Page 86 of At Her Will

Imagining Cyn’s reaction to that thought, she suppressed a snort. Rev’s fingers twitched. “All right, Mistress?”

“Yes. I was thinking about Cyn. She’s not the biggest fan of Christianity.”

His shoulder tightened. “She don’t want me with you?”

Vera stroked that muscle. “She’s concerned about you being with me. But it has to do with her, not you. As I mentioned, she had a very hard start in life, and saw a lot of bad things. She’s a fighter, so in her mind, if there’s Someone there, It’s guilty of unforgivable neglect. If there isn’t, then we’re all just foolish for believing.”

She paused. “But being with Mick, I think she’s learning how unfathomable and limitless love can be. Which means she’s starting to open the door to faith, more than she has in the past.”

“Sometimes a person needs more than themselves to find it, to start that conversation inside.” Rev’s head dipped, as if thinking. “Some people, that door don’t open because ofeverything they piled up against it. They have to dig it out. She got the mad in her, but she got the good, too. You can feel it. With a will like hers, after all she been through, and now with a man who love her, the good will win out.”

“I agree. It takes most people a while to figure that out about her.” She wiped her hands on a cloth. “I’m done. Stay in that position for now, but you don’t have to worry about small shifts to keep comfortable.”

Vera put away the supplies and cleaned up. When she returned to her chair, this time, she stood before it, her back to him. She slid one strap off her shoulder, then the other, then sinuously pushed the garment down until it fell to the ground around her bare feet.

When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw a strong man drinking in what she was offering, his hands held by her ropes, his body decorated by her henna. It was a view she would capture and call back again and again.

He was doing the breathing exercise to help him control his reactions. When she let him release this time, it should feel like nothing he’d ever experienced. A Tantric-driven orgasm was impossible to describe. It could go on and on, the ultimate Dom and sub space. Their bodies twined around one another, the aftermath forming a vessel of connection that would carry them on a river of bliss until it bumped against the shore of reality.

They came back to it in a better state, because the Universe had confirmed it was there, and far bigger than anything anyone knew, a comfort.

He took an unsteady breath. “I feel…incredible.”

“You look incredible.” She let him see how much she meant it. “When I wipe off the paste, I plan on enjoying you in every way I’m imagining, Rev. And in every way you’re imagining.” She showed him a dangerous smile. “So for the next four hours, I’m going to keep your mind on that.”

She withdrew a thick book from the magazine holder next to her chair. It had gold edged pages and a blue cover, the title of the book stamped on it in the same gold. “I picked up this Bible this week. Tell me your favorite passages, and I’ll read them to you.”

After a long, stunned moment, a chuckle rumbled from his chest. “Mistress, I may be rethinking what evil truly is.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“All morning, you’ve been humming, singing or smiling like you don’t have good sense,” Beau noted. “It must have been a good weekend.”

“It must have been,” Rev answered.

“Well,” Beau said with exaggerated somberness, “I expect it has to do with the Lord seeing fit to let you wake up on the right side of the dirt.”

“That’s entirely it, Beau. You called it.”

His boss snorted. “I know the look of a man who spent his weekend in the arms of a fine woman.” He gestured to Rev’s forearms, revealed from the rolled-up sleeves of his coveralls. “Was that Miss Vera Morgan’s work?”

Rev grinned and kept cleaning the glass of the foyer trophy cases. He’d finished the sports ones and had moved on to the nerd boxes, as some of the kids called them, because they held the awards for the math, science, chess and debate teams.

The vinegar scent of the cleaner brought to mind painting Easter eggs with Teena Joy while she read the resurrection story to him.

“She and the women at her company help out a lot in the community. But people are more than one thing, and sometimes those other things aren’t as good.”

Rev stopped at the unexpected comment and looked over his shoulder. “What nonsense you talking, old man?”

Beau lifted a shoulder. His humor had been banked, his gaze careful but concerned. “I want all good things for you, Rev. But she’s different from you. Not better or worse, I’m not saying that. But awfully different. When you’re interested in a woman, your heart gets involved quick. Are you sure she’s not just… Well, women like the way you look. You know that.”

Vera’s face, her touch, her words, were in Rev’s head. But at times she’d made it sound like she didn’t expect this to last. He thought of the club, the BDSM world unfamiliar to him. How she’d emphasized that the “scenes” there mostly didn’t translate to relationships outside the walls. He thought of how easy it was for her to introduce him to men she’d had scenes with like she’d done with Rev.

With all that, and Beau voicing words uncomfortably close to Witford’s, two people he valued, the seeds of doubt could be planted. But only if he gave them the right kind of ground inside himself to do so.

She’d taken him to her home, something she’d made clear she didn’t regularly do. Plus they were talking about and doing plenty of things outside of the club things. So as important as that part of her life obviously was to her, and how much he yearned to do those things with her, it wasn’t all of what had brought them together.

“I’m not saying you’re not worthy of a woman like that, Rev.” Beau was gazing hard at his introspective face. “Not even close. You deserve a loving woman. Never mind me. I should have stuck one of my big feet into my mouth.”

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