SEVENTEEN

She woke in her reading chair, her senses tuned to a sharp point. A glance at the wall clock told her it was past midnight. Someone was in the house.

The security alarm wasn’t going off, but she couldn’t remember if she’d set it. She slid out of the chair, moving silently toward the main library. Yes, she could have slipped out the back into the gardens, but she was isolated out here, and had no car keys to manage an escape in a vehicle. Plus, this was her home and Roy’s. She wasn’t going to permit it to be violated by a burglar. There was a phone in the library, but more importantly, there was a gun.

She had both in hand, was backed up in the corner, listening, when the footsteps drew closer. Then she recognized the tread. She cut off the phone before she pressed the final 911 digit.

His silhouette appeared in the doorway of the library, then he hit the light switch, which turned on a lamp on the desk. Beyond the illumination it provided there, it mostly threw shadows around the rest of the room. His gaze went right to the corner where she was standing, making it clear he’d tracked her here. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised he found her so quickly, despite the time of night. He’d likely followed enemies through much more difficult terrain.

His cool blue-green eyes slid to the weapon, back to her pale face.

“Going to use that on me?”

“I might have. If I hadn’t recognized your gait.”

“One thing having a fake leg is good for.” He studied her. She was the one who finally broke the silence.

“I don’t want you here. I want you to go.” But she stood there, staring at him, wishing and longing. Wanting everything to be the way it was. Wanting to break out of whatever this was. He was right there, but a giant chasm was open between them. She’d messed up, on every level. Handled all of it wrong, and she didn’t know how to make it better. She was so tired of trying to make it better.

He nodded. Then he extended his hand. “Come here, girl. Come to your Master.”

She dropped both phone and gun on the desk, and ran to him.

He caught her, holding her close as she practically burrowed into him, hoping that his arms would keep her from shattering. Merely seeing him, and all those cruel bands clamped around her insides loosened, letting her draw a deep breath. She couldn’t speak, just clung to him as he stroked her hair. She hadn’t brushed it today, and she hadn’t changed out of her pajamas, hadn’t donned makeup. It was not her best look, which probably made the dim light a good thing.

She was shaking, and was bemused to find herself dizzy, such that when he eased her grip on his neck, pushed her far enough away from him to look at her, she was wobbling on her feet. He registered it, and other things, too. “Athena, when was the last time you ate anything? Drank?”

“I don’t drink,” she said. “Just wine occasionally.”

“Water. Fluids.”

“Oh. I . . .” She couldn’t remember. Lynn had offered to make her a sandwich, and she’d grazed in the kitchen since then, here and there. Had that been two days ago?

“I need to go brush my hair,” she said. “I look a sight.”

“You need to come with me,” he responded. Then he bent and lifted her in his arms.

“I can walk.”

“I’m not sure you can. Adrenaline got you to the library, and that’s why you’re shaky now.” He strode through the house, headed for the kitchen. Once there he deposited her in a chair and poured her a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge, put it in front of her. “Start sipping on that while I put you together a meal.”

She didn’t want him waiting on her. “I can do it. You shouldn’t—”

“Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, Athena.” He was angry with her. He let her see it, such that she fell silent, though she nursed a little resentment of her own.

“You didn’t ring the bell.”

“No, I didn’t. You gave me the entry code. You weren’t talking to me.” He dropped an armload of sandwich fixings on the counter, then nudged the water at her. “If you don’t start drinking that, I’m putting you in the truck and taking you to the emergency room. Do it.”

She gave him a sullen look but picked it up, took a sip or two. He kept glancing at her, the force of that look prompting her to drink more. In between swallows, she sat silently, holding the glass with both hands. She’d liked having his arms around her. She wanted to go up to the bedroom and sleep with him curled around her like that. Forever.

He set aside the bread knife, began to put deli slices on the thick wheat slab. “I figured it out,” he said. “Not from you, obviously. I thought about the things that could make you shut down like this, and the way you like to make things easier for everyone. You went to the club, tried to give them an early heads-up, a trial run to see how they took it. And they slapped you down for it. Hard.”

His face was set, cold. She didn’t think she could take his scorn, but then she remembered how he’d held her. He was making her a sandwich now. “How did you . . .”

“After Jimmy figured out who your new Master was—and that I was willing to reach across the bar and squeeze the truth out through his testicles—he gave me enough info to put two and two together. I filed the complaint against Mistress Sheila you should have.”

“She was just telling the truth.”

He stopped what he was doing, and now his eyes went from ice cold to laser fury. “Whose truth, Athena? Is the way she sees you how you think of yourself? Have you let everyone else be your mirror for so long you don’t know your own image? Who you really are?”

“No. I was . . . who I am. With you.”

He came around the counter, turned her to face him. “You’re talking in past tense, Athena. And that’s not going to happen. What were you doing, when you went to the club? The thing I’ve tried to hammer in your head since day one of this relationship, goddamn it?”

His words hit her like rocks. As she flinched, he muttered an oath, cupped her face and held her briefly to his chest before pushing her back, gripping her shoulders like he might shake her until her teeth rattled. Instead, he released her to push the sandwich and water at her. “Eat and hydrate. I’m not going to fight with you when a good breeze could blow you down.”

Since her hands were clumsy and slow, he picked up the sandwich and made her take a bite from it that way. Then he lifted the glass to her lips, getting her to wash it down her dry throat with a swallow of water. He kept that routine going until her hands steadied. During it, he took a seat on the stool in front of her, his right foot planted like a barricade, as if he intended to thwart an escape attempt.

The food and water did help. Except for functional comments, he remained silent until she began to feel less wobbly. She didn’t know why he was angry with her. She’d gone there to announce who and what she was, so it wouldn’t be such a shock the first time she and Dale came. She was trying to make it easier for them both. She’d wanted to handle it so he . . .

She closed her eyes. Why was that one thing so hard for her, such a stumbling block?

He was grumbling about it, even as he took care of her. “I’m starting to think I need to put you over my knee and beat your ass every morning to remind you that you don’t have to handle things alone. You don’t have to pave the way to make things easier for everyone else. Especially me.” He stabbed the counter with his finger to make the point. “We should have done this together. We will do it together.”

Her gaze snapped up at that, and she shook her head. “No. I don’t want to go back there.”

“Tough. Do you belong to me, girl?” He touched the necklace on her throat. She hadn’t taken it off once, not even after the club. “Do you want to give this back?”

She immediately closed her hand on the choker, as if she thought he might take it away then and there. The hard look on his face eased somewhat. “Good answer. We’re going to the club. Soon, and the right way. But now we deal with this.” He ran his fingers through her limp hair. She tried to pull away, not wanting him to do that when it was dirty, but he made a quelling noise that stilled her. “What happened, Athena? Why’d you withdraw this way?”

Over the past several days, it had drifted through her mind, a thought she’d at first refused to pin down and examine any more closely, but with nothing but time, the truth had come into focus. She wasn’t proud of herself, but she couldn’t hide from it, either, not under the weight of those blue-green eyes that demanded brutal honesty from her. “The minute I let go, that I chose to be what I want instead of who people expect me to be . . . that happened. And it felt like, by letting go of those reins, that I’d let go of a rope.”

“Hmm. You fell down into an abyss, didn’t you?”

It was such an accurate description of the black hole feeling of the past few days it startled her, made her lift her gaze to his face again. He pushed the chips he’d found for her closer to encourage her to keep eating, and took one himself. “Did you do grief counseling, after Roy died?”

She shook her head. “It always seemed kind of silly to me.”

“Yeah, me, too. Unfortunately, a couple times in my career it was mandatory. Though I only did the bare minimum required, I did learn something that helped me as well as men under my command. When it comes to losing a person close to you, the shrink warned me that sometimes people experience a second wave. You get through the first couple years, life is moving on, you’re moving on, and then suddenly something happens. It can be something small or large, but it’s like suddenly you’ve been stabbed and you’re bleeding out. Instead of grieving the person you lost, you’re grieving for someone else. Yourself, because who you were when that person was alive died, too. That can be an even tougher mourning process, because it ties up with the first, like a double whammy.”

He fed her another chip, stroked a lock of her hair behind her ear and held it there, his fingers caressing her jaw.

“Once I was in that abyss . . . I didn’t have to be anything.” She whispered the words, feeling the sting of shame again. “It was wrong, but . . . I didn’t want to leave.”

A tear gathered in the corner of her eye but he absorbed it with the pad of his thumb, pressed gently there. “The first time you and I talked about where you wanted to go with this,” he said quietly, “we talked about your fear of it becoming something with expectations, a role you were required to play. I think you do want to break out of that, but because it’s what you’ve known for so long, it’s a secure place for you as well. That’s why you keep ending up in there, and the bitch of it is, it seems to creep up on you and take you down when things are going the right way.”

His fingers tightened on her face, his countenance taking on that stern cast that always riveted her attention. It tightened up everything, even in a fragile moment like this where the reaction felt painful. “If you’re in that cell, you’re not living, Athena. Yeah, you’ve always been what people expected, and you did it well. That took courage, patience, a generous heart. But you know what else takes courage? Being who you are. Accepting the difference between bad behavior that you need to change, and people needing to mind their own damn business. When people strike out at you for being who you are, most times it’s because of something about themselves, not about you. They liked having you meeting all their expectations. It keeps their world comfortable, doesn’t it?”

“I’m not angry with anyone. I don’t blame them for that.”

“I’m not saying you have to. You’re a submissive, Athena, the kind that likes to make other people comfortable and happy. But there’s a line.” His gaze sharpened on her. “When you decided to be who you really are with me, that meant you could no longer be what some other people want you to be. Unfortunately, Sheila has a narrow paradigm and some issues, and she struck out at you when you hit that rocky territory. That’s her problem, not yours. Understand?”

She nodded. She wanted to do more than hear the words. She wanted to feel them, believe them. It was easier with Dale here, but the past three days had bogged her down in a swamp of reactions not easily overcome, even by his formidable presence. She remembered how easily it had come apart without his presence. It was hard to believe in a reality that fragile.

Dale touched her chin, drawing her attention again. “This relationship works for you and me because you’re being who you want to be, and I always want you to be that. That’s why I’m so tough on you when you start handling things. I love everything I know about you thus far, but you know what? There are going to be things I don’t like. Beyond your fondness for Stealth. Maybe you have a hidden passion for reality TV or you’ll want the toilet roll turned a different way from how I want it.”

She almost managed a small smile at that, but his expression stayed serious. “And that’s going to be okay. But what will never be okay, what I’ll never accept, is you denying your heart just to please me. Because all I want is to love you and care for you. No, don’t you start crying again.”

Pulling her off the stool, he stood her between his knees and held her, cupping her skull with one hand and keeping his other arm tight around her. “The rest is just icing or chaff, girl, and we work through it. I’m sure you don’t like everything about me, but you’re still with me, right?”

She sniffled, drawing back enough to give him a teary smile. “You are kind of overbearing sometimes.”

His lips curved in response. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Sorry. Retired Master Chief is listed as ‘overbearing SOB’ in the dictionary.”

She reached out with trembling fingers, put them on his somber face. “I’m so sorry.”

“The apology you need to make is to yourself, girl. You’re a kickass, smart woman. I’ve seen you work a room of over five hundred people, understand who and what each one of them is with just a brief conversation. So why’d you let a couple catty women and one emotionally constipated bartender rip you to shreds like this?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m really not sure. Maybe I thought . . . I went to them as myself, no shields, and so I wasn’t ready for what that felt like, being hit without any protection in place.”

“Yeah. Which is why I should have been with you.” He gave her a sharp pinch on the ass that made her jump, but he held her in place. “Our relationship, your being a sub; you thought it was all a glass house because you couldn’t handle it by yourself, didn’t you? You are a formidable woman, Mrs. Summers. But on those very rare occasions when you aren’t invincible, that’s where you rely on your Master.”

She could swear the man read minds. But since it was exactly what she’d thought, his answer brought relief, tears, and a hope that just maybe, he was right. He took a firmer grip on her.

“When you first learned how to drive, did you do it all by yourself?” When she shook her head, he gave her another one of those admonishing pinches. “No, you didn’t. You were probably a little scared, too. It’s something, being behind the wheel of a car for the first time, knowing if you do something wrong you could kill yourself or someone else. Try learning how to handle explosives.”

She did smile at that, though her eyes were still dewy. He kissed both her eyelids, letting out a quiet oath. “When your eyes are full of tears, you break my heart, girl. I forbid you to cry ever again.”

She snuffled at that, her face now pressed to his neck. “My point being,” he continued with mock sternness that wasn’t entirely teasing, “When you embrace something entirely new, you accept guidance, a teacher. Help. This is no different.”

He tipped up her chin, stared at her. “It’s time for you to trust me, once and for all, girl. No, don’t you start thinking you failed me. Or yourself. This isn’t like that. It’s learning to do the three-point turn and the parallel parking. You’re reaching for new skills, expanding who you are, who you’re meant to be.” He touched her cheek. “To trust me, you have to trust yourself. Give yourself that gift, Athena. Give us both that gift.”

She rolled that thought around her tired mind, feeling that tiny spark of hope expanding inside her. It was so simple, really. So hard and so simple at once.

He sighed. “Christ, I missed you. I was trying to give you space, and then I just decided, fuck it, I’m going over there.”

“I’m glad you did. Though I really need a bath. I look—”

“Don’t.” He stopped her. “Let’s get you fed, then we’ll worry about the rest. I’m here, and we’re going to talk this out some more, figure it out, make it better. All right?”

She nodded. Trust him, trust herself. It was a leap of faith, and it started now. Maybe, as he said, she merely needed constant reminding to stay on the right track. Then she thought about how he’d said he’d do that, and that spark flickered with the possibility of a much different kind of heat.

—

He insisted she finish the entire sandwich and glass of water before they left the kitchen. If she managed it, he also promised she could have a shower. Though she had to accomplish it at a slow pace, he was patient. He also kept the conversation to easy things, random topics. Apparently his intent that they discuss what had happened further wasn’t going to be pressed any more tonight, to her relief. As they went up the stairs to her bedroom, he kept his arm around her waist, steadying her as they went. He also brought a napkin of Lynn’s oatmeal raisin cookies and an additional bottle of water, which he sat on her nightstand. “Take off your pajamas, Athena,” he told her. “I’ll sit with you while you take a shower.”

She obeyed, but avoided looking at herself in the closet mirror until he came and stood behind her, pressing his clothed body against her bare one. She’d been so detached from everything these few days, his touch against her bare skin was startling, but in a welcome way. He captured her hands in his.

“Look at yourself, Athena. That’s an order.”

Limp hair, tired eyes, no makeup. His collar on her throat. Her posture reflected her weariness.

“You look like you’ve been through hell,” he murmured against her ear. “But you’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. You get that, right?”

She closed her eyes as he slid her hair to the side and kissed her neck, lips nuzzling the collar. He slid his touch from her hips to her breasts, holding them in his large hands. Her lashes lifted, because she wanted to see how that looked. Her nipples started to respond to his touch immediately.

When she drew in a breath, she realized she hadn’t been able to draw in deep like that for three days. In her self-imposed prison, Dale had been a vital element she’d denied herself, such that it seemed her lungs hadn’t been able to work at full capacity.

“Why didn’t you call me, Athena?” he asked, mouth still against her flesh.

“Because . . . I’d done something wrong. I messed it up. I was ashamed. I didn’t feel like . . . I deserved to reach out to you to make it better.”

He lifted his head, his grip on her increasing so she was leaning back against him. He stroked her breasts, making that quiet sound in his throat when her body wanted to move restlessly against his touch. He wanted her to be still, so she tried. But Lord, the man had magic in those long fingers. Then he spoke, and that velvet timbre subdued her.

“You remember why you said you wanted to help me take care of my leg? You said it honors your submission to be able to care for your Master. That my willingness to look to you for that would emphasize that you belong to me.”

When she nodded, he put his thumbs under her nipples, slowly pressing upward so he tilted the sensitive tips, spearing sensation right down to her core. Her head dropped back on his shoulder and her throat arched, displaying her unconscious surrender to him as he increased the strength of that touch. “Masters have a similar need,” he said in a husky voice, his eyes fixed on what he was doing to her. “You’re a strong woman, Athena. When you turn to me for help, it’s an honor I cherish. It tells me you trust me to be your Master, to step up when you need me. I should have been with you at the club, but after that happened, the first thing you should have done was call me. Next time something like this happens, I hope you’ll do me the honor.”

Normally he insisted, demanded, ordered. Did he realize what a devastating tactic it was to put it like that, taking them back to the critical and emotional first step of a Master-sub relationship? No matter how much a submissive belonged to her Master, she had to first give consent to that ownership. She had to give him her trust.

She wrapped her mind around that. “So if you trust me to care for your leg for the right reasons, and I trust you to help me when I can’t figure things out, then ultimately we start having more faith in one another?”

“Yeah, something like that. Good way to shine that mirror on me, too.” He gave her a fond pinch. “Are you sure you want to do a shower? I’m a little concerned about you being on your feet.”

“It’s easier to wash my hair that way.” She looked up at him, dared to lift a hand and graze his jaw. “But if you’re worried, you could come in the shower with me.”

He chuckled. “I should have known you’d figure out how to manipulate that ‘asking for my help’ in your favor.”

“You did say I was a smart woman.”

Such simple things—seeing his smile, hearing his laugh—made things exponentially better. He was right. She should have called him.

He glanced down at himself. “If I do that, I can’t put my leg back on until morning. Bathing changes the shape and size of the stump.”

“Like trying to put on rings after you get out of the shower,” she surmised. Since he’d dropped his touch back to her hips, she turned in his arms. “I don’t have a problem with that. I do have a gun, Master. I can protect you.”

A devastating and brilliant smile crossed his face. “I am capable of protecting myself—and you—with only one leg, Mrs. Summers. But it’s nice to know I have backup. When did you learn to shoot?”

“I’ve always known. My father taught me, and of course Roy has a range on the property for his own target shooting. He liked skeet as well. It’s a nice range. You’re welcome to use it. As well as any of your friends.”

“There she goes again, trying to get Lawrence and Neil back over here,” he teased.

She pushed at him and he caught her hands. Sobering, he studied her face, bent to press his forehead briefly against hers. “You really should have called me, Athena. I wish you’d trusted me.”

He spoke to her now simply as her lover, and his disappointment stabbed her more deeply than his anger or his fierce insistence as her Master. She wanted to tell him it would never happen again, but she couldn’t. Hard as it was when she wanted to soothe that pain, she made herself tell the truth.

“I know. It will take me time, Dale.”

“Yeah, it will. I’m proud of you for trusting me enough to tell me that, not trying to reassure me with bullshit. I don’t need that, Athena. I just need your honesty.” His eyes became more focused and intent then, back to being a Dom’s direct expression. “In fact, I pretty much require it.”

His hand slipped to her nape, and he drew her to him, kissed her forehead. It was a chaste blessing, but a reassuring one. “Let’s get into the shower.”

She remembered the first time they’d showered together here. When she’d seen the shower stool at his place and realized he needed it to bathe comfortably and safely, she’d made a point of directing his attention to a similar accommodation she already had in place at her own home. As Roy had become sicker, they’d had a shower bench installed in the master bath, one that swung outside the stall so he could sit down to take off his clothes. Athena could then help him maneuver himself and the bench into the large shower area and adjust the multiple spray heads appropriately.

The fact she hadn’t had the feature removed made shared showers with Dale possible, a blissful experience. There were advantages to the set-up for two healthy people that Dale had quickly made clear to her, and re-emphasized now. Once he divested himself of his clothes and the prosthesis, he drew her closer to him, making her straddle his thighs as he ran his hands over her now bare body, laying soft kisses on her breasts, familiarizing himself with every inch of her once again, until she was trembling with emotion and physical response both.

He nudged her into the shower, following her using the bench and leaning back against the wall as she adjusted the water temperature. When she noticed gooseflesh on his skin, she turned it up even higher and made sure the jets covered him equally. She liked her showers hot, and had been pleased to find that worked for him as well.

As she closed her eyes, tilted her head back under the spray, his hands closed around her waist, brought her to him again. His palms bracketed her breasts once more, bringing her down on his lap to fondle them with simple pleasure before he ran his fingers through her hair, helping her get it wet.

Retrieving the soap, he lathered up his hands. As he began to work the fragrant foam into her neck and shoulders, her breasts, the sound that came from her was a cat’s purr. She caught his smile, but she couldn’t stop herself from doing it. At his nudge, she turned around on his lap so he could work his way around her body. He was hard, of course, but she wasn’t sure he could be pushed in that direction. Truth, she still felt a little fragile, so it was nice to stay this way, a low hum of arousal between them. But that hum was pretty deep and intense, something she felt vibrate deep inside her, wanting fulfillment. Wanting the joining that would make everything right again.

When she came back to face him again, she held on to his forearms, then moved her touch to his biceps, pleased with their flex beneath her fingertips. “I haven’t ever seen you work out,” she realized. “When do you do that? And if you were lying to me earlier and you don’t really work out, I will shoot you. I’m sorry, but it will have to be done.”

He grinned. “Usually at night, before my evening shower. I go to a gym not far from my place. Sometimes I do the outdoor fitness course at the park, hook up with a buddy of mine there. Max works out early mornings, but he’ll do a second workout or adjust his schedule and meet me there so we can push one another. He’s younger than me, of course, so he gets to harass me about being an old man and I get to prove him wrong. Even if I pay for it with a bottle of aspirin the day after.”

She ran her own soapy hands over his chest, sliding her fingers through the chest hair, across the flat nipples. “I love your body,” she said sincerely. Fervently. Then she put her mouth on his. She leaned full into him, feeling every inch of that body against hers. She might still be a bit woozy, but any lightheadedness now came from this, how he put his arms around her, held her close, hand dropping to palm her ass, hold her more firmly against his growing erection.

“Finish your shower,” he growled at her, pushing her back and confirming her earlier thought with his next words. “You’re not going to get me to have sex with you when you were nearly fainting an hour ago. Consider it your punishment. Since it’s punishing me as well, you can expect some more payback for that. Don’t give me the pouty look, girl. You know exactly what that makes me want to do with your mouth.”

She wanted that, too. She could well imagine him forcing her to her knees in the shower, her lips sliding down his hard length, tasting him on her tongue. But he was right. She wanted something her body wasn’t quite up to doing. He was protecting her. Caring for her, even as he threatened retribution. It was a lovely and frustrating combination.

She didn’t want to be alone in that, so when he gave her the soap to finish up, maybe she did slide it over her skin with more sensual intent than she would if she was alone. Her fingers slipped between her legs to rub and massage. She arched her back more significantly to clean between her buttocks, along her thighs, so the tips of her breasts jutted out toward him. He’d shifted to a cross-armed stance, looking like a palace guard watching the queen. Even in a seated position, he was daunting, his molten gaze promising dire consequences for being teased this way. Which only made her tease him more, until the corners of his lips were quivering.

There was another reason she did it, though. He could be a cruel, exacting Master when pushed over that line. She wanted that side of him, wanted to purge the past several days of helpless, self-imposed misery from her mind, drive it all away. She shivered in delicious longing at the thought, and tried not to pout. Somewhat.

—

They slept naked together. Despite their shared arousal in the shower, once she was lying down in his arms, lassitude took over. He made her drink the bottle of water, eat a couple of the cookies. After that, she was folded in his arms, head on his chest, while he stroked the wisps along her brow with his long fingers. She’d braided her damp hair, deciding she’d deal with it in the morning.

“Better?”

She nodded. When her eyes filled with an unexpected flood of tears, she resigned herself to irrational emotional responses until she’d had a good night’s sleep. She pressed her face harder against the hair-roughened expanse of his chest.

“Thank you, Dale. For caring about me enough to come looking for me.”

“I already told you”—his mouth brushed her temple—“Caring for you is part of the job.”

“What job?” she asked, her heart beating high in her chest at his pause. Being her Master?

“Loving you, girl.”

It really meant the same thing, didn’t it? She closed her eyes and slept.