Honey, Honey: The Cairn Series

by Rebel Carter

  “I got scared,” he’d say.

  “It’s okay. I’m glad you’re here now,” I’d reply.

  Law would take my hand in his and we’d walk down the street, hand-in-hand window shopping and ducking into a little restaurant down the street for a place we could just talk. We’d stay there for hours before we moved on with no destination in mind, the only thing on our agenda for the day would be spending time together.

  The day would be perfect.

  “You’re pathetic,” I whispered, stepping back from the mirror and grabbing my curling iron. I flipped it on and began to brush out my hair. “What the fuck, Honey?” The day dream was too much, even for me. A man like Law wouldn’t say he was sorry. He wouldn’t say something like he ‘got scared.’ This wasn’t a romance novel where the hero was just too overcome by his feelings so he ran.

  This was real life, and men like Law did not run.

  He’d left because he’d wanted to. He’d been good to me getting me home, and the orgasm? 10/10 wished it would happen again. Law had treated me right, even if I’d spent the night crying. That was on me and not the man. I took a section of hair and began to curl it, eyes on the strands as they heated.

  “Pathetic,” I repeated, the word echoing in my ears with the same kind of finality of the door shutting behind Law. I had heard that sound as sure as the thunder that had kept me company until I’d managed to fall asleep. I did my hair, focusing on getting the curls just right, spraying them with extra hairspray because I didn’t just need my hair to last through my shift, but also the night that I was going to spend at the Cairn. When my hair was done I went to my closet, grabbing the leather tote I used when I stayed overnight at the club, it was a dark brown, the leather of it buttery soft and I loved it. It had been a splurge for me to buy. A purchase that I reserved only for when I was indulging the side of myself I kept hidden from the world. I fingered the soft leather and stared into my closet, the smoothness of the bag beneath my fingertips calming me, reminding me of where I would be in as little as twelve hours.

  I might feel like shit right now, but I wouldn’t then. I pulled an emerald green dress, floor length with a high slit and thick straps that did fucking wonders for my modest cleavage. It would be a change for me, but the dress had been another impulse splurge. It made me look like a greek goddess, the draping of it, the flowing skirt that moved behind me when I moved. It was pure elegance and I hadn’t been able to resist buying it when I came across it at the consignment store down the street.

  The club seemed a fitting place to embrace my inner goddess. She would not be phased by a man like Law giving her an orgasm and walking out the door before she’d even stopped trembling from the aftershocks of it. The woman that would wear this dress would push it to the side and hold her head up. I snagged a pair of strappy gold heels. The strap wound it’s way delicately up my leg ending below my knee, a detail I loved. The best part was the heel was thick enough that I wouldn’t be in danger of falling over after eight hours on my feet from work. I stroked my hands over the delicate material of the dress and blew out a heavy sigh before packing it and the heels away. I added a few undergarments in case I really wanted to impress, not that it mattered because the only one I wanted to impress was myself.

  “This is for me,” I said, but I wasn’t quite convinced. I could hear it in the slight tremble of my voice. When I went to the club I normally opted for pastels, softer colors and dresses—mostly sundresses and ballet flats with hair bows and ribbons woven through my hair. But not tonight.

  I had to be different tonight. I had to act different tonight.

  It was the only way I would be able to put myself back together after my encounter with Law. An encounter that should not be affecting me like this. It was one night with a man I’d spent maybe two hours with tops, but still…

  That time spent with him had changed me. I didn’t even really understand how or why, but it had woken up the need and want to belong to someone—to this man. I hadn’t felt that in so long.

  Truthfully, I hadn’t felt much when it came to the opposite sex unless it was within the negotiated boundaries of kink. The men I met in my day-to-day never piqued my interest. Mostly because I knew they would not be able to give me what I wanted. I bit my lip, tossing a few beauty products into my bag before hitching it high onto my shoulder and slipping into my sneakers on my way out the door.

  What I wanted was unique to the patrons of the Cairn and not the men I came across in New York City. It was better that way. Less complicated, or at least as much as I could make it. Because there had been that time with...him.

  I frowned, not liking how easily I could recall his face. Christian. All smug brown eyes and shining golden hair. He’d been handsome and charming when we met at the Cairn. His personality big and open, warm in a way that had me interested in learning more about him. Interested in seeing who he was outside of his role as Dom, outside of the club.

  I had never wanted that before. We’d met the previous year when I had been eager to date. The itch to have a familiar face, a body I knew waiting for me in bed, had started to grow until it was all that I thought about when I crawled into bed at night. A girl could get by on her own, and I usually liked it, but sometimes the feel of another body was the only way to satisfy exactly what I needed.

  It had been that craving for someone else’s hands on my body that had pulled me into Christian’s gravitational force. He was like the sun, pulling everyone he met into his orbit until they revolved around him. Until he was the focus of their world. It hadn’t taken long at all for me to fall into the same holding pattern, the same obsession as everyone else when it came to Christian O’Hanon.

  He was a good Dom. An exceptional one, really. That was how I’d fallen so quickly for him, mistaking the sure way he carried himself, the deft hand as he guided us through our scenes together, the absolute confidence he invoked when he was a Dominant. All of it had snowballed together. Blinding me to the fact that we were not compatible. We were living two different lives, on two different timelines, with Christian insisting on an engagement ring I kept refusing. A whirlwind romance that would end with me married to him and us moving in together, even if we had just met two months before.

  The way he pulled at my walls and boundaries, shoving his way and his will through them had left me reeling. It felt wrong. Just like every place I had moved before finding New York. All of it, so much so that I had almost pulled up stakes and left the city. But the thing was, I loved New York City too much to leave it. I had no family and few friends, but the one thing I had was the city.

  I had New York.

  I wasn’t going to give up the place I had earned for myself to run from a man that didn’t understand no. We had begun in a place that insisted on consent and trust, boundaries and limits, as its most tried and true tenets. Christian was a man that wanted what he wanted, when he wanted it. And I was, for all my faults and mistakes, what he wanted.

  A good man would have understood my hesitation and given me time, but it turned out Christian wasn’t a particularly good man. He was, however, an incredibly selfish one. When I’d broken it off with him he had stalked me for weeks. Juana had taken to yelling at him and shaking her broom, making sure he knew he was no longer welcome in our building. Elaina and her kids made sure to keep an eye on him, glaring at him until he left when he parked across the street waiting for me to return from work. They’d called the cops on him more than once when I was out. Christian for his part stopped coming around my apartment and made a game of trying to find me at my jobs. Thanks to the random nature of BaristApp’s offerings he had only succeeded twice in nailing down exactly where I was that day. Both times I’d felt my heart in my throat when I saw his familiar handsome profile in line.

  “You have to stop,” I told him.

  “I won’t, I love you. This is what you do when you love someone.”

  He was wrong. I knew that, but some part of me started to believe it. That I
deserved this for letting him fall in love with me. That it was my fault somehow. Until we’d run into one another at the Cairn.

  Christian had been there with another submissive. They’d been tangled up in one another in the great room. The submissive giggling in his lap while he toyed with her hair, leaning into to whisper in her ear. It was harmless in a place like the club, but seeing them together had been like a bucket of cold water being thrown on me.

  She hadn’t even looked a thing like me. Blond hair, blue eyes, fair skinned and slight. My exact opposite. I think that had hurt more, somehow. Knowing that he was putting me through hell, making me look over my shoulder when I was out, making me wonder if I would have a day of peace or end up running from him, and yet...yet, he was choosing to play at the club and with a woman that could not look further from me.

  It was sick how I hated that she looked nothing like me.

  I’d gone straight to Connie and told her everything. The woman who manned the front desk was not just a receptionist. She was the right hand woman to the club’s owner, Zeus. Yes, weird name, but the man was god within the walls of the Cairn, so no one really questioned it. No one had ever seen him either.

  My money was on Connie being Zeus, because no sooner had I told her about my split from Christian—the stalking, the police reports, the unwanted visits at work, than Christian suddenly vanished from the club. When I re-entered the great room he was nowhere to be seen, his blonde though? She was there and looking pissed, but alone. I was glad her night was ruined.

  How fucked was that?

  The answer was very fucked. Very, very fucked.

  “Eight months probation. If you so much as think he’s following you, I want to know,” Connie said, holding up a finger.

  I nodded, barely able to hold her piercing gaze. “Sure thing.”

  She pointed her finger at me. “I mean it, Honey. You so much as think you see him and you tell me. He’ll pay.”

  “But-”

  She waved a hand, already turning on her heel. “Enjoy yourself. You're safe here.”

  And that had been that. Connie had taken care of him even if I didn’t know the particulars. I hadn’t seen Christian since that night. The woman had power. She had to be Zeus.

  I went to the club then freely, letting my guard down enough to slip into little space. Enough to take my pleasure with other Doms. But when the eight months mark of Christian’s probation came and went I wondered what had happened to him. Whatever it was he hadn’t reappeared in my life and that suited me just fine.

  “You shouldn’t want something like that. I’m not a good man.”

  “I’ve got no use for a good man.”

  I shut my door, the words Law had spoken to me the night before ringing in my ears. I’d told him I didn’t want a good man, but it was a lie. After Christian, all I wanted was a good man. Someone to be good to me. But that seemed to be impossible to find even in a city like New York where anything was possible. Or at least possible at a price.

  I paused, knowing the lights Law hadn’t liked were overhead. I didn’t have to look to know they were off now, light pouring in from the windows that lined the third floor far better than the old fluorescents provided and all for free. The building super fucking loved free. I was about to go down the stairs when Juana’s door flew open and the old woman poked her head out, looking at me.

  “I thought you said you were meeting a friend.”

  Fuck. She’d heard us.

  “I did meet a friend,” I said, playing it cool.

  “You said it was a woman,” she said, wagging a finger at me and I blushed hot. I shifted my bag higher on my shoulder and ducked my head.

  “I ran into that friend after dinner.” Was all I said, but Juana’s eyes narrowed at me and I knew she’d probably heard way more than I would have ever wanted her to. God, this is why I went to the Cairn and didn't bring men back to my apartment. Juana would have a fucking heart attack if she knew what I got up to. Last night had been tame. My skin prickled and I remembered Law ordering me to keep my hands flat to the table. Okay, last night was tamer than some, but not all.

  I backed away towards the stairs wanting to be anywhere but standing around chatting to my sweet neighbor lady who had probably heard me cum on Law’s face last night. And all of it during a thunderstorm that should have let me scream bloody murder and get away with it. Shit. Just how fucking loud had I been? “I gotta run, Juana. I have a-”

  “Well, he must be a good friend if he got the lights fixed this morning, mija,” she said, and I froze, one hand reaching out to steady myself on the banister.

  “My what—he did what?” I managed to splutter out. Juana padded out into the hallway, wearing a lilac housecoat and fuzzy funny slippers that swished when she walked. She pointed a bony hand above us towards the lights and I followed her finger to see that the old fluorescents and their cheap metal coverings were gone. In their place were sleek new LED track lighting that ran the length of the hallway. I turned to see that not only were the lights replaced in the hall but also all down the stairwell.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered, leaning over the banister to see that the lights went all the way down to the ground floor. “He couldn’t have.”

  “He did. He must really like you,” Juana said, coming to stand beside me. She smiled hopefully at me and patted my shoulder. “Tell him thank you, will you? It was so nice for him to do it. They came early and were very quiet.”

  “How do you know my, ah, that my friend did it?”

  “Because the work men asked for you when I wanted to know what was going on.” Her hands went to her hips and she drew her small frame up, making me laugh. Of course Juana had wanted to know just what the hell was going on and who had ordered it, even if it was an improvement to the building. She was always in the know about stuff like that. “Said that it was for Honey, courtesy of,” she paused and scrunched up her face, biting her lip, “Ay, mija, como se dice el nombre de su novio?”

  Novio.

  Fuck. Why was she pushing for me to get a man so badly? Didn’t she know that relationships were just a mess? That they could leave you scared and looking over your shoulder? Questioning your own perception until you were so messed up you were angry his new woman didn’t look like you?

  Didn’t Juana know?

  “He’s my friend,” I replied, batting away her word choice with the deftness of a tennis pro.

  Juana rolled her eyes. “Friend. Novio. He sounds Russian.”

  Yup. It had been Law all right. Sokolov was as Russian as it got around here.

  “A mister Justice Soko-love?” she tried.

  I burst into a belly laugh. “Close.”

  She shrugged and looked up, giving the new lighting a happy smile. “Tell him thank you,” she said again, hands clasped against the pretty lilac of her house dress.

  I nodded and gave her a fake smile, because I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was never seeing Law again. She looked too happy for me to tell her the truth.

  “Of course. I’ll tell him.”

  “Bueno, bueno.” She clapped her hands and then gave me a push. “Go on, or you’ll be late for work. You’re always rushing around. It’s bad for you.”

  I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “I’m fine,” I told her, but I let her fuss. I liked it when she did. She waved me off and I hurried down the stairs, my eyes on the lighting the entire way down so much that I almost fell twice because I missed a step. I don’t know why I was so focused on the new lights. It’s not like there was going to be a note from Law attached to one of them. I pushed open the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, phone out and checking the directions to my shift in Tribeca. It was only a five minute walk from the Cairn which would make tonight easier.

  Thank god.

  The walk to the subway was quick, the routine of the transit lulling me into an almost meditative trance. It was easy for me to zone out, go on autopilot and I welcomed it, letting the calm rush over
me. My thoughts seemed to be nothing if not obsessed with bouncing between Law and Christian. The less I thought about either man the better.

  When I arrived for my shift at the coffee shop, a trendy little spot with zero counter space but a steady supply of heavy tippers from what I remembered, I was happier. My smile was still brittle during my shift but as each hour crept by it relaxed some. The knowledge that my escape was that much closer edged me towards manic. At the end of my shift, I was practically bouncing off the walls, my blood singing in my veins with energy. My smile was infectious and all of the customers I spoke to left with more pep in their step. I knew I’d be getting a direct request through the app the next time the owner, Sally, needed a fill in.

  “Always a pleasure, Honey.” She smiled at me in the genuine way someone did when they wanted you around, and I liked that. It made it easier for me to imagine what it might be like if I did take the job with Tiffany at A Different Brew. I pulled out my phone and glanced at our messages from the night before. She’d let me know she was home and we had texted for a minute or so before she’d most likely fallen into a drunken slumber. I, on the other hand, had just really started my sobbing and brooding for the night.

  ‘How you feeling today?’ I texted her.

  She replied nearly instantly. ‘Amazing. That driver was smoking hot and that car drove like butter.’

  I smiled down at my phone while I walked. ‘I’m glad you enjoyed the ride home.’

  ‘It was fucking awesome! I can’t wait to get plastered around your fiancé again ;)

  My smile faltered. I still hadn’t told her the truth. I wasn’t sure if I would, because how did you bring that up? Everything seemed more tangled now that Law had played along for the night. My phone buzzed with another text from Tiffany and I tabled my thoughts.

  ‘You think on my offer to come work with me?’

  Shit. The other big thing from last night.

  ‘Kind of. Still thinking.’ I sent back, because at least I was telling the truth there. I was still thinking about it. Still didn’t know what I wanted to do when it came to putting down more roots in New York. You’d think after a decade that it would come easier to me, but it didn’t. My little relationship blowing up with Christian hadn’t helped...and thinking about him when a permanent job was being offered wasn’t exactly doing wonders for my decision making.