Page 106 of At Her Pleasure

“I can do that. In fact…I need to go get my phone from my jeans downstairs. It’s important that I have it with me.”

He wasn’t anticipating anything, but predictability wasn’t a given. Ever. The spurt of resentment and mild anxiety over remembering what his priorities had to be was normal. He wouldn’t let those reactions get the upper hand. Dwelling too much on how the revelations that had brought him here would take him from her in a very short time would interfere with the minutes he had with her.

And yes, even if he had a couple days, he would measure it in single, precious minutes.

He saw the recognition of some of that in her eyes before she nodded and turned away from him. “Do what you need to do.” She turned off the light.

It wasn’t a rejection. Not exactly. They’d gone a lot of new places tonight, both of them, and she didn’t do reassurances or empty platitudes. She was going to sleep, and no matter how intertwined they’d been only a half hour before—hell, it was like their souls had been wrapped around one another—that was then, and this was now.

He went downstairs, retrieved his phone, and checked it. Nothing new. His efforts earlier in the evening had worked. Everything was still on schedule. Salazar had calmed down.

Mick had mostly stopped giving any energy to revulsion over what passed as operational considerations in his world. But tonight had left him a little raw. Raw enough to have to take a beat now. He closed his fingers over the phone, tattooed it against his thigh. After a few steadying breaths, he headed back up the stairs, two at a time.

She had her life, he had his. They were self-contained people. Even when, like this, all the heaven and hell each person carried inside had to break loose and make itself known.

He took a quick shower, letting the cool water slide over the burns, soothing him further. She hadn’t told him he had to clean up before bed, but he was a good guest.

After he dried off, he finger-combed his hair. Then he switched off the lamp.

Ambient light from the window showed him where she lay in the giant bed. She looked small, his Mistress with a galaxy-sized personality. When she’d put that pipe against her breasts, all he could think about was getting to her, getting it away, even though she was doing it to herself.

I test everything on myself first. Practice.

She was right about him and his “little bird” subs. It was a natural thing, that instinctual desire to protect a woman. But what he felt toward Cyn, the strength of the past, the reality of the present, who he was, who he had to be… There wasn’t anything in the world he wouldn’t do to protect her.

There were three pillows across the bed. She’d said to stay on his side, and a side was where a pillow was, so it was reasonable he could take the middle one. Right? As he inched over, and took in more details, his brow creased. She lay on her back, sleeping with her arms tight over herself, like a bat in a cave, wings wrapped across the body. Her breath was even. She’d gone to sleep that fast. Maybe. Or maybe she was setting him up, and if he reached out…

But he did it anyway. Slowly, moving his hand until it covered one of those clenched hands. A light tug, just a continual easy pressure, and her hand shifted, slowly letting their fingers intertwine.

Her head turned in his direction. “Just us here, Cyn,” he said. “Us here, the world outside.”

She rotated in his direction, even more slowly. She waited to see what he wanted, and he let her know. Another tug, bringing her closer. Then she was in his arms, sliding hers around his back, against all those marks she’d put on him. Her head pressed on his chest, under his neck, and they were holding one another.

He hadn’t cried in a long time, and he wasn’t going to do it now. But if one tear slid down his nose and landed against that oddly girlish ribbon, leaving a salt-drop stain, that was okay. The universe wouldn’t out him.

* * *

Cyn woke before dawn, after two reasonably good hours of sleep. Sliding out of the bed, she stretched and moved to the window, looking down at her garden below. She noted the even rectangle Mick had tilled for her, the splashes of color in her flower beds, though a far darker hue at this hour.

A couple times during the session, she’d noted his gaze latch onto the painting flanked by her “canvases.” When she’d mounted the photographs, she’d wanted an appropriate centerpiece. She’d bought an actual stretched white canvas and paints, and when she got home, she went right to it, unable to wait. She put down the rapid slashes and strikes of paint the way she threw her whip, batted with the cane or switch, struck with the tawse. Then she’d laid a broad diagonal slash over all of it, like the scar she’d left across his chest.

Now he had an X on his back as well. She might add that to the painting.

In the corner of that painting was a roughly sketched black skeleton, arched back as if crying to the heavens, bony fingers reaching for what seemed so close, yet out of reach.

That was how it felt for people like them. They never forgot what they saw or endured. True happiness would never be theirs. Maybe it wasn’t anyone’s, because the pain and loneliness, the suffering, was part of the air all living things had to breathe.

But moments could belong to each of them, like a rosary, the beads counted upon to find meaning and joy.

She turned to look at him. He slept mostly on top of the linens, a sheet snagged around one thigh, across his hip bone. He had a healthy erection happening, which made her loins twinge. She might go over and ride him awake.

She turned her gaze back to the window. She didn’t really seek out sex like that. Usually it was part of a session, a give and take of power, Mistress and sub. She could go that way with him in her bed, but she wasn’t sure that was what she wanted right now. What she wanted was a little alarming.

A shift and rustle. In the corner of her gaze, she noted him lifting his head, figuring out where she was. He sat up and slid out of the bed, disappearing into the bathroom. When he returned, he came and stood behind her. She imagined him looming there, strong and silent. Maybe rubbing sleep out of his eyes, rumpling his hair with a large hand.

“When was the last time you took a deep breath, Mick?” Her voice stayed low, respecting the darkness.

“When was the last time you did?”