Temptations - The Complete Series Read online

  Once the cat was out of the bag, would my life be in danger? Would poor Margot be put through the ringer for whatever it was she did 10 years ago? If that happened, would Slade ever speak to me again?

  So many questions were clouding my brain, and I tried desperately to shake them off. I wanted to just concentrate on this day, this perfect day. It wasn’t going to last. Perfect moments never do. But I needed to have this day in my head and embed it into my memory. I wanted to be able to carry it with me whenever times got tough in the future. That was important.

  Slade noticed how quiet I was. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.

  I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t know how to explain it, even if I wanted to tell him. So, I simply said “just thinking about how perfect this day is.”

  He smiled, and I could see that his eyes were weary behind that mirthful expression. “It is a perfect day. Thanks for thinking of this.”

  “Well, I thought it was important that I be able to include the dogs in this outing. I don’t think that they’ve been to an off-leash park before. I know that I haven’t brought them, and they were little tiny puppies when I got them, so I doubt that they went before they came into my life.”

  “They’re making the most of it.”

  Indeed they were. They were still running around, socializing with other dogs. I saw other dogs come up and sniff them, and they would do the same. Then they would take off chasing each other or another dog, before resting in the sand. They were hilarious to watch, since their bodies and legs were so squat. I was always amazed how small dogs with short legs could be so damned fast, but I knew that they were. I had a dachshund growing up, with the shortest legs possible, and that dog could run like the wind. She would dart outside the door every time somebody would come to visit, and I would always be the one to chase her down. Even though I had always been athletic, I had a hard time catching her.

  “What’s after this?” Slade asked.

  “Well, I thought that we would go to Vigilucci’s to eat on their outdoor patio with Bella and Gigi. They have amazing food and they are dog friendly too.”

  That was one of the best things about being in San Diego. Since there were so many restaurants with outdoor seating areas, there were a lot of restaurants that welcomed dogs. It was very important to me that I include those two girls in most everything I did, because they were truly a part of my family. When Luke and Dalilah went home, and god forbid, if Slade ended up in prison, they would be my lifeline.

  After about five hours of sitting beneath that umbrella, watching the waves and the dogs, and boogie boarding, we headed to the bathrooms to get changed for our dinner. Then we packed up the dogs and went to Vigilucci’s.

  We were seated in the outdoor patio, again under an umbrella. The chairs were black wicker, and the table had white table cloths with wine glasses at the ready. Slade ordered a bottle of wine, and an artichoke hearts appetizer, after clarifying that the artichoke hearts were made with oil and not butter. I felt embarrassed, just a little, when he also told her to hold the cheese.

  “I feel bad. I know how much you love cheese,” I told him.

  He shrugged. “Life’s a bitch,” he said with a smile. “How can I ever survive not having cheese on my artichoke hearts?” Then he paused. “I doubt that I’ll have cheese with my artichoke hearts in prison. Or artichoke hearts for that matter.”

  It was then that I truly saw the sadness behind his eyes. I thought that I had seen it earlier at the beach, but not like now. When you have a perfect day like this, with sun and fun shared with the one you love, followed by an extraordinary meal at a beautiful restaurant, it would be so hard to even contemplate having to give all that up. To know that you have to trade your beautiful mansion in Los Angeles, complete with a full staff of help, for a tiny prison cell would be devastating. Days like today, that I had taken for granted, would be gone forever. There wouldn’t be fancy Italian food in prison, only the gruel that they have served to them by people with hair nets on. In place of a butler, there would be a beefy prison guard with a night stick. No more Vividus bed, which is the most comfortable bed in the entire world, literally. In place of that would be a tiny cot and a thin sheet.

  Most devastating, though, would be the fact that we couldn’t be together.

  He squeezed my hand. “I’m trying not to think about it, but goddammit, it has been a great day. It’s just starting to hit me.”

  I knew what he was saying. While he was talking, I suddenly became anxious. I hadn’t heard back from Dalilah as to whether or not her father’s security team could get that videotape. She promised to text me the moment she found out if they could do it in the tight time-frame that I demanded. Thus far, I hadn’t received that text.

  The waiter came around with our food and wine, and Slade ordered scallops for himself and capellini with tomatoes, garlic, and basil for me. I had to admit that his dish sounded truly amazing, as the scallops were served with risotto and sweet corn, and I briefly wished that I wasn’t a vegan. I hadn’t had a touch of animal products in years and years, and I wasn’t about to start now.

  We drank our wine while the dogs snoozed at our feet. They were pooped after their day of fun, and the sounds of their loud snoring brought a smile to my face. I looked around, and there were people everywhere with their dogs. I hoped that my dogs’ snoring sounds weren’t bothering them. Nobody seemed to notice though, so I felt comforted.

  “This is a cute place,” I said, looking around. “I haven’t been here before.”

  “Me neither. Then again, I haven’t spent that much time around here before meeting you. I guess that you changed my life in more ways than one.”

  I raised an eyebrow and smiled. “That’s a good thing.”

  “It’s a very good thing.” He took my hands and looked into my eyes. I felt my heart quickening, as it always did when he looked at me like that. He was seeing my soul; I knew that, just as I was seeing his. It was a strange thing really, being able to get one another the way that we had. Our sex games the other night bonded us even tighter than ever, if that was even possible.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked him.

  “Just thinking about seeing you naked in about an hour or so.” He sipped his wine, and I knew what else he was thinking. He was thinking about seeing me tied up with a gag in my mouth while he lightly flogged me with a cat o’ nine tails. I was thinking the exact same thing.

  I felt a pool of moisture between my legs, and my body suddenly felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t wait to get him alone later on that night. There was nobody who had ever made me feel the way that he did, and I doubted that there ever would be. How could there ever be somebody who made me feel so alive? I had lived my whole life without feeling the way that I did with him, and losing that seemed inconceivable. Inconceivable.

  “I have to admit that I was thinking the same thing. I really need to feel you inside of me.”

  “You will. Trust me, you will.”

  Although the sun had gone down, and the evening had cooled off, I felt warmer than ever.

  The food came around, and we dug in. We ate our food in leisure, sipping our wine with it, and holding hands from time to time. We filled the silence with idle chit-chat, while both of us knew what was on the mind of the other. It was written all over his face, and when I closed my eyes, I felt it. The white-hot lust emanated from his every pore. The other night had awakened something dormant in both of us, and it had sprung to life, consuming us in its wake. I felt that I had to be with him soon like that – naked in more ways than one. Our bodies would be naked, but our souls as well. It was unspoken that it was going to be a necessity for both of us to be exposed in that way, so that if the absolute worst thing happened, and Slade had to go away to prison for the rest of his life, we would each have something to cling onto when times got desperate.

  After we ate our meal, we headed to my car, the dogs trailing behind us. They were sniffing the ground and the flowers and the
trees. We were walking slowly, him with this arm around me tightly, me with my head on his shoulder. Neither of us wanted this time together to end, although both of us knew that it had to. Not anytime soon though, since I had taken that week off of work. Of course, that didn’t mean that I was going to be with Slade the entire time. Rather, I was going to hopefully be meeting with Dalilah’s father’s security team. Ryan, who was Dalilah’s father, was supposed to be talking with them soon. At a moment’s notice, I was going to be flying to New York City, and then back to Sacramento to finally take the California Bar. It was going to be a stressful whirlwind, but, if all went according to plan, it would be absolutely worth it.

  We came to my car, and got in, securing the dogs in the back in their cage. I dreamily put my car into drive, and we headed back to my place. But, halfway back, Slade said “let’s go to my house. I have a surprise for you there.”

  I felt tingly as I imagined what that surprise could be. I simply nodded my head, unable to speak. I was suddenly overcome with emotion, as the reality of the situation flooded through me.

  He just smiled and continued to grip my hand. “You’ll like it, I promise you.”

  “I know that I will.” I didn’t want to speak the words that were in my head, because if I spoke them out loud, they would become real. What I was thinking was that, in a little more than a week, there was a real possibility that all of this would be over. That I would only be able to see him, if at all, during weekly visits to the state prison. I swallowed hard, trying to not ruin this perfect moment after a perfect day. I concentrated on the road and the sound of Bella and Gigi in their kennel, snoring as usual. I tried hard not to let my mind wander to what was possibly going to happen.

  Stay in the moment, Serena, stay in the moment. Or else the moment will be ruined. I wanted, more than anything in the world, for the moment not to be ruined, so I tried to think of the things that comforted me. Like the sound of the snoring puppies, and, since it started to rain lightly, the noise made by the gentle wiper blades. The whoosh of the water on the streets. “Finally, some rain,” I said. We desperately needed the rain because of the drought that had been plaguing our state for years.

  I finally looked over at Slade, who was smiling at me lazily. His beautiful green eyes were half-closed, and the grin lit up his beautiful face. I could read his emotions on his face, as usual, and I didn’t necessarily see that he was thinking the same thing I was. It was as if he were completely divorced from reality. Maybe he was, or maybe he just didn’t want to think about it. I willed my own brain to turn off so that I could concentrate only on him. “I know,” he said, apparently responding to my comment about the rain. “Thank god, huh? I don’t know what’s going to happen to this state in a few years. We might all have to move out and go to someplace where it actually rains on a regular basis.”

  “Sometimes I miss thunderstorms. Actually, that’s one of the things that I miss the most about living in New York, along with the change in seasons. I used to love to walk or run through Central Park when the leaves were changing. There wasn’t anything like it in the world, really. It’s funny how you take certain things for granted.” Then I smiled. “However, I don’t miss what came after the leaves changing. The bitter cold, the snow piled up on the sidewalk. The enormous mounds of snow that would line the streets after the plows went through. I hated trying to get to the subway in wintertime.” I shook my head. “I guess it’s a trade-off. I don’t get my changing leaves, but I also don’t have to deal with cold and ice.”

  “I think that I know what you mean, but not really. I’m an LA boy, born and raised. I never got to see snow unless I went to the mountains in the wintertime. Sometimes Helen and Scott would take me to the mountains so that we could see the snow, but I wasn’t really that much into it. Of course, we also took vacations to various places around the globe, but it was usually during the summertime. The one exception was when we all went to Switzerland to ski one Christmas. That was a lot of fun.”

  “How well do you ski?” I had never been skiing myself, but I had always wanted to.

  “Pretty well, I guess. I learned on that vacation from school that year, and I was on the black diamond course by the end of it.”

  “No fear,” I said. “I admire people like that. Just see a mountain of snow, and conquer it.”

  “You can’t let things defeat you or intimidate you. Any psychologist can tell you that you have to face your fears, no matter what they are, or they will control you.”

  “You don’t have any major fears?” I asked him. I knew that the one thing that I was terrified of, absolutely terrified of, were spiders. If a spider invaded my home, I usually had to leave or call somebody to come and take care of it. Just the sight of one of those creatures paralyzed me with fear. I tried to think of sweet Charlotte, from the book Charlotte’s Web, saving the pig Wilbur from certain death, but I just couldn’t associate that sweet spider with the ugly creatures I encountered on a regular basis. It wasn’t a rational fear, as everybody always told me that the spider was more afraid of me than I was of it, but that didn’t matter. Arachnophobia was real, and I was afflicted with it.

  Now of course, when I heard the name “Charlotte,” I would never again think of that spider, but of Charlotte Boswell, who really was a spider in her own right. She had Slade trapped in her giant web, and it was up to me to try to get him out of it.

  Slade shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess I have some irrational fears. Not of heights or bugs or anything like that, though. I guess that I really fear being torn from the people I love. It happened to me once before, when I lost my mother to prison for all those years, and it’s about to happen again. But there’s nothing that I can do about that.” Instantly, he looked really sad. He looked out the window, staring at the rain, and I put my hand on his neck and squeezed.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I told him. “I promise.”

  He had a look on his face that made me concerned, because he was probably wondering if I had something up my sleeve. “Serena, it’s not going to be okay. And I hope that you’re not plotting something that you think is going to make it all okay. Trust me, if you do something to screw up this guilty plea…” He shook his head. “My fear will come true, only I won’t be losing you because I’m going to prison, I’ll be losing you because you’re going to end up dead and my mother in prison. I know that you think that you’ll be doing a good thing, but trust me, it won’t be.”

  I tried to laugh off what he was saying, so that he would be thrown, but all I could do was make a small sound. I felt that I was about to nonverbally confirm his suspicions, so I tried to concentrate on the road and change the subject. “Another fear that I have is of heights. I’ve somewhat conquered that though, by forcing myself on really high Ferris wheels and rollercoasters. I’ve even gone on a balloon ride once or twice. But for the life of me, seeing those old photographs of men sitting on beams high atop the city, just eating their lunches, gives me the willies.” I was referring to the famous photographs of the men in the 1930s who worked on the Empire State Building. One photograph showed about twenty men on a beam eating, and others showed men taking naps on those beams, or working on affixing bolts. In the background was the city, and it appeared that these men were hundreds of feet in the air. I knew that there weren’t any casualties in building that structure, so I knew that these men were safe, but it still gave me the heebie-jeebies. They truly were a part of the greatest generation. Nowadays, skyscrapers were mainly constructed with cranes, and the men who worked on them had safety harnesses, but it appeared that the men in the old pictures didn’t.

  Slade was silent when I was speaking, and I was afraid that our moment was truly over. There was something that I had said that tipped him off, and he wasn’t happy. He seemed to be brooding. Then, just like that, he appeared to snap out of it. “I don’t want to ruin the little time we have together by interrogating you. But just know that anything you do to throw a wrench into the works wo
n’t be appreciated. As long as I make that known, I’m going to drop the subject from here on out. I trust you, Serena. I trust you to respect my wishes, and realize that I’m not blowing smoke up your ass. If I thought, for one second, that there was an alternative, believe me, I would be taking it. I wouldn’t leave you for all the platinum in the world if I didn’t have to.”

  I smiled weakly, knowing that if I said something in that moment, it would come back to haunt me. I couldn’t lie to him, so I just said nothing at all. I hoped that would be good enough, so that he would just forget this part of the conversation had ever happened. When I looked over at him, he was smiling again, and it seemed to be genuine, so I hoped that the bad moment had passed.

  Chapter 22

  We finally arrived at his house, and I got the dogs out of their kennel, and the two of us went inside. “I can’t wait to see your surprise,” I said.

  "Well, perhaps it's not such a surprise after the other night," he said. "But I have a room of my own that you probably will love."

  I smiled, knowing what he was saying. I could just imagine what his playroom looked like.

  I wasn't disappointed. He, too, had a St. Andrew's Cross in this elaborate room. He also had a spanking bench and handcuffs that were attached to the wall. I looked over at him and he raised an eyebrow. "Tonight I'm going to fuck you against the wall, but I want you to face me this time. I want to look you in the eye."

  I felt totally excited when he told me that. I loved being blindfolded the other night, yet I also craved having the connection with him that came from the two of us looking at each other in the eye while we made love.

  "Here," he said, handing me a leather catsuit. It had cutouts for the breasts and my netherparts. He also provided me a pair of high-heeled leather boots. "I think that you would look delicious in this outfit."

  I took off my clothes, making sure that Slade had a good look at me while I was doing it, and zipped up the catsuit and put on the black high-heeled boots. I felt like one of the Doms I used to see in the clubs I used to go to. When I got into the outfit, Slade grinned. He seemed amused and lustful, all at the same time. "As I knew you would, you look ravishing."