I stare at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“This.” She gestures feebly at herself. “Me. You didn’t sign up to comfort a crazy crying woman.” She gives a derisive, bitter little huff of laughter. “This wasn’t the arrangement.”
I swear I see red at her words. “That’s bullshit Kensie. This is exactly what I agreed to.”
Her eyes snap up in surprise, finally meeting mine. The pain I see in them makes me want to burn the entire club down.
“I agreed to help you figure out your sexual desires,” I tell her. “I agreed to guide you and teach you about your submissive side. Do you think that doesn’t include emotions? Baby, emotions are the center of everything we do in this place.”
Some of the pain seems to leave her expression.
“But I haven’t done a very good job.” I don’t realize how true the words are until I’m saying them.”
“That’s not true,” she shoots back, looking at me like I’m nuts. “You’ve literally done everything I asked you to do.”
I stare deep into her blue eyes. “But that’s not always what you need.”
She blinks a few times, looking uncertain. I smooth over the top of her head with my palm. “You asked me to be your Dom while you’re figuring things out.” I try not to let on how much I hate the last part of that sentence, the idea that this is only a short-term arrangement.
“And as your Dom, my entire job is to take care of you. To make sure you’re getting everything you can out of this, but, more importantly, to protect you. Even if that means asking you to do something you don’t want to.” I hold her gaze. “We’regoing to change that, right now. I need you to tell me what just happened.”
Her gaze darts away but not before I see the panic in her eyes. “You really don’t have to?—”
“Kensie,” I demand, tilting her chin again so she has to look at me. “Tell me.”
She closes her eyes briefly. “I…I was having a pretty bad few days.” She swallows, clearly pained to be talking about this. “My ex-husband…”
My body goes tense. “Did that fucker get in touch with you?” Jane refused to give me many details about that asshole, but she had told me that Kensie has a protective order against him. The thought of him breaking it, of him hurting her, makes me want to punch a hole through the stone wall.
“He…sent me something.”
She’s crying again, silently this time, the tears merely streaming down her cheeks. That’s almost worse than the sobbing. She looks so fucking defeated.
I wipe the tears away, trying to keep calm. “What did he send you, sweetheart?”
“Flowers,” she whispers. “They were all dead. Rotting. Covered in bugs.” She swallows hard. “There was a note.”
I’m clenching my teeth so hard it’s a miracle they haven’t broken. “What did it say?”
“Whore.”
The word comes out so quiet I almost can’t hear it, but there’s no doubt as to what she said.
And I’m going to destroy the bastard.
“Did you contact the police?” I grind out.
She nods. “And my lawyer. There’s not a lot they can do—there’s no proof of where the flowers came from. He might get a slap on the wrist for breaking the protective order, but that’s only if we can prove it was him.”
I realize that’s the first time she’s mentioned the protective order against her ex. In fact, this is the most she’s ever said to me about him. I didn’t even know his name prior to this.
But I’m going to find out now. I don’t care what I have to do, Jane will be giving me information on this guy.
“Can you do something for me?” I ask her. “Can you tell me why you needed a protective order against him in the first place?” My throat burns. “Did he hurt you?”
I can tell she doesn’t want to answer. This is already so much more open than she’s ever been with me. But I think the emotion of the last few days has gotten to her. She seems too exhausted to keep those walls up.
“Not physically. Not really.”
