Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Jack
I’ve been in plenty of life-threatening circumstances throughout my professional life and nothing terrified me as much as watching Emmy walk into that classroom.
But she was an adult, not a child.
I wouldn’t push her to reveal all her old pain to me because it wasn’t my job to force her to do that.
No matter what form our relationship took, I had no right to force her to do that. Not unless she asked me to.
And yet I was aware enough to know her healing had to start somewhere, and all she’d done throughout the years was slap an increasingly thick layer of temporary bandages over her emotional wounds so she could continue functioning.
I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to assume Lilah did the same, but my suspicion was that she had.
Did I want to fuck Emmy’s brains out?
Duh.
But my days of letting my little head get me in trouble were years and a nasty divorce in my rear-view mirror.
I spend enough time around fire professionally; I don’t need to go around recreationally slapping my hands on stoves.
I took the elevator downstairs and browsed through the gift shop while thinking about what Emmy had asked me. Hell, I had Star Trek and other collectibles—which I didn’t fail to notice Emmy had made space for on their living room shelves the day after I moved in—and that didn’t make me a Little.
Except my childhood trauma no doubt differed greatly from hers and I wouldn’t begin to try to claim I knew what she’d been through.
I had no clue. And I would remain clueless until she decided to open up to me, and that required her trust.
Being a patient man, I would absolutely bide my time and build that trust with her.
No lie, it would be cute to see her wearing one of the Hello Kitty dresses in adult sizes that graced the shop racks. Maybe there’d be a shopping trip in her immediate future after class ended.
The thought of picking out things for her to wear while we were here—not just fun clothes like that, either—twisted my crank hard.
Of course I wouldn’t pick out her work clothes. But if she decided to cede control of certain aspects of our private life to me?
Yeeaah, I’m a sick fuck, I guess. I’d love to spank her bare ass while she twisted on my lap with her Hello Kitty dress bunched up around her waist.
Hmm.
Maybe I’d just defined a new fetish for myself I hadn’t considered before.
Maybe? Wait, that wasn’t a maybe—that was a definitely.
I returned to our room and kicked back on the bed with one of the shibari books I’d purchased on my previous visit to refresh myself on my ropework. It was less than twenty minutes before the class was scheduled to end when my room phone rang, surprising me.
I answered. “Yes?”
“Jack? Derek. Classroom—now.”
Perhaps it was over twenty years of training and experience but I don’t remember jumping off the bed and I didn’t even put my shoes on as I bolted for the door. I didn’t wait for the elevator and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Derek stood at the classroom door talking with the instructor. Beyond them, I spotted Emmy standing at the end of the hall and staring out a window, her back to them, hugging herself and her shoulders shaking like she was crying.
Derek snagged my arm as I tried to run past him and dragged me back. “They were talking about safety and trust within dynamics when she stood up and walked out,” he whispered in my ear. “I was already up here—it just happened a couple of minutes ago.”
I nodded and he released me so I could make my way to her.
“Sweetheart,” I said, not touching her yet for fear of spooking her. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer me. In the window, I watched her reflection, the tears sliding down her cheeks.
I was vaguely aware of the classroom door closing but Derek remained standing there, now leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
My training kicked in and I struggled between the firefighter and the—
Well, boyfriend, right?
We still hadn’t officially defined or labeled that, though.
We hadn’t defined anything yet. Not really. Not beyond friends, although we’d both stated we wanted to see where this could lead.
“Emmy, talk to me,” I said, dropping into a more professional tone I’d use on a patient. “What’s happening? Are you having chest pains? Trouble breathing? Are you dizzy?”
She slowly shook her head while I stood waiting.
I’d wait, because it’d become increasingly clear to me over the past few weeks that she was worth waiting for.
We stood there even after the class ended and the instructor helped Derek herd the other students out of the hallway.
After another five minutes, I stepped in close, pressing my body along her back, and gently closed my hands around her upper arms. Not tight, not trapping her, but hoping to ground her.
“Emmy, baby, I need you to talk to me. Do I need to get a nurse?”
“No,” she said, so faintly I almost couldn’t hear her.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“He raped me,” she whispered.
I immediately choked back the rage swamping me because I knew she couldn’t mean something that happened in class.
Taking a risk, I wrapped my arms around her and rested my chin on her shoulder. “What do you need from me right now?”
Her hands closed over my arms, a desperate grip on me. “I need my Daddy to protect me,” she whispered.
Untangling all this could wait until I had her safely behind our locked room door and she felt like talking.
But for now, I decided to go with my instincts. “Daddy’s here, babygirl. I promise, no one’s ever hurting you again. Not with me around.”
She closed her eyes, her body wracked by silent sobs as large tears rolled down her cheeks and fell hot against my flesh.
I finally coaxed her into turning around so I could envelope her in my arms, and she buried her face against my chest. I glanced back to where Derek still stood, maybe even part of the fixtures for all the attention he drew to himself.
But then he walked over to the elevator and hit the button, checking it when it arrived to make sure it was empty, and then motioned toward it with his head while he held the door open.
Emmy let me scoop her up. She wrapped her arms around my neck while I swiftly carried her to the elevator.
Derek stepped in behind us and didn’t say a word as he punched the button for the first floor.
Once there he stepped out first, glanced around, and then quickly led the way to our room where he used a passkey to open it for me so I didn’t have to set her down.
I was aware of him closing the door behind us as I carried her through to the bedroom and stretched out on the bed next to her with her clinging to me as she cried herself to sleep.
I suspected we wouldn’t attend the later class. Which honestly didn’t matter to me because maybe this was just the break—or breakdown—she truly needed to start working on digging out the old, festering material still solidly packed inside her ancient wounds.
Nearly an hour later she startled awake and I tightened my grip around her. “Shh, you’re safe, babygirl. We’re back in our room.”
She immediately relaxed against me but didn’t speak.
And still I refused to rush her.
Finally, “She talked about the reasons people do this,” she softly said. “About trust, and dynamics. And that sometimes people use power exchange and BDSM as a way to reclaim part of themselves denied or ripped away from them. Especially after abuse or trauma.”
I nuzzled the top of her head and kept my damned mouth shut.
Eventually, she continued. “I never knew my father. I don’t even know if my mother knew who he was.
I seriously doubt his name was John Smith born on the same exact date as my mother and in the exact same hometown of Dallas.
She was only sixteen when she had me.” She laughed bitterly.
“The guy she shacked up with when I was about six was probably her drug dealer or pimp or maybe both.”
I didn’t interrupt her thoughts because I knew she wasn’t done.
“I was around eight the first time,” she continued. “Thank god you’re not a smoker or we never would have gotten as far as a first dinner.” She sniffled. “I think it was the third time when she caught him in the act and stabbed him.”
“Jesusfuck,” I muttered, unable to help myself.
“He survived, but she didn’t. He pulled the knife out of his gut and stabbed her. I don’t know what happened after that, but I remember bits and pieces. The hospital. Talking to someone, like a counselor or somebody. A couple of cops, one who let me hold his badge. He’s still in prison.”
“Thank god.”
“Not the cop,” she added.
I couldn’t help the soft chuff of laughter that escaped me. “I figured, baby.”
“I guess I blocked out a lot of time between then and meeting Lilah. I know I was in a foster home, a couple of shelters. I don’t think I was sexually abused again. But I was… I was mean. I lashed out. Was afraid to let anyone close to me.”
“That’s understandable.”
“I was terrified.” She took a breath. “Until Lilah.”
“Why her?”
“I don’t really remember all the reasons.
I don’t even remember exactly when we met.
I think maybe it was because she had the same look in her eyes I did.
And one time, this boy who was older than both of us said something gross to me, something sexual, and she repeatedly punched him in the nuts.
Punched him so hard he had to go to the hospital.
When they tried to punish her, she told them she’d caught him trying to pull my pants down, and I lied and agreed.
No one dared fuck with either of us after that, and they didn’t separate us because we started calling each other ‘sisters’. ”
She tipped her head back to study my face. “She was the first person to ever stand up for me. That it felt like she did something tangible to protect me, you know? Before something bad happened to me, not after the fact.”
“I think I understand.” I played with her hair, gently twining a few strands of the red locks around my finger.
“It was weird when I turned twenty-five and realized I was older than my mom ever got to be, and I can’t even remember what she looked like. I don’t have any pictures of her. My family started when I met Lilah.”
“Do you want me to not call you what we were talking about before?”
“That’s what’s so fucked up—I do. I want it even more.
” She went quiet again for a moment. “Part of me, since I was an adult, really wanted this kind of relationship.
But the Emmy who went to college and haphazardly contemplated what happened to childhood Emmy was sort of horrified by equating things that called to me, sexually, with a safe, healthy relationship when framed in the greater context of what happened to childhood Emmy.
“I realized that when I think of you as ‘Daddy,’ it’s more an idea.
It’s… feelings.” She tipped her head back again, her green gaze searching mine.
“It’s safety. I remember wishing once in the worst days that I had a daddy and he was there to protect me.
I used to fantasize about him showing up, taking me away, and taking care of me.
The truth is my father, whoever he was, likely never knew she was pregnant.
I never met any family. If I asked, she told me there weren’t any. I never bothered looking for any.”
“Sweetheart, I will call you whatever you want me to call you and give you whatever it’s within my power to do to make you feel safe.”
Emmy laced fingers with me, still staring into my eyes.
“I want to be yours. I need to be yours. You can ask Lilah, that’s not something I’ve ever said to anyone before.
Ever. You make me feel safe. Wanted. Everything just clicks into place now and that’s never happened to me before with anyone else.
And you calling me your babygirl turns me gooey in my soul, not just my panties. ”
She finally rewarded me with the hint of a smile.
“But I also understand now what you meant about doing stuff that I want to do. The teacher said to think of the whole thing—kink or BDSM or whatever you want to call it—like a buffet. Pick what you want, load up your plate on your favorites, maybe try a bite here and there of stuff that you’re curious about but don’t want to commit to.
And to never feel obligated to try something you think you won’t like.
Or, never feel afraid to realize there’s something you thought you liked, or maybe used to like, that you realize you’re not fond of anymore.
Or to keep trying certain things because you want to like them but need to get used to them.
That we’re adults, and we are free to say ‘no’ to anything we want when it comes to this, and we don’t need to justify it.
And we don’t need to justify wanting or enjoying the things we want to do. ”
“That’s an excellent way of putting it.”
“I don’t want to be a full-time Little,” she added.
“I know that for sure after what I learned. Still, sometimes I want to have guilt-free fun, where I don’t feel self-conscious.
Like, I want little bites of it, just as snacks, but not for every meal.
From what I learned in class, I really think I’m a submissive and just want to play with Little stuff sometimes. What do you think?”
“I am not going to tell you what to label yourself, sweetheart, except for one thing.”
Her brow furrowed. “What’s that?”
I nuzzled her nose. “Mine.” I slanted my lips over hers, the first true kiss we’d shared, and I took my time savoring it, my cock hardening when she reached up, cupped her hand around the back of my head, and fisted my hair to keep me from ending the kiss.
Oh, yeah.
We were definitely missing the class.