OLIVIER
“Olly should go, just so he can get his ass laid.”
“I’d go if it meant getting laid and I don’t give a shit she turns out to be a psycho. Phonin’ my ass, pantin’ for my dick. How you let that one go, Olly, don’t know. Bitch pants for my dick, I give it to her. Even if I gotta close my eyes ’cause she’s butt-ugly. Not that your stalker was ugly, dude. I’ve seen her at Chad and Annie’s, which makes me wonder at you more. She’s just a stalker and any man should get past the stalker part, seein’ as she’s doin’ it ’cause she wants his dick.”
“Nope. I’m with Gary. Leave the stalker in your rearview and take this new bitch out. Then feel her out. She may dig kink. Then you can take her for some fun at Clay’s place. Or maybe Clay can set you up, Olly, find a girl who likes to be spanked.”
“Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” Olly growled and the way he did made his friend Todd’s head jerk.
“Olly,” Barclay said pacifyingly.
“Fuck that,” Olly bit out in response to Barclay but did it not looking away from the guys. “What’s all you assholes’ problem?” he asked Todd, Emilio, and Gary, the guys he was out with at a bar for beer and Thursday Night Football, along with Chad and Clay.
The conversation had started with Chad digging into him again about meeting Annie’s friend.
It had not gone well from there.
“Jesus, bro, lighten up,” Emilio muttered.
“You got three sisters, Lo, and they’re all really fuckin’ pretty. You good with knowin’ a bunch of assholes like you assholes sit around over beer callin’ them bitches and talkin’ about spankin’ their asses? Because I can guarantee you, bro, there’s so many assholes like you assholes out there, that shit happens.”
Emilio shifted aggressively on his stool but the man knew he could never take Olly so he answered Olly’s question through his, “Fuck you.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” Olly shot back accurately and looked through them all. “Fuck, heard this kinda shit in junior high, high school, we’re all way outta that and you’re still spewin’ it. When you gonna grow the fuck up?”
“We’re just fuckin’ with you, Olly. Grow some balls,” Gary bit back.
“Wait, not sure, don’t check, you tellin’ me bein’ a fuckwad and takin’ a fuckwad’s bullshit means your balls grow bigger? Shit,” he leaned back, “no wonder you practice it so often. But seein’ as you do, can’t see how you’re sittin’ that stool.”
“Calm down, Olly,” Chad murmured low, and Olly turned to him.
“Annie’s tight with Mandy. How do you think your wife would feel, knowin’ you sat here listenin’ to Emilio spout that shit about her?”
“Annie gets how it is with the boys,” Chad returned.
Olly nodded. “You know? You’re right. Most times, she does. That’s true. Though, gotta say, known your wife a long time and not sure I’m convinced she’d be cool with that at all but especially not when it’s about her friend. But whatever. You got a daughter, Chad, your baby girl isn’t gonna be a baby girl forever.” He flicked an irate hand to indicate the table. “You down with this shit for her?”
Chad’s mouth tightened but he said, “It’s just what guys do. Fuckin’ with each other. Talkin’ smack.”
“So you are down with it?” Olly asked disbelievingly.
“Of course not. Don’t be an ass,” Chad spat.
“Think you need to walk this off, man,” Barclay advised.
He did. Olly needed to walk a lot of things off.
In order to do that, he slid off his stool, pulling out his wallet, but he did this keeping his eyes on Chad.
“Said it enough times, won’t say it again. I do not want a fixup. I dig you and Annie give a shit about my future happiness, but how ’bout you leave that to me?”
“You want that, you got it, bro,” Chad bit off.
Olly threw some bills on the table to cover his beer and wings and shoved his wallet in his jeans, nodding curtly to Chad.
“We gotta walk on eggshells at the house, this newfound sensitivity you got, Olly?” Todd asked sarcastically.
“You know, I’d rather talk about the game, or the rig, or the budget cuts we’re facing, or when we’re gonna get together again and go up to the lake. Take a little shit about a new haircut. Give a little ribbing ’cause someone’s into the new woman they’re seein’. But this bent you guys got to cut as deep as you can and talk crap about women…” He shook his head. “You wanna call it sensitivity because you’re right now feelin’ like a schmuck because I pointed it out you should and you don’t got a big enough dick to handle that, that’s cool with me. But the right word for it is maturity. Look it up. They usually define big words in little ones you can understand.”
He didn’t give any of them a chance to say shit. He moved out of the bar and right to his truck.
He was at the door, hand to the handle, when he heard Barclay call, “Olly!”
He stopped and looked to his friend, then beyond him to make sure none of the other assholes had followed, and when he saw they hadn’t, he gave his attention back to Clay.
“Jesus, brother, those long-ass legs of yours. You walk in a way that to me is running,” Barclay said wheezily.
“What do you want, Clay?” Olly clipped.
Barclay studied him closely. “Things good with you?”
“Yup,” Olly answered.
“I mean with, you know, things,” he clarified.
“I know what you mean and I called you the day after we worked shit out to tell you it was all good with Leigh.”
Barclay’s brows shot up. “Leigh?”
“Amélie.”
“Think I could figure out the nickname,” Barclay muttered, getting closer.
“Well, it’s all still cool.”
And it was.
Absolutely.
Better than cool.
Brilliant.
And it also absolutely wasn’t.
“Got a shorter fuse than normal with those guys, and before you get wound up again, Olly,” Barclay said the last quickly, lifting up his hand, “they were just being guys. They weren’t worse than usual.” He dropped his hand and did a one-shoulder shrug. “Not better, but not worse.”
“You dig that kind of ragging?” Olly asked.
“No, but they’re good guys once they quit trying to communicate who they think has the biggest dick. It’s just the male-bonding ritual, man. You know that.”
“I know it. I also don’t like it. And since I stopped doing it in the locker room when I was twenty-one, never did.”
“One reason why I like you,” Barclay replied. “And think you made your point back there. If it’ll change them, I don’t know. It doesn’t and it gets on your nerves that bad, get out of their sphere. Don’t crawl down their throats when it’s obvious something else is fucking with you.”
It was hard to get out of their sphere, seeing as, except for Todd, he worked with them.
Olly looked to the bar then blew out a breath, turning and practically collapsing a shoulder into his truck.
He looked beyond Barclay to the bar and admitted, “I like her.”
Barclay totally knew what he meant.
“I hope so.”
The humor in Barclay’s reply got him Olly’s attention.
“You don’t get me, brother.” He shook his head, weirdly unsure what to do with his hands, his body. “It’s like … she slips out of the scene and suddenly, we’re connecting. Not of the flesh, in another way. During sometimes, but especially when it’s over. It isn’t at all like we’re where we are, doin’ what we’re doin’. It’s like after vanilla fucking, when you like a woman, she likes you, and you shared something fuckin’ great that got you off, you’ve got that and build on it in other ways that are also great.”
“You seem surprised by this,” Barclay noted.
“We’re in a playroom at a BDSM club, Clay,” Olly returned.
“It’s still a club, Olly,” Barclay replied. “It’s a sex club, yeah. That’s the only nuance of difference. All the people there are there for their own reasons. Some just want to hook up and get off. But some are looking for other things.”
This was one of the things that had occurred to him last night that Olly was worried about. That something that was absolutely brilliant and absolutely not.
Christ, he didn’t need to have his head jacked up with something else.
“Explain what your issue is, Olly,” Barclay demanded and his ticked tone made Olly focus more fully on him. “So, she’s giving you signs she might want something deeper and you’re good with her jacking your shit but not good with going there. Is that what you’re saying?”
“What I’m—” Olly started, but that’s all Barclay let him get out.
“You’re in that space and your head is that far enough up your ass you don’t think you’re gonna be able to get out of it, when she slips you outta the scene, Olly, you share that shit with her. Because she might be your Mistress but I keep reminding you she’s still a woman. She wants something you don’t, you gotta give her a heads-up so you don’t crush her.”
Guy like that will chew you up and spit you out.
The jackhole at the club’s words came to Olly and he felt his throat start to scratch.
“Think I made it clear, man, I’m here for you with this shit if you need me. When I entered the scene, I didn’t have someone like me to take my back and I could’ve used it. But that’s on you, got nothin’ to do with me, and you jack her shit in a different way, I don’t want anything to do with it,” Barclay declared, turning like he was going to walk away.
“Brother, something happened last night,” Olly said and Barclay turned back.
Quickly, because his friend was pissed, Olly needed to let it out and Barclay had done a fuckload for him, he owed him the honesty; he gave him a rundown of what had happened after he and Amélie left their room the night before.
You’re falling for him, Leigh … This is more and you know that.
Indeed I do.
The words said between her and that Stellan guy ran through Olly’s mind after he told the story, a story that sent a lot of expressions racing across Barclay’s face.
“My take from that is she’s into me more than being into me,” Olly finished.
“My guess is, you’d be right,” Barclay replied.
“And that’s where I’m at, because I honest to fuck didn’t think it’d go that way, brother.” He reached out, curled a hand around Barclay’s shoulder, and gave it a squeeze before dropping it. “No offense. Not saying I thought everyone in the scene was out for nothin’ but a way to get their kink. Just sayin’ that I had so much fuckin’ with my head, I didn’t get that far to think about where it would go if you actually connected with somebody.”
“And where are you willing to go if you keep connecting with Amélie?” Barclay asked.
“There’s the rub.”
The anger again entered Barclay’s voice. “Because she’s a Dominatrix and somehow with your place in that mix, you’re too good for her?”
“Because she’s a Dominatrix and not sure how I’d be, introducing her to my dad. And because she’s a rich-as-fuck Dominatrix who obviously has more money than me, makes more money than me, and for both, always will.”
“You bring a vanilla girl to your dad and share how you fuck her?” Barclay asked.
“Fuck no,” Olly grunted.
“So that doesn’t factor. It’s none of his or anyone’s business no matter what you do with a woman you got in your life. He doesn’t even want that to be his business. And the other, man,” Barclay took in a deep breath, “that’s not something I can help you with. You either got it in you to get past that or you don’t. I hear you on that. A woman I chose made more money than me, it’d give me pause. A load more money, that pause would last longer.”
“Fuck,” Olly muttered.
Barclay got closer. “I know this, Olly. I found a switch woman who gave it to me in all the ways I liked it that I connected with great who was loaded, can’t say for sure, haven’t found that woman, but not thinking that pause would last long enough for her to slip through my fingers.”
Olly pulled breath in through his nostrils.
Then he nodded.
Barclay kept talking.
“What I will say is you gotta decide and let her in on that. Don’t know how this Domme plays. That could be how she plays. Though I will say, bro, that usually when a Domme plays it that way, she’s opening herself up to other things.”
The words sounded tight when Olly shared, “That asshole who got up in her and my faces said she was affectionate with all her toys and she confirmed that.”
“That asshole also has a thing for her, straight up, Olly, something I figure I don’t gotta tell you if you’re into this woman to keep your eye on. You’ve tripped his trigger. So she might be an affectionate Domme, but what she’s got with you is different.”
Olly liked that a fuckuva lot.
And it freaked him the same amount.
Not to mention, it did not escape him that that Stellan asshole was carrying a torch for Amélie and that pissed him right the fuck off.
Which tweaked him all the more.
“I belong to her,” Olly shared.
“That happens in the scene, man,” Barclay said quietly.
“And she belongs to me. Claimed her. Said that shit straight. Not sure in the scene those go hand in hand, her owning me, me demanding that back, but she jumped right on that, brother.”
Barclay studied him for a few very uncomfortable beats before he replied, “You need to get your head straight about her, Olly.”
Yeah, he fucking did.
“Thanks for listening, Clay. Owe you a beer or seven,” Olly muttered.
The intensity slid out of his friend and Barclay grinned at him. “Hold you to that. Go home. Cool down. Get your head straight. And I’ll see you later.”
“Right, later.”
Barclay loped off.
Olly got into his truck and drove home, thinking what Barclay had said about Amélie meeting his dad was true. What they had was what they had and it was nobody’s business.
He still didn’t know how he’d handle that, but that was more about him still not being in the right place in his head about the shit he liked. The only person who got him to that place was Amélie in a playroom. If that translated to the real world, he didn’t know.
And what he was struggling with now was if he wanted to find out.
No, that wasn’t it.
If he let his mind wander and didn’t think on it, he knew he did want to find out. It was just when the other shit pushed in, things became less clear.
What he also knew he would see if he brought Amélie to meet his dad was his dad having the same concerns Olly did.
His father was a man’s man and a man provides. Amélie clearly being stupid rich, pure class, and not belonging in their world, his father wouldn’t miss it. He’d worry about his son. He’d share that verbally and/or nonverbally.
If Olly’s mother was alive, she’d probably worry too. She knew her kids. She knew her husband. She’d worked as a seamstress for a tailor since Olly could remember (this being the only reason he had nice suits, suits no way he could afford if his mother didn’t get a discount). She’d brought in some money to help lighten the load but his dad made the bulk of what they lived on working foreman at a quarry. They were comfortable in that and never fought about money or shit like that. They fought about stupid things that didn’t mean anything so they could get it out, get it over with, and move on without any baggage.
Amélie had his balls in a harness a lot of the time because he let that shit happen.
If the brilliance they had got better and both their minds went there, he was not a man who wanted his balls, figuratively, in a harness.
He drove to his house, went in, turned on the game, and got himself a beer.
But he sat on his couch with his feet to the edge of the coffee table, phone in his hand, tilting it around, knowing her number was in it.
He could be just a toy she petted and kissed like any other, maybe more because there truly wasn’t a whole lot of challenge in that club for the likes of her and she got off with him.
But that fucking guy, Stellan, had lost his mind about them making out like it was something she didn’t do (and he hoped like fuck it wasn’t because she was a fantastic kisser, her mouth tasted almost as good as her pussy, and he liked the idea of that being for them).
You’re falling for him, Leigh … This is more and you know that.
Indeed I do.
She was falling in deep. She’d nearly straight out admitted it.
And in play, she looked out for him.
Out of it, no matter what they were to each other or what they became, it was absolutely his job to look out for her.
He should get that straight with her.
Or end it.
“Shit,” he whispered, engaging his phone.
He put it to his ear, considered hanging up as it rang, and if she called back or asked about it, telling her he’d accidentally dialed when she picked up.
“Chevalier, is everything okay?”
That sweet voice sounding worried.
Worried.
About him.
Everything he’d been thinking flew from his head.
“Yeah, baby, everything’s cool,” he lied.
“I…” She hesitated more than a beat before she went on, “I’m surprised you called. It’s football night. Aren’t you riveted to your screen with your laptop open beside you, assessing your rankings in your fantasy league?”
He started chuckling. “A woman who drinks pretentious drinks knows about football?”
“Olly, big men tackling each other … please.” She drew out the please in a cute way. “What do you think I’m doing tonight?”
That was unexpected.
“You watch football?”
“Do I need to repeat myself about the tackling?”
He chuckled again and suggested, “I think we need to stop this conversation before you ruin football for me.”
“Perhaps that’s a good call,” she replied, also sounding like she was laughing.
And it sounded nice.
“So, if everything’s all right, Olly, why are you calling?” she asked.
She was calling him Olly.
She called him Olivier when she jacked him. She did that exclusively. He’d noticed last night after sharing his nickname that she didn’t use that name in play. She called him other things when she was working him, but if she used his name, she only used his full name. Never Olly unless she’d slipped them out of the scene.
Now she was calling him Olly.
And she was bantering with him. She wasn’t ordering him to go find his harness and put it on. And that worry had crept in her tone again.
Maybe she was worried he’d called for the reason he’d actually called.
Because she knew he heard what she said and he needed to find out where both their heads were at and maybe, if his wasn’t where hers was, move what they had in the direction it needed to go.
“Olly?” she called.
More worry, her voice beginning to sound stiff—not with authority, like she was closing down.
He didn’t like that wrapped around his name.
Not one bit.
“You just…” Fuck, fuck, fuck. “You said something the other night and you looked … I don’t know, gorgeous. When you were talking about your folks, you looked like you left something out.”
And what he didn’t mention, she’d talked about them in past tense.
He hadn’t pushed at the time even though he’d really wanted to, especially when that expression crossed her face.
And this wasn’t the first time he’d thought about it since last night, wondered about it.
He wondered about a lot of things when it came to Amélie. What she did when she wasn’t at the club. What kind of house she lived in. How she made her money.
Everything.
Fuck him, he was again in over his head but now in two ways.
One, he was treading water until she pulled him up to surf a killer wave.
The other one could have him going under.
“They’ve both passed,” she said softly.
His throat got tight, his stomach clutched, the reason he called flew out the window … and yeah.
He totally fucking could go under.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“That’s fine, Olly.”
“It isn’t.”
“It is. It’s sweet you noticed and called to ask. And it isn’t like it happened yesterday. This year, it’ll have been eleven years.”
Eleven years.
Fuck, she’d been twenty-two.
But he was confused.
“Eleven? For both?” he asked.
That was shitty luck and meant they both had to die young and when Amélie was young, taking that double hit around the same time.
“I know, it’s strange. They fought in the beginning but time wore on.” A smile entered her voice. “Dad would have lady friends,” she said this like it was amusing and he’d get why when she explained it. “I don’t think he chose any of them due to the fact he doted on me. And you can read that to the point he spoiled me rotten, if you wish, because it’s true.”
Olly had no doubt. If he had a beautiful, auburn-haired little girl with pretty tawny eyes, he’d dote on her too.
Fuck.
“Mom got remarried,” she continued. “They eventually got over it, also for me. And when she and my father were married and Maman was still with us, she did a lot of charity work. Her work with that meant a lot to her, so when she’d come back to see me, she remained involved in some of the organizations she’d worked with when she was in the States. They were both patrons of one and continued to be, eventually, when they mended fences, doing this together. There was an event and they went to it together. They were leaving, and I don’t know…” She paused. “The investigation showed there was something wrong with the man’s car…”
She paused again and with his gut tight at her words, Olly got concerned.
“Leigh-Leigh,” he whispered.
He heard her clear her throat and she finished, “Dad was helping Maman get in the car. The out-of-control car hit Dad’s car. Dad got crushed under his car and died within minutes. Mom was thrown mostly free but hit her head on a cement step.” Her voice dipped. “She lasted longer, but after a couple of days, we decided to turn off the machines.”
“Christ, shit, fuck, baby,” he ground out, feeling like a twat. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Made you relive that. I’m so sorry, Leigh.”
“I live with it every day, Olly, so you didn’t make me relive anything.”
The pain was in her voice, not deep, but she didn’t hide it, so she was right. But he could have done it when he was close so he could hold her.
On that thought he knew he was not going under.
She was.
Crawling under his skin.
“Nothing else to say, sweetheart. That sucks,” he murmured soothingly.
“You’re very right,” she replied softly. “I was exceptionally close with my father. We always had been. My mother, she didn’t know what to do with children.” Another smile in her voice, this one weak. “It could be why you think I act older than I am, because she always treated me like an adult. Unfortunately, we never got along. This, I see belatedly, is because we’re very similar. My mother’s brother and sisters say I’m an Emmanuelle clone. They say it’s uncanny. I even look like her, which I’m grateful for, she was lovely.”
If Amélie looked like her, she’d definitely been lovely.
She drew in a breath that he heard.
He waited for it and she gave it to him.
“After feeling angry, I got to the point I realized I have no regrets about Dad dying. As much as I would like it to be different, I came to hard terms with the fact that there’s nothing I can do to change what happened and he left me with something precious. This being that he made sure we had everything we could have while we had the time to have it.”
Another breath and Olly stayed braced even after she carried on.
“But I was only beginning to understand Maman. I was an adult and we were finally connecting in a place where she was comfortable. But I was still young, and stupid because of it, so I was resisting that. That resistance was slipping, we were beginning to share something wonderful, and now I wish I’d just let it go. Realized earlier what a remarkable woman she was and all she’d given me so she could have gone knowing I appreciated it and adored her, like I did. So, like I said, I live with it every day, darling.”
“I’m still sorry I brought it up, Leigh-Leigh,” he replied.
“Yes, I can imagine, but strangely, it feels good talking about it. It always feels good talking about them, sharing with someone what a wonderful dad I had and what an extraordinary mother too. It’s like introducing them to you, or anyone I talk to about them for the first time, which is usually the last time because losing them both that way was such a tragedy, people learn the story and then don’t bring them up. I’d obviously rather introduce them personally, but at least I get this. So it wasn’t easy, but in an odd way, it feels nice.”
“Glad you can twist it that way.”
The smile was clear in her voice when she returned, “I’m not twisting anything, Olly.”
“Well, babe, all I can say is I don’t get it but I do. My dad’s alive and kicking, in a way. Mom died two years ago. It started when she was sitting next to him, watching TV. Pulmonary embolism. She died in Dad’s arms while he was phoning emergency.”
“Oh God, Olly,” she whispered.
“Sharing war stories, Leigh,” he said unemotionally, because he had to. After two years, he wasn’t over losing his mom in a way that remained so fresh, he knew he never would be. “It fucked up my dad. He’s with us and he can laugh his big laugh and give us shit but he lived for her. It’s like he’s there but he’s a ghost, just existing until he can get back to her.”
“That’s as heartbreaking as it is lovely,” she noted.
“I just see the heartbreaking, baby,” he replied quietly.
“I’m so sorry. Of course you do.”
“Not bein’ a dick. Just miss my mom, get it about my dad because I saw how they were with each other my whole life, but even though I get it, I hate seein’ Dad so unhappy.”
“And that must be horrible, to want him to be happy and not at the same time.”
“Yeah,” he muttered.
“Oh Olly,” she whispered in his ear.
She said nothing more but the way she gave him that, she didn’t have to give him more.
“So, how about we quit talkin’ about this shit,” he suggested.
“I’m all for that,” she agreed.
“Now, gotta admit, Leigh, I was born and raised in Phoenix. Had no idea we spawned gorgeous but pretentious, uppity women like you, even with French moms,” he teased.
“That would be because Phoenix didn’t spawn me,” she returned, her voice trembling with laughter, giving him relief because hearing it he knew he’d taken them both out of the heavy. “I was born in New York City.”
“That makes more sense.”
“Yes, and raised there, mostly.”
“Outside of France. Yeah, you told me,” he reminded her.
“Actually, what I mean is, when I was thirteen, before I started high school, Dad moved us here. He hated the weather in New York, hates humidity more so Florida and Texas were out…” There was a pause that Olly again braced through but he didn’t need to when he heard her again speaking through laughing, “And he had a daughter he spoiled rotten who was obsessed with horses and you can’t have horses in the City. So we were always in a car going to our house in Connecticut so I could be near my horses. He hated the traffic too. So good weather and I could be near my babies, we moved here.”
Their house in Connecticut.
Her ranch in the mountains.
Horses.
“Olly?” she called when he got stuck in his head.
“Nothin’ to say, Leigh.” He injected humor into his tone when thoughts of all she had that, if they went there, he didn’t give her and never could, weighed him down. “Not a big surprise you like horses.”
“No,” she agreed, still sounding like she was smiling. “I can imagine it also won’t surprise you that when I was eighteen, Dad hired a man to manage the stables on our land. A big man who was, as you put it, not hard on the eyes. So when he did, I had very interesting visions of fettering him in a stall and taking my crop to him.”
Surprising the shit out of himself, overriding the stitch of jealousy her words caused was him busting out laughing.
“Needless to say, when Dad was away on business, I managed to accomplish this feat when I was nineteen,” she said through his laughter.
“I bet he was gagging for it, baby,” Olly remarked.
“As we did it more than once, I believe that was true,” she replied. “Though, he was my first and I think I was able to handle that because I’d taken a crop to so many flanks before his. But even though he was my first, I’d come to terms with my nature before that and having him made me realize I couldn’t take that further until I knew what I was doing.”
Olly said nothing to that, unable to ignore that stitch as it was now vicious at the thoughts those words brought, because he was in the position to know she’d had a lot of training.
And further jealousy she’d “come to terms” with her “nature” before she was nineteen.
He wondered what that felt like—to be free to just be.
“Olly?” she called.
“I’m here,” he grunted.
“Darling, you’re aware that training for a Domme is often observing. Participating only to assist the Masters or Mistresses you’re training under. Sometimes, you don’t even touch a—”
“You don’t have to explain this, Amélie.”
“I think I do, sweetheart,” she whispered.
“There were others before me, I get that.”
“And there were others before me as well, Olly.”
He said nothing because that was true.
“I’ve never asked anyone to my ranch,” she declared.
Olly blinked at his knees.
“Say that again?” he demanded.
“Although I had certain things installed, no one has used them, not even me.”
“Baby, that means a lot,”—understatement, it meant a fuckuva lot, all of it great, and all that great tweaking him even more—“but like I said, you don’t have to explain this. I didn’t come to you a virgin.”
“This is true,” she replied.
“I mean, some things were virgin, but you took care of that.”
That got him a soft laugh.
“There’s enough judging in the world,” he went on. “The things we give each other mean too much to bring that kind of shit into it.”
He said the words and he had to live by them.
Since they were straight-up true, he had a feeling he could.
“He’s handsome, sweet, and wise,” she said quietly like she wasn’t talking to him.
The compliment hit him warm and sweet all the same.
“As well as a wise-ass,” he reminded her.
That got him more laughter.
Right, so having a normal conversation that didn’t end in her rocking his world through his cock, balls, and ass, instead rocking his world other ways when that was the last thing he intended with this conversation, now he needed to end this before his head got any more fucked up.
“We shared war stories. I now have proof the rich girl fucks the stableboy.” He continued through more of her laughter, “I can pretty much guarantee my Leigh-Leigh is gonna try me in a variety of ways tomorrow night, so I need to finish my beer and hit the sack. You cool with that, sweetheart?”
“I’m cool with that, Olly.” Her voice dipped. “And I’m glad you called. Though I would have preferred not to depress you with the story of my parents, it’s sweet you listened.”
“Anytime, baby.”
He said it. He meant it. He was fucked by it.
Clawing right under his skin.
“Thanks, Olly. See you tomorrow. Good night.”
“’Night, Leigh-Leigh, sleep good.”
“I will,” she promised, something in her voice he felt in his balls.
And just like his Amélie, she hung up, leaving him wanting more.
AMÉLIE
After hanging up with Olly, Amélie sat in her TV room with Stasia in her lap, the television on a game but muted, her hand in Stasia’s thick long, gray, black, and white fur.
Unlike with Cleo, Amélie avoided the mottled, bare patches missing from Stasia’s haunches for reasons too hideous to call up.
So she did not.
She just enjoyed a rare moment of connection with her sweet kitty.
At the same time she enjoyed a moment of sweet relief that Olly had called.
Called and chatted.
Called and chatted, curious about her, concerned about how she’d been after her talk of her parents.
Called and chatted and bantered, just to call and chat and banter.
All this after all they’d shared together at the club.
All this after he’d heard what he’d heard when she’d spoken to Stellan.
All these gifts she gladly received, using them to help to sweep the fear away, incapable of stopping them from nurturing the hope that refused to slow its blossoming.
She’d been concerned all day about how Olly would react to her altercation with Stellan once his amusement had worn off. Once he’d had time to think about all she’d said and all it meant.
When he’d called, that concern escalated sharply.
The tone of his voice, so hesitant when he was always so open, turned that concern into a piercing pain that he’d called at the very least to be certain they established appropriate emotional boundaries.
But at worst, to gently end things as he was aware her emotional boundaries were already very blurred.
But now, her eyes on the television screen, her fingers tenderly stroking her furry baby, the feel of Stasia’s quiet purrs vibrating, she had no concerns.
She’d enjoyed a double delight that night, Stasia coming out for some love and Olly phoning her just to connect and more, do this connecting outside the activities of the club.
No, Amélie had no concerns.
Just sweet relief.
And that sweeter spiral of anticipation starting up yet again.
For she’d see him tomorrow night.
She had it all planned.
And it was going to be fabulous.