Finding Their Balance (40 page)

“I have.” A whiny, affronted edge accompanied the quick reply.

Henry resumed his descent.

The questioner hurried to catch up. “I’ve been thinking since the last time we had him over.”

She and Jay, trading eyerolls and nods, moseyed along behind. “He’s so missing the point.”

Caressing the banister, Henry rounded the last curve and stepped into the lobby. “Ideally, you’ll involve both of them in the discussion as equals.”

He glanced up at them, his languid blink the lone indication of his suffering. Leap-before-you-look dominants made his teeth grind twice as hard when they wasted his time. This guy wanted a seal of approval for his awful idea, not an interrogation about its lack of merit. Henry’d try anyway. He wouldn’t be the dom they loved if he didn’t.

“Perhaps the occasional sessions are all the two of them require—and desire—together.” Skirting the lobby proper, Henry led the guest straight toward the exit hall.

“But I want more.” The questioner trotted alongside, disappearing under the arch. “You’ve got a great setup, with those two hanging on your every….”

“Just now?” Emma’s alto floated up the grand staircase. Standing at the front desk, she spun and eyed Henry. “How many?”

Jay would want to say hello. Henry, too, once he’d politely disposed of the guest. Besides, they hadn’t been the only ones having a special night out yesterday. Curiosity—and Jay’s bouncing enthusiasm—carried Alice across the lobby.

Behind the desk, Daniel waved at the numbered boxes and mumbled answers. Their security staffer hadn’t gotten the fun of throwing anyone out of class this morning.

Emma caught her lip between her teeth. “Did he say—” Spotting them, she tossed on a hasty smile and let the conversation die.

Well wasn’t that a fun puzzle. Alice leaned against the desk. “Morning. Fair warning, Jay’s gonna hug you twice as hard now to make up for not seeing you when we got here.”

Arms wide, Jay offered himself up. The duffel swayed at his hip, the strap slung bandolier style. “I’m the chief hugger. Test hugs dispensed daily.”

“Lovely to see you both.” Emma locked Jay in a bear hug with slim arms turned to corded steel. “Is Henry coming right back?”

“He’s schooling some guy with more sensitivity than I would.” Thank God he didn’t expect so much diplomacy from her. “He’ll just be a minute.”

Though why saying so added to Emma’s nervous disposition didn’t clear up the mystery. The older woman patted Jay’s back with motherly affection.

A night out with Santa should’ve relaxed anybody. Hell, he laughed as often as Jay and with deeper gusto. “How was your concert? Last night, right?”

“Yes, it was wonderful.” With a final pat to Jay’s forearm, Emma slipped free. “Warm, but the clear skies sang with beautiful stars, and the orchestra was exquisite as ever.” She smoothed her skirt. “Will’s a thoughtful escort.”

“Must be a long drive back in the dark.” Not her subtlest fishing job.

A flush sprinkled Emma’s cheeks. “I’m sure the drive is the same length no matter when it’s made.”

“I’m sure.” Okay, maybe the adage was true, and people in love saw love everywhere. Emma’s attitude toward Will didn’t differ much from her attitude toward Henry—a big dollop of affection, a moderate one of deference, and an indiscernible amount of attraction.

“You should’ve stayed the night.” Flashing his sly charm smile, Jay swaggered into the conversation. “He’s got a huge”—he spread his hands wide—“shower. I know, I’ve taken lots of showers in my life.”

Emma labored at a shaky laugh. “With the way you zip around town all day, I shouldn’t wonder.”

If Will and Emma had spent the night at the lake, the agenda tilted toward talking, not flogging. Still. Emma’s legendary poise showed uncomfortable cracks.

Leech discarded, Henry reappeared in the lobby. What she wouldn’t give for a psychic connection to tell him he’d walked out of one vexing conversation and into one equally confusing.

“Em, I wasn’t certain you’d be in.” Grazing Emma’s arm, he pressed a light kiss to her cheek. “How was Tanglewood? Such a lovely night—did you bother with seats under the shed?”

“The lawn.” For a moment, Emma’s stormy blue eyes softened. “But never mind that.” She nodded toward the exit. “Did you convert another to the church of Henry?”

As Jay snorted, Alice idly thwapped his chest. Better than opening her mouth and pointing out how often he attended worship services.

He snatched her hand and kissed the back.

“That one would need more than a few moments after class to bring around.” Henry smiled at the two of them. Polite patience with lackluster students might drain his energy, but their playfulness restored him. “If he goes forward with what he has planned—and I use the term generously—he’s likely to lose both of his partners in spectacular fashion. He’d do better to lay the groundwork than to spring such a momentous decision on them unilaterally.”

Shoulders stiffening, Emma shot Henry a grimace. “We should talk in my office. Daniel, Master Henry needs his mail, please.”

Daniel slid their cellphones across the desk. He raised two square-ish envelopes with a card dealer’s panache. “The other, or….”

“Both directly to him, thank you.” Emma’s fleeting glance at her and Jay boded ill.

As Daniel passed over the cards, the top envelope revealed
M. Henry
in shining, embossed script. Fancy as a formal invitation.

Henry shuffled the invites. The tip of his thumb whitened, and the corner of the second envelope bent under the pressure. “In your office, then.” Winter swirled in his tone. Stepping past the desk, he led the way.

The look she and Jay shared, following, didn’t carry half as much amusement as their conspiratorial camaraderie five minutes before.

* * * *

Scooting into the office behind Henry, Alice pulled Jay along. Henry stalked toward the bookshelves lining the far wall.

Emma dawdled in the doorway. Of her own office. “You’re certain you wouldn’t rather—” Frown lining her face, she gripped the door handle. “Jay could stow that heavy bag and bring your car around.”

The duffel hugging Jay’s hip sagged from the lack of filler items to hold its shape. Heavy didn’t describe the floppy canvas and leather by a long shot.

Henry jangled the keys in his pocket. A wealth of green-eyed intensity, he focused his dominant gaze on Jay. “No.”

Jay transformed his lanky, loose-limbed stance into military precision. Back straight. Shoulders squared. With his bowed head, he revealed the submission, rather than confrontation, guiding his posture.

As inevitably as a magnet swayed a compass needle, the attitude drew Henry closer. Claiming the space in front of Jay, he rough-cupped his cheek. Their tension spilled over, raising the hairs on her arms.

“He’s not a child, and I won’t send him from the room while the grown-ups talk.” A short slide brought his hand to the back of Jay’s neck. Tight knuckles revealed the measured force in his grip. “My boy contains an immense inner strength.”

A well refilled daily by Henry’s love—and now hers. Bolstered by praise and control, Jay stood steady amid the swirling currents.

Henry tapped the envelopes against his thigh. “Tell us all of it.”

As the door closed with a click, Emma pressed her back to the dark wood. “He insists you’re poisoning subs against him, and he wants to demonstrate that he’s what they need.”

Jay’s tormenter. Their efforts—the tea, the classes, the unexpected encounters at the party—had rattled Cal.

“Unacceptable. His greeting alone tells me the kind of example he intends to present.” Releasing Jay, Henry raised the white envelopes. “You cannot allow him to infect this community any further, Em.”

Did the satisfaction fluttering in her stomach make her a sadist, too? They’d come into Cal’s playroom and transferred his toys to a higher shelf. Christ, she’d laugh her ass off watching him try to reclaim them with increasing desperation if those toys weren’t people he’d hurt in the past or would in the future.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Emma worried the lines of pearls at her throat. “What do you expect I can do?”

“Stall him.” Henry slid his finger under the seal. “Broken equipment.” A loud, jagged tear opened across the flap. “Scheduling issues. A misplaced reservation.” Extracting the note with two fingers, he bent his head. “A backlog of requests. Too many activities for the month. Put him off long enough, and he might redirect his attention.”

At each suggestion in Henry’s gruff recital, Emma shook her head. “I’ve run through those excuses in the last two months.”

Since the night Henry first brought her to the club, when Jay’s reappearance ignited the long-banked embers of Cal’s cruelty. Maybe no “long enough” existed to make the jackass quit. Even five years later, Henry stopping his scene with Jay stuck in his craw.

“He refuses to be dislodged no matter how many inconveniences I contrive, and he complains to sympathetic board members at the smallest slight.” Pinching a pearl, Emma took a deep breath and shed the speed her voice had gathered. “Him running afoul of Master Andrew in that business with Leah and having his priority privileges suspended was a stroke of luck.”

After seeing Leah’s well-behaved submission in the salon, he’d thought her a mousy target. Spectacular backfire.

“Enough rope to hang himself.” Henry scanned the note he held. “He’s become obsessed.”

With reclaiming Jay. With getting back at Henry.

“He wanted the eleventh.” Bowing her head, Emma wrapped her palms together. “He always does.”

Jay jerked. Eyeing the cross-beamed ceiling, he trembled as if the floors above might collapse and crush him. Three stories pancaking until he stood alone in his fourth-floor nightmare.

With a low growl, Henry ripped open the second envelope.

“Every year. He—” Emma twisted her face with bitter too-much-coffee not-enough-cream distaste. “Discussing details of room and equipment reservations members make or why they might choose specific dates would be a breach of ethics.”

Oh Jesus. Henry celebrated the good anniversaries with them. Cal obsessed over imagined wrongs. In the week before Henry and Jay had sat in the salon on their first date, Cal had been ignoring Jay’s safeword and laughing. The idea of him marking the occasion every year—an acidic burn rose in her throat.

The second note crumpled in Henry’s grip. “He can’t seriously entertain the notion that the board will allow him to parade his misguided attitudes as teaching the other side of the argument. Consent is sacred. His ‘other side’ is assault and abuse and has no place here.”

“I agree, but nothing can be done about it now.” Pushing off the door, Emma waved at the notes. “His full privileges have been reinstated. He charmed the board into giving him the main platform for his show.”

“You’re the operations manager, Em.” Incredulity or frustration might’ve lurked beneath Henry’s neutrality. Impossible to tell when he went all dom-faced. “You make the assignments.”

“And I didn’t hear about this debacle until I walked in this morning.” Coiled in on herself, Emma made a tiny target but one supercharged with potential energy. “This is the mess I get for taking a night away.” Voice rising, she clipped her words between sharp teeth. “I’d have an easier time if you’d agreed to sit on the damn board. I told you—”

“And I told you—” With his no-nonsense tone, Henry commanded silence. “Will would do a fine job in my place. I cannot—I will not—put anything ahead of my responsibilities to Jay and Alice.” Thick paper rustled in his fist. “They come first in my life.”

The foundational, rock-solid tenet of their three-sided relationship. Alone or with friends or addressing a crowd of strangers, Henry never shied from vocalizing the depth of his commitment. Strength and honor weren’t party tricks he donned to impress vulnerable submissives. He lived his beliefs.

“I would never challenge that, Henry. You deserve every happiness with them, the joy of a full house, of—” As her voice cracked, Emma shut her eyes. “If I can’t protect the people I love, if I can’t maintain the integrity of Victor’s vision for this community, what use am I?” High-pitched anguish dwindled to a whisper. “I’ve allowed all I have left of him to crumble to pieces.”

Cal infected more than those he abused. With his entitled attitude and his unwitting enablers, he splashed collateral damage. He slithered into the sanctuary and spat venom on the commandments. Weakened enough, they’d fall.

“I see.” Henry stared beyond Emma, across the desk to the wall behind, where a whip hung looped with care over bronze hooks. “This is your confessional.”

The office bathed in masculine elegance, a dark and heavy den of mahogany, walnut, and leather. The same as Emma’s husband had left it, maybe. She surrounded herself with the pearls and the whip, with objects and images that spoke to her as her husband once did. Cal draped an oily shadow over the loving dominance venerated in these halls.

But Jay—surrounded by love and praise, kept busy with tasks, he let go of the mountain of hurt. Henry’s love had ground Jay’s insecurity to a fist-sized stone. To expel the betrayal forever, they had to crack the stone. Confronting the place had begun the work. Confronting the betrayer would crush the remnants to dust.

Two problems, two dominants to grasp them. Emma needed Henry’s support now. For Jay, who carried Henry in his heart, Alice would be enough. She extended her arm.

Stepping past, Henry laid the envelopes in her palm as if they’d rehearsed the motion. The flicker in his eyes and the trailing brush of his thumb showed all the gratitude and praise she needed.

She skimmed the top sheet, a message written with a pen dipped in scorn.

...hiding behind your morning kindergarten for weak-minded fools … wouldn’t dare approach true practitioners of the art … your fragile mastery couldn’t withstand a challenge …

“The window for discussion has closed.” As Henry clasped Emma’s shoulders, her indrawn breath rasped with the intensity of the first on a frosty morning. “You seek an outlet to expiate your guilt and frustration. To deliver Victor’s judgment.”

Henry’s decision to make. Her faith in him raised no petulant, childish objections. However he handled Emma’s pain, he would bring sensitivity and skill to bear. As she would, holding her tongue while Jay inched closer and peered over her shoulder.