A Lovely Shade of Ouch

by Tymber Dalton

  Winded, he braced himself with his arms on either side of her.

  Then she stroked his head.

  He quickly turned his face to kiss her hand. “No flipping me back,” he sternly said. “You earned Sir for the rest of the night.”

  From the guilty way her lower lip caught under her teeth, he knew that had been her plan. “How’d you know?”

  “Because you’re sneaky.” He kissed her. “And,” he added in a lighter tone, “you have no reason to feel guilty for wanting to spend the rest of the night on the bottom.” Carefully, he untangled himself from her. “And if you try to be sneaky like that again, you might end up with a butt plug up your rear end all night long.”

  Now she pouted. “You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”

  “In a heartbeat. Try me.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “I think you would.”

  “Now you’re seeing things my way.”

  Her eyes suddenly widened.

  “What?” he asked.

  She grinned. “That means…”

  “Dammit,” he muttered.

  Her grin widened. “Hey, fair’s fair. Just one more thing for Ma’am to add to her box of tricks.”

  “You’re lucky I can’t spank you yet. You just wait until I can. You’ll be a lovely shade of ouch, too.”

  She giggled. “Matching his and her bruises?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Chapter Twenty

  It was four months post-op. Over the past week, Abbey had received four calls from Tom. Each time, she sent it to voice mail.

  Each time, Tom had hung up without leaving a message.

  If he has something he wants to say to me, he’ll have to nut up and do it. I won’t make it easy on him.

  She still hadn’t checked out Tom’s movements on FetLife beyond initially making sure he didn’t have her listed on his profile once she’d moved out.

  He didn’t.

  She refused to let herself wonder how long his profile had been like that. She didn’t visit the site very often. For all she knew, he could have taken her off weeks before he actually dropped the emotional bomb on her.

  Other than adding John to her profile, and checking local events, she didn’t seek out Tom or his new flame. Or to see if Tom’s new relationship had flamed out.

  She didn’t care. And she’d blocked Tom’s profile so he couldn’t perv her profile from his. Wouldn’t stop him from creating a new profile from which to perv on her. Considering she mostly used the site to keep track of the Suncoast Society munch dates, or things going on at Venture, and rarely posted anything on the site other than congratulating people when she saw they’d posted good news, he could knock himself out. If she caused him aggravation by blocking him, that was fine with her.

  She was even beyond it stinging her pride when people who hadn’t been to Venture lately asked her what had happened, what was going on, and why the hell was she now with Gilo, of all damn people?

  That last question in particular made her smile. She liked that there was not just one entire life—John’s vanilla one—but his second life as her Dominant that only she was privy to among most of their friends.

  That he had no secrets from her, and she had none from him.

  That she was the only other person who knew about his painful childhood.

  She was proud to be there with John, to be his Domme, to be his submissive, but most importantly, to be life partners with him.

  It didn’t escape her notice that she felt far closer to John than she’d ever felt to Tom. In retrospect, it had nothing to do with her. Despite Tom’s claims that she’d changed…no, she hadn’t. Not before the day he’d dropped the bomb on her. She wasn’t doing much different now than she had with Tom.

  If anything, she’d been more reticent with John than she had with Tom, her emotional scorching at Tom’s hands freshly burned into her soul. Especially at first.

  Tom had always tried to steer their dynamic the way he wanted it to go. Doing the things he wanted to do, asking for the things he wanted. With very little concern about what it was she wanted as his Dominant.

  A do-me sub.

  That difference was like night and day with John. He only asked when those conversations came up. Otherwise, his entire existence outside of work had been to take care of her and her needs, without her asking most of the time, either as a submissive or a Dominant. Learning her likes and dislikes in a way she realized Tom never had. When Abbey said something, even if just in passing, John took it as law unless she changed it.

  No reminders needed, no goading, no prodding to get something done. And, no expectations of her. He was a self-starting submissive. The energy levels she needed to be John’s Domme were far different, much lower than she’d needed for Tom, who sometimes liked highly scripted scenes that took more emotional energy out of her than she’d ever realized before now. Playing with Tom had always drained her.

  Playing with John replenished her emotional batteries.

  And George liked him. That didn’t hurt at all. John appeared to genuinely like George, too, and was always making improvements to Tortoise Town. It seemed like every day he added something, expanded it, improved it.

  Other than initially helping her assemble George’s enclosure, Tom had limited his engagement to washing out food and water bowls after Abbey got hurt.

  Not to mention every time she turned around, it seemed John had bought some little tortoise or turtle knickknack to add to their home. And he’d gone on Etsy and bought George a costume, a little crocheted shark fin specifically made for tortoises from a vendor who made other costumes for tortoises.

  He’d also long since unpacked all her boxes from the move, blending all their belongings.

  Moving many of her clothes into the master bedroom.

  Their lives, much as their dynamic, were enmeshed in such a way that while they were two distinct and whole people, they mixed and merged, sometimes with no clear delineation where one ended and the other began.

  For her part, Abbey loved it. In her heart she felt this was her forever, the way it should be, even if she never married John.

  John lived for that quiet, ever-present service, even though it benefitted him, too. Cooking and cleaning and making sure her laundry was folded the way she liked it folded, not just folding it however he wanted.

  The effortless way he could step into Dominant mode himself when she needed him. How even in his service and submissive mode, that same dominance also occupied everything he did. Before this, even though Abbey knew plenty of switches, she’d never thought of herself as one. She’d assumed herself to be a Dominant after spending time as a submissive when she first entered the lifestyle.

  Maybe I just needed the right man to flip my switchy switch.

  John definitely fit that bill.

  It was a Saturday night when they headed off to Venture. They had been working out in the yard and missed the weekly dinner at Sigalo’s when they got distracted shopping online for new plants for George’s enclosure.

  They arrived at Venture a little after nine o’clock. Tilly spotted them almost immediately when they walked through the door, and came over to give them both hugs before getting distracted by someone else. Then Abbey helped John lace up his leather hood. He still wanted that extra level of protection for his identity when he was going to bottom to her at the club. He’d already applied the heavy kohl eyeliner before they left the house.

  She wouldn’t deny there was something sexy about watching him get ready, the way he almost had a ritual about it.

  Maybe one day she’d feel comfortable subbing to him at the club, but not yet.

  She wanted to get to that point. If John was willing to Top her in public.

  Hell, first they’d have to break the news to her friends so they didn’t get bombarded with questions about it when they did.

  They were standing and talking with Seth and Leah, Abbey holding onto John’s arm, when from the upstairs play space they heard
the sound of a violet wand and a vibrator both shut off, followed by female moans that turned into screams of frustration, and then by muttered male swearing.

  Tony walked by. “Hey, Gilo, can you give us a hand? I think something just blew up there. And not in the good way.”

  Now that Abbey looked, she saw a couple of smaller lights that were usually lit in the upstairs space weren’t on, either.

  “Sure,” he said, turning to Abbey. She spotted his smile under his hood. “May I?”

  She patted him on the cheek, loving the way the leather of his hood felt soft and warm under her hand. “Have fun, engineer dude.”

  He leaned in and kissed her before following Tony and Seth upstairs.

  Tilly walked up. “What happened?” She looked toward the upstairs area.

  Leah laughed. “I think someone got interrupted mid-play.”

  “I think someone got interrupted mid-orgasm,” Abbey said.

  “Dammit, I hate it when that happens,” Tilly said. “That’s just not right.”

  “The club’s electrical system is a sadist,” Leah said. “Who knew? Tease and denial.”

  The women laughed, watching as upstairs the men started moving things to get to the electrical circuit panel to figure out what had happened.

  Abbey’s attention was focused up there when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  Not thinking anything of it, she turned, then had to clamp down on a startled scream of anger.

  Tom.

  Standing there, as handsome as ever, with that slightly playful, slightly mischievous look he’d wear when he was angling for a spanking by being bratty on purpose.

  She’d always hated when he did that. She’d known better than to reward the behavior, but sometimes it was easier to give in than to go through what needed to happen, a talk, followed by genuine discipline of the not-fun kind, like having him hold a quarter against the wall with his nose or something appropriately childish for a grown man acting like a child.

  All these thoughts flitted through her mind at the same time she realized how dumb she’d been to waste those years with Tom, when during that time the perfect man, a real man, had been right under her nose.

  “Hey, Abbey.”

  “Oh no you didn’t,” Tilly growled, lunging.

  It took Abbey and Leah both struggling to hold her back before Cris and Landry saw what was going on and ran over to grab her.

  “You fucker!” Tilly screamed, kicking out at Tom and narrowly missing his nuts as she twisted in her men’s arms. “You goddamned son of a bitch, you dare show your fucking face here after what the hell you did?”

  “I came to talk to Abbey, not you, Tilly.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Guys,” Abbey said to Cris and Landry, her heart racing. “Please, get her out of here before she…” Wait, why was she making them hold her back?

  Right. Prison orange is not Tilly’s color.

  She turned back to Tom, forcing her own fists to unclench. “So you’re here. What do you want?”

  “Can we go somewhere private and talk?”

  “No.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared up at him with full-on Domme ’tude. “You want to talk, we do it here.”

  “I tried to call you a couple of times.”

  “I know. You never left a message.”

  “Why didn’t you pick up?”

  “Because I didn’t want to talk to you. What do you want?”

  Tilly still ranted and raved, but Landry must have tossed Cris on the sword and made him cover her mouth with his hand, because her voice suddenly sounded muffled. Abbey didn’t turn to see.

  “Look, I’m back in town for a week to do some stuff. I wanted to see if we could get together and talk. I have a great job out there. I could afford to move you out there with me.”

  Even Leah, who normally provided an even keel to Tilly’s ferocious temper, made what sounded like a growl from where she stood next to Abbey.

  “So what happened to that woman you were going out there to meet?” Abbey asked.

  Here he had the decency to look embarrassed. “It didn’t work out. She was looking for someone to support her. Not a partner.”

  “How ironic.”

  “Look, please, can we go and talk? I’m sorry. I was wrong to leave you—”

  John spoke up from behind Abbey. “You’re goddamned right you were.”

  Abbey turned. John, his hood off and in his hand, stormed over between them, getting in Tom’s face as he herded Tom back and away from Abbey.

  John’s voice dropped, sounding low and dangerous. “Tom, you need to turn yourself around and get the fuck out of here before I do something that’s going to require a lot of stitches on your part, and a lot of bail money on mine.”

  Holy…fuck!

  If it hadn’t been for the fact that they were in the club, Abbey would have ripped John’s pants off and either blown or fucked him silly right there. She knew her panties had instantly soaked through, her clit throbbing at his commanding tone of voice.

  Tom, clueless as always, made the mistake of smiling. “Gilo?” He let out a laugh of disbelief. “Seriously? What the fuck are you going to do? I’m here to talk to Abbey, not you. I don’t know what the hell you think you’re going to—”

  John dropped the hood, grabbed Tom by the shirt, bodily lifted him, and slammed him into the wall, holding him a good couple of inches off the ground.

  “Because,” John said, “she’s mine. You don’t talk to her, you don’t fucking call her, you don’t so much as look at her without my permission.”

  “What the—”

  John slammed Tom against the wall again, cutting him off. “Do you understand me?”

  Abbey finally realized John was about to seriously cross a line. Cris let out a yelp of pain and then Tilly screamed, “Let me go so I can help John kill the son of a bitch!”

  That finally broke Abbey’s paralysis. She rushed over to John and grabbed his arm. “Please, don’t do this,” she begged. “He’s not worth it.”

  John finally let Tom go, dropping him.

  Tom, however, didn’t know when to stop running his mouth. “I’ve got news for you, asshole. You’re only a goddamned sub. She can tell me what she wants. This is between me and her, not you.”

  John grabbed Abbey, a fist in her hair and his other on her chin, his eyes boring into hers. “Tell him who you belong to, girl.”

  She nearly came right there, staring into John’s eyes. Right now they looked dark green, like a deep, shadowy forest.

  This man is seriously getting laid when we get home.

  “I belong to You, Sir,” she said, forgetting that the rest of the club even existed.

  Around her, she belatedly realized that except for the music, the club had gone silent and still, everyone watching the confrontation play out.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Tilly said. “Abbey’s turned full switch!”

  * * * *

  Oh, fuck. I’m sooo getting beaten in the bad way when we get home.

  John kissed Abbey, hoping she’d forgive him for outing their other sides like that in front of everyone. He hadn’t meant to do it, but the sight of Tom had enraged him so much, and then the brass fucking balls the guy had, that it just poured out of him, unbidden.

  When John tried to release Abbey, to salvage the situation, she wouldn’t let go of his arm. It was only when he felt the downward pressure, her tugging on his hand, that he realized she wanted him to help her onto her knees.

  “I’m Yours, Sir,” she said, looking up at him. “This girl belongs to You. And You know what? I don’t care who knows it. I’m done worrying about what anyone thinks. I’m Yours, and you’re Mine.”

  His cock hardened in his pants.

  Okay. So when we get home I’m fucking her first, then she can beat my ass.

  It’d be worth every goddamned cane stroke.

  He stood next to her, his hand fisted in her hair, her cheek pressed against his thi
gh, and stared at Tom.

  “She is my slave. And I’m hers. We belong to each other. Any questions, asshole? Or should I ask Landry and Cris to let Tilly loose? You have no idea the revenge fantasies that feisty little nurse has been cooking up for you, and frankly, I’d love to see her kick your goddamned ass.”

  Tom looked from Abbey to him and back again. Finally, Tony and Seth pushed their way through the crowd that had gathered, grabbed Tom by the arms, and hauled him toward the door leading out to the lobby.

  Only when Tom was gone did John look down at Abbey, almost afraid of what he’d see on her face.

  He didn’t expect the sublime, peaceful smile.

  He knelt in front of her, cradling her face in his hands, and kissed her. A round of applause started at one end of the room and before long, everyone had gathered around them, congratulating them.

  “Sorry I outed us, baby” he whispered.

  She smiled. “Wasn’t exactly how I’d envisioned breaking the news to everyone, but turns out I’m good with it.”

  He stood and helped her to her feet as Tilly hurried over, Landry and Cris following.

  Cris was cradling his left hand against his chest. “She fucking bit me, Abbey. Someone owes me.”

  “Oh, shut up, you big baby,” Tilly scolded, throwing her arms around Abbey and John. “I didn’t even break the skin. Not like I have rabies or something.”

  “Are you sure?” Leah teased.

  Tilly kissed Abbey on the cheek, then John. She smiled up at him. “You know, I think I like you.”

  “You think?”

  She let out a laugh, then wrapped both her arms around him for a crushing hug. “Hey,” she whispered in his ear. “I have an image to maintain. Can it be our little secret?”

  He laughed, releasing her so she could turn and focus on Abbey. Tony and Seth returned and got a quick rundown on what had started the fracas.