Page 102 of His Keepsake

Epilogue

GRAYSON

The thwop of the rotors above were a constant reminder of the last time I’d flown in a helicopter. At the end of that trip, I’d found Emme in the worst ever situation, witnessed a murder, and discovered Axl’s sins ran a lot deeper underground than mine. Or undersea, as it were.

Emme’s new kitten outfit had fluffy black ears and a long-sleeved black bodysuit with zippers and strategically placed cutaway sections. When she walked in front of me, hand in hand with Axl, the upper swell and divide of her rear was exposed. I’d had to grab her there earlier, just to be sure her peach-like ass felt as good as it looked. She wore no tail, yet, and a blindfold, but wasn’t tied.

“You nervous about the chopper?” Axl leaned in from her other side to ask me.

“These things don’t have enough wings.”

“Note taken. I’ll fix that next time.”

Tonight was the night, Axl planned more kink, edgier kink, riskier kink. We hoped to make her trust us to take her anywhere we chose to.

CNC was a knife-edge sort of kink play. If she was like me, this was the life in her veins. It would revive her, like a suck of air to someone suffocating in the darkness of a void, and it would wreak havoc on her…but in the best ever way.

My one big problem?

Unlike every other kink encounter, I’d ever had, this time I was afraid. If we went too far, too soon, tonight could destroy her.

I held Emme’s hand where she sat beside me. I’d become addicted to this, her hand in mine. Every time I had done so since we brought her home, I’d found the subtle ins and outs, the shape of her fingers, the sheer femininity of them wrecked me a little. It gave rise to aches that, for once, were not purely sexual.

I wasn’t sure why I’d never had this desire to protect someone before.

Maybe it was because she was completely ours—completely reliant on us? Or maybe it was because she was the only person who had fallen apart before my eyes, yet despite our treacherous, perverted past, she had relied on me to help her put back together the jigsaw pieces of her soul?

That. I think it was that.

She relied on me and on Axl. He had done his share of picking up a lot of the pieces.

It had surprised me. It was why I was giving up the reins tonight. I was letting Axl direct the show. I hoped I wouldn’t regret this.

* * *

EMME

Trepidation—not a word I’d ever used much but this was it, tonight.

I’d learned over the past month that these two men could be almost normal. If that was the right word? Normal for me, anyway. Even so, I occasionally feared them.

Love, hate, fear—such intimately connected emotions.

I needed fear. I knew it. They knew it.

My weakness over the past month embarrassed me, but having a complete and utter breakdown over Charity’s violent death couldn’t be held against me. Her final screams echoed in my ears during the day, and at night I relived all of it, as though it was happening again. I could never free myself—never reach her in time, and yet I replayed those moments again and again, wondering if I could have done something different.

If I’d never asked her to set me up with her Dom friend I never would have taken the path that led to her death, but there was no way anyone could have foreseen what would happen. I’d understood the danger to myself, but in a sensible world Charity should have been safe.

But still, if it hadn’t been for me, she’d be alive.

Grayson would not show me the photos.

I guess I couldn’t blame him.

It was my fault, though, even if he insisted it was his.

Axl? He remained a conundrum. Another big word.

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