Page 151 of At Her Pleasure
She touched his face with a rare feeling of tenderness. “It is to me. And I’ll decide what you deserve.”
* * *
The place she’d told him she wanted to spend the night was in a heavily wooded park that offered few amenities. Just campsites barely carved out of the forest, buffered from one another by extensive trails and the dense nature she didn’t care for. In this case, she sacrificed comfort for the privacy she knew they’d need.
Because it was a nice night, Mick set up a screened gazebo with a canvas floor, so no bugs could get in and bother them on the wide bedroll he stretched out and outfitted with pillows and blankets. He dropped the top flap so they could see the sky through a block of screen. She could tell how weary he was, but suspected he wanted the feeling of the outside space, and had taken the extra steps for her comfort.
She had him lie down fully clothed, and put herself in his arms, settling in as they closed around her. He let out a sigh as she stroked a hand under his shirt, over his abdomen, the waistband of his jeans. She wasn’t going to initiate sex, not yet. For now, she just lay with him, and let whatever feelings needed to be spoken have space to come to the surface.
“I told myself the reason I never defined myself as a sub was because I don’t overanalyze anything,” he said at last. “It gets in the way, and it’s usually wrong, making assumptions about yourself or anyone else. We’re too complicated to narrow down to one thing, and so simple the reasons seem too obvious and get overlooked.”
“So what was the actual reason?”
He paused. “You know how a lot of people, even in committed relationships, fantasize about the perfect lover? The one who can make them see stars, and cherishes them, makes them feel wonderful and special, like they deserve that feeling?”
“Yes. I find them annoying.”
His chest vibrated with a chuckle. “You really are a bitch. My bitch. Don’t get your hackles up. It’s not a possession thing. More like saying you’re my queen."
"And you’re the country I rule. I like that." Her hand slid down, cupping him through denim to give him a bruising squeeze before she tapped his thigh. "Plenty of territory to explore and claim."
“Nice ego stroke. Thanks, Mistress. I noticed you have Hallmark movies. Some of them are the romance kind.”
“I will deny that under torture, but since you’ve actually seen them, yes.”
He chuckled again, then quieted for another few moments. “What I fantasized about was being the one who could give a Mistress that, keep giving it to her, learning what she needed and wanted. I imagined a Mistress who’d want all that from me, who could guide me to that place with her, because it only works if you come to it together.”
He lifted a shoulder. “You can't become someone's real fantasy from the outside. It has to be from the heart and soul, and you have to earn her trust, little by little, to get there. Once you're there, you're already halfway to being what she needs you to be, if you know what I mean. The rest evolves over time. Trying to define that on the front end…it limits it. Narrows your vision so you don’t see the road you’re supposed to go down. Does that make sense? I didn’t want to call myself something and miss that turn.”
She’d lifted her gaze. His blue eyes were still sad, but the faint smile that crossed his face gave her hope. “A few years ago, I was in traffic, and saw this woman ahead of me. She was turning her neck this way and that, like she’d been driving a while. Rubbing it with one hand. The shirt she wore was scooped in back, so I could see some of her back and shoulders. It reminded me of you in the cemetery, when you put your head down and looked so weary.”
She remembered that night, the cold. She hadn’t showered in two days. She’d felt like what she was, a feral thing ready to fight whatever threatened her.
“I wanted to put my hands on her,” Mick said. “Massage her neck and shoulders, give her comfort, not asking anything in return, just giving her that moment. On the big stage, letting her know she wasn’t alone in the world. On the small one, just help the aching neck feel better.”
He had that ability. On big and little stages. She’d never been the kind of Mistress who imagined a live-in sub, all the benefits to it. But when she had the thought and attached it to Mick, it became far more interesting.
Definitely not Hallmark, but something that fit them.
“Being a cop again is one choice, but I don’t think it’s the right one for me.” He’d taken a turn back to his main conflict, but she knew it was all connected. “Good cops can find that balance between following the rules and helping, dealing with what’s not right or fair. They can get up the next day and keep doing the job. I couldn't.”
His gaze was distant, away from the fire and this moment. “Weirdly, anything that happened to me, being shot, beat up, all of that passed in a blink. Watching someone else suffer, nothing else in this world is as endless.”
She pushed herself up on one elbow, resting her hand on his chest and gazing down into his face. “Mick. That song you’re always humming. ‘Gone, Gone, Gone.’ Do you get an image in your head when you’re hearing it?”
His eyes cleared, curious. “Yeah. I do.”
“What is it?”
“A beer commercial.” His lips tilted in that faint smile. “Something that reminds me of a Christmas beer commercial. I see a hammock between two palm trees, on some deserted tropical beach. There’s a little house nearby, decorated in Christmas lights. You and I are lying in the hammock. There’s a breeze. We’re sleeping, holding onto one another. The way the hammock is moving, the waves on the shore, they match the song’s rhythm.”
“A rope hammock.”
“Yeah.”
Like in her backyard, where she could order him to restrain himself using the diamond-shaped openings, and enjoy herself. Thoroughly. He’d filled in a nice setting around it.
Mick shifted so they were on their sides, facing one another. He touched her thigh with gentle fingers. As she watched, he rested his palm over the skirt fabric and the bandage beneath.