Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Savannah
The next two weeks with Thayer are the most thrilling, exciting days of my life. I never knew it could be like this.
It feels like I’ve taken a two-week vacation, only I don’t have any hope of returning to normalcy.
Thayer has shown me the deeper, darker side of things I never knew existed, and now that I know, I will never go back to anything shallow and superficial.
And most definitely anything vanilla.
That first night, he had me wait for him. And when he returned, he looked like a man coming back from war. I didn’t want to ask what he had done. I didn’t want to know.
I remember what he’s said, what he’s done. I can’t let myself forget it.
He’s taken me out privately to teach me to shoot and says I’m a natural. I love the heft of a pistol in my hands, the feel of his body behind me, the thrill that races through me when I hit my target.
But as the days pass, I realize that we’re not getting anywhere.
They haven’t discovered the security breach. And it appears that the people after me actually believe the decoy was me. Nicolette plays her part of the mourning sister, and the Gerards pretend they’re looking for who did it but failing.
All seems quiet, but I don’t know if we can trust it.
How long is this situation going to keep me under lock and key? What if the days string into weeks and the weeks into months?
I talk to my sister and Cosette and Gwen, my sister’s friend and another employee here.
It’s a small circle of friends but I love them.
I love my new hairstyle, and I am really in love with this club. It isn’t just the luxurious accommodations, or the feeling like I wake up every day in a bed-and-breakfast. It’s so much more.
It’s the deep, intimate, relationships I witness firsthand on a daily basis. It’s the knowledge that Thayer, as master and owner of this club, won’t let so much as a stray mouse inside these premises without permission. And I know deep down inside, above all, it’s the feeling of safety.
But I can’t help but wonder if it’s a false sense of security. Am I only safe if I’m hidden? How long will he hide me?
At first, I wondered with every day that passed if I would feel more secure in our relationship. But it seems to be having the opposite effect.
He won’t take me into a public room. All our meals are ordered and sent to his private suite.
And even though this is a spacious place to be, I miss Paris. I miss who I was in Paris, I miss being a grad student. I miss strolling alongside the Seine. I even miss shopping. Anything I need, he sends here, but it isn’t the same.
And even though being with Thayer is the sexiest thing I’ve ever done, a part of me wants to see what else this club has to offer.
I want more.
I don’t like not knowing where the danger lies, and I don’t just mean the people who are after me. Sometimes I feel as if Thayer paws the ground, like a bull ready to charge.
I don’t know if I want to be the one waving the red flag when he does.
One day, a couple weeks after we arrived, Thayer leaves me for a few hours. When he returns, he doesn’t tell me where he was or what he did. I don’t usually ask questions, but this time I do. I want to know how long this interminable wait will continue.
“So. Do you have any more leads? Any more talk about where I am or who I am?”
“No.”
“Do they still think the decoy was me?”
“I’m not sure.”
I blow out a breath. “How will you be sure? How much longer will this be?”
“Will what be?”
I gesture around the room. “Staying hidden like this. I feel some days like the walls are closing in on me.”
He gives me a long look.
“As long as it takes.”
I sigh impatiently and clench my jaw. I’m not surprised when he walks over to me and makes me look at him by taking my chin in his hand. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t want to hide anymore, Thayer. I miss going outside. I miss being able to do things like shop, and go to class, and grab some pastry at a bakery. I miss socializing and parties and all the things I used to do.”
I don’t know how to tell him that I fear I’m not enough for him. Will I ever be enough, or am I just a passing fling to him? I still can’t help but wonder if he needs someone like one of those stunningly beautiful submissives, or one of the willing servants.
A part of me wonders what he does when he’s not with me.
“Savannah.”
“I don’t like being here, all alone,” I tell him. “I don’t…” I look away from him then, because I suddenly don’t feel good. I feel like I’m going to cry, and I hate that. I don’t like feeling like my emotions are getting the best of me. I shake my head. “I don’t wanna talk right now.”
I wonder if he’s going to make me talk because he doesn’t allow me to hold anything back from him. I believe that good communication skills are essential in any working relationship, but I wonder if sometimes he needs to respect my privacy.
“Are you okay?”
I look away.
“I have a little bit of a headache. Probably just getting my period.”
Frowning, he takes his phone out of his pocket. “I’m calling a doctor.”
And that’s Thayer. He is the most overprotective human I’ve ever met in my life. An utter perfectionist, he dots every i and crosses every t and leaves no room whatsoever for error.
He’s not calling the doctor for a headache.
“I don’t need to see a doctor. It’s just a headache. I get them sometimes.”
He gives me a sharp look. “And you’re just telling me this now?”
I shrug. “Why would I randomly tell you I sometimes get headaches when I’ve been reading too much or staring at my computer screen all day long?”
But then he gives me one of those looks, one I know all too well tells me he is not arguing the point.
I roll my eyes and cave. “Fine. Call the doctor, who is probably just going to give me some pain meds and tell me to make sure I’m hydrated.
” I turn away from him because if he sees me rolling my eyes again, I’m going to land over his knee. And I’m not feeling it.
“Are you well hydrated?”
I speak through gritted teeth. “Yes.”
A few minutes later, the doctor arrives. She’s a slight woman in her late fifties or so, with a smattering of gray in her head of curls. We go through every routine question from my sexual history to when was the last time I got my period.
When did I last get my period. I have an odd sense of time since coming here.
“It’s a headache.” Dear God, overreact much?
Thayer hovers in the background, and I can’t help but think. If I’m pregnant… My God, if I’m pregnant, he’s going to lock me up in a cave somewhere and throw away the key.
Would it be too early to tell?
Suddenly, I don’t want him to know and I’m not sure why. I need to find out this news alone.
“Thayer, can you give us some privacy?” I ask, knowing full well he won’t.
“Privacy?” He looks at me as if I just asked if he would please take a little trip to the moon.
“I want to talk to her about girl things,” I explain, and it isn’t a lie.
“Girl things,” he repeats, staring me down.
“It’s a patient’s prerogative, Mr. Gerard,” the doctor says gently. I mentally fist-bump her.
Thayer scowls at both of us. If he really wanted to, he could refuse.
He doesn’t though. “Fine. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
The door closes behind him with a resounding thud.
As soon as we’re alone, I turn to face her.
“How did you come to work here?” I want to know who she really is.
Is she a slave? Or a master?
She faces me calmly. Not the first time she’s gotten this question, I’m guessing.
“I am a kink-friendly physician. I don’t participate in anything at this club, but I don’t judge any of the things that go on either.
The Gerard family is very important to me.
They saved me from a very dark place, and I am in their debt.
They pay me well, and I make sure that I tend to any wounds or illnesses that come this way.
” She gives me a knowing smile. “Whether they be dungeon-related or otherwise.”
Excellent. So she does things like bandage the lacerations on his knuckles when he gives someone a beatdown? Removes bullets embedded in his flesh? Isn’t that lovely.
I remember what Nicolette told me. I remember what Thayer told me.
Thayer is unlike anyone I’ve ever met before, and never pretends to be someone he’s not.
He’s raw, primal, and all mine. He’s brutal and savage, fierce in a way that satisfies a need deep within me.
He’s everything I fear and everything I crave.
He scares me yet makes me feel safer than I ever knew possible.
He makes me question what I know. Who I am.
But more than anything… he’s becoming one of my best friends.
There’s a raw honesty about him that makes me realize there’s nothing I can’t tell him. And when he strips me of all that troubles me, he makes me vulnerable and unprotected, but doesn’t leave me there.
God, I love this man. I really think I do.
But the question is… does he love me back?
“Can I ask you a question?”
She nods placidly. “Of course you can.”
“What if I’m… pregnant?”
The doctor smiles. “We were getting there. I’d offer you congratulations.”
“No, but… well… would you have to tell Thayer? Isn’t there something about patient confidentiality or something?”
“Of course,” she says with concern. “Though he is the one that employs me, and I typically advise patients under my care to inform their partner.” She pauses. “Am I guessing this would be an unwanted pregnancy?”
“No. I mean, yes. Oh, God, I don’t know.” I feel cold and hot, and am I imagining things or am I actually nauseous, too?
She gives me another smile. “You’d be surprised how often I hear that.”
Oh no I wouldn’t.
“And this is one of the reasons why I would advise you that it’s probably best to tell Mr. Gerard either way. If you were, say, pregnant and hid it from him, you wouldn’t want to engage in a scene that could harm you.”
“Such as…?”
I’m definitely nauseous.
“There aren’t many scenarios, but breath play is one of them.
It’s very important. You’d want to proceed with caution with impact play as well, and I definitely wouldn’t advise anything that would involve your nipples, not that it would cause any harm to a baby, but because you might fly right out of your skin. ”
“Got it.”
Baby.
Baby?
“Lots of women have babies when they’re into this lifestyle,” she says.
Uh, okay.
I need to know what’s going on, and I need to know now.
“If I’m pregnant, I need to swear you to secrecy. For now, anyway.”
She nods, though she looks a bit apprehensive about this concept. “Of course.”
I can’t tell her why, but a part of me fears that if I find out I’m pregnant, he’ll stay with me out of loyalty. That’s who he is, fiercely protective and loyal to a fault.
I want to be cherished, not kept out of obligation.
I want to love and be loved, not paired with someone who could never truly love me back.
I’m too young for him, too na?ve, and he deserves someone who could truly meet his needs.
If I’m pregnant and I stay with him, I’ll never know… was it loyalty or love that kept us together? I don’t want him to stay with me out of a sheer sense of loyalty. I want to know that he chose me.
After all I’ve been through–the loss of my parents and having to go it alone, learning how to adult without the presence of anyone to emulate or learn from, distance from Nicolette, even though I’ll never fault her for trying to provide for me–I can’t risk being left all over again.
I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering if he truly loves me.
Especially not by the only man I’ve ever loved.
I need distance and clarity and time, no matter what that test reveals.
I realize I’m pacing the room, tugging on the collar Thayer put on me the night in the glass-paneled room and has yet to remove.
I finger the metal and give it a tug. He likes to play with it and caress it when we make love.
There was a time when the sturdiness of it gave me comfort, a physical reminder of his presence and love. But now…
As she’s packing up her things, the doctor frowns and points to the metal collar.
“I don’t want to overstep,” she says quietly, with a note of concern that paints her voice. “But are you aware that this is a tracking device?”
I stop pacing. “A what?”
“Tracking device,” she repeats. I know what the words mean but somehow have a hard time making it all click.
“Exactly the same as they use on pets to track their whereabouts in the event of an escape.” She frowns.
“Normally I’d keep my opinions to myself, but if you’re pregnant…
it could prove risky.” She bites her lip before she continues.
It occurs to me then, and I’m not sure why it took me so long to realize this—she’s afraid of Thayer.
“What else?” I whisper, while my mind still plays with the concept of him tracking me like I’m an animal.
“It doesn’t come off easily, for one. It has to be removed with wire cutters and could inhibit circulation in the event of an emergency. Another—”
“Take it off,” I interrupt. I don’t want to hear another word. I don’t need to hear about the risks. I want it off.
How could he? After all we’ve been through, after all I’ve surrendered to him. I’ve trusted him implicitly and he doesn’t trust me at all?
She sighs and nods. “Of course. I can do that. I’ll have to fetch an instrument we use in an emergency situation to remove rings on swollen fingers or the like.
I know we keep one in some of the playroom emergency kits.
” She looks around her as if expecting Thayer to come storming in here, before she shakes her head. “I’ll be back soon.”
I sit, staring into nothingness. I feel numb as I wait for her, the new knowledge of his actions and the impending results of the test I’m going to take weighing me down, muddling my thoughts, stirring up feelings that I don’t like.
She isn’t gone long, likely moving as fast as she can so she can be done with this and hightail it out of here before he returns.
I glance at the time. He’ll be back any second now.
I close my eyes, my cheeks damp with tears, when she cuts the clasp.
I hate the feeling of the collar coming off. I don’t like the way it looks in her hands, broken and clipped, as if it symbolizes our severed union. A bird with broken wings, unable to fly.
Before I go—and I have to go—I need to know one thing.
I know what I have to do.
I tell myself I’m free now. No longer encumbered with anything that will weigh me down.
But I don’t feel free. I don’t at all. I feel… alone.
I square my shoulders and face the doctor. “Alright, then. Let’s take that test.”