“You came in to tell us dinner was ready and caught me giving him a blow job. I’d pushed him onto one of the spanking benches and yanked his zipper down.”
He nodded, roaring with laughter. “Yes, you definitely weren’t in a mood to wait. Lucky for you, he’s perfectly happy with having a sexually aggressive submissive.”
Her hand didn’t move from her mouth. “Holy crap.”
He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sweetie, in the past couple of years, believe me, that’s one of the tamest things I’ve seen the two of you do at our private parties.”
She finally dropped her hand. “That’s what Shay meant.” She realized she was calling her Shay now.
“Meant by what?”
“In the hospital, after the chaplain had left, I asked her if I was religious. She made a comment about…” She laughed. “Now I understand.”
Tony smirked. “I’ve heard a lot of, ‘Oh, gods!’ come from you group of ladies. And some of the men.”
She nodded, still laughing. “Yeah. I get it now. And now I get why she looked freaked out. Like she’d spilled the beans.”
“Please don’t be angry at Rob. Or Shay. Just like with the poly stuff, he didn’t want to overwhelm you. I told her to handle this however Rob thought was best. That’s what we all did.”
Laura felt tears close again. It still surprised her that her moods could swing so wildly. “I’m not upset. I get it.”
He glanced at his phone. “Speaking of, wait here.” He got up and walked a few yards away before answering his phone and talking. After a few minutes, he ended the call and returned. He held out a hand to her. “Come on.”
She let him help her up. “Where to?”
“Home. My home. Rob gets off at six and he’s going to come straight to my house for dinner after he walks Doogie.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A few more memories piggybacked on top of what she’d just rediscovered. As she looked out the passenger window while Tony drove, she considered all of it.
It all felt right.
It didn’t tell her who attacked her, and it didn’t give her back the bulk of her relationship with Rob, but it did make a few things flip into a different perspective that felt right. That had felt desperately missing in a way she hadn’t been able to put her finger on before that moment.
To her, that was every bit as important as regaining all of her memories.
It also left her with a sense of peace she’d known had been missing in her life, but that she had attributed to her fear over the attacker still wandering around out there somewhere.
The overwhelming feeling that something besides her memories was missing.
She’d been missing her Master.
She no longer felt alone.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath.
Yes, the fear still hung there, dark and foreboding without memories to light the mass from below.
Now, however, instead of feeling like she walked along the edge of a crumbling cliff, risking a deathly plunge into the abyss, she felt securely tethered to a rock that wouldn’t move.
Tethered heart and soul to Rob.
And to her adopted kinky kin.
Another deep breath filled her lungs with hope every bit as much as it did with air. No, she wasn’t alone now. Her parents were dead, and she had Steve, Carol, and Bill, among others.
But her family, the ones she knew would drop everything to rush to her side, the ones she would do the same for, they were back in her heart, if not completely in her memories yet.
She had enough. She had enough to remember them, the love she had for all of them and the love she knew they had for her, and for Rob.
The trust they had for Rob to take care of her. To love her. To treat her well.
And she knew if they all had that kind of faith in him, so would she.
Shayla wasn’t home yet and wouldn’t be for at least an hour. He walked down to their bedroom and closed himself in to call her, leaving Laura alone in the living room.
She sat on the floor while Bagel and Cream, Tony and Shayla’s cats, crawled all over her, head-butting her chin and rubbing their heads against her hands in their search for attention.
“Doogie’s going to be all over you when you get home.” She’d been sitting with her back to the hallway and Tony’s voice startled her a little.
She looked over her shoulder at him and caught the smile on his face. He’d changed out of his jeans and work shirt into shorts and a T-shirt.
“He’ll get over it. He’s smelled them before…”
There was that head cock again as Tony watched her. Finally, when she didn’t speak, he asked, “Another memory?”
“Sort of.” She gave the cats one last scratch each before gently moving them from her lap so she could stand. “Some things aren’t really memories, but when I say them it just feels right. Does that make sense?”
“I’m not a psychiatrist.”
She thought about the appointment she’d been putting off making with Dr. Simpson. “I need to make another appointment with my shrink.”
He nodded. “That would be the prudent thing to do.”
She blurted it out. “What if I don’t like who I was…before?”
He cocked his head the other direction. “I doubt that’s going to be a problem. We all love you. Think of it this way. If you do find out stuff about yourself that you’re not happy with, this is the perfect opportunity to make changes that will make you happy.”
“Will Rob love the new me?”
He’d started walking toward the kitchen but stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. “Sweetie,” he gently said, “Rob already loves you. I don’t think there’s much you could do to make him stop loving you.”
Laura felt more familiarity coming back as she helped Tony get dinner ready. To the point she was about to playfully run him out of the kitchen to get him out of her way when he recognized what was going on.
“You think you’ve got this under control?” he teased.
“Yeah, I think I can make baked ziti without help.”
He grinned and took his glass of iced tea to one of the barstools pushed under the counter, where he took a seat to watch her. “Then go for it, missy.”
She giggled, another memory falling into place. It had been his nickname for her once she wore his collar of protection. And still was. “Yes, Sir,” she teased right back.
That got a full-throated laugh out of him. He held his glass up in a mock toast. “Now that was a great thing to hear come out of your mouth. I was wondering if we ever would.”
They talked while she cooked. The few times she fumbled and paused, unable to remember where something was, he waited until she asked for prompting instead of jumping in to save her.
It didn’t escape her notice that she was more familiar with their kitchen than she’d been with the one at her condo, at first.
“I spend a lot of time here with Shay, didn’t I?”
“You do. It’s been weird not having everybody together like we’re used to.”
She stopped, hands braced on the counter. “I’m sorry,” she quietly said before another storm of tears surprised her.
He rounded the counter to hug her. “I didn’t mean it like that. We just—”
“Didn’t want to overwhelm me.”
“Yeah.” He made her look up at him. “Rob asked us to keep the BDSM stuff from you. And of course we did it. Because we were all willing to do whatever it took to help him and you.”
“I hope this gets easier.”
“I wish I had an answer for you there.”