The Mercenary and the Mortician (The Silent Hollow #1)

86. Ryan Fairview

G etting Fairview back up and running was somehow both stressful and a huge relief all at once. There was a ton of stuff that needed to get done, but it felt nice to actually be doing it.

To make things even better, Cal’s strange mood had significantly softened after he finished cleaning his gun, and he more or less stayed out of my way on the days I was busy getting everything ready.

He seemed to be spending a lot of time with Theo, which surprised me. I couldn’t determine whether it was a good thing or not.

Without Cass around for Theo to pester, my sister seemed more than happy to spend time with Cal, which saved me from having to keep him entertained when I was in the throes of my neuroses.

However, the two of them together just reeked of trouble. After a few days of watching them creep around Fairview together, they seemed to have developed some secret language that only the two of them understood.

One time, at dinner, Theo made a snarky comment, and Cal high-fived her without even making eye contact. Even their smirks were starting to look similar.

It was concerning.

However, I didn’t have much time to worry about them when I needed to get announcements of our grand re-opening on my website and Facebook page, newsletters out to all of my long-term care partners, and the prep room restocked and cleaned.

As exhausting as it all was, nighttime always felt like a reward.

Having dinner with Cal sitting next to me, joking and laughing with Theo, Naomi, and my Mom, felt like a fucking dream. I often pinched myself under the table to make sure it really was real and he was truly here, alive, healthy, and happy.

Every night, he wrapped me up in his arms after dinner, leaving soft kisses up the side of my neck on the way to our room.

Then he stripped off both of our clothes and showed me everything I had been missing for all the years I went without him.

Every night was a new experience. Sometimes, he took his time worshiping me, making me come so fucking hard I saw stars. Other times, he forced me to worship him , and if I was being honest, those times were my favorite.

After spending the whole day being the boss and having everything fall on my shoulders, having Cal take charge and tell me exactly what he expected of me and what he wanted me to do was the best sort of break for my anxious mind.

He had started producing toys and props that I’d only heard about in passing or seen in movies. Never in my life did I think I would find myself in a situation where my partner had me strapped down to the bed, paddling my ass raw while whispering the sweetest words of praise to me each time I took a hit well.

Through Cal, I learned that I liked pain. I craved a certain roughness and dominance that I don’t think I would have ever uncovered within myself on my own.

I knew Cal was a sadist, and he needed to hurt people to fulfill a dark craving deep inside him that I didn’t understand. It was like he was angry at the world and needed to take it out on someone.

It felt like fate that I was not only willing to allow him to take it out on me…but wanted him to.

He told me he was worried he would take it too far, and he checked in with me often, making sure that the pain he was inflicting was truly something I wanted.

But it was, and I trusted him. I knew he would never truly hurt me, not in the way he was worried he would.

Which is why I started pushing him to face his fear of the bathtub with me. Also, his continued aversion to dubstep broke my fucking heart.

He told me what Damian had done to him. I knew that he had been tortured in that fucking bathtub for days, and that evil man had made him listen to all his favorite songs while he hurt him.

I wanted to help Cal overcome that trauma by reclaiming it. He kept telling me it was too dangerous. And maybe it was. Maybe I was being naive and stupid. I knew we should probably talk to a professional before attempting anything crazy… Like playing dubstep while letting Cal dominate me in the bathtub.

Cal was still seeing his therapist, but he refused to even broach the idea with her, telling me there was no fucking way in a million years he would risk something like that.

But… I couldn’t stand the way he skirted the bathtub every time he entered the ensuite, eyeing the large black stone basin with pain in his eyes.

I hated it even more when we were in the car together, and he put on the radio instead of the horrible music that I knew once brought him so much joy.

I couldn’t live each day watching something so common and mundane put that look on his face. So, despite his warnings and his wishes, on the night before Fairview’s grand re-opening, I brought up the tray I used for my embalming equipment and set it up next to the large, black, modern bathtub in our ensuite.

On the tray, I arranged several of the toys and tools he had been using on me in the bedroom, as well as the police-grade handcuffs he used to tie me to the bed. Remembering the time he had joked with me, asking if I had a blood kink, I also thought to include some fresh scalpels, still in their single-use, disposable packaging.

Then finally, I set up a small Bluetooth speaker and waited for him to come up to bed.