Power Play (Center Ice Book 2) (14 page)

m

Rocky, but rising. That’s how I’d describe my play right now.

I score one goal and five assists on the road—that’s the good part. The screens and shots I mess up—the not so good. But I’m improving. I fix that thought in my mind like the goddamned stations of the Cross. I’m improving. Brian and Sergei both say so, and they’re not going to bullshit me. They’ve got nothing to gain by lying, after all—it’s their team on the line, too.

“Better,” Coach Isaacs says. “Better.”

Usually he says it before my mind strays to Rajani, and I choke.

I’m dying for another visit to Club Brimstone. I need to bleed this pain and guilt out of me. Fiona—well, I’m goddamned crazy about her. But she can’t be the brutal dominatrix I need, and nor do I want her to be. That’s the kind of controlling shit David would have done, back in the day, and as much as some of our old friends might think so, I’m nothing like he was. Never was and never will be.

I let myself slip with Fiona once, pushing her into the bed, dominating her from behind. She gave me permission. But it was wrong. I can never do that again.

I have to regain control of myself.

After morning skate back in DC, I lurk the corridors, full of restless energy that I can’t burn off on the ice. Fiona promised to have a late dinner with me after tonight’s game, but I can’t wait that long. Rajani’s nipping at my heels. Clawing at my back. I’ve got to shake her.

Lucinda Novak’s office is right there—the staff sports psychologist. I pace back and forth in front of her door.
Listen. I’m haunted by my ex-girlfriend. I can’t focus on the ice. Help me. Help.

No. It sounds crazy. I can’t do it. I pull my hand from the doorknob and hustle out of the arena.

Club Brimstone is only a few blocks away. Maybe one of their other dommes will work with me. I won’t push her too hard. I just need a little something to take off the edge. Just a little spank, a little flog . . . Briefly, I consider going home and tying myself up in ropes, but that way lies a Darwin Award-worthy death. Dammit. There has to be something I can do.

I pull out my phone to search for other S&M dungeons—even though I know Brimstone’s the best in the area. But there’s already a Facebook message waiting for me.

David Gresham: Saw your family Christmas photo. Should’ve known you’re banging the reporter chick.

Fiona? How the hell does David know about Fiona? The last thing I want is that psychopath anywhere near her, twisting her mind with his stupid sleazy charm.
What are you talking about?
I type back.

He doesn’t respond for a few minutes. I’m half-considering hauling my ass over to Georgetown Law right now and dragging him out of class. Then, finally:
Oh, she’s been nosing around. I handled it on my end. But she’s bound to find R sooner or later.

No, no, no. This isn’t happening.

Fiona wouldn’t do this to me.

Would she?

I try calling her. No idea what I’m going to say—nothing pretty, that’s for sure—but it goes straight to voicemail, like it does whenever the person’s out of a service area. Try three more times, and get the same result. Shit shit shit.

I check the calendar—it’s Tuesday. Visiting day. Well, fuck. I’m overdue for a visit as it is.

I call up my usual car service and give them the address for Saint Agnes.

*

Endless skies, endless mountain peaks, cradling me like an embrace. The Shenandoah Valley is so beautiful, but today, all I’m seeing is red. I’m absolutely bristling with rage, about to burst straight out of the back seat of the sedan as we coast our way down the mountain range toward Saint Agnes. Finally, the familiar landmarks swarm into view: a burned-out grain silo. A horse farm. A diner, its parking lot crammed with pick-up trucks.

We sweep up a mountainside path, the sedan rattling back and forth. The driver makes some smart-ass comment apologizing for the road condition, but I don’t hear it. The minute he pulls into a visitor parking spot at the top of the hill, I’m up and out of the car, storming through Saint Agnes’s front door.

“Oh, good afternoon, Mister Wright,” the front desk nurse chirps.

I breeze right past her.

Then I see them. In the great hall, staring out of those goddamned enormous panoramic windows that put the whole valley on display. Fiona crouches beside the wheelchair, back toward me, as she stares out at the scenery.

“Fiona.”

She looks up, and every last hint of color drains from her face.

I run up to the other side of the wheelchair and look down at the woman seated in it. Her distant, glassy gaze. Her head, tipped over to one side. She blinks, not even acknowledging me, just watching the clouds roll by.

A thousand sharp retorts crowd on my tongue. But none of them are just right. I trail my fingers against the woman’s long, silky hair and sigh. There’s no way out of this but through.

“I see you’ve met Rajani.”

c

f

Marcus and I settle into armchairs facing each other at one end of the great hall. My whole body is shaking. Terrified of what he might say or do. My Marcus, my sweet, pliable, eager Marcus—what is he really capable of? How could he have turned that woman into—into this?

“Severe cerebral hypoxia,” Marcus says, speaking to his hands, clenched together in his lap.

He’s trembling, too. I want to clasp his hands in mine, but I’m too afraid.

“Deprive the brain of oxygen for too long, and brain cells start to die off. Language and speech centers are often the first to go. After five minutes, you run the risk of inducing a coma.” He draws a ragged breath. “Do you want to guess how long it took the ambulance to arrive, way out in the middle of nowhere, Virginia, at a tiny college town?”

I shake my head. I don’t want to guess. I’m not sure I want to know anything. But I can’t tear myself away. I brought this on myself because I couldn’t stop chasing my story.

Better that I learn his dark secrets now, I guess, before I really got attached to Marcus.

But as soon as I think that, I realize how wrong I am. I’m already in too deep.

Marcus swallows and glances toward Rajani for a long minute, then looks back down. “They call it breathplay. Choking your partner until they black out. Autoerotic asphyxiation.”

I groan and cover my mouth with my hand. No no no no no.

“It was her favorite thing for me to do. I wasn’t all that comfortable with it, myself, but she always had this . . . this way. She was very persuasive.”

I remember what Andy Frick told me—that she—no, no longer a nameless she, but Rajani—was always really the one in charge. Pulling Marcus’s strings, addicted to the power, the same way David had been to him.

But Marcus is the one who did this to her. Who broke her. Irrevocably. It does me no good to try to vilify Rajani here, to soften the blow. Marcus’s hands ruined her life.

“I’ll tell you the whole story,” Marcus says.

I lift my head.

“On the record. Whatever it is that you want to know.”

“But?” I ask, my throat closing up around the word.

“But then you have to go. Leave her alone.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Get out of my life.”

My vision waters. “All right.”

No cold stories. Only a cold, lonely trail.

*

M

We were young, in love, and kinky as fuck. Top, bottom, didn’t matter—we tried it all. I loved to be controlled, but it was always the greatest gift when she turned that control over to me. Rajani dictated my whole life, you see? She was my sunrise and sunset. I didn’t so much as think without her. To someone like me, who’d never had that great of focus, who felt like all I ever did was get in my way, she was a godsend. By controlling me, she helped me regain control, too.

God knows plenty of people would have said she was abusing me. Or that I was abusing her. Andy—I’m assuming you talked to Andy—he can’t see the kink scene as anything but an abusive relationship. What he and David had was unhealthy, I’ll admit that. But I think Rajani and I did it right. It served both our needs. Isn’t that how a healthy relationship should be?

Except we were young and dumb. We didn’t do our research. We always thought we knew better. We constantly pushed too far. And she paid the price.

BDSM, it isn’t like in the movies, the books. You don’t just waltz into a scene and go all out. You need safeguards, agreements, and—this is crucial—a sense of when to stop, even when you aren’t told. I knew what Rajani liked, I knew her safe word, I knew her safe signal. But I’m an idiot. I didn’t think that she might not be able to know we’d gone too far until it was too late for her to let me know.

I just thought I was doing what she wanted. What she was always begging me to do.

Then she wouldn’t wake up.

I called emergency services immediately, of course. By the time they finally arrived, I’d dressed us both, but there was no hiding those bruises on her neck. We hadn’t even reached the hospital before they started grilling me about domestic violence. They took her straight to surgery, but instead of spending the night in the waiting room, I spent it in a jail cell.

This was all within weeks of the pro league draft, mind you. I got out on bail, got drafted into the Eagles, and promptly spent every last penny of my signing bonus on the best lawyer I could find. I ended up settling out of court with her parents, who, I think, were so disgusted by the truth about their daughter and her kinks that they were all too happy to wash their hands of her.

So, sure, it made the legal problems go away. But what about me? I’d lost my best friend in the world. My sense of purpose. She kept me focused, kept me on track. And suddenly, she was a statue. The person who could have most helped me through what I was facing, the loss . . . She was the same person I’d betrayed.

I mean, here I was, grieving for her, while everyone said I was to blame. And I was. I still am. I’ll never escape that. Do you understand?

I did this.
I did this
. She will never again have words to tell this story in her own way. She gets frustrated trying to read board books. Trying to follow a TV show.

You know what she does understand?—Oh, god, I’m sorry,  I don’t mean to cry . . . You know what she loves to watch on TV?

My hockey games.

Sorry, I need a minute.

Okay. Okay, I’m good. So this is my burden. This awful thing I’ve done that can never be undone. This is what happens when I’m in control.

I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to atone. I’m the one who needs punishment—always. I’m the one who has to be contained.

*

f

“But you talked to a therapist, right?” I ask.

Marcus stares out the window, at the sunset of molten gold as it spreads across the hillside. “No. I can’t. They wouldn’t understand.”

“I really think you’d be surprised—”

“I said,
no.
”

There’s that force back in his tone. I wasn’t afraid of it before. But I’m afraid now.

Maybe he doesn’t deserve that fear. But he ruined someone’s life. He has that power in him. He could just as easily turn it on me. On anyone.

“Most therapists will scream abuse the minute you mention anything about a BDSM kink. Claim it can never be healthy. And maybe they’re right.” Marcus sighs. “I just don’t know.”

I swallow. This is it, then. He wants me out of his life. That means I’m not supposed to care what happens to him from this point.

I used to be that girl—wielding a scalpel the moment someone said they were ready to cut ties with me. I would cut them out of me like a cancer. Because it always turned out that way.

I don’t know if I’m ready to do that with Marcus. He was different.

But maybe he was still the same—using me like all the rest. Instead of using me for single-serving sex, he’s been using me to give rise to his pain.

“I really cared about you, Fiona.” Marcus scrubs at his reddened eyes. “If you wanted to know the truth . . .”

I shake my head. “I think, in my own twisted way, I was hoping that the further I followed the story . . . the further it would get from you.”

“Well, now you know the truth. I’m exactly the violent monster you wanted to find in your sports industrial complex.” He smiles sadly. “Good luck with Insight News.”

Marcus stands up.

“Wait,” I say.

He presses his lips together. “You deserve better than me.”

“I could say the same for you.”

He snorts. “Stay as long as you want. I’ll put you on the permanently approved visitors list, in fact. She’ll be glad for the company from someone other than me.”

“Her parents never visit?”

“Just me and Andy Frick,” Marcus says.

And then he’s gone.

The nursing staff brings around dinner—a soft pre-cut chicken fried steak and green beans. I sit with Rajani while she eats, in slow, hesitant bites. She has trouble aiming the fork toward the piece of food she’s wanting, and tears well up in her eyes. Her gaze slides toward me. I gesture toward the fork. She tips her head toward me, and gently, I take the fork from her, and help guide another piece of steak toward her mouth.

When I’m finished, she pats my hand, like I’m a good dog. I smile back at her.

“Hockey game’s about to come on, Rajani,” one of the nurses says. He reaches up to adjust the TV for her. “Do you and your friend want to watch?”

My throat tightens. But I can stay for the game. If nothing else, I can watch it with Rajani.

Let her tell her own story, even if she has to tell it without words.