Unrestrained (34 page)

Yes, Dale had seen what she was, and when he looked at her, she felt she’d embraced her true self. For heaven’s sake, she’d admitted she loved him. But she hadn’t said it to him, had she? And here she was, her confidence in who and what she was shattered in a matter of minutes. If that sense of herself was that fragile, had she just been kidding herself all along, on all of it? Had she been right in the beginning, that she should have kept her request to Dale limited to physical sessions?

No. There was no way he would have ever accepted that. He’d said so at the beginning. So she’d stepped into his world, telling herself it would be a nice fantasy. Then he’d swept her away and it became so much more than that.
He’d
become so much more than that. But she couldn’t back away from this and keep him. It was too much a part of what he was. She could never ask him to give it up.

She tried to ignore the fact that giving up being his submissive, for her own self, felt like a raw wound in her chest. That didn’t matter. Maybe it was time to end all of it, go back to the identity she knew best. Athena Summers, businesswoman, philanthropist, a person who liked to read and garden on her days off. She’d handled losing a husband she’d loved for over two decades. She could handle . . . whatever else she had to give up.

As she headed for her car, she felt like a tired and downtrodden middle-aged woman, wanting a cup of tea and to go to bed early.

She was pulling in her driveway when the cell phone rang. She saw it was him, but she didn’t answer. She listened to his message, though, her heart aching at the sound of his warm voice and children in the background. “Hey, girl. Hope you had a good day. I’ll be coming back tomorrow. Want to do dinner and a movie? I’d suggest my place, but my crappy DVD player is a poor substitute for your home theater. I told Gayle’s boys about it and they said if they had their own movie theater, they’d camp out in there every night, make it their bedroom. Sounds pretty good, right? Anyhow, gotta go. I’ll see you soon. I’m thinking about you.”

She sent him a text about thirty minutes later.

Will be busy next couple days, but maybe we can get together this weekend. I’ll call you later. Gone to bed early. Headache. Glad you’re having a good time.

Then she turned off her phone.

Hey, girl. Hey, girl . . .
When she crawled into bed, taking two over-the-counter sleep aids, she dreamed of the two of them saying it. Dale’s sensual tease, Sheila’s scornful mockery. The sleep aids didn’t work. She kept waking up, tossing and turning, and finally moved to her reading nook.

They’d put Roy’s hospital bed in the solarium during his final days. He’d wanted to see the gardens, feel the sunlight. Since she didn’t want to sleep in their bed without him, she’d slept here, because it was close by and she could hear him call out. After his death, she’d spent a lot of nights in this chair for the same reasons. She didn’t want to be in their bed alone. From here, she could see the little garden she’d made around his marker. The bronze of the golf statue gleamed in the moonlight. Nearby was the corner she and Dale had redesigned. She averted her eyes from it.

This room was her place, her sanctuary. Her place to hide from the world, to be just Athena, the girl inside the woman, the one who had thought about being a ballerina, a famous writer, an equestrian rider, a tennis player. As that girl grew into a woman, those dreams had been released like balloons in a park, and she’d embraced happiness in ways not anticipated. She’d found a wonderful man who’d loved her.

Reality and romantic dreams didn’t necessary mesh, but that was okay, because the day-to-day exercise of loving someone could exceed both. But what could she be with Dale? She loved being his sub intensely. Loved him, period. However, the Master and sub was an undeniably important, vital part of their relationship. Not because it was too weak to stand without it, but because it was who they were, that definition an integral part of each of their personalities. They’d woven that reality together, and there was no way to retreat from that. Not together. Dale would never be less than a Master, a pure sexual Dominant who would need that part of himself accepted in a permanent, committed relationship. Whereas she knew how to function as a submissive without actively being one, didn’t she? She knew how to fake anything.

She swallowed the jagged ache in her throat and wrapped her arms around herself. She hated that a few cruel words had destroyed her confidence so easily, but what did it say, that they had? She was glad she’d managed to keep her composure, leave the club with dignity, but it didn’t eradicate the sense of shame. She wanted Dale here, yet she didn’t as well. She didn’t want anything right now. Except for the night to last forever, so she didn’t have to face what came tomorrow.

On her most painful days of grieving, she’d understood why some widows said they wished they’d died with their spouses. It had been a while since she’d grappled with that feeling, but it was there, tangled with the mess of other emotions she couldn’t overcome any longer. She put her head down and tried to make it all go away. She prayed for the oblivion of sleep.

—

O
n the third day, she still hadn’t spoken to Dale. She’d done what was needed for work, and when she wasn’t there, she worked in the garden or read. She felt Lynn’s gaze on her as she moved through the house, Hector watching her as she weeded and pruned. She knew she was acting the way she had when she first started feeling the reality of Roy’s death. Everything was on autopilot.

On the second day, she’d lost the energy to try and analyze why one incident in the club had unlocked all of this inside her. On top of that, those feelings had wrapped themselves up like barbed wire around her feelings with Dale, so that everything hurt so badly. All she could do to mitigate the pain was shut down. She couldn’t examine a wound that raw, and though she knew she was in trouble, she couldn’t make herself care. Not as long as she kept taking care of everything expected of her, and she was.

On day three, Lynn brought the house phone out to the garden. “It’s Mr. Rousseau,” she said clearly. Since the housekeeper wasn’t covering the mouthpiece, Athena knew it was pointless to offer the silent gestures to indicate she wasn’t available, but she tried anyway. In response, the housekeeper simply handed her the phone. “He said he knows you’re here and”—she cleared her throat—“he says you damn well will talk to him. Apologies, ma’am.” Then she fled.

Well, she shouldn’t be surprised that Dale could intimidate someone even over the phone. She put the receiver up to her ear. “That was direct enough,” she said coldly.

“It was intended to be. What’s going on, Athena?”

“Nothing. I just . . .” Hearing his voice, angry and rough, made her heart start to throb. If she opened up the locked box of her feelings, she was pretty sure it would explode. “I need some time, Dale. As I said in my message, I’ll call you when I’m ready. Please respect that.” She cut the connection, set the phone aside.

She went back to her weeding. When the first drop fell on her forearm, she thought it was starting to rain. Glancing up, she noticed a sunny sky, and felt the tears running down her face. Damn it. She bent to her task again, ignoring them, even as they continued to fall into the soil she was disturbing. Hopefully it wouldn’t be enough salt water to harm the plants.

Stop crying, stop crying,
stop
crying.

She didn’t even notice when Lynn retrieved the phone, until she became aware she was just standing there, watching Athena with worried eyes.

“Ma’am . . . can I bring you a sandwich? It’s well past lunch.”

Athena shook her head, keeping her face averted toward her task. “No. I’m fine, thank you. I’ll fix myself something later. Why don’t you and the other staff take the rest of the day off?”

“Well, I was going to do the curtains . . .”

“I’m sure they can wait.” Athena stared down at the weeds. “In fact, tell everyone they have the week off with pay. Don’t come back until Monday.”

“Mrs. Summers—”

“Lynn.”
She’d never snapped at her housekeeper. She curled her fingers inside her gloves, took a deep breath, and pasted a smile on her face, softening the admonition with a chuckle that came out sounding real and warm. A miracle. When she turned her face toward the housekeeper, she’d done a quick swipe, taking away the evidence of the tears. “I mean it. You all work too hard. Take the week. I’ll be fine. Please.”

If there was a touch of desperation in her voice on that last note, there was nothing she could do to help that. Lynn studied her face, gave her a nod. “I’ll be just a phone call away if you need anything, though.”

“Okay. I appreciate that.”

She turned back to ripping up plants. A few moments later, she was alone. Sometimes a woman just needed solitude to figure out what and who she was. Not today, though. She’d think about weeds instead, pulling out what didn’t belong and restoring order to her flower beds.

S
he woke in her reading chair, her senses tuned to a sharp point. A glance at the wall clock told her it was past midnight. Someone was in the house.

The security alarm wasn’t going off, but she couldn’t remember if she’d set it. She slid out of the chair, moving silently toward the main library. Yes, she could have slipped out the back into the gardens, but she was isolated out here, and had no car keys to manage an escape in a vehicle. Plus, this was her home and Roy’s. She wasn’t going to permit it to be violated by a burglar. There was a phone in the library, but more importantly, there was a gun.

She had both in hand, was backed up in the corner, listening, when the footsteps drew closer. Then she recognized the tread. She cut off the phone before she pressed the final 911 digit.

His silhouette appeared in the doorway of the library, then he hit the light switch, which turned on a lamp on the desk. Beyond the illumination it provided there, it mostly threw shadows around the rest of the room. His gaze went right to the corner where she was standing, making it clear he’d tracked her here. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised he found her so quickly, despite the time of night. He’d likely followed enemies through much more difficult terrain.

His cool blue-green eyes slid to the weapon, back to her pale face.

“Going to use that on me?”

“I might have. If I hadn’t recognized your gait.”

“One thing having a fake leg is good for.” He studied her. She was the one who finally broke the silence.

“I don’t want you here. I want you to go.” But she stood there, staring at him, wishing and longing. Wanting everything to be the way it was. Wanting to break out of whatever this was. He was right there, but a giant chasm was open between them. She’d messed up, on every level. Handled all of it wrong, and she didn’t know how to make it better. She was so tired of trying to make it better.

He nodded. Then he extended his hand. “Come here, girl. Come to your Master.”

She dropped both phone and gun on the desk, and ran to him.

He caught her, holding her close as she practically burrowed into him, hoping that his arms would keep her from shattering. Merely seeing him, and all those cruel bands clamped around her insides loosened, letting her draw a deep breath. She couldn’t speak, just clung to him as he stroked her hair. She hadn’t brushed it today, and she hadn’t changed out of her pajamas, hadn’t donned makeup. It was not her best look, which probably made the dim light a good thing.

She was shaking, and was bemused to find herself dizzy, such that when he eased her grip on his neck, pushed her far enough away from him to look at her, she was wobbling on her feet. He registered it, and other things, too. “Athena, when was the last time you ate anything? Drank?”

“I don’t drink,” she said. “Just wine occasionally.”

“Water. Fluids.”

“Oh. I . . .” She couldn’t remember. Lynn had offered to make her a sandwich, and she’d grazed in the kitchen since then, here and there. Had that been two days ago?

“I need to go brush my hair,” she said. “I look a sight.”

“You need to come with me,” he responded. Then he bent and lifted her in his arms.

“I can walk.”

“I’m not sure you can. Adrenaline got you to the library, and that’s why you’re shaky now.” He strode through the house, headed for the kitchen. Once there he deposited her in a chair and poured her a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge, put it in front of her. “Start sipping on that while I put you together a meal.”

She didn’t want him waiting on her. “I can do it. You shouldn’t—”

“Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, Athena.” He was angry with her. He let her see it, such that she fell silent, though she nursed a little resentment of her own.

“You didn’t ring the bell.”

“No, I didn’t. You gave me the entry code. You weren’t talking to me.” He dropped an armload of sandwich fixings on the counter, then nudged the water at her. “If you don’t start drinking that, I’m putting you in the truck and taking you to the emergency room. Do it.”

She gave him a sullen look but picked it up, took a sip or two. He kept glancing at her, the force of that look prompting her to drink more. In between swallows, she sat silently, holding the glass with both hands. She’d liked having his arms around her. She wanted to go up to the bedroom and sleep with him curled around her like that. Forever.

He set aside the bread knife, began to put deli slices on the thick wheat slab. “I figured it out,” he said. “Not from you, obviously. I thought about the things that could make you shut down like this, and the way you like to make things easier for everyone. You went to the club, tried to give them an early heads-up, a trial run to see how they took it. And they slapped you down for it. Hard.”

His face was set, cold. She didn’t think she could take his scorn, but then she remembered how he’d held her. He was making her a sandwich now. “How did you . . .”

“After Jimmy figured out who your new Master was—and that I was willing to reach across the bar and squeeze the truth out through his testicles—he gave me enough info to put two and two together. I filed the complaint against Mistress Sheila you should have.”

“She was just telling the truth.”

He stopped what he was doing, and now his eyes went from ice cold to laser fury. “Whose truth, Athena? Is the way she sees you how you think of yourself? Have you let everyone else be your mirror for so long you don’t know your own image? Who you really are?”

“No. I was . . . who I am. With you.”

He came around the counter, turned her to face him. “You’re talking in past tense, Athena. And that’s not going to happen. What were you doing, when you went to the club? The thing I’ve tried to hammer in your head since day one of this relationship, goddamn it?”

His words hit her like rocks. As she flinched, he muttered an oath, cupped her face and held her briefly to his chest before pushing her back, gripping her shoulders like he might shake her until her teeth rattled. Instead, he released her to push the sandwich and water at her. “Eat and hydrate. I’m not going to fight with you when a good breeze could blow you down.”

Since her hands were clumsy and slow, he picked up the sandwich and made her take a bite from it that way. Then he lifted the glass to her lips, getting her to wash it down her dry throat with a swallow of water. He kept that routine going until her hands steadied. During it, he took a seat on the stool in front of her, his right foot planted like a barricade, as if he intended to thwart an escape attempt.

The food and water did help. Except for functional comments, he remained silent until she began to feel less wobbly. She didn’t know why he was angry with
her
. She’d gone there to announce who and what she was, so it wouldn’t be such a shock the first time she and Dale came. She was trying to make it easier for them both. She’d wanted to handle it so he . . .

She closed her eyes. Why was that one thing so hard for her, such a stumbling block?

He was grumbling about it, even as he took care of her. “I’m starting to think I need to put you over my knee and beat your ass every morning to remind you that you don’t have to handle things alone. You don’t have to pave the way to make things easier for everyone else. Especially me.” He stabbed the counter with his finger to make the point. “We should have done this together. We will do it together.”

Her gaze snapped up at that, and she shook her head. “No. I don’t want to go back there.”

“Tough. Do you belong to me, girl?” He touched the necklace on her throat. She hadn’t taken it off once, not even after the club. “Do you want to give this back?”

She immediately closed her hand on the choker, as if she thought he might take it away then and there. The hard look on his face eased somewhat. “Good answer. We’re going to the club. Soon, and the right way. But now we deal with this.” He ran his fingers through her limp hair. She tried to pull away, not wanting him to do that when it was dirty, but he made a quelling noise that stilled her. “What happened, Athena? Why’d you withdraw this way?”

Over the past several days, it had drifted through her mind, a thought she’d at first refused to pin down and examine any more closely, but with nothing but time, the truth had come into focus. She wasn’t proud of herself, but she couldn’t hide from it, either, not under the weight of those blue-green eyes that demanded brutal honesty from her. “The minute I let go, that I chose to be what I want instead of who people expect me to be . . . that happened. And it felt like, by letting go of those reins, that I’d let go of a rope.”

“Hmm. You fell down into an abyss, didn’t you?”

It was such an accurate description of the black hole feeling of the past few days it startled her, made her lift her gaze to his face again. He pushed the chips he’d found for her closer to encourage her to keep eating, and took one himself. “Did you do grief counseling, after Roy died?”

She shook her head. “It always seemed kind of silly to me.”

“Yeah, me, too. Unfortunately, a couple times in my career it was mandatory. Though I only did the bare minimum required, I did learn something that helped me as well as men under my command. When it comes to losing a person close to you, the shrink warned me that sometimes people experience a second wave. You get through the first couple years, life is moving on, you’re moving on, and then suddenly something happens. It can be something small or large, but it’s like suddenly you’ve been stabbed and you’re bleeding out. Instead of grieving the person you lost, you’re grieving for someone else. Yourself, because who you were when that person was alive died, too. That can be an even tougher mourning process, because it ties up with the first, like a double whammy.”

He fed her another chip, stroked a lock of her hair behind her ear and held it there, his fingers caressing her jaw.

“Once I was in that abyss . . . I didn’t have to be anything.” She whispered the words, feeling the sting of shame again. “It was wrong, but . . . I didn’t want to leave.”

A tear gathered in the corner of her eye but he absorbed it with the pad of his thumb, pressed gently there. “The first time you and I talked about where you wanted to go with this,” he said quietly, “we talked about your fear of it becoming something with expectations, a role you were required to play. I think you do want to break out of that, but because it’s what you’ve known for so long, it’s a secure place for you as well. That’s why you keep ending up in there, and the bitch of it is, it seems to creep up on you and take you down when things are going the right way.”

His fingers tightened on her face, his countenance taking on that stern cast that always riveted her attention. It tightened up everything, even in a fragile moment like this where the reaction felt painful. “If you’re in that cell, you’re not living, Athena. Yeah, you’ve always been what people expected, and you did it well. That took courage, patience, a generous heart. But you know what else takes courage? Being who you are. Accepting the difference between bad behavior that you need to change, and people needing to mind their own damn business. When people strike out at you for being who you are, most times it’s because of something about themselves, not about you. They liked having you meeting all their expectations. It keeps their world comfortable, doesn’t it?”

“I’m not angry with anyone. I don’t blame them for that.”

“I’m not saying you have to. You’re a submissive, Athena, the kind that likes to make other people comfortable and happy. But there’s a line.” His gaze sharpened on her. “When you decided to be who you really are with me, that meant you could no longer be what some other people want you to be. Unfortunately, Sheila has a narrow paradigm and some issues, and she struck out at you when you hit that rocky territory. That’s her problem, not yours. Understand?”

She nodded. She wanted to do more than hear the words. She wanted to feel them, believe them. It was easier with Dale here, but the past three days had bogged her down in a swamp of reactions not easily overcome, even by his formidable presence. She remembered how easily it had come apart without his presence. It was hard to believe in a reality that fragile.

Dale touched her chin, drawing her attention again. “This relationship works for you and me because you’re being who you want to be, and I
always
want you to be that. That’s why I’m so tough on you when you start handling things. I love everything I know about you thus far, but you know what? There are going to be things I don’t like. Beyond your fondness for
Stealth
. Maybe you have a hidden passion for reality TV or you’ll want the toilet roll turned a different way from how I want it.”

She almost managed a small smile at that, but his expression stayed serious. “And that’s going to be okay. But what will
never
be okay, what I’ll
never
accept, is you denying your heart just to please me. Because all I want is to love you and care for you. No, don’t you start crying again.”

Pulling her off the stool, he stood her between his knees and held her, cupping her skull with one hand and keeping his other arm tight around her. “The rest is just icing or chaff, girl, and we work through it. I’m sure you don’t like everything about me, but you’re still with me, right?”

She sniffled, drawing back enough to give him a teary smile. “You are kind of overbearing sometimes.”

His lips curved in response. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Sorry. Retired Master Chief is listed as ‘overbearing SOB’ in the dictionary.”

She reached out with trembling fingers, put them on his somber face. “I’m so sorry.”

“The apology you need to make is to yourself, girl. You’re a kickass, smart woman. I’ve seen you work a room of over five hundred people, understand who and what each one of them is with just a brief conversation. So why’d you let a couple catty women and one emotionally constipated bartender rip you to shreds like this?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m really not sure. Maybe I thought . . . I went to them as myself, no shields, and so I wasn’t ready for what that felt like, being hit without any protection in place.”