Missing Ink

by E J Frost

  “Seemed like what you needed. I only realized in the morning that I was spooning you onto your bad hip. I’ll be more conscious of it tonight.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’m okay on that hip for an hour or two, but then it starts aching.”

  Mac hums in his chest. “Any chance of you telling me how it happened?”

  My breath catches. “Sir—”

  “If it’s too soon, that’s okay. Just be honest with me, sweetheart.”

  “I, uh—” I rub my cheek against his back. I want to trust him. I want more than I’ve had with my other Doms. Does that start with letting him in? “Sir, it isn’t something I talk about. But I’ll try if it’s something you want to know.”

  Mac turns and cups my face in his hands. “I want to know everything,” he says against my lips.

  I melt into his kiss.

  With his mouth still on mine, he steers me into the bathroom off the kitchen. He backs me against the tiled wall, closes the door behind us, and kisses my face off, nipping at my lips, flicking his tongue against mine. The warm simmer in my belly blooms into a bonfire and when I push my hips into Mac’s, he groans and lets me feel the iron bar of his erection.

  I smile into his kiss and he laughs into mine.

  “I’m dying to fuck you, bold girl,” he groans.

  “The feeling’s mutual, sir.”

  He touches his forehead to mine. “Bend over the sink and hold your cheeks open for me. If I can’t fuck you with my cock, I’m going to fuck you with this plug.”

  He does and makes me howl through a hard, fast orgasm before he leads me back out to face the grinning crowd around the kitchen island.

  Emily’s organized the salad Mac was working on in our absence. She hands the wooden serving bowl to me along with a towel. When I lift an eyebrow at her, she gives me a wink. A step behind me, Mac chuckles.

  “Too bad it’s not my come leaking outta you onto that towel,” he whispers in my ear, shooting a hot shiver down my spine to pool in my tender, pulsing ass. “Next time.”

  I somehow manage to wobble my way to the dining table and plonk the bowl down. I flap the towel across a chair and am just about to collapse onto it when Mac collars me by the back of my neck.

  “Do you have permission to sit?” he growls in my ear.

  Fuck. Normally I’d snark, but he plug-fucked all the snark out of me and now I’m just a pile of submissive goop.

  “Sir, may I have permission?”

  “Mmm.” He tips my head to the side with his grip on my neck and runs his teeth along the edge of my ear. My knees buckle and I grab the back of the chair to keep from landing on my knees. “You may, this time. Next time you’ll be wearing some stripes. Furniture’s a privilege, not a right.”

  Good thing Emily’s given me the towel because there’s a freaking swamp puddling between my legs.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He nips my ear hard enough to sting before he guides me into the chair by my nape. Have I ever felt this controlled? Have I ever wanted to? Shivering, I slump in the chair until a twinge in my ass reminds me uncomfortably of the plug. I straighten my spine.

  Emily sits down across the table from me and catches my eye. “You okay?” she mouths.

  I nod. I’m sure I look glazed. I feel glazed. And tingly. And, fuck me, happy.

  Mac folds his big frame down into the chair next to me. He reaches out and cups my chin in his hand and looks deep into my eyes. He winks before letting me go and slinging his arm across the back of my chair.

  He leans in and murmurs in my ear, “Enjoy your meal, girl. I think you need another orgasm for dessert.”

  Fuck, yeah.

  “Thank you, sir. Can I give you a little dessert, too?”

  He chuckles, his lips brushing my ear and slipping down my neck. “You could definitely persuade me.”

  Chapter 8

  I can’t keep my hands off this girl. In less than twenty-four hours, I’ll have my test results and know whether it’s safe to fuck her but keeping my cock out of her in the meanwhile is proving harder than the seven years of self-imposed celibacy while Amy and I were separated.

  Brenna’s curled against me as we lie in Logan’s guest bed. There were orgasms after we watched a movie, more orgasms after we got into bed, and now I’m lazily moving my fingers in her sopping, swollen pussy, heading for a fourth screamer in as many hours. She whimpers softly, her face in my shoulder, her body trembling as I anchor her across me with one hand on her nape and the other in her cunt. She has her hand between us, wrapped around my cock, which is showing only casual interest after two orgasms of my own, and I’m still deciding whether I’m going to let her jack me again.

  “And then,” I say, over the squelching noise of my fingers in her, encouraging her to continue the story she’s been telling me about the gang of girls she got drawn into while in foster care and the rivalry they had with another gang.

  “And then . . . oh, fuck, please can I come, sir?”

  “Not until I’ve heard the rest of it.”

  She whines and shudders but doesn’t try to wriggle away from my stirring fingers. “And then she kicked me with her steel-toed boots and crushed my hip. Please, sir!”

  “And then,” I say.

  She grinds her forehead into my shoulder. “Ruby and my girls found me and got me to a hospital. Please—”

  “What happened to the girls who ambushed you?” I ask.

  “My girls kicked their asses back to Yonkers. Sir—”

  “Yes, that’s my good girl. You can come. Remember, no noise.”

  She gasps and bucks against my hand on her nape as her body contracts around my fingers. I hear her gurgling as she swallows her orgasmic cries, but she does exactly as I’ve instructed. Which I’ve instructed for no other reason than I wanted to control her voice; the other people in the house certainly aren’t disturbed by her noises. Pride swells my chest.

  When she slumps bonelessly across me, I shift so she’s not on her bad hip and cuddle her to my chest. “Before you pass out, sweetheart, suck my fingers clean.”

  She mumbles but opens her mouth and when I slide my pussy-wet fingers in, suckles them sleepily.

  “Yrssur?”

  “More consonants, girl.”

  “Wha’ about you, sir?” she asks around my fingers.

  “Us geezers are good on two orgasms a night.”

  “Can I kiss it goodnight?”

  She wants to kiss my cock goodnight?

  “Sure.”

  She kisses my fingers first, then wriggles down the bed to give my cock three, sweet, little kisses. She pulls my boxers up and settles them in place before sliding up to nestle against me again.

  I’m shaking. My throat’s gone tight and my eyes sting as I gather her in.

  “Could we make that a ritual, sir?” she asks sleepily.

  “’Course.”

  She lifts her head. “Everything okay, sir?”

  “Everything’s fine, girl.” The truth of that settles deep in my chest. “Everything’s just fine. Go to sleep.”

  Her head drops back down onto my shoulder. Her weight settles into me as warm and good as our reconciliation, that achingly, unbelievably sweet gesture, and the knowledge that in this moment, everything really is just fine.

  She drifts off slowly, her long fingers playing up and down my arm. I smile up at the ceiling when I realize what she’s doing: tracing tattoo designs on my skin.

  With a soft tick, the Tchaikovsky I’ve had playing ends. The room fades as my phone screen dims. Once my eyes adjust to the gloom, I pick out the light fixture on the ceiling and trace the flutes of the antique-y glass cups around the unlit bulbs as I turn over today in my mind.

  My day started badly, in this bed, staring at the same light fixture. Only then the bed was empty, and I was mulling over what I’d do if Brenna wasn’t softened up enough by my grand gesture to forgive me. It got worse after breakfast when Amy called to say she’s coming up when Naomi can have
visitors. She “expected” to stay with me, an expectation I firmly squashed. I haven’t always been wise—or even sane—when dealing with Amy. I’ve let anger and desire rule me. I believed her even when I knew in my gut she was lying. I forgave her when I had proof she’d been fucking around behind my back. But one thing I have not and will not ever do is help a married woman cheat. Now that Amy’s remarried, we’re never going to sleep in the same room again. Not if I can avoid it.

  Because the last time we did, she somehow ended up falling on my dick. Seventeen times over three days. Like we were fucking teenagers again.

  Neither wise nor sane.

  But my day improved dramatically when Brenna walked through the door. Even more dramatically when she crawled to me. It took me most of the game to get my cock under control and not grab the back of her neck, bend her over into a cushion, and claim the ass I want so damn badly.

  When I brought her up here to talk after the game, I had no plans for a scene. I just wanted to apologise and make sure she was open to trying again. But I can’t keep my hands off this girl. The bottle of almond oil on the dresser that I’ve been using to work on my knee sparked one idea, having her lie face-down on the bed while I rubbed her sparked another, and her mention of a belting sparked a third and before I knew it, she was cuddled on my chest like she is now, wearing my marks and sleeping the sleep of a satisfied submissive.

  I slide my hand down her back and over the still-warm skin of her ass, fingering a welt very lightly so I don’t wake her. I hope she sleeps that same sleep tonight. I want her to sleep so well she craves sleeping with me. Because I’m already craving sleeping with her.

  When she wakes, I’ll have to deal with what she’s told me tonight: the truth I dragged from her with nearly an hour of edging because she was struggling to pop the seal on her secrets. I’m not put off by her history, although some would be. Having had my own spate of acting out when I was a teen, having a pair of addicts in the family and knowing that as much love as I’ve poured over them, it hasn’t fixed them, helps me understand why she’s as fiercely independent as she is.

  Her parents were alcoholics who neglected her. After an event she dodged telling me about, but I suspect is behind the scars on her back, she was taken into foster care in her early teens. I know my beloved country has some fucked up immigration laws and Brenna caught the wrong end of them when her grandmother was denied custody because Bebe J wasn’t an American citizen. Bren languished in foster care, bouncing from home to home, until a woman called Mother Kay who ran a group home took her in. There, Bren met the girl she calls her “soul sister,” Ruby. Ruby was not the best influence on my bold girl, initiating Bren into a Bronx street gang. The gang may have given her a family, but it also gave her a criminal record and, after she was ambushed by a rival gang, the hip injury that took several surgeries and years of physical therapy to repair. Bren’s lucky she was underage when it happened, and her medical care was on the state. If we were living in the Dickensian era that so fascinates Amy, Bren would still be in the workhouse paying off her medical bills.

  I don’t want to take away Brenna’s independence. Her strength and sass are part of the package that turns me on like nothing I’ve felt in twenty years. But I do want in and hearing about her childhood gives me the missing piece to the puzzle of why this beautiful, bold girl hasn’t been collared by any of the many Doms she’s played with.

  She’s never let them in.

  She’s let her Doms use her body, control her, give her the pleasure and pain she needs, but she’s never let them into the locked box of her heart. At a guess, she’s attracted to emotionally remote Doms because subconsciously she knows they’ll avoid attachment. When they disappoint her, it reinforces her belief that no one can be trusted with her heart.

  Logan’s told me he thinks there’s a switch buried under Brenna’s submission, but the better I get to know her, the less I think that’s right. She’s toppy with submissives like Emily and Cappa because she loves them. But she’s afraid of giving them too much of herself, so she controls their relationships, and never gives them a chance to hurt her.

  I turn my head and kiss her forehead. She murmurs in her sleep.

  “I won’t let you down again, sweetheart,” I whisper to her in the dark.

  *****

  Brenna’s not what I’d call a morning person. If she’d been under my command, she’d have been one of those grunts who squinted at me during inspection, contemplating where they could stash my body after they gutted me, until they got coffee and some chow into them. This morning, instead of murder, there’s wariness in her eyes. She let me in last night and now she’s starting to rebuild her defenses.

  I let her huddle under the covers while I use the bathroom. When I return, instead of getting back into bed with her, I offer her a bottle of water and sit down on the edge of the bed.

  “Real talk, girl.”

  She gives me the murderous squint, which is more adorable than intimidating on her, but sits up in the bed and takes a sip of water before she says, “Real talk, sir.”

  “I’m responsible for the deaths of eleven men. I can tell you their names and ranks, the dates they died, the names of their wives and girlfriends, parents and kids. They were my men. I was responsible for them and they died on my watch. Their faces, and the faces of their families, are the last faces I see at night and the first I see in the morning.”

  Her jaw drops and all wariness, all irritation, leaves her eyes.

  I take a deep breath and plow on. “Had I done things differently on the days they died, hell, if I’d taken longer over my morning coffee, they might still be alive. Time’s funny in battle. A few minutes, even a few seconds, can be the difference between those eleven men coming home to their families on their own two feet or in a casket.”

  Bren closes her mouth. Her hand steals out of the covers, finds mine, and grips it.

  “I’ve been told a hundred times that their deaths are not on me. I made the right call for the mission. I got the job done. I brought the rest of my men home safely. It’s easy to say, but I don’t think I’ll ever believe it in here.” I tap my chest with my free hand. “I’ll carry those eleven men with me to my grave. I’d like it if you could work them into my sleeves somehow. Maybe their names or something.”

  “Of course, sir,” she whispers.

  “That’s the worst thing I carry, Bren. There are other truths I’ll tell you when the time’s right, but that’s the worst. I don’t know if you told me your worst truth last night, but I want you to have mine, so you know I’m not hiding my shit from you. And that you’re not the only one with dark places in your past.”

  “I—sir, I wouldn’t think that.”

  “Good. I put some pieces together last night after you told me about Ruby and your girls. I want to share my thoughts with you, so you know where my head’s at and that I’m not judging you. Are you ready to hear what I have to say, or do you want some coffee first?”

  Her eyes search my face. Seeking clues to what I want, because first and foremost, this girl wants to please. I smile gently so she knows I’m fine with whatever she chooses.

  “I’m ready now, sir.”

  I squeeze the fingers she has wrapped in a death grip around mine. “I’m going to say this once, so you understand that I know the difference between sympathy and pity. I’m sorry life dealt you a shitty hand when it came to your parents, but without their neglect, you might not have become the strong woman you are today. I’m sorry they didn’t protect you the way good parents should and that you had to grow up too fast and experience things a kid shouldn’t. But that experience has made you kind and tolerant of other people’s flaws in a way many people in this world just aren’t, Bren. So, I’m sorry about what you went through, but I’m not at all sorry about what it made you into. Do you understand?”

  She nods and blinks rapidly. “Yes, sir.”

  “I expect that being abandoned by your parents and bouncing arou
nd through the system without many good male role models and really only feeling safe with Mother Kay and Ruby and your girls left you thinking that men aren’t good for much. You like our dicks and what we can do with them, but outside the bedroom, men are a liability. You couldn’t count on your father or your foster fathers, so why the hell should you count on any of the men who come into your life ‘cause they’re just going to let you down in the end. Am I right?”

  She swallows hard. “I-I guess.”

  “And maybe the men who won’t be pinned down, the bad boys who play but won’t commit, they felt safe to you. You knew they weren’t reliable, so you never relied on them. You knew they’d eventually move on, so you never invested in them. You told me you go to the club, you do scenes, you get fucked, and you go home. That was fun for a while but it’s not scratching your itch anymore, is it?”

  Her voice is firmer when she says, “No, sir, it’s not.”

  “You need more, Bren. You’ve grown beyond what your shitty childhood taught you. You’re ready for an adult relationship with a man who is more than an interchangeable dick. And I would like to be that man. I’m probably not going to feel safe to you. I’m going to push you out of your comfort zone. I’m going to demand things from you you’ve never given before. But I won’t let you down again. That’s why everything yesterday was about apologizing and starting over. That’s why I’ve started today with my worst truth, so you become my secret-keeper like I’ve become yours. I hope you don’t think any less of me, because I don’t think any less of you this morning than I did yesterday. You’re still my brave, beautiful, bold girl. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” She squeezes my hand. “But you’ve always felt safe to me.”

  I lean in and give her a gentle kiss. “You are safe with me, Bren, whether it feels that way or not. I will always respect your safe word, but it’s more than that. I will always respect the gift of your trust. I know I fucked up with you once. Well, twice, if you count my stupid assumptions about what you were doing with Theo. That’s why I needed a reset yesterday, too. So, I can focus on what you need and not let you down again. Are we good?”