Page 95 of At Her Pleasure

She’d had a session with an undercover cop. His need for pain had been astronomical, too, to let it all go. In the aftermath, what she’d pieced together about him was, no matter how fuzzy the lines were, because he was operating legally as an undercover cop, he had some boundaries to cling to, lines he didn’t have to make the decision to cross.

“There are times we feel hampered by that,” he’d told her. “But crossing the line, becoming the monster, means the bad guys win again. You have to keep telling yourself that and believing it, or you can’t do it anymore. Even when you believe, it takes its toll. Undercover isn’t a long-term career choice, and I’m about at the end of my stint. Either you get out, or get taken out.”

She’d had a couple more sessions with him, and then he hadn’t come again. About six months later, the club had circulated an obituary notice. John Compton, police officer, killed in the line of duty. Looking at his official picture, in his uniform, his steady eyes, strong jaw, she knew what had drawn her to him was her memory of another cop she couldn’t forget.

Mick had chosen to cross that line, become the monster to stop the monsters. Yes, he’d said he had something in him that made him suited to the job, but she remembered that darkness from the cemetery. It had called to her own. It wasn’t something awful or evil.

She’d lived in darkness, but had stopped short of becoming it. He’d linked his identity to it, woven the two together in an astonishing and unsettling way. She didn’t know what that made him now, but she was sure of one thing. The monster lived in him because he’d invited it in, but he wasn’t the monster.

“Stop.”

It wasn’t a request.

He had his hand on the latch, and she could see him fighting the desire to obey her, versus the compulsion to keep going, because the latter was best for her.

He didn’t get to make that choice. She was the Dominant here.

She crossed the grass to him. When she reached him, she put her hand on his arm. It quivered hard under her hand. What had he called her, a frayed wire? That’s what he felt like.

She steadied herself against him as she removed her sneakers to bury her toes in the thick grass. This time of night, it was cool.

“You asked me if this is what Cissy and I imagined. It was a place as far away as the moon to us. So yes.”

His blue eyes, clouded with side-by-side uncertainty and grim purpose, were what a ghost’s would look like, a haunted spirit that would never find rest. He wasn’t hiding behind the façade anymore. She preferred that, even as it made her want to give him things she shouldn’t.

“Do you know how to weed a flower bed?”

A tired smile crossed his face. “I’ve never done it.”

She pointed to the one closest to them. “Pull out what’s not a flower. Pull gently so you don’t disturb the roots of the flowers. Grab one of the buckets stacked up by the shed and put the weeds in it. Dump them in my compost container. Don’t talk to me for a while. You don’t have my permission to leave.”

She had picked up the necklace from the table, and now she put it around his neck. She gazed into his troubled, strong face. “You also don’t have my permission to give that back.”

“Cyn.”

“Shut up.” She nodded toward the buckets. “Weed. No talking until I say you can.”

He stared down at her. “I never told you I was a sub.”

Her hands tightened upon him. “I know what you are with me.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As she pivoted like a soldier and marched toward her bed of turned earth, Mick thought about what he’d considered at the club. Dom, sub, switch, top, bottom. He’d had to put on a lot of hats, and refused to identify with any, make it personally his. Such temptations were the enemy, keeping him from doing his job the way it needed to be done, so he’d avoided them in his personal life to reinforce the message in his professional one.

But there were lines that represented pretty damn important things. Loyalty, commitment.

“Cyn… Mistress?”

She turned toward him. He did what he’d done only for her, at least in this way, with this significance. He dropped to one knee, and this time faced the reason he’d done it. The real reason.

“I’m a submissive.”

“Is this like an AA meeting? Hello, my name is Mick and I’m a sub?”

He didn’t crack a smile. “I need to belong to a Mistress. I need to feel like I’m hers, like…”

“Like you’re seen.” The barb dropped from her voice, leaving something more painful and necessary.