On His Knees (Blasphemy)

by Laura Kaye

  The phone was quiet long enough that Kenna wondered if she’d dropped the call. And then her sister spoke. “That’s exactly what I want you to say. That and whatever else you’re really feeling. Pull over.”

  “What?”

  “Pull over. I want you to be safe and you’re driving upset right now.”

  On a huff, Kenna made her way to the side of the street and parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant. “Okay,” she whispered, smoothing her hands over her black dress pants.

  “I’m not a stranger, Kenna. You don’t have to put on an act for me. I’d know you weren’t in a good place even if you did so don’t waste your energy on it. I’d love for you to talk to me, but you don’t even have to do that. You can just be silently miserable with me if you want. Or you can rant at me. Whatever you need, I’ll do for you. And if you don’t know what that is, I’ll just be with you until you figure it out.” Another long pause. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” Kenna said.

  “Do you want to talk about any of what you just said?” Sierra asked.

  Kenna gave a humorless chuckle. “Nooo.”

  “Fine. But I will say this, I didn’t know Georgia as good you did, obviously, but I knew her well enough to know she would kick your ass for torturing yourself about her death. And you know that’s true. Even if you can’t feel it yet, you have to know it. She would not have wanted you beating yourself up on her behalf. She would’ve hated that for you.”

  A squeezing pang tugged in the center of her chest. Georgia Kern had been Kenna’s friend from the first day of basic training, and they’d quickly become close. “I know that’s true, but I…” She shook her head, the sadness of the loss washing through her for the millionth time.

  “I know,” her sister said.

  Kenna and Georgia, or Ken and George as everyone had quickly taken to calling them, had both volunteered for the Female Engagement Teams, or FETs, small, specially trained groups who served alongside male infantry units in the Middle East. In their FET, they’d worked as cultural advisors and liaisons, communicating especially with the women and families their units encountered. She and Georgia had loved their jobs, loved being central to the mission of the infantry units, loved getting to serve in such a fundamental and intense way.

  And then George hadn’t made it when another of the guys in their unit, Evan Burrell, had triggered a forty-pound IED during a patrol. Kenna had been walking on the other side of George, the force of the blast enough to throw Kenna up in the air, spinning her body like a helicopter blade. She’d been close enough that the explosion had ripped skin and muscle off her arm, and the way she’d landed had done the rest of the job of destroying the arm she eventually lost, despite multiple surgeons’ efforts to save it.

  One of the doctors had said that Georgia being there had probably saved Kenna’s life and, after he’d left the room, she’d vomited despite having nothing in her belly. Somedays, knowing she was alive because someone else had died was more guilt than she could bear. Especially when that someone had been her best friend.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, Si, okay?” Kenna said.

  “No you won’t,” Sierra said with absolutely no judgment. “But I’ll talk to you soon.”

  After driving around for another hour, Kenna finally returned to the small studio apartment she’d managed to find when she’d been discharged. She’d been living off of her savings, her disability, and the honoraria she received from her speaking engagements, so the five-hundred-square-foot place was the most she could afford. Sierra had wanted her to bunk in her guest room, but no way had Kenna wanted to force her less-than-cheerful self on her sister’s little family.

  She was so used to removing her prosthesis that the process barely took thought anymore. She released the suction, removed the limb and plugged it in to charge, and rolled off the protective sleeve and cleaned it for the next day’s use. And then she climbed into bed.

  Hours later, she remained wide awake, her eyes glued to the dark ceiling overhead, ghosts of every kind making it impossible to fall asleep.

  Tonight, the phantom pain was the worst of those ghosts. The pain made her arm and wrist ache despite the fact that she didn’t still have those parts. It was an ache that felt like, if she could just massage the muscles and joints, it would feel better. It was a pain that sometimes felt like an itch she could never scratch, or pins and needles that would never go away.

  But there were other ghosts, too. “Quit yer bitchin’.” Georgia’s voice. One of her favorite sayings when anyone uttered a gripe about anything. Kenna supposed that imagining her bestie wanting to kick her ass over the poor-me routine was better than remembering the sound of her screams when that IED had detonated.

  On a sigh, Kenna sat up and turned on the light. Her gaze went right to her prosthesis, laying on her night stand and plugged into the charging unit. She had to find a way to become more than what’d happened to her, more than what she’d lost. If she could just get out of her head, maybe she could get free of the pain, of the grief, of the guilt.

  Get out of your head, Kenna. Stop thinking. Just feel what I’m doing to you.

  Kenna gasped.

  Where had that voice and those words come from? Heat ran over her skin, a phantom sensation of another kind. A sensation from a distant, lust-drenched moment, and caused by a man to whom she hadn’t spoken in years.

  Griffin Hudson.

  Her lover. Her Dominant. But never her Master. He hadn’t wanted to claim her for keeps.

  She’d fallen in love with Griffin, and when she’d finally told him, they’d ended up in what turned out to be the most awkward conversation ever, which had essentially boiled down to him not being interested in a committed relationship. He hadn’t been unkind about it, just honest, but it had still left Kenna reevaluating everything. Because things with Griffin hadn’t worked out, and working as a paralegal had left her absolutely certain she didn’t want to go to law school, as her parents had badly wanted her to do.

  She’d needed something more meaningful, something deeper, something real. She’d needed a change.

  A change that had led her to a calling she hadn’t realized she’d had until she’d made the commitment and become a Marine. Kenna hadn’t told Griffin. She hadn’t seen the point. She’d just enlisted. And she’d never regretted it for a moment—and still didn’t. Being a Marine could be grueling and exhausting, but the camaraderie, mission, and service had resonated deep inside her in a way she never would’ve predicted. For a long time, she’d still grieved the loss of Griffin, but the Marines had been like someone turning the lightbulb on over her whole life.

  So why was she thinking of Griffin now?

  “I’m sorry. How long was I out of it?” she asked.

  Arms around her shoulders, Griffin cradled her tighter against his muscled chest and smiled down at her. “About a half hour. Close your eyes and rest. I’m in no rush.”

  Kenna pressed her fingers to her mouth as her thoughts churned and realization finally set in. That memory of Griffin taking care of her had come after a particularly intense scene that had left Kenna flying so high she’d all but lost consciousness. Subspace, they called it, and with Griffin, she’d achieved it quite a lot. Nothing got her out of her head or sent endorphins racing like it.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered out loud. An idea took route that threatened to shake up her whole world—for better or worse, she didn’t know. “Would it work now?”

  That was only the first of the questions that came to mind. Would it work? Could she still engage in the bondage she’d once loved with an amputated arm? Was Blasphemy even still open? She’d met Griffin when the exclusive BDSM club had first opened six years ago. They’d frequently done scenes together for just over a year before she’d gone and gotten feelings for him that he didn’t return. And if Blasphemy was still open, was Griffin himself still there? Was he still unattached? Could she even begin to think about playing with him again, after everything that’d
happened in the five years since she’d left Baltimore? Would she be up to finding a new Dom instead?

  “Oh, God,” she said again, shaking her head at this madness. “What the hell am I even thinking?” But as she settled back in bed, she had to admit that during the minutes she’d spent thinking about Griffin, she’d almost forgotten about everything else.

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