The door opened seconds after Henry buzzed. Unmarked, unobtrusive, no different from the half-dozen doors he’d driven past as he threaded the car down the alley and parked. Tuesday evening. The shadows hung deep in the alley between buildings though the sun hadn’t set.
Jay brushed Alice’s fingers.
She clasped his hand.
Emma ushered them inside and down a narrow hall. An oddity, coming out to the main reception area from the back. Past small offices and a coat room, all dark.
No one stood behind the curving counter to greet them. Emma didn’t request their electronic devices or log their visit. Her heels echoed on the granite with each step. She flipped a switch, and the sconces along the wall highlighted their path up the stairs.
“No one will be here tonight but me, Henry. It seems we’re undergoing a ‘pest extermination.’” Emma appeared immaculately coiffed as always. Dress, hose, heels. Pearl choker.
Did she sleep that way, or did she don a persona every morning?
“Even those with private rooms have been informed they won’t be accessible this evening.”
Ugh. Distracting herself by worrying about irrelevancies like Emma’s perfection wouldn’t cut it tonight. Henry had brought them here to confront their lingering unease. To excise that fucking bastard Cal from whatever corner of Jay’s mind and hers he occupied.
“Take whatever time you need.” Emma’s mouth softened as she glanced at Jay and Alice. “I’ll lock up behind you when you’re ready.”
“Thank you, Em. Your attention to detail is most appreciated.” Henry kissed Emma’s cheek.
A brief kiss. A friend kiss. An entirely nonromantic kiss that still left Alice grateful for the squeeze of Jay’s hand in hers.
“Come along, my dears.” Henry held out his hand. “We’ll begin with a tour of the second floor. Alice hasn’t seen it at all yet.”
They’d taken the elevator straight to the third floor the night she’d been here. Dressed to attract attention. To see and be seen.
Tonight they’d dressed for comfort, covered from head to toe. Her coziest flannel, her softest jeans, her well-worn sneakers. Jay sported equally scuffed sneaks topped by loose sweats and a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt.
“Second floor.” She stepped onto the stairs, Jay half a beat behind, their hands entwined. “Can’t wait. What’s up there?”
Henry settled his hand against her back and played tour guide as they climbed the grand staircase. The rise and fall of his voice soothed. At the top of the stairs, he led them left, past a separate reception area and expanded cloakroom.
“Not everyone arrives dressed to play. For those with more elaborate tastes, such would be unthinkable.” Henry pushed open a door and turned on a light. “Changing rooms on this floor. A non-play area. The rules of respect, the code of conduct, still apply, of course, but contact must remain nonsexual. Locker rooms, as well, for post-play showers.”
“But the bathrooms upstairs have showers.” She and Jay had climbed to the fourth floor because the showers in the third-floor bathrooms had been in use.
“Those are not for bathing so much as playing, my dear.” Henry flipped off the light and closed the door. “As we did at Will’s vacation home.”
Shower sex. She laughed, an edge of nerves beneath. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”
“Really, Alice.” Jay tsked at her, mock-sorrow on his face. “After all the showers we’ve taken together. How could sex not be the first thing you think of when you see a shower? It’s the first thing I think of.”
“Sex is the first thing you think of as soon as your eyes open in the morning.” She smiled to take the sting out of the tease. “I’m pretty sure it’s what you think about when you’re asleep, too.”
Jay splayed his hands in the universal sign for eh, what’re ya gonna do?
Henry made a soft sound between a hum and a grunt. “The salon and the attached kitchen command the largest space on this floor.” He led them back past the stairs, threw open a pair of oversize doors, and lit up an enormous room.
“Whoa.” She pivoted to take in the dozen or so seating arrangements. Cozy, intimate spaces for two. Larger groupings of short sofas. The room clamored for men in formal dress discussing weather and war while women in Victorian gowns played the piano or embroidered. A movie set from some period piece where the electricity would get edited out. “Fancy.”
Jay’s sigh seemed almost relaxed. Her estimation had been way off. He hadn’t shown a hint of upset, no fidgeting, no clinging to Henry. Maybe he’d find confronting this easy.
“Tell Alice about the salon, my boy.” Henry’s fond smile matched Jay’s. “What does this room remind you of?”
Jay wandered right, weaving from seating area to seating area. Stopping at a pale blue chair, he frowned. “Where’s the other one?”
“I’m not certain.” Henry led her toward the grouping Jay had picked out. “Emma is likely to know. We may ask her if you wish.”
Jay gripped the chair back in both hands and shook his head. “I thought it would look the same. Silly. But I…I counted the steps, you know. I was watching your feet so I’d know when to stop.” He dragged his shoe against the rug. “Twenty-three steps from the salon door to the chairs, and you told me to sit and I sat on the floor.”
Their first real meeting. That’s what this room meant to Jay. The week after Cal’s assault, he’d said.
“I remember,” Henry murmured. He gestured her to the short couch beside the chair. “I asked you to sit in the chair instead, and you apologized for displeasing me.”
Bruised from the week before, an emotional wreck in search of a new dominant, Jay had gone back to the club.
She sat. “Your first date.”
Henry raised his eyebrow, but Jay beamed. “Henry didn’t look at anyone else all night. He didn’t go back upstairs. He stayed here with me the whole time, and I didn’t have to do anything bad to earn it.”
“That must’ve been exciting.” Smiling back took effort. She had a limited idea of what Jay considered bad ways to earn attention, and none made for pretty pictures in her head. “A good night.”
“The best. He asked so many questions. I thought he must be planning a huge scene and he’d take me upstairs when he had all the answers, but we just talked.”
“It ought to have been a familiar experience, my boy.” Henry stood straight, his shoulders unbowed, his tone even, but his eyes—tightness lurked at the corners as he tracked Jay’s every motion. “I hadn’t intended our talk to be quite so novel.”
“It was—” Jay ran his hand across the back of the blue chair. “The first time I went home hopeful instead of empty. Like I didn’t have to leave everything at the door.”
She studied her shoes. The place Jay feared was the place he loved, too. The place where he’d met Henry.
“I had a red ribbon and a homework assignment. Henry wanted to see me again. I mattered.”
He’d found his first spark of self-worth in submission here with Henry. Of course he’d felt empty. He’d been a toy to the people before Henry. His pleasure had lasted as long as he was pleasing and being praised. When the game stopped, the feelings stopped, too.
“That’s what this room reminds me of.” Face sweet and open, he gazed at Henry with naked adoration. “You told me, ‘You’re a good boy, Jay’”—he’d dropped his voice, the lower register a credible mimic of Henry’s dom tone—“‘and your red ribbon tells everyone here that you’re my good boy. I want you to take good care of my property this week. Treat it well. If you do that, you will have pleased me very much.’”
Henry had given him something to look forward to. A way to respect himself.
“You still please me, my boy.” Henry pulled Jay into a hug, cradling him tight to his chest. “Very much.”
As nervous as the club made Jay, this room, this space, stood outside that feeling. It had its own memories, happy associations. A tree with their initials carved in the trunk. Their relationship had started here.
“Alice, you’re missing the hugging.” Jay’s voice was muffled against Henry’s neck. He flung one arm wide in a blind search for her body. “You don’t wanna miss out.”
“Nope.” She rose and nestled herself at their side. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
* * * *
The little kitchen off the salon had finished their tour of the second floor. Nowhere to go but up. No going back, not if they intended to confront the thoughts drying her throat and making her pulse race.
The third floor’s silence seemed eerie. She irrationally expected a soundtrack. The plaintive whispers of violins below a chorus of chatter and moaning and the slap of skin against skin in the hall.
She came to a dead stop.
“Alice?” Henry paused beside her. “Tell me.”
They’d been here. Right here, between that bench and this viewing window. Hemmed in. Herded like cattle, and Cal with a mind for slaughter.
“I thought someone would help us.” She meant to speak up, to provide a good example for Jay and make Henry proud. Her words emerged in a whisper. “I couldn’t figure out why no one was stopping him. But no one thought it was strange. Just the way to talk to submissives. Perfectly okay.”
Humming to her, Henry kissed her temple and rested his forehead against hers. “They would have expected such things had been negotiated, sweet girl. That if he were speaking to you, red-ribboned as you were, he’d already obtained your consent and his behavior was consistent with your preferences.”
The idea of giving that man her consent made her skin crawl like a cockroach colony. She shook off the creeping disgust. “I got that, eventually. That’s why I talked to him. Defied him. Another man—I don’t even know his name—he started asking questions. Gave us the opening we needed to get away.” Not soon enough, though. Not for her paralyzed playmate. “Jay?”
“Huh?” His head jerked. Jittery, foot tapping, he’d been staring at the wall. “I’m listening. Bad night. So many people, and he—I mean, what?”
She stepped toward him and gripped his trembling hand. “I’m sorry I let him say those things to you, Jay.”
He shook his head, his mouth a stubborn line. “I’m sorry you had to protect me. If I hadn’t stopped moving, you wouldn’t have had to talk to him. It was my fault.”
“It was not.” Her voice and Henry’s sounded as one.
“His behavior was an egregious breach of protocol and common courtesy. You are not at fault for his actions, my boy, and your response to his presence was neither unexpected nor unwarranted.” Henry touched her face, gently turning her toward him. “Nor are you at fault for Cal’s words. His speech is his own. The responsibility to conduct himself like a gentleman is his own, even if he chooses not to exercise restraint in word or deed.”
Silence drifted in. She lacked the stomach to head down the hallway and into the room where she’d been publicly disciplined. Unjustly so, since Cal had instigated the entire event. But she’d agreed to accept punishment. The way Jay’d agreed to sign the papers and pretend he could forget Cal’s assault. To avoid making trouble.
Henry tucked her arm into his own, and her feet moved automatically to keep up. The hall opened with unexpected quickness.
The distance had seemed insurmountable that night. An endless search to find her way back to Henry. She’d dreamed, in the week afterward, she hadn’t found him at all. That Jay’s hand had slipped from hers and she’d been alone among strangers wearing Cal’s face.
Thank God waking up had brought her face-to-face with Henry. He hadn’t disappeared, and Jay hadn’t disappeared, and she wasn’t lost.
Tears blurred her vision.
Henry squeezed her hand. “Tell me how you feel now, standing here. Alice?”
She rotated in a slow turn. Breathed in and out. Rocked with the shame and confusion. The fear. Cal’s laughter. But underneath, too, rolled her initial excitement. Will’s courtesy. Jay’s loving attention. Henry cradling her in his arms…and Henry lowering her panties and turning her over his knee.
“Too much,” she murmured. “I feel too much.”
“Jay?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Not—I don’t know.” He stood on jittery legs, one knee twisting in and out. “Fine. This is for Alice. She got hurt. I’m fine.”
Henry frowned. He didn’t challenge Jay’s answer. A bullshit answer, for sure. Maybe Jay didn’t know exactly how he felt, but he wasn’t fucking fine.
“Angry,” she blurted. “I’m really fucking angry, and I don’t want that jackass to make anyone feel as helpless and small as he made me feel ever again. And I’m angry at myself for not doing something different, and I’m angry at Henry for not finding another way, and I’m angry at Jay for not fucking saying how he feels.”
They stared, Henry approving and Jay with wide eyes.
Her lungs heaved. Streaming tears itched her cheeks.
“And better.” She sucked in air. “I feel better, because I’m not afraid to be here. He doesn’t win. He doesn’t get to defeat me. He’s nothing, and I’m still me. I still have both of you. He hasn’t taken a damn thing from me. I win. I win.”
She laughed, and cried, and let Henry soothe her with sheltering hands and whispered encouragement. But Jay watched with an uncomfortable fear, his anxious expression reforming into a smiling mask every time they looked at him.
Henry’s quiet sigh warmed her neck. He stepped back. “Jay? Perhaps you’d like to share your feelings now, as Alice has done.”
“I’m good. This was good. I’m glad Alice feels better.” He delivered a toothy grin, as if Henry would agree they’d exorcised their demons and take them home.
“Upstairs, then, my dears.” His words sucked the joy from the room.
* * * *
Jay halted at the top of the stairs, on the edge of the fourth floor, and she stopped with him.
“Straight ahead, Jay.” Quiet but firm, Henry allowed no argument. “Keep moving, please.”
Jay stepped forward. “One foot in front of the other, right? No problem.” Swinging his legs and dragging his toes, Jay babbled fast but walked slow. “I can dance if you want. Fancy footwork.”
Henry took her hand when she would have moved with him. No way in hell could he expect Jay to do this alone.
He shook his head at her. “Patience,” he murmured. A grimace crossed his face.
Memory flashed, Henry’s pleading expression as he urged her into bed after the night had gone so badly. He needed her to follow his lead. His forcefulness had gotten Jay moving until he could break down in safety. Tonight, Jay had to confront the source of his pain.
Jay acted as if being here didn’t affect him, but he crept along like a child in a house of horrors. Even with the rooms empty and silent. Even with the hall brightly lit. Even with her and Henry walking behind him. He looked to both sides as he walked, shaking his head. He slowed as he passed each door.
He…didn’t know.
Horrified understanding shivered through her blood.
The entire floor was an open wound in his mind, a terror beyond imagining, built up from year upon year of pretending he’d put it behind him. He couldn’t identify the place where his nightmares lived.
Henry laid a hand on Jay’s shoulder. “Stop here, my boy.”
They stood between two doors, one on either side of the hall.
Jay swung his head between them.
“The left,” Henry prompted.
Jay’s memories might be indistinct, blurred by pain and fear, but Henry’s had to be absolute. Frozen and sliced and dyed in shades of blame on slides for him to examine under a microscope. How often did he wish he’d noticed the scene sooner and saved Jay some pain?
Guilt and regret crippled as effectively as fear. Dozens of times she’d heard Henry say he wanted them healthy and happy. When he’d met Jay, Jay had been neither. Henry would’ve been a boy who’d driven his parents to distraction caring for wounded creatures.
Jay took a cautious step and pushed the door wide. He stood in the door frame.
Henry reached past their shoulders for the light switch. Spotlights illuminated the room’s centerpiece, an X-shaped piece of equipment fastened to the far wall.
Stepping into the room, Jay flinched. And then he laughed.
“Nothing to be scared of here. It’s only wood and metal and padding.” His forced chuckles grated at her nerves. “Silly to get all worked up over it. I’m glad, I’m glad we, uh, visited”—he tugged at his sleeves, hiding his wrists—“to get that cleared up. We can go home now. Whenever you’re ready.”
Hell no. No fucking way Henry bought his bravado either. Pushing away the pain because it hurt to feel it.
“Jay. My brave boy.” Henry’s shoes tapped against the wood floor. He stopped beside Jay, the two of them facing the illuminated frame. Metal rings stood out at the corners and various points along the X. Attachment points. “No one but Alice and me will ever know what happens here.”
The first night Henry had tied her down, he’d chosen soft cuffs and shown her how to escape. Anyone tied to this frame would be splayed like da Vinci’s Vitruvian man, vulnerable and exposed. Doubtful Cal cared whether restraints chafed. He probably preferred they did.
“Do you still wish to hide from this? To feel it controlling you when you want to let go?” Henry lowered his voice. “Will you give this moment that power and deny it to me, dear one?”
“No!” Jay’s fierce headshake scattered his hair and twisted his torso. “I want to be yours, Henry. Just yours.”
“Then you must reconcile with the past, Jay. Feel the truth of it. Accept your own blamelessness.” Henry tipped his chin, a brief glance at the floor. Would he ever accept his blamelessness? “You called out your safeword and were ignored.”
Jay moved forward. His shoulders shifted with every breath, his exhalations audible in the silence. He stopped less than a foot from the frame. His leg twitched. His hand clenched.
He stood, back rigid, unmoving, for long minutes.
Henry turned toward her. Expecting he’d shoo her away to give Jay privacy, she took a half step back.
He thrust out his palm in a curt stop gesture.
She froze, waiting.
He beckoned her to him. The soft soles of her sneakers barely made a sound.
Jay never twitched.
Henry’s gaze shifted between the two of them. He pressed his mouth to her ear.
“He needs a push.” He whispered so low she strained to hear him even at this distance. “A painful one.”
Understanding ached. He’d seen her react badly before, misread his intentions, try to defend Jay against harshness when Henry had a purpose for it. Her challenges had made Jay’s wait for comfort longer.
“I trust you.” She breathed out the words.
Henry kissed her temple and rubbed her back. Stepping forward, leaving her behind, he took a slow, deep breath.
“Step away.” Henry had a new tone. Anger. Disgust.
Jay’s head came up.
Henry clenched his jaw. “It’s an interesting technique you have, but I think you’ve outstripped your skills.” Now his words came light as an observation on the weather. “And it seems your sub has had enough for the night.”
Jay trembled, a full-body motion. Henry wasn’t speaking to him.
She curled her hands into a single tight fist, fingernails pressing deep into her skin. Henry had walked a fine line that night, if she’d understood properly. Said he’d nearly had to apologize to Cal for interrupting the scene. Even if he’d sized up the trouble in an instant and burned to free Jay.
“Perhaps you ought to release him. Pause to check his status? These things are so easily overlooked in the heat of the moment, aren’t they?” Henry’s friendly, cajoling tone didn’t match the snarl twisting his lips. Eyes hard and glaring, he wrinkled his nose as if the air offended him.
An expression he’d likely had to hide from Cal at the time. His pauses might represent Cal’s side of the conversation, if he heard the voice in his head.
Head cocked, Jay stood almost still. All but the shudders that rolled down his shoulders and twitched in his fingers and wobbled in his legs.
“Boy!” Henry’s voice gained volume and command. “What are you called here?”
Ten seconds. Long enough for Cal to have answered for Jay, she knew not what.
Jay’s howl rattled her bones. He attacked the padded frame with fists and feet.
“Not yours. Not your slave. Not your slut. Not your bitch.” His voice cracked. He fell to his knees in an ungainly heap of limbs, a rare lack of grace, and pounded the frame with animal ferocity. “You’re not my master, you fucking horrible piece of shit. You never were. You lied to me. You told me I was safe. You wouldn’t stop. You wouldn’t stop. You wouldn’t—”
Her entire body strained to go to him.
Gaze fixed on Jay, Henry waved toward her. Wait.
They stood in silence as Jay exhausted himself, until he stopped beating at the frame, until his voice grew hoarse and his anger turned to sobs. Only then did Henry speak.
“Jay. My sweet, playful boy. You’ve a soul bright like sunshine, dear one. Clear and shining in your every smile. You give so much of yourself. Do you understand now, my brave boy? Will you tell me what you deserve?”
“I don’t—” His voice shook. He coughed, and tears fell unchecked down his face. “I don’t deserve what C-Cal did to me. I didn’t deserve it then, and I, I don’t deserve it now.”
“Beautiful, my boy. An excellent answer, entirely true. Do you know what you do deserve?”
Head hanging down, Jay swayed slowly. No.
Henry sank to his knees in front of Jay and smoothed back his hair. “Love, my boy. My love. Alice’s love. Unending, no matter what demons must be confronted.”
Jay sobbed, his slender body heaving.
“Will you let me hold you, my dear boy? You aren’t alone in this. You’re never alone.”
Jay tumbled forward, babbling, curling his body half-fetal in Henry’s lap.
Relief raced through her. With Henry’s leadership and her support, Jay would move past this. He’d know he was safe and loved and that he deserved to be.
Henry beckoned her forward even as he answered Jay’s incoherent speech. “No, my brave boy, it hasn’t tainted you. There’s nothing dark and dangerous in you, my love. You’re still my Jay.”
She settled beside them in silence, trusting Henry to lead.
He kept up the steady, slow petting down Jay’s head and back. “Nothing you could tell me would change that, Jay.”
Hunched and hidden, tucked in tight against Henry, Jay sniffled. His shuddering set off little waves in his thin shirt, currents Henry smoothed with each pass of his hand.
The desire to scoop up their boy and take him out of here, to end the pain in his face and the full-body sobs, pulled at her with unbearable urgency.
Henry fumbled for her hand and squeezed. Seeing Jay this way hurt him, too, even if he wouldn’t show it. Couldn’t show it and remain the strong, powerful man Jay needed him to be in this place.
But this moment belonged to Jay, not them, and he hadn’t purged everything he associated with this room. With that man. The same need she encountered when Henry unlocked emotional doors for her. Once the path opened, the landslide came through in an uncontrollable rush.
Squeezing Henry’s hand to draw his attention, she lifted her other hand toward Jay and waited. She wouldn’t normally need permission, but right now, on delicate, unfamiliar ground, checking couldn’t hurt.
Henry’s small nod and return squeeze fueled nerves and hope.
She touched Jay’s shoulder. Light. Cautious.
“It’s scary.” She swallowed. Every word needed to be perfect. No room for error, not with her sweet, sensitive lover. “It’s hard to know, isn’t it? When you feel like, like something’s wrong with you.”
Jay’s breathing slowed.
“Like if you say it, it’ll be true.”
The trembling subsided, but Jay didn’t emerge from hiding. His tiny, jerking nod stopped almost before it started.
She paused to gauge Henry’s reaction. Pushing might help, but it might harm.
He rubbed his thumb across her knuckles and mouthed, “Keep going.”
As much as Jay needed Henry’s comfort right now, Henry couldn’t leave. But if Jay felt he couldn’t say whatever it was in front of Henry, Henry would make himself invisible.
He’d use every tool at his disposal to help Jay. Right now, his best tool was her. Like the night Jay had first told her about Cal, about how pathetic and worthless he’d felt. He’d needed Henry’s comfort to be able to tell the tale, but he’d needed her reassurance. On some level he’d wanted confirmation from an equal, and he would always see Henry as a superior.
Terrifying, to be the one guiding. Surely Henry didn’t feel this fear. Maybe greater comfort with it defined a dominant. But she found confidence, too, knowing he believed her up to the challenge.
“Do you know what makes me feel better when I’m scared, Jay?” Like when she’d been terrified Henry would find out she harbored feelings for him. Or tell her he wasn’t in love with her. Or that there’d never be a place for her in this relationship.
Shaking his head against Henry’s chest, Jay turned in Henry’s lap.
She slid down until their heads were level.
“Telling Henry.” She whispered the words, snuggling in close.
Henry released her hand and embraced her, his strong arms encircling them both.
“The longer I waited, the more scared I was. The harder it was to tell him. But then I felt so much better. It’s okay to be afraid, Jay.”
His hand crept forward.
She tucked it inside her own. “But you know what Henry will say, right?”
“Be honest,” Jay mumbled. “I can’t help if you won’t let me.”
Yes. He’d met her halfway. Giddy warmth pumped through her. “You’re Henry’s brave boy. You can do this, sweetheart.”
“But I”—brown eyes shied away—“I want to hurt him.”
Cal? Hell, she’d like to fuck him up, too. Henry probably wouldn’t throw a punch no matter the provocation. He’d find another way.
“Like he, like he hurt me.” Pressing his head to hers, Jay whispered as if he imagined he could be so quiet that Henry wouldn’t hear him. “Like a bully. Henry hates bullies, Alice. I don’t want to be a bully.”
Henry tightened his arm around her.
“You think maybe Cal made you like he is.” She squeezed Jay’s fingers. “That he taught you to want to hurt people.”
Slow and tentative, shoulders flinching and soulful eyes trimmed in red, Jay nodded.
Christ, what could she say to that? Instinct told her Jay was incapable of bullying. The anger and pain he’d poured into the whipping stand, the way he’d beaten the frame until he almost couldn’t lift his fists, raised fear for Jay, not of him.
Jay’s anger bore nothing in common with Cal’s sadism. But her argument wouldn’t convince him. His fear wasn’t a rational one.
“Do you want to hurt Alice, my boy? Right now, at this moment?”
Pale and gagging, Jay spat, “No!”
“To hurt me?”
“No.” Blinking fast, Jay blew out a hard breath. “No, Henry. I love you.”
Henry had shocked Jay out of his shame-filled stupor. With…an irrational argument?
“Cal is a bully because he abuses others from a position of power, my dear boy. To be angry with him for what he’s done is justified. You have never sought power of any sort. Never struggled with obedience. Wanting Cal to receive the treatment he doles out isn’t anything like the indiscriminate bullying he practices. He doesn’t love. What you feel for me, for Alice, your instinctive distaste for unwanted violence toward us, Cal has never felt for his partners, nor do I expect he ever will. You are nothing like him, Jay.”
“You aren’t disappointed in me?”
Henry cupped Jay’s chin, tipping his face up until their eyes met. “On the contrary. I’m proud of you, my brave boy. Think of everything you’ve confronted here tonight. You will be happier and healthier for it in the long run, able to give yourself to me more freely. And as for Cal—” Eyes narrowing, Henry frowned. His disapproval seemed a structural weight, lowering the ceiling and shrinking the room around them. “We will hurt him, but where it matters most to him. His pride. His reputation. The aura of power he hides within.”
“Pulling back the curtain,” Alice murmured. “Not so great and powerful now.”
Henry hummed.
Jay actually snickered.
Her heart lifted. Jay’s emotions had traveled all over the map tonight, but a true laugh, even a small one, was a huge improvement over his earlier avoidance and terror.
“I don’t have to wear the ruby slippers, do I?” Jay sniffled, his voice raw.
She wished for tissues.
“I’m more a sneaker kind of guy.”
“Silver.” Henry dug in his pocket and came up with a handkerchief. Of course. “The shoes are silver in the original. Something to add to our reading list, I expect. Blow your nose, my boy.”
While Jay made use of the handkerchief, Henry tilted his head and raised an eyebrow at her. “Alice, you recall how to find the serving room off the salon?”
She nodded and rose, seeing the gambit. “Just a drink, or a snack, too?”
“A drink only, thank you, my dear. Something soothing for Jay’s throat, please.”
“Will do.”
She left Jay to Henry’s tender care, following the trail of lights they’d left on behind them, down the stairs to the second floor. She’d take her time. Let them find the closure they needed together. Jay had been the one who’d broken down, but she wasn’t naïve enough to believe being in that room with him again hadn’t affected Henry, too. He’d keep that to himself, though.
The sharp tang of fresh-brewed coffee wafted from the salon. The aroma grew as she crossed to the kitchen and reached for the light switch.
“There’s more in the pot if you’d like a cup.”
She bumped her shoulder on the door frame, missing the switch on the first pass. “No, thank you.”
The lights came up. Emma stood beside a prep counter at the far end of the room.
An intruder, Alice’s hackles said. It might be her club, but she didn’t belong in their cozy little world of three, not tonight, with Jay so vulnerable.
“Henry asked me to get some juice.” She kept an eye on Emma as she carried out her task, finding a small bottle of apple juice in the fridge.
“Is young Jay all right?” Emma waved a dismissal. “No, no, that’s a silly question. Of course he’s not. But—” She cradled her coffee mug as if seeking warmth. “Is he handling it well?”
Henry had promised Jay no one would know. Whatever happened tonight stayed in the room.
“He’s with Henry.” A simple truth, and not breaking Henry’s promise. For almost anything involving Jay, Henry was the answer.
Emma nodded as if she understood that truth, too. “I never felt better than when I was at Victor’s side, no matter the difficulties in our path. I’m certain Henry is equally attentive to Jay’s needs.” Lines appeared around her mouth and eyes as her face tightened. “Would that we’d been able to make things right years ago.”
The rigid sense of threat in Alice’s spine softened. “I think—”
Far from trying to insert herself in their relationship, Emma felt some sense of responsibility. Guilt.
God knew Alice understood that weight. “It was incredibly important for Jay to come here and do this.”
Emma had voted to banish Cal from the club. She’d seen Jay, then, in the aftermath of Cal’s attack.
“Helpful.”
And Henry was one of this woman’s closest friends.
“So thank you.”
Natural for her to show concern for his subs.
“For helping.”
“Important for you, as well.” Emma’s gaze was shrewd. She sipped her coffee. “You’re not one to run and hide, are you, Alice? A poor introduction to this scene can leave lasting scars on a submissive player. I’ve seen it happen too many times. You have a better handle on yourself, I think.”
Her skin itched. Tiny, dancing tingles beneath the surface like this near stranger had tugged a zipper and peeked inside the polite-company-Alice suit. They weren’t confidantes. They shared a truce shaped by Henry’s love. If he expected them to cede territory to each other, she’d need a map of the boundaries. “I have Henry.”
Emma nodded. “You do.”
The juice bottle chilled her hand. Henry and Jay were waiting. She raised the bottle and moved toward the door. She’d been less nervous her first day in the high school cafeteria, for chrissake. Her tongue nearly betrayed her and asked Emma for a hall pass.
Fuck. She was Henry’s envoy here. He had to have known she might run into Emma.
The training. Cal. She paused in the door frame. “I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you soon about moving forward on the classes. Tonight’s—” Just for family, she almost said, grateful for the twitch of compassion that stopped her. “Busy.”
Emma had set aside her plans—or hadn’t had any to change—to be here and open the club for them. A woman Henry protected like a favorite aunt or a younger sister.
“No, of course. He’s focused. I wouldn’t expect any less.”
A woman without a family who stood in the dark drinking coffee and feeling guilty for events beyond her control and five years gone.
“But thank you, Alice, for your kindness.”
“Sure. I mean, same to you.” She shot through the halls and stairs. Something about that woman made her feel small.
Shoving the discomfort to the back of her mind, she delivered the juice to a somewhat calmer Jay.
He drained the bottle at Henry’s insistence and flexed the empty plastic like a makeshift stress ball, crush and release.
They made their way down the stairs, Alice turning lights off behind them as they went, Jay holding tight to Henry’s hand with the one not creating a steady stream of pop-and-crunch noises.
Henry settled Jay in the car, letting him keep the increasingly crumpled plastic.
Emma exited the club’s back door a moment later and set the alarm. Scanning her surroundings, she paused and nodded to Henry and Alice before going to her car.
She didn’t approach, didn’t intrude, and Alice wasn’t certain whether that made her feel better or worse. She almost wanted the woman to give her a reason for her dislike. Some imperfection. Something Emma wasn’t the number one, all time best at.
They drove home with the light strains of classical music and the occasional, fading crunch of plastic for accompaniment. Weary. That’s how she felt, and Jay no doubt felt the same a hundredfold, and Henry, too, after navigating such a rocky shore.
They readied themselves for bed with none of the innuendo and teasing the activity normally engendered, only an abundance of small gestures. Touching of hands, steadying comforts declaring I’m here and demanding nothing in return.
When they slipped under the covers, she and Henry cradled Jay between them like new parents, lying on their sides, hands resting together on his chest, feeling his every breath in the darkness.
“Henry?”
“Yes, my boy?”
“Tonight was—” Jay gulped in a raw breath. “Thank you for making it less scary. And Alice, too. When I, in my nightmares it’s always, I’m always alone. And it’s worse. I made it worse in my head. But you made it better.”
“The hard work was yours, Jay. You must take credit for it, hmm? For being the brave boy I know you are. That strength, that willingness to bare your fears and confront them, is yours to claim.” He laid a gentle kiss on Jay’s brow. “You make me so very proud to call you mine, Jay.”
“Make you proud,” Jay repeated, and the wiggle in his body communicated his joy better than words ever could. Nothing in the world—not a bike ride, not chocolate, not orgasms—made him happier than pleasing Henry. He yawned, lifting their hands.
Henry hummed a slow melody. Jay’s eyelids fluttered.
She lay silent, studying his smooth face, feeling the lingering tension drop from his frame as he let go. The sandman owed him sweet dreams.
She ought to roll over and find sleep herself, she supposed, when she’d watched Jay for longer minutes than she could count. But Henry shifted his hand, covering hers. He wouldn’t be sleeping for a while yet, either.
“Thank you for tonight, Alice,” he whispered. “He follows your example, you know. Mine is too distant for him at times, I think. Unattainable, as he sees it.”
His soft sigh pained her. Henry prided himself on providing for them. His ache must run deep when the gulf between dominant and submissive prevented him from giving Jay what he believed he needed.
“He sees in you the balance he needs to find in himself. Your willingness to continually confront new things gave him the strength to pierce the veneer, the well-adjusted gloss hiding the pain he couldn’t address. I’m more hopeful for his sense of self now than I’ve been in all the time I’ve known him. Before I loved him, even.”
She sucked in a breath. Henry rarely shared such thoughts with her. And that…that was what made her hackles rise around Emma. Henry’s heart and body belonged to her and Jay, but she worried about his mind. His soul, if she wanted to be poetic.
It wasn’t something she would’ve fought for with previous lovers, wasn’t something she’d cared about or known existed. Fucking was fucking, and talking was optional and likely to lead to troublesome attachments. She’d dumped guys for less emotional intimacy than this.
“This is, these are the sorts of things you talk about with Emma.” With Henry, she wanted everything. Wanted to be everything.
“Hopes and fears.” His intimate tone carried no surprise. Her chess master would’ve guessed seeing Emma tonight would make her wonder about her own role in his life. “For Jay. For you. Never specifics. He needs confident leadership from me. You, at the outset, needed a sense of freedom and control. The ability to walk away, as you’d done before.”
“While you made it so appealing that I wouldn’t want to.” She hadn’t considered how difficult that would have been for him, the balance he’d struck as she’d struggled with her feelings, wavering between pushing them away and wanting them closer.
“I’m not much of a fisherman, Alice.” He cupped her cheek, his hand warm, his grin wry. “And you would have fought the line doubly hard if you’d seen the hook for what it was. I did try to tell you.”
He had? “When?”
“The morning of our anniversary dinner. I blatantly offered to declare my love.”
“You—but that was a joke.” He’d brought her breakfast and teased her about…getting down on one knee.
“Only to you, sweet girl. You weren’t ready to hear it.” He slipped his hand behind her head and cuddled her close as he could with Jay asleep between them, his grip firm, as if he feared she might yet leave him. “For me, it was very real.”
“And I told you love wasn’t my style.” God, she was an idiot.
“Mmm. Your response solidified my belief that something more…structured. Solidly built? With a sound contractual foundation, perhaps? Might prove a more effective lure than an outright declaration of my intentions.” He let go, smoothing her hair and sliding his hand down her arm to interlace their fingers. “But I always meant to lead you here.”
Here. Terrifying at first, but growing more comfortable with every day that passed. More secure. More confident. More right for her. Because she was…maturing? Standing in one place long enough to pour concrete footers reinforced with rebar. Certain she could give Henry the submission he wanted and keep the flexibility, the independence, to be an equal partner. Far from competing, their needs dovetailed. Even closer, now, when he shared his thoughts with her.
“You said Jay needs confident leadership. And when you’ve felt…less than confident…maybe you’ve gone to Emma for advice.” The idea might sting less as time went on, as Henry came to see he could lean on her, that she was capable of seeing weakness from him without it diminishing his strength in her eyes. “But I’m not Jay. Sometimes I need to see your vulnerability and help you with it the way you’ve helped me find and accept mine.”
“Maybe so, my sweet Alice.” He raised her hand, turned the palm up and laid a gentle kiss within. “Sweet, and strong, and smart. Our balance is perfected with you here.” He kissed her again and returned their linked hands to Jay’s chest. “But for now I want you to obey me and follow Jay’s example. Sleep. If you aren’t well-rested in the morning, you’ll be using a sick day from work. No arguments.”
She snorted, quietly, as she twisted and wiggled to make herself more comfortable. No arguments, right. If she had pressing work to do and Henry felt she needed to stay home, she’d use her safeword, explain the situation, and carry on as she needed to. His power was her gift, and sometimes the rest of the world would interfere. But when it didn’t…
“No argument,” she agreed, eyes closing. “Love you.”
“And I you, my dear girl.” He sighed, soft and low. “You and Jay saturate my soul with indescribable beauty.”
His declaration echoed in her mind until sleep came.