Ioan Gruffudd Ch. 09

Thanks to all the fans of this story line for your time, your comments, your suggestions, and everything else you all did to put a smile on my face. Enjoy!

***

"Very brave of you, today."

"Untie me," Ioan growled.

"Who said we were done?"

He smiled.

"Eyes down, slave."

I massaged and cajoled until he was hard yet again. It took twenty minutes but it worked. I'd left the blindfold off so he could see my sexy outfit. And when he was hard again I settled onto his cock.

"I did promise to fuck you."

He smiled but kept his eyes down as he slipped inside my warm, wet pussy. I rocked back and forth and slid him ever so slightly out and in. This was for me, my pleasure, his was incidental. I rocked until I built up, scraped my swollen clit on his pubis until I was there, right on the edge.

"Yellow."

The safety word; I had to stop. I froze, eyes blinking. He smiled at me and while our eyes held ripped his hands free, proving his bonds had always been by choice. Before I could blink he was over me, pushing deeper. One finger on my clit and his penis pistoning fast.

I could only clutch at his back as I came, mewling and crying out. I screamed his name, to my shame, and knew he was always the one in control. My master.

When I came down he was still inside me, still hard as a rock, and I felt the wetness of tears on my cheeks.

He moved his free hand from my pussy to wipe at them.

"Why cry?"

"You know why," I said, a little too surly.

"No, I don't."

"Because I never was the top here, you were always in control. I did what I could to bend you to my will and it was yours all along."

"And why would you do that?"

I looked away. "I need to keep you away."

"Why?"

"Damn you! Will you have everything of me?"

He kissed my temple and nudged my chin so I looked back into his eyes. "Everything you have and more."

"I don't want to lose myself."

"You won't."

"Yes, I will."

"Trust me. I want you just the way you are."

"It's not enough, Ioan!"

"Why not?"

"Because I love you, damn it!"

He smiled long and slow, every inch of widening Cheshire grin a stab in my heart.

"You never stopped, did you, Nicky? That's all I needed to hear. I don't want you to ever change, because I love you just the way you are."

I closed my eyes and he didn't force them open. Instead he flexed inside me and pushed in deeper. With his body he told me what I needed to hear; that tomorrow would take care of itself, that what we had could work.

I threw my head back, and gave myself up to the hope that had always scared me, and chose to ride it.

When he peaked I tumbled as well, and exhaustion claimed us both. He collapsed on me and I found myself trembling.

"Why Nicky? Why the fear, why the games, why did you have to try so hard to push me away?"

I pushed him away then, rolled off the bed, and padded to the bathroom. I showered, blow dried my hair, did everything to stall, but at last, I had to come out.

He was sitting, naked still, but covered in the sheet. All traces of the...day were gone, nothing but Ioan and me in the room.

"I didn't tell you the whole truth."

"About what?"

"Did you bring your car?"

He scooted forward looking puzzled, hopeful, and incredibly handsome. "Yes, why?"

"Get dressed, I want to show you something."

His face showed he wanted to ask a question, but he sensed my urgency as did as said. I dressed quickly as well, thinking about my life.

The last six years I'd been locked away, writing. The press had hounded me before the first book was out, but that story was for the car ride to my hotel room.

My only companions constant in that time had been my characters, Liz and Donovan, whom Ioan was about to bring to life on screen. Then I'd met Helen and Danny, who'd taught me to crave life.

Then I'd met Ioan and Rhys, who'd taught me to love it.

His car was provided by the studio, a white Acura with a ton under the hood and a smooth, purring sound as we headed into the perils of LA traffic.

"I need to get this all out in one go, or I'll lose my nerve, so please, don't interrupt."

"All right."

"I was born an identical twin. Nicolette and Victoria, our mother called us Nicky and Vicky. Unlike many identical twins, we were perfectly identical. Same height, same bones, same eyebrows, both left handed, neither of us knew how to dance, everything the same.

"Oh, our parents never made us dress identically, and we were allowed to develop our own personalities. I loved her more than anything in the world, and she loved me, but there was a rivalry we never outgrew.

"When we were sixteen, she brought Eric home. He was seven years older, too old for her, and our parents were furious. I used to be her alibi when she snuck out, and I would hang around them all the time. I had such a crush on my sister's boyfriend, it was embarrassing.

"My parents caught them when we were just shy of eighteen, and they threatened to send her away. She ran away, with him, and I understood not telling our parents or our brother, but me? It nearly killed me.

"She was gone for almost two years, and she came back pregnant and married. My family refused to speak with her, but I did.

"Eric was teaching again at the University of Minnesota. I transferred there and moved in with them. I was young, and stupid, and I made a horrible mistake. I slept with Eric one night, and Vicky found us.

"There was a bad snowstorm, and she took off, crying hysterically, damning me. She slid off a bridge and died on impact. What they say about twins is true; I felt it, the very instant she died. It felt like a part of me died too.

"My family came, but when Eric got drunk he told them what happened. They blamed me, and I understood. I was young, confused, I wanted to leave, but Eric convinced me to stay. Rent free, all I had to do was help look after my niece.

"I looked like her mother, I looked like his wife. It was a matter of time. We began to have a relationship, and I lost myself. Not the way people say; I truly lost myself. I became Vicky, wearing her clothes, living in her house, sleeping with her husband.

"She'd published a book, at least gotten a deal. They asked me to help with the editing and I did. For marketing they suggested putting it under my name, letting me do her interviews, taking credit.

"I agreed, but I put all the profits into an account for my niece Beth, I was custodian. By then Eric and I were engaged, and some stupid little reporter found out about Vicky and the contract.

"Eric wanted Vicky's money then. I had ended up rewriting almost all the book and didn't take a cent, and he wanted the money. Things were rough by then, Beth was calling me mommy, my family was telling stories to the media, my life wasn't my own.

"I sold my own first book and then Eric and I separated. He sued me, and I won, but at great personal cost. I never got to see Beth again, nor my family. I vowed that day I'd never let anyone get close to me, I'd never risk another chance at losing myself.

"I started to drink and write, and until you came along, that's all I knew."

I took a deep breath as he pulled into my hotel and parked. His hand had been on my thigh for long minutes and I turned to him, shaking inside.

"Nicky, I'd never want anything from you. I won't demand, I won't take, I won't change anything about you. If staying up all night with whiskey and a computer is who you are, that's the woman I love."

My heart ached and I grabbed him and pressed my lips to his. The kiss was gentle, smooth, and I tried to put my feelings into it. His arms slipped around me and pressed me close, the gearshift between us, but that was all.

He pulled back with a smile and stroked my hair back. "Now what do you want to show me?"

***

My hotel room was messy. Clothes were strewn about attesting to how many outfit changes I'd gone through, there were reference and grammar books all over, and I'd left the TV on HBO.

I turned it off and started to looking for the latest printout of the manuscript. "I realized that writing was a strange kind of therapy. My character, the hit woman Liz, was me. The people she killed were my demons, real and imagined. Here it is!"

I produced the giant stack of five hundred pages with flourish and he smiled. "What is that?"

"My latest book. I wrote it here. I want you read this last part."

He sat on the bed as I handed him the pages and swiped his dark hair back, though it refused to obey.

I bit at my cuticles as he read, nervous. No one but Helen or my American editor read these pages before it went to print.

He was reading the last scene of the series. Liz had just pulled off the impossible; she'd killed herself. That left her free to become Elizabeth again, and she and Donovan could ride off and start fresh.

Not the happy note I'd once thought of ending the series on, but the only note I had in my heart now.

"Nicky, does this mean what I think it does?" He asked quietly when he finished.

I sat next to him and put my trembling hands between my legs to hide the shaking. "I can't ask you to deal with the press. I can't ask you to be patient with my nerves and paranoia. I can't ask anything except you forgive me, and give me a chance."

He dropped the pages to the floor, letting them scatter, and cupped my face. "We've both been asses, but there's nothing to forgive. And if you can handle my hectic schedule and my son who thinks you're the neatest person alive, then there's nothing left to say."

I kissed him, and he leaned me back, and all five hundred pages along with half my wardrobe we thrown to the ground, but I didn't care. I cared for nothing but the second chance life had given me.

At long last I knew the game was over, and we'd both won.