by Eden Bradley
“Hey. I’m right here, baby. I’m not going anywhere right now.”
He kissed her hair, and it made her heart squeeze. She brought their twined fingers to her lips and kissed his.
“See? It’s all good,” he said.
But was it? She wanted things between them to be good—what was happening now, what might happen down the road. She needed it to be, which wasn’t the smartest thing, perhaps, given the way Mick had run from her in the past. Maybe the “need” part was because they’d just played. Maybe she was bottoming out a bit. But whatever the reason, she couldn’t help herself. Logic and emotion didn’t always play well together. She just hoped she could get the logical part to even have a place in the game.
CHAPTER
Eight
MICK WALKED INTO Flynn McCool’s, a favorite pub of his friends and brothers. They’d all been glad the bar managed to reopen after Katrina.
His bootheels scuffed on the weathered hardwood floor as he moved through the place and found Jamie at the bar. He settled onto a stool next to his friend.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Jamie answered with a lift of his chin toward the bartender. “A Guinness for the gentleman.”
“Yeah, I’m hardly that.”
“True enough.”
He could tell Jamie had already finished one beer and started another, even though it was only noon—his deeply buried Scottish accent only came out when he drank, or on those rare occasions when he was really pissed off. He was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything to piss Jamie off lately. At least, not this week.
The bartender filled a tall mug and passed it to Mick.
“Thanks.” He turned to Jamie. “So, what’s up?”
“Just checking in with you about last night,” Jamie said. “I’ve already talked to Allie and she’s pretty closemouthed. Tell me what’s up with you two.”
“You know what I really hate, aside from your tendency to have your nose up everyone’s ass?”
“That’s not one of my particular fetishes, but go on.”
“I hate that I can’t fucking tell you to go to hell because you’re our damn negotiator.”
“And your friend,” Jamie reminded him.
“Yeah.” Mick paused to take a swig of the dark ale. “So you’re doing the responsible thing, is that it?”
“Nice to see you, too, buddy. Want to tell me why you’re in such a foul mood?” Jamie asked.
“Me? I’m fine. You’re the one drowning your sorrows. What’s up? Something at the shop?”
Jamie wrapped a hand around his mug, lifted it and took a long gulp. “May twentieth.”
“Yeah? And?”
His friend cast him a sideways glance and Mick remembered—the anniversary of his brother’s death. Was he a selfish bastard thinking of himself after all Jamie had lost? He already knew the answer.
“Shit, Jamie. Sorry, man. How many years is it?”
“Twenty-three. I can’t even believe it’s been that long since I’ve seen Ian. Although I guess he would look just like me, wouldn’t he?”
“I’m sorry,” Mick repeated, not sure what else to say.
“Trying not to be too morose. Especially after all these years. But there’s that twin thing you hear about, you know? It’s true, what people say.”
Mick clapped Jamie on the back. “You going to be okay?”
“Yeah. Just need a few drinks today. And I will again in a couple of months when it’s the anniversary of Brandon’s accident. But by tomorrow I’ll be back on track. Everyone’s allowed a black day now and then, right?”
“Right. Sure.” Mick grimaced, wondering if people were allowed black decades.
“So, distract me with the scandal that is whatever’s going on between you and Allie.”
“Said like a true reality TV whore.”
“Ice Road Truckers does not a whore make, my friend,” Jamie protested.
“I’m sure there are a few along that road.”
“Probably. Quit stalling and spill.”
Mick hesitated. “What did Allie tell you?”
“That as your best friend I’d better talk to you first.”
He grinned. “Good girl.”
Jamie set his beer down with a thud. “Jesus, Mick, just tell me what the hell went on so I can get on with my drinking.”
“Okay, fine.” He paused to sip his beer. “We went to the club and had some good play. Great, actually. Then we went back to her place. I left this morning only after making sure she wasn’t in subdrop. She was fine. She promised me she was fine.”
Jamie frowned. “Now tell me what’s in between the lines.”
He had to blow out a breath. “We’re . . . talking about being together. Just trying it out, seeing where we’re both at.”
“Can you expand on that?”
“I’d rather not.”
“No kidding. Do it anyway,” Jamie demanded. “Because I need to know if Allie really is all right.”
“Do you think I’d be here if she wasn’t?” Mick exploded, then reined himself in. “Fuck. Sorry.”
“Buddy, you are bent way the hell out of shape.”
“It was your idea to bring us back together.” Mick knew he was being childish, and he sighed, reaching for his beer. “And yeah, maybe I am bent. I don’t know what the hell is going to happen. I’m not sure what I want to happen. I’m just going with it for now.”
“That is such crap.”
“Fuck you, Jamie,” Mick muttered into his beer mug before he took a long gulp.
Jamie only shook his head at him.
“Okay, fine. I don’t know where my head is at when it comes to her. It’s too damn soon to tell. I don’t intend to hurt her if that’s what you’re worried about—”
“It is.”
“I get that. But what am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Back off and never see her again because I don’t know where we’ll end up? Would that be any better?”
“I don’t know. Would it?” Jamie asked.
Mick scrubbed at his chin. “I’m trying to figure it out, okay? Don’t ride me about this, Jamie,” he warned. “I’m doing the best I can.”
“You still have feelings for her,” Jamie stated.
“And you still have an uncanny gift for stating the obvious.”
Despite all the years of his attempts at denial, he knew he’d never been able to hide how he felt about Allie from his best friend. Hell, he hadn’t done a good job of hiding it from himself.
Jamie lowered his voice. “Mick, just don’t drag this on too long if you can’t carry through. That’s all I’m asking. Don’t hurt her any more than you have to.”
He nodded. “I feel like a bastard already for even being with her. I’d feel like a bastard if I refused her. There’s no good way out of this.”
Except that despite all his bluster he wasn’t sure he wanted out. Being with her felt too damn good to stop. Being with her, playing her, having her submit to him.
He understood his own limitations. He knew he’d had his walls up last night, this morning. He’d had to. Was it fair to her that challenging his limits was a sort of experiment for him? That he really didn’t have any idea how it would turn out?
“Hell, Jamie, this is all new to me. You two sprang it on me—and I’m not saying that to hit you over the head with it, okay? Just stating a fact. But I wasn’t ready for it. Not that I haven’t thought of being with Allie again, which I’m sure you know, but that was just fantasy material. Until now. Now it’s damn real, and I have Allie to be responsible for, without knowing what I’m even fucking capable of these days, outside of the BDSM arena.”
“Yeah, I get it, Mick.”
He took another gulp of his beer. “I don’t k
now if I can give her what she wants. But I don’t know if I can stop. It’s a tug-of-war in my head.”
No, he couldn’t stop now. Having had this taste of Allie—of Allie as a woman, rather than a girl—was something he couldn’t resist.
No, he wasn’t about to stop.
* * *
ALLIE SWUNG OPEN the back door to Marie Dawn’s house and walked into the cozy blue-and-white kitchen.
“Hi, honey, I’m home!” she called out as she let the screen door shut behind her.
Her best friend came in from the dining room and immediately wrapped Allie in a warm hug.
“Allie, chérie, I’ve missed you! I’m so sorry I couldn’t make lunch yesterday. If it had been anything other than an emergency with grand-mère . . . I feel terrible that it turned out to be nothing more than a little indigestion.”
“You had no way of knowing—it’s fine. And I’ve missed you, too.” She pulled away and held Marie Dawn at arm’s length. “And look how gorgeous your hair is! It’s almost to your waist. I love it.”
“So does Neal,” her friend said, beaming.
Mick’s brother Neal and Marie Dawn had eloped when she was still in college, and they were still as crazy about each other as they’d been the day they said their vows.
Must be nice.
“Let me get you some coffee. How hungry are you? I have a nice Niçoise salad ready, but I’m dying to hear everything.”
Allie sat down at the painted white kitchen table and let Marie Dawn place a cup of coffee in front of her while she tried to organize the chaos whirling around in her brain. She’d lied to Mick that morning when she’d told him she was fine. And either she’d done a great job of it, or he’d been anxious enough to get away that he’d accepted it. Maybe a little of both.
“Everything is a lot,” she said, playing with her coffee mug.
Marie Dawn sat down across from her. “Okay. Pick a place and start.”
Allie blew out a breath. “Well . . . Mick came to my place to pick me up, and things started to happen right away. I mean, it was obvious who was in charge from that first moment. And I liked it. I’m not complaining. We had an amazing scene at the club. Everything went really smoothly.” She laughed. “Well, not smoothly, maybe. The play was a little too rough for that to be the right word. But I know you don’t really want to know that part.”
Marie Dawn smiled. “Nope. The sexy stuff with my brother-in-law I don’t need to hear. I’ll just mentally fill in the blanks. Or not. Go on.”
“So, during aftercare we talked . . . and it was good. Honest. More honest than we’ve ever been, probably. I made him talk to me about what had gone wrong with us. In high school, and after that night we spent together later.”
“And?”
Allie bit her lip. “And . . . I asked him if we could start again. I didn’t expect to blurt it out the way I did, and I think he was surprised, too. Although neither of us should be, I suppose. I wouldn’t have forced this whole thing if that wasn’t at least part of my intention. And he wouldn’t have accepted—and he certainly wouldn’t have come back for a second round after that first night—if that weren’t part of his intention, too. At least I think so. Things got a little confusing later, but at the club after the scene we really talked. And he admitted a few things to me—things I’d already suspected, for the most part. About us. About how he felt after his accident. I knew it changed him, but I never really saw how deeply breaking his leg, having the rod surgery, the permanent limp, damaged him, maybe because I only actually saw him once after that.”
Marie Dawn nodded pensively. “I knew he never got over not being able to be a firefighter. Neal and I have talked about it. The whole family is aware of it. They’ve always been careful not to guilt-trip him about it.”
“They don’t need to—I think he does enough of that himself. He feels so ashamed. Because of the family, and because of that family pride in New Orleans, being a part of it.”
“Which is crazy,” Marie Dawn said. “I told you how much volunteer work he did after Katrina. For three years he worked on rebuilding people’s homes with Jamie’s brother, Allister. He still volunteers once in a while if a particular project comes up. It’s not as if he’s never paid his dues to this city. He likes to pretend he’s a badass, with all that bare-knuckle boxing stuff and his leather jackets, but he’s as good a citizen as any of his brothers.”
“I know. But he’s obviously never gotten over it. It’s really shaped how he feels about himself. And maybe how he feels about me.”
“In the past, or now?”
“Both, maybe. Because things were going really beautifully last night and then he just . . . turned away from me. Literally. Everything was amazing and . . . beautiful. And then he wouldn’t look at me anymore.”
Tears burned in her eyes, and she pressed against them with both hands.
Marie Dawn put a hand on her arm. “Oh, no, chérie, my sweet, please don’t be so sad. Men can be stupid creatures. Believe me, I know—I’ve been married to one for ten years.”
Allie had to smile. She took her hands away from her face and grasped both of her friend’s. “You’re right. And Mick’s stubborn as hell, too—a combination that scares me. But I know if I turn away we won’t have a chance.”
“It’s often the woman who has to take care of a relationship. And that’s my sexist comment for the day. But I think you’ll need to if you two are going to have a shot at being together. Because to get Mick to admit he’s afraid of anything will be pretty much impossible.”
Allie rolled her eyes. “That’s for sure. I just have to hang in there and see how this all plays out, I guess.”
“You can do it. You’re one of the strongest people I know.”
“I don’t always feel strong. But I’m trying.”
“When are you seeing him again?”
Allie shrugged. She’d been wondering the same thing all morning. “I don’t know. We didn’t actually talk about it. I assumed I’d just wait to hear from him, but now I think I’ll send him an email and ask.”
“Sweetie, just call him and demand his time.” Her friend tapped her temple. “Stupid, remember?”
Allie laughed. “I remember. Okay, I’ll call him.”
“Good. And when you talk to him, you can tell him I think he’s an idiot who’s too blind to see what’s right in front of his face.”
“How about I leave that to you? You’re family. And he won’t threaten to spank you.”
“I thought you liked that?”
She grinned. “Oh, I do.”
The banter with her best friend was cheering her up. So was the idea that she could take back some of the control in the situation by initiating her next meeting with Mick. She was going to have to in order to work past his walls, and maybe her own, too. Only time together would tell. If she had to force that time with him, she would. Dom or not, the ball was going to be in her court, and Mick would have to play by her rules for a while.
* * *
ALLIE HAD SPENT the rest of the afternoon organizing the PowerPoint presentation she was putting together for the Dolcetti expansion. Knowing the stubborn streak that ran in her family, she understood it was a long shot, but it was important to her to try—it was something she’d thought about and wanted to do since she’d first started culinary school. It was why she’d gone to learn the art of pastry to begin with. And putting her business plan together was also an excellent way to distract herself from the circling thoughts about Mick. She was dying to call and talk with him now that she’d made the decision, since he’d encouraged her to press the issue with her family, but she also knew guys usually needed some downtime to process things.
At nine o’clock she stood up from the kitchen table and stretched, poured herself a cup of dark coffee from her new French press an
d inhaled the rich aroma. Good coffee always felt like a luxury to her, one she’d become used to when living in Europe. Just because she was feeling the need for a little self-indulgence she added a spoonful of sugar before finding her cell phone and going into the bedroom to make the call. She set her coffee mug on the nightstand, sat on the bed and plumped a few pillows behind her. Why was her heart racing?
Calm down.
She did some yoga breathing before dialing Mick’s number.
“Reid here.”
“Mick, it’s me, Allie.”
“I’m glad. If it wasn’t, I’d know my caller ID was broken.”
“Oh. Yeah. Right.”
He chuckled and she closed her eyes in embarrassment.
Idiot.
“So,” she started, “I just wanted to talk to you. We haven’t done any checking in today.”
His tone sobered instantly. “You’re right. I should have. You okay?”
“Yes, fine. I hung out with Marie Dawn today, which was good. But . . . Mick, in my experience it’s always good to check in with my Top for a day or two after play, depending on how hard the play was, or the emotional response . . . if there’s another layer going on beneath the actual play. Which there is with us.”
“Fuck. You’re right and I’m sorry. Totally irresponsible of me not to call. It’s not like me. I got a call right after lunch and I’ve been wrapped up in this project all day. But I shouldn’t have let myself get too distracted to follow up.”
Follow up? Was that all she was to him—a task on his to-do list? But she knew he was covering for emotions he wasn’t ready to deal with. Making excuses. Still, it stung.
“Yes, well . . .” She didn’t know what else to say. And she realized she was a little mad, too, at his response. Or lack of response.
After a tense moment of silence, Mick swore under his breath. “Allie, look, I am sorry. I leave in the morning for a business trip. I have to go to Atlanta for a couple of days to scout out a new venue, meet with a new client. But I’ll be back on Thursday. We can see each other then.”
“Okay.”
She hadn’t meant to draw out the last syllable, hadn’t meant to sound so irritated. She was caught between the need to be honest with him and the fear of driving him away. But this wasn’t high school, or even college. And they’d both been in the kink community long enough to know how this stuff was supposed to be done. Total transparency was always the best option.
