Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96112 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 384(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96112 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 384(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
I phrased myself as carefully as I could. “Are you two possibly working on a fear right now?”
He dipped his chin and sank under the water briefly. Then his head and shoulders reappeared above the surface, and he pushed back his hair. “I want to be able to tell the difference between humiliation in kink and the degradation I put myself through when I’m going through one of my depressive periods.” He paused. “Kinda like a rape survivor telling the difference between rape and rape play.” His smile was wobbly and uncertain. “It’s difficult not to be triggered when you start.”
“I get it,” I said quietly. “Does that mean you’re doing something with the collar tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” He made a face and looked out over the grassy hill. “Down there—he’s gonna make me do that obstacle course thing.”
Jesus Christ, I felt stupid. It wasn’t for dogs. Well…not animal dogs, anyway. It was meant for kinksters who were into puppy play and…stuff. In Abel’s case, it was the scene of his next punishment.
Laughter rang out from the other end of the pool. Colt and River were cracking up at whatever Madigan was telling them. Must be a good story. He was animated about it.
“It’s never good when Doms laugh together,” Abel muttered.
“Right?” I shook my head.
“Abel and Kit!” Madigan hollered. “You two up for a little game against Colt and me?”
Uh-oh. Abel and I exchanged a glance.
“A game of what?” I asked warily.
Colt stepped out of the water and walked over to a wicker chest near the patio doors, and he returned with a volleyball. “Rules are easy. We dunk the ball on your end of the pool to score, and you dunk it on this side to score.”
“That means grappling,” Abel said under his breath. “And we know they’re gonna play dirty.”
“I’d lose even if they didn’t,” I pointed out. Sports had never been my stage to shine.
Abel eyed the men as Reese pushed himself up on the edge and took a seat next to Lucas. Still fucking naked.
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” Abel called. Why he went there was beyond me. He was basically swatting a stick at a beehive. “I mean…you’re looking at 180 pounds of muscle here, and I’m a professional hockey player.”
“What’re you doing?” I hissed. What was I going to brag about? Being somewhat close to 150 pounds of anxiety?
Colt smirked and got in the water again. “Water ain’t frozen. I’ll take my chances.”
“Your loss, old-timers.” Abel shrugged. “What’re you, like, fifty?”
I stared at Abel incredulously. Did he have to rile them up? We had no edge here! And he knew very well that Colt was forty-five.
“Why not go higher?” Colt scratched his neck absently. “Why not say sixty or sixty-five? ’Cause that’s the old man who’s gonna make you watch when I rapefuck your friend’s tight little ass later. You know, after you lose to us old-timers.”
“Abel, I swear to God,” I whisper-yelled.
“Are you sure you wanna keep talking, trouble?” Madigan asked his boy. “I’ll give you the same treatment he’ll give Kit.”
Abel laughed, then pointed at him. “You gotta be able to catch me first, you slow motherf—”
I panicked and slapped a hand over his mouth.
He flinched but made a quick comeback, his eyes sparking up with exhilaration.
Five Doms were having fun at our expense and future misery.
“Don’t you get it?” Abel’s question was muffled behind my hand, so I lowered it. “Colt wants to see what you got. He’s gonna test the limits for the game tomorrow.”
I frowned. “He knows I’m not athletic.”
“But you can give him more hell than he’ll anticipate if you suck even more today,” he replied. “We lose on purpose today, Kit. We fumble—you fumble, and you lose like the Leafs.”
“Are…are they a bad team?” I was fairly certain that was a Toronto hockey team.
He snorted. “Don’t get me started. But are you with me? Because if we make fools of ourselves now, you’ll have the added element of surprise tomorrow. That on its own is a powerful weapon, and it can throw Colt—at least for a moment.”
Oh wow. My friend was a genius. A diabolical genius. “You’re actually giving me a shot.” I shook my head in wonder and felt the excitement trickle in. “That thing tomorrow—the game… I’ve tried not to think about it, because it’s ludicrous. Colt is so much stronger and faster than me, but if I pull this off, I might at least take him by surprise a couple times before he defeats me.”
“And that’s the point.” Abel grabbed me by my shoulders. “You don’t wanna win. I sure as shit don’t wanna win. But we want some fun along the way. We still wanna kick them in the shin on our way down.”
I grinned, nervous and, honestly, a little thrilled. Which was nothing close to how I would’ve described my feelings earlier about tomorrow.