Knowing the Ropes (21 page)

In their rush, they hadn’t grabbed Nick’s iPod out of his car, and the few CDs floating around the SUV were Baroque classics too mellow for a tense night drive. Selene fiddled with the radio until she found a station that came in halfway decently on the mountain roads.

Predictably, it was country. “Reminds me of home,” she muttered. That got them onto the subject of radio stations and from there to music in general, the good, the bad and the just plain wacky.

Somewhere along the line, Nick exclaimed, “I had no idea you liked Freezepop too!”

Selene said, “I think the whole ‘which bands do you like?’ conversation was one we skipped in favor of you spanking me or introducing me to butt plugs or something. Not,” she added quickly, “that that’s a problem. Just an observation.”

“I hope it’s not a problem. Because when this mess is settled and Nat’s safe somewhere—and we’ve had some sleep—I’ll want to take the paddle to your sweet ass until it’s pink and tender and telling the world just how naughty you are, and then see if you’re ready for a bigger butt plug. I do love fucking you when you’ve got something in your ass. It makes you even tighter, and you get so wild…”

“Nick, I’m not sure…”

He paused, turned to look at her, although he probably couldn’t see all that much in the darkness. Suggestions and shadows, just like she could see of him. “I can’t believe I just said that,” he said. “I mean, with Natalie and everything, I really wasn’t thinking about sex. At least I wasn’t thinking about it as much as I normally do when we’re together. But all you had to do was say the word spanking, and there I was. Hard. And I’m sorry. It’s probably inappropriate, but talking about how much I want you seemed better than worrying.”

It took Selene a while to answer, a while in which she squirmed in her seat, shifting her thighs against each other and forcing herself to be honest. “No need to apologize,” she finally said. “I feel weird about it too, but I’m wet now. Wet enough that I want to pull over somewhere and beg you to spank me under the stars—and extra points if we attract a state trooper. And I feel really, really shallow. I mean, poor Natalie’s in trouble because of kinky sex…”

“Stop right there! Nat’s in trouble because I wasn’t what she needed, so she hooked up with someone who turned out to be a nutcase. It’s not BDSM. It’s people.”

Her first thought was that he made sense, that vanilla people got into screwed-up, even dangerous relationships too. Violent loons and the people who unfortunately loved them were everywhere, and most of them weren’t prettying it up in the guise of consensual kink.

Her second thought, though, was the one she actually articulated. “You can’t blame yourself, either. It’s obvious to me you loved her. She did what she thought was best for her. She was wrong, and it sucks, and you’re doing more than a lot of people would do for an ex.”

She snorted, trying to ignore the sinking feeling around her heart as she thought about just how much Nick was doing for this particular ex—this exceptionally hot, slender, flexible, experienced-sub ex. “I can’t say I’d go rescue any of my exes like this. Then again, I can’t imagine any of them ending up in such a bad situation. Their mistakes are more of the point-and-laugh variety, not the…”

She bit her lip to shut herself up. She didn’t want to say
not the life-threatening variety
. Maybe Natalie was exaggerating. A relationship could be miserable and not, strictly speaking, abusive or dangerous.

Maybe this was all part of a clever plan to win Nick back.

Oh, Natalie probably
had
started dating the Guy from Hell after Nick dumped her. Rebounds could be a bitch like that. First guy out of the gate who talks a halfway good game and suddenly you find yourself in bed with someone who likes NASCAR when you like opera or vice versa, or who still lives in his mom’s basement and conveniently forgot to tell you. And sometimes when you’re on the rebound, you’re even crazy enough to move in with Mr. Not-So-Right and then realize you’re stuck living with his unwashed dishes, stinky unneutered ferrets and unresolved Oedipus complex.

But come on, would any woman really move in with someone who’d made it clear he planned to throw out her wardrobe, including her shoes? Hell no. That was a level of weird that would push its way past any amount of good-looking-and-fun-in-bed and scream at you to run, do not walk, and don’t look back whatever you do. She
must
be exaggerating, either to get Nick back or simply to get a hand out of an awkward situation.

Selene mentally shook herself and called on her training as a domestic violence counselor. She wasn’t being fair to Natalie, and she knew it. Smart women got into stupid relationships all the time—God knows she’d had her share—and sometimes they turned ugly instead of merely embarrassing. There was no reason to think it hadn’t happened to Natalie, especially when she’d been looking for a hardcore Master/slave relationship and an overeager would-be slave would probably find it easier than the average woman to wind up with a man who crossed the line between consensual non-consent and dangerous abuse.

Selene understood this. If she doubted, she was reacting to the regret in Nick’s voice and that was just borrowing trouble. Of course he’d have some second thoughts about breaking up with someone who then got into a disastrous new relationship. Guilt, maybe regret, possibly wishing that things had gone differently.

But that didn’t mean he’d want to get back together with someone who’d been so clearly wrong for him.

At least not if Selene had anything to say about it.

Selene’s mental picture of the Domly Dick’s home had alternated between a dark, brooding Gothic manor and a crazy mountain man’s log cabin, complete with a half-starved hound tied on the front porch, probably next to Natalie. She’d known either one was unrealistic, a cartoon drawn by her brain to distract her from more important and scarier subjects, but the sheer normality of the house threw her for a loop. In the dark, it looked no different from the basic cookie-cutter house you’d see anywhere: white with dark shutters, two-story, probably built in the past few years. The only odd thing about it was that it was several miles from its nearest neighbor, set in a clearing in the woods, when it would have looked more at home in a suburb with a picket fence around it.

At the moment, much to their relief, the driveway was empty. Still, they approached the house cautiously, going around to the back door as Natalie had instructed.

Selene’s only mental image of Natalie came from nude photos, so it wasn’t such a shock having her open the door naked. And for someone in a Master/slave relationship, bruises, a stainless-steel collar and matching manacles might be a sign things were going great. But the bruises on Natalie’s rib cage and face, and especially the black eye, didn’t look like the result of anything fun or consensual.

As Natalie hurried them in, Selene saw more disturbing signs. In all the pictures she’d seen, Natalie had been slim and muscular—healthy-looking. Now she was gaunt and flabby at the same time, and her skin tone reminded Selene of mushrooms. The long, fair hair from the photographs was gone, replaced by a badly shaved head with a few haphazard longer chunks. Her scalp looked scarred.

How had such a beautiful woman gone to hell so quickly?

Nick stepped in the door and folded Natalie into his arms, and Selene found she had to look away. Too much pain on both faces, too much confusion.

She closed the door behind them, not sure what to say.

After a silence that seemed to last for several months, though, she was the first to speak. “Do you have your things together?”

Natalie nodded and pointed to one pathetically small messenger bag. “Everything else is Master’s. Derrick’s. I have to get used to calling him that. I never have, not even to myself.”

“The cuffs and collar?”

“It’s an Allen key. I know where it is, but I can’t manage the collar myself, and I was too scared that Derrick might…” Natalie took a deep breath and then made the oddest face Selene had ever seen. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Selene couldn’t help thinking that if Natalie had been a cartoon character, she’d have been hit by something labeled “Clue by Four”.

“No,” Natalie admitted. “I couldn’t do it. I know it’s not working and that what he wants from me is hurting me. I need to leave, and I tried to tell him that and do it all like normal people, but he wasn’t having any of it, so I know it has to be like this. But taking the cuffs off myself… I’ve worn them almost constantly since Master claimed…since Derrick and I first got involved, and when they’ve needed to come off, he’s been the one to do it. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, even though I can’t exactly leave with them on.”

She started to look teary-eyed. Selene reminded herself that Natalie was entitled to be weird under the circumstances, and that if Nick were to believed, she’d been a little weird all along. Calling upon reserves of patience she didn’t know she had, she asked, “Where’s the key, honey?”

“Derrick’s bedroom, in the bedside table. Top of the stairs to the right. I’m not allowed… Oh, the
hell
with it! I have to get past that.”

They followed behind Natalie as she stomped up the stairs and into a large but rather grim bedroom with one mirrored wall and a beige carpet that was several years past due for replacement. “Derrick’s room?” Nick asked. “You didn’t sleep with him?”

“I slept in the closet. Once or twice he let me sleep at the foot of the bed, as a treat.”

“Guy’s a fool,” was all Nick had to say as he got to work on taking off the collar and manacles.

Selene had to look away so she didn’t start crying.

What was the point of being with someone if you couldn’t snuggle at night?

And would she sink to that point if she weren’t careful, that point where she’d sleep in the closet because someone told her to?

Nick seemed to know what she was thinking. He turned around, shook his head at Selene and said, “Don’t worry. No closets or floors. I like being able to reach out and touch you.”

“Besides, I’d kick your ass from here to Chicago if you suggested it. Closets are for clothes. And repressed people, but most of them are trying to get out.”

Natalie looked from Nick to Selene, her expression scandalized but reluctantly entertained.

“Clothes,” Selene said, handing over what Alison had grabbed in those frantic fifteen minutes. “I remember you saying you didn’t have much anymore.”

Natalie looked at the little bundle of clothes and the pair of flip-flops. Her lower lip began to quiver. “Alison… Does Alison know how badly I’ve fucked up?”

“No, hon,” Nick reassured her. “She knows how badly Derrick did.”

“We were at her house when you called.”

“You were at Master Garth’s? So he knows too?” She began to cry in earnest. “I’m a failure as a slave, and no one will ever speak to me again because I betrayed my master. Maybe I’m better off staying with Master and trying harder to be what he wants. I…”

“Oh, snap out of it! I’d slap your face like they do to hysterical women in old movies, but you might like it.”

Natalie blinked away her tears and stared first at Selene, and then at Nick. “Are you sure she’s a slave?” she asked her former lover.

“I’m not a slave,” Selene said blithely, sounding rather more sure than she was on that complex question. “Bottom definitely, submissive with Nick, but not a slave. But even if I was one, I’d be tempted to slap you silly right now, which isn’t fair to you. It’s natural to have doubts and fears when you leave an abusive relationship. Probably more when you’d voluntarily put a lot of your choices into his hands before things got ugly. But it’s after midnight and we have a three-hour drive ahead of us. Put some clothes on, and let’s get you the hell out of Dodge before Derrick gets home. Once you’re away from here and have a few days in a bed, wearing clothes and generally acting like a human being again, you’ll start thinking more clearly, and then you can start working through things. For now, we need to move.”

Natalie blinked twice, owl-like, and obediently began putting on the shorts and T-shirt that Alison had provided. Petite though Alison was, they hung on Natalie’s skinny frame.

Once the clothes were on, her expression changed subtly. She still looked as lost and confused and sad as Selene would expect under the circumstances. But she looked like a lost, sad, confused woman, not a kicked puppy who was likely to wag her tail at the one who’d kicked her.

They were walking out the door when they heard the sound of a truck coming up the road. Natalie cursed. “Quick! That’s got to be him! He said he was going to be out most of the night, but sometimes he’d lie just to get me to screw up. What are we…”

Nick grinned. “Selene, you grew up in the country. Ever do any off-roading?”

At the grin and at the teenage memories it unleashed, the heart-pounding panic changed into an endorphin rush. “Sure did. Buckle up, Natalie. Things may get exciting.”

With their lights off, they backed out of the driveway and sped up the quiet side road, away from the approaching truck—and from the main road that would take them back to Boston. By the light of the full moon, it was possible to see the road winding ahead of them, its twists and turns through the mountains. But where trees blocked the moonlight, it was the kind of dark that brought out primitive fears of monsters and things with saber teeth. That just made it more fun.