I didn’t have a membership, but the range had a guest policy. I paid my twenty dollars plus the cost of a few boxes of forty-five ammo, signed a waiver, and we headed towards the tables just outside the range doors so we could put our hearing protection and safety glasses on before entering.
I’ve never taken a girl to the range for a date before, and maybe this wasn’t an official date, but damn, I can’t remember ever having so much fun. She let me shoot her AK and her shotgun. I didn’t bother with her little subcompacts — my hands are too big. Likewise, I assumed she wouldn’t be able to handle my forty-five, but she managed it just fine, and on her second magazine, she put every round through the same fucking hole. The girl can shoot.
Chapter Five
Ember
I’d noticed him looking at my baking dishes that morning, but I hadn’t mentioned it. When he insisted we stop at a grocery store, I had a feeling something was up, but I went along with him. I have plenty of food at home, but if he had a taste for something specific, I wasn’t going to argue.
After having the best night of sleep I’ve had, well, since Able was killed, I wasn’t in the least bit irritable. Nothing beats the sleep you get after an orgasm so intense you forget your name.
He bought six boxes of brownie mix, five bags of caramels, a container with chunks of sea salt, and heavy cream. I have sea salt and caramels, and a few boxes of brownie mix, but I didn’t say anything. Dementor seemed to be a man with a plan.
He barely fit in my Crosstrek, but he didn’t complain. Still, I felt a little bad, watching him fold himself in and out.
I was pulling out of the parking lot when he said, “A big part of the training soldiers get involves teaching them how to function in an adrenaline dump. It occurs to me that between roller derby, martial arts training, and time in the range, you’re already accustomed to it. Your first couple of real-life experiences will still give you more than you’ve had before, but you should do fine.”
I wasn’t sure whether to explain the real reason I could handle a massive adrenaline dump plus the effects of excess dopamine and endorphins, but then figured I may as well.
“When my uncle first traded me to the owls, I didn’t know how to handle it. I mean, I’d done some adventure things — base jumping and bungee jumping — but during my first week with them, I was whipped and tortured in ways most people don’t even know are possible, and they made me learn to love it. To crave it. It was some kind of sex-slave boot camp, I guess, and it was hell, but I look back on it with more fond memories than bad ones. At first, I was in a drug addled haze. They didn’t give me anything, it was all stuff my body manufactured to deal with the stress, lack of sleep, pain, and exhaustion — but it was as if I’d been drugged for real. I couldn’t function. Now, I know it was because of the endorphins and adrenaline and other chemicals my brain put into my bloodstream to try to help me survive. Over time, I learned how to follow instructions and perform as ordered no matter what was done to me.”
“So being knocked around by other women on skates is nothing?”
“Yeah. Also, it’s possible I’m using the martial arts classes and roller derby matches as a substitute. I don’t think I realized how much I missed that until you slammed into my ass last night.”
“Thank you for being so honest.”
I glanced at him quickly before looking back to the road. “I don’t know any other way to be. More of my training, I guess, but there were severe consequences for not being an open book. I expected the same of my boy-toys, and I was disappointed several times. Eventually, word got out that if I caught someone fudging the truth, even if it wasn’t a lie, that I’d immediately boot them out the door and remove them from my life. Most boys were careful to be completely truthful after that. They had no way of knowing how I knew when they were lying, of course.”
He chuckled. “Is that something you’re going to miss? It sounds like you enjoyed being the one in control.”
“I did, and I think it was a necessary part of figuring out who I am.” And now for the truth bomb. “But the orgasms you gave me yesterday and last night were exponentially better than any I’ve had since...” Since Able died, but I didn’t want to say that part out loud. “I no longer have an interest in Topping anyone.”
I was finished with that particular conversation, so I reminded him I had some homework I needed to finish when we got home.
While I worked, he fiddled in my kitchen, and I looked forward to eating whatever he made. With those ingredients, he pretty much couldn’t go wrong.
Part of me wanted to analyze why he was going out of his way to make me a dessert he knew I’d like, but I set my mind to my homework. I wasn’t a fan of the law classes required for my degree, but there wasn’t a way around them so I had to find my way through them.
Dementor
We went to a birthday party for one of Ember’s teammates that evening. When we returned, she told me, “So long as I’m asleep before midnight, I’m all yours this evening.”
I glanced at the clock — nearly eight. That gave me four hours.
Hot damn.
“You got a problem with me using the rope I saw in the garage?”
“Nope.”
My dick pulsed. I went to the garage, retrieved the rope, and looked through her workbench. A decent assortment of tools, but I smiled when I saw the clamps. Those would work just fine. I stopped in the kitchen on my way back up and gathered two spatulas and a wooden spoon. Along with my belt, I should be able to make do.
But then I stopped and reconsidered. I’d seen a folding sawhorse leaned against the wall. It was a three-car garage, with one bay set aside as a workspace, but the floor was empty when not being used. She’d told me she often parked her car outside while she skated in her garage, especially in the winter.
I went back downstairs for the horse, grabbed a grocery bag from her stash of them in the pantry, dumped the small stuff into it, and made my way to her bedroom. She’d set my palmprint into the computer to give me access, so I didn’t have to call up to be let in anymore.
She was naked and standing in the corner with her palms to the back of her head when I topped the stairs — just as I’d told her to. She was likely feeling it in her arms a little already. Enough to get some endorphins going, probably. Maybe. Considering her background, it might take more than corner time and discomfort to get her juices flowing.
One of my brothers who’d been killed during the battle had been an expert at shibari. It was completely normal to enter the clubhouse and see a sweetbutt dangling beautifully from the rafters, or standing on one leg while the other was high in the air and her arms were bound in interesting ways. He made women into a work of art — and often conveniently bound them into positions so we could easily fuck them.
I’d learned the basics from him, so it didn’t take me long to get her arms bound behind her back with her hands at each elbow. I wanted her flat on her back later, and I wouldn’t have to rebind her arms. Plus, this would keep her arms out of the way on the horse. I hoped to have an opportunity to put her in a shibari armbinder another time.