Roxy Harte (29 page)

“Take off her collar, Garrett. Set her free,” Jackie hisses. “This course is just going to lead to heartbreak.”

“It’s going to lead to heartbreak?” Garrett repeats. “Meaning that you don’t think I’m heartbroken yet.”

“Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. You’ve had some fun with the girl, but it was never like you were going to be together forever. That’s so junior high. By tomorrow night, this will be behind you and you can start living again.”

Hello! Sitting here listening.

“Now, I haven’t been living?”

“I’m your friend, Garrett, and I’m going to tell it to you like I see it. Since she went with Thomas, no, you haven’t been living at all. This girl is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.”

I close my eyes, not wanting to cry even as warm liquid slides over my cheeks.

* * * *

It is early morning. We’ve been home from the club for several hours, but we haven’t spoken about it, not at all, not even all of the horrible stuff Jackie said. He let me shower at least, so I’m no longer covered with mud. He sleeps in the bedroom, but I came to the kitchen seeking coffee and, finding a splash of sunlight, I laid down in the pool of light, hogging the warmth. I am miserable but can’t help laughing at the kittens. They seem to be growing before my eyes. Rolling around on the floor, they attack me as I lay in their midst. The sunlight flooding the floor warms their fur, making them smell fresh and innocent.
I am not fresh or innocent.

Mama Cat strolls in from the living room and I am abandoned. Seven hedonists leap and tackle, seeking their sole pursuit of happiness—milk. I wonder when Mama Cat will get fed up with it and wean them.

For now, she sprawls, seeking the relief they give her in draining her.

I close my eyes, chasing away the unwelcome image of a baby attached to its mother's breast. The image becomes clearer, revealing a baby with dark brown hair and blue eyes. I rub my eyes and chase
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away the dream, because that is all it is anyway, an impossible dream. Life just doesn't happen that way for someone like me.

One of the kittens slides between my legs. Round with milk, sated, it curls into a ball, making a bed for himself at my crotch. I scratch the nape of his neck and his purr reverberates up my arm.

Buzz, Buzz.

I don’t answer the ringing doorbell. It rings again, and again, but I don’t move. Enrique is here, somewhere, unless it’s Wednesday, he’s off on Wednesdays. The doorbell rings again. Is it Wednesday?

I close my eyes, clearing my mind.

Thud, thud, crash.

“What the hell?” I jump up, race into the living room, and find Garrett and Thomas in a tussle on the floor. I sigh, numb. This is my moment to do the girlie thing. I should jump in screaming and try to separate them. I don’t. Shaking my head, I step around the shattered vase and sit on the sofa, pulling my legs up to tuck them under my chin, watching the show. I hope they beat the crap out of each other.

Enrique comes into the room, rumpled from sleep, hair messy. He puts a hand on my shoulder, watching the show. “Should we do something?”

“Nah. Let them kill each other.”

Thud, thud.

I tilt my head back, rolling my head on the back of the sofa, to look at Enrique.

I’ve never seen him rumpled or messy. It’s a good look on him. Sexy. A cough draws my attention to a very young-looking blond boy, peeking his head out of Enrique’s bedroom. Ah, the explanation as to why the doorbell wasn’t answered.

“Is he legal?”

“Si, of course. He’s fromCincinnati .”

Cincinnati, of course he is. Oh, hell.
“I meant old enough to be in your bed?”

“Ooh. Si, si.
Veintidós
.”

Twenty-two.
“He looks sixteen,” I reply sarcastically.

Enrique turns to look at him. I turn to take a second look at him. The young blond smiles, pushes his bangs out of his eyes and manages to strike a pose in the doorway. His stomach muscles stand out against tight skin, not because he is buff, but waif thin. He manages sexy very well—too well.San Francisco will eat him up and spit him out, used and broken. Sixteen or twenty-two, he needs someone to take care of him. I turn my head, quite certain he is too young for me to be looking at him the way I just looked at him.

“Wow. You better get some ID.”

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Thud, crash.
A lamp joins the vase as casualties.

“Ju gonna be okay out here?”

“Yeah, Enrique, go on, have fun. ID first, please, though.” I sigh. “They seem to be running out of steam anyway.”

A final head butt into the stomach skids both men across the floor, Garrett doubles into himself, maybe a little lower than the stomach. Thomas sits up, waiting and watching. “Are you okay?” I realize he’s not asking Garrett, he’s asking me.

I nod, holding his gaze. “I’m okay, you okay?”

He nods, smiling, not his hundred-watt smile, but a wow I’m glad this fight is over smile.

Garrett moans and sits up, still holding himself. “Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks for asking.”

Thomas and I look at each other and shrug, asking Garrett at the same time without meaning to, “Are you okay, baby?”

Garrett looks from me to Thomas. “That was scary.”

I wanna say,
jinx
, but I don’t. I just sit, waiting. Waiting for what, I don’t know.

Garrett pulls himself up, sitting cross-legged, head leaned back against the wall. We all sit together in silence. I wonder what they are thinking. Unfortunately, I know what I’m thinking. I should say to Garrett, I’m sorry, I fucked up, but then, I don’t want to say that because I wanted to be with Thomas. I still want to be with Thomas. I still want to be with Garrett. This sucks so bad.

“You’re still wearing both collars,” Thomas comments.

I nod. “I am.” My hand goes to my neck, touching both, smooth metal, rough rope.

He turns to Garrett. “You going to let her keep it that way?”

Garrett cracks open one eye, closes it, then pounds his head back against the wall. “I don’t know what I’m doing yet. I need to sleep and I need to think.”

Thomas stands. “I’ll go. I just needed to see that you are both okay.”

“Both of us?” Garrett snorts. “Now? You’re worried about both of us?”

Thomas sighs heavily and turns to leave, Garrett watches him go through the door before standing. I didn’t notice before, but he’s wearing striped pajama bottoms.

“Come to bed, Kitten. You need sleep, too.”

“I’m fine here. I’ll stay on the couch,” I say stubbornly.

“This is one thing that we’re not fighting about, Kitten, and right now, I’m too exhausted to think about
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any of it.” He holds out his hand to me. “My bed. Now. Or leave. You choose.”

* * * *

Twelve hours later, we’re back at club. Jackie pulls more shit, starting the minute we arrive. “Still cuckolded by Lord Fyre. Wonderful.”

Garrett passes the table, not sitting, but hearing Jackie. I don’t try to analyze the look that passes between them. He drags me by the collar to the small stage in The Oasis, usually reserved for demonstrations. Great, I’m to be the main event. I don’t even ask.

Lord Fyre is here, waiting. It isn’t that I see him, but I feel him, somehow knowing that somewhere in the shadowed room, he is available if I need him.

Garrett shackles my hands in leather cuffs then attaches the cuffs to a chain above my head. Pushing a button, the chain is pulled tighter, lifting my arms, making me go up on tiptoe before it stops. I watch him walk away, leaving me stretched, naked.
Great. Just great.

He sits down at his regular table. I wish I could hear what Jackie was saying. Whatever it is, it makes him mad. I watch him stand, pacing. He stalls in a corner, talking to George. In another corner, three men in black cluster. I wonder if they are here to take turns punishing me or to protect me from Garrett’s wrath.

George grabs Garrett by his jacket sleeve, trying to pull him back, trying to get him to talk. Garrett shrugs away. I wish I knew what his friends were saying. Based on last night, I can guess Jackie’s comments, but George, he’s the wildcard. What advice would George offer?

Approaching fast, Garrett grabs a birch cane from the display wall behind me before spinning me to face him.

“Why?” he asks. “Am I not harsh enough with you because I don’t leave you black and blue every time?

Am I not enough Dom for you?”

He jerks my head back, kissing me, not gently, forcing the kiss. “Is this what you want from me? A public show? Do you want my mark so badly that you resort to this?”

I shake my head, crying out, “No, Garrett. I love the way you Master me.”

“But you’d still go to him for this, wouldn’t you?” he demands, bringing the birch cane hard against my ass. Four more strikes follow in quick succession.

I scream out, dancing on my tiptoes to angle away from the stinging strikes.

Lord Fyre steps into my line of vision, asking, “Do you want this?”

I sag, facing him.

“This is none of your business. Step away, Fyre,” Garrett demands. “It is my right to punish my property.”

“I’ll take the punishment,” I grit out between clenched teeth.

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“How many strikes?” Fyre asks.

“Twenty more,” Garrett answers curtly.

I gasp.

Lord Fyre strokes my cheek. “Can you do this?”

I feel a trickle of blood going down the back of my leg. “No more blood,” I answer.

He swivels me to look at my flaming ass. “Only one of the welts was deep enough to bleed,” he whispers to me before saying to Garrett, “You heard her, do you agree?”

He must have agreed, though I didn’t hear him say one way or the other. I don’t think Lord Fyre would allow him to continue if he didn’t agree. He stands in front of me, his eyes a focal point for my gaze until the tenth strike. I fall, hanging by my wrists. Fyre catches me, lifting me and I sag around him completely.

“Can you finish?” he asks using his stage Master voice, it is deeper, more commanding.

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

“Do you feel you deserve this punishment?”

“I should have told him I was going to see you, I didn’t. That was wrong.”

Unexpectedly, Garrett releases me ten strokes remaining—a quick, panic-snap release. I fall into Lord Fyre and he lifts me, carries me to a dark hallway. I don’t realize I’m crying until he wipes my face. He sits me onto my feet and I stand shaking next to him, torn between hiding in the hall and racing back to Master.

“I’ll talk to Garrett,” he promises.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Garrett growls. I jump, unaware that he’d followed us to the hallway.

“Get out of my sight.”

I don’t need to hear anything more. I leave, running from the club, passing the long line of waiting patrons. Only their catcalls bring attention to my nakedness. Great. I’ve become so used to not wearing clothes that I can run onto a busy sidewalk not noticing. Hearing my name being called, by both Garrett and Thomas, I duck into the line, hiding. I ask a man in line for his shirt. He offers to take me home but relinquishes his Pink Floyd concert shirt in exchange for a picture taken with his cell phone. Yippee, I’ll be on someone’s personal blog by morning.

I sneak out of the line and hit the pavement. Rain is falling, pouring rain, and within minutes, I am soaked through. Running across the alley and two blocks farther before I stop to breathe, I don’t look back. I’m not sure why I’m running. I could have stayed. Lord Fyre would have helped me, taken me to a private room in The Attic, taken me home. I’m sure he’d have taken me anywhere I’d asked. I don’t know how I know that, but I do, with certainty. Lord Fyre—the man I’d compared to Satan in my head more times than I can count in the months I’ve known him—and he I can count on. Garrett is the one who is always pushing me away.

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A payphone beckons from the corner. Rain drips into my eyes and off the tip of my nose as I dial from memory, not waiting long for an answer. Thankfully, Charlie accepts the charges for my collect call.

“I need help, Charlie.”

* * * *

“Do you want me to call one of them?” Charlie sits down on the too-soft sofa next to me. I glance around the room and it is like I become aware of my surroundings, and then like on a fast reel, it all replays in my mind, the mud, the sex, the anger on Garrett’s face, the worry in Thomas’s glance, the rough and tumble in the middle of Garrett’s living room, the birch caning. The soaking wet, borrowed Pink Floyd T-shirt has been replaced by one of Charlie’s skater-boy hoodies and a pair of his shorts. I’d never really realized how small he was. He’s small, his clothes are snug on me, like I’ve pulled on a child’s outfit.

His apartment isn’t chic, it’s geeky, post-college but still not domesticated male bachelor pad. Stacks of magazines litter every conceivable surface. Cola cans and empty pizza boxes litter the remaining floor space. “I’m sorry about the mess. I wasn’t expecting…”

“No, Charlie, the mess is fine, no worries; just let me sit here for a while.”

Charlie pulls a pack of cigarettes from between the sofa cushion, and taps the end of the pack like one well practiced doing so. I’d never realized he smoked. After the few days I’ve had, it doesn’t even register on the surprise meter. He removes one, offering it to me. “Emergency stash, I only smoke when I’m on deadline and can’t meet it without miraculous intervention. It might help.”

“No, I’m good, but go ahead.”

“They’ll be worried, Ce.”

“Garrett threw me out and Thomas won’t worry,” I deny, lying down on his too-soft sofa. I start crying, not focused on why I’m crying, only knowing that I must cry, couldn’t stop crying if I had to.