Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 67211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Now, my girl’s coming here. So I won’t rest until I know I can bring here safely.
“Axle.” Zack greets me with a chin lift, pulls out a chair, and takes a seat and runs a hair through his longish, sandy-brown hair. Zack’s one of the more serious members here, a stickler for rules and safety, and even though we give him shit for being a stick-in-the-mud sometimes, he’s a good guy.
“Zack.”
Tobias puts his coffee down and leans over his desk, his fingertips pressed together. Tobias is a large man, with his broad shoulders and dark hair and eyes. His face is fuller since he married his wife Diana, and he’s got more laugh lines around his eyes than he used to. Marriage becomes him. Zack and Tobias are the two pillars of Club Verge, and over the years have become my closest friends.
This is a sparse but well-furnished office with large, comfortable leather chairs, a gleaming desk outfitted with a computer and office supplies, and monitors set up along the walls that show the vacant rooms of Verge. If I didn’t know those clipboards held BDSM contracts, I’d think this looked like any normal office. The cameras are on full display, as all of them monitor the public rooms.
“Axle wanted to talk to me about something he noticed the other night during the blizzard,” Tobias says, cutting right to the chase.
Zack, our friend and member here, a detective for the NYPD, is our go-to when anything arises. He raises his eyebrows to me and leans back in his chair.
“I don’t have much,” I tell him. There’s no way of telling him everything without mentioning Chandra. Hell, after kissing her at the bookstore, word’s gonna get out soon eventually. And I’m not turning back. So now’s as good a time as any.
Leaning back in the chair, I clasp my fingers behind my head. “When I closed the other night,” I tell them. “I thought we were totally vacant but neglected to check the women’s restroom. When I did, I found a young woman who was sick, and she hadn’t heard our announcement to evacuate.”
Zack nods. I can feel Tobias’ eyes on me, steady and certain. He’s seen more than anyone else has yet, though I like to believe the more intimate things were for my eyes only.
“She was a girl I knew back in the day,” I continue. I take in a breath and let it out on a sigh. These guys are my friends. There’s nothing to hide. “I knew her back when I lived another life. When I was a small-town priest.”
Zack’s eyes widen almost comically, and he sits up straight. “Axle,” he says. “Say that one more time?”
I laugh humorlessly, the memory still sad and painful. Tobias knows my past, but only the bare minimum. “I was a priest,” I repeat. “Newly ordained. I moved into the rectory on the same street where Chandra lived with her parents.”
Neither of them says anything, but I can feel the burning question.
“She was legal,” I say through clenched teeth. The thought of taking advantage of a minor makes acid churn in my stomach, but I plod on. They need to know that fact. “She was an adult, but still living with her parents. Came from a strict home, and actually had an arranged marriage set up.” I lift my chin, my voice rising in strength as I tell my story. “I loved her from the moment I first met her. She wasn’t mine to have, and I wasn’t hers, but we did it anyway. We fell in love. We had an affair. And when someone found out about it, they leaked our news to the local press with pictures of us together.” I swallow hard. “Condemning pictures.” The memory of those pictures plastered over the local paper are seared into my memory for life, a constant chastisement for the mistakes I’ve made. “We broke it off and went our separate ways.”
Zack asks the last thing I expect. “What priest has the name Axle? And the tats?” Tobias chuckles.
“My name was Noah,” I tell him. “Axle was a nickname I picked up at the shop, and it stuck. No one calls me Noah anymore, and the tats came after I was laicized.”
“Laicized?”
It all comes back with ease, all the trappings of the faith I left. Hell, I could recite the words of mass right now.
“It means to become a lay person. No longer a priest.”
“Stripped of his super powers,” Tobias says with a smirk.
Zack nods. “Got it. And so this girl shows up one night at your BDSM club?” he asks speculatively.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “It was an accident. If you knew her, you’d know she isn’t the type to play games. And night before last, I found her puking her guts out in the bathroom.”