by Joey W. Hill
It was Lot who challenged his doubts, and suggested he practice topping with the blindfold. “You’re already a hell of an intuitive Master with your sight,” he’d said. “This will build your confidence and prove to you how little you rely on your eyes to determine the state of your submissive—or just how much of a submissive she is. You use your heart and gut more than any Dom I’ve seen. Which is why you always get the best pussy.”
John had lifted a brow. “Your respect for women is a role model for young men everywhere.”
“There’s nothing I respect more than a woman and her cunt,” Lot said gravely. “I will willingly worship at that altar. And show her my devotion by tying her to it and giving her a dozen orgasms.”
Maddock had tested the same theory from a different angle, asking him if he’d be able to set it aside if it wasn’t in her nature. “Or let me put it this way. Yes, she might have a submissive nature, because she did commit her life to a goddess’s service. But there’s a submissive nature and a kink nature. What if she has one and not the other?”
“Then that’s fine. I don’t care what she is, Maddock. She’s just mine to care for and protect. That’s all. It’s the one thing I know.”
He meant it. But he’d also turned Maddock’s own words on him, the ones he’d used to recruit John for his insane theories. “I’ve dreamed of her all my life, Maddock. Felt this connection. Every time I tried a long term relationship with a woman, Medusa’s image, her presence, has imposed itself between us. The only time I’ve ever felt that dumbass dizzy ‘falling off a cliff into a vat of rose petals’ feeling you get toward a woman is when I was thinking of her. Until you came along and wanted me to join your little psych ward, I thought I was nuts.”
He’d ignored Lot’s smirk and kept his eyes on Maddock. “I’ve been a sexual Dominant since I sprouted my first chest hair,” he said. “After I left covert ops, you know I started doing therapeutic sessions with women who identified as submissives before they became abuse or assault victims. The ones who needed a Dom who could help them reclaim their submission without the dark shit closing in on them.”
He’d fallen into it by accident, when Monica had approached him for help. She wanted to re-embrace her submissive side, but couldn’t get past a plethora of fear-driven hard limits, all related to the sexual assault she’d endured at the hands of a random client at the bank where she worked. After she and he worked through that, she’d spread the word. Next thing he knew, people in the lifestyle were referring other female subs to him that needed his intuitive brand of Dominance to find their way back to themselves.
It had helped him as much as them, since he was still decompressing from a life in covert ops. He’d liked the challenge. He’d loved helping a woman put herself back together again, a woman some violent asshole thought he’d broken. He’d taken some counseling courses to ensure he didn’t mistakenly offer his skills to a woman who clearly needed professional counseling first. The Mistress who’d recommended that to him had summed it up nicely: “People shouldn’t use BDSM as therapy, but it can be therapeutic.”
He returned to his memory of the discussion with Maddock. “That path, my interest in that, wasn’t chance. I’ve spent my life thinking about what she went through, and how much I wish I could have stopped it, or been there to take care of her afterward. Everything we’ve learned about her says she went above and beyond the call in committing herself to Athena. She might have been given to Athena by her father, but she embraced a life of submission and service. If the connection between us is true and fated, why wouldn’t that part of ourselves be relevant and useful to bringing us together?”
Lot was right about the castration thing, though. She’d been trained to fight, because Athena was a warrior goddess. Plus, she’d been cursed with a gaze that could turn people to stone, wings that increased her speed and maneuverability well beyond mortal boundaries, and a head full of snakes willing to fight for her when she was threatened. No matter his skill set, she could likely take him out whenever she wished.
At dawn, he collected his backpack and headed away from the beach, finding the best route into the thick interior forest. Since he’d figured out where her home was, that was where he was going. It was a beautiful day to scale a death-defying cliff.
JP approved of how she’d put her nest at the most defensible part of the island. She might have acquired her initial fighting skills from the temple, but her tactical skills had evolved from necessity.
Yet even when life demanded it, not everyone had the intelligence, will and sheer luck to live long enough to develop those skills. After their initial encounter, he had no doubt she had plenty of the first two qualities. The gods who owed her so much had given her enough of a dose of the last to survive inevitable missteps.
He remembered his earliest assignments, the moments of sheer luck when he’d done stupid things that might have gotten his ass put in a trash compactor. Like her, he’d had little to nothing in the way of backup, and had had to figure out how to take care of himself.
How lonely she must have been, Johnny. Don’t you feel sorry for her? Don’t you want to fix it?
Okay, not channeling the crazy mom monologue. He shoved that away firmly.
As he continued his winding hike through the forest, he sensed when she was watching him again. That might be Maddock’s enhancement of his senses, or his gut connection to her, but either way it was useful. He didn’t look for her, knowing the peril to them both in that, though he kept his ears tuned for any rustlings that might suggest a creature of her size in the trees nearby. Since she was staying at a careful distance, she hadn’t changed her mind and decided she wanted to turn him into a concrete doorstop.
When the forest at last thinned, he found himself looking up a perilous vertical expanse of jagged rock. Sparse vegetation dotted the upward terrain. This was the starting point for the “best” ascent to her home. Studying cracks, finger pockets and edges, access points for his climb, he noted that about halfway to the top was a very narrow ledge. It could provide a resting spot before continuing along the even more sheer face above it. Fuck, she’d chosen well. It would be a slow and difficult climb to reach her dwelling place, well nested at the top of that craggy mount. He ultimately might not be able to reach it without a pair of wings. Only one way to find out.
“The only easy day was yesterday,” he murmured to himself, Lot’s SEAL mantra. Crazy bastard. Though, if he was being honest, the unofficial covert ops mantra was even more twisted. Yesterday, today, tomorrow; it doesn’t matter. You’re always fucked.
He wasn’t hiding what he was trying to do, and she could tell him if she didn’t want him climbing up there. Her silence made him deduce she wanted to see if he could do it. Testing him. A challenge.
He bared his teeth in a smile, entertaining himself with visions of tying her up with her own snakes, tumbling her over his knee and giving her a good spanking for putting him through this. With how pretty and sculpted her calves were, he expected she’d have a nice, toned butt.
The humor helped, but the vision made him hard, not a good decision for a difficult climb.
“Okay, put the freak flag at half mast, JP,” he muttered. “Euphemistically and otherwise.”
He’d had to betray the trust of so many who didn’t know who he was, and yeah, while some of them were bad guys, a lot of them weren’t. Just family members, people caught in that world because that was where they were born and lived, what they’d always known. By taking command of a sub’s pleasure, bringing her emotional and physical release, plus sometimes healing hurts inside of her, it balanced something for him. Might not be more than a grain of sand in the karmic scale, but that wasn’t why he did it.
He did it because he needed it. Topping could be just as therapeutic as bottoming. And, though it all came back to Medusa, he wasn’t here just because she was another damaged sub.
He had climbing gear he could use, but he saw enough decent access points to reach tha
t halfway point ledge. Yeah, he was still in the gotta-impress-the-girl mode. Even so, he’d free solo climbed in far more dire circumstances, where his need to scale up or down had been cloaked by darkness and his window of opportunity was measured in minutes. Far different from climbing at a relaxed pace while enjoying a mild Mediterranean sun. Lot would scoff and say this was recreational climbing.
“My grandmother with a bad hip could make this climb.”
Asshole.
He did take advantage of the climbing gloves and shoes he had in his pack. After donning those, he tightened the straps on the backpack to hold it more securely against him. He’d left the shield concealed in the foliage along the beach but had brought the sword, just because he felt better having a weapon with him, in case she had need of his defense. Some of those abandoned boats looked as if they’d been more recent arrivals, and she and he hadn’t yet had a chance to discuss how often she had to repel unwelcome guests.
He scabbarded the blade in the lacings down the spine of the pack, and took his first grip. He made steady progress upward, bracing his feet, tensing his thigh, arm and back muscles where needed to hold position and then reach up for the next handhold. Balance was the biggest issue. Plus a whole lot of strength from core, grip and legs.
He reached the first ledge without being out of breath. Maybe he was still riding an adrenaline rush. He’d walked through a portal into the freaking world of Greek mythology, and was with the woman of his dreams. Heady stuff.
Stretching out on the ledge, he folded his arm over his face as he took a break before the next far harder ascent. He was glad he’d traded out the tunic for a pair of cut-off denim shorts, because the rock would have shredded the thin cloth. His skin was tougher, though he had a few scrapes from the effort.
“Why are you really here? Tell me the truth.”
She was behind and below him, where he couldn’t easily twist his head to see her. Was she hovering in the air? From the pleasant swirl of air over his face, he thought she was, because he also hadn’t heard her latch onto the vertical rock surface.
Second time she’d asked, and the answer was still as complicated as a ten-page long math equation, and simple as taking a breath. “Just like a woman,” he observed. “Wait until a guy’s hanging off the edge of a cliff and ask him to talk about his feelings.”
“You are trying to be amusing, but I do not understand your humor.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Bits of the truth might work, he reflected, even if they offered only the tip of the iceberg. They might also get him tossed off the cliff.
“I’m here to seduce you, my lady. Among other things.”
He closed his eyes, feeling the heat of the sun on his face. Would she come hover over him, shade him with her wings? He expected she wouldn’t, but he could hear her hovering nearby still. The pause was pregnant with her unspoken thoughts. Why not push it a little farther, see where it went?
“I want you in my bed, begging for my kisses,” he continued.
“You have no bed here. And I would not beg you for kisses,” she said stiffly.
“I’d do things that would make you feel wave after wave of pleasure, until it’s unbearable, in the best kind of way. But I would command you to bear it, and wouldn’t let you reach release until you begged for a kiss.”
If the comment frightened her, he’d know she had no understanding of sex without the company of violence. Instead she scoffed, making his lips curve.
“You speak foolishness. Earlier you said you were here to protect me. Serve me. So you are lying.”
“I don’t lie. Not to you. Not ever.”
The surge of feeling was strong enough to knock an elephant off his feet and banished the playfulness he’d been trying to initiate with her. How many times had he been called a liar, by those few who’d found out who he was and why he was among them? And liar was the nicest word they’d used. He knew his triggers, damn it, and knew how to keep them under control. But being around her, he wanted to be a truer version of himself, in every way.
He took a breath and added a gentler explanation. “Both things can be true, my lady. I’m here to protect you, seduce you, and bring you companionship. Let you belong again.”
“To you?”
“If that is your desire.”
“Is it yours?”
“I’ve always thought you were mine.”
Another pause. “You are mad,” she said shortly. “What if I find you repulsive? Your company irritating and unbearable?”
“Then you can turn me to stone, dump me in the sea, or tell me to go home.”
“I already told you to do that. And threatened the other two.”
“Yes, but you didn’t mean it.”
An exasperated huff, and she was gone again, the swirl of air dissipating back into the steady, one-directional breeze from the ocean. Though John grinned at her response, yearning twisted in his gut at her proximity, so sparingly given and just as quickly taken away. She had no idea how long or how far he’d come to be with her.
And yet, in the end, as she said, she might not want him. If that was the case, he would honor her preferences. There was a fine line between a man deciding a woman was his ultimate fate and becoming her stalker. But even if it turned out that she didn’t want him, he’d honor his first and primary reason for being here. He wondered what she would think when he revealed the full truth to her.
Serious thoughts for a later time, if they became necessary. It was all chess right now, and he was glad she was showing an interest in playing. John cracked open an eye and considered the upward path. Limbs jutting out from the rock in a couple places might or might not hold his weight. If not, he might be able to manage a controlled fall if needed, rather than bashing against the rocks between here and the ground like a pinball.
He started again. Muscles and limbs quickly exceeded their maximum capacity and reach this time. The backpack was probably a bad idea, light though it was, because this was a ballbuster of a climb, but he’d learned to carry essential supplies with him in unfamiliar terrain. If he had to traverse this climb regularly, he’d work out something to help him get up and down more easily, something made of natural materials that he could pull up and conceal so no enemy of hers could find and use it. He wasn’t going to weaken one of her best defenses.
As always seemed to be the case, the final fifteen feet were the most precarious. He was drenched in sweat, moving carefully from hold to hold, some of them barely fingerprints in the rock. Only a testosterone-driven moron would have chosen not to use the gear for this part. He should climb back down to the ledge and start over.
He didn’t, being the testosterone-driven moron he was. He wasn’t immortal. If he fell, he’d break like a wooden toy and she’d watch him die. If not from the fall, from the resulting shock, sepsis, infection or another horrific thing. He didn’t want to do that to her. He’d end himself first. He was pretty sure she had a kinder heart than she wanted anyone to know about. Him being alive was dubious proof of it.
Just a little farther. His body screamed for relief and it was waiting for him in another few feet. Toes found crevices, hands gripped, and he thanked the athletic companies that made quality climbing shoes and gloves.
Unfortunately, Mother Nature had no respect for high priced climbing gear. The pull of his weight against the small spike of rock proved to be too much. Before he could do more than register the slight pop and hairline fissure, the rock broke away in his hand. He flung himself toward the next hold, but couldn’t latch on. He slipped with a grunt and a curse, the rock taking a layer of skin off his forearm as his feet sought purchase and found none.
Son of a fucking bitch. As he fell, he flipped through possibilities at the speed of a Vegas card dealer. What was below, how he could twist himself to grab something, could he land on that pencil-thin ledge too many feet below.
A smear of blood marked the rock face as he slid down it, too fast. If he could stay hugged up against the rock, he�
�d land on that ledge. He…dammit, he was not going to tumble… fuck he was falling, the angle of the cliff face and gravity working together to pull him away from the solid surface.
He grunted as he was stopped in mid-air and slammed face forward against the rock face. There were no handholds available, but Medusa was holding him, her claws locked under his arms. The shoulder she’d strained when she threw him in the sea yesterday sang with pain as it bore the brunt of all his weight once again.
He and she needed to do some Schoolhouse Rock together. A rope master he’d met had had all those mentoring with him sing the old leg-bone-connected-to-the-so-n-so-bone song, part of their training on how to properly suspend their subs without damaging joints.
“Close your eyes.” Her voice was urgent, and he obeyed as she shifted her grip from under his arms to fully around his chest. Now he did regret wearing the backpack, because the move pressed her body against it. He could have had a nice last-moment-before-I-die impression of firm breasts and soft nipples. A lesson for his next life.
She pulled him clear of the wall before he could protest. Her petite frame shouldn’t be capable of holding his weight for a prolonged period, but he was dangling more or less securely in her grip, and she was ascending. Up and up. And up.
This was it. He’d annoyed her past repair and she was going to drop him from such a height over the sea that the water would feel as hard as the ground he’d been about to encounter.
Though her careful but not overly laborious movements told him she had more than a normal woman’s strength, her arms didn’t feel overly bulked with muscle, though the biceps flexing against him were firm enough. Up until now, he’d had the impression of a slim, delicate creature, but a bird was delicate—and some species could carry something multiple times their weight.
He bit back an oath as he was dropped, but it was only a few feet, and he hit a flat, tiled surface, not the ocean.