Chapter 15

I spent the next half hour in the most amazing hot bath I’d ever taken. The pair of them urged me into it, in spite of my insistence that I was fine and wanted to help them load up Rick’s truck with some of Max’s things. But Rick stood guard at the door to my room while Max steered me into the master bathroom with its Jacuzzi tub, aromatic steam from Mom’s expensive bath salts already filling the room.

I’d never really been what anyone would consider a spoiled child. Max was the kind of stepdad who refused to tolerate any bullshit, so I had learned quickly never to whine or complain about little stuff growing up. I’d learned what it meant to be tough from the best, and perhaps my enjoyment of being spanked was a reflection of that influence. I had no idea where my crazy desires originated. All I knew in those moments as he helped me strip out of the spare garment I’d been wearing all day and helped me into the bath was that I absolutely loved being pampered, and realized that I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it so much if I’d been allowed to feel that way my whole life. Or if I hadn’t been supremely sore, pretty much all over, from the exertion of the day.

“Trust me, you’ll thank me for this later,” he said into the steam, then kissed me on the mouth and shut the door behind him as he left. I stayed until the water cooled, then dressed and wandered downstairs to find them both sitting at the kitchen table, rimed with dirt and sweat and a pair of cold beers dripping condensation onto the tabletop…right onto the imprint my ass had left, I soon realized.

Max caught the direction of my amused gaze and smiled. “Yeah, we should clean that up before your mom gets home, huh?”

“Ya think?”

Rick stretched out an arm to me and I went, sinking onto his lap and enjoying the sharp scent of his sweat, mixed with the scent of wood, grease, and steel—the unique aura of a man who worked with power tools and lumber. They both smelled the same, I realized, though different in their own unique ways. I guessed it must be their taste in soap that differentiated them, at least in that one small way.

I rested my head against Rick’s shoulder, my eyes catching sight of the dark bruise on his neck.

“Oh, shit!” I sat up and touched the mark. “I’m sorry about that,” I said, grimacing.

“I’m not,” he said. “Battle scars are my favorite. Don’t tell me you don’t have a mark or two from today. Would you have done things any different to avoid them?”

I thought about the pleasant tingling of my bottom as well as the slight raw spot on the inside of my wrist where I’d forced the ropes to rub me a little to much. “Not at all,” I said. I turned to look at the camera, resting half out of its case on the counter.

“Can I keep the memory card?” I asked.

Max took a long swig of his beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed. He always liked to stall an answer when I asked for something, but I could tell from the lines between his eyebrows that he’d heard me and was considering the question. I’d never been one to beg, though. The first time I tried it, I got my ass smacked by him and told that under no circumstance should I debase myself for ~anything~. “It makes you look cheap, baby. You’re too good for begging.” I’d had to go look up the word “debase” just so I knew what he meant.

“It’s yours,” he said when he set down his bottle.

I frowned at the return of the sadness in his eyes, but this time he didn’t have the desperate edge he’d had the night before when I’d found him in my room. Now he only looked wistful, and it made my heart ache to see.

“Daddy…” I said, overcome with the need to comfort him and momentarily forgetting his insistence that I not call him that anymore. I moved off Rick’s lap to move to Max. He let me come and exhaled harshly when I wrapped him in my arms. “I don’t want you to go.”

“No other option,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming. I suppose it figures that you and I would have found out…how much we have in common now.”

I sank against him with a nod and a sigh, enjoying his strong arm around me. Rick stood and opened more beers, handing me a fresh one, which I sipped slowly while the pair of them talked in subdued tones, focusing on the past they’d shared that I had never heard about before. They pointedly avoided talk of the present, or the future, even though during the conversation whenever the name “Aurora” came up, Rick would look at me with what I could only describe as appreciation. It occurred to me how rarely they might have been able to even talk about those days. Their old secret that neither of their wives had ever known about. But now I was a part of their inner circle. I simply drank and listened, happy to be learning more about Max and the things that made him who he was.

My exhaustion hadn’t even registered until I found myself being carried up the stairs, half asleep. I protested when Max made to leave me alone in my bed, grabbing onto his hand before he left again.

“Stay, please,” I said.

“You’re exhausted, Casey. Learn to pace yourself. We’ll have other days, I promise.”

He turned off the light and left the door open a crack when he walked out. I wanted desperately to follow him, but my body failed to respond.