave. So I do. I get up from the bed and slowly walk to our door, pausing for a moment to allow her the chance to change her mind, but when she doesn’t say anything I step into the hallway and close the door softly behind me.

I’ve lost Christian. I’ve lost Mia. I’ve lost Elliot. Now, I’ve lost my wife.

I can’t lie to myself any longer… I am the bad guy.

Next Chapter

Elena POV: Lunch with Christian

~ Tara Nichole ~ Leave a comment

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“Mrs. Lincoln?” Greta asks, paging me over my desk phone. I look over from the spreadsheet open on the computer in front of me, working to align the transactions from Kink with the transactions I’m inputting into the Esclava system. I don’t have time for interruptions now. There is a conference in town where the highest ranking state officials have come together to try and solve Washington’s latest budget crisis. The influx of politicians has kept my club open all day and, while I should be there now, I have to be here in order to figure out a way to legitimize the increased revenue coming in from the club… I plan to get back there by this afternoon, but that will only be possible if I finish these documents before I meet Christian for lunch. And I’m not confident in Isaac’s ability to hold down the fort while I’m away for very long.  

“What is it, Greta?” I ask, irritably.

“I’m sorry to disturb you but one of your VIP client’s has just arrived.”

“Oh,” I say, straightening a little in surprise. I didn’t have any of the girls on the schedule today, and they know not to come without an appointment. Something must have happened…

“I’ll be right out,” I tell her, and I reach over to press the speaker button that ends the phone call. After saving and password protecting the spreadsheet on my computer, I stand from my desk, straightening my skirt, and then walk with cool confidence out into the salon. Bernadette is standing there, her face flushed and her eyes puffy, holding the side of her head. Oh, fuck.

“Thank you, Greta,” I tell her as I wrap an arm around Bernadette and lead her away from the reception desk. Once we’re out of earshot, I turn to face her.

“What happened?” I ask. She sniffs and slowly pulls her hand away from her head where I can see a large portion of her hair has been ripped out of her scalp.

“How did this happen?” I ask her, tilting her head so I can get a better look.

“My hair got caught in the suspension grid. When he moved me, he… he…” She starts gasping as she reaches up into her hair again.

“This is why I tell you girls to braid your hair!” I snap at her, but when she starts to cry, I let out a low sigh and pull her into me.

“Calm down,” I say, soothingly. “We can fix it.”

I look around the room and make eye contact with Franco, who is sweeping up after his last customer, snap my fingers, and point down at Bernadette’s long auburn hair. He sets the broom aside and walks over to us, smiling broadly.

“What has happened, my dear?” he asks in his usual, over animated way. Bernadette pulls her hand away, showing him the hairless patch on the side of her head, and he smiles at her.

“Facile,” he says, wrapping a strong arm around her shoulder. “You come with me dear, I’ll have it fixed in no time at all.”

I pass her to him, watching him shower her with compliments on the fiery red color of her hair while he leads her to his chair. Once he’s calmed her down, I glance quickly down at the thin, platinum link watch Christian gifted me for my birthday last year… Fuck, Christian.

It’s nearly 10:30 and I haven’t spoken with him at all today, so I quickly head back over to the reception desk and tap my finger on the granite countertop to get Greta’s attention.

“Yes, Mrs. Lincoln?” she asks.

“Has Andrea called to confirm my lunch appointment with Mr. Grey this afternoon?”

“Not yet…” She says hesitantly.

“That’s fine, just let me know when she does.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Greta agrees and after giving her a short nod, I turn back towards my office. I’m going to have to give Christian a profit rundown of the Pioneer Square location this afternoon, so I quickly pull up the files I’ve spent hours compiling in order to make the business going through that location appear legitimate. I search through each line on documents with a fine toothed comb looking for errors or anything suspicious, and after correcting one number that had been inputted incorrectly, I hit print. The long, soothing sound of the xerox machine reminds me that I haven’t recorded the date and time I brought the submissive into Christian’s office yesterday afternoon, so while the files pile up on the printer, I quickly make note in the small black book I keep tucked away in my top drawer.

Once I’ve scribbled the date and time of our visit onto the page, I quickly glance over the list of times and dates above it. Yesterday makes seven different times I’ve brought one of my girls to Christian’s office, and seven different times they’ve been rejected. I wasn’t too concerned in the beginning, I’d only really brought them there as a kind of insurance policy against Christian should he ever find out about the club… but this preoccupation he has with Anastasia is getting tiresome. It’s been two years and he hasn’t moved on. I don’t like the power she still holds over him, it weakens my position. I need to figure out a way to rid him of her once and for all but the only way I can think to do that is for her to reject him again, in person, but he won’t get on a plane and fly to her. No matter how much I encourage him to.

And then there’s the issue of Grace and Carrick. I thought I’d pretty much nipped that in the bud, but this invitation he’s received to attend Grace’s birthday dinner is troublesome. I need to keep them out of his life as much as possible, which means I need to find a way to prevent him from going to their house, but in a way that won’t raise suspicion. Fortunately, in that moment, inspiration strikes and I quickly reach out for my keyboard and google Carrick’s law firm to get the number and then reach over to my desk phone to dial. It rings twice before someone picks up.

“Thank you for calling the law offices of Carrick Grey and associates, this is Jennifer. How may I help you today?”

“Hi Jennifer, this is Andrea Parker calling from Grey Enterprises Holdings. I’m so sorry to do this, but I’m in a bit of a pickle. You see, Christian was supposed to meet his father and mother for lunch, you know, to finally talk things out, and it seems as though I have misplaced all the details. Does Carrick have a lunch date with either Christian or Grace on his calendar?”

“Ummm, let me check…” She says, her voice drawled out as I listen to her clicking on a mouse. “Yes, it looks like he’s meeting Grace at Altura at 1:15 this afternoon.”

“That’s right, thank you so much, Jennifer. You really are a lifesaver,” I tell her.

“No problem. Have a great day, Andrea.”

“Thanks, you too!” I say brightly. I hang up the phone but then immediately begin to dial the number for Christian’s office.

“Christian Grey’s office, Leila Williams speaking. How may I direct your call?” Leila answers almost immediately.

“Yes, good afternoon, Leila,” I respond. “This is Elena Lincoln. I’m calling to confirm my 1:30 lunch appointment with Mr. Grey.”

“Hold one moment please, Mrs. Lincoln,” Leila says, leaving me to wait in silence for only a few seconds before she speaks again. “Yes, I have Mr. Grey scheduled for a lunch with Mrs. Lincoln at 1:30.”

“Perfect, and, I’m sorry… I just can’t eat at Revel again. Can you change our reservation to Altura instead?”

“Uh…” She hesitates. “I’m not sure…”

“It’ll be fine, Leila,” I say sweetly. “I don’t think he’ll mind. We were just talking the other night about how we’d like to try it out. But, if he asks, you can just blame it on me.”

“Right,” she says. “Perfect, I’ve updated the calendar and I’ll call Altura now and have your table ready for you at one thirty.”

“Thank you, my dear,” I tell her and then hang up the phone, smiling to myself, before I get up to collect the papers off the printer.

Christian is perfectly punctual, pulling up in front of the restaurant at exactly 1:30, but the moment he steps out of his Mercedes SUV, he gives me a very agitated look.

“Altura?” he asks, and I shrug.

“I’ve been wanting Italian and we always go to Revel,” I pout.

“That’s because Revel is your favorite restaurant,” he says, narrowing his eyes at me, but I laugh it off.

“Well not today,” I tell him, and he look as though he may want to argue with me, but after a taking a deep, frustrated breath, he just nods and takes a step towards the door. Once we’re inside and Christian has given the hostess his name, we’re led through the restaurant to a table near the back. The hostess leaves us with menus and as I casually lift mine, I notice Christian looking slightly uncomfortable.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

“Nothing,” he replies quickly, but when I don’t drop my stare, he rolls his eyes and leans into the table.

“It’s just a little crowded here,” he says. “If someone recognizes me…”

“Then the press shows up and you get your picture in the society pages and GEH gets free publicity. Honestly Christian, why are you so afraid of people seeing you?”

“I’m not afraid of people seeing me…” He says. His eyes shift briefly down to the table, a gesture he still unconsciously makes everytime he does anything he thinks will displease me, and the way he subtly emphasizes the word me tells me exactly why.

“You’re afraid to be seen with me?” I ask and the look he gives me immediately fills in the blanks. “You’re afraid to be photographed with me because you’re afraid Anastasia will see it.”

“I don’t need anymore reasons for her not to talk to me.”

My jaw tenses as I try and hold back the torrent of angry words I have for him, but as he reaches out to pick up his glass of water, his hand suddenly freezes.

“Fuck,” he hisses, and I raise an eyebrow at him. “My parents are here.”

I glance over my shoulder and see Carrick and Grace seated two tables away from us. They’re leaning into each other, clearly in the midst of a heated exchange. Grace’s hand is clenching tightly to the sleeve of Carrick’s jacket, almost as though she’s trying to hold him in place.

Perfect.

“Should we leave?” I ask, turning a concerned look on Christian, but he takes a deep breath and shakes his head.

“No, they’ve already seen us,” he says. “I won’t cower away from him.”

“And you shouldn’t,” I say softly. “This is his problem, not yours. Let’s just enjoy our lunch.”

“I don’t think that’s what going to happen,” Christian says and I fight the smile that threatens to creep into the corner of my mouth as Christian reaches around to button his jacket and I hear Grace shriek behind me.

“Carrick, get back here,” she demands but only a second later he’s standing by our table.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demands, staring daggers down at Christian.

“I’m having a business lunch with the director of a division of my company,” Christian says, his even tone sounding cold in comparison to the fire beneath his father’s voice.

“You have some fucking nerve,” Carrick snarls. “Getting your mother’s hopes up, asking to see my daughter… and then I find you out in public with a child molester.”

“Keep your voice down,” Christian snaps, his eyes shooting around the room at the few interested restaurant patrons glancing over at our table.

“No, because unlike you, I don’t think filth like her deserves to be protected,” Carrick says. I look over to see Christian’s jaw tense. That’s right, Christian… defend me to your father.

“I won’t sit here and listen to this,” Christian says softly. “Go back to your table, or I’ll have the maitre’d escort you out.”

“You don’t own this restaurant, Christian,” Carrick argues, and Christian turns a cold look on him.

“I’m Christian Grey. I own this fucking city.”

“Carrick,” Grace says, coming up and gently resting her hands on her husband’s forearms. “Please, let’s go back to the table.”

She glances uneasily down at me and I offer an extraordinarily satisfied look in return before reaching out and placing my hand over her son’s on the table.

“No, let’s go,” Carrick says, nearly shaking now. “Don’t bother showing up this weekend, Christian.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Christian snaps back. Carrick reaches behind him for Grace’s hand and swiftly pulls her after him, but he stops only a few tables away and turns back to face us.

“You can forget about seeing Mia,” he says. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I let her anywhere near you again.”

Christian’s hands curl into fists on the table but he ignores his father’s words and turns to look back at his menu. I glance up and smirk at both of them as the leave the restaurant.

Mission accomplished.

“I’m sorry, that was humiliating,” I say. “I can’t believe they would do that to you in public.”

“Forget about it,” Christian replies.

“You made the right choice, Christian,” I tell him. “I told you it would have been a bad idea to go to their house this weekend. It would have been so much worse had you been in private…”

“I know you did,” he agrees. “And, you were right. Let’s just… forget about it, okay?”

“Fine,” I nod, and then reach out for my glass of water as I glance down at the menu in my hands. “Do you want to order an appetizer?”

Next Chapter

Christian POV: The Submissives

~ Tara Nichole ~ Leave a comment

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March 2010:

I can’t count the number of times I’ve ended my day staring into the ice that is all that remains in the bottom of my tumbler of gin. It’s never enough, never enough to make me forget or to fill the emptiness. Nothing is. These past two years have given me enough practice that I can shut down during the day, wear the mask that makes me look cool, confident, and in control. But no matter what I do, this void of inside of me continues stretching further every day.

“A chair, Christian,” Elena says, sounding exasperated. “Why don’t we just start with a chair? I can find you a decorator. You wouldn’t have to do anything.”

“What’s the fucking point?” I ask, swirling the ice in the bottom of the glass around and then pulling one of the gin coated cubes into my mouth.

“Well, you have a beautiful apartment and I for one would like to spend time in other parts of it than your office. And I hate seeing you live like this. You’re young, and rich, and powerful. You should be living. These are the best years of your life, Christian. You’re never going to get them back. Trust me.”

“The best years of my life are behind me,” I say darkly as I bite down through the ice. It’s rare that I allow this side of me out anymore, the vulnerable side where I admit to anyone other than Elliot how much I still miss and need Anastasia, but it’s been a stressful day and right now, I need to talk about her. “Harvard was the best of my life.”

“Here we go,” Elena says, rolling her eyes.

“Do you know that it’s been 664 days?” I ask her. “One year, eight months, 23 days and…” I look down at my watch, see that it’s after 11 PM, and sigh. “665 days,” I correct myself. “That’s how long it’s been since I’ve seen her, since I’ve even talked to her.”

“And there will be 665 more. She’s never going to love you again, Christian. You have to move on.”

I shake my head. “She could answer the phone tomorrow. Elliot and Kate just got back from Spring Break in Cabo and Taylor tells me that Ana stayed in Cambridge by herself. Maybe… maybe, being alone has made her realize that she misses me. I just need her to answer the phone one time, I just need to talk to her one time, and I can convince her to take me back. I know I can.”

“Relationships don’t work like mergers and acquisitions, Christian,” Elena says. “Well… the non-contractual ones anyway. You can’t broker her affection like you can a business deal. She’s gone, you need to accept that.”

“No!” I yell, slamming my glass down on my desk. “She’s going to forgive me. One day, she’s going to forgive me. She has to. I’m not going to give up on her, on us… not for anything.”

Elena sighs and gets out of the chair across from my desk to go stand by the window and look out at the view of Seattle below. She’s quiet and I take the opportunity to once again silently repeat the speech I’ve rehearsed every day over the past two years, waiting for the chance to say the words to Anastasia. It feels like something to do, something tangible that makes me feel like I’m moving forward, towards something. That I’m not going to be stuck wallowing in this misery and pining for her forever.

“Your mother’s birthday is this weekend,” Elena says into the glass in front of her. “Are you going to send her flowers?”

“Actually, she called me yesterday,” I reply, tipping my glass against my lips for another ice cube. Really, I just need to accept that I need another drink…

“Really?” she asks, turning looking at me with mild surprise. “Why?”

“She’s having a dinner this weekend for her birthday and she wants me to come.”

She lets out a dark laugh. “Oh, that’s perfect. How did you get out of that one?”

“I didn’t. I’m going over there at 8 on Friday.”

“What?” she asks, her mouth popping open slightly with shock. “You mean… you’re going to have dinner with your father? That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?” I ask her, sitting up a little straighter in my chair. “He’s my father after all. We haven’t talked in almost two years. Surely, he can’t hate me forever.”

“Oh please, you know as well as I do that he’ll take this resentment he’s harboring against you to his grave,” she says, but when I look up at her, undeterred, she purses her lips and walks over to the corner of my desk. “Why do you keep punishing yourself, Christian? I know that’s why you’re going over there. To punish yourself, because you think you’ve done something wrong. But you haven’t. You were not wrong. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this. You did what was best for you. I mean, look around. You wouldn’t have all of this if you had done what they wanted you to do. Your parents know that and that is why they hate you. They hate your success because you did it without their help. Grace and Carrick Grey are selfish, egotistical people and they can’t handle that you made something of yourself without them. That you dared to be more successful than they were. They hate you, Christian, and that invitation is just an excuse for them to berate you. Don’t let them do that to you. Don’t give them your time, they don’t deserve it.”

“It’s my mother’s birthday, Elena,” I say, narrowing my eyes at her.

“Where were they on your birthday? Where were they a few months ago on New Year’s when you were falling apart? Where have they been every day since that fucking trial? They’ve abandoned you, Christian. Just like your crack whore mother abandoned you. Just like her, they don’t care about you. They’re more concerned with their image than their own son.”

I look up at her, feeling the void inside of me tugging as it tears open a little more. I want to disagree with her but… I can’t. She’s right, they haven’t been there. No one has, except Elena. Elena is the one who always answers my calls, who is over here instantly when I need her, who will drop anything and everything in the middle of the day if I need her… She’s the only one who has never turned her back on me, even after I almost destroyed her two years ago.

“You’re right, I need to think about it more,” I tell her, pushing my tumbler across the desk and getting to my feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an early meeting in the morning.”

“Of course,” she says, smiling. “I’ll stop by GEH tomorrow and we can talk about it more.”

I give her a curt nod and then walk her to the elevator. She wraps her arms around me and I feel my body tighten in response. Even after all this time, I still have an instinctual reaction of trepidation to her touch.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she promises with a small smile and I nod again as she steps into the elevator. When the doors close, I’m once again alone. A fact made more resounding by my footsteps echoing through my empty apartment as I make my way back towards my bedroom.

I wake early the next morning, pleased to find that I’ve managed to sleep until 4:30. I take a moment to stretch and then mentally calculate the time difference between Seattle and Cambridge. It’s 7:30 for her, too early to have left for class which makes this my best chance to reach her. I scramble quickly to pick up my phone, pacing my bedroom floor as it rings, but the familiar sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach returns when the voice that answers, belongs to Kate.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hello, Kate,” I greet her trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. She’s still Ana’s best friend so I’ve done my best over the past two years to be as polite and warm with her as possible, hoping that will have some kind of influence whenever she speaks with Ana.

“Hi, Christian.”

“Is Anastasia there?” I ask, but my hopes immediately plummet as I hear her slow, controlled intake of breath. She’s preparing herself to let me down.

“Nope, you just missed her,” she says, and I let out a sigh of exasperation. It’s 7:30, I know her first class isn’t until 9:30 and she doesn’t meet Sawyer on campus until 9:10. She’s there, I know she’s there.

“Do you know when she’ll be home?” I ask, my voice a little tight as I try to hold back my irritation.

“No, I don’t know when Ana is going to be back, but I can tell her that you called.”

“Fine,” I say, even though I know this is nothing more than a platitude. Apparently, spring break has done nothing to change how Ana feels about me. It had been stupid to hope.

There are voices in the background and I pause, wondering if maybe Ana’s changed her mind. “Hey, Christian. Elliot wants to talk to you, hold on for a second, okay?”

“Okay,” I concede and there is silence on the other end for a second until Elliot comes on the line, overly jovial as usual.

“What’s up, Christian?” he asks. “How’s the world of mergers and acquisitions?”

“It’s doing very well,” I reply, though my voice is too flat to sound convincing. “GEH is a finalist for a huge fiber optics project that will bring in billions of dollars in annual revenue and would open the doors for similar products in the future.”

“Oh, well that sounds… boring as shit, actually,” he says and I roll my eyes. If it’s not building or designing something tangible, Elliot has never been interested. “Hey, are you really going to this thing this weekend?”

“Yes,” I say, though after my conversation with Elena last night, I’m not entirely certain. Unfortunately, he seems to pick up on that.

“Really? ‘Cause if I take Friday off work and fly all the way out to Seattle and you’re not there, I’m going to be fucking pissed.”

“I’ll be there,” I tell him. Mostly because, even if I’m not, I don’t want him missing mom’s birthday too. He’s her golden child. She’d be devastated if he didn’t come.

“Alright… Well, I’ll see you this weekend, I guess. Laters, bro.”

“Good-bye, Elliot,” I say, and I hang up the phone, throw it down on my bed and scrub my hands over my face before changing into some gym shorts and a t-shirt so I can head down to the gym.

My morning routine makes me feel like Patrick Bateman. I start with a strict, regimented workout, followed by a shower where I use products ordered from Los Angeles that are designed for celebrities to keep the skin young and supple. Aging is a sign of weakness, frailty… Things I can never show while staring down the CEO of a company I’m going to rip apart.

I dress in a bespoke suit that was custom ordered from Milan, and leather shoes purchased in Italy. I have a collection of ties from Chanel, a rarity since Chanel doesn’t have a men’s line but rather only shows a few pieces in their runway shows in Paris. I’ve purchased every piece and the simple, gray silk tie that I secure against the collar of the shirt I had custom made in London, is more expensive than the white gold Harry Winston cufflinks I push through my sleeves. I step back to take one last examining look at my appearance in the mirror as I secure the platinum Omega watch around my wrist. I look like Anna Wintour’s wet dream.

Ana…

I shake my head. I have to shut that shit down. I have work to do.

I eat the same things every morning, egg white omelets with salmon, scallions, and feta. Gail brings it to me in my office with a cup of black coffee every day at the exact same time, skirting around me like I’m a ticking time bomb. It’s easier to remain distant from my staff, especially since the servants quarters are attached to my apartment. It keeps them out of the main residence at night when I’m alone and falling apart.

When I finish with breakfast and all of the work I can get done from home, I pick up everything I’m going to need for the day and then head out for the foyer where Taylor is always waiting for me. As we ride down the elevator to the parking garage, in complete silence, I realize that all I need to do is commit a murder, and I will be living American Psycho.

When I get to my office, I’m greeted by Andrea and Leila, and the CEO shutters come down. “Good morning,” I greet them with cool, aloofness. “Miss Williams, has Mrs. Lincoln confirmed a meeting this afternoon?”

“Yes, sir,” she tells me. “She’ll be here around three this afternoon.”

“Thank you,” I say, picking up some envelopes addressed to me sitting on the counter. “Andrea, I’ll be ready to go over my schedule in three minutes.”

“Yes, sir. Can I bring you some coffee?” Andrea asks.

“Yes,” I nod and then disappear to my office without another word.

I like being at work, it’s easy to stay preoccupied here. I’ve been lauded for my business prowess, my relentlessness, and the miraculous speed in which I have grown my company into a powerhouse conglomeration. In the few interviews I’ve granted, the reporters always wants to know the same thing: how do I do it? I usually give an answer about people and instincts for the market fluctuations, but the truth to my success is a broken heart. If I stop working, I think about Anastasia and thinking about her is painful. So, this is what I do. I put on a stone façade that makes me seem ruthless and cold, and I bury myself in contracts, market analysis, and futures speculation. My company is thriving, beyond anyone’s wildest expectation, including my own. But without Anastasia, without being able to lavish her in a life of luxury she’s never known before, without being able to see her smiling up at me with love and pride reflected in her eyes every time I win an award, or broker an amazing deal, or set some profit record…  Without her to share of all of this with, I find no satisfaction in my success. All of this, the penthouse, the cars, the suits, the money itself… it’s all pointless.

“Mr. Grey,” Leila interrupts me through the intercom on my desk phone and I immediately look up and see that it’s already 3 o’clock.”

“Yes, Leila,” I respond, curtly.

“Mrs. Lincoln has arrived.”

I sigh. “Please send her in.”

“Right away, sir.”

I look back down at the screen on my computer and take a deep breath. I’ve skipped lunch again today, and I’m already starting to get a headache. That doesn’t bode well for having Elena here right now.

The door opens and when I look up at her, I notice immediately that she’s not alone. A thin girl with long, dark hair sweeps into the room behind her, and the moment Elena has closed and locked the door behind her, she takes the long trench coat off the girl’s shoulders, revealing her intricate bondage lingerie beneath.

“Jesus Christ, Elena. What the fuck are you doing?” I ask, angrily reaching up and slamming the lid to my laptop closed as I bolt out of my chair.

“Kneel,” Elena says, her cool domme persona in effect as she looks down at the girl next to her. The girl falls to her knees, stares down at the floor, and Elena smiles briefly down at her before crossing the floor of my office and casually lowering herself into the chair across from me. Completely ignoring the submissive she’s left by the door.

“How was your morning, Christian?” she asks, crossing her legs as she leans back in her chair. My eyes flit back to the girl still kneeling on the floor of my office and I scowl. This is not the first time Elena has dared bring a submissive to me, but it is the first time she’s brought one who was half naked.

“You need to remove her,” I say firmly as I turn my gaze back to Elena.

“Just pretend she isn’t there,” Elena replies, somehow managing to keep an air of cool indifference under my piercing stare. I take a deep breath, grit my teeth together but lower myself back into my chair.

“You didn’t answer me,” she says.

“What?”

“How was your morning?”

“Productive,” I say shortly, as I open the screen to my laptop again and click back into my email, which is already filled with three unread messages since Elena has come through the door.

“You’re so tense, Christian. It’s really not healthy. You’re going to stress yourself into an early grave.”

“Hmm,” I mumble in response as I type out a reply to Ros’s email.

“She can help you with that you know,” Elena says, tilting her head back towards the brunette by the door. “She’s more than willing to do whatever you need her to do to help you relax.”

“I’m not interested,” I say without looking up from my laptop screen.

“You don’t have to fuck her if you don’t want to. She could just suck your cock…”

“Elena,” I say, the warning clear in my voice and she frowns.

“Fine. Have you decided whether or not you’re going to your parents’ house this weekend?”

“I think so,” I nod. “I talked to Elliot and he’s flying back from Cambridge so I should probably make the effort to cross the lake.”

“Well of course the perfect child is coming,” Elena says, rolling her eyes. “What does he have to worry about? Too much love and adoration from Carrick and Grace? That’s probably why they want you there, you know. So they can put you next to him and his MIT degree and ask why you couldn’t be more like their perfect child, Elliot.”

“Well, he was invited to Mia’s sweet sixteen… Maybe I should be more like Elliot.”

“Trapped in middle management?” she scoffs, sounding disgusted. “Stuck with someone as shrill and demanding as Katherine Kavanagh? I mean, he lives in a house that you own, Christian. You’re far better off than Elliot Grey.”

“He lives with Anastasia,” I say quietly.

Elena sighs, gets out of her seat, and meanders slowly around to me. But, as she moves to lower herself onto the edge of my desk, the framed photograph that sits next to my computer catches her eye and she lets out a huff of frustration.

“This isn’t helping you,” she snaps, picking up the picture of Anastasia and I from our weekend in Vermont and shoving it roughly inside my top desk drawer. I turn a sharp look on her, and reach out to grab her wrist so that she can’t slam the drawer closed.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Elena?” I snap at her.

“Did you call her this morning?” she asks, her voice just as sharp as mine. The muscle in my jaw tenses in response and I watch the fire ignite behind her eyes. “Nothing’s changed has it? She still isn’t taking your phone calls.”

I look away from her, pull open the drawer, and place the photograph of Ana and I back on the desk without answering her, but she knows what that means.

“I told you…” she says. Her voice is thick with smug superiority and it really pisses me off.

“There’s always tomorrow,” I reply, gritting my teeth in order to keep myself from unleashing a day’s worth of stress and years worth of rejection on her.

“Why don’t you just go to her?” she asks, and I look up at her in surprise.

“What?”

“Anastasia. You should go to her. You should get on a plane, fly to Cambridge, get a boom box and a bouquet of flowers, and show up at her door.”

“You think that I should go to her?” I ask skeptically, ignoring the blatant condescension in her actual suggestion.

“You need to face this, Christian, and stop hiding from it. If you’re right and you can talk her back into loving you then… Fine. But if you’re wrong and she doesn’t want to be with you, then you need to move on.”

“I’m not ready for that yet,” I tell her.

“Of course not,” she says. “Because you know nothing will change. You know she’s a lost cause. Why won’t you just let it go?”

“I love her, Elena.”

“She doesn’t love you, Christian! No one loves you and you should be glad for it. Love is weakness and without it, you can conquer the world.”

I swallow and look up at her, hiding the pain I feel from her as her words rip open the void inside of me again.

“I have work to do, you need to leave.”

“Fine,” she nods. “I suppose we can talk about Esclava tomorrow. Meet me for lunch at our place around 1:30?”

“Have Andrea schedule it,” I tell her and she nods before crossing the room again, ordering the still silent girl to her feet, and dressing her in her coat once more.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Christian,” she promises, but I hardly acknowledge the sentiment with even a glance before she opens the door and disappears. When the door closes behind her, I let out a long, drawn out sigh, place my elbows on my desk and my face in my hands. The empty loneliness I feel after her words and her departure seems to pulsate inside of me and the pain I feel from this overwhelming sense of loss that I can’t seem to shake no matter what I try almost has me convinced she’s right. Maybe I would be better off not loving Anastasia.

I take a deep breath and reach out for my phone, looking for the contact I haven’t used in over a year. When I press my finger against my father’s name, I watch the screen go dark, and as the call goes through, I hold the phone up to my ear. It rings twice before going straight to voicemail. I frown as I pull the phone away from my ear, and look down at it again to text him instead. I briefly glance over the dozens of old, unanswered texts still filling the conversation screen before quickly typing out a new message.

I want to see Mia.

By the time I go to bed that night, he still hasn’t responded.

Next Chapter

Luke POV: The Before Ana

~ Tara Nichole ~ 2 Comments

Image result for jello shots

April 2009:

I’m awoken very suddenly by the shrill ring of my phone on my nightstand. My alarm clock tells me it’s 2 AM, and I groan as I reach blindly through the darkness to pick up the phone and then sit up to answer it. I expect the name on the caller ID to read Jason Taylor, but it doesn’t. Instead, it’s Katherine Kavanagh’s name spelled out across the too brightly illuminated screen. Oh, fuck.

“Hello?” I answer, suddenly feeling much more alert.

“Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuke,” Kate says, and I can immediately tell she’s been drinking.

“Kate? Is everything okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” she says. “But Anastasia is very, very drunk.”

“Where are you?” I ask, immediately jumping into action. There is a pair of jeans next to my bed that I throw on as I listen to Kate trying to remember where she is.

“We’re definitely in a house. It’s by our house… oh wait, no. It’s not by our house. It’s… wait, hold on. Hey, where is this house?”

She’s screaming to someone on her side of the phone and, while whoever it is answers her, I only get bits of the conversation through the thumping music playing in the background.

“Oh, it’s not a house? It’s an apartment? What floor are we on? But what street is this?” she asks, slurring her words. “Okay, hold on. Luke?”

“I’m here, Kate.”

“We’re on Harvard street, but it’s not at Harvard. It’s just a street. We’re in an apartment.”

“I’ll find you,” I promise, and I hang up the phone so I can plug “Harvard Street Cambridge MA” into google on my phone. She’s not far off campus but she’s probably two miles from her house. How she got there, I don’t know. I’d made sure Ana was home before I went to bed tonight.

I sigh as I throw on my jacket and pick up my keys, I thought we were moving out of this phase. Ever since she’d started writing her book about a month ago, Anastasia had only been out a couple times and she hasn’t gotten drunk at all. It’s actually been almost three months since I was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to pick her up somewhere. Her new disinterest in partying has made life so much easier for me, not only because it’s easier to keep an eye on her when she isn’t completely out of her mind, but this new introverted lifestyle she’s been living has made my updates to Taylor much less tense. Besides, I know this whole party scene isn’t her. This is a symptom of pain, and it actually hurts me to think that that’s probably the reason she’s out tonight. She started thinking of him again.

Thankfully, despite Kate’s less than perfect directions, the party is easy to find once I pull onto the street. As I step out of the car and make my way up the walk, I’m given a preview of what I should expect to find inside when a girl in a short, black sequin skirt falls to her knees on the curb and vomits into the street while her very drunk friend rushes forward to hold her hair out of her face. The knee high brick wall that lines the yard is littered with dozens of condiment sized plastic cups.

Jello shots. Great.

I take a deep breath, push open the door, and step into the building. When I get a look around at the open corridor that leads to the stairs, I groan. This building is completely occupied by students and it looks as though every apartment is open for the party. Anastasia could be in any one of them, on any one of the four floors above me, but not finding her isn’t an option. Shaking my head, I step into the first open door on my left.

It takes about 45 minutes of closely examining the faces of each person I come across before I finally find Kate in an apartment on the 2nd floor. When she sees me, her face lights up and she stumbles forward to hug me.

“Luke! You made it! Come here, come here… I’ll get you a drink.”

“No thanks, Kate,” I say gently. “Where’s Ana?”

“Uhhhhhh.” She hesitates, looking around the room. “I don’t know, I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“What?” I snap, and Kate shrugs.

“She went to dance with some guy.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“When did you see her last?” I ask, but she’s turned to talk to her friends again and getting her attention back on me feels like trying to get a toddler to do math.

“Hey, focus,” I tell her. “Where did you see her go?”

“Uh… I think like, maybe… uh…”

“Kate!” I say, snapping at her as she turns to laugh at something the girl next to her said.

“What?” she asks, and I think I’m about to lose my fucking mind.

“Where is Anastasia?”

“Oh, Ana! She went off to dance with some guy.”

My teeth grind together as I take the still mostly full plastic cup of alcohol out of Kate’s hand and make my way deeper into the apartment. Usually, Kate’s more of a help than this. I don’t actually think I’ve ever seen her this wasted before. Ana’s normally the troublemaker, but with Elliot out of town this weekend visiting Grey, I should have expected something like this. And if Kate is this faded, I don’t even know what to expect when I find Ana…

The music seems to be louder in this apartment than the others I’ve been through, and I walk through several clouds of pungent smoke. There are more people here and the lightbulbs have all been replaced with black lights and colored strobes. Altogether, it makes searching the apartment much more difficult and I’m about to head next door when the leggy brunette grinding on some guys lap on the couch flips her hair and I see that it’s Ana. His hands are all over her and his tongue is so far down her throat, I wonder how she’s still breathing. Immediately, I feel my stomach drop. Great.

“Anastasia,” I say, stepping up to the side of the couch. She turns to look up at me, almost confused for a moment, but when she realizes it’s me, she smiles.

“Luke, what are you doing here?” she asks.

“Looking for you,” I tell her. “Kate called me.”

“Oh, did you see her?” Ana asks, slurring her words so badly it’s almost difficult to understand her. “Doesn’t she look pretty tonight? I told her that blue is definitely her color.”

“She looks great,” I say dismissively. “What are you doing?”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Luke, this is… uh, this is…” She looks down at the guy, who is still fondling her tits and frowns. “What’s your name again?”

“Jeremy,” he replies.

“Right. Jeremy.” Ana nods. “Luke, this is Jeremy.”

“Great. Can I talk to you for a second?” I ask her, and she nods.

“Hold on just one minute, George,” she says. He protests as she struggles to get off his lap, even tries to pull her back down on top of him, but I reach out for her hand and shoot my most menacing look down at him before leading her out of the apartment.

“What’s up?” Ana asks once we’re in the hallway. She looks a little dazed but whether that’s because she just came out of a dark apartment and is now standing under a long line of florescent lights or she’s really just this drunk, I’m not sure.

“I think I should take you home,” I tell her and she gives me a pointed look.

“Oh come on, Luke. It’s a party. Come inside with me. Live a little.”

“It’s almost three o’clock in the morning, Ana. And you look like you’ve enjoyed the party plenty. Come with me, I’ll take you home.”

“What about Kate?” She asks and I inhale sharply before turning back to face the apartment.

“Wait right here for me, I’ll go get her. Do not move.”

“Yes, sir,” she slurs, trying to salute me, but the movement knocks her off balance and she stumbles into the wall.

“Just… stay here,” I tell her once more and I head back into the apartment for Kate. I have to pry her away from her group of friends, a difficult task since she seems to be the center of attention and that’s exactly where Kate loves to be, but eventually I coax her out of the apartment. When we get into the hallway, we find Ana on the floor, slumped against the wall and fast asleep, so I slowly lift her into my arms and carry her towards the stairs. Kate trails behind us, struggling to walk herself, and I curse myself for not coming up with an excuse to spend the night at their house tonight so I could have prevented any of this from ever happening.

“Christian?” Ana mumbles, looking up at me through her eyelashes.

“Nope, it’s Luke,” I correct her. Her face screws up slightly, almost like she’s going to cry, but her expression smooths out again as she falls back asleep in my arms. She doesn’t wake again until I lift her out of the car and help her into the house.

“Okay, here we go,” I say, supporting nearly all of Ana’s weight as I help her through the front door. She giggles slightly as she trips over the lip at the front door and I pull her back just in time to keep her from sprawling to the floor.

“Smooth move, Ana,” Kate laughs. “You need to learn to pace yourself.”

“Shut up, Kate,” Ana says. “This was your idea anyway.”

“And it was a great idea,” Kate replies, as she lies down on the couch. Clearly, she’s given up on the idea of making it upstairs to her bed. Not that Ana looks to be up to the task either…

“Do you think you can make it up the stairs?” I ask her.

“Yeah,” she says, nodding with the kind of foolish confidence one can only find at the bottom of a bottle of tequila. “Totally.” She takes a step forward and places her foot on the edge of the bottom step, but when she moves to take another step, her foot slips and she falls onto the wooden steps.

“Ow,” she whispers, pouting a little, and I have to hold back my laughter.

“Why don’t I carry you?” I ask her. “I’ve already driven across town to find you, I don’t really want to add a trip to the emergency room.”

“No! I can totally do it. Watch,” she says, but before she can get to her feet again, I reach out and scoop her into my arms.

“Whoa,” she whispers, reaching up to hold her head as I start to ascend the stairs. “Head rush.”

“We’re almost there,” I promise. “Try to stay here with me on planet earth until I can get you into bed.”

“Bed?” she asks, and I roll my eyes.

“Yeah, bed. The place where you sleep.”

When we get to the landing, I cross the hall towards her bedroom and immediately move to place her on the bed. The moment she falls onto the mattress, she begins tearing off her shirt.

“Uh…” I say, turning away. “Are you going to be alright? Can I get you anything?”

“Help me,” she whines, struggling with the buttons on her jeans.

“Ana…” I say uncomfortably, but she looks up at me and pouts.

“Please, I can’t sleep in jeans,” she says. I hesitate for a moment before eventually bending over her to help her get her pants off.

“Lift your hips,” I tell her, once I’ve unfastened the buttons around her waist and pulled down the zipper. She does as I ask her to, but once I have her jeans off her legs, she reaches up to wrap her fingers in my jacket and pulls on me until I lose my balance and fall on the bed next to her. She’s on top of me in the next instant, her legs straddling my hips and her hands reaching into my hair as she crashes her lips down on mine.

“Anastasia,” I protest, her name garbled as I try and speak with her lips pressed to mine.

“Luke,” she moans back at me.

I grip her arms and move her off of me, holding her at arm’s length until I’m able to get off the bed. “What are you doing?” I ask her.

She smiles at me and climbs up onto her knees, reaching back for the clasp of her bra and then pulling it off of her so that she’s kneeling in front of me with her naked breasts peeking at me through her long, dark hair.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she says, biting down into her bottom lip. She traces her hand down the side of her body and then hooks her thumb underneath the band of her panties so she can pull them down an inch or so. “I want you, Luke.”

“No, you don’t,” I say very firmly, but she gives me a minx-like smile and lifts her hands into her hair, pulling it away from her shoulders so that she’s completely exposed in front of me.

“Haven’t you wondered what it would be like?” she asks, her voice soft and seductive. “Don’t you want to know what it would feel like to fuck me? I’m saying yes, Luke…”

I swallow. “And, I’m saying no.”

Her hands fall to her sides as she looks at me uncomprehendingly for a moment and then, as the sting of the rejection hits her, she frowns and falls back into a sitting position on the bed. Her hands reach over for a pillow so she can cover her exposed skin and, once she’s no longer naked in front of me, I immediately relax.

“You don’t think I’m pretty?” she asks quietly, and there is an obvious note of hurt in her voice.

“I think you’re beautiful, Ana. You’re gorgeous even, and your body is… well, you should be very proud of all of that, but we’re friends. Just friends.”

She looks down at her fingers for a moment as she plays nervously with the edge of her pillowcase, but when she looks back up at me, her eyes are swimming with tears.

“I need to get him out of me, Luke,” she says. “It’s been almost a year… how long am I going to feel like this? I can’t do this anymore.”

“No,” I agree. “You can’t. Look, I know that you’re still struggling with what happened with your ex but this isn’t helping you move on. In fact, it’s doing the exact opposite. You can’t lose him by losing yourself. This isn’t who you are and it’s making you unhappy, I can see that.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” she admits. “It hurts to think about him, but I can’t stop. Going out… drinking… it helps. It distracts me, gets him out of my head for a few hours…”

“Does it though?” I ask her and she purses her lips together for a moment before she shakes her head. “You know how you move on, Ana? You build yourself up again. You make yourself stronger by being the absolute best version of you that you can be. You have so much going for you. You’re smart, and funny, and kind… And you have Kate, and Elliot, and me… and Harvard. But you’re going to lose that if you don’t get your shit together and stop with the all night ragers. That’s just hurting you and you don’t need to tear yourself down anymore, you need to build yourself up.”

She sniffs. “How?”

“By focusing on school and writing… You’re an amazing writer, Ana and I know that’s what you actually love to do.” I smile at her take a step closer to the bed so I can reach out and swipe my finger against the tip of her nose. “You do you, boo.”

She laughs. “Did you just call me boo?”

“Yeah,” I chuckle. “Now, get into bed, it’s late and you’re going to fuck up your sleep schedule.”

“Fine,” she sighs, and while she crawls under the covers, I head into her bathroom to fill a glass with water and take two Ibuprofen from the bottle.

“Take these,” I tell her, “Or you’re going to feel like shit tomorrow.”

“There’s no avoiding that…” she says, but she takes the tablets from me and puts them in her mouth, chasing them down with most of the glass of water in her hand.

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Call me when you wake up.”

“Will do,” she yawns. I turn around to leave the room, but just before I close the door, her voice stops me.

“Luke…”

“Yes, Ana?”

“Thanks for coming to get me tonight. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Me either,” I tell her, and then I step out of the room and close the door behind me.

Me either.

Next Chapter

Christian POV: The Fallout

~ Tara Nichole ~ 1 Comment

Image result for Seattle

July 2008:

“Carla, please…” I say hoarsely into the phone.

“Christian, she doesn’t want to talk to you,” Ana’s mother tells me for what feels like the hundredth time this summer. “I’ve asked you before, and now I’m telling you. You need to stop calling here.”

“I just need one minute. One time. I need to know how she’s doing. I need to know that she’s okay.”

“She’s okay,” Carla says. “She’s a big girl, she can take care of herself. She doesn’t need you calling and checking on her. She doesn’t want you to call here anymore, so please… stop calling, Christian.”

I take a deep breath and hang up the phone without another word, then toss it onto the couch next to me. As I fall back onto the armrest, a sharp pain reverberates through the back of my head, making me curse. The couch Ros picked out isn’t ideal for moping and lounging around. It’s sleek and modern, beautiful, but not very comfortable. She’d meant it to be more for decoration than practical use because, in her mind, we’d be in the office nearly all the time. And, she is. Me? Well…

After I’d left Cambridge, I didn’t have anywhere to go. I stayed in a hotel room for about a week before Ros found a small apartment for the two of us to share while we built the company. It’s been good in some ways, at least Ros always makes sure there’s food in the refrigerator, and bad in others. To be honest, I’ve been useless. My world has been devastated and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve done what I can for GEH in the brief moments of clarity that have peppered the endless days of this torturous summer, but even that hasn’t been much, and so the company that feels as though I’ve sold my soul to start up, is completely stagnant. We own the rights to what used to be FiberLink’s fiber optics technology, but hardly anything has been done with it. If GEH launched today, we’d be nothing more than a discount internet provider, which would undoubtedly be purchased by xfinity or CenturyLink within months of opening the doors.

I know that I need to shift my focus, to start building the empire that I’ve been working towards for the last four years… But I just don’t have the will or the desire to do anything right now. I feel… broken. Alone.

The restriction in my chest returns and, as I lie there wondering how long this misery can possibly continue, I hear the door to the apartment open, followed by the steady clack of Ros’s heels against the wood floors.

“Oh good, you got out of bed,” she says, as she throws her keys down on the counter and starts sorting through the mail. “What do you say we try a shower today?”

I glare at her, but it doesn’t deter her persistence. “I’m just saying, this rugged man look you’re going for with the whole beard thing… It doesn’t vibe well with the sweatpants and t-shirt you’ve been wearing for three days straight.”

“Who cares?” I say, throwing my arm over my face to block out the light pouring in through the windows Ros refuses to cover.

“Well… I think a lot of people care.” She moves across the room and pulls my arm away from my face, forcing me to look at her. “GEH is not going to survive like this, Christian. We have to do something. I need you to work your miracles or we’re going to go under… and soon. It’s crunch time.”

“I’ve told you what to do,” I say, and even though we both know that’s only a half-truth, she doesn’t call me out on it. Still, I’m not off the hook.

“Christian, you’re the Grey of Grey Enterprises Holdings,” she says. “You’re not just the idea man, you’re the face of the company. Now, I need you to shave that face and get out there and let the people we’ve hired and the clients we’re trying to attract see you. A confident you, so that when we walk into an RFP meeting, we don’t look like a bunch of kids who dropped out of college and don’t know what they’re doing.”

“I don’t know if I can do that right now.”

She rolls her eyes. “Are you going to re-enroll in school and go back to Harvard?”

“No.”

“Well then you don’t have another choice. We’re not just talking or dreaming about this anymore, Christian. It’s real now. This is our shot, our only shot. It’s high stakes and I need you to be all in. Look, I know this thing between you and Ana sucks right now but do you think you’re going to win her back or make her realize that leaving school was for the best if you let your company fail? If you want Ana back, then becoming a success is your only option.”

I shake my head. “She doesn’t pay attention to stuff like this.” I gesture to the contracts on the table in front of me. “She wouldn’t even know what was going on with GEH if we were still together.”

“Okay, this is breaking about a thousand rules of girl code, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret about women. You’re her ex-boyfriend, she is going to be watching you like a hawk and borderline stalking you for… a while. If you had a facebook page, she’d be on it every day looking for pictures of you with girls, looking for signs that you are moving on or aren’t moving on. I won’t be surprised if she uses Elliot to spy on you. Girls can be crazy, Christian. It’s why you should never fuck with us.”

“You really think so?” I ask.

“I promise you. If GEH is in the news, Anastasia Steele is going to see it. So let’s get GEH in the news. Let’s make her see that you made the right choice. Don’t let all of this be for nothing.”

Her words hang between us, finally resonating with me. It’s a challenge, a way for me to get to Ana that I can control, and it gives me the first sense of purpose I’ve felt in months.

“Okay,” I nod. “Then, let’s get to work. Let’s make some news.”

“Great!” Ros says, jumping up and beaming at me. “But first, take a fucking shower. Seriously, Christian. It’s an issue.”

I sigh and roll my eyes, but turn around and walk back towards my bedroom to grab clean clothes, and then to the bathroom Ros and I share. As I strip down, staring at the too long facial hair on my chin in the mirror over the sink, I embrace this new sense of determination. Ana can’t ignore me forever, she can’t pretend that I don’t exist or that we never happened. I won’t let her. I won’t hide and I won’t give up.

I will make her see me.

 

December 2008:

“What if you bring her to me the day before? I just want to give her the presents I bought for her and maybe take her ice skating or to see The Nutcracker. I’ll drop her off for Christmas Mass.”

“Christian, you should be at Christmas mass. You should be at home with your family. Christmas is about family. This is when we should all be healing and coming back together.”

“Mom…” I say hesitantly, but she cuts me off so that she can hurry through her family togetherness speech for the billionth time.

“Why don’t you meet us at Saint James on Christmas Eve and after mass we can all come back here and talk this out? Elliot and Kate are going to be here, I’m having dinner catered. It’s going to be fun. We want you here, Christian.”

“I’m not going over there,” I say firmly. “I’m not going to sit next to him in a pew at church or listen to his backhanded comments over Christmas dinner. I know what he expects of me, and I’m not interested in groveling to my father, I’m interested in spending time with my little sister who he is keeping away from me. So, can I see her on Christmas Eve or not?”

“Christian, please,” my mother pleads. “We have to move past this eventually, it’s been months. This can’t keep going on like this. If you’d just come over here to talk to us…”

“I tried,” I tell her bluntly. “I tried, but every time I tried, he threw it back in my face. He stopped answering my phone calls and texts messages months ago, what makes you think he wants to have a rational conversation with me on Christmas?”

“He just wants an apology, Christian. He wants to understand, we all do. Look, I know your father has been angry with you, and I know he won’t say it, but… he misses you. I miss you too, and so does Mia and Elliot. Please join us for Christmas.”

“Can I see her or not?” I repeat, emphasizing each of the words individually as I ignore her request. She takes a deep, hitching breath.

“You know your father won’t let Mia go over there,” she says, “Not until you apologi-“

“Fine,” I cut her off again. “I’ll send my gifts over with Elliot.”

“Christia-”

I hang up the phone, trying to ignore the stabbing pain of loss that I feel at another rejection. I haven’t seen Mia since before the trial and her absence, along with the continued radio silence from Anastasia, is slowly killing me. It feels as though I don’t have a person in the world to turn to and it’s harder than I anticipated.

The empty void in the pit of my stomach that’s grown deeper each day since I lost everyone I love throbs, the dull ache refusing to be ignored, but I don’t have time for it now. I shake my head to clear my thoughts and immediately push the entire conversation with my mother out of my mind, choosing instead to reply to the email waiting for me in the inbox on my iPhone.

The past few months have been a marked improvement over the summer I spent in misery. Burying myself in work not only helps me escape from thoughts of Anastasia, and Mia, and everything else that happened, but it’s also resulted in resounding success for GEH. Currently, Ros and I are on our way to Amazon headquarters where we will be giving a finalist presentation regarding our fiber optics division’s ability to streamline their connectivity services, which have been overloaded due to the poor infrastructure put in place when they were first starting up and that they continue to operate on to this day. It’s the biggest client we’ve ever gone out to bid for and if we land this contract, GEH will more than quadruple in size overnight. The stakes are high and Ros has been a nervous wreck all week. Even now, she’s sitting next to me, bouncing in her seat.

“Stop it,” I mutter, not looking up from my phone.

“I can’t help it, I feel like I’m going to throw up,” she says. “We cannot afford to fuck this up.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” I reply, giving her a pointed sideways glance and she rolls her eyes.

“I’m not worried about you, I know you’ll be perfect. But, this isn’t just about how good of a presentation we give, the odds are stacked against us. We’re the smallest company left, and we don’t have the experience that the other finalists do.”

“I don’t care about that,” I tell her, brushing off her concerns. “We’re going to land this deal.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Because I won’t let us lose it. Just like I haven’t let us lose any other client we’ve gone to bid for.”

She gives me a closed lip smile and nods, seemingly reassured, but as I turn back to my email, she starts again.

“I didn’t tell you this because of what you were going through with Ana…” she says, and I turn to raise an eyebrow at her. “My dad was mad when we dropped out of school. He didn’t cut me off like your parents did, but he told me we were making a mistake. I almost thought we did in the beginning, that maybe you weren’t as ready as I thought you were, but you’ve proved us both wrong over and over again, Christian. The fact that we even have the chance to present to a client like Amazon is a testament to what you’ve done. Even what we have already… I mean, we’re profitable, very profitable, after only four months. Do you know what an amazing feat that is? And it’s all because of you. You were ready for this.”

“And I’m ready for today,” I tell her. “I promise, I’m not going to let us lose this deal.”

We pull up along the street in front of the glass building with the giant Amazon logo mounted on a stone structure a few feet away from the sidewalk. I glance quickly out the window, refusing to let the nerves build and shake even an ounce of the confidence I feel going into this meeting. If I land this, it will be national news… It will be the exposure I need to get Anastasia’s attention and I need her to see me succeed. Failure is not an option today.

“Alright,” Ros says, nodding and taking a few deep, bracing breaths. “Let’s go kill this thing.”

“Right behind you,” I promise and, as she steps out of the car, I watch her march confidently up the walkway towards the front entrance and then reach down for my phone again. I dial the now achingly familiar number and wait as the phone rings, and rings, and rings…

“Hello?” Elliot answers.

“Hey, it’s… it’s Christian,” I reply.

“Yeah, I know. There’s this magical thing called caller ID. It’s been around since like the ‘90s. You should really check it out.”

“Right. Well… Is Ana home?”

“No, actually she’s in a final right now.”

“Oh, right… finals. How did she seem when she left? Did she seem confident? Do you think she’s going to do well?”

“I don’t know. She’s a huge nerd so probably.”

“Good. And, since I can’t wish her luck, will you tell her that I hope she did well? Or, if you’d tell me when she’s going to be home, I could call back…”

“Actually, we’re heading to the airport once she gets home. It’s Christmas break,” he tells me, and suddenly my interest is peaked.

“She’s leaving Cambridge? Is she coming home with you?”

“No, she’s going to Savannah. You know, with her family. Those people who you’re supposed to spend holidays with.”

“So, you’ve already talked to Mom, huh?” I ask him, and he sighs.

“Why, Christian?” he asks. “Why can’t we just put it aside for this one day? It’s Christmas. We’re supposed to be together, we’ve never not been together on Christmas.”

“Yeah. Well things change, Elliot.”

“They don’t have to! Look, if it’s Dad, I can talk to him. I can be a buffer between the two of you, I don’t care. I just want you there on Christmas.”

“I can’t. I’ve already made other plans,” I lie. “But you’ll be home for a couple weeks, right? We can go see a game or something.”

“I’m leaving on Sunday. I’m not staying the whole break.”

“What? Why?”

He sighs. “Because Ana doesn’t want to stay in Georgia and Kate doesn’t want Ana to be in Cambridge alone so… We’re coming back here.”

“Oh, well… That’s good. Kate’s right, she shouldn’t be…”

“Yeah, I’m coming,” Elliot yells to someone on his side of the phone. “Hey, Christian. I’ve gotta go. Ana just got back and we’re-”

“Wait, Ana’s there?” I interrupt him. “Let me talk to her.”

“I uh… I can’t. We really are leaving. Seriously, Kate’s already out the door. Look, I call you when I get back to Seattle. Okay?”

My breath comes out in a huff as I swallow back the now familiar sense of disappointment. “Okay.”

“Think about Christmas, Christian,” he says. “I know you don’t want to be alone.”

“I’ll talk to you later, Elliot,” I say dismissively and he sighs one last time before telling me goodbye and hanging up the phone.

I take a deep breath and then step out of the car, forcing the steady confidence I’ve spent months perfecting to the surface, and hiding the pain of yet another rejection from Ana behind the same mask that once hid my relationship with Elena from my parents. Once I’ve walked through the doors, I find Ros and we wait with twelve or so other men and women dressed in sharp suits until the conference door rooms open and we’re ushered inside.

Amazon’s board of directors is already seated behind a long table, and they examine each of us carefully as we walk through the doors. While the others who are vying for this contract against me begin their introductions at the end of the table, I step straight to the middle and hold my hand out for the CEO.

“Jeff,” I greet him with comfortable familiarity, a subtle power play. “Christian Grey. Thank you for meeting with me today.”

 

New Year’s Eve, 2008:

It’s been a shit day.

This morning, my office received word that Amazon had officially selected GEH to partner with, the technology we’d acquired from Signal Pacific a few weeks ago was successfully integrated with GEH fiber optics, and I’ve finally been able to navigate around the bureaucratic roadblocks and contract delays and have signed the dotted line that will make the software development company I’ve been after, mine. Everything is falling perfectly into place to set GEH up for an explosion of growth that will make me a ridiculous amount of money and all I can think about is what I was doing exactly one year ago today.

Vegas.

The day she became mine.

Today would have been our one year anniversary and yet this morning, she still refused my call.

I walk over to the kitchen and pull a glass out of the cabinet so that I can make myself a drink. My email has been fairly quiet since I left the office this afternoon because of the holiday and I have nothing but a half empty bottle of bourbon to distract me from the memories of having Anastasia beneath me and naked for the first time that have haunted me all day. She’d said yes that day and now I can’t even get her on the phone to tell me no.

And maybe tonight, she’ll be saying yes to someone else…

I drain my glass in one long drink, but as I reach for the bourbon again, the door to the apartment opens and Ros comes in with her new girlfriend.

“Hey, Christian,” she says, smiling at me until her eyes shift down to the bottle in my hand. Her shoulders fall and she quickly places her purse on the counter and walks across the room to take the bottle out of my hands. “Already hitting it hard, I see.”

“Everybody drinks on New Year’s,” I say defensively.

“Everybody happy drinks on New Year’s,” she clarifies. “This isn’t happy drinking. This is sad, alone drinking.”

“Oh no, this is happy drinking,” I say sarcastically as I lift my nearly empty glass towards her. “To another year without Ana.”

“Christian,” Ros says, her voice strained with exasperation. “Come on! You have so much to celebrate. We landed Amazon! Do you know what that means? You’re about to be a very rich man! And I mean, a very rich man. Who can get his own apartment. A big apartment, in the middle of the city, that will attract hundreds of beautiful women just dying to keep you company.”

“You know that doesn’t interest me,” I say bluntly.

“Maybe… Men?” Gwen asks uncertainly as she crosses the kitchen to sit on the other side of the breakfast bar.

“No, he’s into girls,” Ros says. “That’s what all this sad Christian is about. His ex-girlfriend broke up with him when he dropped out of college.”

“Really?” Gwen asks, shocked, and Ros nods.

“Oh yeah, and Ana was a catch too. Really smart, really funny, great ass…”

“Ros!” I snap, giving her a what the fuck are you doing look. She blanches slightly and apologizes, but when I reach out again for the bourbon she’s still holding in her hand, she pulls it out of my reach.

“Gwen and I are going Polar Bar tonight to celebrate the Amazon deal, come with us. You can drink there and, if you’re lucky, you can find a girl who will take her panties off for you because I’m telling you, Christian, YOU. NEED. TO. GET. LAID.”

“Ros, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you…”

“I’m not asking, Christian. I’m not living with you like this anymore. You’re coming out with us and you’re going to be in a good mood, and have a good time, and look at girls. So go get dressed, we’re leaving in twenty minutes.”

“Ros…”

“Not. Asking. Christian,” she says again, firmer this time. I stare back at her, not backing down, but when she realizes that, she ups the stakes by opening the bottle of bourbon and pouring it slowly down the drain.

“You wanna drink, you can come with us,” she says. I gape back at her, too angry to speak.  It’s like guerrilla warfare. “We’re leaving in twenty minutes,” she repeats.

I scowl at her, but eventually move around her and make my way towards my bedroom. The unfortunate truth is, there’s no way I’m going to make it through this night sober.

A little more than half an hour, we step out of the back of the cab and walk forward for the front doors of Polar Bar. It’s packed inside despite the fact that it’s only 8 o’clock, but I suppose that’s only because it’s New Year’s. Ros moves through the crowd, looking for seats, and I tell her that I’m going to get us a round of drinks. She waves me off and once I get up to the bar, I order three Gin Martinis and then pull out my phone while the bartender makes them. It’s almost 8:15 which means it’s a quarter after 11 on the east coast. I make a quick call to the house in Cambridge, but when no one answers, I send a text to Elliot.

 

Plans Tonight?

 

The bartender hands me the drinks, which means I have to put my phone back in my pocket so I can carry them to the table. Once I’ve sat down though, I immediately check my phone again. I still haven’t gotten his reply.

“So what’s your type, Christian?” Gwen asks me as she takes a sip of the Martini I hand her.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re looking for girls for you, right?” she asks. “What about her? She’s hot.”

I turn to look at the woman standing just a few feet away from our table and then frown. She’s beautiful, leggy, and thin. Her hair is champagne colored with platinum highlights and she has the kind of smile that you’d notice from all the way across the room. Actually, she looks a lot like Kavanagh.

“Too obvious,” I say turning back around.

“Okay, what about her?” Gwen asks, gesturing to the table on the other side of us.

I turn again and this time see a girl with flawless dark skin that contrasts in an almost mesmerizing way with her pale green eyes.

“Too tall,” I say, but the time Gwen just raises a disapproving eyebrow at me.

“What he means to say,” Ros interrupts. “Is too not Ana.”

Gwen rolls her eyes, but I don’t say anything in reply to Ros because I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, so I quickly pull it out to read the text from Elliot.

 

We’re at a party on campus. You?

 

I type out a quick reply.

 

Downtown. Is Ana out with you?

 

Yes.

 

My stomach tightens with panic. She’s at a campus party? Fuck, what if she’s really with someone? What if she just picks some random guy to kiss at midnight and it escalates from there? What if she meets someone tonight and this becomes their anniversary? My fingers begin flying over the keyboard.

Is she with someone? Does she have a date?

 

Once again, Elliot’s slow to respond.

 

Not unless you count a bottle of tequila as a date.

 

Great. She’s drinking. I know what happens when she starts drinking… My hand shoots up into my hair as I consider what to do. My first thought is to get on a flight and go to Boston myself, check to make sure she’s alone in her bed when I get there, and if she isn’t, to beat the ever living fuck out of the prick who put his hands on her. This, I know, is an overreaction, but unless I find something to distract me, it might be an inevitability.

I look up at Ros and Gwen sitting across the table from me, but in the time I’ve spent ignoring them for my phone, they’ve retreated into their own little world. I watch Ros lean forward to press her lips into Gwen’s and know that I won’t be missed.

Neither of them pay any attention to me as I get up, so I don’t even say anything as I walk away from the table and leave the bar. When I’m outside, I pace back and forth for a moment, trying to talk myself out of the thing I shouldn’t do, but know that I’m going to anyway. When I give up trying to deny that, I take out my phone again and dial my company’s head of security.

“Jason Taylor,” he answers after only one ring.

“Taylor, it’s Christian Grey. I need the number of the man you hired to look after Anastasia Steele in Cambridge.”

“Sir?” he repeats, clearly confused as I’ve told him in the past he is to be the sole point of contact in that situation and I should only be briefed of any instances if there is cause for concern.

“The number, Taylor. I need to get ahold of him.”

“Right. I’ll text it to you right away, sir.”

“Good. Have a good night, Taylor.”

“And you, sir.”

He hangs up the phone and I begin pacing again until his text comes through. As I look down at the number on the screen, I debate whether or not I’m really going to do this…

Who the fuck are you kidding, Grey?

I quickly dial the number and then freeze as I listen to it ring. When he finally answers, it’s hard to hear over the music and crowd noise in the background.

“Sawyer,” he answers.

“Sawyer,” I repeat, unconsciously speaking far too loud for being on a fairly quiet, public street. “This is Christian Grey. Do you have eyes on Anastasia?”

“Mr. Grey,” he says, shocked. “I uh… yeah, I can see her right now.”

“Well, is she with someone? What is she doing?”

“Right now?”

“No, I’m calling you at almost midnight on New Year’s Eve to find out what she had for lunch. Of course, right now,” I snap.

“Okay, um… right now, she’s… she’s… dancing on a table with Kavanagh.”

“What!”

“She’s been drinking, sir… She was just standing around with Kate and Elliot and then there was some shrieking about how she loves this song and she pulled Kate up onto the table with her. Elliot is standing next to them and he doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned. Oooh… well, her balance might be a concern.”

I grit my teeth as I imagine a room full of drunk college students ogling her as she swings her ass back in forth for everyone to see.

“Do not let anyone touch her,” I growl into the phone. “Do you understand me, Sawyer?”

“Yes, sir,” he replies. “No one will touch her.”

“Good, and the second the ball drops, she goes home. ”

“Yes, sir,” he repeats.

“Good,” I say, feeling slightly more pacified. “Just… look after my girl, Sawyer.”

“I always do, sir.”

When I hang up the phone, I turn back for the doors, but I’m not mood to be around Ros and Gwen for the rest of the night. Ana may be at a party with Kate and Elliot, but she’s at a party… She’s clearly handling things much better than I am, which means that she’s either moving on or that she already has. The thought makes my throat feel tight and so rather than head back into the club, I start walking down the street. Alone.

Most of the bars that line the streets of downtown either have a line out the door, or are blaring god awful music, too loudly, through the doors. There’s a hotel a few blocks away with a bar inside so I decide that’s my best bet to be alone. It’s a good decision because when I enter the hotel bar, there’s only one other person inside.

The bartender asks to see ID when I sit down, but once I tell him who I am, he apologizes and pours me a bourbon on the rocks, free of charge. I take it and then stare down at my phone, slowly counting the minutes until it’s midnight on the east coast, and then drinking more to drown the images of Anastasia wrapped in someone like Carter Reed’s arms.

Sawyer will watch out for her. I remind myself again and again, but in all honestly, I know nothing about Luke Sawyer. I don’t know how far he’s willing to go to prevent her from going home with someone, or if he even cares to do such a thing… His reassurances could be nothing more than a placation. For all I know, he could be the one taking her home.

I cringe at the thought and then ask for another drink, not feeling any better until my head starts to swim and I start texting Elliot again.

 

It’s after midnight, are you still there?

 

No, Christian. Stop texting me.

 

I look down at the words with confusion… That doesn’t sound like Elliot. He’s always on me for not talking to him more. I know it’s late but it’s New Year’s… surely he’s planning on being up for a while.

Suddenly, the paranoia kicks in and I start to wonder if he’s hiding something from me, so I text him again.

 

Why? Is Ana with someone?

 

No, I’m about to be balls deep in my girlfriend and you’re killing the mood.

 

I frown and let out a defeated sigh as I toss my phone back on the bar and signal the bartender for another drink. He pours it for me and once I slam it back, I hear the legs on the stool next to me scrape against the floor.

“Rough night?”

It’s the woman who has been the only other person in the bar with me and although I’m not usually one for conversation with strangers who have no use to me in the business world, the alcohol seems to have lowered my inhibitions a little. Besides, I’m running low on people in my life to talk to. Besides losing Ana and Mia, Elliot has Kate, Ros has Gwen… I’m the only one who is alone. She looks alone. Maybe we can be alone together.

“Try a rough few months,” I say, sucking the one of the bourbon coated ice cubes into my mouth and chewing on it.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “If it makes you feel better, I was supposed to be on a blind date tonight, but I don’t think he’s going to show.”

“What makes you say that?” I ask.

“Well… he’s late.”

“Late doesn’t mean…”

“About two hours late,” she interrupts me and I frown. That doesn’t bode well and there isn’t really anything I can say to change that, so I don’t say anything. She however, seems happy to keep talking. “I’ve been sitting here for almost an hour wondering if he just stood me up or if he saw me, and immediately left.”

I look over at her, and give her a once over. She has thick, straight hair that is so dark in color it’s just a shade or two on the brunette side of black. Her skin is olive hued, leading me to believe she might have Hispanic or maybe Italian heritage. Her eyes are dark, but warm. Welcoming. She has a friendly face.

“I don’t think any man would walk in here, see you, and then turn away,” I tell her and she smiles. The bartender asks if she would like another drink and when she says she would, I motion for him to put it on my tab.

Over the next hour or so, I learn that her name is Camilla and she’s a graduate student studying literature at the University of Washington. She grew up in a small town on the other side of the sound and while her mother is a school teacher, her father is active duty military. She’s Anastasia, or a pale imitation of her, but through the haze of the alcohol, I can almost pretend she is.

“Listen,” she says, giving me a coy smile and reaching out to brush her fingers over the back of my hand. “I thought maybe I’d get stuck down here, you know… it being New Year’s and all… but, I have a room in this hotel. If you’re interested, I’d really like it if you came up.”

I look at her for a moment, considering her. I didn’t realize I’d given any indication that I was interested in her, I’m not interested in her, but… Maybe, just for tonight, I could put aside this torture and just let baser instinct take over. I could lose myself in this woman, feel something good again…

But even as I imagine it, as I think the word good, I know that’s not what this would be. I’m letting the alcohol and months without sex sway me when I know that there would be no pleasure worth making love to a woman who wasn’t Anastasia. How could I continue to pursue her, to profess my love for her, when I’d shared a bed with another woman? I know that if I found out she’d slept with someone else, it would ruin me. I don’t want to do that to her.

“I’m sorry,” I say softly, and I pull out my wallet, place $100 bill on the bar, and then get out of my chair. “It’s been nice talking with you tonight, Camilla. Thank you.”

Her forehead creases as I turn and leave the bar, and when I step out into the wet night air, I begin to wonder if I’ve made the right decision. I didn’t lie to her when I left. It was nice to talk to her. It’s a thing I’m severely missing. I can’t be fully honest with Ros because she doesn’t know the whole truth about why Ana left me (and I don’t want her to), and Elliot… he’s too neutral. I can’t talk to him about what has happened because, even though he’s the only family member I have who has truly stuck by me, I know he doesn’t agree with my choice. And, I can’t talk to him about Ana because he’s one of the people actively keeping her away from me. I’m alone and as I walk through the drizzling rain back to my apartment, I realize that I don’t want to be. I need someone to talk to. Someone who won’t judge me, who will be on my side, and who will let me pour my heart out to them and will want to help.

As I round the corner onto my street, I think of someone who can give me just that. Who has given me that in the past.

Once I’m inside my apartment, I head straight into my bedroom and close the door behind me. My heart seems to race as I pace across the floor and consider the consequences of what I’m about to do, but honesty, in this moment if feels as though I have nothing to lose.

I pull out my phone and dial the number I hate that I still know by heart and listen as it begins to ring.

“Christian?”

“Hi… Elena.”

Next Chapter

Christian POV: First Contact

~ Tara Nichole ~ Leave a comment

Image result for harvard campus

“We’re here!” my mother chirps excitedly from the front seat of our rental car. My father pulls along the road that runs behind the dormitories on campus where several other cars are parked and are being unloaded by students and their parents. They all look ecstatic to be here. I on the other hand stare morosely out the window at the building that will feel like a prison for as long as I’m forced to stay here. 

 “What do you think, son?” my dad asks, looking proudly out at his alma mater.          

“It’s fine,” I tell him.

“Fine?” my mom asks, turning around to look at me. “Can we up the enthusiasm a little, please??

I roll my eyes and step out onto the sidewalk. I can hear my parents talking about me inside the car, but I ignore them. They know I’m not happy to be here and I’m not going to pretend for their benefit.

My mom gets out of the car and accompanies me through the registration tables while my dad drives off to find a parking space.  It feels ridiculous standing in line waiting for my name to be called for my welcome packet and room keys with my mother. The least they could have done was drop me off a few blocks away and let me get set up with a little dignity, but I’m sure they’re worried I would bolt.

When my name is called, I get my schedule and housing assignment and walk with my parents towards the dormitories. They leave me for a minute to visit the mail room to pick up the boxes of things we’ve had shipped from the house and a few stores in Seattle while I find my dorm room. When I reach the third floor of Grays Hall, there is a tacky paper sign with Christian Grey scrawled across it in loopy, girlish handwriting along with several doodles of stars and smiley faces. I roll my eyes, tear it down, and unlock the door.

The room is a decent size, especially since they’ve done as I have requested and removed the second bed that should be in here. I remember the fight my dad had to put up over the summer to ensure I didn’t have a roommate. It was the one of the only concession my parents gave to me. I told them that the only way I’d even consider coming was if I had a room to myself, trust fund be damned. There was no way I was ending up cooped up in this room with some wide-eyed Harvard Hopeful all year. Thankfully, my therapist told my parents having personal space would help ease me into school, and of course Elena was encouraging too, though for very different reasons.

“This is nice,” my mother says coming in the room behind me with a huge box in her hands. “It’s much bigger than what Elliot had his freshman year.”

“I would have killed to be in Grays when I was here, Son,” my dad adds, also carrying a heavy looking package. “But I was a Straus man.”

“It’s not too late, you know,” I say, turning around to face them as they set the boxes down. “I still have 24 hours to unenroll before you lose any of my tuition money.”

“Christian, I’ve had just about enough out of you,” my dad says sternly. “Now, we’re not having this argument again. You’re going to get a college education and we aren’t going to hear another word about it.”

“You’re going to love it here,” my mom promises. “Now, we have just enough time to get some shopping done before we’ll need to get dinner.”

I sigh, realizing fighting them is not only pointless but is ultimately just keeping them here longer, so I pick up my keys and follow them out of the room. When I’ve locked the door behind me I turn and glance over at the names on the door across the hall from me. Katherine Kavanagh. I know Alec Kavanagh is a big name in the media world back home. I wonder if this girl is any relation? I’ve never heard of anyone named Steele before, so I worry very little about who my other neighbor might be.

My mom drags me through department store after department store picking out bed linens, curtains, area rugs, school supplies… the works. Thankfully, after a long trip through the third store, even my Dad has grown tired of shopping and he’s only too eager to agree with me that we’ve gotten plenty of things to fill my dorm. We drop the things off in my room before heading out for dinner and since I’m not going to see them before their flight the next morning due to my first meeting for Crew, my mother chooses the exterior of my new dormitory for her tearful goodbye.

“Call me after your first day,” she sniffs. “And then every day after that. Don’t forget your appointments with Dr. Fisch or that your brother will be coming this weekend to watch the football game. You’ll need to get tickets.”

“I know, Mom,” I tell her.

“If you need anything at all, you let us know. Aunt Elena wanted me to tell you that if you’re feeling down or homesick or anything at all and you just need to talk, you can call her anytime. We’re all here to support you.”

“Thanks,” I reply, knowing I’ll be talking to Elena often while I’m here, but never because I’m feeling homesick.

“Have a good term, Son,”  my dad says, clapping a hand on my shoulder. I give him a tight smile as my mom throws her arms around me.

“Mom, please,” I moan.

“Come on, Grace,” my Dad says, gently peeling my mother off of me. “Let’s let him get settled in.”

“Okay,” my mom says through her tears. “Do not forget to call me.”

“I won’t,” I lie, but she smiles before turning around and walking around the famous Old Yard with my father towards their rental car. I sigh as I watch them walk away, my last hope of getting out of college, however weak it may have been, leaving with them. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I look down and see a calendar reminder. Fuck, I’m supposed to call Elena in five minutes. I make a mental note as I sprint back upstairs to memorize my new schedule. I really don’t want to find out what would happen if I was late calling her, or worse, forgot all together.

I wake the next morning in a cold sweat, panting heavily as the screams from my nightmares slowly sink back into the darkness of my memory. It takes me a moment to orient myself to my unfamiliar surroundings. Right, I’m in my dorm.

I pull back my blankets, walk to the bathroom, and pound back a glass of water from the sink. I wonder if anyone can hear me scream through the walls here. My family is so attuned to the noise, they wake instantly and one of them is usually able to pull me out of my nightmares before I wake on my own. There is no one here to wake me.

I glare at my reflection in the mirror before returning to my bedroom and glancing down at the time on my phone. Thankfully, it’s only five minutes before my alarm was set to go off anyway, so rather than try to get back to sleep, I make my bed and change into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and make my way for the gym. When I’ve passed the seven mile mark on the treadmill, I head back up to my room, take a quick shower, and then stop at Annenberg dining hall for breakfast before I have to be at Newell Boathouse for my first rowing meeting.

As I sit through some of the older students telling us about the proud tradition of rowing crew here at Harvard and how honored we should be to have been selected for the team, I get a text from Ros telling me she’s here and nearly unpacked. I reply, asking her to meet me at the library in half an hour, and once we’re released, I head quickly back to my dorm to pick up my laptop. When I reach my room, I get a quick peak at a leggy blonde in the room across from me. She gives me a quick, interested look, which I ignore, just before she closes her door.

Fortunately, her fascination, just as the many females before her, will be gone in only a few days’ time and she’ll think of me as nothing more than the asshole who lives across the hall. As I step out the door on my way out and let the bag with my laptop slump to the floor while I fish out my keys, I notice a different girl standing a few feet down the hallway stop in her tracks and gape at me. My jaw tenses with irritation.

Sorry sweet heart, but you’re not interested in what’s behind this face. Believe me.

“Hello?” I say, raising an eyebrow at her when she doesn’t stop staring after a few seconds. She flushes with embarrassment and as I look at her, really look at her, I can’t help but notice she’s actually… attractive. Very attractive. Her long chestnut colored hair swirls around her rosy pale face like a cloud. Her wide, clear blue eyes stare innocently up at me and, for the briefest moment, her perfect white teeth sink into her full bottom lip and it stirs something inside of me. She’s slim, with long limbs, narrow hips, and great tits.

“Hi,” she squeaks as she tries to regain her composure. “I’m Ana. I uh… live across the hall.”

Ana? My eyes shift to her door and I read the name tag taped a few feet above the knob. “Anastasia?” I clarify.

 “Uh… yes. But I… um… prefer Ana,” she stammers, and I feel my brow furrow. I abhor nicknames. Why would someone so attractive want to be called something as ordinary as Ana? She fidgets uncomfortably as I stare back at her, waiting for her to leave, and the shift in her breasts as she moves does not go unnoticed. Hmm… I’ve always had a thing for brunettes… What the fuck am I doing? Stop checking her out, Grey.

“You don’t have a name tag,” she points out, probably trying to get me to introduce myself, but getting friendly with my neighbors, especially neighbors as attractive as she is, was not a part of my plan this year.

“No, I don’t,” I say, keeping my voice unfriendly while I lock my door. I reach down and pick up my bag.

“Anastasia,” I say, giving her a curt nod as I turn to leave. I want to turn around and get a view of her ass, but I can feel her eyes on me as I make my way through the hallway crowded with students moving into their rooms.

Just as well. I think to myself. It’s not like I could have done anything with her anyway.

Next Chapter

Christian POV: When Worlds Collide

~ Tara Nichole ~ Leave a comment

Image result for incoming call blackberry

“This has to be it,” I say irritably, pulling up in front of 39 Berkley St. This house, unlike 39 Brewster St., is alive with lights and music. Definitely signs of a college party.

“Well look at that,” Elliot says with disbelief. “It does exist. I thought you’d lied to me, made it up to make yourself look cool enough to be invited to a party in your first week so you could impress your big brother.”

“Like I’d care about that,” I reply, rolling my eyes and killing the engine of my Audi.

“There are going to be girls here? I mean, I’m not about to walk into a room of twenty dudes talking about how great the bull market or whatever is, right?”

“Yes, there will be girls,” I tell him. “But after the Julia disaster last month, are you sure you really want to go there again?”

“Julia? Was that her name?” He asks, genuinely looking confused. I narrow my eyes at him, but he just laughs. “Sorry dude, I know it’s not your thing but some guys like to have sex with girls. Besides, I live thousands of miles away from here. Chances are, I’ll never see any of these girls again for the rest of my life.”

“You’re a prince,” I say sarcastically, and Elliot laughs. We climb out of the car and the second I close the door behind me, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. Is that Anastasia? I pull it out and look down at the name flashing on the screen. No, it’s Elena. Why the fuck is she calling me now? She knows I’m with Elliot…

“Hey, give me your keys,” Elliot says.

“What?”

“Give me your keys. I’m not going to make a girl walk back to my hotel and it’s not like you’re going home with anyone. Your dorm is only a few blocks away.”

“Fine,” I tell him and toss my keys over the hood of the car. “I’ve got to take this call, I’ll be in in a minute.”

“What? We’re at a party, who is it?” Elliot asks.

“Ros,” I lie and he shakes his head.

“You really need to get a life, bro. And tell her that too.”

I roll my eyes again and turn away from him to answer Elena’s call. “Hello?”

“I’ve had a very stressful day,” she pouts, without any form of greeting.

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” I tell her, wishing now Elliot hadn’t asked for my keys. I can tell by her tone this is going to be a long conversation and the late night air is a little too cold to be comfortable standing out on the curb for long.

“What are you wearing?” she asks.

“Jeans,” I tell her, realizing too late that my voice is a little too short. I hope it doesn’t piss her off.

“Jeans?” she scoffs. “That’s the best you can come up with? What are you doing right now?’

“I’m out with Elliot.”

“Really?” she says, and I can hear her disappointment. Thankfully I warned her ahead of time that I wouldn’t be available per our usual schedule this weekend and she accepted my reasoning, so she can’t be angry with me.

“Well,” she says after a pause. “I suppose you’ll just have to listen then.”

I put the phone against my jacket as I sigh and lean against the door of my car, and then bring it back up to my ear. “If it pleases you.”

“Oh it pleases me,” she purrs. “You know what else pleases me?”

I stand in the street for nearly an hour and twenty minutes, listening to her vivid descriptions of some of her favorite sessions with me in the playroom. She’s panting into the mouthpiece, mewling as she pleasures herself to her own fantasies, and as I listen to the erotic sounds through the phone, my pants become a little too tight around my groin. When she comes, my cock is so hard it’s actually painful, but I did as I was asked. I listened to her, encouraged her when required, responded when spoken to directly. She is satisfied and I know that I’ll be rewarded on her next visit to Cambridge.

“Mmm,” she moans as she comes down from her orgasm. “I really need to plan a trip out to see you. It’s just not the same without you here.”

“l’ll look forward to it,” I tell her, and she laughs, a low, breathy sound.

“Me too. Goodnight, Christian.”

“Goodnight.”

I hang up the phone and look down at the clock. Fuck, it’s nearly eleven. Anastasia probably thinks I’ve stood her up at this point. Well, hopefully she won’t be too pissed when I find her.

So what if she’s pissed, you’re not supposed to care, remember, Grey? A thought in the back of my mind reminds me.

Yeah, she’s just a girl in my building. A friend. I’m not beholden to her and she… she doesn’t belong to me. That thought brings back the uneasy feeling deep in my stomach but I push the feeling away as I take the walk up to the front door and let myself in.

It’s crowded inside as I work my way through dozens of people dancing in the cramped living room to some mindless, top 40 drivel. I can see Elliot walking around the crowd on the other side of the room, grasping tightly to the hand of some blonde whose face I can’t see, but I don’t see Anastasia anywhere. Everyone seems to be holding red plastic cups, so I assume there is a keg somewhere. Perhaps she’s getting a drink?

I tap the shoulder of a guy next to me, pressing himself against a tiny, dark haired girl. “Hey, where’s the keg?” I ask him.

“Kitchen,” he replies, not looking over at me. I mutter a half-hearted “thanks” and then work my way through the crowd towards the back of the house where I assume the kitchen is. The second I’m no longer surrounded by the throng of dancing students, I see her. She looks… damn. Her hair is straighter and looks slightly darker. She’s wearing tight black jeans that make her ass look absolutely fantastic and a top that leaves her back completely exposed. It’s easy from this angle to picture her standing there topless, and my mind immediately gifts me with image of her straddled over me, her breasts bouncing as I fuck her as hard as I can. The moment I’m able to look past how sexy she looks though, I frown. She’s talking with Rodriguez, draining the cup in her hand and then wobbling slightly when she’s finished. She’s drunk.

“Do you want to dance some more?” I hear Rodriguez ask as I begin walking towards them.

“Um… no,” Anastasia replies. “I think I need to sit down.”

She wobbles again but I’m able to grip her by her arms and hold her steady. “Come on, let’s get you outside for some fresh air,” I say.

She looks up at me in surprise but nods one she recognizes me. Before I’m able to steer her away though, Rodriguez reaches out and grips my arm to stop me.

“Hey! I’ve got it,” he says indignantly. “We were in the middle-” but I don’t stick around to find out what they were in the middle of. Frankly, I don’t really care. I don’t like the way he’s staring at my-uh, I mean, I don’t like the way he’s staring at Anastasia.

I steer her through the crowd back to the front door and once we’re out on the porch, she sits down on the top step and I join her.

“Are you alright?” I ask, noticing how flushed she looks. Even though we’re sitting, she still looks a little unbalanced.

“Yeah, thanks. It was getting kind of stuffy in there,” she replies, and as she takes a deep breath to center herself, a shiver rocks through her. The top she’s wearing, sexy as it may be, leaves most of her skin unprotected from the night air and I can see goose bumps rising on her arms. With a sigh, I pull of my jacket and wrap it around her. Does she ever wear a jacket?

“How much have you had to drink tonight?” I ask.

“A couple shots…” she says, hesitantly. “And… four beers, I think.”

It doesn’t take long for my mind to do the math. She weighs what, 115 or 120 pounds? The party started at eight and, even if she got here right when it started, that’s too much alcohol for that span of time. Especially if she hasn’t eaten…

“When did you last eat?” I ask.

“Umm… lunch,” she says, and I feel the heat of anger flair in my stomach.

“Do you know how dangerous it is for a person of your size to drink that much alcohol with no food in their stomach?” I ask, trying to reign in my temper. “There are people here trying to take advantage of drunk girls, Anastasia.” Especially drunk girls who look as delectable as you do tonight.

She glances down at her fingers, looking properly chastened, and as I stare at the delicate pout of her lips, the anger begins to recede. I reach around her again and rub her shoulders.

“Are you still cold?” I ask.

“No, your jacket is just what I needed,” she says, and she turns to smile at me. Damn, this girl is beautiful. I swallow hard, hoping to swallow my wayward thoughts as well. I can’t have her. Besides, what would she want with someone like me anyway? There’s no way she’s into anything remotely close to the things I am.

“When did you get here?” she asks, bringing me out of my thoughts.

“About an hour and a half ago. I just came inside to find you, I had to take a phone call. Elliot is in there somewhere. I’ve tried calling you for the past hour, you told me the party was on Brewster St. This is Berkley St.”

“Oh. I left my phone in my dorm,” she replies, flushing with embarrassment. Or maybe not. She looks like she’s going to speak again, but instead she closes her eyes and wobbles some more.

“Come on,” I tell her, standing on the bottom stair and reaching out for her. “Let’s get you home.”

“But Kate…” she protests.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine. Rodriguez can help her home,” I tell her. He did look rather eager for female companionship tonight.

She nods and reaches out for my hand. Carefully, I lift her from the step, wrap her under my arm, and hold her steady as I lead her back to Grays Hall. As we walk across campus though, I hear her moan slightly and then reach out for my chest. Panic seizes me and I quickly reach out and grip her wrist to stop her.

“What are you doing?” I ask, the panic obvious in my voice.

“I-uh. I was just-” she stammers, but I cut her off.

“I don’t like to be touched,” I tell her, pushing her away from me as we climb the steps to the dormitory. Her face falls slightly as I lead her through the door but she seems to perk up a little when I take her hand. This isn’t a good sign. I shouldn’t be spending time with her like this. I’m giving her the wrong impression. Part of me, however, though I won’t admit it to myself, loves that she seems to be so elated by my touch.

I lead her up the stairs towards our rooms but we’re only halfway down the hall when we hear a loud, obvious noise coming from Ana’s room. Kavanagh seems to have made it home from the party and is in there fucking someone. I hope it’s Rodriguez.

“Do you want to come in and um… wait?” I ask Ana as I pull out my key and unlock my door. She nods and follows me into my room. I close the door and feel a guilty pang in the pit of my stomach that has come from years of Elena’s discipline. She shouldn’t be in here.  

I turn around and pull my jacket off her shoulders, again uncovering the silky skin of her back. I have to take a second to bring my body to heel as I turn around and hang the jacket on the hook by the door. She’s not yours, Grey. You cannot fuck her.

Taking a deep, steeling breath, I turn around and pull my phone, keys, and wallet out of my pockets and place them on the desk.

“Make yourself comfortable,” I tell her, but she isn’t looking at me. She’s staring at the pictures on my wall and bulletin board. Her eyes widen as she sits down on my bed and looks at the framed picture of Washington on the bedside table that Mia sent me yesterday. The sight of her on my bed is… arousing and without thinking, I cross the room to join her.

“You’re from Seattle?” she asks, finally turning to look at me.

“Yes.”

“I’m from Montesano,” she says, excitedly.

“I figured you must be from somewhere in Washington, having Katherine Kavanagh as a best friend. Her dad is a big name in the Seattle business world.”

“I know,” she says irritably, but as she moves, the light catches her hair and I’m mesmerized again by how beautiful she looks.

“Your hair is different,” I say, automatically reaching up and capturing a lock between my fingers.

“Kate straightened it,” she whispers, and I can hear a low, familiar, needy sound behind it. There are no warning thoughts in my mind as I pull the strand back and tuck it behind her ear, gently grazing her neck as I release her hair. Then, as if I’m controlled by some baser instinct rather than rational thought, I lunge forward and my lips crash against hers. She doesn’t stop me. She doesn’t turn her head or push away and when I brush my tongue against her bottom lip, she willingly opens her mouth for me. I moan and push her back on the bed, lying over the top of her as I claim her mouth.

Her fingers reach up into my hair, pulling gently, and I’m instantly hard. It feels so good, I don’t even think about restraining her hands. I’m vulnerable and for some reason, I don’t care. I can’t think of anything now except how badly I want to be inside the delectable Miss Steele, even if it’s the vanilla way. My hand slides down her sides and then under her top, but just as I’m about to reach my reward, my mind catches up to me and the image of a furious Elena brandishing her favorite cane flashes across my mind. I freeze instantly and then leap backwards off the bed.

“I’m sorry, I can’t…” I tell her, the agony of having to say these words more real than I could have imagined. “I shouldn’t have,” I continue when I see the look of hurt confusion on her face. “It was wrong… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Anastasia.”

“I’m fine, Christian,” she says, her eyes still filled with longing. “I wanted you to do that.”

“I know you did and I… but I just… can’t,” I stutter. My hands shoot up into my hair as I fight the urge to climb back into my bed, strip her naked, and lose myself in her, but I know better. I can’t have her, I belong to someone else. I need to get away from her, away from her look of pure desire. I need to get her scent off of me.

“Look,” I begin diplomatically. “I’m going to… take a shower. If Kate isn’t, uh… finished soon, you can stay here tonight. Elliot has a hotel room and I can stay with him.” That is whenever he kicks tonight’s conquest out.

“Okay,” Ana says, and I can hear that she’s close to tears. Fuck. She’s upset. Why wouldn’t she be? I took this way too far and now I’ve hurt her. Maybe I should… no, I won’t be able to stop myself again. I need to get away from her. I turn away from her and head into my bathroom, flipping on the light and the fan, closing the door behind me, and collapsing against it to regain my composure.

You’re a real piece of shit, Grey.

I walk over to the shower and turn it on all the way hot but get inside before the water has a chance to warm up. The cold does wonders to quench the lustful fire inside of me and my erection disappears. As the water grows hotter, my mind grows clearer. What the fuck was I thinking? It was wrong to bring her here. Christ, what did I expect was going to happen? At least no one knows she’s here. If Elliot saw her, I know Elena would eventually find out. Elliot has a big mouth and my mother is constantly pressuring him for information about me because she doesn’t think I’m open enough with her. Well thank God that bullet has been dodged. The most important thing now, besides finding a way to make this right with the girl I’ve just hurt on the other side of my bathroom door, is keeping this from Elena.

Nothing happened anyway. So I kissed her? Big deal! I cringe as I realize that, yes, that will be a big deal to Elena. But I won’t tell her and how could she possibly find out? Besides, I could have fucked her. She wanted me to fuck her, I wanted to fuck her, and I didn’t. I shouldn’t be punished, I should be rewarded.

I feel better with this new justification and turn around to shut the water off. Grabbing a towel off the bar next to the shower, I quickly dry off and then realize, in my haste to get away from Anastasia, I haven’t brought any clothes in with me. Well, maybe she was upset enough to leave. I listen for any sound coming from the room but can’t hear anything, although that might be because of the fan. It’s okay though, if she’s there I’ll just take some clothes out of my dresser, come back in here to get dressed, and then get on my computer and work on homework until she leaves.

Wrapping the towel tightly around my waist, I reach forward and open the door. The first thing I see is Anastasia and she’s standing in front of my desk with my phone in her hand. Fuck, what is she doing with my phone? There are text messages on there I’d really prefer she didn’t see…

“What are you doing? I ask, and her cheeks immediately flush with guilt. Fuck, that’s not good.

“Um… you got a call. Several calls actually. Mrs. Lincoln wants you to call her back immediately,” she says.

I freeze as I think I feel the blood in my veins go cold. Elena called me and Anastasia answered it. Elena knows she’s here. I cross the room and rip the blackberry out of her hands. I go to the call log and sure enough I see two missed calls from Mrs. Lincoln and one 17 second conversation. The fear morphs into anger then. Why the fuck would she answer my phone?

“You answered my phone?” I ask, turning my furious gaze on her. “Why would you do that?”

“She kept calling, I was worried there was an emergency,” she replies defensively.

           “That is none of your concern, Anastasia,” I growl back at her. She’s cowering away from me and I know that I need to quell my temper but I can’t. I know what’s coming, all of my hard work keeping Elena pleased my first week away, down the drain. At this point, I may as well have fucked her, Elena won’t believe I didn’t anyway, and I’ll be punished for it.

“I’m sorr-” she begins, but I’m too angry now to hear her apologies.

“Get out,” I say, trying to keep myself from shouting.

“Christian?” she tries again, but I’m past my breaking point now.

“Anastasia, get the fuck out!” I scream, turning to the door and throwing it open for her. She takes a sharp intake of breath and then hurries forward, but before I can slam the door behind her, the door to her dorm opens and Elliot comes out, attached at the face to Kavanagh.

“What’s going on out here?” Elliot asks, the satisfied smile of someone who’s just had amazing sex stretched across his face. I don’t reply, I slam the door closed and do everything I can to keep myself from hurling my blackberry against the wall. I have to call her. It’ll be worse if I don’t call her.

After taking another calming breath, I pull the towel off my waist and get dressed, rehearsing to myself what I’m going to tell her. When I think I’ve calmed down enough to face Elena’s wrath, I pull out the chair at my desk and dial her number.

“Hello, Christian,” she answers, and I can already hear the controlled anger in her voice.

“Look, it’s not what you think…” I begin, but she cuts me off.

“Not what I think?” she laughs. “How stupid do you think I am Christian? How many girls have you been fucking since I let you out of my sight.”

“Elena, please, nothing happened.”

“Then tell me, Christian, what other explanation would you have for having a girl in your room at midnight?

“She lives across the hall from me, Elliot was fucking her roommate. She needed a place to wait it out.”

“Elliot? You’re putting this on Elliot?”

“It’s true, I swear to God. Call him and ask him if you want. I’m sure he’d love to brag about his latest conquest.”

“So Elliot fucked the roommate. What about you? You invited her into your room, late at night, and just, what? Talked about the weather?”

“I was doing homework,” I lie.

“She said you were in the shower,” Elena replies. “Probably washing her come off of you, weren’t you?”

“No!” I tell her defensively. “It’s late. I knew Elliot would be finished soon and she would leave. I always take a shower before I go to bed.”

“Cut the shit, Christian. I know you fucked her and I’m not interested in your lies. To think, I was calling you tonight to tell you I’d planned a trip out to see you and instead, I find out about your betrayal.”

“I swear, Elena. I didn’t fuck her. Why would I want anyone else?”

“Is she pretty?”

“Who?”

“Don’t play stupid with me, Christian Grey! Anastasia Steele! Is she pretty?”

Gorgeous. “I don’t know, I haven’t really paid much attention,” I lie.

“Her name sounds like a porn star,” she snipes, and it takes every ounce of restraint I possess to stop myself from defending her.

“I guess,” I say instead, trying to sound disinterested. “Please tell me you’ll still come. I need to see you, Elena. You know I need to see you.”

“Oh don’t worry, Christian,” she sneers. “I’ll be coming to Cambridge soon, but when I do see you, it will be for my pleasure and not for yours. In the meantime, you are not to speak with that girl again. You are not to have her, or anyone else in your room. I never want to hear you say her name again. Do not underestimate how angry I am with you right now, Christian Grey. You’ve never deserved a punishment as severe as you do now.”

I cringe but don’t say anymore. I know now any further argument will just lead to additional lashes.

“If it pleases you,” I tell her.

She laughs again, softly, but there is no humor behind it. “Goodnight, Christian.”

“Goodnight,” I tell her, and the phone goes dead.

I curse quietly under my breath as Elliot knocks gently on my door.

Next Chapter

Christian POV: Welcome to Cambridge

~ Tara Nichole ~ Leave a comment

Image result for hotel room night

After I drove him back to his hotel last night, Elliot made me promise I’d meet him for breakfast this morning. He pretends it’s because he just wants to spend a little more time with me before I drop him off at the airport, but I know he wants to continue to press me about what happened with Anastasia. But just as they were during the car ride back to his hotel, my lips are sealed… contractually.
As I cross the parking lot towards my Audi, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. There is a text message from Elena.

What are you doing?

On my way to breakfast with Elliot, then taking him to the airport. Call you when I get back to school.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, I twist the key in the ignition and peel out of the parking lot, turning the radio on too loud in an attempt to drown out my thoughts. I feel like shit this morning. The scene from last night keeps replaying in my mind over and over again. I don’t think Elena needed to forbid me from seeing Anastasia again, I was a fucking asshole to her last night. She probably hates me now and I deserve it. I’ve been rehashing what I said to her when I threw her out all morning and each time I feel worse and worse. But worse than the red tinted memory of screaming in her face and throwing her out of my room, is the all too clear memory of her lips. Her taste, her touch, her body: slim, vulnerable, and hot from my hands running over her skin. The way she surrendered to my kiss, succumbed to my touch. The way she moaned as I pushed her back onto my bed. The way she writhed beneath me.

“Fuck,” I say aloud as I realize I’ve missed the restaurant where I’m meeting Elliot. I need to get a hold of myself. I need to get her out of my mind.

This is all because it’s been too long since I’ve seen Elena.

I’m used to three sessions a week in her playroom but I haven’t seen her in nearly two weeks. Thankfully, I know she’ll make good on her promise and make the trip out here soon. Even though I know I’ll have to face her retribution, it’ll all be worth it once I’m able to find release again. Once I’m no longer a pent up ball of anxiety, frustrated and horny as hell, forgetting about Anastasia will be a much easier feat. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to endure listening to Elliot talking about fucking Kavanagh all morning, which is really not going to help the it’s-been-too-long-since-I’ve-seen-Elena situation.

When I finally find a parking spot, I step out of the Audi and walk up the street one block to the diner. I open the door and scan the restaurant but don’t see anyone sitting alone at a table.

“Christian!” Elliot calls, and when I turn to look at him, I know why I hadn’t noticed him before. He isn’t alone. He’s sitting next to Kavanagh and across the table from both of them is…

I turn around and bolt back through the door. The last thing I need right now it Elliot to tell Mom about the breakfast he and I shared with Kate and Anastasia because I know my mother would have Elena on the phone as fast as her fingers could dial. In fact, this way, he’ll probably tell her I stormed out which might earn me points back with Elena after my mother calls her, thoroughly disappointed in me.

“Christian!” Elliot calls behind me and I turn and see him running up the sidewalk. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing? what are you doing?” I ask. “What happened to I’ll never see any of these girls ever again?”

“Well… Kate’s cool, man. She’s funny and smart and she does the weird stuff. If I’m going to be here all the time, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have someone to hang out with who has a vagina.”

“Have her then,” I spit back at him. “She can give you a ride to the airport. Enjoy your breakfast.”

“Christian!” Elliot yells after me as I storm away, but I ignore him. I hear his exasperated sigh as he turns around and heads back into the restaurant. When I get back into my car, my phone vibrates again but this time, it’s a text from Elliot.

Don’t be a dick. I have to be at the airport in an hour and a half, come have breakfast with us.

No thanks.

I stare down at the message displayed on my screen, frowning as I imagine him reading my too concise response and taking it badly, and then quickly type out a follow up message.

I’ll pick you up from your hotel in an hour to take you back to the airport.

Fine.

An hour later, I’m idling in front of the Hilton where Elliot is staying. He bangs twice on the trunk of my Audi and I press the button on the dash that will pop the latch for him.

“What the hell was that all about?” he asks, once he gets into the car.

“I didn’t really feel like having breakfast with Anastasia Steele,” I tell him, as I pull out onto the street.

“What’s going on with you two anyway?”

“Nothing. She’s just annoying,” I reply, immediately tasting how bitter the lie is on my tongue. Actually, she’s fascinating.

Knock it off, Grey. She’s nothing. Forget about her.

“I think she’s nice,” Elliot shrugs. “She’s pretty hot too. If you’re not going to move in on that, I might just have to find out how close she and Kate really are. Or how close they’re willing to get, you know what I mean?”

It’s a joke, but still my teeth grind together as the unwelcome image of my brother’s hands touching Anastasia flash across my mind. I shake it away immediately, I shouldn’t care at all, whether it’s Elliot or any other nameless douchebag on campus. My gut wrenches though as I’m unable to deny the fact that, actually, I do care. I care a lot.

“What, Kavanagh not enough for you?” I ask, trying to divert him.

“Oh she’s plenty,” Elliot grins. “Last night was incredible.”

I roll my eyes at him as he gives me a blow by blow of everything that happened the moment they left the party and just when I think I’ve about reached my limit, he changes the subject.

“Why was Elena calling you anyway?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” I reply, feigning confusion.

“Ana said you yelled at her and kicked her out because she answered a call from Elena. So what did she want?”

“I don’t know,” I reply, keeping the uninterested tone I’ve spent years developing. “She just wanted to see how school was going, I guess. Mom probably asked her to call me.”

“But she called you at like, midnight,” Elliot says, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s only 9 o’clock in Seattle,” I counter.

“She knows about the time difference.”

“I don’t know Elliot,” I say exasperatedly. “She sounded like she’d had a few too many glasses of wine when I called her back. Maybe she was plastered.”

“Ha!” Elliot laughs. “I swear to god, that woman needs like, an intervention or rehab or something. Do you remember last New Year’s Eve when she got so drunk she thought you were Mr. Lincoln and macked you right in front of Mom?”

“Yeah,” I reply darkly.

“That was hilarious. Remind me to make fun of her for that again when we go home later this month. You’ll have to send me the dates though. Mom didn’t tell me to plan a trip.”

“Going home for what?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Ana said it was on your schedule that you were flying back to Seattle later this month. I figured it was something Mom just forgot to tell me about. An early birthday dinner for Dad maybe.”

“That must have been on there by mistake,” I say quickly. “I’m not going back to Seattle until Thanksgiving.” Jesus, was there anything they didn’t talk about over breakfast?

“Oh,” Elliot says. “Well, never mind I guess.” We’re at the airport now and I drive up through the drop off lane rather than finding a place to park.

“I guess I’ll see you next month then,” Elliot says. “Do you want to make some plans for Halloween or should I come sooner than that?”

“You know you don’t have to come every month, Elliot. I’ll be fine here alone.”

“Will you just shut up and answer the question?”

“I don’t care. No, I don’t think I’ll make plans for Halloween.”

“You’re such a grouch,” he says, slugging me in the arm. I glare at him as he gets out of the car. He takes his bag out of the trunk and tells me to call him the next day. I wave him off and then pull back into the lane, running through everything Elliot told me about his breakfast with Kavanagh and Anastasia and how I’m going to explain it all to my mother, and to Elena.

The following day, I focus on nothing but making it through my routine. I wake up, go to the gym, come back to my dorm to take a shower, and then head out for rowing practice. Routines and organization have always given me a sense of control, and right now, I need as much control as I can get.

I’m the first to arrive at Newell Boathouse, the same as I am every morning, and I’m anxious to get out onto the water. The treadmill wasn’t enough to satiate the pent up energy I feel this morning so I’m hoping an hour or so in the boat, cutting through the river, will do the trick. I walk through the boathouse, turning on lights and pulling out equipment for practice. By the time I make it to the locker room to change, some of my teammates have arrived.

“What’s up, Grey?” Torres asks as I yank open the metal door to my locker. “I saw you at that party down on Berkley this weekend.”

“Yeah, my brother flew into town so we stopped by,” I reply as I pull my shirt over my head. “We were only there for an hour or so though.”

“Didn’t take long to find some pussy to take home?” he asks with a laugh.

“Something like that.”

“Reed was there too!” he yells over my head. “Did you get laid this weekend, Carter?”

“Nah,” Reed replies from the opposite side of the room. “There’s this girl in one of my classes though, Kate, I saw her in Annenberg last night and she says she’s got a roommate who she thinks I’d hit it off with. I’m going to a bonfire to this Sunday to meet her.”

“Do I know her? What’s her name?”

“Anastasia Steele,” Reed says.

I freeze while I listen to their conversation, not even wanting the rustle of my clothing to distort a single word that is said.

“Nope, never heard of her,” Torres says. “Anastasia though… she sounds hot.”

“Sounds like the name of a girl who’s good at sucking dick,” Reed says, and he reaches across the aisle to give Torres a high five. I slam the door to my locker closed and round on them.

“Why don’t you both stop thinking about your dicks for a minute and get out on the fucking water?” I snap. Their smiles fade and Torres hurries to his feet.

“Sure,” he says, grabbing his bag and heading over to the pool where the boat is docked. Reed gives me a slanted look as he follows after him.
 Rowing is not enough to calm me down and I’m anxious for the rest of the day. Elena texts me constantly throughout the afternoon and it’s so distracting that even Ros gets frustrated in our meeting that night.

“Do you have something more important to be doing right now?” she asks irritably when I pick up my phone for the hundredth them. “Because I have other things I could be doing too.”

“No,” I tell her, but when my phone immediately vibrates again, she slams her notebook closed.

“We’ll pick this up tomorrow. I’ll see you in class,” she says, and she picks up her jacket and storms out of the library. I sigh and gather my things to head back to my dorm. I see Anastasia standing behind the circulation counter when I make it down to the first floor of the library and, though I want to linger for a moment and stare at her smiling radiantly at the lucky son of a bitch she’s helping, I sneak out so that she doesn’t notice me.

I know I’m not going to be able to avoid her forever though, a problem that becomes imminent as I drag my feet to British Literature Tuesday afternoon. I considered skipping class, using the time to get caught up on other homework I haven’t been able to focus on, but I have a paper due. Besides, regular attendance to my classes is one of the new rules Elena has laid down.

“You’re going to try, Christian,” she told me during our last session in the playroom before I left for school. “You’re going to really try to make this college thing work. You’re going to go to classes and keep up your grades and if you don’t get a deal and still don’t want to be at school by the end of your sophomore year, I’ll give you a way out. If you don’t put the effort in, there will be consequences.”

She’ll be here this weekend and since I’m doing everything I can to make it back into her good graces before she arrives Friday night, I grudgingly trudge to class.
 Anastasia is already there when I arrive, seated in the same seat she’s always in and chewing on her bottom lip as she reads over her paper. The visual resonates in my groin. I’d give anything to have the chance to bite that lip, to kiss her, feel her tongue in my mouth, to feel her lips wrapped around my cock…

Quickly, I shake the image away and take a seat on the opposite end of the room, pull out my paper, and stare anywhere but at the enticing Anastasia Steele. Unfortunately, there isn’t much covered in class and I can’t even distract myself by taking notes. Instead, I find myself staring at the clock, counting the seconds, and the moment Dr. Collins releases us, I bolt upright and head for the door. I’ve barely made it out of the building however, when I hear her call out to me.

“Christian!” Anastasia shouts angrily. My teeth grind together as I turn to face her.

“What?” I snap.

“What do you mean, what?” she asks. “You don’t think you owe me an apology for Saturday?”

I want to laugh at her audacity. Sure, she’s probably right. I was an ass and maybe I would have apologized had she not immediately run off to Elliot and given him my entire life story, nearly blown the carefully constructed façade Elena and I have built over years to hide our relationship from my family. She doesn’t even know the hell she’s caused for me over these past couple days. She didn’t have to sit through the lecture from my mother telling me I need to try harder to make friends, or the suspicious conversation with, Elena who seems to think the coincidence of me showing up for breakfast at the same place Anastasia just happened to be is more significant than me immediately leaving.

“I owe you an apology?” I ask. “You violate my privacy, get involved in my personal affairs, talk to my family and my personal life without my consent and you expect an apology from me?

“I was looking out for you, I thought there might have been an emergency and I’m sorry that Elliot hooked up with my best friend and was talking to me about you, but maybe if you were more open with your family, you wouldn’t have to worry about what people say to them. The way you treated me that night was unacceptable and if you’re not going to apologize, the least you can do is give me an explanation.”

“The explanation is that we can’t be friends,” I tell her curtly, and her eyes widen with exasperation.

“Friends? We can’t be friends?” she scoffs.

“No, Anastasia, we can’t,” I tell her. She’s so angry her face is flushed, her breathing is heavy and her eyes are glinting. I imagine she looks similar after she’s just been fucked and the thought is distracting. Focus, Grey.

“Look, I think you’re a good person. Smart, witty, beau-” I cut my words off before I can finish the sentence. Why is it so difficult to be pissed at her? “But I can’t see you anymore. I’m not good for you and I just…”

My phone rings, cutting me off again, and I reach angrily into my pocket to retrieve it. It’s Elena.

“Mrs. Lincoln?” Anastasia guesses, the ire in her voice overtly apparent.

“I have to take this,” I say, turning away from her. The last thing I need is Elena to hear her voice once I answer and I have to answer.

“Yeah, I bet you do,” she says coldly.

“Good-bye, Anastasia,” I tell her, and I walk away, answering my phone as I make my way towards the library to meet Ros.
The rest of the week is torture. It seems like the more I try not to think about Anastasia, the more obsessed I become. She’s everywhere, all the time. She’s in Annenberg when I get breakfast in the morning and dinner at night. I see her in class, on the walkways between buildings on campus, she’s even at the library every time I’m able to find a few hours to meet with Ros. I can’t escape her. She’s all I can think about when I’m working on British Literature homework. Even when I’m isolated in Newell Boathouse, I can’t look at Carter Reed without wondering if he’s going to fuck her this weekend. It’s maddening.

I’m ecstatic when Friday finally arrives and I know Elena is going to be in town. I’m convinced that once we’re together, and I’m finally able to find some release, my preoccupation with Anastasia will diminish. I pack eagerly to meet her at the hotel, not really paying attention to the things I throw into my duffle bag.

When I’m finished, I throw my bag over my shoulder and head out the door, but before I can even pull my keys out of my pocket, the door across the hall opens and both Anastasia and Kavanagh come out. I glance between them once and then hurry away without a word, wondering if one of them will let slip to Elliot that I’m clearly leaving with an overnight bag. I’m becoming paranoid. I need Elliot to call it off with Kavanagh already, it’s too risky having her across the hall from me at all times.

When I get to the hotel in Boston, I give my name to the clerk at the desk and discover that I have a room all to myself. This isn’t a good sign. Although Elena and I have never shared a bed, she usually wants me in the room with her so if she wakes in the night and wants to fuck, she doesn’t have to track me down. She’s not very patient, especially when it comes to waiting on me, and the separate room thing leads me to believe this weekend will be much more about punishment than it will be about pleasure.

I just need to come. Even if it’s only once. That’s all it will take to get Anastasia out of my mind.  I repeat the words in my head and then make my way to the elevator, ready for whatever this weekend is going to bring.


WARNING: The following section contains BDSM sex between Christian and Elena. If you do not wish to read this content, scroll down to the next section break.

When I get to my room, I immediately strip out of my clothes. Elena didn’t ask me to pick her up from the airport so I assume she got a car and her flight arrived forty five minutes ago, which means she should be arriving soon. I hope.

I take a minute to stretch out as I don’t know what she has planned for me once she gets here and then kneel by the door, stare down at my knees, and wait. Minutes go by, then half an hour, and I’m still kneeling. Part of me wonders if I should get up and check my phone, see if she’s texted me, but I don’t dare. It’s a good thing I don’t because seconds later, I hear the electronic chime of the lock accepting a key card and the door opens. My eyes shift back to the ground and Elena strides past me in tall, red, patent leather pumps. She’s dragging a huge suitcase behind her.

I can do nothing but listen as she places the suitcase on the bed and unzips it. I hear metal clinking together and other indistinguishable rustling as she puts the contents of the suitcase onto the bed.

“You can get up,” she says at last, and I comply immediately, though my knees groan in protest as I stand.

“Come here,” she tells me. I walk purposefully over to her, avoiding eye contact as I await her next command.

“Lift your arms over your head and do not move them,” she says. I do. Elena turns back to the bed and lifts something out of the suitcase and I have to stop myself from groaning when I realize what it is. She falls to her knees and I concentrate very hard to prevent myself from getting an erection as she closes her hand around my cock because, seconds later, she slides a hard, plastic chastity cage over me and secures it with a small padlock.

“Mmm,” she hums as she rises to her feet and places the tiny key to the lock in her bra. “That’s better, don’t you think?”

“If it pleases you.”

“Lie down on the bed,” she commands, and I turn without hesitation to do as she says. She reaches back into her suitcase and pulls out of few bundles of nylon rope. Once my hands are secured to the headboard and my legs tied down to the end of the bed, she takes out a few candles, lights them, and places them on the bedside table before straddling me and lowering her lips to mine. I succumb to her kiss, moving my tongue in rhythm with hers as her hands reach up and begin to tug at the roots of my hair. It’s difficult to maintain control of my body and I can feel the plastic restraint around my cock tighten slightly as I begin to grow harder.

Easy, Grey.

“You’re going to be punished,” she whispers against my lips. “But I haven’t quite yet decided how severely. Would you like the chance to persuade me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But you’re all tied up,” she pouts. “What do you intend to do?”

“Would my mouth please you?” I ask, and she smiles.

“Yes, I think your mouth will be just fine.”

Climbing up onto her knees, she slowly peels away her silk blouse so that she’s kneeling over me in only a red satin bra that pushes her breasts together and makes her ample cleavage  deep and defined. She moves off of me and removes her black pencil skirt so she is left only the matching panties that leave little to the imagination. I stare at her hungrily as she dips her fingers under the thin band over her hips and pulls them down, revealing herself to me. She smiles down at me as, again, she climbs onto the bed, this time hovering over my mouth.

I lean forward and run my nose up her vulva, purposefully exhaling over her so that she’s exposed to my hot breath, and I see her clench with anticipation. A smile breaks across my face and then, oh so gently, I wrap my lips around her clitoris and lightly suck. She breathes out a low approving sound and sinks lower over onto me, spreading her legs wider and opening herself up for my tongue. I dip my tongue inside of her and then drag it up her lips and slowly begin circling her clitoris. As I alternate between licking and sucking her, her breathing turns into whimpering, and after a minute or so, I know she’s getting close.

I bite down on her gently a tug, stretching her the way she likes, and I’m able to elicit a cry of pleasure. She’s wet. I can feel her arousal dripping out of her and onto my chin as I continue my ruthless assault on her clitoris with my tongue. I want to use my hands, I could make her come so much more quickly with my hands, but I don’t have the option. I dip inside her again, fucking her with my tongue as she begins panting and grinding herself down on my face.

“Yes!” she cries. “Just like that.”

I bite down on her again, a little harder this time, but not enough to hurt her, and she detonates. My mouth creates suction around her clitoris and I continue to work her over with my lips and tongue. The plastic around my cock is now painfully tight but I don’t pay attention to it. Hearing her cries of ecstasy is enough for me now. Surely, I shall be rewarded for this.

Eventually she pulls herself away from my lips, panting heavily as she collapses onto the bed next to me. She rests for only a second before leaning over and running her tongue over my chin, and then kisses me hard again so that I can taste her arousal in her mouth. I moan appreciatively and she smiles.

“Tell me about the girl, Christian,” she whispers.

This is a trap. There is no right answer to this question. I can either play stupid, pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about and earn several lashes, or I can give her what she wants and in the process reveal how much I’ve been thinking about Anastasia, which would also earn me several lashes. I chose the former as I know it’s the better of the two options.

“What girl?” I ask, and Elena’s smile vanishes.

“You’re a smart young man, Christian. Do not play stupid with me. The girl. The girl you had in your room. The girl who answered the phone when I called. Anastasia Steele.” She reaches out and runs a scarlet colored nail up my sternum and my breath hisses between my teeth. Focus, Grey.

“I’ve told you,” I manage to say through clenched teeth. “She lives across the hall from me. She was waiting in my room while Elliot fucked her roommate.”
 She sighs and gets off the bed, walks over to her suitcase, and slowly pulls out her favorite leather strap flogger. I swallow once as she paces back to me, smiles mischievously, and then brings the straps down hard over my chest. A grunt forces its way out from deep in my gut as she hits me again and again, a total of seven times, and then lazily drapes the straps over her shoulder.

“Why don’t we try again?” she asks. “I’ll be clearer this time. Do you think it’s appropriate to have a girl in your room at all, regardless of what Elliot is doing to her roommate?”

“Nothing happened,” I tell her quickly, but she hits me again, harder this time. The bite of the lash leaves a lingering sting in my skin and I feel the endorphin rush flow through me.  

“I’ve known you a long time, Christian,” she tells me. “I know when you’re upset, I know when you’re happy, I know when you’re just about at your pain limit… and I know when you’re lying to me.”

“I didn’t fuck her,” I say defensively.

“So what did you do?”

“Nothing. I told you, I was doing homework.”

She spins the flogger around in her hand like she’s turning a jump rope and the straps lick my skin in a constant shower. I have nothing to count as the bite of leather never stops. I can feel the beginning of welts forming over my chest, but I close my lips and prevent myself from crying out. I take it, thinking only about the reward that will surely come at the end.

She hits me for nearly thirty seconds, and when she stops I can feel the sweat covering my body. My chest and abdomen feel as though they’re on fire, but it’s over now, and I took it all. I didn’t safe word. I’ve never safe worded with Elena before and it’s a point of pride.

“What did you do, Christian?” she asks again.

“Nothing,” I tell her again. “Nothing happened.”

Again she sighs, a woeful look of regret on her face. “You never make this easy, do you?” she says, and I watch her throw the flogger down on the opposite bed and then pick up a candle off the bedside table. My eyes widen as she lifts the candle over me and gently pours a single drop of the hot, melted wax onto my chest. The burn in my skin brings back painful memories and I involuntarily pull hard against my restraints.

“Fuck!” I yell, and she clicks her tongue as she lets another drop fall.

“Tell me, Christian,” she says gently. “Tell me everything that happened.”

I can’t answer her. I’m panting, not from exertion now, but because of the irrational fear that grips me when anyone touches my chest. Even though I’m used to her touch, this is worse. Much worse. I cry out as she tips the candle further and the individual drops turn to a stream of hot wax pooling onto my chest.The burn is overwhelming me, I can hear the echos of the pimp laughing as he put cigarette after cigarette out on my chest beginning to ring in my ears.

“I kissed her!” I scream, and at once she stops. I’m shaking, gasping to catch my breath, but all of that is pushed aside as I look up into Elena’s ice cold gaze and a new kind of fear grips me. Fuck.

Reaching over the top of me, she pulls on the rope that binds my hands so that it unravels and then quickly moves down to my legs.

“Get up,” she says coldly once I’m free, and, immediately, I do as she asks. “Turn around and put your hands on the wall.”

As I comply with her command, I listen very carefully to her taking whatever implement she chooses out of the suitcase, but it doesn’t make a sound. That isn’t a good sign.
 Seconds later I feel the cold, hard surface of her cane brush gently over my back.

“Who do you belong to?” she asks, in a low, even voice.

“You,” I reply.

“And, what is the first rule?”

“I will obey you and submit to any sexual activity or punishment you deem necessary or pleasurable eagerly and without hesitation.”

“And the eighth rule?”

“I will not enter into any sexual relations with anyone other than you.”

“And what happens when you break the rules?”

“Failure to comply with the rules will result in immediate punishment.”

“So you agree that you deserve this?”

I take a deep breath. “Yes.”

“Good. Then I’m going to hit you twelve times.”

“If it pleases you.” The cane brushes over my back once more and I do my best to relax, ignoring the fire that still burns in my chest, ignoring the pain from the plastic chastity casing gripping too tightly around my cock. I take a deep breath and clear my mind.
 The sound of the cane cutting through the air is initially worse than the blow, but that doesn’t last long. By the fourth time she hits me, I can no longer hold back the grunt of pain and I’m only a third of the way there. My senses flame to life and I can feel everything around me. I can hear the effort it takes her to swing the cane for the eighth and ninth time. I can feel the sweat running down my brow. By the twelfth swing, I can practically taste the pain.

Still, I don’t safe word.

“Get- on the bed,” she pants, and even though every part of my body is alive with pain, I do so as quickly as possible.

She returns to her suitcase, throwing the cane back down on the mattress and pulls out a thick, rubber strap on. I stare at it dubiously, regretfully. I think I’m too close to my limit to take this now. But, surprisingly, she doesn’t secure the belt around her waist, but instead, places it around mine. I watch her curiously, and then with horror as she straddles me again and sinks down over the erect rubber. She moves up and down, moaning, and all I can do is watch her and listen to her enticing moans. I reap none of the pleasure.

She rides me furiously, refusing to allow me to touch her. The chastity casing is digging into me as my erection is beyond control now. I wince and gasp each time she slams back down on me as the movement jerks the plastic around my cock in a harsh, painful way. It lasts nearly fifteen minutes before she eventually comes and the movement stops. Wincing as she raises herself off the cock that isn’t mine, she rolls over onto the bed to catch her breath.

“I want you to clean up and re-pack my bag,” she pants, and though even the idea of moving is extraordinarily painful for my cock, I do as I am asked. When the toys have been cleaned and her suitcase packed to her preferred specifications, she kisses me hard, possessively, on the mouth and then returns to her own room.
 She does not remove the chastity cage before she leaves.

I ease myself onto the bed, doing my best to bring my body back to heel, and once my erection has gone and I’m no longer overcome with the pain, I roll over and punch the pillow on the bed several times to release the frustration. I shouldn’t have said anything, I should have kept my mouth shut. As it is, I’ll be lucky if I get to come all weekend, or maybe even the foreseeable future.

The next few days are very much reminiscent of our first night in this hotel room. The cage remains firmly in place while I proceed to pleasure her by every other means possible. Finally, Sunday afternoon, as I pump my fingers furiously and out of her while she comes in my hand, she lets out an elated laugh and kisses me tenderly on the lips.

“You’ve pleased me,” she says. “You’ve done everything I’ve asked and done it well. I think you’ve suffered enough, don’t you?”

“If you think so, Ma’am,” I reply.

“Mmm,” she moans. “Come here.”

Reaching into her bra for the key to the padlock, she kneels down and eases the cage off of my erection. The relief is both immediate and overwhelmingly welcome. She smiles down at my cock and then very gently, eases it into her mouth.

I exhale sharply with relief. I’ve never needed this more.

“Do you want to fuck me, Christian?” she asks, looking up at me as she takes my cock into her mouth again.

“Yes. If it pleases you,” I reply eagerly. She smiles, and then runs her tongue up my body from my cock to my mouth.

“Take me,” she whispers. “You’re in charge. Fuck me hard.”

I don’t need to be asked twice. I grip her firmly and then throw her back on the bed, face down, and pull her ass up into the air. She’s already soaking from her orgasm so I waste no time preparing her. One sharp thrust, and I’m buried inside of her, reveling in the feeling of her hot and wet around me. Gripping tightly to her hips I drive into her as hard as I can, over and over again, pulling her against me to double the aggressiveness of each thrust, but as I go on and on and feel her orgasm fast approaching, I find that I’m not close. Not close at all.

I reach back and slap her on the ass as hard as I can. Her skin pinks immediately, leaving a red mark in the shape of my hand, but it doesn’t help. I do it again, and again, harder each time. I wrap my hand in her hair and yank it back, but even as she finds release, her walls gripping tightly to me like a velvet vice, I still find myself nowhere close to orgasm.

“Come for me, Christian,” she begs as her orgasm continues to rock through her. “Come for me, baby.”

I focus solely on my cock, trying to block everything out but the way she feels around me, but it’s no use. Quickly, my mind conjures up the most erotic images it can, my favorite scenes in the playroom, and still nothing. Suddenly though, a new memory flashes across my mind, not of the playroom, but of Anastasia beneath me in my bed, her lips and tongue entangled with mine, and I immediately feel the heat of my orgasm blooming inside of me. Closing my eyes, I picture her, soft and hot beneath me. I imagine my hands are wrapped tightly around her hips, that it’s her voice screaming my name as she comes around me and I erupt.

“Fuck!” I hiss as I empty myself into her. I collapse on top of her, panting as my mind begins reeling. That was… that was fucking intense. And it had nothing to do with…
 Elena rolls over and kisses me again. “Feel better?”

“Yes, thank you, ma’am,” I reply, only just remembering my training as my mind continues to ruminate over Anastasia.

“I have to leave,” she pouts. “My flight leaves in a couple hours.”

“Okay.”

“Will you be sad to see me go?”

“Of course.” I tell her, and she smiles before pressing her lips to mine.
 We roll out of bed and I help her pack her things. She wraps me in a hug as she turns to leave but as she pulls away, she slaps me again, hard enough that I feel it in my teeth.

“Ah!” I cry out. “What was that for?’

“You won’t see her again,” Elena says, her full domme persona in full effect. “I mean it. Anastasia Steele is no longer any part of your life.”

“I understand.”

“Good, because if I find out other wise, I’ll have you in that cage for a month.”

I gulp as she leans into kiss me one last time and then rush forward to get the door for her. Once she’s gone, I slump against the door.

What am I going to do?

       
 I get dressed for the first time since Friday night and re-pack the duffle bag I’ve brought. It occurs to me as I pull out of the hotel parking lot and make my way back up the road toward Cambridge that tonight was the night Kavanagh was planning on introducing Anastasia to Carter Reed. I feel a painful twinge deep in my gut and realize that even though the insatiable lust that has plagued me over the last week has been sated, the longing for the girl across the hall has not disappeared. In fact, now that I can really think clearly about Reed with Anastasia, picture them together, there is no longer only anger stained hatred for the idea, but also a deep, sickening feel to it. Imagining him touching her makes me…

I gag slightly as the taste of bile crawls into my throat. No, he’s not good for her. I know what he thinks of her, what he’s said about her, and she deserves someone better. Someone who would respect her, appreciate her mind and her sense of humor and what a beautiful creature she really is. She deserves someone who could really please her and I doubt Carter Reed knows two shits about what to do with a woman.

When I pull into my parking place, I grind my teeth together as I realize I’m making excuses to myself of why she should be with me. It’s a waste of effort. I belong to Elena, at least until the contract expires next spring. The thought hits me like the first breath of air after being underwater too long. It’s like a ray of hope that glimmers down through the dark stormy clouds that color my mood.

What if I didn’t resign the contract in the spring? I would be free from Elena, free to pursue Anastasia as much as I wanted to. But the clouds return again as I begin to question if that’s what I really want. My fascination with Anastasia may be more than a fleeting interest, but it couldn’t replace what I have with Elena. She understands me, gives me what I need to feel okay. I can share anything with her and feel unembarrassed. I doubt I’d have anything like that with an innocent like Anastasia. I doubt she’d even be into any of the things involved in my lifestyle. How would she react to canes and floggers and hot melted wax? Would she let me exercise the control over her that Elena currently wields over me?

I’m not sure, but as I make my way into my room, I’m at least intrigued by the possibility.

As I pace around my room imagining it, vividly, I realize how much I really want her. I have to know if this is something she would even consider, but if I am to ask her in the spring, I have to build a relationship with her now. I need to get on her good side, but how? She asked for an apology the other day. I can do that.

Quickly, I yank my door open and begin knocking furiously on her’s. I wait anxiously for a few minutes until I remember… she’s out with Carter Reed, and my excitement is extinguished like a bucket of water thrown over a campfire. It might be too late. What if she likes him? What if she wants him? What if they start fucking or dating or whatever normal people do? Maybe, she’s not looking for hot sex. Maybe she’s looking for a relationship. Maybe she wants hearts and flowers and all of that bullshit…

I need to see her. I need to be able to read her when she gets back, but I can’t stand here in the middle of the hallway waiting for her like some kind of stalker. Inspiration hits me and I grab a few books and head down to the common area on the first floor, pretending to study as the other students of Grays Hall move about and occupy the space around me.

When the sun begins to set, several students make their way back up to their room. I look over at the clock and watch the hour get later and later until eventually I’m alone in the dark common area. It’s getting late and that isn’t a good sign. She must be having a good time.

There is a piano across the room and I move morosely over towards it, brushing my fingers across the keys to check the pitch. Surprisingly it’s in tune.

Settling down on the bench and brooding over Anastasia’s continued absence, I choose a melancholy Bach piece I learned to play as a child to occupy my mind. I’m nearly a third of the way through when, over the music, I hear laughter just outside the main doors. Kavanagh and Anastasia walk into the foyer, smiling broadly at one another until they see me seated at the piano. The happiness I see on Anastasia’s face is like a punch in the gut. She liked him, she must have liked him.

That’s it Grey, it’s over. You missed your shot.

I continue to play the Bach piece, trying to keep myself from looking over at Anastasia. Strangely, I feel a profound sense of loss in this moment and it confuses me. How can I feel loss over something I never had to begin with?

“Come on,” Kavanagh says, as she turns and begins walking towards the stairs, but I can see Anastasia hesitate out of the corner of my eye. She’s staring at me. I focus on each note my fingers elicit from the piano until finally, she begins following her friend and I can’t force my fingers to move anymore. The music stops and I’m alone in the dark, my head filled with the sound of her footsteps echoing across the floor as she walks away from me.

“Ana,” I whisper, and the footsteps stop. I stare into the darkness, knowing she’s waiting for me to say something, but what can I say? Wait for me? Don’t fall for someone else so you’ll be free for me to fuck come springtime? No, if she’s happy… if she likes him, she should have the chance to see it through. I can’t give her a relationship the way even someone as asinine as Carter Reed can. I take a deep breath, and begin the song where I left off and her footsteps continue up the stairs.

Forget about her, Grey.

Next Chapter

Christian POV: Obsession and Bourbon

~ Tara Nichole ~ Leave a comment

Image result for dive bar

I have to skip the gym this morning, something that I hate, and rush to get to Newell Boathouse. It’s our first meetings since Peter Duncan, the former captain of the crew team, was caught with cocaine in his dorm and was immediately expelled from school. I was given his position in a vote called the following evening and now I’m running late to my very first practice as captain.

I’m never late.

When I get to the boathouse, most of the team is already in the locker room. I strip quickly, trying desperately to tune out the conversation between Torres and Reed as I change.

Unfortunately, I’m not very successful.

“How’d it go with that Anastasia chick last week?” Torres asks.

“Perfect,” Reed replies. “I’m taking her out tonight. Show her the town before I show her the greatest pleasure known to womankind.”

“Ha!” Torres laughs. “Right. Have you banged her yet?”

“Let’s just say, we’ve spent some time together and she had a little trouble handling what I have to offer, but she’ll get plenty of practice going forward,” Reed says. I slam my locker door closed and they both turn their attention toward me. I glare between them.

“Go!” I shout at them, and, scrambling quickly to their feet, they hurry to help the other guys on the team get the boat into the river. It’s been a little over a month since I last spoke to Anastasia and nothing has changed. I want her still, desperately, and listening to the asinine things Reed says about her really fucking pisses me off. She seems happy though. Every time I’ve seen the two of them together, she’s all fucking smiles. It makes me sick.

As we push off the ramp and move the boat into position, I watch the synchronicity of the oars in the water, and notice Reed is half a count off on each repetition. When I glance up at him to try and decipher what he’s doing, I see that he’s not even watching the person in front of him but instead keeps glancing over his shoulder to the shore. He even takes his hand off the oar for a minute to fucking wave at someone.

“Reed, pay attention!” I shout at him, and then turn around to see what the distraction is. My gut wrenches as I see Anastasia sitting next to Kavanagh on the hill next to the boathouse watching us. She gives me a slightly guilty smile when she notices me looking at her and it takes everything I have to turn my focus back to the task at hand. Why does she have to be so fucking attractive?

Practice is a wash. Reed never ends up getting back on track despite the valiant efforts between me and the coxswain to call out the count. Because Reed is in the middle, he also fucks up the rhythm of the two guys in front of me and so not only do I struggle to keep the boat steady, but we complete the course in the worse time I’ve ever recorded. When practice is finally over, I’m so pissed I can’t even give notes to the team. The locker room is dead silent as we change back into our regular clothes and several people glare over at Reed. I can see how uncomfortable he is having everyone stare at him and I feel a vindictive kind of pleasure as I watch him rush out of the locker room in such a hurry to get away that he leaves his backpack behind.

An unpleasant thought creeps into my mind. Or perhaps he’s rushing to get to Anastasia?
I snatch the backpack up, walk quickly from the boathouse, and, sure enough, see Carter standing a little ways up the hill from me, talking to Anastasia, who is beaming happily back at him. I feel heat flash across my skin as I look at them and a red tint colors my vision. As I make my way up the hill towards them, I hear her ask him if he’d like to get breakfast with her just before I slam his backpack into his chest with as much force as I can. He wobbles as he attempts to catch his balance and gives me a what the fuck kind of look. I want to smirk at him.

Yeah, I could take him.

“If you can’t learn to keep time, Reed, we’ll find someone who can,” I tell him, my tone icy. I look over at Anastasia, who shifts her gaze uncomfortably between us, and then storm off towards campus. He doesn’t deserve her. He’s unmotivated, pretentious, and misogynistic. If she could hear half the things he says about her in the locker room to his friends, she wouldn’t speak to him ever again. Not that it matters. I still can’t even consider making a move on her until the spring.

Things have been fine with Elena since I’ve cut off all communication with Anastasia. I’ve seen her twice since then and both times went well. Okay, I still haven’t been able to get off without thinking about a certain Miss Steele, but I’ve been careful. Elena is none the wiser.

Maybe I should just fuck her. Clearly I want to, I’m obsessed with the idea. I’m sure that’s what this hatred for Reed is all about, well besides the fact that he’s an arrogant prick. Unfortunately, Kavanagh is still fucking around with Elliot so there is absolutely no way I’d be able to get Anastasia into my bed without him finding out and if Elliot knows, it’ll only be so long before Elena does too. There’s no way around that and it’s that dark notion that plagues me throughout the whole day until my therapy session that night.

Even though I refuse to mention Anastasia’s name, my therapist can tell there is something bothering me that I’m not sharing with him. I try to blame my despondent mood on school, arguments with Ros, and the horrible rowing practice I endured this morning, but he continues to press me. He offers me some psycho bullshit about stress triggering PTSD from my childhood and although it takes everything I have to keep from walking out, I lie and say I agree with him, and grudgingly talk about some of my latest nightmares, embellishing slightly to fit his narrative so I can leave sooner.

Really, I think what would help me the most right now would be to hit someone. Not my kickboxing trainer, who would just congratulate me once I managed to knock his ass to the ground, but someone who wasn’t covered in pads and who I could actually hurt. Someone like Carter Reed. But, once again, I’d never be able to get away with it. Anastasia would tell Kavanagh I beat up her boyfriend, Kavanagh would tell Elliot, Elliot would tell Mom, Mom would tell Elena, and I’d probably get sixteen lashes with the cane this time. No fighting has been one of the rules from the beginning. I wish Elliot would just hurry up and get drunk at a party and fuck some girl like he always does so Kavanagh will break it off with him.

Then it hits me, maybe that’s what I need. A drink.

It’s been years since I’ve really hit the bottle, again due to Elena’s rules, but drinking is something I can easily keep hidden from her. I could go out alone tonight, bribe a bouncer to get into a bar, and drink until I can’t see straight. Even if it doesn’t relieve this anxiety I’ve been feeling… surely it’ll help me forget about Anastasia at least for one night. For one hour even.

I’m decided the moment I get back to my dorm and don’t even take the time to plan my night before I’m heading out to my Audi. I stop at the bank and withdraw some cash, knowing my Dad monitors my bank accounts. A large cash withdrawal will be easier to lie about than a bar tab.

When I’ve got the cash, I drive clear across town until I find a small dive kind of bar that I’m sure no one who knows me frequents and slip the guy checking IDs at the door $500 to let me in.

It’s only ten thirty, still fairly early for a Friday night, so the bar is fairly empty. I like it that way, though. For some reason people in bars want to talk about all their fucking problems and I’m here to forget.

“What’ll it be, son?” the bartender, who is probably in his sixties, asks when I pull up a stool.

“Bourbon,” I grunt, pulling out my wallet. “Leave the bottle.”

“Rough day?” he asks, pulling the bottle out from under the bar and placing it and a glass tumbler in front of me.

“Something like that,” I reply. I throw the cash out onto the bar and then pour the amber liquid into the glass.

By last call, I’m completely out of my mind. The alcohol hasn’t had the effect I wanted and instead of forgetting about Anastasia, she’s all I’ve been able to think about, and the drunken haze makes it seems as though this hopeless situation will plague me forever. Worse, Elena has been sexting me for the last half an hour and it’s difficult to be creative in my responses when I’m this drunk and surrounded by the noise of the now crowded bar. I need to get home, but I don’t want to call a cab because I don’t want to leave my car so far from campus.

After draining my tumbler for the last time, I have a flash of inspiration, so, after sending a response to Elena’s last text, I find Ros’s number in my contacts list and hit the call button.

“Hello?” she mumbles after the fourth ring.

“I nee-ju to come’n ge’me,” I slur into the phone.

“Christian? What’s wrong with you, where are you?”

“’m atta bar. Can’ drive.”

“Jesus Christ, Christian. It’s nearly two o’clock in the morning.”

“I know that, ‘s the time they close. I nee-ju to come’n ge’me.”

“Where are you?” she demands.

“I dunno.” I tell her. Thankfully, while she begins shouting in my ear, the bartender motions for me to pass the phone him and he proceeds to give her the address.

“I’m getting in a cab,” Ros tells me once I get my phone back. “Stay where you are.”

“Mmm-kay,” I reply, and hang up the phone. I ask for another drink, but the bartender tells me they stopped serving so I walk outside to breathe in the cool air while I wait for Ros. It takes her nearly half an hour to get to me and once she finally arrives and I’ve paid for her cab, I can’t tell her where I’ve left my car.

“You’re so…” she begins through clenched teeth, stopping herself from finishing as I’m sure whatever she was planning on saying was going to be quite rude. She presses the panic button on my key fob and follows the sound of the alarm.

“You owe me so huge,” Ros says angrily as she pulls away from the curb back towards campus. “You know I have a meeting with Dr. Jameson in the morning.”

“I had a meeting with Dr. Jameson tonight,” I laugh, and then turn to look at her so I can clarify.

“Whiskey.”

She rolls her eyes. “Just sit back and try not to be sick.”

Getting across campus turns out to be quite the ordeal. I’m realizing very quickly that I’ve had more alcohol than I realized and it’s very difficult for me to stand up straight, let alone walk of my own accord. When we eventually make it to the third floor of Grays Hall, I trip over the top step and slam head first into a wall.

“Jesus, Christian! Are you okay?” Ros hisses, trying to keep her voice low so that she doesn’t wake anyone.

“”m fine,” I tell her, though I immediately stumble again, this time into the opposite wall. Ros groans and takes my arm, putting it over her shoulder and holding as much of my weight as she can manage as we continue down the hall.

“You can keep a secret, right?” I ask.

“Why?” Ros asks suspiciously.

“Because I’m drunk.”

“So?”

“I’ll be in trouble if she finds out.”

“If who finds out?”

“You can’t tell her,” I mumble, stopping to look at her so she knows I’m serious. Unfortunately, the momentum of moving down the hallway was doing a lot to keep me upright and I sag to the floor.

“No, Christian,” Ros grunts as too much of my weight is shifted onto her shoulders. “I’m not going to tell her. Stand up, I can’t carry you. Come on, we’re almost there.”
I do the best I can to get back onto my feet and we begin stumbling awkwardly down the hall until we’re just outside my door.

“I’m not allowed,” I clarify as she stops and begins trying to reach into my jacket pocket. “If she finds out, I’ll be in trouble.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone, Christian,” she says. “Where are your keys?”
I want to tell her that she has them but realize she’s talking about my room keys and not my car keys. Those are in my pants. Before I can tell her this though, I feel another set of hands on me and a small someone ducks beneath my arm.

“Thanks,” Ros says as she begins searching the pockets of my jeans. I turn to see who has a hold of me and realize, it’s Anastasia. She’s wearing pajama bottoms and a thin camisole tank top, which I can see the outline of her nipples through. They’re perfect, just as I imagined them.

I wonder how they taste?

“Anastasia,” I mumble.

“Yes, Christian,” she says, shifting her body so Ros can pull the keys out of my pants. I smile down at her but am nearly knocked off balance as Ros opens the door and shoves me forward.

“Here you go, Christian,” she says. In tandem they both steer me across the room and let me collapse onto my bed. I want to turn around and look at Anastasia, but my body is too heavy to move. My vision is getting dark and I think I’m about to pass out. All I can do is lie there and listen to them talk about me.

“I didn’t think I’d be able to get him here,” Ros says. “I was in bed when he called. He was all the way across town.”

“Where do you live?” Anastasia asks.

“Stoughton,” Ros replies.

I miss the next part of the conversation as the drunkenness overwhelms me and I find myself drifting off. It doesn’t last long though as I feel someone tugging on me. Panic takes over as I feel strange hands on my back and the short spike of adrenaline clears my mind enough that I can roll onto my side and look back at my attacker.

“I’m not going to touch you, Christian,” Anastasia says calmly. “I’m just going to take your jacket off.”

When I see her face, I remember where I am and that it should be Ros here with me, but she’s nowhere to be seen. Where did she go?

“Anastasia?” I ask, confused.

“Yes, Christian. Come on, work with me to get into bed.” She tugs at my jacket again and a smile creeps across my lips.

“You’re trying to take my clothes off,” I observe. “Is that what you want, Anastasia? To take my clothes off?”

“Right now, Christian, yes. I want to get you out of this jacket and your shoes so you can get into bed.”

Heat flashes through me, burning enough of the alcohol away that I am able to regain some control. What I cannot control however, is the erection that grows instantly in my jeans and the thoughts that are now focused only on getting this beautiful woman naked beneath me and hearing her screaming my name while she comes on my cock.
I smile at the fantasy and reach out and tug her onto the bed, rolling over so that I’m on top of her.

“Oh Ana,” I moan longingly. “I wish you knew the things I want to do to you. The things I could do to you. The things I could make you feel.”
“Let me up, Christian,” she says, struggling to get out from under my weight and I look down at her, the nagging voice in my head telling me to release her or face Elena’s wrath. I want to ignore it, but still, I hesitate.

“She won’t always be in charge, you know. One day I’ll be in charge,” I tell her. She looks up at me, her wide blue eyes trying to decipher meaning in my words, and I briefly imagine her, tied by the wrists to my headboard while I run my tongue down her naked body. “Would you like that, Ana?” I ask. “Would you liked it if I told you what to do? If I made you mine?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Christian. Let me up,” she says, but I’m beyond myself now. My fantasies out of control as I feel her heat beneath me. I have to have her, now.

“Mmm, Ana. Let’s just fuck. Right now,” I whisper, leaning down to kiss her. “I can do things to you Carter Reed could only dream of doing. Let me prove that to you. Let me make you come, Anastasia.”

“Christian!” she exclaims, pushing hard enough against my shoulders that she’s finally able to move out from under me. I turn to face her, knowing how desperate I look but not caring. The alcohol is catching up with me again and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sit upright.

“Anastasia, please,” I beg. “I want you, need you. I don’t care what she says. I don’t care what she does.”

“What who does, Christian?” she asks, but I can’t answer. My vision begins to darken and I can only manage her name once more before I’m completely out of it, falling into a vivid dream of all of things I would have liked to have done to Anastasia.

Next Chapter

Christian POV: These Are My Confessions…

~ Tara Nichole ~ 1 Comment

Image result for breakfast

I wake up the next morning with a splitting headache. I have no idea where I am but as I look at my surroundings, I realize, I’m in my room. My mind searches through the hazy memories of the night before. Ros came and picked me up, that’s how I got here, and she put me to bed. No, wait… it wasn’t Ros that put me to bed, it was…

The memory of Anastasia in my bed last night comes to the forefront of my mind. I told her I wanted to fuck her. I actually said that I wanted to fuck her. Shit! Did I fuck her?

I look wildly around the room as if expecting to find her with me still, but I’m alone. I’m still wearing the same jeans and shirt from last night, so that’s a good sign. No… No, I remember now. She got up and started asking me questions about Elena but… fuck, I don’t know what happened after that. I have no idea what I said to her about Elena.

God damn it, my head hurts.

There is a bottle of Tylenol on my bedside table and I quickly slug down three pills and the entire glass of water next to it. Anastasia must have left them for me before she left. Wait… shit. I need to talk to her before she talks to Kavanagh, before Kavanagh talks to Elliot… I came home pretty late last night. Odds are Anastasia hasn’t told her what happened yet and I can head her off before she does.

My stomach roils. I need to eat something and absorb the rest of this alcohol or I’m going to have a shitty day. I’ll take Anastasia to breakfast. Yeah, somewhere out of town where I don’t know anyone so I can find out what she knows.

I climb out of bed and pull off my clothes, which still smell like alcohol, jump in a quick shower, and towel off. I don’t have time to worry about looking presentable so I pull a t-shirt out of a drawer and throw on a hoodie. It’s just after 7, and I have no idea what time the girls normally wake up. Picking up my keys, wallet, and phone, I leave my room without bothering to lock the door behind me and bang on Anastasia’s door.

I wait. I can hear them talking inside but neither of them answers the door so I knock again. A few seconds later, the door swings open and Kavanagh stares angrily back at me.

“What, Grey?” she snaps.

“Is Anastasia awake?”

“No,” she says, and begins to shut the door, but I hear Anastasia call out to stop her.

“Kate!”

Kavanagh turns to glare at me once more before disappearing back into the room and Anastasia takes her place.

“What is it, Christian?”

“Come to breakfast with me,” I tell her. It isn’t a request. Her brow furrows.

“It’s too early, Annenberg isn’t even open yet.”

“Come to breakfast with me,” I repeat, trying to emphasize my need to speak with her in my tone. She looks at me suspiciously for a moment and then rolls her eyes.

“Let me get dressed,” she says, and the door closes. The muffled voices behind the door tell me Kavanagh and Anastasia are arguing about something, probably her decision to come to breakfast with me, but I don’t have time to worry about what is said because after only a minute or so, Anastasia opens the door again, ready to leave.

She’s changed into jeans that hug tightly to her hips and the thin fabric of her sweater brings back the foggy memory of her holding me up in the hallway last night. I saw her nipples through her camisole. Fuck, I wish I remembered that more clearly.

I turn down the hall and lead her to my car in the parking lot closest to our dormitory. If I’m going to win her over, convince her not to tell Kate or Elliot anything about what happened last night, especially if I was a complete fucking moron and spilled the beans about Elena, I need to get on her good side, which at this point will probably be impossible since I’ve taken every opportunity over the last month to be a complete jackass to her. Still, she didn’t say no to leaving with me.

When we get to my car, I open her door before taking my place in the driver’s seat. It looks as though we’re catching the tail end of a storm and I’m grateful for the heavy clouds that block out the sunlight. My head is still pounding.

Once we’re off campus, I turn north towards Medford, because I don’t know anyone in Medford. Anastasia seems confused by the direction we’re driving in but doesn’t say anything until we drive past the fourth restaurant we’ve seen.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“Out of town.”

“Why? Are you going to kill me and dump my body?” She laughs, and if I wasn’t so preoccupied by what I may or may not have said the night before, I might have laughed with her.

“You think I would have let Kate see you leave with me if that’s what I was doing?” I ask dryly. She glares at me.

“Glad to see you’ve put some thought into it at least.”

“I know a lot of people in Cambridge,” I explain. “I don’t want to be bothered or interrupted.”

“Or overheard?” she asks, and my heart sinks. Fuck, she knows something.

My jaw clenches together as we continue up the wet pavement and I try and think of a way to ask her what I said last night without giving too much away, just in case I really didn’t tell her anything. She’s quiet as she stares out the window and absentmindedly twirls a strand of hair around her finger. I wish I knew what she was thinking. I need to get her talking.

We turn a corner and the clouds break apart, sending bright sunlight beaming straight through my windshield. I groan and reach over to the glove compartment for a pair of sunglasses. She blushes slightly as my hand brushes against her knee and I groan internally. Why? Why couldn’t I have met her a few months from now when I had the option not to sign the contract right in front of me? Now all I can do is sit back and watch her fall for Carter-fucking-Reed and try desperately to keep myself away from her.

Maybe… Maybe if we were friends, if I could be someone she could confide in, I could convince her what a dirt bag Reed really was. Maybe by the spring, they’ll be broken up and she’ll need a shoulder to cry on, someone to help her through it all, someone to help her forget all about him…

“I’m sorry,” I say after I’ve had a few minutes to formulate a plan. She turns and looks at me with a raised eyebrow.

“What?” she asks, and I swallow as I try to think of the most diplomatic way to start.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “You wanted an apology, fine. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I lost my temper, I’m sorry I touched you, I’m sorry I kissed you. It was wrong, unfair of me, and I’m sorry.” I grip the steering wheel tightly. Sure, I’m sorry I yelled at her, I’ll grant her that, but I’m not sorry I touched her, and I’m not sorry I kissed her. I’m sorry I didn’t do more…

“Um… thank you,” she says, clearly unsure of how she really wants to respond. I turn to look at her so I can read her face. She needs more and, surprisingly, it’s easy to continue now that I’ve started and the apologies come out like a torrent, relieving a lot of the anxiety I’ve been plagued with over the last month.

“I’m also sorry about what I said to you on the quad that day after class. I was cruel and it was a lie. I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you since that day. I don’t want to stay away from you, Anastasia. I want us to be…” I have to stop myself to choose the right word. “Friends.”

“You want to be friends?” she asks skeptically.

“Yes,” I tell her, exhaling as the clarification I have to give comes next. “Look, it’s complicated. I can’t be around you the way that your other guy friends can. I’m not like that Rodriguez guy you know or even Elliot.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, and I realize this question means she doesn’t know anything, well at least that I didn’t say anything about Elena. That’s not the only issue though…

“I’m fucked up, Ana,” I admit quietly. “I’m really fucked up and if you were smart, you’d stay away from me. I tried to stay away from you, to let you be, to keep you away from all of my bullshit, but I can’t do it. I want to know you. I want to be around you and talk to you and listen to you and I can’t keep ignoring you. But there are things about me, about my life, that I can’t tell you and I need you to be okay with that if we’re going to be friends.”

“What can’t you tell me?” she asks.

“Ana…” I groan, and she glares at me, an accusation in her eyes.

“Is it about Mrs. Lincoln?”

“I don’t know how I can make there are things I can’t tell you anymore clear, Anastasia,” I reply irritably.

“So you want to be friends, but you don’t want to tell me anything about yourself and I’m supposed to be okay with that?” she asks angrily.

“Just some things,” I tell her, although I doubt she’ll find any comfort in the sentiment.

“Some things like Mrs. Lincoln?”

“Yes,” I say harshly and she grinds her teeth together as she turns away from me and stares out the front window.

“I’m not okay with that,” she replies quietly, and I actually feel a stab of pain at her rejection. I turn a pleading look on her.

“Anastasia…” I begin, but she stops me.

“No, Christian. I’m not going to try and be your friend when you’re living some secret double life that I can’t know anything about. You’ll be lying to me and I don’t make it a habit to maintain relationships with liars,” she says. Anger flares in my chest as I’m suddenly put on the defensive and my response comes through bared teeth.

“I can’t talk to you because everything I do tell you, you immediately turn around and tell Kate, who is dating my brother.”

“So tell me not to tell her and I won’t,” she says. Thankfully, we’re coming up on a small diner and I’m saved from having to argue with her anymore.

“We’re here,” I say as I pull into a parking place. She exhales exasperatedly but gets out of the car.

The hostess standing near the front doors leads us to a booth by one of the front windows and asks for our drink order. My head is worse now and I’m not sure if it’s from the hangover or arguing with Anastasia, so I order juice, coffee, and water, hoping one of them will do something to take the edge off. Anastasia asks for their tea selections and I take note of her preferences in case I’ll need to know them later. Friends remember other friends’ drink orders right?

Once the waitress leaves, I rub my hands over my face, trying to keep myself alert, and then reach for one of the menus she’s left on the table, though I find myself spending more time studying Anastasia than the menu. When the waitress brings back our drinks and immediately pound down the water and then wait for Anastasia to order. She looks expectantly back at me, silently asking me to go first, so I pick something random on the menu and she settles on a bowl of fruit.

I look at her dubiously. Fruit? Surely she can do better than that.

“That’s it?” I say, glaring at her and when she shrugs, I turn to the waitress. “No, she’ll have whatever your standard breakfast is. Eggs, hashbrowns, toast…” I stop and look at her. “Do you prefer bacon or sausage?”

“I’m really not that hungry,” she argues, but I’m not in the mood.

“Anastasia…”

“Bacon,” she says, rolling her eyes. The waitress clarifies how she wants her eggs while I rest my head in my palms. It’s really bright in here.

“I’ll bring you some more water,” she waitress says, and, without looking up at her, I ask her to bring a pitcher.

“I really don’t need a big breakfast,”  Anastasia says, and I turn to look and glare at her.

“You need to eat,” I say.

She shrugs, but when I turn my head again so that my palms are shielding my eyes from the light, her gaze becomes concerned. “Are you feeling okay?”

“The food will help,” I reply. Reluctantly, I sit up straight, take a deep breath, and do my best to concentrate on the girl across from me.

“What were you doing last night that got you so drunk anyway?”

I hesitate. Well, put up or shut up time, Grey.

“I’ve been having a… difficult week,” I tell her. Difficult month, more like it. “There are some things that have come to my attention that I seem to be having trouble accepting.”

“Such as?”

You fucking Carter Reed.

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll get over it.”

“What? Is this one of those things I’m not supposed to ask about?”

“When did you start dating Carter Reed?” I blurt out. She looks taken aback, and frankly so I am I. Where the hell did that come from?

“I…uh, we’re not. I mean, really, we’re not dating just, I suppose technically, uh… we went on a date yesterday.”

They’re fucking.

My jaw clenches as another white hot flash of anger sears through me. I swear to god nothing would make me happier that beating Reed’s face into a bloody pulp.

“What you don’t like Carter?” Anastasia asks.

“No,” I reply, my tone clipped.

“Why?”

I snort. Where do I even begin?

“You mean besides the fact that he seems to have never met a cardigan he didn’t like?” She doesn’t like that response, so I start listing off the first reasons that come to my mind. “He’s regularly late for rowing practice, he can’t keep time, he’s crude and immature, and intelligence-wise, I’m convinced he only got into this school because his father is a legacy.”

And he’s fucking my girl.

I stop. My girl? Where the fuck did that come from?

“I think he’s nice,” she says defensively, and I roll my eyes.

“That’s because he wants to sleep with you.”

There it is, Anastasia. It’s all laid out. Now tell me you already have so I can hunt him down and end him.

She doesn’t though.

“So?” she asks, crossing her arms defiantly. I narrow my eyes, and put the bait out there again.

“So, are you going to?”

“Why would I tell you that?”   

“Because we’re friends now.”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re sleeping with Mrs. Lincoln?”

I feel as though her words slap me in the face. Fuck, maybe I was wrong. Did I say something to her last night after all? No. No, she would have said something before this. Play it cool, Grey.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie, and she glares at me.

“I think you do, Christian.”

Oh, thank god. Despite the assertion in her words, there is a hint of doubt in her voice. She suspects, but she doesn’t know. I’ve been here before… I’ve perfectly honed by ability to seem uninterested in Elena Lincoln over years of practice. However, just as I am about to deny her accusation, my phone rings and she gives me a smug look as if a phone call proves she’s right. I look wearily down at the screen on my phone. Thank God, it isn’t Elena.

“It’s my mother.” I tell her, returning her smug smile. She frowns as I answer.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Christian, Elliot just called. Apparently, he talked to Kate this morning and she told him you came stumbling back to your dorm in the middle of the night, too drunk to stand on your own. Care to explain yourself?”

“No,” I say defensively, looking up and glaring at Anastasia. This is why I can’t fucking tell you things, Anastasia. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. I didn’t even see Katherine Kavanagh last night.”

“Christian, why would she say it if it wasn’t true? What could she possibly have to gain?”

“I don’t know, Mom, maybe she’s just a liar.”

“Look, I think maybe you’re just having a difficult time adjusting and we should just add a few extra session with Dr. Fisch until you’re more comfortable at school.”

“No, I don’t need another session.”

“Christian…”

“No, I’m fine, Mom. Look… can I call you back? I’m out to breakfast with a friend.”

“You’re out with a friend?”

“Yes. See, I told you, I’m fine.”

“Well, if you’re sure… I want to talk more about this. Call me back, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I love you, Christian.”

“I love you too. Bye.”

I hang up the phone and look pointedly at Anastasia who is staring back at me guiltily.

“That’s your fault,” she says eventually. “I didn’t say anything to her. She heard you come home last night, just like everyone else in Grays Hall.”

“Well, I wish she would stop giving Elliot a running commentary on my life. My mom is obviously using him to keep tabs on me and the last thing I need is for this to get back to…”

Fuck. Shut up, Grey! I shake my head and turn to look out the window.

“Back to Mrs. Lincoln?” Anastasia presses me. I take a deep breath but she continues before I can speak. “Last night you kept saying, you can’t tell her, I’m not allowed, if she finds out I’ll be in trouble.”

“I said a lot of stupid things last night,” I say, and to my surprise she blanches slightly.

“Were they untrue?” she asks, and when I turn to look at her, I can see an almost pleading look in her eyes. Wait, does she want…

Her teeth sink into her bottom lip and my cock stirs.

“Please stop biting your lip,” I tell her, and she complies but her eyes don’t move away from mine. We stare at one another, her pleading words hanging between us.

She is so beautiful. I’m ready to fuck her on this table and she hasn’t done anything but look at me, well and maybe suggest that she isn’t necessarily opposed to the idea. I allow myself to briefly entertain the thought that, maybe she isn’t. As we stare into each other’s eyes, the intensity between us grows and, once again, she bites down on that delectable lip.

I can’t take it anymore. Not after this last month, not after last night. I need to touch her. I need to feel her against me. Fuck whatever retribution I have to face. In this moment, I don’t care if she personally called Elena and told her that I fucked her in the back seat of my car. I need to touch her.

I reach across the table, grab Anastasia by the hand, and drag her from the restaurant. The car is parked too closely to the sidewalk, too many people to watch, so I move past it. If I’m going to have her, I’m going to have her to myself.

“What are you doing?” she asks as I lead her around the back of the restaurant, but I ignore her. I look quickly to my left and to my right to make sure we’re alone in the alley and, when I don’t see anyone, I push her against the wall, pin her arms above her head so that she can’t touch me, and take her lips with mine.

She tastes like fucking heaven, better than I remember. I pin her hips against the wall with mine, holding her down as I take full possession of her mouth, claiming her, making her mine. She doesn’t protest. She doesn’t try and stop me and her willingness leaves me rock fucking hard.

Shifting her wrists so that I’m only holding her with one hand, I move my now free hand down her arm, caressing the side of her breast as I make my way down to her ass. I want her wrapped around me. I want her completely at my mercy. I pull harshly oh her thigh, bringing her leg up around my waist and pushing into so she can feel how hard I am for her. I want her, here, now, but just as I’m about to reach up for the waistband on her jeans, I stop.

This isn’t enough.

This isn’t nearly enough.

If I do this, I’m no better than Reed. Treating her like some trashy hooker getting fucked in an alley. No, I don’t want that. What I want is to have her, cherished and cared for and completely willing to fully surrender herself to me. I don’t want to fuck her and wonder if Reed will have her later. I want her to be mine, and only mine.

I break the kiss and press my forehead to hers, listening to her desperate panting.

“Christian,” she moans.

“Wait for me.”

“What?”

“Wait for me,” I repeat, and it’s actually a plea. “It ends this spring, and I won’t sign again. Wait for me, Anastasia.”

“What ends?” Her clear blue eyes pierce through me. “I won’t tell, Kate,” she promises and I feel my resolve waiver.

“Please, Christian,” she pleads, and it reinvigorates the fire within me, as if she’s begging for something else… I can’t deny her.

“I’m sleeping with her,” I whisper, and her face goes utterly blank.   

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