Ashton Hill Siren

"I wanted to spank you, tie you up and punish you when we got back here tonight. I wanted you to want that and enjoy it as much as I do. You have no idea how much self-restraint it took to hold back as much as I did," he added, letting her know just what he needed from her that he knew she would never give him willingly. "I don't care that much about public perception, but here, alone in bed, I need to be the dominant partner, and you can't even let me have that. You need a man whose needs match your own, just as I need a woman who enjoys my desires." He knew he sounded petulant, but it was only his disappointment that she couldn't be the woman he wanted, and the woman he wanted didn't want him, that made him sound that way.

"I could try the things you like, here in bed," she offered weakly, her nervousness showing in the way she licked her lips.

"I don't want a life of compromise, and, if you are honest with yourself, neither do you. We both deserve to get what we want to be happy," Chess said softly, kissing the top of her head. "We're friends, we like each other a lot, let's not head down a path where we make each other miserable," he sighed. The idea of her trying the things he wanted was everything he could have asked for from her, if only this conversation had have happened a few weeks ago. Now he knew that her lacklustre attempts to please him would only frustrate and disappoint him. So, he chose the friendship over the sex.

"Have you met someone who can give you what you need?" she asked softly, and he could hear the hesitancy in her voice as she asked the question.

"Maybe," he answered honestly. "You'll be happy to know she ran away like Cinderella after the ball and didn't even leave me her shoe or her phone number."

"But are you going to try and find her again?" Julia asked.

"Yes, I'm going to try," he said softly, trying to gentle the words he knew would be hurting Julia. He knew now without a shadow of a doubt that he needed to find his Siren and make her see how good they could be together, or at least how good exploring what they could have would be. One way or another he needed to have her by his side, or he needed to fuck her out of his system. As they lay there silently for the last time together, he considered how to go about finding the woman he wanted, craved, needed.

"You will meet someone too, who blows your mind and rocks your world the way you need him to so completely that you will wonder what you ever saw in me," he chuckled.

"She rocked your world, and you didn't even get her phone number?" Julia asked sceptically.

"She fucked my brains out, I had nothing to work with," he chuckled, despite himself, and was relieved to see Julia laughed softly with him, despite the sad look on her face.

*****

"What do you mean, you're not coming this weekend?" Mikayla demanded.

"Dad's still not well, and Brian has a thing with Heather's family on Saturday, so I have to be the responsible on-call vet here. I can't make it, sorry. You know you can always come up here for the weekend," Ariel sighed.

"I guess it's been a while since I was there, but I thought we could hit some clubs and blow off some steam. It's been a pretty tense week trying to blow off the mysterious singer who left halfway through the gig with the boss as a gatecrasher. There are so many rumours going around, but I think the gate crasher story is finally sticking," Mikayla confided. "It should all die down in another week, if that is why you are staying away. I doubt any of my friends would recognise you."

"No, that's not why. And we don't hang out with your work friends when I'm there, so, it wouldn't matter," Ariel said. "I've got to go, but think about coming up tonight or tomorrow, we could hang out in Kelly's with Lara and Jack. I think Carly and Harry are coming back this weekend too."

"Maybe. Is something going on there?" she asked, knowing that nothing ever happened in Ashton Hill.

"I think it's their nephew's christening," Ariel supplied.

"Alright, I'll give Lara a call and see if she and Heather want to organise a girl's night or something," Mikayla gave in rather than trying again to change Ariel's mind.

"Let me know what you come up with, it's not like I'm going anywhere," she sighed again.

The truth was she was grateful to be forced into staying home this weekend. Her thoughts had been filled with her wild night since she left him sleeping like a replete sex god. She hated that she had promised her friend not to see him again. Maybe if she saw him just one more time she could get him out of her system and move on like she always did.

Once she ended her call she went to google him again. She typed in his name and saw the latest media headlines regarding him. He'd attended a charity event last night with a woman who was, by anyone's standards, drop dead gorgeous, and together they made the perfect looking couple. A rock formed in the pit of her stomach. She had been stupid to think that he had given her as much thought as she had given him. He was wealthy and good looking, of course he had women all dying to leap into his bed and do his bidding. She snapped her phone shut, refusing to torment herself with more than just the headlines. Chess Roussel was history, he had moved on, and so would she. It had been a one-night stand, and that was all.

She busied herself with work, so grateful she'd had a legitimate reason to not be in the city where she could have been tempted to find him and see him again this weekend. She needed to stay close to home where she felt safe and secure, and no one could get to her and make her feel awful ever again. This was what she wanted, after all. It was how she lived her life now; Lots of fun and little risk of having her heart broken. She was all about the experience now, not the romance. Just as she had talked herself into a good headspace, her world came crumbling down again as David walked into the practice with a wide smile of greeting for her.

"Hey there, Ariel, you're looking amazing, as always," he said as if he hadn't left her standing at the altar with a broken heart; As they were old friends, who hadn't seen each other for the last two years. As if he hadn't called her fat and frumpy and middle-aged. As if he hadn't run away and left her high and dry, a broken, weeping shell of a woman. She wasn't that stupid, weak woman anymore, she was a completely different woman now, and David was about to discover that first hand.

"Thanks, you look about the same," she said in a deadpan voice. "What do you want, David?"

"I wanted to see you, talk, maybe. I'm going to be moving back home," David explained. "I thought maybe we could get all the awkward shit out of the way and, you know, maybe be friends? We've got a lot of history, after all. I wanted to see if you wanted to grab dinner with me tonight."

"No, David, we can't be friends. Acquaintances, maybe. I won't make a scene or trash talk you to anyone, but I do not want to be your friend in any way, shape or form. You are a coward and a liar, and if you need a Vet for any reason, go over to Cedar Creek or somewhere else, just not here," she said in an emotionless voice. "I don't want to see you, not now, not ever, and you can't blame me for that. That is all your doing."

"Okay," he said, holding his hands up in front of him in surrender. "I get it, but it's a small town, Ari, and we will have to see each other from time to time. It won't hurt you to give me a chance to make things up to you."

"You can't, David. You can't take back what you did to me or my family who put so much time and money into that wedding to make it a special day. Trust me, David; there is no second chance here. You can't undo the damage," she said, keeping all the hurt and anger inside as she spoke calmly. "Please go."

"Okay, I'll go, but I'm not giving up on you," David said, as if she was over-reacting to what he had done.

She watched him leave the practice and felt tears well in her eyes. She picked up the phone and called Mikayla back, she needed a quick Wonder Woman speech from her best friend to get over this little hurdle, and then she would be fine. It was crucial now that Mikayla came to Ashton Hill this weekend.

*****

After a disastrous weekend, and yet another charity event where Chess had treated his date badly, Collin decided to take matters into his own hands. He had watched Chess attempt to find the girl through contacting the band, then through the people in the PR department and finding pictures of her on the CCTV footage of the night, all to no avail. Collin, though, had sensed something out of place, and, after watching the footage of the night of the party again, had gone back to the PR department to field a few carefully placed questions of his own with photos of the girl who had gone by the name of Lucky that night in his hands. It was by carefully watching his hunch that he made another discovery about Lucky's true identity and how she came to be at the party.

Collin walked into Chess's office and slammed the door behind him, making Chess's assistant jump in her seat. Collin was doing his best to calm his temper, realising this conversation was long overdue, and he had let his friend and employer suffer for too long. The woman he had driven home in tears on the weekend had not deserved the treatment she had received from Chess. The woman today had just been flirty while trying to serve them breakfast on their way to work when he had turned on her. Chess was becoming a belligerent bastard with everyone, including himself.

"Ask me!" Collin demanded, making the younger man look up at him from his desk with a surly expression.

"Are we talking in riddles now? You've already pointed out what a bastard I am lately!" Chess snapped.

"Admit how much you want to see the girl again and ask me to find her before you attack anyone else who doesn't deserve it! What you said to that woman today was totally uncalled for by anyone's standards!" Collin berated him again. "How long have we been friends? Ten years? Twenty? I have never been disappointed in you the way I have been this week! Stop being a complete bastard and ask me to find her for you instead of making the half-hearted attempt you have made at locating her!"

"I tried, and it's not like she has reached out to me either!" Chess spat back before throwing up his hands. "She wasn't with the band, they'd never seen her before that night or since, and the public relations department has no idea where she came from! if she wasn't a wife or fiancé then she was a gate crasher! The cab dropped her off at another hotel! And who do I ask for there? Lucky? I don't even have a real fucking name! No one recognises her picture, and the guy I hired to look into it hasn't come up with anything to go on! She vanished into thin air!"

"Her name is Ariel," Collin sighed and fell into the chair opposite Chess's desk. "Now ask me nicely how I know that," he said in a smug voice, happy that Chess had already admitted to himself that he wanted to see her again, if not to anyone else.

"Collin? How do you know that?" Chess asked through gritted teeth, his frustration with so many false leads and dead ends making him reluctant to believe this was any different.

"Because I can read people, and I watched all the same CCTV footage you did from the yacht," Collin shrugged. "I went and confronted the girl in PR who arrived with your girl, not believing it was just a coincidence that they arrived together and just happened to mention she was a singer. She still denied knowing her, but she got a call while we were talking, and I stepped away while she took it. It was her friend, one that could come back to the city now that everyone was buying the gatecrasher story. That friend's name is Ariel." He failed to mention that she also sounded concerned about a man called David upsetting her friend last weekend.

"The woman in public relations?" Chess flipped through his diary where he had made notes on the people he had spoken to, that woman being one of them. Then he picked up his phone and called the public relations department. "Send Mikayla Sullivan to my office, please!" he barked and hung up, glaring back at Collin, who shook his head at him disapprovingly. "How long have you known?"

"A few hours. You need to ask for help, you know. I shouldn't have had to go and do that on my own because you were throwing a tantrum like a two year who had lost his favourite toy," Collin grumbled. "Be nice to this young woman, or she won't tell you anything. I have the feeling that's the way Ariel wants it."

Ten minutes later Mikayla Sullivan was ushered into the office. She took one look at Collin, and she knew for sure why she was there. He knew. She wasn't sure how he knew, but she knew he knew.

"Have a seat, Miss Sullivan," Chess indicated the comfortable sitting area at the rear of his office and walked with her toward the couches. "I'd just like to ask a few questions of a personal nature, if that's okay."

"Mr. Roussel, I'm sorry about the woman gatecrashing your party! I can't say it enough, it won't happen again, I promise!" Mikayla said, quickly trying to head off any further questions.

"Is that because Ariel doesn't want to see me again?" he asked bluntly.

"How..." she gulped and looked away, trying to gather her thoughts. "I mean..." she tried again and cursed, knowing that it was always Ariel who knew how to fix tricky situations like this. The gatecrasher idea had been working perfectly, no one had questioned it except the other man in the room... Collin, she thought his name was. How had they found out her name?

"How do I know you invited a friend to a company personnel only event?" he asked and watched her nod slowly, feeling relief that Collin was right spread through him. "I didn't know until just now," he let his small lop-sided smile show.

"But you knew her name!" Mikayla accused, feeling like she had been tricked into revealing her secret.

"You were overheard talking to your friend, and it was a fairly educated guess. Would you like to explain why you lied when asked if you knew who the woman was?" Chess asked in a much calmer voice.

"Oh God!" Mikayla groaned, not sure exactly how to answer that. She didn't want to blurt out all her best friend's baggage, but she felt like her job was on the line here if she didn't say something convincing. She needed to talk to Ariel; she would know what to do. "Look, I don't know what to say here. Ariel told me it was a one-night stand and that she wouldn't do it again when I told her that you were my boss. I love this job, and I don't want it complicated by my best friend fu... I mean, sleeping with my boss. You can see how complicated that might become, right? Especially if the other guys in PR find out," she appealed to him.

"I see. So I had no say in whether I wanted that night to be a one-night stand or not?" he asked, his bad mood swiftly returning.

"What Chess is trying to say is that he would very much like to see your friend again, or at least have the opportunity to convince her to have another date with him, himself, rather than having even that much taken away from him," Collin said in a friendly tone, reasoning with the young woman.

"I don't want to be rude or anything, but if you wanted to see someone again, wouldn't you try to get their name and number while they were with you?" Mikayla pointed out the obvious in her own defence.

"She fell asleep before I could ask her, and I am not inclined to go through a lady's purse looking for answers. She left before the sun had risen while I slept, without even a note to let me know she was okay. I have been concerned about why she would have done that," he answered honestly.

"Oh, shoot, I don't know what to do now. Could you just let me call Ariel and ask her to contact you, would that be enough?" Mikayla asked, still fearful for her job.

"Enough?" He asked curiously. "You are not in any trouble here, Miss Sullivan. Your job does not rest on whether your friend will see me again. Much as I would like to have that sort of power, I would never risk a good employee for my own personal agenda. I just want to talk to her and maybe see her again, that is my only agenda here," he reassured her. "Call her; ask her if I can have her number or if she would like mine."

He stepped away, giving her a small amount of privacy to make the call. Then he considered what he would do if she said no. Was he crazy enough to stalk her to find out where she lives and confront her? Take her against her will somewhere where they could talk and fuck? Yes, fucking was high on his agenda of things he wanted to do to Ariel. 'Ariel,' he smiled. The name suited the Siren who had driven him so insane he was about to crash and burn if he didn't find her again.

*****

Ariel was daydreaming again as she sat beside the surgery bench watching the small puppy as she came out of the anaesthetic. The cone she wore around her head to keep her from worrying at the stitches would frighten her when she woke, so Ariel continued to stroke the young pup's fur softly and let her mind drift once again to her wild night with Chess Roussel. She wished for the hundredth time that she hadn't promised Mikayla that she wouldn't indulge in a repeat performance of that night. What Mikayla didn't know wouldn't hurt her, she reasoned for the same amount of times, and sighed, knowing she would never do that to her friend.

No, there had to be something wrong with her that being treated the way he treated her turned her on so much. The dirty talk alone should humiliate her, even though he spoke the truth. She was a slut for him. She couldn't believe how eager she was to suck his cock in the car knowing the driver could see and hear everything. She couldn't believe how much she enjoyed the spanking and the crop and the exquisite pleasure he gave her when he denied her his cock as she begged for it like a nymphomaniac.

Yet, if he walked in here today she would want to do it all over again, and more. So much more, the more he promised her with his challenge. God, there had to be something wrong with her to spend all her time thinking about him and that night rather than planning her next trip to the city with Mikayla. She was supposed to be going this weekend, but she had been prevaricating each time they talked. The thought of trolling the clubs for a one-night stand like those she had enjoyed in the past had lost its appeal now. She wanted the naughty kinky fun that came with men like Chess, but she had no idea where else to find it, and she wasn't silly enough to advertise online the fact that she wanted to be spanked and whipped with a crop. She could only imagine the types of responses she would get.

She pulled herself from her reverie and stood, walking around the table once, studying the puppy and wondering if perhaps they had used a little too much anaesthetic. She did not seem to be in any distress, but it was taking longer than she thought it should for the cute little thing to wake.

"Come on, Teddy, wake up," Ariel said to the sleepy puppy, nudging her a little more than necessary, feeling restless now.

"I'll take over," Heather, Ariel's sister-in-law and the veterinary nurse said. "Mikayla is on the phone at reception, she says it's urgent, and to remind you that answering your mobile now and then in office hours isn't a crime," she laughed.

"Thanks," Ariel smiled and stood, stretching her body upwards onto her toes before moving into the reception area.

"Hi, Mikayla, what's the crisis this time?" she asked good-naturedly.

"You not answering your phone, to start with," Mikayla said in hushed tones.

"Why are you whispering? I can barely hear you," Ariel frowned, wondering if something really was wrong.