Page 52 of At Her Pleasure

“Can I get you a drink, Mistress? Or anyone?”

He’d said he didn’t mind swimming in a pool of Dommes, and he didn’t, which was good, because he was fully pinned under their interested inspection. Only one had his focus, though.

Cyn slid her fingertips into his open collar, playing with his necklace, stroking his chest hair. It was better than aspirin. The pain throbbed, but it throbbed for her. “A Dr Pepper Cream Soda Zero. There should be a couple behind the wet bar.”

“Because no one else here would want that crap,” Skye’s digital voice struck him as familiar, then he recognized Linda Hunt’s voice.

“You like NCIS: New Orleans?” He sent an amused look her way.

“Yes. But Silverado particularly.” Skye lifted her drink in a toast, still using Linda’s voice. “‘The world is what you make of it, friend. If it doesn't fit, you make alterations.’”

The chuckles were warm, and curiously, under their close regard, he felt enveloped by a protective female energy. Such a random sentimental thought suggested he might be a little loopy.

He retrieved the soda from the wet bar. None of the others needed drinks. When he returned to Cyn, he won another more-than-decent pain modifier, a brush of her hand over his, a brief nod of thanks.

As he came back to the grilling area, her attention followed him. He told himself she was staring at his ass, but the men’s reaction corrected the notion.

“She’s mother-henning you.” Neil’s at-rest demeanor matched a windless lake, so his ripple of surprise made an impact.

“What?”

“She’s keeping tabs on you,” Tiger clarified. “Either she’s worried you have internal bleeding, or she’s in an alien spaceship and that’s not Cyn.”

Mick shook his head at their grins and put the beer back to his temple. He didn’t sit back down, not yet. The trickle of condensation reminded him of how she’d put her hand on his face at the maze. Cool and firm. Steadying.

She was responsible, watched after her subs, and followed the rules. He’d learned she’d had a few infractions early on at Progeny while she figured out the boundaries, but she hadn’t had that problem in a while. Her sessions still got extra attention from DMs, because she tight-roped those lines rather than staying inside them.

Her decision to stay on those lines, instead of jumping over them, was about more than keeping her membership. Maybe they didn’t know that, but he did.

She cared. She wouldn’t offer to tend his hurts or God forbid, ask him outright if he was okay, the normal forms of “mother henning.” But that didn’t matter. The well was deep, but he could reach down into that darkness far enough to know what was there.

He tuned in to see the others looking at him. He didn’t think he’d missed a question, but he needed to cover why he hadn’t sat back down. “Point me toward the facilities?” he asked Tiger.

“Go in through the kitchen door. Guest bath is down the hall past the living room. Bring the vegetable kebobs when you come back out. They’re on the counter.”

“I can do that.” He spoke with assurance.

He made it three steps in that direction.

Then his head swam, and his knees buckled. Before he could faceplant, somehow Cyn was there, ahead of anyone else. It proved his theory about care, though he wished he hadn’t provided the testing ground.

“What the fucking hell? Mick…” She moved toward the ground with him, no real choice because he was a boneless sack of flour. Shit.

“I’m okay. It’s all right. Should have eaten something.” Having a fist pounded into his gut meant he’d thrown up what he’d eaten earlier, and he hadn’t felt up to refueling. “Stop.”

She ignored him. A Mistress like her could tell where a man was hurting from how he moved. She’d already pulled up his shirt. “Holy fuck. What…”

She was staring at the ugly red and blue bruising on his midriff. He tried to pull his shirt out of her hands, but she just smacked and shoved them away. It would have made him smile again, if he wasn’t embarrassed as hell. Lawrence was kneeling on her other side, examining the injury. SEALs had medical training, to patch each other up in the field.

He carried some of that training himself. “My appointment and I had a disagreement. It’s okay. He looks much worse.”

Well, he would have, if he hadn’t had two guys hold Mick while he punched him. He tried to get up and Cyn put a hand on his shoulder. “Stay down. You need a hospital, Mick.”

Oh, hell no. “I’m good. Really. Not my first beating. As you well know.”

The joke fell flat. In fact, it probably made her angrier. Most things did. He liked her anger, even as he liked when it melted away in his hands, because she could give it to him and let it go. That was a gift.

“Mick.”