by Poppy Flynn
His sandy hair was on end from the many times he'd dragged his fingers through it, and his massive shoulders slumped in an uncharacteristic expression of defeat.
He'd messed up. Big time! He knew that, and he'd suffer through the humiliation of Jake Blackwood coming from head office to troubleshoot his balls up and the undoubted castration he would receive of said balls when Desi got home and handed them to him on a platter for running off her PA.
He deserved everything that was thrown at him and probably more. As a respected director at Blackwood Universal with more than a decade in practice without so much as the tiniest whisper of criticism against him in all that time, whatever actions were reported would not earn him any more than a slap on the wrist. As co-owner of Club Risqué, the consequences would be even less since he hadn't overstepped any boundaries there—pushed them a little bit more than a Dom in his position should have, certainly. But he'd broken no promises, promised no assurances, and assured no repercussions. Not in the sense of the lifestyle, anyway. There were repercussions all right, but none that he had expected.
Lord knew, he really hadn't meant to hurt her. Hadn't, in all honesty, thought she was so attached and so defenceless that she could be hurt by anything he said or did. She was always so bouncy and irritatingly bubbly. She never appeared to take anything that seriously. It hadn't for one moment occurred to him that she was involved on an emotional level.
He'd assumed that everything was a party to Laurel and he'd seen his role as being the party pooper. She'd been like some irritating little puppy, one that was always jumping and barking at your heels. No matter how many times you told it to calm down or batted it away, it always came back, just as yappy and irritating as before.
All he'd wanted was for Laurel to back off a bit, to give him some breathing space, some time to get his head together. But she was never gone; she was always there, at work, at the club. He could neither work nor relax without her being around. And that had put him on edge.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't fair to blame her for that. Of course, they had to work together, so that was inevitable. And she was just as entitled to exercise her club membership as he was, even if he was co-owner. Not that she, or many other people, knew that, of course.
It just seemed like she was always there, every time he turned around, every place he went. He had enjoyed her more than any other submissive he could ever remember. It was true that they had become a bit of an item, unofficially, of course. He'd purposely never taken any steps to enter into any kind of contract or an official D/s relationship with her. She was an experienced sub. She knew the score. She knew there had never been any promises—nothing even close.
But still, he'd enjoyed her far too much. They didn't keep in touch when he wasn't on the east coast, but when he had to be here for work, things almost seemed to have become 'expected'. That was what he hadn't liked, hadn't wanted.
Laurel? Well, he'd liked her all too well, wanted her too much. And that had scared the crap out of him. He had no plans to settle down, not even within the lifestyle, and if he ever did sometimes think about the kind of woman who would grace his future, then she was about as polar opposite to Laurel as you could get. He'd always imagined his perfect companion would be tall and sleek, socially graceful, calm and level headed and elegant. Probably upper class, certainly classy, a woman who knew her place and was confident in it, both as a submissive and as a socialite. And the God's honest truth was that Laurel was none of those things.
Laurel was loud and curvy, effervescent and wild, disdainful of arrogance and superiority and a brat who topped from the bottom when she subbed. She was light-hearted and frivolous and never seemed to take anything seriously. He'd been constantly nagging at her to calm down or chill out or to behave herself, but it was like water off a duck's back. Like nothing he ever said ever seemed important enough for her to act on.
On top of that, his feelings for her were complicated. He craved her, missed her when he was gone. She was like a drug that he'd become addicted to. One that wasn't good for him. One that he didn't understand because it didn't make any sense and that scared him. Terrified him, in fact.
So, he'd done what men like him did best when faced with something they didn't understand and which wouldn't go away, and that they were too damn scared to ponder in case they didn't like the answer and stamped all over it before it could bite him in the ass.
He'd just been trying to get her to back off. Subtlety hadn't worked. He wasn't surprised by that. He'd always believed that Laurel wouldn't recognise subtle even if it smacked her right between the eyes. It just wasn't something that was in her vocabulary.
So, he had gone for something rather more brazen and vulgar and tried to make himself as unappealing, as infuriating and as obnoxious as he possibly could. He purposely provoked her and annoyed her and insulted her in the hope that she would find him too objectionable to bother with and withdraw from their involvement. And as much as he tried to deny it, some of it, he simply hadn't been able to control. He seemed to be constantly on some kind of emotional seesaw, which saw him blowing up irrationally and out of proportion with the situation. That, of course, had just added to the catch twenty-two scenario, because the more out of control he felt, the more frantic he became and the more irrational he got and the more he blew up, losing control in some ominous self-perpetuating cycle which had truly alarmed him.
He'd taken it too far, of course. He could see that now. Hindsight was always 20/20. It was the emotions, you see. Emotions that he'd truly believed were only his own. It never once occurred to him that Laurel's might also be involved. She'd always seemed to be such a good-time girl, only in it for the laughs.
So, unfortunately, he hadn't realised, in his reflexive trampling, that he'd been stomping all over Laurel's feelings. And now, it was too late; the damage already was done.
And as for that other difficult, slithering little issue. The one he really didn't want to have to face. The one that he knew he was going to have to face up to soon, like it or not. The one that swiped his Dom card and tore it into hundreds of tiny little pieces. The fact that some of what had happened had been out of his control. Out of his control in the worst possible way in that he was out of control. There were too many times when the interaction between them had taken on a life of its own, spawned from the unending pressure that screamed inside his brain and seemed to make him completely irrational.
Connor still didn't know what had happened to him on several occasions, and it was a truly terrifying scenario, one that he had been doing his level best to ignore because he wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answers. That might be the coward's way out and he might be guilty of burying his head in the sand, but Connor wasn't sure he wanted to know the truth.
The time had come to step up and pay the piper, though, because his actions, even those that had been inadvertent, had taken their toll on somebody else's life. It was time for Connor to stand up and accept the consequences and ensure that nothing like that ever happened again. Except, he never got the chance.
Laurel had obviously chosen to take some time away. She had also chosen to ignore every single attempt he made to contact her. His calls went to voice mail and his texts were ignored. If she was at home, she wasn't answering, and she had stopped coming to Club Risqué.
Even though she was no longer nipping at his heels, his strung out feelings of paranoid anxiety hadn't diminished like he'd thought they would, once she wasn't pushing him all the time.
The overwrought irritability, the trembling and the nausea all still plagued him and kept him on edge. Sleep was a thing of the distant past and it showed in his increasingly haggard appearance and lack of concentration. More than one person had suggested that he needed to take a leave of absence, and as soon as Desi and Joel returned, that's maybe what he would do. God knew he wasn't any use to anybody like this. Connor felt like he was holding on to his sanity by the barest thread and he finally owned up to the fact that there real
ly was something seriously wrong and he needed to see his doctor.
And then all the time was gone. Desi was back, and she was loaded for bear and not even three imposing Doms were going to stand in her way. They were all in the doghouse for one reason or another, and Connor was pathetically pleased that he wasn't the only one who had messed up.
The memory of her whirling into Logan's office like some little spitfire was still emblazoned in his memory. She had torn a strip off each and every one of them while Joel had just stayed quiet, vaguely amused at the dressing down the petite little bombshell had given the thee big Doms. She might be a submissive, but outside the bedroom, she was a firecracker who didn't tolerate any nonsense, and once she had dispensed with the others, she had turned on him.
"So, about Laurel. Since that is a company matter, Connor, I expect your full list of grievances, of which I am led to believe there are many, in writing. I already have Laurel's version of events and I will be checking and cross referencing as necessary." Connor had shifted from foot to foot and refused to look Desi in the eye. It was an incongruous image for the big man.
"Since I still retain superiority within this branch, I strongly suggest that you three all go back to head office while I pick up the pieces of the many lives you have shattered and try to glue them back together."
With that, Desi had marched toward the door, but as she crossed the threshold, she turned back and glared at the three of them. "And don't hurry back!" she had uttered coldly.
Chapter 16
Present Day…
And he hadn't. Not until today, and only then because it was Logan and Luanna's joint bachelor/bachelorette celebrations.
He hadn't wanted to be here, not after everything that had happened, and in truth, he was only just getting back onto an even keel.
But his friends had implored him. Especially after he had been conspicuously absent from both Logan's gallery opening and Jake's wedding.
Even his therapist had insisted that this was a step he needed to take. The final rung in proving to himself that he was over the worst and had moved away from the edge of the nervous breakdown that his doctor had diagnosed within a day of him getting back to the south coast.
It had taken him an enormous effort to step back from the yawning chasm of welcoming oblivion. He had attributed a lot of his success to his dominant personality, after he had managed to get over the idea that he was a complete loser, a failure who didn't deserve his Dom card and had no business using it.
His friends had rallied around him and managed to convince him that there was no shame in accepting help when it was needed, that it was a trait that proved he was human and which gave him the advantage of empathy and understanding for others, without which he would truly not be worthy of his Dom status. Not that he'd played at all since he'd left the south coast that fateful day. Even if he'd felt capable, he'd had no inclination to be with anyone except Laurel, so he'd remained completely celibate, instead, like it was some kind of penance.
Those few trusted advocates whom he allowed close to his private life had finally managed to convince him that the strongest men were those who accepted their weaknesses and worked to resolve them, and they had assured him that it was okay for a man to sometimes be overwhelmed, to be scared and beleaguered, that no man was an island or existed without challenges and dilemmas. They told him that struggles only developed strengths, not diminished them, and that strength was recognised through struggle and proven when a person went through hardships without giving up.
And something his therapist had told him resonated deep inside of him, 'God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse them.' The words had circled around and around inside his head when he thought that things were too much, that he would never manage to overcome the shame and the disillusionment, the humiliation and the dread that the events of the past had instilled inside him for so long. He had come to accept that the issues were all still there; he had just buried them. He had swept them under the carpet and ignored any latent effects they might have on his psyche—classic denial.
He had also accepted that, in order to move forward, he had to exorcise his demons and put them to bed, once and for all. And that meant facing them in the first instance.
As much as he detested dredging up all the past hurts and humiliations, the pain and the trauma and the consequences, he realised it was necessary. His very sanity really did depend on it.
And so, he told his therapist the whole sordid story, and from there, he had spoken to Micah Flynn, Club Risqué psychologist, and his three business partners. Not that he'd gone into too much detail with any of them. He couldn't quite face the idea of laying himself bare in front of his friends to that degree. But they knew the bones and that was enough.
Well, it had been enough for everybody except Micah, who had pulled the psyche card and insisted that he needed to know everything and to evaluate how it affected his interactions within the club environment. He had argued that he wouldn't be doing his job properly if he didn't insist on this outcome, and Connor could hardly dispute that. It was what they had employed the man for, after all. And he had not been pleased with the fact that Connor had kept a significant occurrence, like the one that had affected him, from his knowledge.
Of course, as owners, Joel, Jake, Logan, and himself had not been subject to the same kind of thorough evaluation as the other members, although it very soon became clear that Micah had had some insights into what Connor had been dealing with. Connor believed that if he hadn't been sent back to their south coast head office with his tail between his legs, then the man would probably have worked things out for himself. Oh, not the cause, but certainly the effect.
Instead of annoying him, it gave him a great peace of mind to know that people, like all four of them, had his back. And that was another of the things that he found strength in.
It all added up to allowing himself to believe that he had a lot to be grateful for and realise that he had spent far too much of his life concentrating on the negative instead of embracing the positive.
His one enduring regret was Laurel. It had been six months since he last saw her. Six months of sweat and tears and crisis in confidence, of highs and lows and sometimes feeling that he wasn't enough of a man to deserve the good things in his life.
And he had finally come to realise that Laurel had been one of the good things in his life. Just as he had come to realise that their relationship, such as it was, and his complex feelings for her, had been the catalyst for his difficulties.
Not that he blamed her at all. If anything, now that he had come out of the other side relatively unscathed and undoubtedly the stronger for it, he should thank her. Except that he never had managed to see or speak to her again before he had come home, and afterward, for a long time, he had been in no fit state to deal with the simplest of issues, never mind the soul deep ones that coloured his feeling for Laurel and how they had affected him.
But Connor knew that was another thing he needed to face. The final part of the process. The final brick in the wall that would leave him all the stronger for having dealt with it. He'd never been one to shirk his responsibilities, and he wasn't about to start now.
Laurel deserved to understand what had happened and why he hadn't been in touch. The way things had been left was unacceptable, but it had also been unavoidable; putting it right was not. That was his next step and one of the other reasons why he was here tonight. He was hoping to kill two birds with one stone at Logan and Luanna's joint party tonight, because Laurel would surely be there, and with their friends around, she wouldn't have the opportunity to avoid him like she had before he'd gone back to the south coast. They would finally get the chance to have things out and lay them to rest, once and for all.
Except, Connor truly wasn't prepared for the sight that had greeted him that night.
He hadn't confirmed to any of his friends that he would be attending the celebrations. He'd had to psyche himself up i
n preparation and didn't want the added pressure. Maybe that had been a mistake.
He couldn't quite name all the emotions that had run through him at the sight of a bedraggled Fluff being thoroughly and severely whipped by one of the club's more extreme sadists. His gut reaction had been nausea, followed by denial, but his recent sessions had taught him better than to ignore them. He just didn't want to examine them right here in the middle of the club.
Never mind the fact that the last time he'd had any kind of interaction with Xavier, the Dom had been looking for a 24/7 slave. But that certainly couldn't be Laurel. She wasn't built for that kind of extreme relationship. In fact, it was almost the antithesis of everything Laurel had ever wanted. Even Connor knew that much. Her club name—Fluff—said it all. The very name had embodied Laurel's entire character. It was one of the things he'd always found so irritating about her. Those innate traits and the fact that he had wanted her so desperately regardless, when his own desire was for a submissive who took things somewhat more seriously than Laurel ever had.
Of course, he realised now, through the benefit of therapy, that what he thought he wanted had actually been born as the antithesis of Rayleen, not something that he had consciously decided upon for himself. Just something that was the opposite of the woman he had loved unconditionally and who had destroyed his life in so many ways. Just like he understood that one of his fundamental issues in his relationship with Laurel was that she personified Rayleen, and that had triggered a whole slew of problems that Connor had never realised he was harbouring.
The question was what the hell did he do about it now? And why hadn't his friends said anything to him about whatever it was that Laurel was going through, because clearly there had to be something very wrong for her to be looking so very different from the Fluff he knew, the woman he had been starting to fall in love with?