Intrigued By Danger (The Danger Family #3)

2. Elle Thomas

2

ELLE THOMAS

My eyes popped open at the sound of glass shattering. I listened for a moment before another glass shattered, prompting me to roll out of the bed into a plank on the floor and pull my shotgun from under the bed. As soon as I grabbed it, I jumped up and cocked it. My double-barreled stayed loaded, so I didn’t have to check that. My door busted open, and my dad stood there loading his shotgun.

“Della Mae, somebody out there,” he hissed.

“I heard.”

When I heard more glass shatter, we both ducked as if a bullet had come through the window.

“Come on,” he whispered and moved away from the door.

I followed behind him and staggered to his left. My dad constantly prepared me for when I might have to protect my house, so I wasn’t afraid to use my gun. When we made it to the living room, he stood on one side of the window, and I stood on the other. Peeking through the curtain, I saw a hooded figure raising a big rock over their head, slamming it into the windshield of my truck. Moving from the window, I went to the door and yanked it open.

“Della!” My dad shouted my name, but I was already out of the door.

When the hooded figure raised its head, their hood slipped off and I saw that it was Leah, my sub’s wife. She noticed me, and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. I was already running at her before she could take off. Before I could reach her, she snatched up a tire iron and pointed it at my face, as if I didn’t have a double-barreled shotgun in my hand.

“Which one do you think will have more impact?” I asked.

“Stay the fuck away from my husband!” she shouted.

“Excuse me?”

Now, I was equally confused and embarrassed because lights from the surrounding houses started to pop on. Before I got back in the house, my business would be all over Citrus Grove.

“Della Mae!” My dad called.

To spare myself some embarrassment, I maneuvered my shotgun around to hit her with the butt of it. At least then, people would have two stories to tell.

“Do it. You stupid—” she challenged.

“Della!”

The butt of the gun left my hands so fast that I didn’t register the action until she fell to the ground, holding her nose with blood pouring through her fingers.

“Tell your husband to leave me alone!” I shouted.

I was getting ready to hit her again when my dad wrapped his hand around my fist.

“Come yourself in this house,” he said, pulling me away from her.

I looked at my truck as he dragged me away and saw that she’d flattened my brand new custom black rims, shattered three of my windows, and spray-painted all over my custom chrome paint job. Thinking about how much that would cost me to get fixed pissed me off.

“Ooh, I swear…” A rush of adrenaline shot through me when I saw Leah finally pull herself up from the ground. I tried to snatch away from my dad, but he gripped my hand tighter.

“Don’t you ever try to snatch away from me,” he growled.

Once we were in the house, he released my fist, and I immediately went to my room and closed the door.

“Uughh!” I sighed as I put my gun back under the bed.

I hated myself for not following my first mind and going home instead of going to my dad’s house; he’d give me a lecture I’d heard a million times. I rested my head on the side of the bed until I heard the soft taps on the door. Although I didn’t answer, he entered anyway. He walked over to my desk and turned the lamp on. I turned my head and looked at him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Dad asked.

“I feel like… if I say no, you’ll just ask me again in the morning.”

He folded his arms across his chest.

“It was nothing, Dad.”

“Nothing?” He sat down. “I wouldn’t call that much damage to your vehicle… nothing.”

I shrugged and shook my head. The sound of my phone ringing made me roll my eyes. The digital clock on my dresser said it was after two in the morning and very few people were able to get past my do-not-disturb settings on my phone. I snatched my phone up to Benny’s name flashing across the screen.

“Dad, I gotta take this,” I told him. “Money.”

He nodded and left my room. As soon as the door clicked, I answered the phone.

“Benny, I thought you said—”

“Mistress, let me explain, please…” he spoke in a hushed tone.

“No. You said your wife knew and was okay with it.”

Thinking about how bad the rumors were going to be this time made me mad all over again. I closed my eyes tightly, trying to contain my anger.

“Mistress.”

“Shut up!”

“Yes. Yes ma’am.”

“You are a fucking disgrace, Benny. You know that?”

“Yes. Please allow me to apologize,” he begged.

“The only apology I will accept is twenty-five thousand dollars. My vehicle fixed. And a punishment so fucking severe, you won’t be able to sit down for days. All three or fucking nothing.”

“Mistress.”

“All three or we’re done,” I declared, then ended the call.

I smiled, knowing that his dick was probably about to pop out of his briefs. The smile instantly faded when I thought about how once again, my business was about to be all over Citrus Grove. Sometimes, the loads of cash I got from Benny being my sub didn’t outweigh the many weird stares I would get from some of the people around town. I thought that when I started living in my Domme truth, I’d be free, but I’d learned the truth often came in the form of married clients.

Benny was my first sub and I’d met him in a Discord group for Black Dommes under an anonymous name initially. After connecting in the group, we started having side conversations. It took him a while to reveal who he was, but when he finally did, I wasn’t surprised. One of the admins in the group told me it was full of married men who were looking to spend money, and she wasn’t lying. Benny paid me thousands of dollars to humiliate and degrade him, and I enjoyed it. It gave me such a rush to turn his brown ass into a dark shade of purple.

Just like he was my first sub, I was his first Domme. He’d been too afraid to meet up with someone because it wasn’t easy trusting people, especially in this world. We’d talked for months before we decided to meet up, and it was a learning experience for us both. That was three years ago. Since then, we met up three to four times a month, sometimes more or less, depending on our schedules. Out of all my subs, my relationship with Benny was the most solid, not only because we trusted each other, but because his wife was okay with his kinks… or so I thought.

Benny had told me from the beginning that his wife knew and was okay with him funding his kinks, which was easy to believe because I’d been to his home several times, while she was there. We’d even had a conversation before, so the switch-up had me confused and worried. My first rule was to drop anybody when things started to get crazy and Leah tearing my car up was crazy.

It was after seven in the morning when I walked into the kitchen to my dad and his wife Sherry sitting at the table having breakfast. She’d just gotten off from her PRN overnight job at the nursing home.

“Good morning, Elle,” she greeted. “Have some? I bought enough for us all.”

“No, thank you, I’m fine. I’m on my way out the door for my Sunday appointments.”

“Oh, good. I need an appointment to get my hair washed later this week, if you have any openings.”

“Ms. Sherry, you know I can always make time for you.”

My dad married Ms. Sherry when I was fifteen years old. She was nice and treated me like one of her own, although she already had three kids.

“Dad, do you mind dropping me off at work?”

“I can’t. I gotta go pick some collards from the garden before it gets too hot, but you can take my truck.”

I sighed inwardly because I didn’t want to sound ungrateful, but I didn’t want to drive his truck either.

“The keys are on the counter. I’ll walk you out.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding.

I knew he wanted to lecture me, so it was best I accepted that and got it over with. He stood and headed toward the counter to grab the keys and his wooden pipe. I waved at Ms. Sherry on my way out of the kitchen. If my dad told her about the events that took place earlier, her face didn’t convey it. Although she wasn’t my real mom, I still felt a way when I disappointed her.

Following my dad out of the house, we stood on the porch while he lit his pipe. He pulled on it and blew out a thick cloud of smoke while looking across the street at our neighbors sitting on their porches. I was sure their nosy asses only came out to see if they could get better pictures of my truck. Thank God Benny came through on one of his first punishments and already had it picked up to be repaired. My new customed big body BMW was a gift to myself when I made $550,000 last year, and it remained one of the things I was most proud of. I didn’t want to mention it being gone from its spot because that would only make the lecture longer.

He pulled on his pipe again, then asked, “What’s going on, Della?”

I shrugged because I didn’t know why Leah popped up at my dad’s house, better yet how she’d gotten his address. She and Benny didn’t live in the town, and I’d been as careful as possible with telling any of my subs where I lived. Any gifts they wanted to send that wasn’t monetary went to the post office. The only reason they knew about my beauty salon was because it was very popular. Every one of my sub’s social media was blocked from mine. I needed to keep our relationships strictly dom/sub. Benny was the only sub who had the luxury of knowing a little bit more of my personal life because we were learning together.

“It’s really nothing. I didn’t do anything wrong…this time.”

When he looked at me, I was able to hold his eye contact because I wasn’t lying. Since I was young, he’d always been able to read me like a book. William, better known as Bill Thomas, became a widow and a grandfather within the same week. My deceased grandmother, Della Mae, who I was named after, died a week after I was born. The only memories I had of her were several pictures my dad took of her holding me. After the funeral, my sperm donor, Bill’s son, and my mother took off and didn’t look back. As an adult, I knew there was more to the story, but that was the story given. I never asked for another one and never would. Since then, it was us, until he finally married Ms. Sherry.

Being raised by an older man was an experience for both me and him, but he was everything a single father should be: tough yet soft. My inner self loved and respected him for it.

“If you didn’t do anything wrong then…” he paused, before rolling his head around, facing away from me. He shook his head while pulling on his pipe. I knew what that look meant. He’d figured out Benny was one of my subs.

“This is that um… stuff you do, right?”

My dad found out that I was a Domme by accident. While helping me move some things, he found a storage bin of my accessories. It was weird around him for weeks before he got the courage to ask me some questions. It was tough trying to gently explain to a man in his early seventies about kinks, Dommes, and subs without sounding like I needed to be mentally evaluated.

I nodded.

“Well, why did his wife show up here? I thought you said everything was…consensual or whatever the word is. Trust was another word, right?”

I nodded again, keeping it simple and hoping he didn’t try to dig deeper.

“So?”

“I don’t know, Dad, really. I will find out.”

“Because uh, I know I’m too old to fully understand that lifestyle, but I can’t help but wonder if somewhere, in the chain, a link is broken. If everybody knows what’s going on, and is okay with what’s going on, then why was your truck vandalized? I’m not going to even ask who came and picked it up a couple hours ago on a Sunday, in the wee hours of the morning.”

“I hear you, Dad.”

“And I know you fast talking me so you can get me to shut up. But you know I worry about you, Della.”

I wrapped my arm around him and laid my head on his shoulder. “I know, Dad. I keep telling you I’m fine and can take care of myself.”

He grabbed my arm and rested his head on top of mine. “That’s the problem dear. I know you can take care of yourself. I raised you that way.”

I pulled back and looked at him. “Then what?”

He sighed. “I just don’t want to leave here knowing that—”

I put my fingers in my ears. “Lalalalaa,” I sang, then removed my fingers. “Dad, you’re not going anywhere anytime soon, okay?”

“Yeah, well…”

“I have to get to the shop.”

“All right.”

He followed me off the porch to his newly refurbished blue 1979 Ford F-150. He opened the door for me, and I got in. After he closed me inside, I turned the truck on and let the window down.

“Be careful and I’ll see you later,” he said.

I nodded before letting the window up. I had to get away from him before I cried. Only a couple of things would make my heart skip several beats, and one of them was losing the only man I’d ever loved. I hated it when he wanted to talk about not being here anymore. As I backed out of the yard, I blinked and a fresh set of tears slipped down my face. It wasn’t a secret that my dad had been trying to marry me off since I was twenty-one, claiming he was getting too old to take care of me and wanted to approve of my man before he left this Earth. Even though I always joked about him seeing me get married in my late fifties like he did, I knew that would never happen. Every other month, he told me about a nice tourist family he met in the city with a son my age, to who he’d shown my picture. It only got worse after my best friend Greysen got married.

Whether my dad believed it or not, I wanted to get married, but the reality was that finding a good Black man who could handle me and everything about me was slim to none. I’d rather get my happiness from being a Domme with my subs than be with one man I would be miserable with and not sexually satisfied. One guy I called myself dating wanted to dominate me, but when I returned it, he didn’t like it. He stopped fucking with me because he wasn’t with that gay shit. That was when I realized I’d probably always be unfulfilled if I tried a real relationship again.

My watch vibrated against my wrist as Benny’s name popped on the screen. I barely made it back to sleep after last night. I was thinking heavily about how I wanted to handle the situation. Even though I’d given him a three-tier punishment, I was ready to call it off. An important thing I learned from other Dommes was that if your sub crossed one boundary, they’d cross another, especially men. On top of his wife tearing my car up, he lied about her knowing about us, and he had me in his house.

I reached into my bag, pulled out my phone, answered it, and put it on speaker. “What!” I growled.

There was a short pause before he responded.

“Elle. What’s wrong?”

“What are you talking about, Benny?”

He cleared his throat. “It’s Benjamin now. And you’re crying.”

“No. I’m not. You don’t need to call me again. We’re done.”

There was another short pause. “Elle, I know we do what we do, but I do care about you beyond this,” he said, completely ignoring what I said.

I swallowed hard and a fresh set of tears fell down my face. I didn’t want to sniff because he’d know I was crying for real. Instead, I ended the call and dropped my phone in the cup holder. I let the window down and took a couple of deep breaths of the warm air before I burst out laughing. I chuckled at myself because even on my best days, my dad’s talk about his mortality could easily throw my emotions off track.

As I pulled into the parking lot, Benny’s black-on-black Mercedes was the first car I noticed. It stood out among the other cars belonging to clients and stylists who also worked Sundays. Looking in the mirror, I made sure I looked good before gathering my things and stepping out the truck. Ignoring his horn tap, I walked into my salon and made sure to lock it behind me. He knew not to enter through the front door, so I headed to meet him around the back, out of sight of everyone.

“Hey, y’all!” I greeted everybody.

The three stylists and their clients returned the greeting.

“Y’all, give me about five minutes and I’ll be back to get y’all,” I said, looking at Mrs. Vivian and Winter.

They nodded their heads and I headed to my private suite. I didn’t have to do anything but get rid of Benny before I brought them back. I knew he’d be at the back door waiting for me when I made my way back there. I planned on letting him down as easily as I could.

I unlocked the door and opened it to him on his knees with stacks of money in front of him.

“On your feet, Benjamin,” I ordered.

He dropped his head, and I sensed he knew what was coming.

On the outside looking in, no one would know this huge corporate attorney loved to be talked to like he was worthless and tortured like he'd committed acts of treason against his country. That’s what I liked the most about him. To everyone, he was the big man, who wore a sharp suit and had an even sharper tongue, but he came to me as a little bratty boy.

He was trying to stay in character to appease me, but now I was getting annoyed due to running off a couple of hours of sleep. I wanted to get my clients out of here as fast as I could. If he wanted to stay in character, he would answer my questions that way.

“Benny, why does your wife know where my father lives?”

“I… I don’t know,” he mumbled.

“Are you lying to me, Benny?”

He didn’t respond.

“Did your wife really know about me, Benny?”

His shoulders dropped, prompting me to step back.

“Benjamin,” I hissed.

He looked up at me with misting eyes, making me jump back.

“What the fuck! You had me in her house, and she didn’t know who I was or what I did? Why the fuck… how the fuck…oh my God. You know what…”

He jumped up. “You have to let me explain.”

I was in complete disbelief because I thought our relationship was solid. Suddenly, I felt completely uninterested in the truth.

“Uh, wow. I can’t fucking believe you. You know this means we are done, right. Don’t contact me again. Take my vehicle back to my dad’s house. Do not do any work to it. I’ll pay whatever the tow fees are.”

When I tried to close the door, he held his arm out, stopping it. Trying to force the door closed didn't make sense; my five-foot-seven, hundred-and-thirty-pound frame was no match for his six-foot-three, defensive lineman-built body. I didn’t scare easily, but I knew when to pick my battles.

“Just give me a little bit of time to get her on board. It will be fine, Elle, trust me.”

“Benjamin, pick up your money and go.”

He squatted and gathered the money, but kept his hand planted on the door so I couldn’t close it. When he stood, he handed the money to me, but I kept my arms at my side.

“Please, let me fix this, Elle.”

I stared at him, completely disgusted. The shit I wanted to say to him would have his dick on brick, and I wasn’t in the mood to give him the satisfaction. Reluctantly, I took the money, slammed the door closed, and deadbolted it. Whenever he brought my truck back, I would give him all his money back, plus extra for getting it fixed. One would call me stupid for believing him when he said his wife knew, but my other subs’ wives knew about their husbands. Hell, one of my subs got walked around his backyard on a leash while his wife watched. Benny was my favorite, and it was going to be tough to let him go, but it had to be done for my safety and apparently his, because I didn’t know his wife was crazy.

I left the door and went back to my suite to put the money in a safe place. After taking a few deep breaths, I opened my mini-fridge and grabbed a five-hour energy drink because I was going to need it. I cracked the tiny bottle open and threw it back, nearly choking myself on my sudden epiphany about how Leah found out where I was. She’d followed me there. The reason I didn’t feel like driving home was because I’d just left a hotel room on the beach with Benny. Looking back, it was a good thing I drove to my dad’s house and not mine. Leah would have been in the hospital or dead.

After I was done getting myself together, I went back out to the front and called for Vivian and Winter to come to the back. My Sundays were for VIP members only. My VIP list had been full since I opened my shop, but I made room for them. Anyone who was family to my best friend was family to me.

“How y’all doing this morning? I’m sorry I was late,” I said, leading them into the suite.

Vivian sat in my chair, and I put my cape around her neck and spun her around toward the mirror.

“So, what you thinking today, Mrs. Vivian?” I asked while pulling her hair out of the ponytail it was in.

“I trust you.”

I looked taken aback. “Oh really, now? You really like that color, huh?”

She playfully rolled her eyes. When she came in last month, she said she wanted to try something different, so I suggested she let me freestyle. She was nervous the whole time but couldn’t stop looking in the mirror when I finished.

“Yes, I do. I like that style from last time. Do you think I need a color touch-up?”

“A touch-uppp,” I said, grinning. “No, Mrs. Vivian. You do not need a touch-up, right now.”

Since Vivian was having the time of her life in her early sixties with two men vying for her time, I’d given her a cute touch of brown and rose gold highlights in a side part body wrap style to make her look younger than she was.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” I said before looking at Winter. “Mrs. Viv don’t know how to act since she got this color, huh.”

She was so deep in her phone that she didn’t hear me talking to her.

“Winter, you heard Elle?” Mrs. Vivian said to her.

She jerked her head up from her phone. “What she say?”

“Nothing, girl. Let’s go to the bowl, Mrs. Viv.”

We walked into the next room, and she sat in the chair while I grabbed my products off the shelf. After grabbing my products, I turned the water on so it could warm up, grabbed a towel off the rack, and wrapped it around her neck.

“Okay, lay back for me. How’s that?”

“That’s good. You know you forgot to tell me what products you were using on my hair, so I could buy them.”

“It’s a custom-made product and perfectly curated for fine hair like yours,” I said as I dropped some shampoo on her hair.

“Hmph,” she grunted, making me laugh.

She wasn’t the first person to ask me about my products, and everyone got the same answer. Since my products came from a chemist, my answer wasn’t wrong. When I was at a hair conference in Vegas one year, I met a chemist and we talked about some of the things he could create, then progressed from there. So, yes, I had special-made products, but the main ingredient that couldn’t be replicated was love, which was why I refused to wholesale it.

I’d loved during hair since I was younger, like every little girl with their Barbie dolls. I’d gone through school hating it while still doing my best. When it came to cosmetology school, it was a cakewalk for me because I loved it. There was no limit to what someone could learn about the hair and scalp. The love and passion I had for hair was what I put into it, along with the products. Also, as luck would have it, and what some may call fate, my grandmother used to have a hair salon and was the best stylist in town, according to my dad and other people I’d talked to. It was only right I got started in her old salon until I’d outgrown that space. The love and great energy everyone felt in that salon was transferred to my new one.

“When did you get back in town?”

“Early this morning. Came with you know who,” she said, rolling her eyes and smirking.

“Now, what is this smirk for, Mrs. Viv?”

“I’m in the Hamptons with David, right?”

“Oh my God.”

I stopped scratching her scalp, waiting for her to finish telling the story. She opened her eyes and stared at me.

“Yes. We hear what sounds like the police knocking on the door. Before we could up to see what’s going on, in comes my husband, talking about, get up, Grey’s in labor.”

I stepped back in disbelief. “You’re kidding?”

“I wish I was. You know security is lax in the Hamptons and who is going to tell Duncan Danger no, anyway? So, I am rushing to try and get my things together, while also trying to keep it together, mentally, because my husband is standing in the middle of this man’s living room, watching me like a hawk, ignoring David’s line of questioning, and commands, regarding him getting in his house and telling him to leave. I feared it was about to turn into a mess. As we are leaving, David asks me if he should come, because of course, he likes Greysen and he’s been around for a while. Duncan turns, looks him up and down, and says, family only. I felt trapped in a movie. I was equally upset and… excited… until he got on the private jet and admits that Greysen is not in labor, he just missed me, and I wouldn’t answer the phone.”

My mouth dropped. “Girrrllll. Mrs. Viv. Nawl, now.”

I moved back to the bowl and ran my fingers through her hair again. Though she scoffed, she wore a girlish grin on her face. No matter how many celebrity clients I had, nothing would ever trump my older clients. They had some of the best stories, and from our first encounter, we’d formed our own relationship outside of the family—a special bond between a stylist and a client, where we only talked when we had an appointment, and nothing would ever be repeated. Well, we talked whenever I was around the family, but not how we talked in the salon.

“Okay, so what happened after that?” I inquired.

“I was already sitting next to him when he told me that, but we were taking off and I had to stay seated. Once we could move around, he turned and looked at me in disgust. ‘I can smell him on you.’ That pissed me off. Then when I got out of my seatbelt to move, he told me to go take a shower, and then come back.”

I gasped. “The nerve. No, he didn’t.”

“Yes, he did.”

“And what you did?”

“I went and took a shower.”

I kissed my teeth.

“And then I went back to sit next to him,” she continued.

When she smiled, my eyes almost popped out of my head. She opened her eyes and saw how I was looking, confirming what I was thinking with a slight nod.

“And it was… let’s just say… what do you young kids be saying about bingo cards? I never thought that having sex with two men within twenty-four hours at sixty-two would be on my bingo card, but alas.”

“Mrs. Vivian! Oh my God. Don’t tell me anything else.”

I started rinsing the shampoo out of her hair.

“I simply couldn’t resist him. He knows I can’t, no matter what I tell him and myself. I’m too old to be this silly, right?”

“I don’t think so. You have two men who are crazy about you. You deserve that, I believe. Plus… the way Mr. Duncan carried on for all that time… he’s lucky you still love him. I would have set it off on him.”

She grinned. “It tickles me when I hear you country girls say that. Set it off on him. Yeah, I should have been done that.”

“Never too late, honestly.”

Judging from the collective information I got from Greysen, Mrs. Vivian herself, and some things I’d heard whispers about over the years, Mr. and Mrs. Danger seemed like how my marriage would probably be if I didn’t find a partner who could handle me sexually. Yes, I’d love my husband, but it would only be a matter of time before I went looking elsewhere to get fully satisfied. In my honest opinion, he was an idiot for carrying on with a mistress for decades, but I didn’t think for one second that Duncan didn’t love Vivian. To me, they just had two different types of sexual appetites.

After rinsing the shampoo out, I slathered her in conditioner and watched her smile every other moment. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I was going to let her enjoy her thoughts while she relaxed.

“Sit up for me,” I directed.

When she sat up, I grabbed a comb, sectioned her hair into fours, and plaited it.

“Okay, let’s go the dryer,” I said after putting a shower cap on her head.

We went back into my room to my dryer, and I turned on the low head and set the timer for twenty minutes. After I made sure the hood sat on her head perfectly, I walked back over to my chair.

“Come on, Winter,” I said, but her head was still in her phone.

“Girlll,” I said, prompting her to look up.

“Oh, my bad. Playing this game,” she mumbled.

When she sat down in my chair, I grabbed another cape and put it on her.

“Okay, what you getting done today?”

“I’m doing something dramatic. I want a cut and color. Red.”

“Cut? Like cut, cut?”

I needed to be sure because Winter had thick, natural shoulder length hair, and surely, she didn’t want me to do a big chop on her hair. I’d been trying to help her get it together, and if she would take care of it at home, it would look even better than it did.

When she nodded, I looked taken aback.

“I mean, it’s your hair and you can do whatever you want to do, but can I ask why such a drastic change?”

“Something different.”

“Oh, how short?”

“A mini afro, with the side part. Let me show you a pic.”

I nearly choked on my spit. “Yeah, show me,” I said. “Because I knew like hell you are not thinking of the cut I have in my mind.”

When she showed me the picture, I couldn’t believe it. She wanted an Afro coil fade with a design part.

“Winter, ok…” I paused, trying to figure out how I could say what I needed to say without sounding mean. I couldn’t think of anything, so I thought of another way. “What if we did the cut, but we just dyed the ends red to see if you like it.”

“No, I want the whole thing red.”

“Winter, I need to be honest with you,” I said, looking at her in the mirror. “You don’t take care of your hair good enough at home to get your hair that color red. If you don’t take care of it, it will fall out.”

That was the truth. I could have asked her if she was going to take care of it, but she was going to lie like everyone always did, but the proof was in my salon chair every time she sat in it. I’d never been afraid to say what was on my mind, but people hated to be told what was best for them. They always thought they knew better than the professionals.

“I know how I want my hair, Elle,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“A’ight.”

That was good enough for me; I wasn’t going to beg anyone to take care of their own hair. Besides, I didn’t know how I would react if she rolled her eyes at me again.

Though she’d been living here for a few years, we were only cordial. If I saw her out, we’d just speak and keep going. Whenever there was a get together, she’d come around, but she’d remain to herself unless someone said something to her. I chalked that up to her being from New York because everyone I’d met from there was kind of closed off. I didn’t think the Danger men fooled with her too much. At least from what I observed, but nobody confirmed it or anything.

I released her hair from the ponytail holder and her thick mane popped out all over her head. I’d just gotten her natural curls to start showing through, so I was most upset about the new outcome. I wasn’t a hater; the red was going to hit against her pretty brown skin, but it wasn’t going to last long for her.

I grabbed the scissors and cut a chunk of her hair off.

Vivian raised the dryer off her head. “Winter, what are you doing!” She shrieked.

“Same thing I asked,” I mumbled.

“It’s time for a change, Mom. No big deal. It’s just hair, it will grow back.”

“You talked to my son about this?”

She looked at her. “I don’t have to talk to Declan about everything,” she retorted.

“Oh, okay. My apologies.”

“And don’t text him either because I know how you do. I want to surprise him,” she said with a smile in her voice.

Vivian didn’t respond, and she sat back under the dryer, with a weird look on her face.

I resumed chopping her hair. When her screen lit up, a text from Daddy came through, and when she opened it, a big dick popped up on the screen. Immediately, she swiped out of the messages and flicked her eyes toward the mirror to see if I’d seen it, but I’d already looked away. I was a great multitasker, so she probably assumed I didn’t notice her turn her screen down before opening the message again, either. What she didn’t know was, my 20/20 vision could cut through any privacy screen. At first, I thought she and her man were getting freaky, but then she’d responded, I’m in the salon chair. I can’t be getting wet. I can’t wait for you to see the hairstyle you wanted me to get. She wouldn’t be telling her man that if she’d just told Vivian not to tell him. Winter was tipping out on her man, but that wasn’t my business.

“Look,” I said, once I was done cutting her hair. “After washing it, I’m going to take my clippers to it for the rest.”

“Okay.”

When I looked at my watch to see Benjamin calling, it motivated me to get done faster before he decided to pop back up.

I walked out of my salon and turned to lock both locks since I was last to leave. Winter’s hair ended up taking longer than I expected, but I got it done and she loved it. I knew she would because I was good at what I did. Being nice, I typed up some very detailed hair care instructions and sent them to her, praying she followed my instructions.

Hearing the familiar pipe sounds, I kept my head down when I turned and went to my dad’s truck. The car came to a stop behind me, blocking me in, but I got in the truck anyway and turned it on. This big metal truck was powerful enough to move their car out of the way if I wanted to, but I’d given Citrus Grove enough to talk about last night. In the rearview mirror, my eyes widened at Leah getting out of Benjamin’s car. For a quick moment, I wondered if that was what he was calling me about. I wanted so badly to put him on the block list, but he had my truck, and I wanted to get it back first.

I stepped out of the truck and kept my back to it as she approached the door. She had gauze across the bridge of her nose where I’d bust her in her face with my gun.

“My dad ain’t here to save you, Leah.” I folded my arms across my chest, almost daring her to hit me. When water welled in her eyes, I rolled mine toward the truck, sighing before looking at her again. “What did you see, Leah?”

“He said you were his new massage therapist. Is that true?”

I shrugged. “More or less.”

It wasn’t a lie because I had rewarded him with massages when he was a good boy.

“But the other stuff… I followed you two to the hotel. When you left, I was granted access to the room and he was tied up with… is…” she paused, lip quivering as she swiped at her eyes.

I bit the corner of my lip, trying to hide my smile. He’d called me to the beach last night to receive his discipline for being late with my money. I tied him face down to the bed and gave him five hard swats on each ass cheek before putting a two-inch wide, three-inch-long cube of ice, frozen around anal beads, into his ass. I was going to leave, go home, and come back in the morning. We’d done something like that before, so I wasn’t really worried about it. Of course, he could get free if he really needed to. When I left the room, I didn’t realize how tired I was, so I went to my dad’s house instead of mine.

She sniffed. “I have to know. Am I a beard, Elle?”

My eyebrows went together. “Excuse me? You think I’m a boy? I look like a boy to you.” I chuckled.

“No, but…” She shrugged. “What does that mean? That means nothing, when—”

“It means everything because I am not a man doing those things to your husband.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Your husband is not whatever you think he is. You don’t have to worry about me anymore because I don’t do drama. From my understanding, I thought you knew. I have to go.”

When I grabbed the steering wheel to pull myself back in, she stopped me.

“You thought I knew you were doing that to my husband? Does he need therapy or something?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Look, he’s never had sex with me, it’s always been about me pleasing that side of him. Leah, he is a great guy. He just likes different things. You should try it.”

“I… I…”

“I have to go, Leah.”

She nodded and backed away from the truck. I got in and closed the door and watched her walk back to the car. It was normal for someone not in the BDSM lifestyle to have the questions and concerns she had, but she was going to have to get her answers from her husband, not me.