by Joey W. Hill
He swallowed hard. He was apparently having some kind of Dom-space moment himself, losing his mind to…whatever this was. Time to focus. His girl needed care.
He took her out and dried her. She moved however he needed her to move, loose, relaxed, her brown-green-gold eyes never leaving him. He bundled her in a soft robe. Because the room was intended for aftercare sessions, there was a comfortable reclining chair. He carried her to it. When he sank into the generous cushioning, holding her in his lap, he rested his head against the back of the chair. As she nestled deeper into his hold, releasing a little sigh, he felt an unusual and rare feeling.
Contentment. He was content, the two of them just being here, together. Nothing else required except holding onto one another.
Wolf had played with a lot of subs. Even done things with them like he was doing right now. So it was unexpected to feel the same act differently. Even more unexpected to get a memory flash. Particularly one of his freaking grandmother.
Grandma in her kitchen, her apron dusted with flour, telling him she could bake a cake with the same ingredients every time, and yet sometimes it would turn out better than other times, even if it was always good.
“Something about that time makes it memorable, boy. Maybe it’s the taste, maybe it’s what’s happening when you eat it, a good memory. Something you wish could last forever, even as you can't help downing that last bite and licking all the crumbs off the plate like a hound dog.”
Then she’d winked and told him, “That’s why you always want to bake another. See if you can make it happen again. But that kind of goodness is up to God, not you.”
Other subs had been willing to give him all of themselves. It was the intensity of the moment, something to be expected if things came together as they should.
It didn't mean that they understood one another far deeper than that, a level that stuck with him long after the session was over. Made him want to take that sub home, put her in his bed, wrap himself around her and keep her with him, because something about her had bonded with something deep in him.
Somehow, without knowing anything important about him, Ella had recognized who he was at his core in a way he couldn’t deny, to her or himself. It didn’t change anything, but it was a sweet, heartbreaking gift. Another punishment for his unforgivable sins.
He'd learned a long time ago that words couldn't describe the human condition, what drove them down the paths they walked. Attempts to do so only fell short. But when it was felt, no words were needed.
He couldn’t have this one. Didn't deserve her. But in this moment, he wasn't going to think about that, because he wanted her too damn much to deal with the self-flagellation bullshit that he truly wished was bullshit.
He’d chosen being a vampire over being with the family who needed him, and the consequences of that had been severe.
There was no therapy that made that okay—or forgivable.
Chapter Eleven
“Tomorrow, I can’t be that for you.”
He’d made it clear. Made sure she understood and accepted. She’d been in that position before.
Well, not exactly in that position. She’d realized something deeply frightening the night she and Wolf parted ways, just before dawn.
She’d never felt this way about any man. Worse, she was certain he felt just as strongly about her. But for whatever reason, he wouldn’t let himself have her. No matter that she’d offer all of herself to him again in a moment.
One thing love didn’t have was pride. But it sure as hell required self-respect.
Over the next week Ella held to that mantra, even when it felt like it was shredding her insides. She respected his space as she always did. She didn’t reach out, didn’t try to contact him on the club forum, though she checked her own messages way too many times. She wouldn’t approach him without invitation, and he didn’t invite.
Their schedules overlapped at Atlantis on Monday. When he arrived and passed through the second level bar area—the first time she’d seen him since the carnival—she offered a warm smile when his eyes met hers. She didn’t let it falter, at least not on the outside, when he didn’t smile back.
But he did stop, consider her from head to toe, an unreadable appraisal that nevertheless filled her with longing and warmth. At some point, he had left that list of exercises in her locker. She was doing them. She wondered if he could tell already. She certainly could, the first morning after she’d done them.
If anything proved she felt differently for him than any other Master she’d served, it was her willingness to do abdominal crunches at his command.
She held onto the wry humor, needing it. After that one lingering moment, he readjusted his hold on his tool bag and disappeared. Probably to the private room where he’d be doing one of his BDSM therapy sessions tonight. She made herself turn away, back to the glasses she was helping Lars dry. He said the dishwasher didn’t clean off the spots, and they needed to sparkle when drinks were poured in them.
Anwyn hired people with the same motto about running a successful business as she did. Every detail mattered.
There were times that personality trait was a pain in the ass. Like when it had her thinking over that look Wolf gave her, every possible meaning it could have, until her brain was tired.
“Wolf’s going to have a rough one tonight,” Stan said. He was sitting on a bar stool, swiping through his evening notes on his tablet. “I remember the guest from last time. Pretty much demolished the room.”
“Wolf didn’t ask for reinforcements?” Lars asked, with a smirk that said he already knew the answer.
“He never does.” Stan grimaced. “Doesn’t need them. The guy’s a tank. Client’s a class act, though. Set up a payment plan so he could reimburse the club for the damage.”
“Oh, yeah. Don. Damn.” Lars shook his head, continued drying. “So that’s why Buddy in Maintenance was replacing what’s normally in that room with some cheap secondhand stuff. Boss lady ain’t no fool.”
“She sure isn’t. But that was Wolf’s doing,” Stan said dryly. “He might be a tank, but he has a healthy respect for her. Remember a few months back, when she took a plug out of him for that guest who pulled a spanking bench out of the floorboards of the Velvet Room? The oak floor had to be repaired and the bench had to be replaced, because the base cracked. Guy he strapped down on that had to be an animal.”
Ella remembered that “animal.” Rand. She didn’t know if it had been a scene name or his real name, but he was the alpha male primal Lars had mentioned, only a few days ago. She recalled long brown hair, jeans that fit just right and peculiar eyes, blue with flecks of gold. The male’s physique had been as formidable as Wolf’s. Like all the staff, she would have donated a limb to be a fly on the wall for that session, but if it had been recorded, Anwyn hadn’t been willing to share, as she sometimes did to instruct the staff on a technique or safety point.
The guest coming tonight elicited different feelings. Sadness. Don was a compact male with restless eyes and a tiredness to his movements, as if his body was a ponderous prison. He had no obvious injuries, but he’d been honorably discharged after returning from service in the Middle East. His PTSD symptoms apparently had been too severe to approve him for continued military service.
He lived in a one-room dive since his divorce. The night of his destructive visit, his wife had been awarded full custody of the kids, because neither she nor the courts felt the children were safe around him anymore.
While every guest’s privacy was respected to the utmost degree outside of Atlantis, the staff usually knew a great deal about everyone who spent time within these walls. Part of it was intentional and driven by safety. The staff had been made aware of Don’s situation, because if he decided to exercise a guest’s right to wander the public floors before or after his session, they needed to be watchful for any flags in his behavior and get ahead of it.
When Wolf initially vetted him, he did a risk assessment with Anwyn tha
t resulted in her standing direction to the staff about Don. “When he’s not under Wolf’s direct supervision, we all need to keep an eye on him,” she’d said. “If his stress level appears to be escalating, get security involved. They’ve been trained and advised how to best help Don, without exacerbating the situation or endangering other guests. Otherwise, treat him as you would treat anyone else. This needs to be a safe space for him, as much as we can manage it without endangering anyone else.”
Ella had sat next to Don at the bar one night, chatted with him. He watched a lot of TV now, finding it hard to get off the couch, so they discussed a couple series she liked and had binge-watched. One of them was one he also liked, Veronica Mars. Since then, she was one of the few staff members he acknowledged when he came in, and sometimes sat with afterward. Wolf required that he stick around a half hour after aftercare, to ensure he was in the right headspace to go home. Sometimes he wasn’t, and Wolf took him.
She made a mental note to be around after they were done if Don wanted to hang out. It gave her something to anticipate, and distracted her from the overwhelming urge to seek Wolf out, hop into his arms to see if he’d hold her, or let her help, or do anything to allow her to be near him.
She shouldn’t have gone there, even in her head, damn it. The feeling swamped her, and she closed her eyes, hunching tighter over the glass so no one would see the hurt that clogged her throat, the tears in her eyes. Damn it, damn it. She needed to get out of here tonight, not stick around. She was way too aware of the other session Wolf had scheduled tonight, after Don’s. A woman who wanted a public session, not a therapy thing.
For a male who so rarely did scenes with women, here he was, having two in a month. Murphy’s law sucked. Ella resolved she’d be gone before then. She was strong, but even she had her limits.
It wasn’t jealousy. If Wolf could be with Ella, she would delight in watching him exercise his remarkable skills with paid clients and even those members he scened with on the house, just because he embraced his Dominant side and enjoyed whatever appealing challenge they presented to him. She understood the difference between a club session and the kind of sub a Dom wanted to take home with him.
She surely did.
Why did she still smell him on her skin, days later? She could hear his voice in her head, feel his touch. Her heart was going to explode out of her chest, and her throat was tight.
“Ella.”
Lars touched her hand, but she wouldn’t look up. A bar napkin came under her field of vision. “Getting new water spots on my glass, honey,” he said gently. “Did your heart get broken again?”
She took the napkin. “It mends,” she said.
“Ain’t that the truth. Mine probably looks like a jigsaw puzzle by now.” He stroked her hair, and she let herself accept the comfort, even as she thought of another hand, a much larger one, the heat and strength of it. “Hey, a group of us are going to play cards tonight in the break room, after closing. Join us and then crash at my place tonight. It’s closest.”
“Okay. Maybe I will. Thanks.”
It frustrated her, when she couldn’t work herself out of a funk. Unfortunately, it only worsened as the evening progressed. Don arrived, gave her a nod. He didn’t look in the best of shape, which should have given her a kick in the ass, a reminder that her pining for a male who’d made her no promises he couldn’t keep was not the world’s biggest problem. She wasn’t even sure if Don had changed his clothes or showered recently. He headed for the back with barely a wave. Hopefully Wolf would talk him into using the club facilities to take a shower after his session.
She wondered how it played out between them. She’d assisted in a couple therapy sessions, talked to Dominants who did them, and had read up on it online, but like anything else in their world, it could fluidly take a lot of forms. Re-creation of the stressor, restraints or pain to let go, other psychological mindfucks that were intended to help with healing or confronting emotional wounds. The one in therapy might be a top or a bottom; sometimes that didn’t matter to how the therapy rolled out, though the therapist retained control of the direction of the session, no matter the roles played.
Wolf always blocked off a couple hours for Don. Ella intended to avoid the private room hallway like a plague until well after he was done. But, proving again that Murphy was her fucking arch nemesis tonight, at the end of hour one, Sabrina radioed the bar to ask if Ella was there. She wanted to know if Ella would watch the concierge desk while she took a thirty-minute break to eat a late dinner and handle some family stuff.
Every private room was well stocked with essentials—towels, bottled water, soap—but a Dom could press a call button if he or she discovered a need for an extra pair of hands, or a supply that wasn’t in there. With the concierge desk centrally located in the hallway, they could get those things without breaking scene, or leaving their sub personally unattended. It was also a one-push method to summon emergency help if needed.
When the rooms were occupied by more experienced Doms, there was usually little to do at the desk, since they usually came prepared or were less likely to have a situation get out of hand. Sabrina confirmed it when Ella arrived. “It’s been quiet. We only have four rooms occupied tonight, and they’re all regulars. Though there was a moment where I was a little concerned about Wolf’s. It sounded like they were coming through the wall once or twice, but it’s settled down.”
Ella nodded. “Don’s sessions can get loud, even with the sound buffering.”
“So I’d heard. I just hadn’t experienced it directly.” Sabrina gave her a quick smile. “I’ll be back soon. I just need to check in with my son. I have to confirm he’s done his homework before he can start his pre-bedtime marathon of video games. We have a rule that he has to wait for my call.”
“Are you sure you’re a sub? That sounds like some serious Dom sadist stuff.”
“You’d think so, from hearing him complain about it.” Sabrina grinned. “Why do you think I look forward to my sessions with my Master here? A blissful two hours where I don’t have to be in charge of a twelve-year-old boy, which I’m pretty sure is harder than controlling the universe.”
Ella chuckled and waved her off. “If you run longer than thirty minutes, don’t worry about it. I have nothing scheduled tonight.”
“Thanks, Ella.”
After Sabrina departed, Ella sat down at the desk and took out her dog-eared paperback. The call signals had a loud tone, so she could read and not be concerned that she would miss one. The desk didn’t have monitor access to the rooms, something only Anwyn or the security team were allowed. Though situations like what Sabrina described about Wolf’s room could heighten concerns, they all had faith that security knew their job. If Wolf was in trouble, they’d have already been here. If Don was in distress he couldn’t handle, Wolf would call for assistance even faster.
Ella propped her sneakered feet on the edge of the desk, putting herself in her favored U-shape where her knees could become the book prop. As she’d told Sabrina, she didn’t have any sessions planned, so she was in casual wear tonight, intending only to be waitstaff and do things like this. Tonight in particular, she was sincerely glad Anwyn never pushed her Doms or subs to pick up walk-in paid sessions when things didn’t feel right.
She’d read two chapters, and was getting pleasantly immersed in the book, a welcome distraction, when the desk panel beeped. Between her toes, she saw it was Room Three.
Of course it was Room Three. Wolf’s room.
If Murphy had been present for her to send him a really dirty look, she would have seared him down to his Fate-induced hypothetical essence. “Yes, sir?”
“I need—”
A howl drowned out whatever Wolf had been about to say, followed by a crash that came through the mic like static. She heard a scream, then a grunt of pain. The connection went silent.
The scream had been Don, uncontrolled and full of rage. The pain was Wolf’s.
She was out of th
e chair and headed down the hall before she thought, but she recalled herself enough to spin, run back to the desk and hit the button for security. The longest two seconds of her life happened before Stan answered.
“What—”
“Room Three. Wolf’s in trouble, or the guest is.” Then she was running down the hall. She could hear Don still screaming, though it was heavily muffled through the insulated walls.
She reached the door, just as it vibrated from a heavy impact. She skidded to a halt, knowing that she needed to stop, listen, get some cues. Interrupting a session without the Dom’s specific invitation was extremely bad etiquette in a normal situation, and could be catastrophic for a therapy session. But she heard that grunt of pain in her mind again, and decided she was damn well taking it as an invitation.
She reached for the latch, at the same moment the door was yanked open. Don charged through, wild-eyed, face streaked with tears. His surprisingly hard-muscled body was stripped down to his boxers. His arm whipped forward, and she saw a heavy wooden paddle coming toward her face.
She ducked and rolled, the wood glancing her cheek and shooting pain through her head. Don had moved with her, and they fell together. She realized in a heartbeat she was fighting a man who knew how to fight. From his crazed eyes, it was clear he was seeing an enemy, not her. He lifted the paddle again. She grabbed at his arm with both hands, knowing she didn’t have the strength to stop him, but maybe she could slow him down. And she still had her voice.
