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Ophelia watched them go. “Hm. Maybe we need to get a nice sturdy desk for our bedroom too.”
“No rough stuff until after you have those babies,” Luke said, hugging her. “Think vanilla thoughts, princess.”
It was weird being together like this and him being the only one without a partner. Joking around with Mila had been one of his favorite things. Listening to his brother and cousin teasing their women made him miss her a million times worse. He could hear the silent echo of the things he could imagine Mila contributing to the conversation. Would it be weird to call her just to hear her voice? It would be worth it, even if she just told him off and hung up on him.
Ophelia pulled away from Luke and laid a hand on his arm. “You know Luke and I aren’t going anywhere, Atlas. And Fox and Addison will be around a lot. California isn’t far, and it’s not like money is an issue for them, or transportation.” She smiled up at him and gave his arm a squeeze. “I know I’m not Fox, but I promise to irritate the hell out of you as much as possible.”
As if Ophelia was ever annoying. She’d have to change her whole personality. He kissed her on the forehead. He’d gotten so attached to both Ophelia and Addison since they’d joined the family. It was hard to remember what things had been like before them, other than less interesting. The family had needed them just as much as the women had needed the family—Ophelia because she’d had no one left, and Addison because she’d had no one who understood her. They weren’t just his sisters-in-law, they were his friends too.
“Shit, I think we need to get to our seats.” Luke rose onto his toes and looked around. “Who’s going to get Fox and Addison?”
Atlas fished a coin out of his pocket. Flipped it. Showed it to Luke.
“Tails. You go,” Atlas said.
“You didn’t call it beforehand,” Luke groused.
“I didn’t have to,” Atlas said, smiling slyly. “I learned this trick from the best. It would have been you either way.”
***
The leggy redhead whimpered and writhed, tugging at the overhead ropes.
“You’re trapped. Nowhere for you to go, little bird,” he said quietly.
She froze, quivering, drooling around the ballgag, waiting for the next blow of the belt. The rubber duck in her hand dangled precariously, as though she was thinking of letting it drop. Silent safewords at Fitte often involved rubber ducks for some reason.
“I’m only at ten, Kat. If you safeword now you’re just delaying the rest of your birthday beating until later.”
She whined again and stomped her foot, but that only made Loke chuckle.
“You’re so pretty when you pout, little subby. You going to shriek at me some more? Go ahead and keep complaining. That duckie hasn’t hit the floor yet, so I don’t believe it hurts as much as you’re letting on.” Loke grabbed his bottle of water from the table Atlas was sitting at and proffered the belt he was holding.
“Your turn, my friend. Don’t keep the birthday girl waiting.” Loke leaned in so only Atlas could hear him. “She’s hoping you’ll do some wax play with her later.”
Atlas shook his head, and held up a hand to refuse the belt. “I can’t.”
“Two months is long enough. I liked Mila, too, Alas, but apparently she didn’t feel the same way about us.” He took another swallow of water. Atlas was getting damn tired of Loke calling him Alas, but Loke said it was his own fault for wandering around acting like Hamlet. “Mila had her issues with your profession, but for some reason she hasn’t texted me back either. Hell, I didn’t even break her heart.” He sighed. “She hadn’t even given me the chance to be a bastard to her.”
Loke stepped away and gave the girl four belt strokes in rapid succession. She shrieked behind the gag, dancing from foot to foot, tucking her ass in as tight as she could to get away from the next blow.
“Are you really going to stop me at fourteen? You only have ten more to go, little bird.” The pink bikini panties she wore had the words “Birthday Girl” scrawled across them in rainbow glitter. Her ass was so red the panties clashed with her welt marks.
Kat was a beautiful woman, and fun, but he couldn’t imagine taking her up on her offer. When he was younger, he would have hooked up with her for the hell of it, or even to help him forget about Mila, but he wasn’t ready to move on. Maybe their relationship had been based on a lie, but it had been real and important to him.
The two months away from her felt like a year, but as time had passed he just missed her more. The void kept growing. They hadn’t even known each other for that many months, but he couldn’t imagine going back to his life as though she’d never happened. She’d changed him—had changed what he wanted and even who he’d thought he was. And there were so many things that bothered him about losing her. The worst was knowing that in all their talks he’d only scratched the surface of who she was. He wanted to know everything about her.
Loke had gone back to beating Kat. Her grip on the rubber duck had turned her knuckles white. She was kinky and hot, and was interesting to talk to, but no matter how hard Loke had been pushing for Atlas to hook up with her for the past few weeks, and how much she’d tried to spark his interest, the girl deserved someone who wasn’t still in love with someone else.
He started thinking of the first time he’d played with Mila here, and how annoyed he’d initially been with Loke. He should have known then that he was a lost cause where she was concerned.
Fingers snapped in front of his face.
“Hey, you were far away.” Kat was smiling at him. At some point Loke had taken her down and done aftercare, and although Atlas had a vague recollection of it happening, he’d missed most of it.
“Sorry.”
She shook her head and kissed his cheek. “Don’t apologize. I understand that expression. When Kayla left me, I wasn’t sure how to move on. It took forever.”
