Page 97 of At Her Pleasure

Though Mick wasn’t unaware of his looks or magnetism, he wasn’t consciously drawing attention to his long and powerful body, the potential of it. Though the jeans and black button-down he wore looked very good on him.

She’d had to cut the session short. No release for either of them. A CNC scene often wasn’t about the climax, but right now was a different matter, in her garden, with his body within touching distance.

“How about the vegan thing?” he asked. “Why did you choose that?

“Because I prefer it.” Her way of saying none of your damn business. There’d been enough painful revelations for one night.

“So you never eat meat.”

“Only human. But my freezer is low on it right now.”

He grunted. “Now I know why you want me to lie here. You want me to go to sleep so you can cut up my body and restock it.”

“Why would I wait until you were asleep to kill you? It’s far more satisfying to make you watch.”

He chuckled. Cyn rose to take her weeding tools to another bed. While she was doing it, she was thinking. She glanced his way. His eyelids were half closed.

“Mick?”

They opened fully. “Yeah?”

“That darkness in you could have made you become just what the fake records say you are, but it didn’t. Because there’s something else in there, too.”

His expression said he wasn’t sure he agreed with that, but he responded a different way. “Same goes. That Mistress was out of line tonight. You knew what you were doing.”

“It’s not a bad thing for people to make sure everyone is okay. It was her approach that rubbed me the wrong way.”

“Yeah. Management was leery about you doing the public CNC. They know some people can’t handle extreme play, and you aren’t the type to do audience handholding. But they think pretty highly of how you conduct your scenes and ensure your submissives are safe.”

Hearing that surprised her. But sometimes she jumped to conclusions on what people thought about her. They think I’m trash. They think I go too far. Fuck them.

“It’s a way of controlling the relationship,” Vera had told her. Once or twice. “Reject them before they can do it to you.” She’d rolled her eyes, both times, when Cyn told her to fuck off.

“I handled an event in San Francisco a couple years back,” he mused. “During my off time, I did a scene with a sadist Domme who… She was creative. I had trouble walking for a couple days afterward. But at the end of her sessions, she cries. Cries over how she hurt me, cries over whatever makes her need and want that so much. It’s part of her process.

“I held her, kind of a weird reverse aftercare, but it worked for both of us, not just because I like to care for a woman, but because I know that feeling. Wondering why you are what you are, why the pain not only turns me on but makes me want more and more and more.”

His words floated across the lawn between them. Their meaning and her understanding of them made her feel quiet and restive at once.

“The crying is a catharsis, a reset,” he continued. “She feels okay with all of it, okay with who she is. No regrets. Maybe for some of us, it needs to be painful and deep to find that. It just takes us a while to figure out how and what level.”

“Without ending up on the wrong side of the prison bars.”

“Yeah.” His lips tugged. “Though since some subs like to sleep in a cage, that might not be the punishment society thinks it is.”

“I think a cage under a Domme’s bed is a far cry from supermax prison.” Still, thinking of the scar he bore beneath the necklace, she grimaced. “You got lucky that night, in the cemetery. I could have killed you.”

“Maybe. But it wouldn’t have been your intent. And I’m betting you would have put your hands on my gushing neck, held pressure and figured out how to dial 911 with your toes to get me help.”

When she sniffed and made an indifferent noise, his lips curved. “Do you have a cage under your bed?”

“Why would I give a sub something cushy like that when I have a perfectly good and very cold bathroom floor?”

Another chuckle. She liked the masculine sound of it, the way it vibrated in the night air. “Ever been camping?” he asked.

“In nature?” She didn’t conceal the note of horror.

He laughed. “You like gardening.”