Chapter 2

"What's his background?"

Photo by Aimee Vogelsang on Unsplash

Danny was home early, Nora noted absently, as she pulled in and parked her little green Nissan Leaf behind his big black Jeep. She supposed he’d skipped the gym and come straight home from work. She sighed happily, shouldered her bag, and ran her finger over the saw-toothed hubcap of the Jeep’s rear tire as she ambled past it on the way up the driveway. The hubcap wasn’t actually sharp enough to cut her, but she liked to pretend.

Danny was sitting shirtless at the kitchen table, tapping away at his laptop. His tattooed arms and shaved chest glistened; Nora could smell the scented lotion she had bought him for his birthday, and a warm feeling entered her belly.

There was a quiet clank to her left, and she turned her head sharply; Nora had startled easily since age thirteen, for reasons she no longer had to think about now that she had Danny. The wattage on her blissful smile dialed down just a tad when she saw Ronnie, his other sub, standing at the range, stirring the contents of a bag of Jimmy Dean sausage crumbles in a skillet. Ronnie had clearly showered in the last twenty minutes, and their loose white silk shirt hung open to reveal a flat, scarred chest. Ronnie didn’t appear to register Nora’s presence at all. Nora believed Danny when he said Ronnie wasn’t a threat to her primary partnership with him, but that didn’t mean she liked them.

Danny lifted his empty pint glass without looking at either Ronnie or Nora. Ronnie put the wooden spoon down next to the pan, turned off the burner, got a bottle of Yuengling from the fridge, opened it, and refilled Danny’s glass. They put the bottle on a coaster next to Danny and ducked submissively. Danny nodded at the stove. Ronnie ducked again, hurried back over to the stove, and switched it back on.

Nora put her bag down on the counter and sat down next to Danny, who didn’t look up. After a long few minutes, he closed the lid of his computer and gave her a brief smile of acknowledgment. “How was he?” he asked.

Nora had thought about how to answer that question on the way over. “You’re gonna have fun with him,” she said honestly. “He’s a recovering addict. You know what they’re like.”

Danny flashed his fangs at her. “Tell me about him.”

Nora took his hand in hers and kissed his knuckle reverently. “Big. Very big.”

Danny raised one eyebrow. “Big how?”

Nora rubbed Danny’s fist against her cheek. “Taller than you. He’s in shape, but he’s not jacked like you are.” Heath was in fact a good six inches taller than Danny, who was her height. She knew Danny wasn’t threatened by that. He saw bigger men as a challenge.

Danny smiled, which Nora took as a sign that she should continue. She glanced over at Ronnie, who was putting tortillas in the electric warmer, then back at Danny. “He says he’s never played before, but he was good at it anyway.” Very good, in fact, she didn’t add. She thought she might be getting a crush. She’d deal with it.

Danny dislodged his hand from hers and picked up his glass of beer. He took a sip. “What’s his background?”

“He says he’s from Philadelphia,” Nora said eagerly. “He came here to get clean last June. He’s kind of a broke-dick, if you ask me. He was a professor at Temple University, but he got fired. I think he came to class high too many times.”

Danny frowned. “What’d he teach?”

“English. Poetry, I think.”

Danny grunted and smirked faintly. “Did you mention me?”

Nora smiled back. “Yeah. He’s never done poly, but he’s open to meeting you.”

Ronnie brought three plates to the table and put two soft tortilla shells with two spoonfuls of egg and crumbled sausage on each. Danny pulled them to him by their heavy leather belt and groped their bottom through their tight leather pants roughly before pushing them away. “You two can eat,” he said grandly.