‘She usually fights with her boyfriends about mi. They decide they should meet mi and she says no. Guess she solved that problem by saying I’m dead. Cruel, cruel child.’
‘I can see why she did it. You’re an arse.’
Robert raised his eyebrows. ‘Silver Fox shows some life after all. Why you say that?’
The memory of it made him cringe. Bite his lip. ‘You cheated on your wife.’
‘Charlaine tell you that?’
‘Karen.’
‘Ah. Mi baby girl be smart, but she don’t always see what’s right under her nose. I never cheated on nobody. Charlaine and I—we wasn’t together when I saw those other women. How can I cheat on somebody who has no claim on me?’
‘You’re married.’
‘Divorced,’ he corrected. ‘Years ago. And like an addict I came back for more. No matter how many women I saw, none were so damn fine as Charlaine. I didn’t want nobody else.’
‘Did you ever tell her that?’
Robert glanced up. Cocked an eyebrow. ‘Tell her what?’
‘That you missed her. Wanted her.’
‘No. She was mi woman. Is mi woman. I don’t need to tell her that. She knows.’
‘Right. And if she did the same as you, would you take her back?’
‘Ha, you’re a funny man.’ He swept off his hat, rubbed his head, then replaced it, all in one smooth move. When he looked up again his gaze hardened. ‘My women know better than to act like that.’
‘Your women . . . they’re not cattle, you do realise?’
‘Think you’re funny, do you? No, they’re not cattle, but they’re mine. Charlaine? Mine. Karen? Mine. I won’t stand such foolishness from them. They’re better than me.’
Dan stared at the older man as though seeing him for the first time. In a curious, backhanded way, he saw his own thoughts and feelings reflected in Robert Owusu. Out dated thoughts on the place of women.
He felt sick.
‘I don’t know Charlaine very well, but Karen certainly is better than you. Better than me. Us being men doesn’t give us special powers or rights, Mr Owusu. What you did was wrong.’
‘We was divorced.’ Robert insisted. ‘And I love that woman. I don’t show it well but I do. I want Karen to understand that.’
Dan rolled his eyes. ‘Can’t help you there.’
‘You can. She listens to you.’
‘Not recently.’
Silence.
Then, ‘I don’t miss much. I’m old and randy but I see a lot. Your hand, the wall, your floor. I also see you, Silver Fox. Daniel.’
At the use of his name Dan couldn’t help but look up. He caught the older man staring at him, expression weary, but solemn.
‘You love my girl. What she sees in you, I’ll never know, but she loves you too. If I want to make peace with her I need to be a part of her life. So I need to be part of yours.’ He pulled a tatty lottery ticket from his pocket and a stubby blue pen, the kind stuck in the small holes drilled into tables bolted down at the local bookies. He scribbled a line of numbers then shoved the ticket over.
‘When she comes back, call mi. She won’t do it, so don’t bother asking. Just tell her I came and call mi. Will you do that?’
He hesitated, then gathered up the ticket and tucked it into his pocket. ‘Sure.’
‘Thank you. That’s all mi want.’ Robert got up and walked to the door. Before passing through he said; ‘Put that hand in some ice or you won’t be able to move your fingers tomorrow.’
Seconds later the front door opened then closed again.
Dan groaned, running his hands over his face and through his hair. The fine strands caught in the flesh of his mangled knuckles and he bit back a wince.
No ice, but the handy bag of peas that did so well on his face the night before, felt good against his hand. Cold quickly numbed the agony.
With the other hand he flipped out his phone. Dialled. The call went straight to voice mail. ‘Karen, I know you said don’t call, but I need to speak to you. Please come home.’ He hung up.
Simple. Straight forward. To the point. No begging, no pleading, no drunken babbling. Not like last time.
Last time, ha!
Last time he drank himself silly, throwing up in the kitchen sink after, an argument with Karen. Neither of them were impressed by that. Last time he let her go and nearly lost everything at Sugar Dust when his ex Beth showed up, dragging up stories from the past. Last time he begged. He pleaded. He did everything except actually act in a way that gave Karen a reason to stay.
Dan sat straighter in his chair.
Even Robert put aside other women to go back to Charlaine. It’s what she wanted. And he gave it to her.
The first aid kit proved easy to find. Yet another legacy of Karen’s organisational skills. Wrapping the hand was no mean feat, but he did it and knotted the end using a combination of his left hand and his teeth. When sure it was secure, he snatched up his keys and darted from the house.
It took twenty minutes to reach the flats where Karen once lived. As he pulled up to the gloomy block of grey concrete, his gaze swivelled upwards, searching for the dim blue light in the window as he had so many times before. No blue light. No yellow light. No light at all in fact, and when he leaned on the buzzer he had no choice but to admit the truth. She wasn’t there. Nobody was.
Out came the mobile again. He straightened when Cindy answered. ‘I Karen with you?’
‘What?’ Thunderous music poured through the ear piece. Several shrill voices raised in unison, sung along to some pop track from twelve years ago. ‘Dan?’
‘Is Karen with you?’
‘One sec, I’ll go outsi—no you silly bitch, get off me. I’m with her. No, her. Her too if you like, but I’m not interested.’ The music faded slightly. ‘Jesus, there are some desperate folk out tonight. Wait a minute, Dan.’
He had no choice but to do exactly that, wandering back to the car since nobody was in the flat. Back in his seat, he tapped the fingers of his uninjured hand against the wheel and waited.
The music died completely.
Cindy’s voice roared into his ear. ‘There, I’m—oops. Sorry. My ears are ringing. Am I shouting?’
Dan placed the phone on the dashboard and brushed the screen to switch it to speaker. ‘No, go ahead.’
‘You said something about Karen?’
‘She’s not with you?’
‘At Helsinki? No, I thought she was with you.’
‘She left.’
A pause. When Cindy spoke again, her voice growled low and feral. ‘What the hell have you done now?’
‘Long story.’
‘You must be the absolute master of relationship cock-ups. No pun intended of course.’
He huffed a breath that might be interpreted as laughter. ‘Thanks.’
‘How long ago did she leave?’
‘I don’t know. Two hours ago? Three? I’ve lost track. I hoped she was with you.’
‘I’ve been out all day. Damn it, I knew I should have made her keep her key. Where else would she go? What about Daphne’s place?’
Dan stared out the window until the trees and parked cars merged into a grey blur. He pumped his foot against the brake pedal to think. Eventually he shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, Cindy, I’ve got this.’
‘I wouldn’t worry, but you called me, dick-face. Now I’ll do nothing but worry about it.’
‘It’s fine, honestly—’
‘Shut up. In fact, get off the line so I can call her.’
He hung up, lowering his head to bump his forehead on the steering wheel.
Where would she go?
There were a few places: a late night independent bookstore that doubled as a coffee shop, several pubs. Though as he thought about it more, Dan felt sure she wouldn’t go to those places alone.
The bookstore perhaps, but not a pub.
He restarted the car and began driving, aiming for the ring road that would lead him into
town. On the way, he jammed his bluetooth receiver into his ear and began to call his other subs. Though slim, there was a chance Karen had turned to them. Since Cindy was the obvious choice, it made sense to avoid her flat if Karen didn’t want to be found.
After speaking briefly with both Hannah and Rebecca, each claiming they’d seen nothing of Karen since their last play session, Dan stopped the car outside an old, converted church and tried to think.
The phone rang in his hands. ‘Cindy?’
‘She left two voice mails begging me to let her in. She was in tears, Dan. What have you done? And don’t you dare say it’s a long story. I’ll rip your tiny cock off, I swear to God.’
He sighed. ‘You have such a way with words.’
‘Tell me!’
He did.
Chapter Fifteen
Karen
Karen cradled her tumbler to her chest and watched Sith walk across his living room. It was large, compact and neat, like him, though signs of his true personality occasionally peeped through, Pictures on the sideboard lots of smiling faces, probably family; a stack of sports magazines half sliding off a coffee table; a large wicker basket beneath the radiator with a purple blanket bunched up inside.
The owner of the blanket, a tiny, honey-yellow cat, purred and slithered in and around his ankles. When he tripped over her for the third time, Sith scooped her up and put her gently outside. The look she gave him as the door closed was nothing short of guileless disbelief.
‘She’s always like that when I have guests.’
‘Possessive?’
‘Protective. She thinks everyone is out to get me.’
Karen grinned. ‘Makes me wonder what sort of people you usually bring here.’
Sith hesitated. ‘Friends. You know, law people. A girl every now and then. A man.’
Tracing a pattern on the edge of the sofa, Karen murmured, ‘Do they stay?’
‘Sometimes.’ Sith stopped near the coffee table, his abrupt motion causing the magazines to slide to the floor. He cursed and snatched them up, forming an untidy wedge, that he shoved onto the bottom shelf of a tall bookcase against the far wall. ‘Sorry it’s such a mess.’
She arched an eyebrow. ‘This is a mess?’
‘For me it is.’ After shuffling a trio of remote controls into a line beside the TV, he finally sat on the floor near her feet. He snagged his own glass off the table and raised it. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’ The rum brought a pleasant warmth to her chest and burned on the way down. It reminded her of hot summer days and late dinners in the conservatory, while her mother played soft classical music.
Sith touched her knee. ‘Are you comfortable?’
Karen giggled. She wriggled her toes within the confines of her socks, stretching once then relaxing as she tucked her legs beneath her. The fluffy blanket draped over her chest flopped down to cover her knees. ‘All you need to do is tuck me in, give me a good book and I’ll never leave. You don’t have to do this.’
‘I know.’ He gazed at her, one hand toying with a sea shell threaded through one of his dreadlocks. ‘I want you to be comfortable in my house, that’s all.’
‘Is that why you’re on the floor?’
‘I’m more comfortable here.’
Karen ran a finger around the rim of her glass. ‘When I’m home with Dan, just relaxed and casual like we are now, he sometimes makes me sit on the floor. He gets me a blanket and a cushion, or whatever else I might want, but he puts me at his feet. Just another way of maintaining the D/s.’
Sith looked away. Cleared his throat. Fussed with his dreadlocks some more, then took a swift glug of rum. ‘Do you like doing that?’
‘Not all the time. Most of the time I just want to sit on the damn sofa and away from the laminate floor. But he’s good at gauging that. He never asks me to if he senses I’m not in the mood. He’s good like that.’
‘What happens afterwards? Do you play?’
‘Generally, no. We get on with whatever else we need to do with our day. He’ll read a case study. I’ll make some research notes. It sometimes leads to a blow job, but not normally.’
‘You said you’re his slave?’
‘Sub, slave; we use the words interchangeably.’
Something dark passed across Sith’s eyes. ‘I want to ask but I don’t want you to think that I’m . . . ‘
Karen waited. Though she could hazard a guess, she wanted to hear him say it. She wanted to hear how he handled such a delicate subject.
‘Is race involved?’ he said, at last. ‘Some people on Kink4Life enjoy playing up the racial aspect of a mixed relationship. Do you play up to the historical background?’
Delicately put. Spoken like a true lawyer.
She quirked an eyebrow. ‘You mean does he like to pretend that he’s worked me in the cotton fields all day before bringing me home to rape?’
Sith frowned. ‘You don’t have to be so—’
She cut him off with a raised hand. ‘Sorry, you’re right. That was shitty of me. But I get asked that a lot and only by black men. They seem to want to save me.’
‘You don’t want to be saved?’
‘I don’t need to be saved.’ She put the glass down beside the sofa. ‘We never play that game. We might roleplay cat and owner, teacher and student, doctor and patient, but never that. He finds it as distasteful as I do.’
‘But the word slave—’
‘—is just a word. It has extremely negative overtones when Dan uses it in unsuspecting company, but most people understand that’s not what our relationship is about. Though he does look sexy cracking a whip.’
A wide grin spread Sith’s lips. For the first time, she noticed the gap between his front teeth, small, but there. It made him look even cuter. If that were possible.
‘I’d like to see that one day. Not to be involved—I know he doesn’t like that—but does he ever let people watch? Like at play events?’
‘Occasionally. More so recently. He enjoys showing off his control. Lucky for him, I do too. I think that’s part of his problem with the idea of me being Domme over someone else. He can’t control that.’
Leaning back, Sith crossed his arms over his stomach and stretched out his legs. ‘Of course he can. You just need to be creative.’ He beckoned. ‘I’ll show you.’
The words set off an instant spark in Karen. His closeness, his soft voice, the gentle, relaxed drift of her mind brought on by the two glasses of rum she enjoyed before this one.
She licked her lips, twitching her legs free of the blanket and swinging them to the ground. Blanket next, untucked from her body and draped neatly over the arm of the sofa.
Stop stalling. This doesn’t mean anything, just go. Talk to him.
Sith faced away from her, but his right hand was up in the air, palm flat, waiting to take her fingers into his. Though his shoulders and neck appeared loose and relaxed, something about his energy suggested the exact opposite.
She watched the back of his neck for some sign of his intent but he didn’t turn. Just waited. As if he knew she would come. The realisation made her stomach clench, made the secret juncture between her legs grow warm and moist. That expectation of obedience was familiar and an unexpected comfort after such a stressful night.
Karen put her hand in his and let Sith tug her to the ground. After a bit of fumbling he sat her in his lap, facing him, with her legs bent up on either side of his body.
Even clothed, Karen felt exposed. Her nipples stiffened against her bra and begged for attention. She swallowed and focused on his chin.
‘Imagine I’m your master,’ he said.
The words brought her gaze up, hard and fast. Her breathing quickened and when Sith gazed into her eyes, the rest of the room faded away. She saw nothing but his face. Heard nothing but his voice.
‘Master?’ she croaked.
‘Yes. Can you imagine that?’
Jesus . . . I think I can . . .
Her tongue felt thick an
d clumsy, so she settled for nodding.
Sith smiled. ‘Good. Imagine that. And imagine that we’re naked.’
Oh, boy . . .
‘We’re not actually naked, Karen. I’m just trying to explain. Is that okay?’ He didn’t move or touch her, his hands now flat on the floor to either side of his hips.
Karen wished he would put them on her waist. ‘Okay. Go on.’
‘Imagine we’re naked and you’re sitting here, waiting for me to enter you.’
The calm way he spoke sent muddled messages to Karen’s brain. She swayed and convulsively gripped his shoulders against falling. When he smiled, her skin began to tingle. He grasped her forearms to hold her hands in place.
‘I enter you. I put your arms here so you can hold on and I give you control over depth and speed. But you know at any moment I can tell you to move faster or slower. And you’ll obey. You’ll have to.’
Karen pushed her hips forward. A small motion, but it spread her legs further and pressed the crotch of her jeans deeper between her legs. The pressure made her whimper. Comfort and familiarity lurked just out of reach. Sith’s words and soothing voice promised solace in the form of control. His control. He would take responsibility for everything and leave her free to enjoy the moment. Free to relax. Free to feel. No need to assess, consider, analyse or decide. No need to ponder alternatives, or plan for the actions of others. Absolute freedom of responsibility. That’s what a master offered. That’s what his voice promised.
It would be so easy to let him take over. To follow orders as she often did and let someone else take charge of making everything better.
‘I’d have to.’ She tightened her grip.
‘You have to,’ he corrected. Sith’s hands touched her shoulders, then skimmed along the length of her arms. He teased his fingers into the crook of each elbow then held her wrists between his thumbs and forefingers. When he lifted, Karen moved with him, allowing him to lift her arms out from her body and up to shoulder height.
When he let go, she held her position.
He grinned. ‘Good girl.’
The words sent an electric thrill through her body. They always did.
She closed her eyes and listened for his body motions, his breathing, his sighs.
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