Chapter Twenty-Seven
“That’s fuckin’ amazing,” Doug grumbled from behind Jake. He moved into the cramped storage space and made his way around the newly refinished St. Andrew’s Cross Jake had been working on non-stop for the last two days. Doug gave the freestanding cross a strong shake; the object barely budged.
Jake clamped his arms over his chest and waited for Doug to finish his inspection. Damn. He hadn’t needed this level of approval and reassurance since he’d wandered into this club over twenty years ago. But right then, Doug’s praise was like a flimsy lifeline he desperately needed to cling to.
Doug’s fingers stroked over the smooth finish then gave a sharp tug on the cuffs dangling from the chains at the top. He glanced at Jake, a slow smile curving his lips. “Your skills have only improved with time. I like the addition of the arm rests.” He pointed to the small padded ledges that would support the occupant’s arms, enabling the person to stay on the cross longer. “The detailing makes it stand out as a work of art. Every sub who walks through our door will want to be strapped into this.”
“Thanks,” Jake mumbled, wiping his hands on his now filthy jeans. The material, like his hands, was stained with grease, wood varnish and paint. He’d taken extra care with the intricate design he’d painted on the cross, differentiating it from just another piece of BDSM equipment. The polish he’d applied gleamed under the dull lights and would absolutely shimmer under the bright lights of a stage.
“Did it work?” Doug asked.
“Did what work?”
“Your forty-eight hour marathon of labor. Did it get rid of the shit eating at you?”
Jake exhaled and stared at the ground. Did it? Not even close. “Shit’s still there,” he admitted.
“Running never did solve things.”
“Been talking to Deklan?” Jake shot the other man a wry smile. “He said the same thing.”
“Always did think that kid was smart.” Doug chuckled. He moved from behind the cross, pushed some rags off a chair and took a seat with a low groan. “Damn, these bones are getting older than I want them to be.” He rubbed a hand over his knee before he looked at Jake. “I’ll listen to whatever you want to say.”
Jake found another chair and spun it around to straddle it, resting his arms on the back. The ache in his chest had eased over the last few days. Not the part missing Cali, but the part that was devastated and humiliated at her rejection. Distance had given him perspective. During the long hours of manual labor, he had plenty of time to replay the incident over and over until he’d come to some understanding.
“I found the one,” Jake admitted, lifting his gaze to meet Doug’s. “And she rejected me. Publicly. Threw my collar at me in front of the entire club.”
Doug winced. “Ouch. Fuck. What happened?”
“I collared her. Big show, on stage.” He sighed, clamped his hands in his hair and thought back to that moment. How perfect it’d felt, slipping the chain around her neck. “I wanted the declaration to be grand. To show how important it was. I was so proud of her. I wanted to show everyone in the club just how exceptional she was. How lucky I was to have her. It was perfect. Right up to the point where she saw her ex-husband in the audience and freaked out in the middle of the Scene.”
Doug’s brows shot up. “Her ex-husband? I take it he wasn’t supposed to be there.”
“No,” Jake scoffed, anger tinting the word. He shook his head. “He wasn’t supposed to be there. Dumb-ass me didn’t think about it being First Friday. Evidently, her ex decided to join our club as well. Somehow, the detail of his link to Cali was missed. But it doesn’t matter, because she blames me for it. Thinks I arranged for him to be there.”
“What kind of fucked-up thinking is that?”
“A logical one from her perspective,” he admitted. “Complicated back-story, but I get where she’s coming from. Why she’d think that.” After the soul-purging Scene he’d put her through the time before, it was a very logical jump for her to make.
“Do you? Really?” Doug looked at him skeptically. “Because if you do, then what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Running. Obvious.” But running from what? Himself? Her? Rejection?
Doug puffed out a breath and stood. He dropped his meaty hand onto Jake’s shoulder, giving it a short squeeze before he walked to the door. “I get to keep that, right?” He pointed to the Jack’s refurbished cross.
Jake chuckled, letting his hands fall to his thighs. “Yeah. The bike trailer’s full. Consider it due payment for the many hours of therapy services.”
“Well, shit, boy. Didn’t know you needed therapy.” Doug opened the door and glanced back. “You should really think about selling your equipment. There’s a lot of people who’d pay good money for quality BDSM shit like yours.”
Jake lifted his chin in acknowledgement and went to mentally dismiss the statement. But then, maybe the other man’s idea was worth thinking about. Seth had said something before about Jake doing that as another revenue stream for the club. He’d shrugged it off then. After all, this was just a hobby. Something he’d grown into, not trained for.
He jerked up, the need to see the cross in use suddenly pressing and demanding. Calling down the hall, he got another employee to help him carry the cross out to the floor. Doug saw them coming and quickly got some tables rearranged, making space for the new piece of equipment near the center of the open room.
The response was almost immediate, the club members admiring the stunning St. Andrew’s Cross with ripples of appreciation. Jake pulled a rag from his back pocket and polished away the fingerprints left from moving the large structure. He stepped back and looked the piece over with a critical eye. It was just as he’d envisioned it. His cock hardened as he imagined Cali strapped to it, open and waiting. Her eyes begging him for more.
“Will you, sir?”
Startled out of his thoughts, Jake looked down at the submissive kneeling at his feet. Where’d she come from? She was kneeling in the perfect obedient pose as she waited for his reply. What did she want?
“Please, sir,” she said. “Will you use it on me? Will you let me be the first?” The sub’s voice and body shook with repressed desire.
The dominant in him surged to the forefront. The woman had blond hair—straight and long, past her shoulders—but he could make due. “Stand,” he ordered.
She complied immediately, keeping her eyes down. She was shorter, her hips fuller than Cali’s. But it didn’t matter. Did it? He was a Dom, for fuck’s sake. This was what he did, had done since he was legal to do so.
“Safe word?” he asked, tossing the rag still clenched in his fist to the side.
“Popsicle.”
Jake logged the answer, his brain latching on to the unusual stop word with practiced ease. Every sub was different, and keeping track of the words was part of his job.
Jake circled around the sub, taking stock of what he had to play with. “Tools of choice?”
She inhaled. “Cane, please.”
Jake’s gut tightened. A pain whore. Canes were hard-core and stung like a bitch. She was a very trusting sub to ask for that when she didn’t know him. He called her on it. “Trusting, aren’t you?”
“I trust Doug, sir,” the sub said. “You’re a friend of his, so I trust you by extension. And if you made a cross that looks like that—” she paused, her gaze caressing the cross, “—then I trust you know what you’re doing.”
He met Doug’s eyes over the crowd that had gathered. The man nodded, his mouth set in a thin line. So she could take what she was asking for. Jake nodded to the Dungeon Master on the floor and the man moved forward to assist in strapping the sub to the cross.
“Strip her. I want her back,” he ordered. He didn’t want to see her face. Jake felt the Dom persona dropping over him as he stepped up and removed her flimsy blouse. Her breasts were large, but they didn’t interest him.
The Dungeon Master took care of her bottoms. Then Jake grabbed a wrist and strapped it into a cuff. A wrist that was bigger than the one he wanted. The one he was used to.
Shit
. He couldn’t do that. He owed it to this woman to focus on her. That was his job. She trusted him and he couldn’t fail her. Too.
Pain stabbed at him, twisting with the truth of his thoughts. He’d failed Cali when she’d trusted him. Failed his parents when they’d trusted him. Failed Seth and Deklan. And now, now, he wouldn’t fail again. Damn it. He’d never failed as a Dom.
Not ’til Cali.
Cursing himself, Jake stalked to the equipment wall and ran his fingers over the line of canes in the cabinet. Each one varied in length, stiffness and texture, which would define the level of pain inflicted with each strike. He selected one on the lower-level of pain infliction, since he didn’t know the sub.
The crowd parted as he returned to the woman. She was completely strapped to the cross now, her back heaving with deep gust of breaths as she inhaled. Anticipation rippled like a viable energy over the bystanders. Everyone waiting in expectation for the Scene to start.
Jake twirled the cane in his hands, the familiarity of the tool rubbing against his palm. But instead of the usual rise of adrenalin that came with a Scene, he was suddenly filled with repulsion. Not at the act, but himself. What was he doing?
Growling, Jake forced himself to stand behind the sub. She had followed every rule of a perfect submissive. She was a woman who had been in the lifestyle for a while. Who knew what she wanted. Before, this would have excited Jake. Before, he anticipated Scenes such as this, where both parties went into it knowing what they wanted and how to get it. Before, he would have been hard just looking at the strapped and bound woman.
Before Cali.
He raised his arm, the cane held high in preparation to strike. Silence descended upon the club as everyone waited for that first hit, the high hiss of the cane as it moved through the air until it stopped with a crack against skin. Jake’s muscles tensed, his arm shaking with the strain of denial.
All he had to do was follow through. Finish the motion. Be the Dom he was supposed to be. Had always been.
But he wasn’t that man. Not anymore.
Not since Cali.
Guilt swam through him in a rippling wave of accusation. He dropped the cane, the stiff reed clattering to the floor in a soft tapping of wood on wood that seemed far louder than it should. Surprise echoed through the room, but Jake didn’t care. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go through with the Scene.
Cali was the only sub he wanted.
To finish this Scene would be equal to cheating on her. Not a true statement for all Doms, but for him—with Cali—that was exactly how he felt.
What the fuck was he doing?
Jake pushed through the sea of people. He needed air. Needed out of there. He stormed down the hall, thrusting open the back door and stepping into the freezing air of the night. His sweat-covered skin instantly chilled. He hunched over, hands clamping his knees as he tried to find his breath.
Shit. Shit.
Shit
. He couldn’t even be a Dom without her? Couldn’t do what he’d always done?
“You should wait ’til morning to drive back.”
Doug. Of course he’d followed. “How do you know I’m going back?”
“How dumb do you think I am, boy?” Doug stepped outside, letting the door slam behind him. “I’ve never seen you drop a Scene. You’ve spent your entire adult life as a Dom submerged in this world, running from your demons. This is the first time I’ve seen them catch you.”
Jake rounded on him, ready to fight. Ready to deny, just like he’d done with Seth. Like he always did. Anger fueled him, the only emotion he’d let in. But Doug didn’t move. The big man widened his stance, bracing for whatever Jake would do, his face grim and stern.
“What do you know?” Jake challenged, his fist clenched and ready to strike.
“I know you’ve been running from commitment since the day your parents died.”
Jake winced. Why did everyone keep talking about his parents?
“I know you blame yourself for their death and have done everything in your power to control every aspect of your life since that day.”
Jake backed away, suddenly afraid to hear the rest. Unwilling to go back. “You don’t know anything.”
Doug stepped forward, not letting Jake retreat. To run, as he’d always done. “Who dragged you in off the street? Who gave you a chance when everyone else had forgotten you? Who saw the man beneath the scared, defensive boy? Don’t tell me I don’t know, because we both know that’s a lie.”
The older man was in Jake’s face now, his breath hot and sharp against the chill surrounding them. Jake started to shake. He wanted to run, but his feet wouldn’t move.
“You didn’t cause your parents’ death.” Doug’s voice softened, but the hard core of belief was still there. “There are things in life that just happen. Things you have no control over. Things you can’t stop or change. You were ten when they died. There was nothing you could’ve done. It’s past time you accepted that.”
Jake twisted away, unable to hear any more. He dug his palms into his eyes, willing back the unaccustomed moisture that was suddenly there. It was as if Doug’s words had opened the steel door he’d locked all those old feeling behind. The ones he’d refused to acknowledge since he was turned over to the care of the state and began his penance in the foster care system.
“They trusted me,” he said. “They trusted me when I told them I was going to a friend’s. I broke that trust and they were killed coming to spring me from the police station. It was my fault.”
He’d been in fifth grade, having a sleepover at his best friend Cameron’s house. It was Cam’s older brother who’d urged them to come along. They’d felt so cool hanging with the older boys, to be included in their numbers. But it was Cam and Jake who’d gotten caught vandalizing the school, who hadn’t run fast enough.
“It was the drunk driver who killed them, not you,” Doug said.
“And they wouldn’t have been on the road if it wasn’t for me.”
The guilt burst forth in a large dose of anguish. There’d been no family members to take him in after his parents died and they’d left no will or stipulations on his care. So Jake ended up a ward of the state. A position that had been a daily reinforcement of what happened when you failed the ones you loved.