Tymber Dalton - Pinch Me

“They don’t know. I’m here to get some things for her. Clothes, and pictures. Photo albums. They said maybe it’ll help.”

Tom patted him on the shoulder. “Please give her our best. We wanted to visit but didn’t want to intrude.”

“Thanks.” He swallowed back the lump in his throat. “And thank you for saving her.”

Tom’s gaze dropped. The older man looked a little embarrassed. “I wasn’t sure at first if I should go over.” He wouldn’t meet Rob’s gaze. “We’ve heard…you know. Sometimes.”

Rob felt his face heat. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “We didn’t know you could hear us.”

“No, it’s okay.” He finally smiled a little. “We were young once, too. It was when she kept screaming and yelling for help we realized it wasn’t just…you know, the two of you playing around. She never screams like that with you. She sounded terrified.”

Rob tried to process that, feeling sick in the depths of his gut.

Tom didn’t seem to know where to go from there. He just patted Rob on the shoulder again and retreated toward his door.

He turned before going in. “Please let us know if there’s anything we can do. Or when we can come visit her.”

“Thanks. I will.”

Rob turned back to the doorway as Tom Edwards’ door gently shut.

Damn.

They’d thought the walls were thick enough the neighbors couldn’t hear them playing. They did most of their heavier play at the club or during private parties, or at his house, where it was completely private. But sometimes he tossed her over his knee and spanked her with his bare hand.

The thought that it could have contributed to her dying had the neighbors ignored the noises and chalked it up to kinky sex nearly made him sick.

He closed his eyes as he stood there, hoping for some sort of impossible, psychic glimpse into the events. Laura wasn’t an overly trusting woman. But the safety chain still hung by the door, unbroken, so she apparently hadn’t hooked it when she answered. She would have looked through the peephole, first, too. She always did that.

Who was it?

It took a monumental effort for Rob to force his legs to carry him inside. He found himself unable to ignore the large ruddy stain on the carpet runner near the front door. Streaks of dried blood also smeared the entryway wall where Laura had fought back against her attacker.

They’d removed traces of blood and tissue from under her nails, so she’d gotten her licks in. The attacker didn’t go away unscathed, something Rob felt more than a little bit of pride over. She was a fighter. The samples were being processed in hopes of a DNA match from a past crime giving them a suspect’s name.

Thomas had told him they had word out with all local doctors and hospitals to keep an eye out for anyone looking for treatment for deep scratches or bite marks.

So far, nothing.

He closed his eyes yet again and tried to put his rage and guilt aside, picturing instead how terrified she must have been. If he hadn’t been working, he would have been there with her. She likely would have spent the evening naked, collared, and kneeling on the floor next to him by the couch, if she wasn’t curled up in his lap.

He walked over to the couch and sat in his usual spot, closing his eyes again.

In his mind’s eye, he envisioned himself stroking her hair, a blissful peace enveloping both of them as they each unwound from their day and let the stress of work evaporate.

Alone together, the outside world always disappeared. He felt like he could spend forever just like that with her, his hand cupping her chin and staring into her eyes. Eyes a beautiful shade of blue-grey, like the Gulf under an overcast sky.

How, without a word, he could sit back and smile at her and she’d dive for his zipper, finally getting the silent permission she’d longed for to go down on him.

Despite the circumstances, his cock hardened as he mentally relived one of the countless times spent with her like that. The warm press of her cheek against his thigh as she sucked his cock between her lips and slowly laved her tongue over it.

The way it felt twining his fingers in her hair before wrapping it around his fist and gently holding her in place. Not that she needed holding. He suspected if he’d let her, she’d spend hours going down on him.

And she was good at it, too. Not that he’d had a ton of other partners, but none had ever been as good in that way. None had ever felt as compatible as she did.

She knew when and where to lick, loved to run her tongue up and down his shaft and over his balls. Loved to deep throat him, and always made a delicious, purring moan that vibrated all the way through his dick when she sensed him close to coming.

The way she always let out a happy chuckle as she swallowed every drop of cum he pumped out of his balls…

His eyes snapped open, his aching cock going from hard to wilted when his gaze landed on the bloodstains again.

Shoving himself up and off the couch, he got to work. He spent the morning there, gathering photo albums and some of Laura’s favorite loafing clothes, as she called them.

He also cleared out their stash of sex toys, including leather cuffs, a flogger, and other things. He didn’t know if the cops had found them or not. But when he brought Laura home, they’d also have vanilla friends helping out and he didn’t want to risk them stumbling over the items, either. It might give someone the wrong idea about their relationship.

Well, the right idea, but he’d found that a lot of people who didn’t understand the BDSM lifestyle were frequently judgmental about it.

Packing up those items proved to be almost more than he could take. He quickly finished what he needed to do and left, slamming the door shut behind him and locking it. He’d fully intended to clean up the bloodstains and other damage, but even he had his limits.

There’s no way I can bring her back to that. I’m going to need help cleaning the place up.

Rob stopped by his house long enough to walk Doogie and gather more items he hoped would trigger something, anything. All morning he’d fought back tears while sorting through both her things and their life together, pictures of trips and reminders of better times.

He pulled her leather play collar from his pocket and rubbed his fingers over it, hooked a finger through the D-ring on the front, the way he would if she was wearing it. To pull her in and give her a kiss, or to lead her to bed.

He angrily brushed the back of his hand across his eyes to wipe away his tears. It was bad enough that he could do little to help her, and worse that she couldn’t remember him.

Wrapping his head around that still proved impossible.

At the end of the driveway Rob threw his Explorer into park and checked the mail.

The mailman had left a package for him in one of the lockable boxes he shared with his neighbors.

Their wedding invitations had arrived from the printer.

His knees buckled. The day they picked them out was still firmly fixed in his mind. How they’d joked maybe they should add “collaring” to the announcement as well, since she wanted him to formally collar her as his slave in front of their friends.

While he stared at the box of announcements, his cell rang. He answered it without looking at the screen. “Carlton.”

“Hey, Rob. It’s Tony.”

He closed his eyes. Tony Daniels had been his first call after trying to reach Laura’s brother following the attack. Tony and another friend, Seth Erikkson, had shown up at the hospital in those initial darkest hours to wait with him, when they weren’t even sure if Laura would pull through or not.

“Hey.”

“How you holding up?”

“Not good, man.” Rob filled his friend in. Tony was one of the first people he’d met when he’d entered the lifestyle, and had been the one to introduce him and Laura. They had a close-knit group of friends who’d met through the lifestyle, but had become like adopted family outside of it.

Tony and Seth had helped with getting information out about Laura’s condition to their lifestyle friends, including spreading the word to stay away from the hospital until Rob gave the okay to visit.

In retrospect, he was even more glad he’d done that. Laura would be too overwhelmed by all the people, now strangers to her, who wanted to visit.

There was a moment of silence. “She doesn’t remember anything?” Tony asked. “Or do you mean about the attack?”

Rob sucked in a ragged breath. “Anything. They said it’s too soon to tell if it’s temporary or permanent.”

“Can I bring Shayla over to see her tonight, or do I need to make her wait? She’s beside herself worried about her. I’m not trying to sound like a shit.” Tony sighed. “She won’t stop crying, Rob. Can I at least bring her, even if I need to sit outside? I’m good with that if need be.”

Rob wanted to say no, but hesitated. Then again, maybe another familiar face will be good for her. It would definitely be good for him. “Yeah, how about six? Both of you.”

“Can we bring you and her dinner from Sigalo’s?”

His stomach rumbled at the name of his favorite restaurant. “Shayla knows her favorites. I’ll take anything.”

“Maybe a little gastronomical prompting will help her memory.”

“Can’t hurt.” They ate there nearly every Saturday night with Tony, Shayla, and their other friends.

Except last Saturday.

Last Saturday, Rob had been praying she’d make it through another night.

“See you then,” Tony said.

“Thanks, man.” Rob stared at the phone for a moment after ending the call. Their little social group, which they’d dubbed the Suncoast Society because of the munch they’d met through, had been through thick and thin with each other. For some of their members, including Laura, they’d been closer than family.

And they never hesitated to rush to a friend’s side to help or provide support.

Maybe it was selfish of him, but he needed his adopted family’s support, and he didn’t have any close biological family to turn to.

He usually wasn’t one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, except in front of Laura.

But he wasn’t ashamed to admit he needed Tony’s strong and steady presence for a little while. And maybe Shayla would help jostle something in Laura’s memory. The two women were closer than sisters.

He put the box of invitations on the passenger seat and headed for the hospital.

When Rob returned to the hospital, he felt a slight lift in his spirits to learn Laura had already been moved to a private room.

That was quickly dashed when her doctor informed him her memory hadn’t returned.

Rob found her sitting up in bed, watching cable news with the deputy and the barely eaten remnants of her lunch still sitting on her bed tray. The deputy nodded to him and left to sit in the hall, closing the door behind him.

“Hi, Laura.”

She didn’t look away from the TV, where she stared at it, frowning over a commercial for a local landscaping firm out of Venice. “Hi.” The engagement ring sat on the bedside table next to her.

Rob tried not to show his pain. The last thing Laura needed now was to deal with his emotions. He wanted her to focus on getting her memory back.

He pulled a chair up next to her bed and showed her the albums. “I brought some stuff for us to look at. The doctors said maybe it would help.”

Then she pulled her attention from the TV. “Can we talk first?”

“Sure.”

“How did we meet?”

He paused, not sure how to handle this hot potato. “Through mutual friends,” he said, their usual answer to someone vanilla who asked that same question.

He thought she might ask him for more details, but then she started asking about other things and the questions came one right after another.

Where she was from? Florida. Where was her family? Her parents were dead, killed in a car accident a little over a year earlier, and he hadn’t been able to contact her brother, Bill, in Montana. What did she do for a living? She owned a dive shop and charter business, and wrote freelance articles for fishing and scuba diving magazines and websites.

Why, who, what, where—it nearly wore him out until he put it into perspective that she was, essentially, hearing these things for the first time.

Laura finally paused and lay back in bed, closing her eyes.