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His expression changed, became desolate. When he closed the distance between them again, she couldn’t stop theinstinctive flinch. He halted in front of her, but kept his hands to himself. “Mistress. Skye. I’m sorry. Shit. Shit,shit.”
The agony in the words, as well as what he said next, proved her faith in him. “That guy, that’s not who I am anymore. But it was at one time, and all this shit is dredged up right now, past and present, a future I don’t know what to do with.”
He drew a deep breath, and a hoarseness entered his voice. “I can’t hear myself. Or anything else, and it’s fucking me up so bad. You should just go. Really.”
She took her own deep breath. Instead of listening to him, she pointed at herself, then her ears, then rested her hand on his chest, her gaze holding his.
I can hear you, that gesture said.
His anger drained away. When he spoke, he sounded tired. "Can you…is my voice too loud?"
She shook her head, pointed down.
"A little too soft?" A painful half chuckle. “My crew would say that's a first. If they were here."
She typed, held up her phone. Her hand had fortunately stopped shaking. “They should be,” she told him. “You need your family right now."
His jaw flexed. “I’m pissed. Resentful like a fucking teenager. I went off on one of them last week for no damn good reason. Well…” He shook his head again. “Not for anything they did, not really. I’d visited the doc that day and there was no change. I could tell she thought there’d be some by now, if…I was going to get it back. She doubled down on telling me I should start looking at some of this stuff they offer deaf people, classes and shit. Take advantage of those resources… In case I end up needing them long term.”
He grimaced. “She was quick to point out that stuff would be good even for the short term, but all I heard… It was the first time she really said the word as a permanent possibility, youknow. Deaf. The only word I’m gladnotto hear come out of my fucking mouth.”
She closed her hand over the fist clenched at his side. He didn’t seem to notice, the fingers knotted tight. “I wanted to burn all the info she gave me in a trash barrel, but I put it in my desk. Locked it away. I need to look at it, but every day I say…not today. Hell, I’m pathetic and I know it. That’s why I don’t want them around me, Skye. Or you. I want to smash something into pieces, and as I said, I’ve been that guy. I don’t want to hurt anyone because I’m hurting. No one deserves that shit from me.”
She bypassed that and focused on the first part. “Taking those steps, reaching out for those resources, resisting the lure of isolation, is an act of will,” she typed. "You have a strong will."
He raised his attention from the phone to her face. “So do you. Is that how you did it?”
They’d never gone into that territory before, but given his current condition, she didn’t take it as an inappropriate question. She chose a measured response. “Somewhat. A story for another time. When you’re behaving like you’ve earned it. If you still want to know then.”
The fingers slowly loosened, that hand going to her hip. Though he didn’t close the distance between them, the look in his eyes seemed to move him closer. “You’ve raised my curiosity about a lot of things about you today.”
Yeah, he wasn’t alone in that. That kiss had opened some unexpected territory between them. They could go back down the road they’d been on only a few moments ago, but she knew the timing was regretfully wrong for it. Proving it, he sighed and changed topics.
“You going to make me go to this charity thing?”
Though she thought he’d intended to deliver the question with a teasing note, she picked up on the edge. One thing Tiger never did was play man-child with her. Instead of smiling, shegave him a Domme look. She lifted a finger, then put her head down to type.
The words were ready to be called, because she’d mostly learned to type at the same speed as she thought. Yet with the hearing world, she could use the audio to “talk” as she typed. In this instance, Tiger had to wait until she was finished. Unless she positioned herself where he could see the screen as she typed. Given the mood of the moment, she chose not to do that.
Tiger found a way to occupy himself. He braced himself against the wall by her, his hand still resting on her hip. She glanced sideways at him as he put his nose close to her hair and inhaled. The gesture sent a tingle through her ear, the side of her throat and across the top of her breast.
Though he drew back slightly to see if she would ping him for it, she decided against it. Damn it, she’d deleted a line.
She’d just punish him for that later.
She turned the phone around so he could read it. “I never make you do anything, Tiger. There are a lot of destructive paths in dealing with this. Wallowing is one. Just giving up and being carried along is another, so you don’t have to actively choose or take responsibility for your path. That’s not you. That strong will I mentioned shows in your active submission, your choice to submit to your Mistress’s desires and commands.
“There's an expiration date on wallowing, and after you've passed it, you're just stinking up the world with self-pity. As a friend, I can only do so much about that. But the other path, the giving up and being carried along, that comes into my territory.”
She saw pensiveness, a little irritation, and flashes of anger as he read. When he hardened against his jeans, she knew he’d reached her last paragraph.
“If the way you submit isn’t true to yourself, I will always call you on it. If you fail to meet your own expectations, I will be eventougher on you than if you fail to meet mine. You don’t have to ask me why—you know the answer to that in your gut.”
As he digested that, she waited him out. A strong, alpha male who sought sexual submission learned to take a step back and reflect. He'd brought a good measure of that temperance with him when they’d started doing sessions together. He'd identified his hard limits without waffling and been confident in their initial negotiations, displaying none of the warning signs of being vague and uncertain, or dismissing too much of his own needs to please her.
She could see him struggling, not wanting to say what he ended up saying. As she’d said, resisting isolation, particularly at this stage of his hearing loss, required a tremendous act of will. Which was why the prodding and care of friends helped. “So any special requirements for this charity thing?” he said.
She held up the phone, flaring her nostrils for emphasis. “You’ll have to shave and brush your teeth. Fortunately, you seem to have remembered what a shower is.”
