“Augustine,” I whimper. “Own me. Own me.Own me.”
Words that I have never spoken aloud pour from my mouth. Words that I have moaned and screamed in my dreams are mumbled and whispered against my lover’s lips like a secret now. I need to be his.
“Mon abeille, you know that I do. Everything that you are belongs to me. Your excitement, your worry, your pleasure. It is all mine. And the sweetness of your climax will be mine when I am ready for it. For now, we wait.”
A knock against the privacy screen makes me jump. Augustine’s hand slips from between my thighs. He brushes a loose strand of hair from my heated face with a soft smile, like he wasn’t about to make me have the most explosive orgasm of my life.
The chasteness in his kiss against my cheek makes me blink. He smooths the skirt of my dress down and unbuckles my seat belt. My mouth snaps shut when he opens the car door and I see the bulge of his cock, the only thing that reminds me I am not at the tail end of a fever dream.
As he stands, he buttons his suit jacket up and extends a hand to me. For a moment, I want to demand he get back in the car and take care of what he started, but I don’t. I am the one who asked for this date. Demanded it before I would finish the bond.
It is now or never to be the real me.
14
Joanna
The club, as Augustine calls it, is absolutely fucking insane. In gilded letters,The Gin Palaceglows in the almost red light of the setting sun. There is a black carpet up into the building and velvet ropes with two men at the door wearing black suits who look like they will snap me in half for looking at them. Augustine’s hand rests on my lower back as we glide up to the building. At least it feels like I am gliding or floating. It’s all very surreal, and I swear I see a group of people with cameras lingering just down the pavement. I suck in my gut on instinct and straighten my shoulders.
I am not an eloquent, society type, except right now I pretend long enough for Augustine. He nods to one of the bouncers and we are ushered into the dark entrance of the building. My nails dig into my clutch as I lean a bit closer to him.
“I feel like a little heads up would have been nice.”
“I gave you the dress code. You could have asked for the location,” he whispers into my ear.
I huff at his stupid rightness. There is that urge in the back of my mind to be petulant, something I have never really been before. Maybe it’s the crawling feeling of denial that is making me feel that way. Most of my sexual encounters before him were lacklustre at best, yet Augustine has proven to be more than capable of making me cum. The fact that he has chosen not to has flicked a switch in my head.
He smiles with a cold politeness at the host in her fancy dress. Her costume is reminiscent of something from an old stage show. Waistcoat and tails, wide fishnet stockings and short heels. She leads us up through the lobby and into a private box. It’s only when the heavy curtain is closed do I let my jaw drop.
“Holy shit,” I murmur, ignoring Augustine’s slight frown at my foul language.
This is a full-blown theatre. Around us are more boxes where fancily dressed patrons chatter and below us are tables and chairs beginning to fill with people dressed in their best going-out clothes. Our table is covered with pristine white linens and a large candelabra in the centre, already lit. There are more forks and knives than I thought could possibly be necessary already laid out and shining in the warm glow. Definitely more than a simple date.
“I have said it already, but it seems you keep forgetting. You are a queen, and I will spend the rest of eternity treating you as such.”
Augustine’s half smile as he looks at me makes my knees weak. He pulls out my chair and dutifully waits for me. There is a moment, when I look at it that I think it won’t be sturdy enough to hold me. It’s a nagging feeling in my chest that always rises when I am somewhere new. If the chair breaks, it will be a sign from God and the universe that I don’t belong here or with Augustine.
But as I sit down, I just feel supported. With ease, he slides me closer to the table and sits down opposite me. I can just see over the edge of our box and around the other boxes. They are doing much the same as me. A server comes and goes, Augustine ordering a bottle of something expensive that will make my eyes water. Like so many others, I am too enraptured in looking and seeing everything to even think about what I am planning to order.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. “Oh my god, that’s- and that’s-”
I can’t get the celebrities’ names past my lips. When I whip my head back at Augustine, he is smiling at me with indulgence that makes me feel like a pet. I swallow with an ease that suddenly doesn’t feel right. My fingers skim across the base of my throat, a haunting feeling of missing sands where my skin touches warm flesh.
“This show is internationally renowned,” he explains. “But I have known the owner since it began in 1873.”
There is a moment when he looks down at the stage. Again there is that flicker of a feeling at the back of my head, but I don’t know what it means. Before I can speak, the server returns with a bottle of wine. They make a show of presenting it to Augustine and quickly uncorking it. I don’t think I have ever drank wine from a corked bottle. He tastes the small amount of red wine poured into his glass before allowing the server to pour my own. I can’t take my eyes off of him.
Once we are alone again, Augustine raises his glass and I do the same.
“To you,mon abeille, my eternal queen.”
A blush erupts across my cheek and chest until I feel more like a tomato than a person. Augustine’s glass ghosts against the rim of mine before he takes a delicate sip. I try to do the same but end up taking more of a swig that coats my whole mouth. The flavours burst across my tongue. It is thick and rich as I swallow.
“You seemed…” I skim my vocabulary for the right word, “wistful when you looked at the stage.”
“Ah, well, I used-”
“Monsieur Ravenscroft!” A heavily accented voice erupts from a short woman just as she bursts through the curtain. She seems almost larger than life as she moves to our table. Heavy makeup and a revealing dress show off her lithe form. Her smile is wide and wicked when her gaze moves from Augustine to me. “Oh, my friend, they did not tell me you had a mademoiselle as your guest. My darling-”
