by Joey W. Hill
“Look in that mirror by yourself and see what’s not fucked-up. What’s worth saving.”
“What do you want for yourself?”
He’d dropped four before he tagged out of the ring and stood in the corner behind the crowd. As he caught his breath and knuckled blood off his chin, he watched the other fighters. He was scheduled for the fifth fight of the evening. But he already knew he wouldn’t be hanging around for it. Tal would give him hell about it and they’d take some heat from the organizer. He’d figure out how to make it up to Tal. Fuck the rest of these assholes.
He’d tipped the top boiling rage out of his system, and other stuff was crowding in. Siren…all the Mistresses he’d harmed. He thought of Marguerite, who’d given him the first glimpse of what he really wanted. Regina had expanded that to a widescreen, panoramic view. She’d shown him it was okay for him to love and want. And maybe let himself be loved in return.
Your first job is always to take care of yourself, because you belong to me...
Hell. He put his hand to his throat, realizing he hadn’t taken off the collar he wore for her. He was lucky someone hadn’t grabbed onto it and used the hold to beat in his face. He’d remembered to put the bracelet in his pocket to protect it and he fished it out now, staring at the back.
If lost, return to Lady Regina.
He remembered the voodoo doll, the two names on either side of the tag, and her observation about his tattoo.
“You’re the skin over the armor, being ripped away. Duncan is the armor and the man beneath.”
He rubbed his hand over it, over the kitten she’d had added to it. He thought of Dot, curled up and purring in his lap. Of Regina, her head resting on his shoulder, body vibrating as she laughed at something on the TV. Their hands, casually linked and resting on his knee.
So what did he want?
He wanted her. He wanted to be hers. Needed to be hers. He needed her to kick his ass, not take his bullshit or be afraid of him. He needed her. Lover, mother, friend…Mistress.
He’d told her he loved her, told her she was everything. He’d meant it as a good-bye, but it didn’t have to be. She’d known that. She wouldn’t let him go. She’d probably followed him, figured out where he was by some diabolical…
“Fuck.” His gut went cold, fear stabbing him. Her phone was in his car, tucked between the console and passenger seat. He’d noticed it when he got out. He thought she’d maybe left it there last night, when they’d gone to a movie and then stopped at a diner for pie. She liked apple cinnamon and had shared half with him when he thought he’d only wanted coffee. But the pie was too good. Sharing with her made it even better.
She could use the phone to track him, would use it. And this was not a place safe for a woman. Not safe for anyone other than people like him. She wouldn’t know that. She’d only gone to the one fight, and didn’t know that they weren’t all like that.
If he’d led her into danger…fuck. Grabbing his shirt, he ducked the organizer’s muscle and slid down the hallway, headed back the way he’d come. He shrugged into his shirt as he went. He was probably being an idiot. His Mistress was smart. If she was here, she was safely sitting in her Mercedes, waiting on him with that baleful, you’re-in-deep-trouble look that stiffened his cock. He was already hard, the way he always was after a fight. He could give his Mistress a lot of pleasure tonight…if she accepted his apology. And helped him figure out this mess in his head maybe one more time.
Or maybe it was time for him to stop relying on her for that. She could do that in session as part of what they could do for each other, but maybe he should consider the unthinkable. Seeking someone trained to help his fucked-up head, and ease that burden on her. That was his job, wasn’t it? To serve his Mistress, to take care of her. Not make her carry more of the weight than was her due share of a relationship.
He couldn’t just bury his past and hope it would stay that way. You couldn’t bury a demon without exorcizing it. Siren had proved that tonight.
Christ, Marius. Are you finally growing up? While the thought came with rueful humor, there was a poignant, painful component to it, a fierce and quiet victory. It was time to let the ghost of the child he’d been go and become the man he should be. Regina had shown him that, made that possible. To honor that gift, he needed to embrace it.
Sisk’s lanky dark hair framed his scarred brown face and red-rimmed eyes. He was smoking a cigarette and gestured with it as Marius came up. “If you’re going out for some air, the boys are having a little fun with some cunt who claimed to be here for the fights. Just stay out of their way.”
Almost before he finished the sentence, Marius heard a scream. High and thin. Enraged, afraid, and in pain.
A million memories crowded in on him, with the same effect on his senses as an ignition switch to a rocket. He hit the door like a battering ram and charged out into the alley.
When he’d come here tonight, he’d had a lot of pent-up rage to vent. That vat of anger was nothing next to the volcano that erupted in him now. He had his hands on the first man standing between him and the struggling group on the ground before he even remembered leaping. He rammed a rupturing blow into his kidney, broke his knee with one sharp kick, and sent him headfirst into a group of metal trash cans, with a loud crash and howl from the injured male.
He took in the situation with one red-hazed glare. Even with the help of two men holding her arms, the bastard on top had his hands full, trying to force himself on Regina. They couldn’t secure her kicking and thrashing legs, and some of her attackers were already bleeding. She was a fighter, his Mistress. Not a victim.
“Knock this bitch out,” the man had just snarled, a sound that turned into a yelp as Marius landed on him. Tearing him off Regina, he tossed him across the asphalt, spinning to plant his shoe in the teeth of the one trying to pin one of his Mistress’s long legs. It sent him arcing back and hitting the brick wall. Then Marius was on the others, kicking, punching, drawing them away from her, engaging them with a roar of pure rage and determination.
She’d been defending herself so vigorously, he had to believe she wasn’t yet badly hurt. If he could give her the opening, she’d be smart enough to run for the car. Then there was a crack on bone as the man charging him from his right went down. He glimpsed her standing over him with both hands gripping rebar. But there were too many. She needed to run.
“Get to the damn car,” he snapped at her, and then he had no time for anything as he was shoved back, two trying to pin him so two others could whale on him. Fuck, he’d spent so much energy in the ring, whereas these assholes were fresh and souped up on whatever they’d been snorting. Why the hell had he come here? He never questioned taking money from these scumbags, but he’d endangered his Mistress. If anything happened to her…
Adrenaline helped him tear himself out of their hands. Vicious satisfaction flooded him as a wrist bone snapped under his grip. The subsequent shriek of pain gave him even more strength.
He was in a blind haze of fighting, pummeling and snarling when another man was yanked off him and he realized unexpected reinforcements had arrived. Tyler dropped the guy with a blow to the chest that the bettors inside would have loved, particularly when the guy didn’t get up. Marius instinctively went back to back with him and they faced down the remaining crew. More had come to join the fight, goddamn it all. Regina was at his side, the steel bar clenched in both hands, her eyes flaming like an Amazon warrior.
Fuck, he loved her. He didn’t want her to be here, but she’d told him plenty of times, hadn’t she? He didn’t give the orders in this relationship. The only choice he had was to take out the rest of these assholes so not another one of them got near her. Fortunately, Tyler seemed to be on the same page.
Over the next few moments of intense hand-to-hand combat, Regina stayed in that ready position, her eyes darting, body tense, but no one got close enough. Marius made fucking sure of it. Tyler might have had something to do with it, too.
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nbsp; When the last body dropped, and all that remained were unconscious, groaning or fast-retreating men, Tyler gripped her arm and gestured to Marius. “Come on,” he said, his tiger eyes sharp and cool as frost on an amber blade. “We need to be out of here.”
No disagreement there. Marius hated that they had to drive separately. Regina seemed in good enough shape to get into her vehicle, though he worried she was running on adrenaline and might be worse off than she seemed. Tyler was right, though. Neither they nor their vehicles needed to be here.
Tyler led the way out, Regina’s Mercedes in between their two cars. He took a few side streets before emerging smoothly onto a main artery. A half-mile down that road, they met two police units coming their way. In his rear view, Marius saw them turn onto the street that would lead them to the fight location.
About ten minutes later, Tyler pulled into the parking lot of an all-night diner, choosing a back corner where they weren’t likely to attract much notice. As soon as they stopped, Marius was out of the car and at Regina’s door, pulling it open. She was holding the wheel in both hands, and she was shaking. Shock. Christ, she shouldn’t be driving at all. Feeling a mixture of anger, chagrin, and an overpowering need to gather her up and take care of her in whatever way she needed, now or forever, he knelt in the open doorway.
When he put his large hands gently on her face and upper arm, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d recoiled from him like he was the plague. Instead her hands came up and gripped his. Her fingers were icy. She had blood on her, and he hoped to God it wasn’t hers. She turned her head to look at him, her dark eyes a little glassy.
“O-okay?” she asked. Her teeth were chattering but she touched the cuts on his cheek and jaw, humbling him and giving him another helpless wave of fury.
“Very okay,” he said, his throat thick. “How about you? Are you hurt? Any of that blood yours?”
She fingered the back of her head. Tyler had opened the other door. At Marius’s gesture, he took a closer look at the area she’d been probing. “It’s bleeding,” he confirmed. “They slammed your head on the pavement when they put you down? Did you black out, even for a second?”
She nodded. “Y-yeah to the first. No, on the second. Assholes. Nothing else, though. They d-didn’t get that far.” Her gaze turned to Marius. “You came out. F-fast fight.”
“I didn’t want to fight anymore. I just wanted to be with you. I wanted to say I was sorry for being an idiot.”
A ghost of a smile touched her lips, relief showing in her expression. “I should have trusted M-Marguerite. She said you’d figure it out if I j-just gave you some space.”
“I figured it out, thanks to you. Hope she told you that, too.” He bent his head to put his lips against her knuckles. She was still shaking and he hated it. He wanted to make her smile some more. “All I could think about was how I wanted to go home, let Dot curl up in my lap while you leaned against me, on the couch. Fall asleep in front of the TV together.”
“That sounds really good to me.” She looked at him a little hazily as he unbuckled her seat belt and he and Tyler maneuvered her over to the passenger side with gentle hands. “We’re so d-domestic. W-worried about that.”
“We usually start the night with you and the strap-on. I don’t think the spark is gone just yet.” The thickness in his throat had moved down to his chest as he passed gentle fingers over her bruises. “I wish I’d killed those fucking bastards.”
“Me too. And that I’d helped. B-but you’re okay. No more fights. None, you hear me?” She seemed to be rallying, her eyes glittering with the spirit he was used to seeing when she was pissed with him. It was as welcome now as the slick heat of her pussy around his cock. She gripped his forearms. “You w-will work at some crap minimum wage job until you get that nursing degree or p-paramedic certification. You will live with me if you can’t make your rent. But n-no more fights. You promise me, here and now.”
“No more fights. Only with you.”
“Okay. I need to…damn it, I need to cry. And a shower. A shower that lasts an hour on a hundred and twenty fucking degrees.”
Tyler wisely withdrew with a long look at Marius that said this was his area. Marius was more than glad of it. He’d take it as a lifelong responsibility if she’d let him.
He’d slid into the driver’s seat, so he pulled her over the gear shift and held her, wanting nothing between them, but this would do for now. As the trembling increased, he ran his hands along her back and arms, then cupped her head tenderly with one hand. “I’m so sorry,” he said again, wanting to say so much more, anything that would make it all right.
“It’s okay. We’re all fine. You were c-coming home. That’s what matters. And you’re not going to do that…anymore.”
His heart did a slow roll. “Coming home. I like the sound of that. I never thought I would.”
“That’s because you had y-your head up your ass f-for so long. Until I took you in hand.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s true.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, her brows, her nose and lips. Sitting back, he framed her face to kiss away each tear. “I’m so glad you’re okay. So glad I came out when I did, though I wish it had been earlier. Wish you hadn’t followed me. I was coming to you, Mistress.”
He saw blood spots on his hand where he’d touched her head. That, and a glance at Tyler, standing quietly in the open passenger door, said they needed to get to an Urgent Care. One was fairly close by.
He’d dropped his touch to her wrists, but immediately let go when she winced. Lifting her forearm, he was ready to commit murder anew when he saw the chain of fingerprint-shaped bruises. But they’d had to hold her down so brutally because she’d fought them so hard. Tough mistress. Amazing woman.
He knew what he could give her, something even better than his violence. He touched her face to draw her gaze to his, so she could tell he meant it, that it wasn’t just the intensity of the situation.
“I was coming to tell you something else. That maybe…I’m not saying I won’t need some help staying on the right track, but you’ve taught me to trust you. It’s time I start earning your trust, letting you know I can do the right things to be a better person for you…and for myself. You mentioned that lady that Marguerite recommended, the retired lady who does counseling. I think maybe…I should start talking to her. What do you think?”
It was the right call. It pulled her out of that alley and put her in the here and now. Her mouth softened, her heart in her eyes, which choked him up more than he wanted to admit. She’d helped him understand what serving a Mistress meant, what it could be. The more of himself he gave to her, the more she filled him up.
He could tell it mattered to her, that he’d asked her opinion, and felt like a hero just for having done so. She had that effect on him, too.
Regina stroked his jaw. “What do I think? I think that you’re becoming the man I’ve always known you are. One I want at my side, and at my back.” Her voice had steadied, another victory.
He dropped his head and pressed another kiss to her hand, to the abrasions on her wrists, and then lifted his face to her. “You mentioned a shower. After we get you checked out, will you do me the honor of letting me bathe you, Mistress?”
“We’re going home. I’m fine.”
He shook his head even before he saw Tyler’s mouth open to issue the same no-go message. “Not going to order me around on that one. Unless your head is hard as mine, a head injury’s nothing to fuck around with. You’re going, even if I have to carry you through the doors.”
“Oh, really? Think you can get away with that, do you?” She looked down her nose at him, a warning he’d pay for his high-handedness later. But her eyes were warm, her mouth still soft.
He reached over her, belted her into the seat as Tyler closed the passenger door, a sign he was assured the situation was well in hand. Which also bolstered Marius in ways he hadn’t expected. But he kept his main focus on his Mistress. “If you go without
a struggle, I’ll give you a massage after the shower. I give a pretty good one.”
“Really?” Her brow lifted. “That’s a talent you’ve kept hidden.”
He shrugged and slid his hand under the dark, slim ropes of her hair to fondle her neck, a move that soothed when she did it to him. “Most Mistresses only seemed to want my cock.”
“Well, it’s a very fine cock, but that’s not why you kept the talent hidden. You wanted to keep it about sex, didn’t you?”
She never let him bullshit her. Even now, she saw through any attempt to do so like she was a human X-ray machine. He bit back a smile. “Yeah. But I’d like to take it a lot farther than that with you, Regina.” This time he purposefully used her name, putting them on equal footing. “Be like you said. The sub you can use and enjoy the way we both like…and the man you can depend on. I’ll probably still fuck up a lot, but I want to at least say it, so you know I really want to try.”
“Okay.” There was a bated pause and she took a shaky breath, one that had him gripping her hand in concern. But she shook her head at him and sent him a watery smile. “Then we’re going to start on that right now. I need you to get me through the whole Urgent Care thing and then get me home. Help me get rid of these clothes, and the stink of all of them, and wash me with your strong, warm hands… So when I go to sleep tonight, my head won’t take me back there, to that…”
Tears were spilling down her face, scaring him, enraging him, and making him love her even more. He had his arms around her, his lips on her face, taking the tears away as he kissed the tracks, her lips, all so lightly.
“I will. I promise. You don’t have to think or do anything but rely on me to get you home. To get us both home.”
She might not realize it, but she’d just given him the greatest gift possible. Not just permission to help, to make it better—but the right to do so, to be that man for her.