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“You didn’t hit me in the face.”
She exhaled. “But Ididhurt you, didn’t I?”
“I tried to hold you, but you didn’t want to be held. I fell against the cross, but I’m fine. It’s more my forehead, or my eyebrow, I guess. You didn’t know what you were doing. How are your wrists and ankles?”
“They don’t hurt, but my shoulder doesn’t seem to be working quite right, so I may have wrenched something loose in there again.”
“How will you know? Do you need to have it x-rayed?”
“If it swells or has a lot of heat, there’s a problem. I’ll give it an hour or two and check range of motion. What the hell happened?”
Marcus spoke from behind her. “I take full responsibility. You’ve done so well, I jumped forward a step on the bondage thing, and the full restraint plus being leaned forward and off balance combined with my starting out strong appears to have been too much. I’m sorry. You put your trust in me and I blew it.”
Heather was quiet a moment, considering. “You reacted quickly, right? This isn’t on you. There was no reason to think I’d panic like that. As you said, I’ve done great with everything up to this point. I’m not the type of person to have panic attacks, and I’m surprised I did. I can’t hold you responsible for that.” She turned from Kyle to look at him. “And now that you know, I’m sure you’ll take it into consideration in the future.”
“You’re more forgiving of me than I am of myself, but thank you. How are you feeling now?”
“Like I need to burn all this adrenaline out of my system. I don’t suppose you have a punching bag?”
Marcus shook his head. “No, but I have some free weights. Or we can dance, if you’d rather?”
“You can dance?”
“Yes, and Kyle’s not so bad, either. I’ll lead you and you can lead Kyle?” He chuckled. “Between the two of us we might be able to tire you out.”
“It might be better for me to go for a run, but I don’t want to leave Kyle. As soon as I’m gone, he’ll take the ice off.”
“Strap the sofa cushions to a tree and then whale on them,” Kyle said. “We have plenty of rope. My eye will be fine, with or without the ice, but I’ll leave it on to keep the bruising down.”
Chapter 30
Marcus drove up to the barn and saw Heather in the ring on Phantom. She wasn’t riding him so much as performing with him, like a perfectly choreographed act. Phantom jumped and sidestepped and ran, and even appeared to do a two-step. The two appeared as liquid motion, moving as one unit.
Scout met him at the car, and Marcus took a few minutes to say hello to him before making his way to Heather.
Jonah came out of one of the buildings and fell into step beside him while Scout ran back into the barns, probably to oversee another of the humans on the property.
Both men were silent as they watched Heather on Phantom, and Marcus was enthralled. Phantom was a huge horse, and Heather’s eighty-five pounds on him made her look like more of a kid than ever, except for the way she handled him — horse and rider moving in perfect sync. Together.
Marcus finally broke the silence to say, “I don’t know much about how that’s supposed to look, but it’s beautiful. Is it normal for a horse and rider to be so mesmerizing, so magnificent?”
“Nothing normal about Phantom or Heather. One of a kind, the both of them. Not much I wouldn’t do for Heather. When I saw her wrists, I was ready to find you and kick your ass, but she told me what happened, so I’ve decided to hear your side of the story before I pummel you into the ground.”
Marcus sighed. “I’d almost feel better if someonedidwhale on me for it.” He shook his head. “She’d handled everything so beautifully, I jumped a step with bondage. She’d been fine with spreader bars, wristsandankles, bound below an overhead beam without even a blip of an issue, so I put her on the cross and immobilized her, which is essentially the same position, and then started out with hard strokes from an intense flogger.”
He rubbed his face and then dropped his hands. “With Heather’s permission, I had a conversation with her mom yesterday. They did the whole gamut of sensory processing stimulation when she was a child. Attachment stuff, too. She freaked when they attempted the rebirthing and the blanket-burrito type exercises. If I’d known, I’d have gone a different route with the bondage. Going forward, I’ll need her hands out of the way for most kinds of impact play, and I’ll have to figure out how to keep her mostly still for whip work, but I won’t completely immobilize her again.”
Marcus was pretty sure Heather was so focused on her horse, she had no idea Marcus had arrived.
“I asked around about you,” Jonah said, “Heard a story about you walking away from a SAM trying to top from the bottom.”
“I’ve released a SAM mid-scene more than once. Hasn’t happened in a while because the word is out I don’t put up with that shit. Do you have a point?”
“You sure you’re willing to take on a Dominant masochist? From what I hear about you, you’re pretty strict with your slaves — also, that you prefer a slave, rather than a mere submissive. Heather is neither.”
“Trust me, I’m well aware of what Heather is and is not. I appreciate that you care enough about her to drill me, but I’m not sure how much she’s going to want me to talk to you.”
“Tell me your intentions. I don’t need the gritty details.”
