Page 76 of At Her Pleasure
She turned at the sound of Mick’s voice. He’d stepped out of another patio access and had his phone to his ear. He moved to the railing, facing the groomed vegetation as he listened. He was turned away from her, muffling parts of his responses, but she assumed he was handling a logistical issue elsewhere in the club. Until his reaction changed.
“When?” His shoulders tightened, then slumped, before they became rigid again. He dropped his hand to the rail, his grip a white-knuckle clamp. She drew closer. Not to invade his privacy or eavesdrop, but to be there.
“Yeah. I’m thinking. Shut the hell up.”
When someone screwed up at TRA badly enough they were fired by day’s end, Ros’s voice held that tone. Well, an echo of it. The cold threat in Mick’s voice implied a different form of termination. One that didn’t involve an HR exit interview with Vera or signing a final paycheck.
Abruptly, he put the phone to his chest, his chin down, head tilted to his right shoulder. A hard quiver ran through him. Even without knowing the cause, she recognized the emotions vibrating from him. The silent scream version, the kind of pain you couldn’t give a voice, because once you started, you wouldn’t stop.
Time ticked, the bushes rustling from a zephyr’s touch. His fingers tightened impossibly more. If the railing hadn’t been painted iron, it would have shown the impression of his grip.
She’d moved forward two more silent steps when he let out a long, shuddering breath. She stopped as he drew in a new one. It reinflated his posture, straightening his back, his shoulders, his head. One muscle at a time, like a meditative exercise where he was ticking off sections of a body he was repossessing, pulling everything back under his control.
“Okay,” he said into the phone, his voice flat. “I’ll deal with it. Don’t do a fucking thing until you hear from me. I’ll figure it out the way I usually do.”
The response pulled a harsh chuckle from him. “Yeah, you sure as hell will owe me. Put a tighter leash on those morons so they don’t do something that stupid again. Set them up with a game station or something.”
He clicked off and pocketed the phone. As he braced his hands on the rail and tipped his head back to the sky, the door opened, letting a trio of subs, two male, one female, onto the patio. They were enthusiastically discussing a fireplay scene they’d watched.
“Girlfriend, I want to do it, but I’m so scared of fire.”
“That’s why you should do it. So you can see it’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s like being licked with a really hot tongue.”
Giggles greeted this insight. Mick stayed in place, his back to them. The draped branches of several small trees in the landscaping on the other side of the rail shadowed him, but it was only a matter of minutes before he’d be recognized.
He would rise to the occasion, she knew, but those kinds of wells could go bone dry if pulled on too often, and emotional dehydration resulted in crazy behavior. Like getting beat up before dinner. Or challenging a friend and client to a no-holds-barred fight.
Cyn moved to stand beside him, her advance drawing the threesome’s attention. They followed her track to Mick’s side, but the glance she shot them quelled any thoughts of approaching the event planner. After a pause, they returned to their conversation.
There were perks to being scary.
Mick had stiffened at her appearance, but when she didn’t say anything, merely standing and gazing at the sky with him, he returned to doing the same. The weight of his thoughts was palpable as he tried to work through them, so she gave him the room to do it.
The three subs headed back inside. There was a ten-minute break between station change outs, and that break was close to ending.
“You know, some people think a sexual sadist at my level has no finesse, not like other Masters and Mistresses.” Cyn leaned her elbows on the rail. Her hip bumped his thigh as she bent forward. “That I’m all about dishing out pain and I don’t watch the nuances, my sub’s emotional state.”
“That’s bullshit.” Mick grunted, still staring at the sky. “You have to pay closer attention. With your reputation, subs want to bottom with you because they’re fucked up. They don’t want you to stop.”
He spoke neutrally, no judgment. But the edge behind the observation was a blade, ready to cut any flesh that got close enough.
“But they do stop,” she said mildly. “Because they know their limits. It isn’t about their threshold for physical pain. It’s about their respect for me. And for themselves. Plus what experiencing the pain, the release from it, brings to their lives outside those sessions.”
“What is that?” He pushed back from the rail, his gaze dark ice. “Forgiveness, absolution? Catharsis from whatever fuck-up they’ve committed? Or is it as simple as that’s what makes you wet and gets their rocks off?”
Excessive self-analysis was the most toxic and destructive form of sadomasochism. She didn’t have to understand why she liked to inflict pain, or got more sexually aroused by it than any other type of sex play. She also didn’t have to analyze her past. She just had to do her job for TRA well, stay within the lines at the club, and not agonize over the things she was or wasn’t.
“We’re not doing this tonight,” she said.
When she straightened and turned to leave, Mick grabbed her wrist. His half turn from the rail put him at a balance disadvantage. She shoved him, and his weight worked against him. Before he could recover, she’d reversed the grip on his wrist, twisting his hand inward and back, a painful pressure point that made the recipient aware of how easy it would be for her to break bone.
He bent into it, body against the railing, but his attention didn’t get corralled by the pain or derailed by the potential for damage. His other hand shot out, and he gripped her throat. Just like he had at the warehouse.
She could break his wrist. He could choke her into a faint. They went still, two gunslingers with their weapons held at ready, waiting to see who would blink first.
She sneered and put more pressure on the wrist. The pain had to be rocketing through his arm and shoulder, but he responded like a masochist. He absorbed it, used it to fuel his own violent reaction. His grip constricted. She went for a different tactic, even though her voice was a little strained.
“When did you become a monster, Mick? Did you really just stop being a cop, or did they kick your fucked-up ass out?”