The Right Thing Read online

  “’Kenzie, gal? Do y’all want to talk to this fella? It’s up to you.”

  They all waited in the silence broken by a faint hiss ensuing from the back of the shop and the murmur of street traffic. All the machinery was shut down and ticked off the moments as it cooled. Another customer pushed through the door, the bell tinkled and the tableau fractured.

  “No.”

  That barely breathed negative. A knife to his chest. Michael involuntarily stepped backward against the searing pain, right into Jenifer, and everything moved sluggishly forward. The wife reached for the customer’s receipt, the husband and Donna moved as one to usher McKenzie into the depths of the shop, and the other woman stepped around to block the counter. She looked fierce to Michael’s jaundiced eyes, despite her slender size. They’d left him no recourse at that moment so he walked out of the store, dragging an enthralled Jenifer with him. Michael supposed it was a different kind of entertainment for his cousin.

  * * * *

  McKenzie managed to make herself accompany Donna and Mr. Lee to the little storage room in the back. She couldn’t stop the tears though, nor the sobs now tearing through her chest. Seeing Michael standing not twenty feet away created the sense of time standing still and then being dumped straight into a freezing cold vat of water. Her brain screamed at her to flee but her body wouldn’t obey its commands. Her heart awakened and begged her to throw herself at his feet. She thought she would go insane with the push and pull and only holding onto the clothes rack had given any hope she wouldn’t go screaming over the edge of oblivion. Donna came to the rescue and Mr. and Mrs. Lee respected ’Kenzie’s decision. Michael had found her and wanted to take her and had a woman with him. She wasn’t Joyce, although looked similar at first glance, hovering behind Michael, a supercilious smile on her well-bred face. The woman was his cousin Jenifer, and McKenzie couldn’t figure out why Jenifer was with Michael. Had they found her inadvertently? Did he think to share her with his cousin? Her head throbbed in confusion.

  While terrified of her response, McKenzie acknowledged she hadn’t gotten over Michael. Not one tiny little bit. The very intensity of their relationship hadn’t palled at all, and on second thought he said he’d been looking for her so it probably wasn’t an accident he’d shown up. She didn’t know what to do, but somehow managed to refuse him. For the first time ever. Well, the second, if one counted running away in the first place. But she didn’t know what to do now. She was incapable of deciding. One look at him and all the newly hard earned independence knocked into the proverbial cocked hat.

  “McKenzie? Mr. Lee says you can go home for the rest of the day. You can use the back door so asshole won’t know, if the jerk’s still hanging around.”

  McKenzie hadn’t noticed Mr. Lee returning to work, leaving her in Donna’s capable hands. Nodding, not really trusting her voice, she reached to wipe at the tears, accepting the tissues Donna passed over with muttered thanks. She needed to get herself under control.

  “You want me to walk you? I will.”

  McKenzie managed to reply. “No, thanks anyway, Donna. I’ve cost you enough time and probably cost me my job. I’m sorry I acted like an idiot.”

  “Don’t be a dork. The Lees won’t fire you. You were shit scared, kid. You looked like you’d seen your death. Fuck, it was something. What did that guy do to you? Maybe you need to call a cop.”

  “It’s something I can’t really explain, Donna. I’m sorry. But it threw me.”

  Donna snorted. “That’s an understatement. I thought you was going to faint or something. Tell you what. I’ll come by with coffee after work and maybe you can bend my ear.”

  McKenzie cast around for something to say, and then just nodded. Maybe it was time to talk to somebody who could be objective, and Donna, despite really strong opinions, wasn’t callous or intolerant. Donna had several of her own crosses to bear. And Donna hadn’t given up on her despite how reticent ’Kenzie had been. Donna cracked open the back entrance, which looked as though it hadn’t been used this decade although the garbage was set out weekly, and checked the alley.

  “Clear. But you’d better get a move on. He looks like a sneaky, determined asshole, and he’ll figure it out. See you later.”

  Slinking down the alley like a fugitive, hearing the door snick shut behind her, McKenzie found the way onto the street from an exit two blocks further down. Heart pounding, her lungs also heaved and her legs felt hollow, but she did it. She had to backtrack a little, then climbed the steps to the Wu’s without running into Michael. Mrs. Wu didn’t raise a hair when she passed the woman on the way to her room, leaving her shoes at the entrance, and McKenzie knew Mrs. Lee had given her a head’s up. She thought she saw something in Mrs. Wu’s eyes that could be interpreted as pity. The emotion scalded her.

  McKenzie decided to try to sleep for a while. In truth she was exhausted from the shock and didn’t want to think about anything. Dragging her jeans off she curled up on the narrow bed, resolutely shutting her mind off, and dreamed.

  “Pool your saliva. Open.” McKenzie did as Master commanded, the dark authority in his voice making her sex swell and moisten. Master shoved into her mouth, lubricated by her spit, deep to the back of her throat, thrusting with purpose, expecting her to take him without complaint. She sucked hard, tongue laving him, seeking the prominent vein on the underside of his cock just as he liked it, and was rewarded with his groan. He used her until her jaw ached, lips tingling with the stretching, his fat cock a primal invader. Then he surged to the back of her throat, hard against her palate and held himself there, hands tangled in her hair, no way to pull back, not a fraction. She fought to remain calm, to wait and trust him but this time Master didn’t ease back in time and shades of black burst behind her eyelids. Tender tissues fluttered and she began to fade…

  McKenzie lurched upward, gasping for air, hands moving to her neck. It felt so real. Her pussy tingled with the remembrance and she squeezed her thighs together in denial or to prolong the sensation, not knowing which. All of the coping over the past months desecrated. Damn him. They’d experimented with all forms of sexual congress and Michael cajoled, punished and generally talked her past all boundaries with the exception of two. She feared erotic asphyxiation to the point of an anxiety attack, and while she would service others in his presence, at his instruction, she hated the lack of monogamy. Michael limited the latter to oral sex, conceding her point and it warmed her heart, gave her hope.

  McKenzie confided how truly disloyal it felt to be pleasured by others, being so committed to him and nothing Master could do or say convinced her differently. Insisting it gave him pleasure to share her, to see her being pleasured, that it made him feel powerful to bestow her on others, didn’t change her mind set and in the end Michael again conceded. Those two limits were written in the explicit contract. And then she conceded the first one, allowing him to cut off her air, choke her, to enhance the pleasure, the terror adding to the ecstasy, and she allowed it. But Michael had never choked her with his cock and it seemed to be a warning, an evil portent or a death knell. Except she’d woken before he’d done her harm…

  Seeing Michael crashed all her mental barriers down. Hard earned routine and the relearned, yet false, sense of independence and control both shattered. McKenzie let herself fall back on the thin pillow and the tears again flowed, soaking the hair at her temples, dripping through the strands to pool in her ears. Michael wasn’t going to go away and she wouldn’t be able to withstand him. At a total loss, she decided to die. But how? Maybe Donna would help her. She waited, eyes on the ceiling, carefully thinking about nothing, until Donna’s heavy footsteps on the stairs announced her arrival.

  * * * *

  “Are out of your ever loving mind? Kill yourself? What do I look like? That Dr. Karokian dude? Get your ass out of bed and drink your coffee. No asshole’s worth that.”

  Well, framed like that, her idea did seem a little over the top, and Dr. Kevorkian himself would probably
tell her so. Blame it on the shock and the erotic nightmare that was more like an erotic interlude if only a rehash of suspect reasoning. Maybe symbolic. She would live to fight another day. She got up, pulling on her jeans, secretly thinking Donna was like a loving mother bear, and sat with the other woman at the little card table Mrs. Wu set up in a corner of the bedroom.

  “It isn’t the Ritz, but they keep it nice, ’Kenzie.” Donna was looking around the room with admiration. “My place is bigger but it’s certainly not as homey.”

  McKenzie had no idea where Donna lived, let alone what her home looked like. She knew she was pretending, lulling herself with details and a false sense of security in order not to think about Michael, but was also ashamed not showing any interest in either Donna or Lisa’s life. Donna cut to the chase with her usual forthright attitude.

  “So what’s the story with asshole?”

  Time to share and trust a little. “Michael was my, uh, boyfriend for nearly a year. We had a fight and I left him and I guess he wants to talk to me about it.”

  “More like drag you back and beat on you some more.”

  McKenzie froze in place. What was Donna thinking? How would she ever explain what her life had been like, that she’d wanted every minute of the beatings, craved them and privately wished they hadn’t ended? Unable to admit that to herself. It wasn’t right Donna thought Michael was an abuser. Except whatever she said, Donna would probably just see her as a woman who made excuses for the man who beat her. McKenzie marshalled her thoughts and tried anyway.

  “How much do you know about BDSM?”

  To her surprise, the other woman shrugged and said, “Some. And not personally. But I read and I listen. One of my brothers is a pretty dominant man. Joey. He really likes to be in charge and his girlfriends kind of lean on him and fall all over themselves to do his bidding. I guess I know more about a woman wanting to find a strong guy to take care of her than anything else. And the kicker is she’s supposed to have the actual power. It’s hard to get my head around, ‘cause I don’t know any woman like that and probably never will ’cause Joey don’t bring his around for me to spend time with. But that’s not what you were into. You were too scared.”

  McKenzie involuntarily closed her eyes. She’d been scared, sure, but Michael hadn’t scared her, not even when she thought for a split second he’d brought Joyce with him. Michael never frightened her, not even during his temper tantrums over the last weeks they’d been together. Any pain he visited on her was welcome, no matter how she begged for mercy and protested it. Part was need, but ’Kenzie welcomed it primarily for Michael, because it was his need to administer erotic pain and her reward was knowing she’d pleased him. And the sex was spectacular, better and far more intense than she’d ever dreamed about or known before. Nope, she was terrified because despite the strong instinct to flee, her heart would have won out. If not for Donna, Lisa, and the Lees, she would be back with Michael right now. And Michael would make good on his idea about Andrew and Joyce, meaning absolute hell on earth for both of them. And that she wouldn’t do to him.

  “BDSM can also include something called TPE or total power exchange. It’s kind of extreme and it’s all about trust, total trust that your, uh, partner will know what’s right, what you’re capable of or not. In anything. As well as knowing what you need, deep down. It’s like giving yourself to them totally.”

  “Sounds like a sex slave. I can’t imagine it myself. If you trusted him then how come he scares you?” Donna didn’t seem to be judging, sounding genuinely curious.

  “Michael didn’t scare me, Donna. I scared myself. I almost went with him today.”

  Donna shook her head and stared, clearly trying to figure out a concept McKenzie had taken months to learn, and only because she had a very good teacher. One she’d fallen in love with, making her an extremely apt pupil. McKenzie sighed again and searched for another way to explain, because she needed Donna’s understanding in order to gain her support. Maybe Donna could shore up her faint determination not to go back to him and end up destroying him. She couldn’t be that selfish.

  “I never thought of myself as a slave, but I was in Michael’s service, and I wanted to be there, more than anything. I love him more than life itself and he loves me. But love scared him and he decided to drive me away. He succeeded. And then he said today; about looking for me. I can’t go back because I’ll do…well…I’ll do something he’ll demand of me and it will destroy him. I won’t do that to him.”

  “Fuck me, ’Kenzie. That’s nuts. That’s bigger than what moms do for their kids, or at least what moms should do for their kids. I don’t believe you. I mean, I believe you, of course. But you’re bonkers. Nobody should love anybody that much. It’ll kill you.”

  McKenzie didn’t say anything to that, and Donna visibly replayed her last words. “I guess I can understand why you thought maybe checking out yourself made sense in the spur of the moment. Holy shit. Well, will asshole go away? Or is he gonna stalk you?”

  “Thanks for not running screaming from the room, Donna,” McKenzie said wryly, amazed to find any humor in the situation. “It means a lot. And I honestly don’t know what Michael’s going to do. I’m trying not to think about it.”

  “I’m working hard at not thinking about what you and him did together. Or should I say what he did to you, girlfriend. But I know controlling guys well enough, and they always want the last word. Lots of them are just plain assholes, through and through. Maybe it’s better if you talk to him, you know, in a neutral place, like a Switzerland thing. I’ll have your back and you can break up with him. How’s that sound?”

  “It sounds like a plan, but Michael isn’t easily dissuaded.”

  “Well, I can arrange for someone to fix him, if you want.”

  McKenzie felt herself boggling at Donna who apparently just offered to have Michael killed. “You mean…” Voice faltering.

  Donna laughed. “Please. I don’t have those kinds of contacts. But I know some guys who’ll beat him bloody, if that will help.”

  “No. No, that’s okay. I appreciate your help but I don’t want to bring the police into it. Michael has a lot of money and power in this city. You’d get in trouble.” Holy crap, what was she opening up here? Michael beaten bloody? She felt everything Michael felt. It would kill her.

  “Girlfriend, there’s no way the cops would figure out who laid one on Mikey. But if you don’t want it, then we’ll just have to figure out another way.”

  McKenzie laughed, though the sound falling past her lips didn’t resemble laughter. It sounded like a cough an old man with asthma might make, and didn’t fool Donna. “I need somewhere to hide out, but I can’t afford not to work. I’m barely making enough as it is, and I can’t impose on the Lees and Mrs. Wu for too long. Michael’s going to track me down and he’ll make their lives miserable. I just don’t know how I’ll be able to resist him. I know I sound like one of those swooning southern belles in Gone With The Wind.”

  Donna’s look suggested she had no idea what Gone With The Wind was, and probably didn’t get the reference to southern belles either, but gave ’Kenzie a little knowing smile anyhow. “Well, now I know the mess you’re in, I’ll think on it. For sure asshole’s going to hang around, and if he screws with business then the Lees might do something about him themselves. They got contacts too.”

  McKenzie put her head in her hands. “That’s another thing I want to avoid, Donna. I don’t want to cause any trouble. I think I should just move on. Do you have somewhere I could go? I hate to ask, but maybe you have a relative or somebody? I can do anything for work.”

  “Well, you proved that, kid. You and your pretty hands and pampered look. Me and Lisa thought you wouldn’t last a day, but you’re stronger than you come across. Must be something to do with that BDSM stuff. Let me think on it. I don’t have any family I’d trust with you, but I’ll ask around and maybe somebody will have an idea. Meantime I’ll walk you to work if you promise to ign
ore the asshole. You don’t have to go in tomorrow though. Mr. Lee said for you to take a day off and he’ll pay you. The boss insisted.”

  “Okay.” The word sounded faint, and weak, but was all McKenzie could manage.

  Donna didn’t stay much longer. They finished the coffee and McKenzie walked the other woman to the front door. Donna wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed out a side hug. McKenzie allowed herself to accept the comfort and allow herself some hope, even if her heart ached. She needed to put distance between her and Michael. It was the right thing to do.

  Chapter Six

  Michael wasn’t proud of himself, but like the DNA testing, it didn’t matter about anyone else. Pride went before his fall. He was putting this thing with McKenzie first. Not allowing Jenifer’s driver to leave his parking spot, instead opting to set her car up as a command post, he sent his cousin home in a cab with the promise to call regularly with updates. He hadn’t missed that one wild eyed glance McKenzie sent Jenifer, and wished he’d gone with his first impulse of going in alone. God knew what McKenzie thought when she saw Jenifer, but he could only imagine. His sub acted like a cornered animal and Michael needed to figure out how to gentle her and regain her trust. Failing that, he would bring out the big guns and simply force her out.

  While he waited for the store to close and the opportunity to follow McKenzie to wherever she was living, he called in a bunch of favors and found out everything he could about her protectors. Knowing thine enemy, as it were. The Lees owned the store outright, owned the whole block as a matter of fact, and were doing well financially. Really well. So he couldn’t buy them out, at least not without a big hit to his cash flow, even if they’d sell. Although he’d do it if he had to, and deprive ’Kenzie of a job and make her come home. And if he could just find out where she lived he’d sabotage that as well. A last resort, but if McKenzie wouldn’t listen to reason and come home, Michael would make her. He was ruthless, simple as that, because it was in his sub’s best interest. From just that one look in the cleaners, he knew she was barely a shadow of her former self.