RockYourSoul

by Sara Brooks

  Nothing wrong with grabbing a few Zs on the modest bed he kept tucked in a corner of his room, right?

  A few minutes later, the key he’d given her slid into the keyway, the locks tumbling over one another sounded against the hollowness in her stomach. A quick stop at the coffeehouse a few blocks away would net her some food after she woke up.

  The door handle jiggled but didn’t open. She’d had trouble with the lock before and had even watched Ryan play with it more than a few times. There was a trick to it, but damn if she could remember what it was.

  She pushed again, using more pressure. The door held fast and she growled as she kicked at the wood. Stupid useless piece of junk. She’d have to say something to Ryan about it when he got back. He’d said Patrick had plans to replace all four doors and locks because of the frustration the occupants routinely experienced, but this was now past the point of ridiculous.

  Figuring brute force seemed to be the only answer, she threw her shoulder into the wood. It gave at the top, but held fast at the bottom. One more shove should do it. Her shoulder slammed hard into the door and the wood gave, spilling her into the room.

  She stumbled through the door, catching herself before she went completely to her knees. Brushing her hair out of her face, she noticed the room was dark and reached behind her to flip on the light switch.

  Unlike the typical harsh glare from the overhead lights, only one light flipped on. Though the blub gave off a soft glow, it was enough for her to see the room had been stripped bare of everything she’d come to identify with Ryan.

  Not a single piece of his furniture remained.

  Now it was stark and cold, void of feeling and emotion.

  She noticed the single, low light shining down on the center of the room onto the only two pieces of furniture in the space. Pieces not meant for sex. A simple ivory white tablecloth covered a round table with an unvarnished chair standing before it. Blinking, she stared for a moment, unable to process the sight in front of her.

  She forced herself to move, closing the door to slowly make her way to the table. As she sat, her fingers ran over the gorgeous silver picture frame holding a picture of a stunning redhead cradling a newborn.

  Ryan’s wife and child.

  A hollowness bloomed in Beth’s stomach, her heavy sigh reverberating through the empty room. Though she knew she didn’t belong here, looking at such an obviously intimate thing, she found herself rooted to the spot. This certainly explained why Ryan was in charge of altering the functionality of each room. He could set up and not worry about the others discovering his…shrine.

  She studied the picture again, noting the absolute joy emitting from the woman. Judging by the way she smiled at the person taking the picture, there was no doubt in her mind Ryan was on the other side of the lens.

  Her phone chimed in her pocket and she pulled it out, scowling at the item of junk mail advertising a promise to increase the girth of her quivering member. After deleting the unwanted mail, she queued up the browser on her phone, pulled up Google and typed Ryan’s name into the search engine.

  Most of the hits returned pieces of information about the successful boat business he’d crafted from nothing. But there were a few links for news stories from five years ago. She read the first one, her stomach flipping over when the article meticulously spelled out the gruesome details of a bus crash that had taken the life of several members of Ryan’s band and a few of their family and friends.

  She shook the horrific images away, blindly scrolling past the articles related to the crash. One small box caught her eye. She clicked on the link, sitting back to wait for it to load. Within a few minutes the video started, the roar of the crowd signaling it had been filmed during a concert.

  Ryan’s voice filled the room. She tapped the volume button on the side of her phone a few times for a more manageable level. A tightness in her chest spread as she watched Ryan lift a small child into his arms and continue to sing.

  His son.

  The sandy-haired toddler squealed and slapped his hands together as Ryan walked out onto a long catwalk extending into the sea of people. It hurt to watch this. To know what eventually happened to these people on the screen. The heartbreak she knew Ryan had to have dealt with.

  “That was the last concert I ever gave.”

  Beth jumped, her phone clattering to the floor as she dropped the device. Ashamed, she scrambled for the phone, but Ryan’s hand closed over hers. Her gaze met his and the knot in her stomach tightened at the despair she saw painted in those blue depths.

  “You’re Ryan Mason.”

  “No one calls me that anymore.” Ryan closed his eyes, blowing out a sigh so heavy she felt it rattle through her bones. “I walked away from my music career after the crash without so much as a backward glance. Considering the radio market you came from, I expected you to recognize me much, much sooner.”

  “We didn’t pay much attention to the country side of the industry. I’m sorry.” She moved to stop the playback, but his hand lifted to stop her.

  “It’s all right, let it play out.”

  He increased the volume so his voice filled the room. His pitch was perfect despite the fact this was a live performance. Instead of watching the video, Beth watched the man who knelt in front of her.

  He smiled at first, laughing at a cute joke his son told to the crowd. But his expression soon fell as the band started another song and a woman came out on the stage. She stepped to where her husband and child waited, wrapping her arms around Ryan’s waist as she took their son into her arms. He pressed a kiss to her lips as the crowd roared.

  “They weren’t supposed to be there that night. But Lisa decided to fly in and surprise me. I hadn’t seen Tobias’ new missing tooth. He was so damn proud of that tooth. Wanted to show it off to his daddy. Didn’t want to take no for an answer.” Ryan’s voice cracked and Beth hit the power button to shut the phone down.

  The harshness of the silence was a razor’s edge that slashed the room, scoring them both. “I was supposed to protect him, Beth. I was supposed to protect them both and I couldn’t.”

  She lifted his face to ensure he looked directly at her. “From what I saw, there was nothing you could have done. It was an accident.”

  “One that wouldn’t have happened if—”

  “If what?” Her arm snaked out to grab his hand as he pushed it through his hair. “They hadn’t come? You were a family. The three of you had every right to be together. After all this time why haven’t you dealt with this?”

  “I have.” He gave a halfhearted smile. “But some days are tougher than others. Seeing the video right now doesn’t exactly help.”

  She immediately felt sickened by her curiosity. She should have simply asked. “I was snooping, I’m sorry. I only came here to get a few hours of rest because I was too exhausted to make the walk out to The Quilted Cow. I shouldn’t have come here without your permission.”

  “I understand.”

  Silence stretched out between them. She swallowed, tapping her finger against her phone. “I remember seeing the news accounts afterward, but to be honest I didn’t pay much attention. Just another celebrity accident that seemed to come a dime a dozen.”

  “The news reports got it wrong anyway.”

  “How so?”

  He snorted. “They just wanted sound bites for their gossip segments. One of the reporters asked me how I felt about the tragedy. I took my anger for the whole ordeal out on him.” His eyes lost focus, changing as he went to some place without her. She knew at this moment, the best thing she could do for him was to be there as he faced this.

  “I saw that too.” News reporters could be vicious with their demands to get the story. Judging by the articles she’d seen slamming him, it appeared as if Ryan had taken a heavy brunt. No doubt the horrible emotions he had to be dealing with at the time contributed to his demeanor, explaining why he’d taken a swing at the reporter.

  “The news splashed it all
over the front page, making it their lead story. The attack, the trial, everything. But the one thing no one ever mentioned was what the guy said directly to me. That wouldn’t be news then.”

  The harshness of his tone concerned her. Suddenly what he had to say wasn’t important anymore. “Ryan—”

  “He wanted to know what it felt like to have your entire world taken away from you when you’d worked so hard to reach the top.”

  The fury on his expression scared her. This had gotten out of hand. “Ryan—”

  “I’d gotten good at letting what the press said about me and my family just bounce right off. You learn to develop a really thick skin in the music industry. You have to or it’ll chew you up and spit you out so fast your head will spin. But everyone has their limits and that day the dickhead found mine.”

  She realized he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. Not until he’d purged those deep-rooted emotions after the tremendous buildup of years and years. She thought about the healing process he’d been guiding her on. The things he’d forced her to face even though they terrified her. She knew, better than perhaps anyone, facing your darkest moments head on was the best medicine a soul could possibly receive.

  “Tell me what happened, Ryan.”

  He cleared his throat, reining in whatever was going on in his mind. “I punched the reporter because I’d just come from holding Tobias’ hand while they turned off life support.”

  “Stop. Just stop.” The desperate strangle of his voice made her want to rescind the encouragement she’d given him. “There’s no need to put yourself though this.”

  “It’s all right.” He sat back on his heels, staring off at the wall behind her before his gaze fell on the table. “Today would have been Tobias’ eleventh birthday.”

  As tears slipped down his cheeks, Beth pulled him close. His arms came around her without any encouragement. Muscles in his back, strong and honed from hours of hard work on the boat, trembled.

  She was helpless to do anything more than hold him. When he started to pull away, she went with him. His hands bracketed her waist and she pushed up with one arm so she could look down at him. She reached down, skimming her fingertips against his angular jaw. “Thank you. For trusting me enough to finally tell me.”

  “I should have told you when I noticed something between us was different. It wasn’t a matter of trust, Beth. I’m sorry you thought that.”

  “I really didn’t know what else to think. I knew there was something. I was determined to get to the bottom of things. Had I known the extent, I would’ve just let it all go.”

  “And that’s my fault. As your Dom, you have to trust me. It’s a two-way street and I think that’s why I still kept you at arm’s length even after you had your breakthrough. Definitely not something you want in this lifestyle. Here I was trying to help you when I needed help as well. Sometimes even I have a hard time seeing the forest through the trees.”

  “No, you did the right thing. Not moving forward any more than you thought was right, given the circumstances. In some fucked-up way, I think it worked out for the best for both of us. I was worried I’d done something wrong. I thought I’d scared you off somehow when I called you Master.”

  His long fingers pushed her hair away from her face, his palms cradling her jaw. “I haven’t had to worry about expressing what was going on inside my head for a long time. I’ve always been able to keep myself separated when it came to…this. But you…you’re breaking down walls people haven’t bothered with.” His hands moved to skim up and down her sides. “And I very much liked when you called me Master. If you’re still agreeable to it, I’d like you to continue using it.”

  She nodded, shivering at his contact and the husky quality of his voice as he made the request. “I think that’s because I felt the same thing you did. The first day we saw each other something just…clicked. You acted like this big bad Dom, but I knew there was something under the surface that needed poking.”

  “You certainly poked.” He lifted his head, brushing his lips against hers as he laughed. “So why don’t we reset this arrangement?”

  She shrugged. “Sure, it could be interesting to see your ass rug-burned.”

  “Tempting.” The sorrow in his eyes vanished, the color altering to a deeper shade. “But I was thinking more in the area of your wrists and my ropes.”

  “Ryan—”

  “The cuffs stay on, I know. I’m imaginative enough to work around them. For now.” His finger brushed against the leather. “They will be removed eventually.”

  “Yes.” She pushed up and away, offering a hand to help him stand.

  A gleam shined in Ryan’s eyes. The authority and power emanating from him was so overwhelming she had to swallow to steady herself. This was what had been missing from him. She’d seen brief glances of it before, but nothing of this magnitude. A thrill of delight shot through her body as her gaze immediately fell to the floor.

  She wasn’t exhausted anymore.

  “Why don’t you give me an hour or so to take care of things here? Go shower and change.” His strong fingers brushed over her shoulder. “Then come back to the warehouse wearing something more appropriate. Do not stop to chat. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh at his joke as she slowly backed out of the room.

  The door clicked shut and Ryan’s gaze met the smoky hazel, which still broke his heart to this day. “I miss you, darlin’. Miss you both so much.”

  He stepped over to the picture frame. The cold metal quickly warmed to the temperature of his hand as he picked it up. The memory of the day he’d taken the image still stood out in his mind, mostly because it had been one of the most joyous moments of his life.

  He’d wanted to give up the hectic lifestyle being on the road entailed once Tobias had come along, but Lisa had insisted he continue. She’d said he loved it too much to step away from the spotlight.

  Though he’d been reluctant, he’d agreed on the condition she and Tobias join him on the road whenever possible. He’d fallen back into the routine the road brought to his life. The mind-numbing lull of life on the road made it so he’d gotten complacent things would always be perfect. Then the accident happened and his whole world had fractured in the blink of an eye.

  He’d been so busy still living in the past, he’d nearly ruined the good thing he had going with Beth. The few times he’d let true emotion show through his dominance, everything had been perfect. Now it was time to release his tight hold on the past and show Beth exactly what she meant to him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Her bright smile greeted Ryan as he opened the door.

  She thrust a wrinkled piece of paper toward him. “I, um, drew this up for you. I don’t know if you need it or anything. And it’s very much overdue, but yeah…here.”

  He unfolded the sheet, lifting an eyebrow when he saw her ornate handwriting organized in a neat column. “Limits?” A quick glance reiterated things he already knew.

  “Hard ones, yes. You said we were starting over. It’s easier for me to list those since there are only a few. If you like—”

  “This is fine. Thank you.” He appreciated her forethought despite the fact they’d scened together already. He wasn’t a fan of lists simply because he enjoyed spending the time he and sub didn’t play discovering limits naturally. They didn’t serve much of a purpose in his mind. He even doubted the list would have headed off the panic attack she’d had a few weeks ago.

  He tucked the slip into a drawer on the small table by the door, admitting her into the room. Gone were the simple table and chair. They’d been replaced with a soft, deep-cushion couch and matching chair. He’d kept the bed over in the corner since she’d expressed her interest in sleeping.

  “I like it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Where, ah…the picture? Please tell me you didn’t get rid of it. I didn’t—”

  “Tucked away somewhere safe for
the moment. I’ll take it back to the house later today and display it in view for everyone who comes over. Can I take your coat?”

  “Oh sure, thanks.” She started to shrug it off, but he stopped her.

  His mouth skimmed over her jaw as he pulled her leather jacket over her shoulders, pinning her arms behind her. “We may have reset things to make adjustments for our feelings and emotions, but my rules are still in place, California.”

  Her breathing quickened as he pulled away, her pupils constricting. “Yes, Master.”

  “I do like the sound of that.” Releasing her arms, he hung her coat on a hook by the door. As he walked toward the couch, he rubbed his lips, liking the way they still tingled after touching her. He liked the way most of his body felt when she was around.

  “Come here.”

  She walked forward slowly, taking her time. Under normal circumstances he would order her to speed up, but he enjoyed the roll of her hips as she moved. The gentle sway of her breasts as she inched closer.

  The tight leather vest she’d chosen to wear plunged low between her breasts, exposing sensuous curves just begging to be teased with his tongue. His fingers itched to drag along the slice of skin peeking between the hem of the vest and her leather chaps.

  His gaze traveled lower, grinning as he found her bare beneath those chaps. Unable to resist he dipped his hand between her legs, playing over her mound. “I approve of your selection, California.”

  “You said appropriate. Leather seemed to fit the whole rocker girl.”

  “And fit you it does. Quite splendidly, in fact. I’m almost hesitant to tell you to undress.” The tips of his fingers came away damp. He watched her eyes glaze over as he lifted his hand to his mouth, taking his time to lick away her juices. “Almost. You taste too damn good to be all bundled up like this. Strip and then come lie down for me where the row of metal hooks are. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  She contemplated the eye-bolts secured to the floor, clearly unsure. That was rather the point. He intended to keep her on her toes now that they’d found level ground.