Chapter 18
Home. Damn, that sounded good. Her chest ached with relief when she pulled off the highway and through the gate, the weight of nine days of adrenaline and sorrow finally starting to ease off her shoulders.
She’d driven her SUV rather than her car, which was safer in her apartment parking lot than in the hotel and hospital lots in Birmingham, but she’d have made better time in her car.
When she finally pulled into her parking spot, she needed Silas’s cooking, sex with her men, and then twelve to fifteen hours of sleep.
Her three men were waiting for her on the porch, Kenny holding her collar, the other two each holding two cuffs. No ceremony this time — they all went to work at the same time, Kenny at her neck, Silas at her wrists, and Boone at her ankles.
She was theirs again before she stepped into the house.
They walked her upstairs, stripped her in the hallway, slow and careful, like they knew how close she was to unraveling. Boone sat in a new armless chair in her bedroom, and Kenny talked her through bending over his lap, voice low and firm, like the edge of a rope pulling her back to herself.
And Boone laid into her right off, way past warm-up level to start, and then harder and harder, his strokes like drumbeats against her soul.
He moved from his hand to a paddle, and it landed again and again until her muscles quivered and her breath came ragged.
Tears spilled from her eyes, but he didn’t let up. He spanked her through them. Past them.
She cried everything out, the grandfather with a brain injury from a simple fall who’d died while his family had held his hands and gave him their tearful goodbyes, knowing the staff wasn’t likely to stop the bleeding and swelling.
The young boy who’d come in from a catastrophic car wreck that’d killed both his parents.
He would live, but she doubted the surgeon had been able to save his leg, and when he woke, someone would have to tell him he was an orphan.
So many stories, so much heartbreak. She was pretty good at leaving most of it on the job, but some people just pulled at her heartstrings.
The paddle beat it all out of her, let her cry it out. Not just the tears, but the grief, the helplessness, the fury at the randomness of it all. Boone spanked her until there were no more tears, until the last sob left her chest hollow, until she collapsed against his thigh, panting, used up.
Then he pulled her into his lap, his strong arms supporting her, embracing her while her body trembled with aftershocks. Silas brought pulled pork, his homemade mac-n-cheese, fried potatoes, and when she’d cleaned her plate, warm apple pie with vanilla fucking ice cream.
Kenny slid into bed with her, held her until she fell asleep, and then she figured he left her alone to avoid disturbing her rest, which was how she found herself when she woke the next morning.
She took inventory, a low throb in her thighs.
Her calves hurt. Her ass ached. The soles of her feet screamed the loudest — she’d been on them twelve hours at a time, nine nights in a row.
She reminded herself she’d made nearly 20k in those nine days.
Before taxes, which meant the damned government would get a huge portion, but whatever.
Her fingers curled around the cool microfiber sheet and then slid across the plush comforter — not one of those scratchy decorative sets, but something meant to cocoon and cradle.
She didn’t wake straight in bed, so she looked up at the bed’s wrought-iron headboard, all steel curves and tight, controlled chaos, a dozen points they could cuff her to without warning.
An Alaska king, plenty big enough for three wolves to simultaneously fuck the hawk who belonged to them.
That they hadn’t last night surprised her.
They could’ve. They would’ve, a week ago. But they’d seen that she needed sleep more than she needed three cocks pounding her, and they’d given it to her. They’d also given her the catharsis of tears followed by comfort food.
Her chest clenched with something that felt suspiciously like love, but she didn’t poke it. Just let it sit there while she breathed in the scent of home, the feel of her bed. Her sheets. Her pillows.
Her home. Their bed.
And then, because her bladder wasn’t going to wait, she groaned and slid off the bed, wincing the second the bottoms of her feet took her weight.
When she came out of the bathroom, Silas was sitting on the chair Boone had spanked her on the night before.
“The chair’s new, Sir,” she noted, and loved hearing her own voice use that word again. Sir.
He nodded. “Yes, your special spanking chair. How are you feeling this morning?”
“Hungry and tired, Sir.”
“I’m off work today, and I’ll be driving you to the spa at noon, where you’ll get a massage, a facial, and a mani-pedi.”
She glanced at the clock. Nearly ten. She’d slept sixteen hours. Nice.
“What do you want for breakfast?” Silas asked. “Pancakes? Waffles? Sausage, bacon, chicken, beef? You want carbs or prey?”
She grinned at him. “Both, Sir. Waffles to hold the syrup better, bacon on the side, and sausage in my eggs with tons of cheese. Do we have mushrooms?”
“We do, along with onions and spinach. I know what you like in your omelets.”
“You aren’t going to fuck me, Sir?”
He shook his head. “Tonight, after you’ve spent the day being pampered.”
* * * *
The spa greeted her with warm lighting, citrusy air, and a woman with hands like magic.
The first two hours disappeared into slow, deliberate kneading — shoulders first, her lower back, then every ache she hadn’t realized she carried in her thighs, calves, even the arches of her feet.
Her toes. She didn’t talk, didn’t think.
She just let herself melt under the skilled touch of someone who understood muscle and tension, who coaxed release from her body until her eyes felt heavy and her limbs hummed with relief.
Afterward, they wrapped her in a soft robe and brought her to the facial room, where steam and serums did their work.
Her skin tingled and tightened and softened in turns.
A cool mask eased the faint swelling around her eyes, and then came the shampoo and scalp massage, expert fingers working through her hair in circles so slow and firm it nearly sent her to sleep.
She sat through the blowout, watching them create soft waves, making it full of body and life. Pretty.
But it was the pedicure that nearly made her weep.
An hour of a foot and calf massage before they ever touched a polish bottle — long strokes, heel to toe, firm pressure on the balls of her feet, knuckle rubs under the arch until she could feel the pain of every night shift drain out through her toes and ankles.
Then the manicure, with an extra massage for her hands, the woman muttering something about muscle knots in her palms. She walked out with copper cat-eye nails, shimmer catching the light in little gleams with every movement.
Hands and feet. Flawless. Her bones felt looser.
Her body, lighter. And for the first time in over a week, her mind was quiet.
She came out of the robe and put her dress and shoes back on when they finished with her. Nothing else. No panties. No bra. Fucktoys have to dress for easy access. She felt a glimmer of arousal, just from putting the dress on.
Silas was in the waiting room, holding his tablet, earbuds in his ears, but the second she looked at him, his gaze met hers and a smile lit his face.
“You look like a brand new woman. Feel better?”
She nodded. “Did you wait out here all day?”
He shook his head. “I went home to get a few things started.”
His smile turned sly. His voice dropped a half-octave. “I have lamb shanks braising in the slow cooker. Garlic, red wine, rosemary, a splash of balsamic. The whole house smells like a damn dream.”
Her stomach growled, but the heat low in her belly had nothing to do with food. His voice could flip her switch faster than his fingers, sometimes.
“And after you’re fed,” he said, stepping close enough to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, “I plan to reacquaint myself with all your lovely holes.”
Her breath caught, and he grinned. “But first, dinner. You’ll need your strength.”
She considered how much better she felt, and wanted to talk about it.
A few times during her assignment, she’d changed to hawk in the hotel’s bathroom and immediately come back to human.
But she hadn’t done so after her last shift.
She’d needed sleep, and changing means eating a shit-ton of food when you come back.
And really, when you’re that damned tired, and when it’s emotional and mental as much as physical, the restoration from a quick change doesn’t fix as much as it generally does otherwise.
She’d expected to wake this morning and spend a few hours as her hawk, to try to fix her sore muscles and aching feet, but she thought the spa day fixed more than a change would’ve.
“Why the spa day, instead of a day of flight?” she asked Silas on the drive home.
“For wolves, a change fixes broken bones and bullet holes, but a lengthy, bone-deep exhaustion?” He shrugged.
“It’s like, your physical body is attached to the emotional one, right?
In my experience, the quick-fix method isn’t enough.
You needed the emotions worked out of the muscles.
Being tired because you ran twenty miles is different than being tired from a nine-day marathon of twelve-hour night shifts in an adrenaline-saturated hell.
During times of war, when you can’t afford emotions, a change might fix more of your exhaustion, but your time in that ER is over for now.
You aren’t at war, and you needed pampering and spoiling.
Any of us would’ve done it if we were capable, but hair and nail shit isn’t our thing, so we sent you to a place that could do it all. ”