by Laura Kaye
Or, possibly, it was the anxiety she felt over having given him her cell phone number and agreeing to see him again tomorrow night. Despite the fact that a part of her wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. Submitting and serving had definitely made her feel better—for however long it might last—but Griffin was too observant, too persistent, and too damn appealing. And it was hard to remember all the reasons she was there—and remind herself of all the reasons she wasn’t—when she was in his presence.
But whatever was responsible, sleeping all night without the nagging torment of phantom pain had been bliss.
Kenna felt so rested that she was maybe even ready to tackle something she’d been putting off for so long that it actually made her feel nauseous whenever she let herself think about it. She had a visit to arrange. And she’d been putting it off for too long.
Crawling out of bed, she freshened up but didn’t bother with her prosthetic yet. She brewed a small pot of coffee and popped some bread into the toaster, and then she fired up her laptop at the little two-seater table outside the galley-style kitchen.
It didn’t take five minutes to check her schedule and find a free three-day window in which she could plan the trip—a trip that was so long overdue. Not letting herself second-guess it this time, she booked a flight, hotel, and rental car.
“I wish you were here to kick my ass, George. Because I need it a lot these days,” she said out loud.
Would George have kicked her ass for going back to Master Griffin? In those first weeks of boot camp, in the spare moments when they weren’t training, sleeping, or shoveling food into their faces as fast as they could, they’d gotten to know each other. Georgia had shared that she came from a long line of Marines but didn’t get along with her estranged father at all, and Kenna had shared that her status-conscious parents hadn’t approved of her enlistment. The two women had also realized that they’d both seriously debated—and rejected—going to law school. All things over which they’d bonded fast and hard.
And, of course, Kenna had eventually spilled her sorrows about Griffin, which made George the only person who knew what putting herself out there had cost her and how long it had taken her to feel better. No one else knew Kenna that well. And now Georgia was gone.
And Kenna was really fucking lonely. Being with Master Griffin last night made her realize that. Which was why she was sitting there talking to ghosts.
She sighed and closed her laptop.
Not that Kenna had actually gone back to him. Not with any expectations of a relationship, anyway.
And, to be fair, her mind and body felt better than they had in a while. So maybe George would’ve embraced that and been okay with going back to the man who’d broken her heart.
“Who am I kidding?” Kenna whispered, pushing up from the table.
She showered, dressed in a gray T-shirt and a pair of khaki cargo pants with an elastic waistband—she wasn’t up for tackling a button just then, and put her on arm. The short sleeves revealed all of her prosthetic, but it was supposed to be warm out despite it almost being the middle of October.
And then she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Here it was, a beautiful Saturday morning, and she had absolutely no one to call, no one to visit, no one at all...
Actually, that wasn’t true, was it? God, talk about not appreciating what she did have. If she was lonely, Kenna had someone only too eager to be a part of her life, and that was something else she’d waited far too long to make right.
Decided, she picked up her keys and purse and headed out the door.
Because today, apparently, was the day for beginning to make amends.
***
Kenna knocked on the door and waited. And how ridiculous was it that she had butterflies in her belly over dropping in to visit her big sister?
Apparently not that ridiculous, because when Sierra opened the door, her expression was totally shocked in the split second before she schooled it and smiled. “Kenna. Wow. Uh, come in. Um, are you okay? Is everything okay?”
She sighed. Of course she’d wonder that first, given how infrequently Kenna had managed to be a social being since her discharge. “Man, I totally suck, don’t I?” She made her way into the bright and airy kitchen of the townhouse located in a close-in suburb of the city.
“What?” Sierra asked, her face a mask of confusion. It might’ve almost been comical if it wasn’t so sad. Kenna had done this to their relationship, and now it was time to fix it.
She dropped her purse to the counter and leaned back against the granite. “So, I’m in a ‘time to fix my life’ kinda mood today and I’m here to say, I’m sorry.”
Sierra shook her head. “I think we need coffee. Or wine.”
Kenna chuckled. “It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. Coffee, maybe.”
“Right.” Sierra busied herself with the coffee pot, and Kenna assembled the mugs, milk, and sugar. “Have you eaten?”
“Just a piece a toast. But, actually, I am kinda munchy.” Sex and submission made her hungry, apparently. Not that she’d actually had sex. That shouldn’t have made her as disappointed as it had when she’d left Master Griffin the night before. In fact, non-sex sex was probably all kinds of less complicated. Right?
“Just so I’m following what’s happening here. You’re visiting without my nagging you to, apologizing, and hungry?” Sierra asked, sisterly sarcasm clear in her voice.
Kenna smirked. “I already said I sucked. What more do you want?” And then she shook her head. “Actually, scratch that. That’s just the beginning of why I’m here. So, yeah, you’ve got it right.”
“Um, okay.” All that sarcasm drained away, replaced by a mixture of confusion, concern, and something that looked heartbreakingly like hope. Sierra pulled out some chips and salsa and they settled at the table.
Her nephew, Jake, came barreling into the room wearing only his Spider Man underwear. “Aunt Kenna!” He threw his arms around her neck. “I didn’t know you were here!”
“Hey, buddy. I like your outfit,” Kenna said, grinning.
“Clothes suck!” he said, giggling.
“Jake. Language. Also, clothes are good. Go find some,” Sierra said.
The boy inhaled five chips heaping with salsa, dripping some on his chest.
“Well,” Kenna said, chuckling. “I think no clothes might be a good thing in this case.”
“See?” Jake said. “I think we should always eat without clothes.”
“Um, no. That’s not happening,” Sierra said, giving him a look. “Go put away your body parts, kiddo.”
He gave a long-suffering sigh as he stomped out of the room. “I wish clothes didn’t exist, like, ever.”
Kenna had just eaten a chip, so of course she choked on it. Because the kid’s totally innocent comments had her thinking that she might know some other Y-chromosome types who preferred less clothing, too.
Sierra dropped her head into her hands. “Well, at least he had underwear on. I swear, the kid won’t keep his clothes on. He walks in the door and the shirts and pants start flying. Half the time, there are penises just flapping in the wind around here.”
Kenna lost it. Just flat out lost it. Laughing and coughing, she managed to get to the counter for a paper towel that she pressed to her mouth as tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. “Penises...flapping...” She gasped out the words around her hysterics. Because she’d been to a place where that was actually true. Many times.
When she finally calmed, she took a deep breath and faced Sierra.
Who promptly burst into tears.
Kenna’s gut dropped to the floor as she rushed to her sister. “Oh, God, Si. What’s wrong?”
Sierra stole the paper towel from her hands and tried to stem the flow from her eyes. “It’s just that...that’s the first time I think you’ve really laughed...since you got back.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Yeah.” She sank to a crouch in front of her sister’s knees. “I’m sorry for that. For
so much. I know I’ve been intolerable. God, somedays I can barely stand to be around myself. But I am going to start trying more. With everything. With you. Can you forgive me? Because I could really use my friend and sister again.”
“Oh, hon,” Sierra said, wrapping her arms around Kenna’s shoulders. She returned the embrace, and it felt like a little piece of Kenna snapped into place. “Talk to me, Ken. Tell me everything you can. Because I’ve missed you so much.”
After a moment, Kenna slid back into her own seat and tried to decide what to say and where to start. Suddenly, she wanted one other person in the world besides Georgia, who was no longer here, and Griffin, who...Kenna didn’t even know what to think about him, to know the real her—the whole of her.
“Okay. Well, um, I went somewhere last night. To a club. A club I used to go to before I enlisted in the Marines. And I saw someone I used to know,” she said.
“You went to a club? Like, a dance club? Holy crap, Kenna, was it like a date?”
“Not a dance club,” Kenna said, peering up at her sister as she dipped a chip into the salsa. “A sex club.” Biting. Chewing.
Silence from the other side of the table.
Sierra blinked, and her mouth dropped open. “A sex club.”
Kenna nodded. “Yup. Where people have sex. A BDSM club, to be more exact.”
“I knew we were going to need wine,” Si said in a surprised-but-neutral tone. She grabbed a bottle of white and two glasses, poured, and took a big sip. “So, BDSM. As in bondage, domination...”
“Sadism and masochism. Though I’m more into the first two. I’m a submissive. I have been since I was first sexually active. I just didn’t realize it was a thing until I met other people with similar interests,” Kenna said. “I was a regular member of the club for a couple of years before I enlisted.” She’d found Blasphemy the year after she’d graduated college, which was the first year it’d opened. And then one night, a tall, dark, and finely built Dominant wearing one of the cuffs of the club’s Masters had approached her and they’d done a scorching-hot scene together.
Master Griffin.
They’d quickly become almost entirely exclusive except for the demonstrations and workshops he’d had to do. Often, she’d done those with him, but occasionally, her schedule wouldn’t allow that. And those instances had eventually gotten harder and harder for her to tolerate—until she’d finally come clean to him about her feelings.
“Okay, can we rewind to the part where you might’ve had a date last night?” Sierra asked.
Kenna smirked, but she couldn’t stop it from sliding into a smile. “It wasn’t a date. Not exactly.”
“Then what do you calling it when a submissive woman sees someone at a club?” Sierra arched an eyebrow.
“It’s complicated,” Kenna said.
Si shook her head. “Okay, no way are you dropping ‘sex club’ and ‘sexual submission’ on me without the rest of the juicy details. Spill, little sister. Who is he...or, geez, who is she?”
“It’s a man,” Kenna said, chuckling. “His name is Griffin. And we were together for a little over a year before I enlisted in the Marines.”
“Wait. Really?” Sierra frowned, her gaze searching Kenna’s face. “I don’t remember anyone named Griffin.”
“I didn’t tell you. Back then, I didn’t know how to explain all the rest of this. And I felt like I had to keep it hidden,” Kenna said. Funny that she didn’t feel that anymore. After all, when your parents stopped talking to you because you enlisted in the military and then subtly reacted to your combat injury with an unspoken but clear I told you so attitude, you suddenly became less worried about what other people thought.
The Marines had given her that, too. And whatever else she’d lost, she’d carry that much with her. She’d been a damn good Marine. She’d been good at her job. She’d carried her weight and contributed. So hell if she was going to allow anyone to make her feel somehow less for her choices.
“So, have you two been doing a long-distance relationship all this time?” Sierra asked, a little sadness in her voice.
“No,” Kenna said. “Five years ago, I told him I was in love with him, and he told me he wasn’t interested in a committed relationship.” That moment seemed like it was a million years ago. She’d been a naïve twenty-four-year-old who didn’t think anything could ever go wrong. Now, she knew so much more—about herself and the world. Still, somehow, last night Master Griffin had made her feel like, in some ways, no time had passed at all. And that was more than a little scary.
“Oh, Kenna.” Sierra reached across the table and held her hand—her right hand. Realizing she’d grasped her prosthetic, Si went to retract her touch.
“I don’t mind if you touch my limb, Si. It’s a part of me. It’s all me, now,” she said, realizing an instant later that she’d just nearly repeated verbatim the kind, accepting words that Griffin had said the night before. She wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Sierra left her hand where it was. “Oh, my God, is that why you enlisted?”
“No. At least, not really,” Kenna said, knowing her sister was going to think that. And worrying that Griffin would, too, once she told him.
The night before, after he’d pressed her on whether they’d see one another again—and she’d agreed, she’d made her excuses and gotten out of there before he managed to hammer anymore chinks into the armor she thought she wore around her heart and her mind where he was concerned. So they’d never gotten to the talk about what happened to her.
Kenna sighed. “My relationship hadn’t worked out. I was unhappy being a paralegal at the law firm. I’d realized that I didn’t want to go to law school despite Mom and Dad’s constant pressure to do so, and I just needed to do something that meant something. And then one of partners’ nieces dropped by the firm to visit him, and I was assigned to keep her company while he was held up in a client meeting across town. She was a Marine, and we ended up going out to lunch while we waited. The way she talked about what she did was unlike anything I’d ever felt even once in my whole life.” With the exception of how she’d felt when she’d served Master Griffin. “I spent a week reading everything I could get my hands on, and then I signed the paperwork.”
“Just like that,” Sierra said.
“Just like that.” Kenna ate another chip, feeling lighter the more she talked. Which...wasn’t usually like her.
“I...wow.” Sierra sipped at her wine. “So what was it like seeing Griffin again last night? Was it weird running into him?”
Kenna released a breath. “I went there hoping to see him, and at first it was a little awkward. But, in the end, it was good. Maybe too good, because I don’t at all expect anything this time around. And, besides, I’m so different now...”
“No, you’re not, Kenna. I don’t think so at all.”
“I’m not just talking about my arm,” Kenna said, ducking her gaze. “All the loss, the pain, it changes a person, Si.”
“Only if you let it.” Sierra leaned forward. “Don’t let it. You’re so strong. Maybe the strongest person I know. Do you want this man? After everything that’s happened between you?”
Kenna shrugged, because she wasn’t even sure she wanted to let herself think about that question. Not if it would open doors inside her that she couldn’t get closed again.
A long pause, then, “Is he cute?”
Smiling despite herself, Kenna looked at her sister. “No, he’s not cute. He’s freaking hot. He has black hair and brown eyes, and he’s tall. He has a custom furniture-building business, or at least he used to.”
“So he’s good with his hands! Omigod, tell me everything.” Sierra scooted her chair closer. “What do you guys do?” she whispered. “I mean, do you have a particular kind of thing you do?”
“A kink, you mean?”
Sierra’s face turned red. “Okay, yes, a kink.”
“Do you really want these gory details?”
Her sister chuckled. �
�God, yes. I live for gory details. I have a seven-year-old who never sleeps and when he finally does, half the time it’s in our bed between us. Please allow me to live vicariously through your gory details.”
Doubtful, Kenna grinned. “Okay, well. I like a lot of things, but I’m most into bondage. And Griffin is an expert at an artistic, Japanese style of rope bondage called Shibari.”
“So he is good with his hands! I knew it!” Sierra gestured for her to keep going. “And?”
“And what?” Kenna said with a little laugh.
“When you went to see him last night, what happened?”
“We did a scene together,” Kenna said around another bite of chips and salsa.
“Holy crap, you had sex last night?” Sierra asked, eyes wide.
“You really are okay with this, aren’t you?” Kenna asked, the tension melting out of her shoulders as the realization sank in like a balm to the jagged edges inside her.
“Oh, sweetie, of course I am. What you do in private with someone you care about is none of my business. And to the extent you want to share it with me, I would never do anything but accept you and celebrate with you the things that make you happy. Does he?”
“Does he what?” Kenna asked, an odd stinging sensation at the back of her eyes.
“Does Griffin make you happy?”
The question felt dangerous, and Kenna shook her head. “I don’t know, Si. After everything, I just don’t know. And I’m...I’m scared to even consider it. But last night was the first good night of sleep I’ve had in a long time, the first time I didn’t have any phantom pain in my arm. So something about the experience put me in a better place than I’ve been in since, well, since all this started,” she said, the truth of that hitting her anew.
“Then isn’t it worth exploring?” Sierra asked. “Because even if it’s not with him, ultimately, it sounds like you need this part of yourself again, Kenna.”
With those words, Sierra single-handedly chased away the doubts Kenna had been having about returning to Blasphemy to see Griffin again tomorrow night. She did need this part of herself, even if she wouldn’t always be able to explore it with Griffin. Even if he told her tomorrow that he didn’t think it was a good idea for them to see one another again. Even if bondage and submission and subspace didn’t always provide the same kind of solace as it had last night.