by Lilia Moon
I wince. “No. But I could have handled it differently. Handed her off to someone else.”
Quint’s still pissed. “That would have been just as fucked up.”
Dammit. “She set me up—what did you want me to do?”
“She’s not the problem here.” Damon’s not pulling his punches at all. “You let things get messy with a sub, and she stepped into the mess and tried to get what she wants. That’s on you, not on her, because the Mattie I know isn’t manipulative if her Dom’s paying proper attention.’
“I’m not her Dom.” The words are spitting out through my clenched teeth. “And she’s not clear whether she wants me to be, either. I’m not trying to blame her, but two people made this mess. I’m just the one who royally fucked up once we got there.”
“Yeah, you did.” Quint takes my water bottle and cracks it open, and then hands it back to me. “I’ve never seen you drop a sub like that. What’s going on?”
I don’t want to go there, but I have to. “She was ready for the scene to head deeper. Into the stuff she likes. Impact play.” I make a sad, wry grimace. “With something a little more impressive than a plastic wrench.”
I can see Damon’s radar tuning in. “You haven’t played that way in a long time. Are your skills rusty?”
Probably. “It’s more than that. I don’t want to play that way. Not anymore. It used to be something I was happy to do because a sub needed it, and a fulfilled sub is my main kink, or at least I thought it was.”
Quint’s frowning. “But now you don’t want to play with the impact toys even if your sub wants to go there?”
It’s so much worse than that. “I don’t think I want to be a Dom. I don’t want the control or the power or a sub with needs I can’t meet and the totally reasonable expectation that I’m going to take care of her.” I close my eyes and deflate against the wall behind me. “Mattie leaned into me. That’s all she did, and I totally fell apart because I didn’t want any part of what needed to happen next.”
I can hear the worried glances, even if I can’t see them.
And then Damon sighs. “Daniel was worried. I should have paid more attention.”
Fuck. I open my eyes. “What do I do? I’m not him. He had boardroom games and a life to walk away into. I make spanking benches for a living and every single one of my friends is kinky.” It feels like my skin has lost integrity and what used to be me is spilling out onto the sidewalk, blood and guts and things that don’t know how to live out in the real world splattering at the feet of my two best friends. “If I’m not a Dom, then I have to walk away from everything I know.”
Quint meets my eyes, and for all the deep sadness in his face, he doesn’t flinch. “Maybe that’s what you have to do.”
Chapter Seventeen
Milo
“Like hell he does.” Ari ducks under Quint’s arm and shoots him a hot, furious look. “Don’t you dare let him get away with this crap about walking away because he’s not really a Dom.”
Quint growls, even though he looks shocked down to his bones. “And you know this is crap because?”
“First, because kink might get you into this family, but we’re like the damn Mafia. You don’t get to leave just because you take up new hobbies.” She’s answering him, but her eyes are glued to me. “Second, because unlike the rest of you in this room, I’ve been Milo’s sub.” She drills a finger into my chest. “Do you seriously think that someone who’s just pretending to be a Dom can handle me?”
Somewhere in the blood and guts, I find a remnant of my spine. “That was a long time ago.”
“People don’t change that much, not way down deep.” Her steamroller barely stops long enough to breathe. “You handled me, Milo. Me. Don’t tell me you’re not a fucking Dom.”
I’ve never seen Ari this angry—or this unhinged. “I gave you what you needed. I’m not sure that makes me a Dom.”
She smiles, and I can see the hordes of Hell standing at her back. “How did you feel after our scenes, hmm?”
It’s been a really long time, but nobody forgets their scenes with Ari. “Quiet.” I let all my breath out in a whoosh, because in fifteen seconds of fury, she’s just punched clarity into my dithering—the first that’s been there in months. “Done. Complete.”
“Yup.” She nods, calmer now, but staring at me like she’s trying to x-ray my soul. “That’s why we do this kink stuff. For that feeling. I’ve been your partner and felt you get there. You got there off my surrender and your control, and that totally makes you a Dom right down to your bones.”
All three of us are staring at her with our jaws open.
She crosses her arms and leans a shoulder against my wall. “You seriously think all the experienced club subs missed a Dom who’s faking it? That we can’t tell if you’re real or not? Please. Give us some credit.”
I managed to hide it from the Doms pretty well.
Ari tilts her head against the wall, letting a little more of her fury go. “We didn’t know you were this distressed, though, and I’m mad at you for hiding that. You know that shit shows up in scenes. Always.”
Her soft words flay me even more than her mad ones.
“You’re a Dom. Figure out how to be the kind of Dom that makes you happy, but knock off with the bullshit about not being kinky. It’s an insult to every one of us who’s ever played with you and felt something real.”
I used to fight. Karate, and nastier stuff in a ring without a whole lot of rules. I’ve never felt as thoroughly beat up as I do right now. Or as safe. She just built the container for me to fall apart in—and then made sure that I did. I breathe out again and say the only two words that matter. “Thank you.”
“Oh, I’m not done with you yet.” She takes my hand and leads us over to two chairs. Harlan and Quint are smart enough to move out of the way. They know better than to mess with a scene in progress. There are very few people who will read the riot act to a Dom. Even fewer who will do it because they love us. I sit and trace the washed-out pink of the Kanji I painted onto her arm. Sister.
Her eyes get brighter, but she just pulls down her sleeve. “Don’t try to sweet-talk me right now, Milo Egami. I love you and you know it and you’re still in big trouble with me because you’re fucking with a very good friend.”
At least I know where Act Two is headed. “The whole point here is that I don’t want to fuck with her.”
“And you think you avoid that by keeping your hands off of her?”
“Uh—” I look to the other guys for help, but clearly they’ve got nothing. “That was pretty much what I was thinking, yes.”
Ari sighs. “If she was newer to this, or you were, then that would be the right answer. But you have a problem right now and you’re not going to figure out the answer sitting here in a room talking to yourself, or to these fatheads either.”
It’s a mark of how much we respect her—and how much steam just came out her ears—that we all just nod.
She smirks. She misses nothing. “You need to play. There’s no other way to figure out what will give you those feelings of quiet and done and complete. Maybe it’s different kink than it used to be, or maybe you got so focused on meeting your sub’s needs that you forgot you get to have some too, but whatever. You figure this out by playing.”
She’s talking about blithely tossing the Dom rulebook out the window. “That would put my sub at huge risk.” Like the one I just dropped on her head.
“Bullshit.” Ari raises a stern eyebrow. “You’re sitting in here all worried that Mattie broke when you dropped her, and that’s just avoidant bullshit. She’s fine. She’s sad and she’s worried about you and she’s busy making sure Sam doesn’t escape long enough to come kill you, but she’s fine.”
I’m pretty sure I just got called a scared, arrogant asshole.
Ari holds up a hand when I open my mouth. “I’m not done yet. Mattie’s skilled enough to be a sub for some of Quint’s greenest, dumbest baby Doms, and you thi
nk she can’t handle you dithering around? She’s totally the right sub for this—you just need to play straight with her.”
I wince, because I haven’t been playing straight with anyone on this. It feels too big. Too life-ending.
Suddenly Ari’s on the arm of my chair with her head laid down on top of mine, and I don’t even know how it happened. I only know that she’s wielding impact toys and softness like a maestro, and I have no defenses left. She kisses the top of my forehead. “Mattie knows how to let go into a scene just as much as her Dom can handle. If you run an experiment and it’s not working, it’s still going to be eons better for her than some of the trainee sessions she does.”
Her arms wrap around me, holding me tight while I take a really good look at what she’s just stripped raw. It’s every kind of humbling to be compared to a bumbling trainee, but she’s not wrong. “You think I should ask Mattie to help me wander around lost in the Dom dark while I try to find a lightbulb?”
Ari grins into the top of my head. “Something like that, yeah.”
I only have one word left. “Why?” On second thought, I have a few more. “The things I find in the dark probably aren’t even going to be her kinks. Even if I’m a Dom who just needs to do his homework, there’s a really good chance I still don’t end up the kind of Dom she needs.”
“Fair enough.” She tips up my chin, and I’m looking in to the clear, loving eyes of my sister—and Seattle’s toughest switch. “But you don’t get to make that decision with your head up your ass. Get it out, get clear on who you are, and then decide how that lines up with Mattie.” She pauses, and her breath hitches a little. “This is worth taking some risks for. She just did. Catch up.”
Chapter Eighteen
Mattie
I knock on the door of the address Milo texted me, nervous and unsure. I should probably be cranky and wondering why the heck I’m putting myself at the beck and call of a man who walked away from the middle of a scene with me and never came back, but mostly I’m just sad and curious.
I hear faint footsteps, and he pulls open the door, wearing sweatpants, thick socks, and a soft green t-shirt so old I have no idea what it started life as. “Mattie. Thanks for coming.”
I hand him the cookies I bought from the kids down the street. “There’s a six year old who’s missing pretty much all her front teeth who says these are your very favorite. She also says you promised to buy her last box and she’s getting close so you should come visit her soon.”
He grins wryly. “Riley’s kind of a menace. Sorry you got snared in her web.”
She’s a menace who totally has his number.
He puts the cookies down on a half-wall that opens into his kitchen and holds out his hand. “Seriously, thank you for being here. I totally screwed up at the club, and we should have had this conversation yesterday, but I had some thinking to do first.”
That was the message that got passed along. By at least half a dozen people. “Not a problem. I went home, slept like the dead, and then went to work so Tonio could yell at me.”
Milo frowns and stops leading me into his living room. “Why’s he yelling?”
I laugh and head for the couch. I’ve been on my feet for hours, and whatever’s coming, I’m taking it sitting down. “Because he’s a chef. Because he’s Italian. Because he has no filters. Take your pick.”
I’m being studied. “You roll okay with it.”
Obviously he can see that I do. “It’s kind of like being in a play. We all have our roles, and Tonio’s involves making a lot of noise.” He was also first in line to give me a hug this morning, right after he offered to beat up the stupid man who had made me miserable, but I’m not here to lay that weight on Milo’s shoulders. I’m a big girl, and I’m the one who dragged us into the scene that crashed.
I look at him as he takes a seat in the middle of the couch, close to me, but not touching. Close enough to remind me just how much heat there was between us yesterday before it all came tumbling down. I swallow and try to remember why I’m here. “I’m really sorry about yesterday. I tried to force something that shouldn’t have been forced, and that wasn’t fair to you at all.”
He shakes his head and smiles a little, but he looks sad. “Today is so not about you apologizing. You have a role at the club and so do I, and I screwed mine up. If you’d pulled that stunt on a baby Dom, then yeah, some of what happened would be on you. But the day I can’t handle a brat is the day I’m the one who utterly messed up, not you.”
He looks so… heavy. “Can I say something? Not as a sub, but just as a human being, and you can maybe listen with your Dom fingers out of your ears for a minute?”
He winces. “Shit. Sure, go ahead.”
I had no idea what I wanted to say when I got here, but now I do. “I’m fine. Well, not exactly, because I’m confused, but that was true before I stripped the bolts off your equipment.” I look him straight in the eyes, because I need to own this all the way. It’s not just his uncertainty that blew up the scene yesterday—it’s mine, too. “I pushed so hard because I was hoping that would somehow make things clearer. That I could make this fit into the nice, neat box of what happens when a brat pushes a Dom she likes, and then we’d maybe both feel better and be less confused.”
He nods slowly. “I can see why you thought that might help.”
I need to remember how soft his heart is. “Seriously? I showed up in a scene without knowing what I wanted. Quint would kick me out of trainee school for that kind of crap.”
Milo’s eyes flare. “He’s not here. And I stepped into the scene more confused than you even understand, so trust me, this is on my head.”
That stops me in my tracks. “What do you mean?”
Chapter Nineteen
Milo
I need to strip more naked than I’ve ever gotten with a sub. Or with anyone, really. Except maybe Ari, and she doesn’t give me much choice. “I’ve been struggling for months. With what kind of Dom I want to be, or whether I even want to be a Dom at all.”
Mattie’s eyes widen, but that’s all. She sits quiet, open, letting me know with the language of her body that she’s listening.
“The club used to be a place with lots of things I wanted to be a part of. I played several times a week, hung out, enjoyed watching people use the equipment I built.” I shrug. “I still enjoy the last parts, I guess, but I feel more removed. More things feel like obligation, or like they’re just part of my job. I used to think I was the luckiest guy in the universe, one who’d figured out how to turn his kinky hobby into work that paid well and fit great with the lifestyle I loved.”
Her eyes are soft, her voice even softer. “Except you don’t love it anymore.”
It still feels like betrayal to say it, like some kind of high treason to myself and a whole lot of people who love me. “I don’t.” I take a breath and collect some of the words from Damon’s office that are still clattering around in my brain. “I thought that meant I wasn’t a Dom anymore, but a friend read me the riot act on that yesterday.”
Mattie’s grin is small, but sincere. “Ari? She didn’t tell me.”
She wouldn’t. Not on something like this. “She reminded me of what scenes used to feel like. How it felt when one was done.” I watch the woman sitting on the couch with me carefully.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m a big girl, Milo. I know you used to scene with Ari, and I know you totally think of her as your sister now, but even if you didn’t, I’m really glad she knew what to say to straighten you out.”
I blink, because Mattie’s got shades of the same tone I heard yesterday in Damon’s office. “She reminded me that being a Dom isn’t about kinks. It’s about wanting to hold the space for someone else to let go in. About how I feel when I get to do that.” And then Ari wrapped her arms around me and showed me just how powerful it is to be on the receiving end of that.
Mattie smiles at me, and her inner brat is showing. “Duh.”
I can feel my
cheeks heating. “It might be obvious to all the really smart subs in my life, but it wasn’t clear to me at all.”
“I’m sorry.” Her smile vanishes, and she reaches for my hands. “You’d be okay if you weren’t a Dom, you know that, right? There’d still be a place for you, even if it’s just as the guy who builds the benches and chairs we all love. Good families don’t kick people out because they change, and Fettered’s a really good family.”
I need to start making a list of all the ways I’ve been an idiot. “Thank you. I somehow managed to make a really big mess inside my own head and forgot that.”
She laughs. “Well, it is a really big head.”
“Brat.” One who’s deftly untying knots in my stomach I didn’t know were still there. “So you think I could give up the Dom gig and go be a Doms on the Bottom groupie, or help Quint serve drinks and play matchmaker for all the cute, unattached subs and everything would be fine.”
She grins. “Something like that. Scorpio’s got lots of groupies, but Quint could use a few more.”
Quint growls at anyone who tries to be his groupie. I lean forward and tilt my head into Mattie’s, letting my forehead touch hers. Needing the contact. “Thank you. For hearing me, and for helping me see that even if I’m not a Dom, it’s not the end of the world.”
I feel her hesitation. Just the faintest hitch, and she covers it fast.
No way. Not when she’s being smart and I’ve been a total ass. I lift my head and find her eyes. “What?”
She swallows. “This is just one sub’s opinion, but you totally have the Dom vibe. I’m pretty sure I can tell when a guy’s just dressing up in Dom clothes and pretending, and you’re not. You’re quiet, but you’ve still got whatever it is that makes my insides quiver.”
That’s a huge and brave gift after the crap I pulled yesterday. “Thank you. Ari made the same point, only a lot more loudly.”
Her eyebrows fly up. “Ari yelled?”
That wouldn’t normally be my story to tell, but I’m looking at her best friend. “It matters a lot to her that the people she loves don’t blow their chances to maybe be happy. She thought I was doing a really good job of blowing mine.”