Talk For Me: Club Avalon Book 3

by Kay Elle Parker

  “He was a dick.”

  Connie laughed, but the sound was bleak. “That doesn't describe the level of the poison he exuded. I spent eighteen months living with him, crawling around doing his bidding. I didn't come to my senses until the night he decided he wanted to, ah, fuck me up,” she said quietly, her grip on his hand changing from pinky swear to clutching a lifeline. “Alarm bells started ringing, but it was too late. Evan didn't believe in safewords or safe, sane, and consensual. He blindfolded me.”

  Hard limit number one, Thane thought as he rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.

  “He'd bought a new paddle, especially for that night. Thick, heavy wood. It bruised me pretty badly, reduced me to black and purple, even in places the paddle didn't touch. I couldn't see, could barely breathe after the hits to my back contused my lungs. He told me it was his night to do everything and anything he wanted to, and if that made it my last night alive, he'd be glad to be rid of me.”

  Evan. Thane rolled the name around in his head, wondering if he could wrangle a surname from her so he could hunt the fucker down. Hah, who was he kidding? With his contacts, he could hunt the guy down easier than a trophy dick shooting a tame lion in a cage. “How old were you?”

  “Twenty-one when I met him. I was a few months shy of my twenty-third birthday when he…”

  “Just a baby. Poor, innocent baby.” His left hand slid around her neck, fingers flexing gently around the slim column.

  Connie snorted derisively, rolling her eyes. “More like stupid, naïve, foolish girl. I fell for the first Dom who caught my eye, and I didn't even know what I was. He didn't grasp the full extent of what I was, either. Maybe that was why he did what he did that night.”

  “Because he finally saw you for what you were. Not just a subbie to kick around and treat like shit. The bastard woke up and smelled the coffee, didn't he?”

  “That was the conclusion I reached, yes.”

  “Huh. Sounds to me like the floor wants wiping with his face. Repeatedly.” He stroked her neck, enjoying the flutter of her eyelids as he touched a spot that made her feel good. She shivered, her head falling forward to give him better access. “I'm going to ask you to do something difficult, sugar. It's going to hurt, but you'll thank me for it later.”

  Her moan shot straight to his groin, providing his imagination with ample fodder. “Keep doing that and I won't feel any pain at all. Jesus, you have magic hands. Magic,” she repeated on a reverent whisper.

  “I will do this anywhere you want me to, sugar. After you finish telling me what happened that night.”

  The muscles under his fingers turned to stone. Not just her neck, he noted without surprise, but her whole upper body. The hand clutching his turned into a clamp. “There's no reason you need to know the rest. It has no influence on—”

  “Bullshit, Connie. We both know it has every influence on your life.” Shit, his leg was starting to cramp. With a grunt, Thane forced himself to stand, slipping his hand from hers so he could hobble away to walk it off. He'd only taken two steps when she made a sound that hit him hard in the solar plexus.

  “Don't leave. Please don't leave me.”

  He continued to walk, hobbling around in a slow circle as his thigh shrieked with pain. Face tight, jaw clenched, he didn't speak for a minute, trying to bring the discomfort under control. “Sugar, I'm not going anywhere. Do you think I'm going to abandon you when you're like this?”

  If silence spoke volumes, then the room was screaming. One thing Thane loved about being a Dom was tugging the threads of a complex problem, a big knot of mental and emotional strands, and feeling them unravel in his hands. The knot inside Connie was vast, the threads stretching through her and tying her up from head to toe while she tried to hide her predicament from the ones she loved—and who loved her.

  Now, he'd identified one of those threads. She kept her inner circle small, he guessed. There were, what, five Masters in Avalon. Braun had a sub, as did Jasper, so that added an extra two to the circle. What about her personal life—did she have family? Friends from work? Anyone from outside Avalon she considered worthy of bringing into the fold?

  “You know what, leave. Go.”

  His laugh was more of a grunt. “So you can solidify your theory that everyone who comes into your life is going to up and leave when shit gets real? Yeah, I don't play that way, Connie. When I'm in, I'm in all the way.” As the cramps eased, he bent and rubbed his thigh as he thought through his next move. “I'm invested in you now, sugar. I've got a soft spot for wounded little birds, and your wings are broken.”

  When he straightened, Connie was huddled in the chair, biting her thumbnail as she watched him. Shaking his head, he stalked back to her and plucked her up, carrying her to the bed. A change of tactics was in order. He'd done a lot of talking, given her a lot of information to process, and while he'd have preferred convincing her to continue the scene from where they'd left it, she'd already told him with a definite Red that she required a stronger bond of trust between them first.

  Thane set her down on her feet and flipped the covers back on the bed. He ran his hand over the cool, clean black sheets. Perfect. In a smooth move, he stripped away the security of her blanket and tossed it aside before she could think to grab on to it. “Atticus entrusted you to me, sugar. Believe me, I take that as an honor, considering how you're revered in the club. I may be new as a member, but I'm not a rookie in the lifestyle.”

  Connie flushed as he cupped her breast, skimming his thumb over a pert nipple. “I don't want to be submissive, Thane.”

  She had the most wonderful skin, he mused. Soft, supple, responsive to even the lightest brush of his fingers. Slowly, he maneuvered her around so her back was to the bed. A gentle nudge toppled her on to it. “Unfortunately, that's the gift of a Switch.” He swung her legs up, made sure she was comfortable, then covered up that delightful body. “Opposing sides of the coin.”

  Thane's steps were uneven as he rounded the bed, stopping briefly to gather the items Atticus had set out earlier. The Master had obviously had an anal scene in mind, he thought, lifting the butt plug and studying it with approval. When the covers shifted, he glanced at Connie, noting the sickly pallor and wide eyes. “You've never tried one of these?”

  “Nothing goes near my ass,” she spat, then ducked under the duvet.

  Oh, they could have so much fun together when she finally stopped denying a key part of herself. “We'll save these for later. I don't remember anal play being on your list of hard limits, sugar.” He ran them through his head, smiling. “Nope, no anal on the list Atticus gave me.” He carried the small pile over to a cupboard and dumped them inside, stripping off his shirt as he moved back to the bed.

  She muttered something he didn't quite catch, and as he removed his pants and slid under the covers beside her, he asked her to repeat it. When she huffed and rolled onto her side away from him, he solved the problem by hooking his arm around her waist and hauling her back against him, warm skin to warm skin.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What I love doing more than anything else. Giving a nervous…” He rested his hand on her stomach, “Reluctant…” His chin settled into the sloping curve between her neck and shoulder, “Wary submissive some tender loving aftercare. Relax and enjoy it, Connie. I'm not asking for anything in return. You need to forge a bond with the one you submit to—I get that, and this is us bonding.”

  “No funny business?”

  “I am a perfect gentleman…unless requested to be otherwise.” He pressed his lips to her hair, smelling coconut as he breathed deep. He closed his eyes and worked on syncing his breathing with hers, slow and steady. He'd found that breathing in time with a sub could combat a myriad of trust issues, and as the minutes passed by in an almost easy silence, he felt Connie relax into him.

  Mission accomplished.

  “Thane?”

  “Hmm.”

  “The rest of the story isn't pretty. It's one of the lowe
st points of my life, and I don't like talking about it. Evan wasn't just sadistic, he was cruel. He used me as a urinal. Hacked off my hair with a carving knife and cut into my head, telling me he was going to scalp me when he was done.” Connie trembled viciously.

  That explained the blood play and watersports limits, he thought in disgust. He hadn't expected her to open up this way, but he'd hoped the intimacy would at least loosen her tongue. Of the four limits she'd listed, he could live without three. He had no desire to treat anyone like a pet, or to be one himself. Watersports was a no, and blood play was an artform he couldn't grasp.

  However, he'd be incredibly happy to practice on this Evan guy. With some blunt and serrated blades.

  “Humiliation got him off. Watching me crawl around on hands and knees, those stupid fucking puppy dog ears stuck on my head and paw mittens on my hands. He wanted me to wear a tail, but I said no. Got smacked around for saying it, but I told him I had a recurring anal abscess, so he backed off. He wasn't one to get his hands dirty if he didn't need to. Bloody, yes, but dirty? No.”

  The idiot wasn't a Dom in any sense of the word. Connie was quickly drawing a picture of a man riding a power trip. No morals, no conscience. No idea how the dynamic between a Dom and a submissive was supposed to be a partnership of give and take, trust and pleasure. The asshat was a deviant, nothing more.

  “That night, he decided to teach me a lesson for refusing him. I don't know what he used, but he lubed me up with something caustic. I remember it starting to burn, I remember screaming. He hit me to shut me up, but it didn't stop me. Couldn't stop me. In retrospect, it saved my life. One of his neighbors came around to check if I was okay because of all the noise. He couldn't kill me then, which pissed him off. One witness was one witness too many to risk it.”

  Thane tightened his hold on her, rubbing the chill from her skin as she shook in his arms. He wondered if any of the men in her life understood what a tremendous woman she was, how strong she was to endure something like that. He said nothing, afraid a word from him would halt her confession—she had no choice but to get this out before it devoured her.

  “When the neighbor left, he had a tantrum. Threw things, broke things. I think he wanted to destroy me more than anything, but he took his rage out on the house. He liked the sound of delicate ornaments shattering against the wall, and my screams were dying. I believed I was dying.” Her legs kicked restlessly. “He dragged me out to the car, naked, blindfolded, and doubled over in pain. Drove me to the hospital and literally kicked me out at the ER entrance. It was the last time I saw him—he disappeared not long after that, before I got out of the hospital. Just upped and vanished into the ether.”

  She was trying valiantly not to cry, he realized. She was fighting to keep the tears out of her voice, which only resulted in the words sounding strangled. Her back was rigid, her muscles quivering with the effort to breathe slowly and not sob. The core of her was strong—it had to be to bear the weight of the pain she carried—but the rest of her was tired, too tired to keep herself from spinning apart.

  “I have the utmost respect for a woman who can go through hell and still hold her head up high, Connie,” Thane murmured. Unlike her, he kept his voice low and easy, containing his rage away from her. “The submissive got hurt, badly, so you brought the Domme into play to stop that from happening again.” He rubbed slow circles over her abdomen, calming her ragged breathing. “Relax into me, sugar. Remember my cupped hands? Put yourself into them and trust that I'm not like him. Not one little bit. I don't want to take everything from you, sugar—I want to give you what you need.”

  “You don't understand—”

  “No, I don't. Not completely, but I'm beginning to.” Thane sighed and kissed her head. “Just trust me, Connie.”

  When her hand rested on top of his on her stomach, her fingers linking through his, it was a small victory, but a victory, nonetheless.

  Chapter Five

  There was no rest for the wicked.

  On Saturday afternoon, Connie knocked on Braun's door before walking into the house. She'd deliberately waited for the man himself to cross the parking lot separating the house from the club, avoiding confrontation with him at all costs. After the quiet hour she'd spent with Thane spooned behind her last night, thoughts and emotions colliding like a pair of freight trains in a wreck, she'd dressed and hightailed it out of Avalon without speaking to anyone.

  The new Dom was a clever bastard, she thought, using compassion and a firm hand to dredge up memories she’d kept suppressed for years. She hadn't meant to tell him about Evan, about that night when the sleeping Domme inside her had been woken by cruelty and pain. Evan had unleashed her in his haste to destroy her; the strongest part of her rising to protect the sweetest part, and staying in the position of guardian for ten years.

  Thane threatened to upend everything she strived to be.

  “Hello? Bodie?” Connie's voice echoed in the empty house, concerning her. She kicked off her sneakers and padded into the living room in her socks, sliding a little on the hardwood floor when she stopped dead. “Sorry, sweetheart, did I wake you?”

  A disheveled Bodie sat up slowly, her black hair in complete disarray and her blue eyes heavy. The bedclothes were rumpled, as though she'd had a rough time sleeping, but she seemed relaxed enough. “No, I wasn't sleeping.” A rosy flush highlighted her cheekbones as she smirked. “Braun's been in a weird mood since last night, so we…he…I thought I'd try and get him in a better one. I think it worked.”

  “Well, there's an advantage to having a bed in your living room,” Connie said with a chuckle. She knew Jasper and Braun had moved one of the beds from an upstairs guestroom down into the living room for Bodie's comfort after she came home from the hospital. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like if someone picks me up and shakes me, I'll rattle. The doctors changed my meds, but they seem a little more hopeful about the prognosis. I'm sick of staying in bed all the damn time while Braun runs around doing everything.” A slim, bare shoulder shrugged. “He says he doesn't mind, but I do. I was helpless for long enough with my stupid legs, I don't like feeling this way again.”

  “If he says he doesn't mind, you should listen to him, Bodie. That man adores you.”

  Bodie's gaze dropped to her hands. “How long does adoration last when you become a burden? The man runs a business, and he's working from home because he doesn't dare leave me alone. His sisters asked him to go to his parent's anniversary party, and he refused because he didn't want to leave me alone. Hell, I had to beg him to take me to Avalon last night before I clawed my eyes out from staring at these four walls. The asshole made me go for a goddamn nap in his office after an hour.”

  He left you for ten minutes, Connie thought, wisely keeping her mouth shut. Admitting any knowledge of seeing Braun last night would open a door she wouldn't be able to close fast enough. “Right now, loving you means coddling you to the point of smothering. He almost lost you once, Bodie—he stands to lose so much more now. You're carrying his baby, sweetheart. This baby isn't just a part of him, it's part of you too. The man's a Dom, it's his nature to tend and protect what he loves. That's all he's doing.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “You want some tea while I'm up?”

  “No, I'm good, thanks. I'm sick of it. If I blink, Braun shoves a cup under my nose, and he'll be back in a few minutes. The first thing he'll do is go put the kettle on and fall into his house-husband shoes.” Blue eyes watched Connie carefully. “You can sit down, Con. I'm pretty sure Braun didn't boobytrap the couch.”

  A nervous laugh bubbled up from Connie's constricted chest. “Why would he do that?”

  Bodie pushed herself into a straighter sitting position, keeping the covers pulled up over her chest. “I may be out of the Avalon loop more than I like, Connie, but I know you and I know my Master. See, I saw your car in the lot last night when we walked to the club, but you were nowhere to be found. I know that when I was suppo
sed to be napping, the safeword alarm went off in Braun's office, and he went to investigate. When he came back, he looked as though someone had hit him upside the head with a shovel and he wanted to rip that someone apart, limb by limb.”

  Connie swallowed and decided sitting down would be a good idea. She forgot how inquisitive Braun's submissive could be, how tenacious she was when she got her teeth into something. “I wouldn't know anything about that.”

  “Pretty sure I can tell when you're lying, Connie. You've been antsy since you got here, you haven't sat down until now, and when I said my lover would be home in a few minutes, you looked as though you wanted to bolt.” Bodie gestured to the window that offered a view of the parking lot. “You got here twenty minutes ago, and you waited in your car until Braun passed by and went into Avalon. Why are you hiding from him?”

  “I-I'm not.” Damn, that could have been a more emphatic response.

  “I've got two theories I've been playing around with this morning. I like puzzles, they keep my mind busy, and this is a doozy for sure. Theory number one is—and I'm not too focused on this one—you've found a sub to play with, you're a little rusty after a year's break, and your sub safeworded.” Bodie's eyes were locked on Connie's face. “The problem I have with that is, my friend doesn't get rusty. She's kind, she's firm, but she's fair. She wouldn't do something that pushed a submissive to his limits.”

  Tears filled Connie's eyes. She blinked them back as she absorbed Bodie's words. Her friends had so much faith in her, she didn't know how she was supposed to shatter it by telling them she was a fraud.

  “So, my second theory is that one of my best friends, one of the best Dommes I know, is something…more than she lets on. More,” Bodie said quietly as Connie's heart plummeted into her feet, “not less. There's not much that shakes Braun, he's like a massive fucking boulder in an avalanche. He doesn't move for anything. But he was shaken last night, and I think he answered the safeword alert, only to find someone he loves like a sister—aka you—in a situation he never dreamed of.”