Chapter Twenty-One
“Hey, Mamacita, you got a minute?” Ross slid onto a stool in the Fitz Pub. His face felt hot. His ears were buzzing. The events of the past two days had him reeling and antsy—sleepless, and non-stop horny.
Melody appeared from the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel. He leered at her. “You have a nice rack,” he said, conversationally, smiling at the bartender who’d placed a dark stout in front of him.
She flipped him off and leaned in the doorway. “Yes, I know. Now that you’re through harassing me…may I please get back to work?”
“Seriously, Melody, I need to talk to you about something.”
She leaned back into the kitchen and said something in rapid Spanish, then approached him, looking wary. “Seriously? You’re actually serious about something?”
“Yes,” he said, before taking a sip. “Did you get your family all settled back there?”
She propped her elbows on the bar in front of him. “I’m busy doing my grown-up job. What do you want?”
“Sorry. You’re too easy to tease. But I do have a serious topic to broach with you.” He looked around, suddenly nervous. This was, to put it mildly, a delicate subject. But he knew she knew a thing or three about it, at least based on what Evelyn had told him about her new boyfriend.
“Is this about Elle?”
He nodded, feeling half foolish, half hopeful she could shed some light on a few things for him. She sighed. “We need to go somewhere more private for this talk.”
“Are you coming on to me, Señorita?” He put a hand to his chest in fake shock.
“Fuck you, Adolf. Do you want to talk about that poor girl, or what?”
He grabbed his beer and followed her behind the bar, through the kitchen, where the cooks and other staff called out to him. He hollered back greetings until Melody yanked on his T-shirt to get his attention. “Come on, Chatty Cathy. I don’t have a ton of time.”
“Adios, amigos,” he said, waving and following Melody until they got to her small office.
“Sit,” she said, closing the door behind them. After taking her seat behind the small, metal desk covered with various receipts from food vendors and employee time sheets, she clasped her hands on top of it all and leveled her dark gaze at him. “So, if you want to know what I think…”
He nodded, sipping, content to let her lead the conversation.
“I think that the tattoo around her neck is a form of a collar.” She touched her own neck. Ross saw the necklace she’d been wearing lately—a thin, rope-like, silver chain with a funny-looking charm on the front. He squinted and leaned forward.
“Is that a…?”
“It’s a lock,” she said, holding it out. “This is a type of collar. It was a special gift. From my…from Trent.”
“Yeah, so? He has weird taste in charms. What does that have to do with the thing on Elisa’s neck?”
“Trent and I are together, as Dom and sub. The collar is a public symbol of that private relationship.”
“Dom and sub,” he repeated, stroking his beard and pondering that for a minute. “So, you guys are kinky in the bedroom. He ties you up and shit like that?”
She rolled her expressive eyes. “It’s not quite that simple. However, since you are a simple man, I’ll try to keep it that way for you. In a healthy D/s relationship, there is nothing but trust. A hundred percent trust. Each partner, the Dom and the sub, give something up to the other as part of the give and take. And it’s not about being kinky…all the time, I mean. It’s not about abuse, either, or who’s ‘in charge’.” She hooked her fingers around the words. “Unfortunately, I’ve discovered in my research that plenty of psychotic abusers hide behind being a Dom to find victims. I’m not saying that our Elisa is a natural victim. If anything, she strikes me as the opposite, in a way.”
“Yes, I agree with that.” Ross’ protective hackles rose even higher, making his throat tight.
“I think that she was drawn into a fake D/s relationship. She gave her most important thing—her trust—and was subsequently abused once he—the abuser—gained that from her. It’s the worst sort of a betrayal, really.”
“So, this thing around her neck, it’s the collar? The symbol of the kink or the lifestyle or whatever?”
“Si. She was in her trusting stage with him, got the ink, then I’m willing to bet my last peso that he started abusing her after that. I don’t know this. She’s not said a word to me about it. But Trent says…” She stopped and blushed under her olive skin, making her even more attractive, if that were possible. Ross waited her out. After clearing her throat, she met his gaze again. “Trent says that I have a sort of a sixth sense about people. I’ve always been that way. Able to tell what’s on a person’s mind or somehow know what’s wrong when they’re sad, you know?” She rose. “Anyway, I admire you for wanting to dive into that. Because God only knows what kind of abuser he was.”
“Kind? Is there more than one kind?” Ross remained seated, trying to wrap his head around all this, and not lose his mind with fury at the same time.
“Yes. And I have a feeling that she got both barrels—emotional and physical abuse.” Melody touched the odd, lock-shaped charm on her necklace—her collar, Ross thought.
“Yeah. That would account for a lot.”
“Oh, mi amigo. You love her, don’t you?”
It was his turn to blush. “I’m… I don’t… I mean. I just thought I’d… Oh, fuck it. Maybe. Are you happy now?”
She smiled, which was impossible not to match. “You’re not without your own baggage, eh, ya big ugly Kraut? I mean, considering?” She hooked her thumb at the wall. Melody had been witness to the whole Ross-and-Evelyn-without-Austin-thing as it unfolded. And she’d been there when Evelyn had married Austin—the day Ross had bolted like a damn fool. He sighed.
“No, chica. I am not.” He finally rose. “Thanks. I really appreciate you filling me in on this.”
“I don’t know how it will help, since you don’t really understand the dynamic of it. But…”
“But I’m glad to know you back me up on my hypothesis.”
“Be careful with her, Hoffman. She is seriously broken.”
Ross hooked his fingers in his belt loops, feeling like he wanted nothing more than to run out into the brewery, scoop the woman up and cart her off to his lonely, long-term hotel suite and spend days deprogramming her…in the most pleasant ways possible.
“I never thought I’d say this, but…I think you might be the exact thing she needs. And vice versa.” She came around the desk and gave him a one-armed hug. “Go easy, though, Adolf. Not every woman can handle you the way Evelyn did.”
Ross turned the hug into a real one, giving her a tight squeeze before releasing her with another fake leer. “Nice tits, babe. Don’t tell your boss man I said that. He could probably kill me with one blow, eh?”
“God. I knew I never should have said anything nice to you, pig. And yes, he could.”
She opened the door. He saluted her and headed through the kitchen again, thinking he might do a bit more research before jumping into the private dinner.
One thing was certain—he knew, with every cell, nerve and molecule in his body, that he wanted Elisa Nagel. And not just in his bed, either. While he’d never been the most introspective guy on the planet, he knew one thing for a hard-core certainty—he was going to bring her out of her brittle shell, prove to her he could be trusted, and that he would protect her, forever.
Around the bend you go, Hoffman.
He grinned to himself and started whistling, anticipating how pleasant that trip might be.