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She hadn’t known he’d been that close to Nicole when she was shot. No wonder it was haunting him. She could imagine the blood on his hands, a limp woman’s body in his arms, beyond his ability to help her.
Though she had no conscious memory of it, sometimes she dreamed about her father, his hair wet with blood, the deceptive solidity of his head under her touch. Like when he carried her on his hip and she’d curled her hands against his neck, in his shaggy hair. A far better memory.
Barely into her thirties, she was the youngest of the TRA executive team. Life had required a maturity from her that far exceeded her age, but she was now older than he’d been when he’d died.
She thought of the bobber, all tuned up and running smoothly. Now she knew more about the beast.
She was ready to ride.
She could follow him into the house, but instead, she went to the barn, stepping through the double doors he’d latched into an open position. Thanks to the large trees draped over the tin-roofed building, it was a cool space. In addition to his collection of bikes, there was a nice trailer plus a hulking Dodge Ram pickup, probably what he used to haul his rides to the rallies and custom bike shows. Beside the Dodge was the antique truck he'd driven to Dale and Athena’s.
Everything clean, no rust. Tools organized on pegboards above several sturdy workbenches.
She stopped by the customized Harley Dyna Street Bob he rode to the club. She thought of his gentle behavior toward the female subs. He was protective toward a Domme, too, in a different way. One was like watching over tiger cubs, the other like caring for their powerful adult mother. It might take more to hurt the mother, but it could be done. She deserved just as much of his protection and care. Maybe more, because she was far more likely to risk herself intentionally.
With Nicole and Aubrey, it was clear he felt he’d failed both mother and cub. It would take time for that to heal, but she’d just witnessed how the silence in his head could ambush him. It reached out of the abyss and dragged him down, gave him thoughts she wouldn’t tolerate, no matter how natural they might be to the grieving process.
Shouldn’t have been born at all.
She was angry for him, for what he’d been through, for the guilt it had put inside him. For an asshole brother who would keep twisting that knife and dig it in deeper, when Tiger contacted him to secure Aubrey’s future.
She returned to the barn door. Good timing. He was returning with more sodas, as if that was his reason for going into the house. She suspected it had been for pain meds for the headache. She’d deal with that, plus him deliberately using his inability to hear to ignore or avoid any communication she’d been willing to offer.
He’d provided her with an opportunity, the way a sub did when he or she really needed something from their Dominant. He’d obviously gotten a better handle on his feelings, but she wanted to do a full purge of that pain and keep the headache she still saw behind his eyes from taking over.
She returned to the recesses of the barn, expecting him to come find her. They’d gone down this road yesterday, somewhat, but sometimes a lesson needed reinforcement, like a wound needing repeated treatments to heal.
She had pieces. Nicole and Aubrey, his brother, his father, his mother, but she sensed she was missing a key piece that kept this wound festering, like hidden shrapnel. She didn’t know the question to ask to reveal it, but she could keep sifting through the complicated layers of his emotional anatomy until she found it.
She heard the scuff of his shoes on the barn floor and turned toward him. She could tell he wasn’t sure of his mood, if he could give her what she might be wanting or needing. She was going to show him she knew how to call forth the part of him that would respond and serve her, no matter what mood he was in. She knew how strong that part of him was. It just needed a strong woman to call it forth.
She would smash the fingers of that darkness holding him, and tell it to back the fuck off.
She pointed to the tuned-up bobber, the one he’d aptly called a workhorse. She made the gestures and word spell combination he’d recognize.
Go there. Or safeword.
Despite the steel-edged resolve in her thoughts, she delivered the command with a different tone in her expression. The choice was always his. She knew what would help, knew what she wanted from him. She could handle both things. But if he couldn’t align his mind to it, if he had to safeword, she wouldn’t punish him with disappointment.
Last night had been about punishment, for him doubting himself and his own strengths. This was about grief, her desire to help him find a better way to handle it.
After a long moment, he made his decision. He came to her, dropped to a knee and kissed her hand. She’d never tire of that gesture of obeisance, one he’d spontaneously worked into the beginning of their sessions together. It told her he was with her, on board to trust what she had in mind. The deliberateness he put into it, the obvious forethought, took care of her concerns that he might push himself too hard for her, for the wrong reasons.
This time he also brushed his jaw against her knuckles, holding there a second.
Words were used far too much. Touch and expression said and did so much more, especially when strong emotion was involved. Her fingers slid along his skin, offering cool, even strokes. She nodded to the bike. A reminder.
He went to it, and she followed, showing him she wanted him to brace his hands on the seat and spread his legs. When he complied, he put himself on the bike’s right side, pushing into the more stable and supportive left lean of the bike on the kickstand. Because of the outward angle of the lower parts of the bike, his body was even more stretched out.
She didn’t flirt or tease. She went behind him, took a two-handed hold of his ass and gripped hard, even as she leaned in and used her teeth on his shoulder blade, nipping him throughhis shirt. She crowded him, one leg braced between his spread ones as she reached around, opened his jeans, dipped in and found him.
This is mine, her firm clamp said.To jerk off, to play with, to use how I want.She used her other hand to squeeze his ass again.This too. All of it. Your mind, heart and soul, centered on me and what I want.
She let go of his ass to shift to his side, flexing her hand on his cock as she tapped his temple, two light beats.Nothing in your head but what your Mistress wants there.
He knew the gesture’s meaning, as well as how to respond to it. “Yes, ma’am.” His voice was rough, his eyes stormy. Too much of the wrong kind of fight still going on in his body. Including his hands, digging into the bike seat.
Those hands belonged to a man with the patience to figure out how to make a broken engine run again, purr and perform at its best.
