by Jenna Howard
Sitting on her stool at her work table, she stared blankly at her sketches without seeing the drawings. Shaking her head, she made herself focus. The concerto piece was by far the more complex so she reached for that one. She lost herself in the precise placement of the black gems as she duplicated the music. Her fingers found the familiar rhythm she had developed so the notes would be visible whether the piece was being worn or laid out. Time melted away as did thoughts of Doyle and lawyers and him. There was just the necklace.
Finally there was no more necklace to create.
She had known she was close to finishing it but to suddenly have the piece done left her feeling a little lost. With her hands resting on her lap, she stared from the necklace then back up to the music. Was it playable?
What if it wasn’t?
Fuck. What if it was?
Her fingers hurt from working for—she paused and looked at her phone and saw she had missed quite a few texts from Doyle—almost five hours. Her stomach rumbled and her back was sore from hunching over. Even her ass was sore from sitting. She had paused briefly for a bathroom break, shifting from sitting to standing then sitting again until she had simply forgotten to move, as if sensing the finish line.
Grabbing her phone, she went into the kitchen, made herself a peanut butter sandwich and sat on the couch to eat while reading through Doyle’s texts.
Am good, she reassured him, was working. Sorry.
Only that made her think of why she had fled.
Are you okay, Kate?
A Kate. Serious. He so rarely called her Kate. Only when he really wanted her attention. Was she okay? No. Yes. Maybe. She shrugged as she lay down on her back. That’s what she told him before her sleepless night and constant working during the day grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her under.
Hands on her. Fear. Pain. The pain.
Her entire body jerked and she tried to remember where she was. Everything was familiar yet it felt wrong. Her workshop was shrinking closing in on her and she covered her eyes to make it stop. She swore she could still feel his hands on her, hear his “Hello, pretty little No One.”
“Stop, stop, stop,” she whispered. Doyle.
His name whispered through her and she began to pat around looking for her phone. Desperation clawed at her and she flipped over, searching for the lifeline. She found it on the floor. Her hands shook as she tried to remember the simple code to get into her phone. Finally she found the right numbers that opened it up and she found the right image to tap. Bending her legs, she pressed her forehead against her knees.
“Hello my Katey Jay.”
His greeting wrapped around her, his deep voice so clear and warm she half expected to look up and see him. “Hi,” she returned, her swirling thoughts settling. “I finished the violin piece.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to say. There was the nightmare that had clawed at her, the uncertainty that had developed at hearing the word lawyer in conjunction with him, but what had come out wasn’t why she had called.
Why should all that shit rain on one important truth. She had finished her first contracted work. Exhaling softly, she looked to her workbench and smiled. “It’s gorgeous. Doyle, it’s so beautiful. I made it. Me!” His chuckle was low and the warm feeling grew. “Come see it?”
“Already on my way.”
****
From the outside, Wallace’s looked like a dive bar where you’d get shanked going in or out. The inside wasn’t that much better. Appearances were deceiving. Wallace’s was a bar where many Canadian bands, like Cyanide, had been discovered. If you wanted a music career, this was the place to come. The line up had curled around the corner of the building. If not for her name on a list, odds were she’d still be standing outside.
People were everywhere: standing, filling up the tables and crowding the dance floor.
A stage took up an entire wall and a band was rocking out a cover of a Soundgarden song and they weren’t bad. The decor clung to the dive bar feeling, with neon signs on the walls and the dark, almost dingy walls and floor. People didn’t come to Wallace’s for shiny and trendy. They came for the music.
By the stage there was a booth and she recognized a couple of the guys sitting down. They were like her, kids of Cyanide, but unlike her they were following in their famous fathers’ footsteps with their band Hysteria. She hadn’t interacted with them in years. She wasn’t here to see the opening band, Neon. Or even to see the second show with Hysteria. She was here for the unknown third act. She wondered if anyone knew what was coming.
There was something in the air, a crazy vibe of anticipation, and it seemed to add to the chaos.
It had been a hard week. In the shadows of the night, where memories crawled and clawed, she would open up her laptop, Google Josef Henzberger and be unable to sleep when she read an article, stared at his sports stats or saw a picture of him.
Not the smartest thing she had ever done. Sheer desperation had made her call her therapist.
To say dominant Doyle wasn’t too happy with her was an understatement. They hadn’t really talked about the lawyer, but it was always there. Swirling around her brain with horrible thoughts of what if. What if because she had been so scared he had done the same thing to other girls? Did that make it her fault? What if she had said something sooner? What if she did something now, what happened?
Even now, in this space that spoke to her of Doyle and his passion for music, he was in the back of her head. Crowding and taunting her. Haunting and hurting her.
“Miss Jennings? This way please.”
Turning at her name, she blinked at a bouncer. “Am I being bounced?”
He grinned. “Not yet. The night is young. Please.” He led the way through the bar that began to scream in excitement since the band was done their set. They began to break down the stage, unplugging their equipment, and like a well-tuned machine, departed with a wave. The booth was empty, which meant Hysteria was backstage.She was led through a door marked stage, a second bouncer nodding.
She was not being thrown out.
Nerves began to prick at her fingers. There was a door marked private and one with office. The bouncer rapped knuckles against the office door then opened it for her.
Oh Lord.
Doyle leaned against the desk, his heavily inked arms folded over his chest bared by a leather vest. With the black jeans and biker boots he wore, he looked more like a bad-ass biker than the soon to be ex-drummer of a rock band.
“I’m not Jace, Katey.”
“I know,” she said fidgeting with her bracelet while he watched her, a man made up of bad attitude.
“Do you?” He looked down at her and she nodded. Reaching out, he snagged her fidgeting fingers and pulled her close, putting his lips against her ear. “I am not Jace,” he repeated.
Through the door, she heard a man introduce Hysteria and the screams of the crowd followed were even louder than the previous wave. Their popularity took her by surprise. She couldn’t look away from Doyle. “I know.”
“So this adult version of you hiding under the bed isn’t going to fly. You won’t like the outcome next time you have the need to run and hide from me because I will take it to mean this is done. You don’t like what I’ve done? You call me a bastard to my face and don’t imply it.”
“I wasn’t.” Her thumb flicked one of the knots rhythmically on her bracelet and he pressed a finger down, halting the nervous tell. “I wasn’t. That’s not why–” A sigh escaped and she leaned against him. “You complicate things,” she admitted.
“Do you know what really complicates things? Grade seven math. That shit is crazy now. Me? I simplify things. Strip them down to the basics.”
That made her snort.
“You doubt me? Watch.” He lifted her left hand, ran his thumb over the bare skin. “I want you on your knees,” he ordered, his low voice made her heart beat faster while the demand left her breathless. “Now.”
He let go of her, and as if he
r knees melted away, she sank down on the floor of the office. The floor was cool against her bare legs. She wished she had worn something other than a snug denim skirt that ended above her knees. Fingers combed through her hair before suddenly fisting and pulling her head back so she was looking up at him. The way those black eyes watched her made her quiver and her panties grew damp in response. The force of his stare held memories of every time he took her over. In his eyes, she saw everything she had desired: not just a dom but one she trusted.
“Want me to make it even more simple?”
She nodded and took a shaky breath. “Yes, Sir.” A light tug on her hair had her squeezing her thighs together. She was so aroused, she felt dizzy. He drew her up so she rose up on her knees. He crouched down before her and with his eyes on hers, he reached up under her skirt and drew her panties down to her knees. He leaned back slightly, his arm extending behind him. Her eyes widened at the scissors that with two metallic snips ruined her panties and left her bare in the office.
He tucked the scrap of fabric into the pocket of his jeans as he rose up, moving behind her. “Hands on the desk.” She had to lean forward to do so and he drew her skirt up over her ass. One of his feet slid between her legs and pushed, opening her up.
“Doesn’t get much more basic than this, does it? My pretty sub on her knees, ass bared to me and nerves dancing beneath her skin. The shit this week does not happen again, Katey Jay.”
The light pull on her hair from being wrapped around his fist made it hard to concentrate. “I wasn’t hiding from you. I was hiding from–”
“The shit this week,” he said slowly, enunciating so she got the point, “does not happen again.”
“No, Sir,” she whispered.
“I don’t care if we burn his house down or let it go, you sure as fuck don’t sneak out of my bed and ignore texts. You do not beat yourself up for something beyond your control. You do not torture yourself.” He bent over her, pulling her head back in an arch she felt pulling her entire body and he crushed his mouth to hers. “That is not how we work.”
“I…I’m sorry.”
“Good. Now, just in case you forget, I’m going to remind you that it’s my job to beat on you and torture you.”
Oh, Lord, she thought as he let her go. Fingers brushed over her ass. A gentle caress that made her heart sigh. Then came the hard snap against her ass. It was thin and painful. She cried out and her fingers gripped the edge of the desk as he rhythmically brought whatever torturous device he held down again and again. Her skin began to throb and burn and she lowered her head to her hands because this hurt. Yet beneath the spreading pain was a wicked wave of pleasure so intense it made her shake with need. The hard rock music that had been booming through the walls and door faded until it was just the sounds of her gasps and the punishing crack on her skin. Pain melted away. All the confusion and chaos of the past became insignificant compared to the absolute loneliness of being without him. Somehow, he had become important.
A tear slipped free, and another, and when a sob broke free she tried to muffle it. The spanking stopped and he bent over her, a protective wall between her and the world. “Let loose, Katey.” Her fingers hurt when she slowly let go. He drew her up and onto his lap, sliding her skirt down over her ass. Her skin shuddered at the contact but it was insignificant as she wrapped an arm around his neck and buried her face against him.
Neither of them spoke as he held her, his hand gentle as it slid up and down her back. Finally the tears ran out and she sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. “I missed you,” she whispered. It didn’t matter that she had been sleeping at his house for the past week, she had put up walls. Between nightmares and her thoughts, she had, in a way, isolated herself even while being with him.
His thumb wiped over his cheek, a black drum stick still in his hand. No wonder it had hurt. “I wasn’t the one who went away, Katey Jay.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I left. It was just overwhelming, I guess.”
“What was? That I talked to someone or that I opened the box?”
She traced the three names forever imprinted on his heart. “That I wasn’t alone with it. Only I was alone with it. My whole life it’s just been me to rely on and then you came along and everything changed.”
A fist hammered on the door, breaking apart the moment. “D, time to get to work.”
“Damn it.” He eased her off and adjusted the hem of her skirt. “You can watch from backstage or you can sit with Oz and Claire. Your call.”
It would be so easy to say back stage. Usually she was anonymous in the crowd, invisible to all. “I’ll sit with your friends.” He grinned. Lowering his head, he kissed her. Not a sweet, hurried kiss, but a kiss full of hunger and promise.
“Oh the plans I have for you later.” Setting his hand on her ass, he guided her out of the office, digging out his phone. “Texting Oz to fetch you because the odds of you finding him are slim.”
“What kind of plans?”
He backed her against a wall, one arm braced above her as he loomed over her. His smile was wicked. “The kind that involves a cross, your naked ass and my crop.”
Her breath was shaky as she exhaled slowly. Yet again she found herself squeezing her thighs together and the slick skin from her arousal made her squirm. With the round head of his drum stick, he drew a line down her throat and between her breasts.
“Don’t you sink into the ether when I’m about to go on stage and can’t do a thing. Focus, Katey.”
She blinked a few times until the soft, floaty feeling he caused ebbed away. “You’re a bad man, Doyle Kolemann.”
“It’s what makes me a fantastic fucking dom.” He tapped the stick against her stomach, a steady tempo as if the music was already moving through him.
“You’re going to miss this. Aren’t you?”
A big shoulder shrugged casually. “The music isn’t going anywhere, sweetheart. I’m just ditching the baggage that comes with it.”
An eyebrow arched up as she studied him, she believed that as much as she believed that elephants could fly. He bent his arm so he was closer. “Yes,” he said in a soft, low voice, “I’m going to miss this.”
“You don’t have to quit the band, Doyle.”
He nodded. “Yes, I do. More, I need to.”
Rising up on her toes, she brushed her lips over his. “Go work.” Before he could respond, she ducked under his arm and made her way to the stairs.
“Kate, do you have a moment?”
Surprised, she stared at Carl Hughes. She couldn’t remember the last time she had talked to him and he certainly never sought her out. “Um.” Fiddling with her bracelet, she glanced back over her shoulder and saw Doyle watching them, a drum stick lazily winding and spinning between and over his fingers. “I guess.”
Considering someone had banged on the office door telling Doyle it was time to go on stage, no one appeared to be in any hurry to actually be on stage.
Carl folded his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes. If he was going to blast her for breaking up the band like Jace had done, she very much feared she’d tell him to go fuck himself.
“Before you moved in with Jace, did he know about you?”
The question was so surprising, she didn’t even hesitate in answering. “Yes.” How could he not, considering the number of times her mom would hunt down his number, phone him and demand things like more money or taking her back. She never got either, which would send her into a rage and Kate would make herself scarce until her mom got lost in booze and drugs.
Carl didn’t seem surprised by her answer. “So he knew you were around when we went to Beli’s trailer? We went there, by the way. It was a sty.”
Kate watched as she twisted a knot one way then the other, her fingers in constant nervous motion. A familiar hand slid under her hair to rest on the back of her neck. When Doyle caressed down her arm and covered her fingers, stopping her tell, she leaned back into him.
/> “He knew,” she whispered, remembering hiding from them, so afraid of everything. Carl exhaled at her question, nodded and walked away, not that surprised. He knew because she had been the one to contact him that Belinda was dead and she was alone. She hadn’t expected him to show up. She hadn’t expected him to even look for her. Not that any of that hadn’t kept her from wishing for something different. Wishing for someone different. Wishing, period.
Strong arms wrapped around her. “You break my heart,” Doyle said softly. He leaned against the wall, holding her. “That poor asshole.”
Surprised at that statement, she tilted her head back and arched so she could see him.
“He missed out loving one helluva girl.”
His words had the same effect on her as subspace. Everything felt calm within her, there was nothing but this moment. This moment with this man. Doyle. Dom. Reaching up she touched his cheek as she looked into his eyes. The round tip of his drumstick caressed along her throat. All her life she had looked for someone to give her love to her.
Her mother hadn’t wanted it. Neither had Jace. Two terms battled within her: strike three you’re out and third time’s a charm. In her head she heard his voice from that night of the party, as if he was speaking now: Breathe it in, hold, let it out.
She took in his words, held them and finally let it out. “I love you.”
He smiled, cupped his hand under her chin, and kissed her. “What did I tell you about me going on the stage and not being able to do a thing?” He rapped the drumstick against her nipple. His smile was downright wicked. “Good thing afterwards I’m going to beat on my pretty girl.”
Epilogue
The Voice: And the beat goes on…with Katey Jay Designs
By Connor Evers
When my brother asked if I wanted to interview Kate Jennings, I gave a solemn nod while I gave a mental fist pump. Why was I giving a mental fist pump over a woman named Kate Jennings?One who designs jewelry when this is a music column? Let’s add a third name to that: Kate Jace Jennings.