From Sanctum with Love (Masters and Mercenaries #10)(10)

Erin chuckled as she found them. “You’re very prepared, K.”

“I’m lost on this place. Most of the patients are men,” Kori admitted. “Some of them still sneak in here. I think they heard I keep a stash of granola bars and snacks in the other drawer. Not to mention the fact that some of those dudes believe in a skin care regime, and I say good for them. I go to department stores and ask for samples. Most of the time I get turned away, but every now and then someone will stock a sister up. Especially when they hear what we do.”

Erin opened the second drawer and pulled out a protein bar. “Thank god. I’m starving. How can I throw up one minute and want to eat my own arm the next?”

“I think that’s the fun part of pregnancy,” Kori admitted.

“What’s the shitty part?”

“When you have to push a baby head through your lady bits. I’ve heard that sucks.”

Erin laughed and ran one of the towelettes over her face. “Yeah, it sounds that way. You know you’re the only one who treats me like I’m still Erin.”

“You are and you aren’t. You’re never going to be the same. I should know.” It was time to impart a little truth since Erin had opened up. “I wasn’t after what happened with my dad. I started living in this fantasy world in my head and I didn’t come out of it for a very long time.”

Erin turned, leaning on the vanity. “Fantasy world?”

She’d never told anyone with the singular exception of her best friend, Sarah. Sarah was the only person who knew who Kori had been. “I wrote a lot. I wrote in a journal, but I would make up stories. I didn’t write down feelings, but they came out anyway. I had my first play produced when I was sixteen. It was about teen suicide.”

“Wow. I bet that got your mom nervous.”

“Oh, yes. She had to figure out that writing that dumb play was my way of not killing myself. It felt good. It’s still used in a couple of school systems as an educational tool to prevent suicide. From there I wrote some plays and screenplays and some seriously kinky Doctor Who fan fiction. I think it was a lot easier to live in the world in my head than it was to face the fact that my dad was gone.”

“Why did you stop? Writing, I mean.” Erin frowned when she didn’t answer. “Don’t hold out on me, K. You’re the one who initiated this session. Or did Kai send you in here for vagina talk?”

“Of course he sent me in here and I won’t tell him shit if you don’t want me to. Also, I wanted to come and talk to you. I know Faith is your bestie and all, but she’s not here right now so you can count on me. As to why I stopped writing. Ugh, I don’t even like talking about it.”

“Well, I live to talk about Theo’s murder and my pop-up pregnancy.”

The woman had a point. If she was going to dish it out, she better be able to take it. “Okay. Sanctum wasn’t my first club.”

Erin snorted a little. “No shit. Sorry, but if you were trying to play the newbie sub, you shouldn’t jump into suspension every time there’s a training session. Most newbs are afraid of being suspended ten feet off the ground and having their nipples tortured.”

She liked what she liked. She actually forced herself to pull back from most of what she truly craved. Submission, she’d found, was like her drug. She tended to make poor choices when she fully invested in it. And yet she couldn’t completely stay away. “I got into the lifestyle young. My boyfriend became my Master and then he turned into a total prick who stole my every idea, turned it into his own, and shut me out. He took other subs and I stayed. He cheated on me and I told myself it was all right. He gave my best screenplay to another woman, who ripped it apart and turned it into dreck, and that was when I finally left.”

“Wow. Should I kill him? Because that might actually make me feel better. Don’t worry about the baby. I can totally snipe him from afar. No danger to the fetus.”

Kori had to smile because Erin might not be joking. “It was years ago. I’m good. I made my choices and I walked away. All I’m trying to tell you is that you might never be normal again, but you find a new normal. You find a…what should I call it? Peace. I’m at peace.”

“What am I going to do?” Erin asked, her voice so quiet.

It didn’t matter. Kori could still hear her. “The best you can. It’s all you can do.”

It was all any of them could do in the end.

Ten minutes later, she promised Erin she would send her all the information on Dr. Melinda Bates, including her first appointment time. She gave Erin a hug and turned to go into Kai’s office. She wasn’t going to tell him what Erin had said, merely that Erin was going to the doctor and she had everything well in hand.

A vision of Kai smiling and telling her she deserved a treat for a well-done job floated across her brain. He would thrust his hands in her hair and force her to her knees. He would offer her a choice. The cane or the whip. She loved the way the man held a whip. Once he’d warmed her up, ensured she would feel those stripes he would leave on her ass for days, then he would lay her out on his desk and shove his face in her…

Damn it. She couldn’t think of him that way. She couldn’t. He was her boss, and he was a f*cking gloriously beautiful sadist.

Not again. Never again. She wasn’t going back into that particular part of the D/s world. No more serious sadists for her. She’d promised herself.