Page 15 of At Her Pleasure
Sy and she were a good fit, even on the aftercare. No Vera required.
Cyn nodded to the cooler. “Open that.”
The cantankerous metal flip latch required mental and physical coordination. When he managed it in seven seconds, it told her where he was in the grounding process.
Inside were two beers. He held one to his forehead, cool glass against sweating flesh. Taking it from him, she rolled it between his shoulder blades, enjoying his body’s quiver.
“Tell me you’re okay, Sy.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She gave it back to him. “Drink some more water, then open the beer and take three swallows.”
The first beer told him she was pleased with his service. The second would signal she was cutting him loose.
After a good session, she liked to go for a drive. The later, the better. New Orleans was an all-night city. She’d cruise the streets, watching the more adventurous tourists around Jackson Square. Roll near Frenchmen Street, hearing live music still spilling out of the dives. Though she’d have to circle around Bourbon, since vehicle traffic was blocked off from the street each night, she could still come close enough to inhale that funk of bodies, stale alcohol, urine and vomit. The music and glittering lights couldn’t conceal it, but they didn’t really try. It was part of the charm.
She’d circle back to the riverfront, pass the Aquarium and Harrah’s, and roll into the warehouse district. Mardi Gras World’s big complex was here, where the artists stored and worked on next year’s floats. Not far from it was Skye’s loft apartment. She and Tiger typically stayed there during work nights, and out at his place on the weekends. The multi-acre property had a barn and a test track. He’d turned the barn into a home garage for his motorcycle collection and to indulge his passion for chopper work. The track let him test the results.
Skye had bought herself a sweet little Harley, though plenty of times when she and Tiger rode the backroads, she preferred riding on Tiger’s big muscle bike, her hands resting against his denim clad hips or broad shoulders.
Cyn stuck to loops through the city. Being city-born, rural spaces made her uneasy. A mugger coming at her with a knife or gun, fine. Such things were part of her world. Dealing with furry night creatures, eyes shining through the trees? No thank you.
She was cool with places like Audubon Park, though. Or cemeteries. New Orleans had a lot of good ones, a different kind of forest with their mazes of old crypts, and she knew how to get into them at night.
When Sy could stand and was dressed, she bid him good night and gave him the second beer. Weariness showed in the set of his shoulders and mouth. As she trailed her fingers over the fresh bite over his tattoo, he pressed his drummer’s callused hand over hers.
In that touch, there was appreciation, and an acceptance of who and what they were. Not just Domme and sub but friends, in a hard-to-describe way. Explanations were a dead-end road. Shit didn’t have to make sense to be right.
He’d rest well tonight, his demons temporarily at rest.
As they left the room, he headed toward the locker area. She studied his gait, his awareness of his surroundings, her last check to make sure he was ok. She didn’t note any flags.
Her sessions took two hours or more. She thought about returning to the lounge. Ros and Skye might be in private rooms with Lawrence and Tiger, but Abby and Neil would have headed for home. Whatever sexual energy they gathered at Progeny would be exercised in a more controlled environment.
After she hooked up with a sub for some play, Vera might come back to the lounge for the same reason Cyn did—to see who was around. But Cyn wasn’t in the mood.
“Want to take a ride?”
Her heart thudded once against her ribs, hard. He was still here. From the sound of his voice, he was further down the hall, probably sitting in one of the chairs left along the corridor. A place for a Master or Mistress to sit if he or she decided to step out of a session. Cyn had done that plenty of times, an act of detachment while her sub quivered with overwhelming need behind the door, her absence driving up his anticipation of what she’d do next.
If she had clothespins on a sub’s balls or nipples, or ginger root up his ass, he’d have no cues on how long he’d have to endure it. Would she leave those things in place too long, or be out of range to hear his discomfort escalate?
Neither of those things was ever true. But why deny herself the pleasure of the mindfuck, listening to and feeling the desperation and worry coming through the wall?
He’d said he’d wait for her. Had he been here all this time?
“You going to look at me?” Humor gripped his voice. “I’m still pretty enough, though less pretty than I was. Sorry to say, no uniform. If you liked that kind of thing.”
In her memory, he’d been hers. Her response to him now wanted to translate that ownership to the here and now. Which could be bad for both of them, because her feelings toward him dwelled in the realm of her most brutal instincts.
The dotted line in the middle of the road was a suggestion they all agreed meant something. Until they didn’t. It still existed inside her, that person who would pick up a broken bottle and lash out, damn the consequences.
She pivoted, suppressing the strange impulse to shut her eyes then open them, like a birthday girl prepping for a special surprise. Which she had zero experience with, except through indifferent attention to TV sitcoms.
He had a beard now. Dark, like his hair, though the light made a few strands glimmer. In the cemetery, she hadn’t been able to pin down his eye color, but Vera had confirmed blue. In this light, it was the bluish cast of steel. In sunlight, it might lighten to the color of faded jeans that held a man’s ass just right.
She moved away from his face, not ready to take in all the details there. His dress shirt enhanced his eye color, and the fabric stretched to show his well-defined chest and shoulders. Sleeves crisply folded back from his forearms. The cuffs of the black slacks brushed laced oxfords, but she noted the polished footwear had thick rubber treads, not hard soles.