Yield

by Jenna Howard

  “Are you okay?”

  She had forgotten the other dom. Nodding, she pulled the blanket around her. “I–” She actually couldn’t think of a single thing to say without her voice cracking. So instead, she turned and headed to the trees. Subtle lights glowed on the ground, solar lights Doyle had explained, though everyone knew the way back and forth. Put in years ago and pretty much forgotten.

  Once she emerged on Doyle’s side, she came to a stop and stared at the shadow of her car. She didn’t know the hours of the ferry and she didn’t really care. She went in his home that smelled of him and grabbed her keys.

  ****

  Kate - 2014

  With her forearms braced on her thighs, Kate studied the pale cream carpet and wondered, as she did every time, how the carpet was kept so clean. She briefly fantasized about tiny carpet elves who scoured each and every stain out with some magic concoction.

  “Kate? You can go in now.”

  Grabbing her backpack, Kate left the spotless flooring behind. Every time she approached the door, she felt a nervous flutter in her chest and a panicky burst in her stomach that made her want to turn around and leave. The door closed behind her and she shook the nerves out of her hands.

  “Every time, Kate. I don’t bite.”

  She smiled as she set her bag down and sat on the sofa. “I know.”

  “Not without consent. Relax.”

  The comment was designed to make her laugh. Tucking her hands between her knees, she looked at Heather Davis who gave her a kind smile as she sipped her coffee. She had been coming to Heather for a year now; and yet again, she was thankful for having found her.

  “How was it?”

  Kate entwined her fingers and exhaled slowly. “Terrifying. Overwhelming. Amazing.” Her last word made Heather sit back in her chair, setting her mug down on the glass table.

  Walking into Edge had been one of the scariest things she had ever done. The club was designed to intimidate, reminding her of gladiator movies where the show was in the arena. It even looked like one with its circular levels only decorated in dark woods and dark leather. The lowest level had taken her breath away with all its various implements of pleasure and pain. They should have scared her and sent her scurrying back home.

  Only nothing had until last night.

  For that she could thank Heather. After she had a disastrous experience with a dom she had met online, Kate had decided she needed help. She had sought out someone to talk to. Her first counselor hadn’t been a good fit. Heather had been the third one and Kate hadn’t just found someone to talk to about her childhood with her mother, Jace, and even her rape, but someone who was also in the D/s world. For the first time in a long time she hadn’t felt utterly alone with everything in her head. Talking helped because she no longer felt like she was drowning.

  Heather studied her with a knowing eye. “Something happened.”

  Kate took in a shaky breath and began to fiddle with the knots on her bracelet. “I…” She shrugged because finding the words was hard. How did she explain what had happened? To look up and realize all of her worlds had collided at seeing familiar eyes watching her. “I saw someone I know at Edge.”

  Heather waited. It was one of the things Kate appreciated most about her. She knew when to push and when to wait. Kate figured it was the dominant within her. Kate watched her left thumb and middle finger twist and roll the knot around. “Do you remember when asked me about the moment when things woke up for me?”

  “Things? Use your words, Kate.”

  Blushing, she cleared her throat. “Sex.” One elegantly manicured nail tapped on the arm of Heather’s chair and Kate took a calming breath. “My sexuality and sensuality.” She was rewarded with a pleased smile and something eased within.

  “Yes.”

  “He was there. He was at Edge.” Kate peeked up and saw that she had finally, after three years, managed to surprise Heather. A slim eyebrow arched up.

  “What did you do?”

  “Ran, I ran.”

  “Why?”

  Because, Kate thought as she sank back on the sofa, it was Doyle Kole. He still scared her, but not like he had when she had been a kid. He scared her because he made her want. “What if I’m not ready?”

  “Only you can truly answer that, Kate. But I want you to think carefully before you answer. What brought you here?”

  Fiddling with her bracelet, she looked away from her therapist. Want, she thought. Always wanting. Not just wanting to submit someone or being with someone, but wanting to reclaim all the pieces of herself. Pieces she had lost to her mother, to Jace, to the man who had hurt her and pieces she hadn’t even known she had lost. Relaxing her hand, she let go of the bracelet and looked at Heather. The older woman gave her a gentle smile as she lifted her mug.

  Chapter 14

  “Katey?” His house was dark and silent. Taking the stairs two at a time, Doyle raced to the second floor. After a brief talk with Willow about her contest entry and trying not to get into an argument with Claire, he had stepped out of his former house to find Kate gone and Oz looking concerned. He didn’t know what had happened tonight, but something had. He gave his bedroom a quick look to see it was as empty as the rest of his house.

  The open door on his deck made him jerk back into the room. She sat against the glass, looking out into the night, and relief pumped through him. Stepping out, he looked at her with the blanket wrapped snug around her. Walking over to her, he braced his feet on either side of her hips and sat down. He tugged the blanket closer around her and folded his arms on her knees.

  “They’re lucky girls,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “I’m the lucky one,” he corrected. He wished he had turned a light on so he could see her. There was a reason why she was sitting out here in the dark though.

  “I don’t think they like me.”

  “They’re not used to sharing me.” Dani had actually told him that Kate had the saddest eyes she had ever seen. His youngest was observant. “Give it time.”

  “You love them so much.”

  Fuck. Lowering his chin to his arms, he started to make out her features in the dark as his eyes adjusted. He nodded because his girls were his life.

  “I knew the first time Jace saw me that he wanted nothing to do with me. He wanted me to stay in that crappy trailer with a junky mother who would do anything for her next score or let me get swallowed up in the foster system. He looked at me like Mom did. I stopped pretending really early.”

  “You’re going to break my heart, aren’t you?” He squeezed her knee and she shrugged. A tightness grew in his chest. They had all contributed to those shadows in her eyes. Jace because he was a selfish bastard, him and the others because not one of them had done a damn thing about it. No sane person should’ve given Jace custody of a child.

  “I didn’t even think I still believed in dreams until I stood in that lawyer’s office, waiting to meet him. I didn’t know if she had lied, picked someone famous and said that was my dad. It’s hard to believe the stories an addict tells, but I wanted it. I wanted him to be my dad so bad. My life would change. Like Cinderella or Annie. Whisked off to the castle or mansion, and all the shit disappeared. It didn’t. Not at all.” Her voice broke and her head thumped against the window. She was more than breaking his heart, she was clawing at it.

  “There was this space under the bench in the trailer. She used to make me go there whenever a john or dealer came over. Not to protect me, but because I got in the way. I wanted him to be my dad so bad and that he’d come and rescue me, I covered the entire inside of that box with pictures of him. Pictures I’d tear out of the magazines she would cry over. When I moved in with him, I still did it. Because I still wanted him to be that guy in my dreams. The one who saved me. Rescued me,” she whispered.

  Ah shit, he didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to see the pain bleeding from her because he couldn’t fix this. He couldn’t stop the scene and make it better. There
was no safe word in this, no red.

  “If Willow came to you and said someone scared her, what would you do?”

  Fucking Jace-fucking-Jennings. “Depends. If it was a kid, scare him. If it wasn’t, I’d end him.”

  “Like I said. Lucky girls. There’s a box at the other end of the deck. I hate it. I hate everything inside it. What I hate most about it though is that he didn’t care, Doyle. He didn’t care about me at all.” Her voice cracked and she covered her mouth and nose with her hands, her body shaking. “I hate him, I hate him so much.” She hiccupped, the broken gasps tearing at him.

  “I know, baby.” He slid his hand behind her head and drew her close. She clutched the back of his shirt, her body jerking and shivering as she let it out. Her shaky breaths were hot against his neck while her face was cool. “Let’s get you inside.” He stood and scooped her up. He ignored the box, not ready to face whatever was in it, as he entered his room, drawing the door shut. He peeled off the blanket that smelled of smoke and heartache, palmed off her shoes then toed off his own. With both of them fully dressed, he eased them under the covers where he held her. A part of him wanted to offer her promises but he worried that she wouldn’t believe them. What could he say?

  She didn’t cry. No tears slid over his skin as he held her through her pain. It was as if Jace-fucking-Jennings had broken her so completely there was nothing left. The trembling of her body gradually faded and the short, jerky breaths evened out and he knew she slept. Smoothing his hand down her hair, he continued to hold her because he needed to. He needed the contact with her. He hadn’t brought her here to hurt her and yet he had unintentionally done that.

  The thought made him ease out from beneath her. Doyle stripped Kate out of her jeans and left her sleeping in the bed. Walking out onto his balcony, he crouched by the box. That was a shit ton of tape to keep something from getting out. Picking the box up, he carried it down to the kitchen and stared at it. It wasn’t a matter of not opening the box, the question was whether he wanted to do this with Kate or without. Deciding she was hurting enough for the evening, he opted to tackle the box on his own.

  He grabbed a knife and tapped it on the island, a quick, staccato rhythm before he went hunting for the seams through the tape.

  Nothing good was inside. Once the flaps were freed, Doyle braced his hands on the butcher block and found himself hesitating to look in. “Fuck this shit.” He flipped the flaps open. The box was only half-full and he stared down at a hockey jersey. It was child size and would fit the girls. Pulling the shirt out, he turned it, expecting to see Jennings on the back. Instead the word No was above the number one. A pile of envelopes were bound together with a rubber band and when he went to peel it off, the elastic broke apart. Lifting the flap on the envelope, he eased out a piece of paper. Happy birthday, pretty, little No. One was printed in bold masculine printing. He slid the note back in and proceeded to go through every envelope. Halfway through the pile for everything began to click. Not short hand for number like he had thought but no as in no one, as in nobody. He stared hard at the jersey, then started from the beginning.

  As a dom, he knew about the mind fuck. In his world it was a game, foreplay. This was a total mind fuck. Not a game but a hunt. This was warfare on a vulnerable girl. Some of the envelopes were still sealed and he happily slashed them open with the knife. “Fuck.”

  The photos were obscene and something no child should see. He was relieved she had stopped looking at this point. This would’ve broken her beyond anything. Carefully, he eased the graphic images of the man who had hurt her back into their envelopes. Bracing his hands on the island, Doyle bent over at the waist. “Fuck,” he said, slamming his hands on the counter as he shouted his favorite word into the claustrophobic silence of his kitchen.

  He wanted a drink. Needed one. Needed the alcohol to wash away what he had revealed. She had been a baby. The age of his girls. She had been utterly alone in this. Snatching up the cordless phone, he dialed.

  “Doyle? What’s–”

  “Let me talk to Willy.”

  “What? No. It’s three in the morning.”

  “Put her on the phone.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  The typical question made him snarl. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “It’s three in th–”

  “What’s wrong?” Oz had grabbed the phone from Claire.

  “I need to talk to Willy and Dani. I’d come over, but if Kate wakes up, she’d be alone with all this shit and I can’t leave her alone with all this shit. Put my daughter on the fucking phone, Oz.”

  “Okay. What’s going on, D? This isn’t like you.”

  Doyle stared at the jersey. “It’s been a helluva fucking night.”

  “What happened with Kate? Hold on. Willow, honey.”

  He could hear his daughter’s sleepy response and the phone changed hands. “Dad?”

  He thought of Kate telling him that Jace hadn’t given a shit about her, asking him what he’d do. What would he do if someone had stalked his girls like this? What wouldn’t he do?

  He needed to know his girls were safe. That there was nothing like this happening to them. That in ten years he wouldn’t find another box like this. “You know I love you, right?”

  “I know. I love you too.”

  “You know you can come to me if someone was hurting your or scaring you? No matter where I was in the world?”

  His oldest was quiet. “Yes. Daddy, are you okay? You sound mad.”

  “I am but not at you. It’s why I needed to hear your voice. I love you, Willy.”

  “Love you back.”

  “Go back to sleep, baby. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Night.”

  “Night. Give the phone to Oz.” He heard her say that she was worried about him and Oz said he’d take care of it.

  He wanted to burn everything. Every envelope that called her no one. Every little letter that made her feel small and scared. He flipped the jersey over and stared at the logo. Pretty specific. Pretty fucking specific. Throw in the tickets to hockey games and it didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together.

  Oz woke up Dani and he had the same conversation with her, reassuring himself. “What happened, Doyle?” His friend’s voice was low and had a hard edge to it that didn’t come out very often. “Don’t bullshit me. You’re freaking out; you’ve worried the girls. What’s going down?”

  Instead of answering, Doyle hung up and tossed the phone aside.

  What could he possible say? Dragging his hands through his hair, he fisted the strands as he glared at what had hurt her. Gathering everything up, he tossed them back in the box and put the collection of evil in the garage so the girls wouldn’t get nosy. His fist slammed on the light switch, plunging the kitchen into darkness and he went up to Kate. That’s where he needed to be.

  Not downstairs gazing at a past he couldn’t fix or change.

  ****

  A smart man would probably hole up for a few days. Doyle wasn’t feeling smart. He was feeling violent.

  With one foot braced on the table, he slouched on the leather couch as he typed on his phone. Today the band was meeting at the penthouse to hash out the latest album. They were pretty much sequestered in the studio room. Probably not the wisest place for him to be: in an enclosed area with Jace-fucking-Jennings looking hung over. “Hey,” without looking up from his phone, he spoke to the lead singer, “what was that douche bag hockey player’s name?”

  Opening a message window, he hesitated before he typed in Jasmine Lane’s name. What’s the expiration date on sexual assault? Unlike with Kate’s box, he very much felt like he was trespassing. Jasmine wasn’t just a domme at Edge, she was a lawyer. He and Kate hadn’t mentioned the contents of the box after she had pointed it out. This morning she had dropped him off at the penthouse while she had gone to class as if nothing monumental had happened.

  What?! How are the girls? I’m phoning you. Right. Now.


  In studio. Girls are fine, more than. Think hypothetical. He closed the conversation and turned off the ringer.

  “Hockey dou…ooooh Berger.” A chortle came from Jace and Doyle glanced up before turning his attention to the phone. “Funny guy.”

  His thumbs moved over the screen keyboard as he texted Kate. FYI I’m going to beat the fuck out of Jace. His screen lit up with Jasmine’s call as it vibrated in his hands. He hit ignore call because he wasn’t about to discuss this with someone who had the ability to fix things without talking to Kate. He just needed to do something.

  Even if it was smashing his fist into Jace’s face.

  “Berger?” He asked as carefully as he could. The name didn’t twig his memory but he wasn’t exactly buddy buddy with all of Jace’s douche friends.

  “Josef Henzberger.”

  “Ketchup,” Max muttered as he glared, tuning his guitar. “Who fucked with this?”

  His phone gave a shudder to tell him he had a voicemail and a text. He opened up the conversation with Kate. Don’t hurt your hand.

  Her response was so surprising, a grunt of amusement escaped. Funny girl. His screen lit up with a text from Jasmine. God damn it, answer your phone!

  In studio. Answer. He switched to the browser and put in the asshole’s name.

  “Berger was a machine,” Jace said. “Always scored amazing pussy.”

  Doyle went still. As those words pinged around his brain, seeing Kate crying on his deck played back. He didn’t remember moving but suddenly he was using the massive coffee table as a stepping stone. Without hesitating, both of his hands fisted on the front of Jace’s shirt and he dragged him over the back of the chair. Surprised shouts came from the guys, but he didn’t care as he slammed the singer into the wall with enough force to make the man grunt.

  An arm hooked around his neck as someone tried to peel him off while they shouted in his ear to let Jace go.