Echo of Redemption (20 page)

“I believe she is with Lord Fyre. Waiting.”

“I see.” I wave her away. “Go home, Hillary.”

“But, I—”

“Go.”

I close my eyes, trying to regain my sanity. I shouldn’t be feeling guilty for keeping a client overlong. Or for enjoying my job. But I do. There is no doubt Thomas is going to feel I have been neglecting Kitten. I can’t even argue I haven’t been because I’m feeling guilty about that too.
Damn it
.

Dreading the inevitable, I don’t go straight to my office. Instead, I shower and change. Only then do I face them, finding Thomas reclined on the leather sofa, Kitten curled against his side sound asleep.

Closing the door, I cross the room quickly. “How’s your brother?”

Thomas is reading the Primal Birth book. He looks up at me, amusement in his eyes. He holds up the book. “This is very insightful.”

I sit in the chair across from them. He hands me the book. “I’m betting you haven’t read it.”

I’m not going to lie. “I haven’t.”

He nods. “In answer to your question, he is alive. He is healing.”

“So, did you just pop in for a visit? Or are you back?” My question came out sounding more bitter than I intended, but now that it is said there is no taking back the emotion attached to it.

“I am here to spend Valentine’s Day with the two I love,” he answers, making me feel even worse.

I don’t validate the accusation I hear in his voice. Standing, I cross the room and sit behind my desk. My territory. A safe zone. I know it’s purely mental posturing but here I am king. A hiding monarch, but still the ruler of this corner. I do not want to fight and by shuffling papers I think maybe I can delay the inevitable.

“I have promised her I will visit the Primal Birth Center with her.”

Hitting the keys on my keyboard harder than necessary, I pull up my email, gall rising. “Kitten has a very good obstetrician, the best in the city. She sees him again in a few days, you might be better served meeting him.” I’m bluffing. I don’t know when her next appointment is. I know I missed an appointment. I know the doctor wanted to see her every two weeks. But honestly, I’m clueless.

“The best in the city?” he repeats, voice rising enough to stir Kitten. “By best do you mean he has the highest rate of Caesarian Section in the state?”

“He’s a high risk obstetrician. Of course his stats will be higher than a physician who does not manage high risk clients.”

“And what exactly led you to believe Sophia is high risk?”

I bite my tongue, silently counting to ten.
I’m not having this argument
.

Kitten rises while I am counting to ten a second time. Thomas helps her rearrange and they kiss. She looks at him like he is a God. That pisses me off too. He asks, “Good nap?”

She smiles. “Yes, Lord Fyre.”

He winks. “Ready to play?”

“No.” I stand, taking a resolute position on this one. “If you haven’t noticed, she’s pregnant, and the obstetrician said absolutely no play.”

Thomas helps her stand before turning to face me. “Join us or no, but we’re playing, and if you think I would do anything to ever hurt these three—” He slides his hands tenderly down Kitten’s arms to end wrapped protectively around her protruding stomach. “—you really have lost your mind while I’ve been away.”

“The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.”

Anais Nin

Kitten

In the elevator Thomas presses the button for the fourth floor. Garrett shakes his head. “You’re not taking her to The Attic.”

Thomas gives him a hard glance. “Would you rather I take her to the cove?”

A dark expression crosses over Garrett’s face, and the men share a look. I wonder what happened at the cove. Whatever it was must have been far worse than anything Thomas can do to me in The Attic.

The elevator doors open, and Lord Fyre leads us to Room Eight. He addresses Garrett. “This is your favorite room, yes?”

Master swallows, nervous. He doesn’t have to worry, I already know it’s his favorite room. Of course, I’ve never been inside but I’ve heard the rumors. Not knowing the truth of what Master does in there is both blessing and curse. I wonder but I can’t drive myself insane knowing the intimate details. He looks at me and though I try to hide my excitement, I know I’m doing a fairly horrible job. Ever since Thomas pressed the button in the elevator, I knew he was bringing me up here for a scene and I started bouncing on the inside. My excitement of finally playing again is so great I might just explode from the euphoria of the anticipation.

Garrett reaches up and strokes my face. “I don’t want anything to go wrong, Kitten.”

He means he doesn’t want me to lose the babies, and I don’t honestly think Thomas would be so irresponsible. He had a kinky wife, they had three children together, and all three children were fine. I smile, I can’t help it. I’m hoping for pain with a capital “P” but I’m trying to convince Garrett to not worry. “He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me or the babies.”

“I’ll be near. Right next door in an observation room.”

Thomas opens the door to Room Eight and slaps Garrett on the back. “Oh, you’ll be closer than that.”

He pushes Garrett into the room and holds out his hand to me. “Be careful. Watch your step here.”

The room is pitch black but suddenly starts to glow with red lights recessed in the floor. The dim lighting tracks reveal a labyrinth of pipe attached to the floor. Some low, only a few inches off the surface, some a foot high, and a few several feet high. I’m perplexed. Looking up, I see that a similar structure hangs from the ceiling.

I see that Thomas is holding a remote control. He presses another button, and the sound of hissing steam precedes the mist’s burst from pipe running vertically up the walls. I lick my lips, ready, impatient. I didn’t think I’d be nervous, this is after all a very controlled, safe setting, so unlike the places Lord Fyre normally takes me, but I can feel the sizzle of adrenaline racing through my veins and can’t deny being both nervous and excited.

Thomas leads me deeper into the room. Garrett has taken up a post near the wall, looking none too happy. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing. The doctor said no bondage and no impact play.”

Thomas chuckles and smiles at me before calling across the room. “You didn’t ask the right questions. Come. Be my assistant.”

For a moment I don’t think Garrett will come closer, but he does. I meet his gaze, realizing he is flushed. I think that just being in the room does it for Garrett on some core emotional level. If I touched him, I’m certain I would find he’s hiding a tight erection beneath his slacks, but I don’t have time to wonder why. Thomas directs me to sit on two parallel pipes which are affixed to the ground close enough together to form a bench. “Lie back.”

I’m not certain how he expects me to maintain my balance but I obey him and am surprised when he holds my hand in an assist. Before I am even halfway reclined my shoulders collide with another parallel pipe. He leads my hand to the pipe and I grasp.

“Hold on with both hands.”

I stretch my other arm out as instructed and grasp. A vision of Jesus stretched out on a cross flashes through my mind, but I kick the thought out of my brain. I recently concluded that
this
, my need to be restrained and hurt, would be one of the lesser things that would likely send me to hell.

“Comfortable?”

My head swivels. Lord Fyre has never asked me if I was comfortable during the course of one of our play sessions. Must being pregnant change everything? Like sitting on two pipes and reclining against a third is any less comfortable than lounging in a lawn chair. “I’m fine.”

He looks at Garrett. “Satisfactory?”

He sighs heavily, still disgruntled despite his arousal. “So far.”

Thomas kneels before me and gestures Garrett closer.

“You, my friend, need to start asking the right questions. No doctor in his right mind would give approval for any type of bondage or pain play. Even a community-friendly physician is going to fear a lawsuit if something goes horribly wrong.” Thomas cups the mound of my pregnancy. “The womb is an amazing shock absorber, almost nothing that takes place on the outside of a woman’s body will hurt the fetus.”

Garrett objects but Thomas lifts his hand, effectively silencing him. “That doesn’t mean I have any intention of spanking her, caning her, or whipping her.”

I narrow my eyes, disappointed that Thomas, who I thought was on my side, is suddenly being overcautious. At least in
my
mind. How could a simple thuddy flogging hurt the babies? I press my lips tightly together to keep from screaming. Thomas catches my gaze and I see him smirking. My heart swells with hope that he hasn’t turned completely.

Thomas separates my knees, spreading me wide. He strokes the inside of my thighs. “The veins here—”

Garrett names them, “Iliac, femoral, saphenous,” while waiting for Thomas to make a point.

“—can be prone to blood clots during pregnancy, so even though you would think that a light spanking here might not hurt the baby, it could be deadly to both mother and child.”

Garrett looks at me smugly. “And that is why bondage is also a very bad idea after the second trimester.”

“Correct,” Thomas agrees.

Turncoat.
I don’t break protocol though I’d love to interrupt. Since I am here, I have to assume that sooner or later Lord Fyre will arrive to save the day.

“The pipe can control without compressing.”

Garrett nods, meeting Thomas’s gaze. Something passes between them. Unsaid. I feel the ripple of energy as something changes. Have they found a common ground? Is the argument over? Are you going to do
something
with me now?

The men leave me sitting and go together to a wood workbench where they sort through bins silently. I sigh, impatient, wanting someone to tell me just what in the hell was decided. I don’t have to wait long, but the interim seems to take forever. They return bearing flashlights, tools and parts. Without a word to me they go into motion, working in tandem to trap my wrists and ankles between pipe. Both men hold the flashlights trapped between chin and chest, making me wonder if perhaps it would have been easier to turn on the lights, but knowing them as well as I do, it is all about the ambience.

They are so synchronized it is unnerving. I know they’ve worked together for years, played together, played with me as a threesome, and every time we play I am left awed. It is like they have one brain between them, anticipating each other’s moves.

I shiver, hating the noise the hand ratchet makes as they tighten down bolts to secure the assembly of pipe and metal elbows.
This
I wasn’t expecting. They step away and look at their work. I don’t feel bound. I’m disappointed in the effect for all the noise they made. “It’s too loose. I don’t feel anything.”

“Can you get free?” Garrett asks, and I pull my hand. I’m stuck. I don’t have to wiggle my ankles to know I’m not going anywhere.

Thomas closes the distance between us and slaps me. Hard.
Fuck!
Not Thomas. Lord Fyre. He is angry. Cheek flaming, adrenaline speeds through my veins. I want to run but understand too late, I’m not going anywhere. He slaps me again. And again.

I guess my face is fair game. I hate to be slapped. That is why with Lord Fyre I try really hard to behave. I’d forgotten. In only a few short weeks, with Garrett’s irregular enforcement of the rules, I’ve become a very bad slave. He grabs my cheeks and squeezes. “Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes, Lord Fyre,” I say through pinched lips. It must have been a satisfactory answer because he walks away to join Garrett at the workbench. Leaving me to sit and wait.

It’s a funny thing how bondage which could have been perfectly comfortable a moment before can suddenly turn not so. Arms stretched to the sides, my back only supported by the single pipe, I am starting to feel the burn. I shift but it doesn’t help. Closing my eyes, I try to relax. Harsh whispers are a distraction. No chance in hell of finding my zone with them arguing in the corner.

Garrett glances over his shoulder at me, looking resigned, but it is still several minutes before they rejoin me. Each man carries a tray set up with alcohol, swabs, gauze, and an array of needles.
Yes! This I can get excited about
.
I’ve watched both of my men do piercing sets onstage, separately, with partners other than me, and though I’ve considered asking to do a set with either or both of them, I haven’t and now that I am faced with the prospect of actually experiencing it, I don’t know why I haven’t. Well, actually, that’s a lie, normally, with Lord Fyre at least, this type of scene would be absolutely tame, and I enjoy our edge play too much to spend our time with something so mundane compared to what he can normally dream up for us to do together. And Master? Eh. I’m happy to let him tie me up and torture me. He chooses to not use needles, and I’ve never requested them.

Garrett swabs me from shoulder to groin with a liquid surgical prep, which seems like overkill to me but I’m not arguing.
I get to play!
My heart is racing.

Lord Fyre asks, “Is this acceptable?”

“Yes, Lord Fyre.”
Yes, yes, yes, a hundred times yes.
I wonder what part of my body they intend to pierce. I consider begging, ‘not my nipples’, because they’ve grown so sensitive, but I don’t. Right now, I’ll take anything they choose to give me.

He takes a surgical pen off of his tray and draws a spiral on my baby bump. He hands the pen to Master who draw three lines just above my breasts.

In concert, Master and Lord Fyre pick up alcohol swabs and needles. They wipe the top line of the design Master drew. The liquid cools my flesh, and a cold chill goes up my spine. They each pinch the skin over one of the lines and align their needles. Both needles pierce my flesh, the needle moving smoothly under my skin like a snake.
Oh!
Expected but an unanticipated higher intensity pain knives through me. I break out in a cold sweat and feel slightly dizzy. Is this
normal?