Walk For Me: Club Avalon Book 4

by Kay Elle Parker

  “Trust me.” Shrugging off whatever memory Liam’s name had conjured, Thane set the broom aside. “Just my two cents. Carry on.”

  “As I was saying, I think Loki would step up to the plate for you. He’s a goof, sure, but he’s respectful, and he won’t frighten her to death. I’m sure if you told him what part you need him to play, he won’t let you down.”

  “I’ll give it some thought. Don’t worry about Anarchy, she’ll understand. I think she fell a little bit in love with the girl herself the other day when she took a peek at her through the doorway.”

  “Alicia is complicated in many ways, but loving her isn’t one of them.”

  “Spoken like one of the fallen. Welcome to the club, Atticus. Hang on a second.” Murmuring came over the line, then a quiet giggle. “Sorry guys, I have to go. A certain kitten has been a very bad girl,” Jasper almost purred, and the sound of a squeal was deafening. “I need to go catch her.”

  “Remember she needs to be able to sit in her chair on Monday morning. Have a good evening, J.”

  “You too, Att. See you later, Thane.”

  “Take care, J.”

  Another squeal echoed around the kitchen before the line went dead.

  “Think she’ll be able to sit in that chair on Monday?” Thane mused.

  “Not comfortably.”

  The weight of the scene evaporated, no longer hanging over Atticus’ head. The relief was glorious, even though he’d already brought chaos into the household. He hadn’t realized how much strain he’d carried over the past few days, trying to find the balance between keeping his word to Jasper and his commitment to Alicia.

  “I want you, Daddy. I want all of it, but if I can only have a little bit, I choose you.”

  When it came to him, there was no little bit. He’d learned a long time ago that handing out small pieces of himself just didn’t work for him. The women who subbed for him, the women he fucked, weren’t offered anything that they could pull him back to them with—with the exception of two.

  Jasper was fucking lucky he still had his kitten. After the stunt he pulled, basically signing Archie’s care over to Att while he disappeared for days, Atticus had been on the brink of saying fuck you to his best friend and taking the wounded girl as his own permanently.

  Perhaps if Archie hadn’t been so adamant that Jasper was the one for her, things might have been completely—and awkwardly—different. No, it had played out the right way. If she’d chosen Atticus, Jasper would never have returned to Avalon, and there was a horrible possibility the sadist might have fallen back to his old ways. The ways his parents had drilled into him from an infant.

  That just wasn’t worth thinking about, for anyone’s sake.

  Then there was the one he’d made the mistake of tucking into a pocket near his heart. There was no doubt he loved that woman—in all the years he’d known her, all the years he’d kept her secrets without her knowledge, she’d flourished from a quiet, damaged young woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders into one of the best Dommes he knew.

  Topping Connie—even for the shortest time—had been a gift from up high he’d never be able to pay back. But when she’d resisted his attempts to show her the path she was meant to follow, he’d understood they’d grown too close as friends, respected each other too much as Dominants, for her to truly submit and let her submissive have an active role in her life.

  Thane was a lucky sonofabitch.

  Alicia…Alicia was worth any heartbreak that came his way, Atticus thought. He wouldn’t give her slivers of himself that she could hold close while wishing for more. No, she deserved all of him, and after letting two women close and then letting them move on to their true partners, Atticus thought it was about damn time he claimed the one meant for him.

  “Can you hold down the fort?” he demanded of Thane, making the other man give him a wary look.

  “Here? With a livid Mistress and a hormonal, menstruating Alicia?” Wiping an imaginary bead of sweat from his brow, Thane shrugged. “I suppose I might still be alive when you get back. Possibly in hiding, but you have a safe room in this fortress, right?”

  “Downstairs, next to the armory.” Atticus strode out of the kitchen to grab his boots, then came back in and sat on one of the chairs. “I don’t think I’ll be long, but you have my number.” He jerked on one boot, fastening the laces with deft fingers. “If I’m not back in a couple of hours, I’m dead and buried in the corn maze behind Avalon.”

  Thane laughed. “This sounds promising.”

  On went the second boot, the laces running through Att’s fingers like tiny ropes. He stood, breathing deep as he grasped the enormity of what he was about to do.

  “If the girls ask, where should I tell them you’ve gone?”

  Atticus snagged his keys off the counter, squeezing them in his fist. “At a guess, somewhere I’m going to be suckerpunched again, by someone a lot bigger and a lot more incentivized than Connie.”

  “Well, fuck. From one extreme to the other. Don’t mess around when you’ve made your mind up, do you?”

  “No.” He gave the other Dom a baleful stare. “Alicia doesn’t find out where I am. On the off-chance this goes south…just tell her I’ve been called into work. Juice and snacks are in the refrigerator. Fruit in the bowl. Hot water bottle under the sink if Connie needs it, and there are pain meds there,” he said, pointing to the relevant cupboard. “Lisha knows how to work the TV system in the games room. She doesn’t watch anything rated above PG-13. No exceptions.”

  “O-kay,” Thane responded, then flashed a grin. “You gonna give me a lift home when I finish babysitting, Mister Heisler? I really shouldn’t be out after dark, there are some bad men out there.”

  Atticus’ answering grin was wolfish. “And we’re two of them. No one comes in once I leave. I’ll lock the door behind me, the spare is hanging on the coat rack under the blue parka.” He thought of the McGees’ old crew, and their plans for revenge. “If the alarms go off, all three of you get into the games room and barricade the door. There are weapons and ammo fixed to the underside of the pool table.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “You won’t need them, but they’re there if you do.” To lighten the suddenly heavy tension in the air, Atticus added, “If Alicia takes this opportunity to turn into a brat, let her know the spanking she got in the bath won’t hold a candle to the one she’ll receive when I get home. Playtime is most definitely over.”

  Chapter Nine

  By the time he pulled into the parking lot at Avalon, Atticus’ brain was wrung dry from all the thoughts he’d mulled over, chewed on, and taken apart bit by bit. The roads he’d driven his truck along had been quiet compared to the ones in his head.

  Both led him here.

  The tactical part of his brain hadn’t picked up on a tail, which was good.

  He swung into his usual place, letting the engine idle as he eyed Liam’s vehicle and the delivery truck backed up to the porch entrance. No doubt Liam had been a busy inventory bee, ordering everything known to man to keep his customers happy—the boy was a born pleaser, and none of his subs were known to complain about him, in or out of the sheets.

  Switching off the engine, Atticus looked around. Nothing had changed in the few days since he’d last been here, but for some reason, it felt like it should. The only times he’d been away from Avalon for so long were when he hadn’t been stateside.

  It felt like coming home.

  He stepped out of the truck and slammed the door, then headed straight for the pretty house opposite the club. The gravel crunched under his boots as he crossed the lot and through the small gate, smiling as he walked up the path.

  No one had seen Boadicea coming, least of all Braun. A fighter, a survivor, a fucking spitfire in a small package. Braun had gone from full-time business and part-time Dom into a full-time everything—the man held more strings in his hands than a puppeteer, yet during the past few months, he was first and foremos
t, a doting fiancé and expectant father.

  Maybe the expectant father wouldn’t knock Atticus’ teeth down his throat for having designs on his future sister-in-law.

  Mindful of the time—Bodie usually napped in the afternoon, per Braun’s orders—Atticus tapped a knuckle lightly on the door and waited patiently. When it swung open to reveal a frazzled-looking Braun, he couldn’t stop the smirk.

  “If you look like this shit before the baby’s here, I dread to think what you’ll look like when it comes, brother.”

  Short black hair, normally elegantly groomed, stood in spikes where Braun’s hands had run through it repeatedly, smearing it with streaks of the same bright yellow paint adorning his nose, cheek, and stubbled jaw. The hands that performed Shibari with the utmost elegance resembled a Jackson Pollock masterpiece.

  Speckles of the damn stuff were scattered over his shirt and jeans, while a thick dollop ruined his sneakers.

  “Funny. With her due date approaching quickly, Bodie’s got it in her head that the baby isn’t going to survive the last stages of the pregnancy. She wants to hide away and sleep all day, so we compromised. She’s sleeping in a chair upstairs while I paint the nursery. We made it this far, no point losing hope now.”

  Atticus’ heart sank into his stomach. The complications of Bodie’s pregnancy were numerous, but he thought the medical team taking care of her had things under control. Then again, it all came down to nature’s whims, and nature was a temperamental bitch. “What have the doctors said?”

  Using the door as a prop, Braun blew out a breath. “The medication has done its job. Fetal development isn’t as advanced as they’d like, but there’s a heartbeat and everything seems to be there—fingers, toes, the important parts. We might just have a very small baby.” His smile was reluctantly hopeful. “A few more weeks of bedrest, meds, and stressless living, and we might get to hold the next Fitzpatrick.”

  “She can do it, Braun. She’s strong enough to make it a little longer.”

  “She’s flagging. Bored and cut off from everyone she knows, spending twenty-four hours a day torturing herself with thoughts of being a bad mother who can’t even carry her baby to term.” He rolled dark blue eyes. “It is insanely difficult to chastise a woman who needs to be kept calm, did you know that? Shit, sorry,” he added, pressing his fingers to his eyes. “I’m being rude. Come on in, update me on Alicia.”

  “It would be best if I didn’t.” Instead, Atticus leaned his forearms on the doorjambs, providing his chest as a target. “We need to talk. Or rather, I need to talk, and you really should listen.”

  Braun’s demeanor changed slowly, like an icy mist descending over him. “Goddamn it, Atticus. God fucking damn it. Don’t tell me you’re here to say you can’t handle Alicia. I’m stretched seven ways to Sunday, and I just can’t take her on—if you can’t deal with her, I have no fucking clue what to do with her next.”

  “What?” Braun’s words struck him right in the sternum, digging deep. “No! Jesus, no, she’s not going anywhere, Braun. She’s home now—she’s staying with me until she decides otherwise.”

  “Thank God for that. Honestly, I’m out of options if this arrangement goes belly-up.” Shoulders sagging slightly, Braun composed himself before Atticus found himself on the receiving end of the other Dom’s scrutiny. “Oh, I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  “Probably not, which is why I’m standing out here and keeping my voice down.”

  “Fuck. All right. Say what you need to.”

  This wasn’t precisely how Att had imagined this conversation taking place, but he was willing to go with it. Civilized was better than an all-out brawl. “Bodie is the only blood relation that Lisha has left. In my eyes, that makes you the head of the family, and the one whose blessing I need.”

  “Christ, Att, can you be any more formal?”

  “This is important. When it’s important, I grow a stick up my ass. Deal with it. I know we had moments where we butted heads over the facility, but I’m not planning on arguing with you over this. It’s a yes or no answer.” Fuck, this wasn’t coming out like he’d practiced on the drive over. “I have feelings for Alicia, feelings that are reciprocated as best she knows how. Everything is so new to her.”

  Braun sighed. “Is this the right time to do this, Att? The two of you are in constant close proximity. You haven’t been to Avalon in days and she…it’s been a week. Don’t get me wrong, you want my blessing to pursue something romantic, you’ve got it. There’s no question.” Braun ran his hand through his hair, spreading more sticky paint over the black. “I was wrong to go above you and Connie. Should’ve listened to the people who spent the most time with Alicia. My mistake cost her, and I have to carry that.”

  “Come on, Braun. With the shit you carry around every damn day, you made the call you thought benefited everyone. Connie was burning herself out, Alicia was spiraling, and me…well, I wasn’t the biggest part of her life a few months ago. My voice wasn’t relevant.”

  “It is now.”

  “Yes, it is.” That was final, and they both understood the ramifications of it.

  “Well, then. I can’t think of anyone who’ll look after her the way you will.” Braun stepped forward and grabbed him in a bear hug, slapping him on the back. “The McGee women are special, Att. Make sure you value that.”

  “Sure you don’t want to take a swing at me?” Atticus gave his friend a gentle pat on the shoulder, his equivalent of a slap.

  “I’ve never known you take a long-term submissive, or a girlfriend, in all the time I’ve known you. It’s a long time to be alone. The fact you’re here, asking me for my blessing for a relationship with Alicia, is a statement of intent—you’re not just messing around, you believe there’s potential for something serious. I’m not going to deck you for that.”

  They stepped apart, mutual respect a strong bond between them.

  “Thanks, Braun. I guess now we have that out of the way, I should tell you what’s been going on this past week.”

  “Okay. Want to come in and sit down now?”

  “That would be good. You might need to by the time I’ve explained everything.” Feeling more like himself, as though his internal guidelines were correctly aligned again, Atticus stepped into the home of his friends and eyed the chaotic clutter in the hallway. “I thought you were hiring a housekeeper for the duration of the pregnancy?”

  Braun laughed, low and amused, as he led the way into the living room. “Don’t worry about your boots,” he told Att as he stooped to take them off. “I did hire a housekeeper, a lovely lady called Olga. She lasted two days before Bodie discovered her stash of snacks had been removed. No one touches the snacks.”

  “Baby brain on overdrive?”

  “Rioting hormones. She was desperate for sex the other night, and I swear to God if I hadn’t slept with one eye open, she’d have strapped me to the bed and gone against every doctor’s order to not have sex.” A smug smile curved his lips. “She had to settle for my mouth and a couple of edged orgasms.”

  “Oh, you cruel bastard.” Chuckling, Atticus dropped onto the couch. A chocolate bar fired out from between the cushions. “One of the stash?”

  Braun scooped it up and shoved it back where it had come from. “I’m finding food where a fucking squirrel wouldn’t think to hide it. But she knows each and every spot, precisely what’s where, and looks adorable when she’s in an apoplectic rage because I confiscate them.”

  “You take her chocolate? Boy, the fires of hell are waiting for you.”

  “Oh, it’s not just chocolate. We have a stockpile of chips stuffed in this cushion here.” Braun picked a pretty blue one up and unzipped the cover. Inside, instead of stuffing, was a treasure trove of packets. “Twizzlers and gummy bears under the mattress. Chocolate in every nook and cranny in the damn room.”

  Braun had a snack hoarder on his hands, Atticus thought with amusement. “Just think, in a few weeks, everything can go back to being se
mi-normal. No more bedrest, no more meds, just you and Bodie and a pint-sized Fitzpatrick.”

  Braun smiled and set the cushion back into its original place. “I can’t wait. These have been the longest months of my goddamn life. As long as Bodie’s safe and the baby is fine, I don’t give a shit about anything else. Want a beer? I can sneak one while Bodie’s napping upstairs.”

  “No, I’m good, thanks. Had one with Thane earlier and I’m driving. She’s got you sneaking beers now?”

  “She doesn’t drink much anyway, but I figured with her giving up so much, I could do the same. Or at the very least, not have a cold one in front of her. I do miss my scotch,” he said wistfully, padding toward the kitchen. “The day this baby is born, I’m having a shot of scotch and a fucking cigar.”

  “We’ll be right there with you.” Atticus’ lips twitched as he studied the bed tucked into the corner of the room. It looked as though Bodie had given nesting the old college try—the duvet and blankets were an organized heap in the middle of the mattress.

  “So, how’s Alicia doing?” Braun called from the kitchen.

  “She and Connie are probably sticking needles in a me-shaped voodoo doll as we speak. There’s a high possibility I’ve screwed this relationship up before it had a chance to fly,” he added as his friend came back in, bottle in hand, and sat opposite him. “Tonight was supposed to be the CNC scene with Jasper and Archie. I made the mistake of being honest with Alicia about it, and pretty much dropped a piano on her heart.”

  “Seems to me the only thing you’ve done wrong is thinking being honest is a mistake. Can I assume you’ve been fooling around with Alicia?”

  Atticus’ eyes narrowed. “Assume all you want, but you’d be dead wrong. We’ve kissed, but that’s it.”

  “Okay. Before you told her about the scene, have you said or done anything that might make her believe you want this relationship?” Braun tipped his beer back and drank slowly. “That would give her a reason to think any emotional connection isn’t one-sided on her part?”

  “We’ve talked about the Daddy Dom dynamic. Lisha needs guidance, nurturing, and I can give her that. She’s a natural little.”